Jane and Me... and Becky makes two

When it comes to being supportive about my cross-dressing, Jane makes no effort whatsoever.

Which is great.

I'd better explain.

She's supportive in the same way that the sea is salty. It just is.

It doesn't have to make any effort. It doesn't feel it's making any major sacrifices. It doesn't feel the need to join forums for salty things to discuss the endless burden of being salty with... errrrm... anchovies. It doesn't appear in magazine articles entitled "How I Learned to Live with my Secret Salty Shame". Salty is the natural way of things. Quite frankly, the sea is a bit surprised that other major bodies of water aren't salty.

Jane is equally a bit nonplussed by women who don't want anything to do with transvestites. Why some girls seem to get their knickers in a twist that some boys want to wear twistable knickers. She's blessed with enough common sense and wisdom to see that transvestism is a facet of a personality, not a defining trait.

I initially found it strange that I didn't have to endlessly explain my actions to her. Then I realised that her attitude was that while she might not totally understand why I do it, that's doesn't make it a Big Scary Thing. As long as I'm totally honest with her, and live to the fundamental ground-rules that any partner should, she trusts me implicitly.

That doesn't make her unique, I've met lots of other partners of trannies (including a few at the weekend) who are just the same. But it's still reason 3 of the 6 reasons I love her. (Before you ask - the other five a split into too many sub-categories to list here.)

That's not to say that I've got total free rein, and Jane doesn't have any opinions in the matter. She's normally pretty good at pointing out when those stripy tights don't go with that floral blouse or you might want to avoid bending down and/or being seen dead in that skirt. And that's just the sartorial matters!

Where Becky is concerned, things are working fine. As I tried to indicate with the title of the post, she's not the "third person in the relationship", she's just part of me. Who wears a skirt.

(Aside: FFS, if you're ever going to accuse me of just being a "bloke in a dress", get it right! I hardly ever wear dresses!)

It would be easy for me to rest on my laurels, happy that we've got "Transvestism in a Modern Relationship" sussed. But situations change, both gradually and in big jumps, and there are couple of big jumps coming up that we both need to factor in to the equations.

For example, when I first started going out with Jane I explained to her that cross-dressing was my "garden shed". Most men have some place to go to get away from it all, whether it's to tinker contently with a recalcitrant lawnmower, or to make exact scale models of the Titanic out of matchsticks. A place away from the complexity and vagueness of real life and real emotions. A place where most problems can be solved by WD-40.

Cross-dressing and it's related paraphernalia fulfils that purpose for me. Admittedly, I've not found too many uses for WD-40 yet, but I still use "Becky" — the dressing up, this blog, the community and social aspects — as a little walled-garden that I can escape to when the rest of the world is just too pointy.

I told this to Jane because I needed her to understand that sometimes I'd want to go off and "be Becky" on my own, and I didn't want her to worry that I wanted to do this to be unfaithful or because I didn't want her there. I don't really know why I want it, I guess it's just something that, even now, is fundamentally private to me.

Jane was cool with that, and really up to now it hasn't been much of an issue anyway. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in the last 18 months I've been out as Becky without Jane along for the ride. Because I really wanted Jane to see what I was getting up to, and meet my friends so that they became her friends too. I've been immensely happy that she's been there enjoying herself, there's not been an outing yet that I've regretted going to with Jane. And also because I've generally found my Happy Place with Jane, maybe I don't need to dress as much as I used to anyway.

But it has highlighted some differences. I don't think Jane will argue with me if I say she's not the clubbing type. She's got a wide and varied taste in music, but not much of it the kind of stuff that turns up in the boxes of the DJs at the kind of clubs trannies frequent!

I however enjoy occasionally enjoy swinging my lack-of-pants to popular dance combos, and it's something I'd like to keep doing. Also, there's still the whole garden shed thing. In the future I don't always want to have Jane along for the ride when I go out as Bex, and Jane doesn't always want to be there. We just need to set the ground rules for what acceptable and what's not, and adjust them when necessary.

