Ah ee ess pee ee see tee - find out what it means to me

A recurring theme of my weekend up in Manchester was respect. The word has many connotations and can take many forms. So, like the title promises, I'll explain what it means to me, and hopefully sort of weave it around a "What Becky Did At The Weekend" post. With pictures, natch.



A couple of days before I went up to Manchester I got an email from Valerie, a tranny from Finland who I'd got to know through the tranny community on Flickr. She asked if I'd like to meet up at Sparkle, and I didn't hesitate in saying yes. Even though I'd never spoken to her in person, and she'd not been out more than once in her tranny career, my inbuilt Tranny Respect Filter (honed to a high degree of accuracy over the last few years) recognised Valerie as someone who'd be great to get to know.



So Jane and I met Valerie at the hotel, and soon after caught up with Joanna (who's my safe bet for a good night out on the scene) and wandered down to Canal street.

We went for a light lunch by the canal, during which time we witnessed a tranny deportment lesson being interrupted by a man carrying a canoe (bizarre), and seen about three quarters of my tranny friends (that's the weird thing about the UK scene, it's big enough to support an event like Sparkle, but small enough to sometimes feel positively claustrophobic).



After that we wandered down to take a look at the art exhibition because I'd promised Kath I'd take a look out for a picture she'd submitted to be displayed. It was there, along with one I'd taken, being artily projected onto the skirt of a frock. There was some other interesting stuff there too, all expertly curated by April.

It was a little strange seeing Kath's picture there. She's never, that I know of, made a trip out dressed, but that's not what being a tranny is about. Valerie said she'd tried to persuade her to make the trip over, but it just wasn't possible. She's still a person I have a great deal of respect for.

Later on, after a change of outfits back at the hotel, we headed out again with Jo and Valerie to watch some of the events on the Sparkle stage and grab a bite to eat. This involved first finding a cash machine, which are few and far between in that part of Manchester. Valerie learned an important lesson for tranny nights out: wear sensible shoes!

We found a really nice Japanese restaurant, and chatted for a while. Valerie said something profound: that finding my website was the key to her discovering that they're was a "cool" way to be a transvestite, and I'd kind of been the catalyst for her coming out as a tranny. Weirdly, I could say much the same thing about Joanna's site, so in a way there were 3 generations of trannies around the table (not in age terms, of course)!



Over the course of the evening a couple more people approached me to say how important my site had been to them. That sounds like me being hugely big-headed, it's not. To be honest, I've felt pretty down about the whole tranny thing just lately. If anything it returned my sense of self-worth as a tranny, which had been languishing in the red, back into the black for the first time in ages.

Then a wander back to the stage to watch the music acts, and on to the clubs of Canal Street, where I caught up with the old gang (they know who they are!), and even managed a chat with Siobhan. And yeah, we talked about respect too. Sometimes we don't see eye-to-eye on things, and sometimes overstep the line with catty remarks, but I still respect the hell out of her, and love her to bits. And I'm saying that sober!

It's a strange thing, Sparkle weekend presented me with hundreds of things that I'm not, as a tranny. There wasn't one person there of whom I thought yes, I'm exactly like you. But it's very heterogeneity was what made it work. By seeing what I'm not, and respecting that, it makes me see what I am, and respect that too.

Sorry, the words aren't flowing today. Is any of this making an ounce of sense?

Sparkle is probably the nearest the UK (and maybe even the world) has to a "Tranny Pride" event. And yes, I went there to show pride in what I am (among other reasons), but for me the weekend was about respect. Showing respect for the full divesity of expression that transgender encompasses. Unlike our stable-mates in the rest of the LGBT spectrum, trannies are perhaps unique in that we need to build and foster respect for each other before we begin to work on gaining respect from everyone else.