Becky - The Wilderness Years

Part 4 of Tales of Serendipity

This is a bit of a supplemental chapter, please feel free to skip it if you're not interested in the very early stirrings of a young tranny abroad!

Becky, of course, didn't actually exist as a named individual before 2000, and the faint inklings of tranny-ness I was carrying around in my head certainly hadn’t got a name back when I was in Sri Lanka.

I’ve just always wanted to use “Becky - The Wilderness Years” as a blog title!

I soon realised when I started trying to write down experiences from that time (when I was between nine and eleven years old) that while I distinctly remembered having tranny thoughts before I went to Sri Lanka, and I definitely had them afterwards, it was hard to remember specific tranny-related stuff from the time I was there.

I have dredged up a couple of memories though. One of my friends was the daughter of one of the ex-pat families we tended to hang around with. One weekend we were all visiting a hotel complex up the coast, and she and I got to exploring the rooms and corridors. We were always exploring, we lived to find places that we though no-else knew existed. We seemed to spend most weekends in various hotels, and the back-corridors and service areas were our secret passages and concealed hideouts.

This day we'd "borrowed" yellow towels from a maid's trolley and were using them as props for games. As a joke this girl (dammit... I can't recall her name) wrapped one around my head so it hung down over my shoulders. A bit like long blonde hair.

She laughed and said I looked like a girl, and then found another towel and wrapped it around my waist like a skirt. We then played a game, at her suggestion, where I had to pretend I was her younger sister.

Of course, my fledgling tranny neurones were firing like crazy. Not really knowing why this seemed so exciting, just knowing it was. The girl said that I would look great in makeup, and she'd make me over the next time I visited her house.

I protested like crazy and said I'd never do that because I was a boy (why? WHY do trannies always act so defensively?) and she never went through with the "threat".

Even when I made pointed reminders on each of my visits to her house. "Huh... you'd better not try to put that makeup on ME!!"

Yeah, I know, such a fool.

The other thing I recall was an occasion when my parents had gone out for the evening and we were again being baby-sat by Sheila, who (as always) was pretty much letting us get away with murder.

I'd been thinking about some of the cool summer dresses and makeup and stuff that my mum had, but there was never a time when I was alone in the house to, er, investigate.

I couldn’t stand it any more, so I decided to co-opt my brother into things.

"I say! Here's a wizard wheeze!" I said to him (or words to that effect). "Why don't we go into Mum and Dad's bedroom and try on clothes and stuff."

My 7-year-old brother, completely oblivious to my ulterior motives but always looking for inventive new ways to be naughty, was all for it. So (once again advising Sheila that this was to be kept strictly secret) we ventured into our parent’s bedroom.

There followed and evening of my brother and I prancing about in flouncy dresses and inexpertly applied lipstick. I’d made a little more effort than my brother, naturally, but not so much that it didn’t look like carefree messing about.

We cleared up afterwards. No-one would ever know we'd been. I even didn't argue about tidying up my brother's share of the mess, which was highly unusual.

Mum still, inexplicably, found out. We were both given a stern telling off. My brother was apologetic, I was mortified.

No prizes for guessing who the snitch was. Stitched up by Sheila, again!

The funny thing is, decades later when I came out as a tranny to my mum, I mentioned that dressing-up session. Because I was convinced she might have guessed from that occasion (and other indiscretions) that I was interested in girl's clothes.

Amazingly, she could hardly recall it happening, despite her anger at the time being seared in my memory. Just goes to show, I think, that trannies tend to place more emphasis in our minds on things that we feel "out" us, when the other people involved barely register them.

Final part: Trouble

Sky One in Good Tranny Doc Shocker

So did anyone watch "Transvestite Wives" the other night on Sky One? Having "Sky-Plussed" it mid-week, I watched it last night. I was all ready to be shocked, appalled and toe-curled, but it was surprisingly good. The couples featured were all sensitively handled, allowed to get their points of view across and it wasn't overly editorialised.

All kudos to the trannies and partners who agreed to take part, if someone had come to me and said they were making a tranny documentary for the same channel that brought us the unforgivably awful "There's Something about Miriam", I wouldn't have touched it with the proverbial.

I have seen some TG forums complaining that "Transvestite Wives" is part of a documentary strain featuring programmes about the wives of BNP activists and polygamists, which they think tars transvestism with the "sickos and perverts" brush by association. But to my mind that's a bit like dolphins complaining that they're lumped with the Nazis on the Discovery Channel.

My only minor complaint was the title suggested it was going to feature trannies who thought of themselves as wives, which is a bit beyond the remit of the average transvestite.