This would be in danger of being one of those horrible tranny blog posts where the writer shares their deepest thoughts with the readers of their blog, without communicating it directly to the other person involved. That's not the case here, I've talked to Jane about most if not all of this beforehand, we've already set some new rules that will come into effect should X Y and Z happen in the future. And it will be an agenda topic forever more, no doubt.

'Cos that's what you have to do. Keep talking. Even when it's working.

Well, it's nice to be invited

I just got an automated email from Flickr that I found quite amusing, and I thought I'd share it with you.

[Flickr] You've been invited to join Jane And Simon's Wedding

Jane Goth has invited you to be a member of Jane And Simon's
Wedding.

To find out more about this group[snip]

Good-oh, I was starting to feel a little left out. ;-)

(I'm so up for a slap.)

I've created a monster!

The original movie version of Frankenstein is a classic, but the sequel is much better, The Bride of Frankenstein.

I think it's writers were aware of something that I've only recently realised myself:

Brides are scary, scary things.

I've created a monster, and it didn't need any body parts and arcing electricity, it just took a small band of platinum. From the moment it slipped onto Jane's finger something apparently awoke for the first time inside her.

This new Jane has bought magazines with pictures of dresses on them. Jane never buys magazines like that. There's talk of what food we're going to be eating late next year, I'm not sure what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow! She's asking my opinions on stationery!

Stationery!

I've managed 34 years without forming an opinion of stationery. I'm not sure I'm ready to start now.

All this has lead me to realise this truism regarding the difference between trannies and real girls:

When little trannies learn about weddings, they start having the occasional fantasy about big bridal frocks. When little girls learn about weddings, they start planning what colour the napkins will be. And what music will be played at the reception. And where they'll get married.

And fantasize about a big frock.

I'm not complaining, though, honest. :-)

Announcing the engagement of...

... me.

To the beautiful Jane.

I proposed yesterday evening, and she said yes. Which is a relief!

It's funny, I can blog for a page and a half about pointless meaningless things, but when something wonderful, important and life-changing happens I find myself strangely lost for words.

I can sum it all up in one sentence: I'm very happy. :-)

Short skirts

Jane asks:
Do you believe it is possible to have too short a skirt?

No! I don't think it's possible to have too short a skirt. If you're a short skirt collector for example.

If you're asking whether it's possible to wear too short a skirt, then you're suggesting that there exists a skirt short enough that it would be wrong to wear.

Since I have a scientific mind and believe that it's impossible to prove a negative such as "a too short skirt does not exist", then I reluctantly have to agree that it is theoretically possible to wear too short a skirt.

:-P

Wide versus deep

I pointed out a strange fact to Jane today: because of this site, more people know me as Becky than know me as Simon.

She agreed, but noted that although fewer people knew me as Simon, the ones that did knew me a lot better.

Which is also true.

One type of knowledge is wide but shallow, the other deep but narrow. Overall, they're probably roughly equal.

That's all there is to this post... I thought it might go somewhere but it didn't. Ho hum. :-)

At least I'm not the Paul Gascoigne

Got a busy weekend coming up, so not much time to blog. I've grabbed a few minutes while Jane's in the bath reading my copy of Repartee that came today. She's guffawing at the fact I'm in a feature Gillian edited called "Before They Were Famous".

According to Jane, my level of fame is "The Steve McManaman of the Tranny World". Apparently this is a good thing!

Bizarrely when I looked up who Steve McManaman was (reinforcing Jane's theory that he's only famous enough to be well known by people into football, in the same way only someone with a pretty thorough knowledge of the UK tranny scene would ever have heard of me) I discovered he was born exactly one day before me! There must be something in Horoscopes after all. ;-)

So as I said, this weekend is a busy one. Tomorrow we're off down to London for an old-skool tranny night. I've got a list as long as my arm of people I've got to see, including Shannon and Mini (a small portion of the Derby posse), Katya and Cyanne (from Sydney), Joanna Nicholls, Karol Cross, Tidy (a Flickr contact), Yoko (Flickr too, from Japan), Valerie (Finland), Clarissa Clement, Connie and Tracy...

I've probably forgotten some. :-) And I was gonna link to all their spaces on the web. But, I cannot be arsed.

Feedback to the new January date for Transpocalypse has been a lot more promising. Which is good. Looking forward to seeing a lot of you again, or for the first time!

Then on early on Monday Jane and I are off to the Algarve for a last-minute holiday. Which I'm really looking forward to!

But it does mean that I won't be able to post the second part of the Tranny and TV two-parter, so...

Jane

Just thought I'd blog this, cos it's a nice pic. :-)

Don't you know who we are?

This weekend Jane finally completed her Grand Tour of my semi-regular tranny haunts. Having blown out Pink due to the weather, and on a bit of a whim, I decided to take her to the Fox and Hounds in Essex.

It's a bit of a trek from my place (in fact it's about the furthest distance you can travel in a straight line within East Anglia), so I don't make the trip as often as I'd like. Which is a shame because it's a quite nice venue. A little oasis of camp in the Essex countryside!

In fact, this was the first time I'd been in over a year. It's not changed much. They've knocked through a wall to put the pool table in it's own room, and they no longer seem to serve food (as far as I could tell), but that's about it.

There were only two other trannies there, which seemed a little unusual. Wednesday is their regular "tranny night" and the place is heaving with us, but there's usually a smattering at the weekend too. Perhaps Pink over in Cambridge was a bigger draw than I'd expected.

Jane and I had been there a while soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying people-watching when a tranny who'd arrived after us came over and said hello. She asked if we were together, and seemed suprised that Jane was accepting of me as a tranny. I explained that Jane had known about Becky before we'd even met, as we'd both got blogs.

Blank looks. Jane explained what a blog was, and how she'd got to know me a little through mine.

She then got the idea that maybe Jane fancied trannies, and it took a bit of explaining that Jane hadn't been trawling the net for trannies (she wasn't, she promises me!) it was just that she was OK with it, and found it kinda fun.

She then wanted to know how often I dressed, from my "look" she'd expected me to be full time (I'd made about my usual amount of effort). Then she asked if Jane was prepared for me to start wanting to dress "more and more"?

I explained that I was a pretty casual tranny, and since my early days of being out I'd actually dressed less and less, and in fact the last time I'd fully dressed up was Sparkle.

More blank looks, so we explained that Sparkle was a big tranny meet back in June, then incredulous looks that I'd not dressed in over a month.

It was at this point I decided I'd much rather be elsewhere. So Jane and I went dancing.

Meeting that tranny made me realise that I'm living in a bit of a bubble when it comes to where I think we are at. The we in the title doesn't refer to me and Jane (I'm not that big headed, honest), it refers to Trannies Like Me.

If you're reading this and you're a tranny, then Trannies Like Me probably includes You.

Trannies Like Me have, or seek, partners who see them as a whole. Parters who are neither repelled by trannies nor actively seek them.

Trannies Like Me know that these partners are special, but not unusual.

Trannies Like Me aren't defined by how often we dress, we're defined just by the fact that we dress, and we identify as a tranny because we dress.

Trannies Like Me are capable of wanting to look fantastic (I said "wanting", not often "managing") without wanting to go "full time".

Trannies Like Me feel a part of a wider community through the internet. We might not have blogs, we might not participate much, but we gain a wider understanding of what it means to be a tranny by seeing what other trannies are doing.

Trannies Like Me exist. Don't you know who we are?

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.

My Long Weekend

Some highlights...

On Friday Jane and I went to Cambridge to do a bit of shopping. Whilst browsing the sale racks in Debenam's, a smoothly-spoken announcement came over the tannoy:

"Ladies and gentlemen. Today we are giving away a free paring knife in the store. If you'd like a free paring knife, please come to the covered display in the cook shop on the first floor."


I asked Jane, "Do you want a paring knife?"

"No."

We continued to browse.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the free paring knives will be given away in just one minute. If you'd like a free paring knife, please come to the covered display in the cook shop on the first floor."

"I want a paring knife. I'm going."

"Fair enough. I'm staying here."

To be honest I think she was glad to get rid of me. I was starting to do my impression of a small bored child in a shop. If you want to visualise it, imagine an grown man acting like a small bored child in a shop.

A small expectant crowd of unemployables and pensioners were gathering around the table. After a few moments a man appeared and started talking about wonderous things.

Then some magic happened.

When my head cleared I appeared to be the proud owner of a set 3 of the World's
Sharpest Knives Ever. Trust me, these bad boys are sharp. He cut through a hammer with one! Well, not right through, but he made a nasty dent in it. If I ever need to score a mark in a hammer whilst carving tomatoes, I now have just the tool to do so. I also have 3 of the World's Smallest Juicers (they're also the World's Shittest Juicers but they choose not to promote this fact, and I'm not complaining - they were free), and of course, my free paring knife.

We then bombed up to Nottinghamshire to spend a highly enjoyable evening catching up with my friends Julie and Rich. Jane had a bad cold, but liberal amounts of medicinal alcohol kept her going.

Next morning I was introduced to the "Would You Rather?" game by R&J's young daughter. Basically it's a test of nerve and scruples. You're offered two choices and you must pick one. For example: "Would you rather... kiss 10 boys or kiss 10 dirty pig snouts?"

Spirits boosted by their hospitality we headed off to Sophie's Barbecue. It being her birthday some present-giving was involved. She's now also the owner of a World's Shapest Knife (yes, I am that generous).

She got some other cool presents too, Rich gave her a framed version of this:



Which you might recognise from a previous soirée at Sophie's, where she came dressed like this:



Sunday was mainly tidying up, slobbing around and watching The Mighty Boosh on DVD.

Monday was mainly travelling home, and me getting Jane's cold. Which of course has mutated into Man Flu. Blegh.

Working on my Repartee

A while ago I imagine Repartee's publishers came out with a great marketing campaign: get as many trannies to write articles for or be photographed in their magazine. This ensures a huge base circulation purely due to the featured trannies buying hundreds of copies to hand out to friends.

Of course, I wouldn't do something like that.

Being a cheapskate, I only bought one copy.

Yep in the current mag you can read a coruscating article about holidaying in Barcelona en-femme, written by Yours Truly. The Angels are flogging copies, if you'd like to take a look-see.

On Saturday it plopped onto my doormat, sealed in one of those "discreet" opaque plastic envelopes that just scream to the postman "this man is buying hardcore pornography".

If you're unaware of Roses Repartee, it's kind of like the UK tranny equivalent of "Hello" magazine. Full of glossy pictures of trannies at parties with other trannies, and articles by trannies saying just how great it is to be a tranny and go to parties with other trannies.

After I'd counted the pictures of me in it (six! a new record!), and re-read my article a couple of times to make sure I'd not said anything too stupid (I hadn't), I passed it on to Jane to read.

I think her horrified reaction to the magazine more than justified it's cover price, for me. Every now and then she'd let out a little terrified squeal, and at one point she half-threw the magazine to the other end of the sofa as if it had just bitten her.

"That's just so... ewwwww!", she cried, shuddering.

The offending article was one where a t-girl was describing needing to feel "utterly feminine", from the tip of her ickle powdered nose to the ends of her pink-painted toesie-woesies.

It was such a cringe-worthy comment that I couldn't decide whether it was possibly supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. But still, I agreed, pretty ewww.

Repartee has to walk a very fine line, editorially speaking. On the one hand it has to be of interest to "out and proud" trannies of the UK, giving information on events and tg-related news. On the the other hand it has to speak to the closeted cross-dressers who've never made it out of the bedroom, let alone the front door. It also has a responsibility to the wives/partners/friends of cross-dressers to present it as a normal, healthy activity that's not something to be ashamed of.

It has to be attainable, presenting images of "normal everyday" trannies. It also has to be aspirational, and show off some of the really stunning t-girls with looks that most of us could never achieve. I don't blame it for doing this, all special-interest magazines are aspirational in some way, petrol-heads might never be able to afford the Bugatti Veyron in their Top Gear mag, but they still want to read about it.

It also has to pay for it's own existence, which is sometimes where it strays a little too far into the realms of "seedy". Adverts for hair removal clinics and dressing services nestle alongside dodgy contacts ads and nasty recorded message phone services.

On the whole, it's a great magazine. Superbly produced on a small budget, and definately the best in it's small field. But I don't think I'd ever be happy giving it to a non-tranny and saying "this is what being a tranny is all about."

That's not because it doesn't give an accurate image of UK trannies, but perhaps because it speaks to such a broad church, it gives too accurate an image of UK trannies. From the tips of our powdered nosies to the ends of our painted toesies.

Badges

I’m a transvestite from Norfolk. What are you?

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be another blog entry about TV/TS/TG “labels”, I think that’s more or less been done to death. In fact let’s use a different word. Rather than talking about labels let’s talk about badges.

I’m interested in the cultural groups that people ascribe themselves to when they think about “what am I”. You choose the badges that apply to you and use them when asked “where are you from” or “why do you do that” or “what are you into”.

In many ways these badges provide a sense of belonging and purpose. I cross-dress because I’m a transvestite. I love open countryside because I’m from Norfolk. I can wear those badges with pride, and feel a sense of community with others who wear the badge too.

Plus, those two badges aren’t mutually exclusive. I can wear both because one of them is about location and one of them is about gender and sexuality. But it seems that many people wear more than one badge from each category.

Take the “where do you come from” badge. This might seem quite straightforward – you can only be born in one place – but for some people it seems quite fluid. Jane’s ability to change tribal roots to suit different situations always impresses and amuses me. She uses her three-quarters-Irish parentage to explain why she needs another glass of wine. A Northern upbringing is apparently responsible for her being a lot less sensitive to the cold than I am, me being a nesh Southerner and all. Of course she conveniently forgets that she was born in London, unless the conversation requires her to proudly boast of her Cockney heritage!

This brings me in a roundabout kind of way to the point I’m trying to make. What’s the minimum you have to do to get to wear the badge of membership? In particular, the transvestite badge that I and a lot of my friends wear.

Charlotte asked recently whether someone who was unwilling or unable to dress could be a “non-practicing transvestite”. I caught Siobhan the other day apologising for not posting more tranny-related stuff in her blog, as if her status as a tranny blogger would lapse if she didn’t mention frocks once a week. I do it too. If I haven’t posted a picture of Becky to my blog for a month or so I begin to feel like a bit of a fraud.

Which got me thinking what does constitute the minimum set of behaviours or characteristics that entitles someone to call themselves part of tranny culture?

When you start to think about it, it’s very hard to pin down. The simple answer is “you have to dress up like a woman”. Yes but, how often? How long can you go without dressing before your transvestite membership lapses? What about all the guys out there who’ve never worn more than bra and panties, or a bit of makeup, but still feel like a transvestite? And what about all the men who dress fully like women but don’t identify as transvestite at all?

The more I thought about it the more I realised there isn’t a minimum set of behaviours that entitles you to call yourself a transvestite, because there’s no one thing that identifies and is common to all of the transvestites I know.

Let me modify that. Theirs is one thing that entitles you to call yourself a transvestite: calling yourself a transvestite. If you’re willing to wear the badge then you should be allowed to wear it. You’re just as entitled to it as I am.

Boundaries

I was chatting to Katya earlier, trying to explain something.

First some background.

I've had two girlfriends in the 3 years since I came out as a tranny. One, Janet, was around when I was just starting to get out on the scene. It all went horribly wrong and we ended up splitting up in the summer of 2003 (the cracks were showing LONG before that).

Then there was a gap where I found my feet as Becky, then I met Jane. We're getting on great, thanks for asking. :-)

(By the way, I have noticed the pattern, but I've no intention of going on to have a girlfriend called Jan, then Ja then "J"... I think this one's a keeper!)

Anyway, I was trying to explain the difference in my head between how Jane makes me feel about being a tranny compared to the way Janet made me feel. A good way to describe it is to use an example from this weekend. Jane and I went shopping in town, and I saw a top in Next that I quite liked. Jane was trying on some stuff anyway, so I asked if she would mind trying on this top too. She smiled and said "sure".

That was it. No awkwardness. No questions. It was a sensible way for me to see what the top looked like without risking public tranny exposure (I'm still not too happy with the idea of being "outed" in my home town), and Jane was happy to do so.

This, I keep telling Jane, is a revelation to me. Jane has trouble seeing what the big issue is. As far as she's concerned, there just isn't a problem with me being a tranny. She's not threatened by it, and I don't need to give reasons for everything that I do.

With Janet, it was completely the opposite. I had to give reasons for everything, and she felt threatened by everything I was doing, even when it wasn't at all related to me being a tranny. With her being my first partner who knew about Becky, I had nothing to compare to, so I began to think that this was how a tranny/girlfriend relationship was supposed to be.

I felt hemmed in. Every little thing I wanted to do was questioned, frowned apon, and checked for hidden agendas. The "space" I wanted to inhabit was closing in from all sides.

When a person is pushed like that, they tend to push back. And because it's more effective, they push back in one spot, hard enough that it hurts. And they tend to push for something that's more than they actually need.

I have an image in my head of a amoeba-like boundary, trying desperately to fight back against a crushing force. It becomes small and spiky, trying to puncture it's way out.

My need for dressing became quite extreme, and I became less than forthcoming about what I was doing and when. Until eventually it got too much for Janet and it all fell apart.

Jane doesn't do that. She trusts me to find my own boundaries, to let Becky fill the space she needs. And because of that the boundaries are soft, diaphanous and rounded. I don't feel the desire to push too hard, or too much. "Becky" is a big soft good thing in my life rather than a small hard bad thing.

These are terrible analogies, Katya said it better when she said:

"Its like the champagne bottle is allowed to sit in the fridge and be brought out for special occasions, not shaken and explodes every once in a while."

That really rang true.

It all basically comes down to trust. Jane trusts me. Implicitly. I don't have to give reasons for everything, because I'm not fighting to gain trust that I already have.

I still don't really know why she trusts me, maybe all nice girls do and I was just unlucky. She keeps suggesting that she's nothing special in that regard, but I'm going to treat that as false modesty. As far as I'm concerned there's only one girl who's like this, in the world, and that's Jane.

And I'm going to make sure that I'm worthy of that trust.

Love in the 21st Century

Our eyes met across a crowded net... We found ourselves finishing each other's instant messages... She's got her own login account on my PC...
I'm in lo...

Yeah I know, that sounds really false and superficial. Online dating is, perhaps rightfully, looked on as somewhat pathetic.

I did meet Jane online, but because it was first via our respective blogs; and then via some tentative emails that were agenda-less and friendly; and then loads of real-life meetings; at no point has it felt like an "online" relationship.

If the Internet hadn't existed we'd never have met, probably. But then again, if the Internet hadn't existed I wouldn't be the type of tranny (or the type of person) that I am today. Over the last decade or so, the internet has shaped my life in numerous ways, nearly all positive.

They say that the jet engine shrank the world, but the world still seemed a big empty place when I was growing up a child of the jet age. If jet travel shrank the world, then the internet miniaturized it. All of a sudden the whole world was in a box in the corner of the room.

There were other trannies there, and all of a sudden rather than the drip drip of tranny culture I'd been subject to, I was encountering a deluge. I learnt from the Internet, among other things, how to cope with being a tranny and not feel wrong and dirty.

Once that was sorted, I could use it as a strength not a weakness. Through the internet I started making new friends, both tranny and straight. One friend has turned out to be very special indeed.

...I'm in love. :-)

Bex n' Jane

She's great in front of the camera too. :)

Jane

Jane came around at the weekend, which was nice. :-)

I've been avoiding blogging about Jane, because a) although I'm happy to write about most stuff in my blog, some things I'd like to keep private, at least until I understand them better; and b) I thought that if I made a Big Thing about dating a girl who had her own blog and who was already known to the tranny blogosphere, it would somehow make it seem like it was only being done for the novelty value, and lessen what it actually represents.

But the fact that we've deliberately not been talking about it has become the novelty, so it's time to get things out in the open.

So yes, Jane and I are "an item". It's great. :-)

Now I'm not going to blog a lot about it, not because there's nothing to say, but because there's too much to say, and I'm nowhere near getting my head around it all, just yet. I've started to unpack a box of thoughts and feelings that got put away when I split with my last proper girlfriend, over 2 years ago. I know that some of the things in there still have the potential to hurt me, and that's scary...

... but you're worth it Jane. :-) xxx

If you go down to the woods today...

Yesterday the bears had their picnic. As well as the drag queens, lesbians, queers, a few dozen trannies (including Yours Truly), and a mixture of bemused/curious straight folk.

It was the 3rd annual Pink Picnic in Cambridge and I thought I'd go along and give it a try. And as Jane lived not far away I thought I'd invite her along too. :)

The clouds threatened rain but apart from a few spots it was thankfully dry. The even was held on the grounds of Cherry Hinton hall. It's East Anglia's biggest event of it's kind, with trading stalls, music stages, cabaret tents and various food vendors, all with the aim of fun and awareness of all things "Pink".

As it was Jane's first real experience of the real (rather than online) tranny scene it was nice to see a good representation of trannies there. A lot of whom it turned out I knew, just more proof of the relative smallness of the tranny community.

For a free event, it was pretty good, if a little strangely conceived in places. The location was almost totally un-signposted in Cambridge, making it really difficult to find if you didn't know the area. All of the trader stands seemed to be hippy overspill from glisten, there were a couple of token "gay" stalls selling garish rainbow bangles and slogan t-shirts, but mainly it was an assortment of new-age crystal and joss-stick vendors, which seemed a bit out-of-place.

After seeing a very good drag act in the cabaret tent, and some indifferent rock on the main stage, we de-camped along with a fair number of other festival-goers to the Bird in Hand, which was laying on evening entertainment, which turned out to be quite good. I had a really fun time, and I think Jane enjoyed herself too!

Cambridge, in it's own quiet way, is managing to create it's own yearly "pride", which can only be a good thing.

We're jammin'

That was a fun little fake "war" we had over who had the first Tranny blog, wasn't it?

It was my first real taste of how blogs can interact and feed off each other. I was talking on my blog about Joanna's entry into the tranny blogosphere, and (blatantly falsely) suggested that she'd copied my idea. Which propmted Siobhan to put up a item about how she'd created the second tranny-based blog in the UK. Then I countered with a faked version of my blog written back in the 80s, and Siobhan (as I'd hoped) countered with her own cleverly re-created historical blogs. Joanna joined in with a couple of postings, and it turned into a little Photoshop/blogging jamming session.

Miss K wrote a related blog entry, and even Jane over at Slothblog, a non-tranny blogger (with impeccible taste) gave us a mention. All from a little picture I'd knocked up in Photoshop. Very satisfying!

I have a feeling I might be able to dig up an even earlier sample of my blog when I get back from Spain. I've not lost yet!