I'd have called it something much less snappy like "Wives of Transvestites", which just goes to show why I don't have a job working for Sky One. Well, that and not thinking that programme planning consists of working out how many back-to-back episodes of The Simpsons will fit in 3 hours of prime time.

High Street shopping

A lot of my recent shopping trips for Becky have been unsuccessful. As I've said before, last year's trend for bold prints in ghastly colours did absolutely nothing for me. So I've been really pleased to see a funkier metallic and punky vibe coming in with the autumn fashions.

Jane and I took a trip into town today, ostensibly to look for clothes to take on honeymoon in the outgoing summer sales, but also to look for something to wear next weekend at Angelic. I've always felt more comfortable buying stuff on the High Street, as opposed from out of catalogues. I just find the "hit rate" a bit better, even if I'm nearly always shopping in Boy Mode and never try things on.

We started off in the Matalan on the outskirts of town, which used to occasionally have some great deals but now seems to be suffering from everyone copying their cheap-as-chips clothes and homewares aesthetic. Although I did find a couple of nice short-ish skirts (one black, one a kind of tweed), and a roasting dish (er, for lasagnes, not as some kind of fashion statement).

Then it was on to the High Street proper. We skimmed through Next (still trying to flog last year's fashions) and River Island (better, but not much), and spent a bit longer in Dorothy Perkins, which had some great stuff in the window that didn't seem to be sold anywhere in the shop. Don't you hate that?

Then we tried Top Shop (maybe after a bit more dieting) and MKone (better, but nothing "sang" to me) and I was beginning to think that maybe I wasn't going to have any luck. Then we popped into Peacocks where Jane spotted a fab black asymmetric top with a chain shoulder detail and silver motif which just "said Becky" to her, and I agreed immediately.

Feeling bolstered by this find we went on to New Look, and by now it was Jane's turn to feel unblessed by the Shopping Fairy, with nothing really catching her eye. I however was in the Zone, and found a fabulous gold-flecked dress in the "tall" section and quickly matched it with a wide gold stretchy belt and a gold necklace.

The trip finished in Sainsbury's. While I made a start on the week's shopping list, Jane popped in to their clothes department, emerging a few minutes later clutching a small bag and grinning from ear to ear. She'd found a fab shawl/scarf in a tasteful leopard print that suited her to a tee. Only a few pounds in the sale, but I would have paid £100 to see that smile. :-)

So I'm now two outfits ahead of the game, which means we can have a casual shop around Milton Keynes next weekend without having to panic about what I'm going to wear that night. Excellent!

On muggles

On the eve of the last book and the latest film in the Harry Potter franchise, can I launch a campaign to expunge a particularly irksome Potterism from the Tranny Lexicon?

The word is muggle.

In the Potter universe it's uttered to describe non-magical humans, i.e. most of us. It's an ugly-sounding word, and it's designed to be. It's used normally in a derogatory sense. Muggles are generally seen as bland, ordinary and so stupid as to not realise the whole magical sub-culture of witches and wizards going on under their very noses.

In trannydom the word seems to have been adopted to mean "non-trannies", i.e. everyone supposedly not blessed with the magical ability to tip-toe merrily across the gender divide, like a wizard tip-toes merrily through brick walls at train stations (you can't tell I've only read one book, can you?).

To my ear, the tranny muggle still has the derogatory connotations of the Harry Potter muggle. It smacks of an elite looking down on a lesser class of people. I can kind of understand how it's a reaction by trannies who want to overturn the misconception that they are a lesser class of person, but I still think it's misguided.

And I don't really see why we need a word, when there's a perfectly suitable, albeit hyphenated, one in the form of "non-tranny". Or, how about this radical idea? Just call them people, which is what they are.

I'm sounding terribly lefty and right-on, aren't I? :-S

Let me phrase it another way for the trannies who are reading: we all know we're a little bit special, we don't need to rub it in to all those who aren't!

And to the non-trannies reading: Call me a tranny if you like, because that's what I call myself, but if you don't use derogatory words for me, then I'll practice the same courtesy to you. :-)

We Sparkled

Sparkle ... what can I say?

No really, what can I say? I've run out of new and interesting ways to do post-outing write ups without slipping into tired cliches.

I want to say "it was so nice to see x y and z again", but that would be boring. But then again, I did meet a lot of nice people, both old friends and new. And it was nice. Really nice. I'll just leave out the list of everyone, because you know who you are.

But that wasn't the important thing.

I want to write up a detailed account of the 3 days, but that would probably be boring too. So I'll summarize: I dressed up a lot. We went out a lot. Sparkle happened around us. And in many cases despite of us.

But that's not the important thing either.

I want to write gushing praise for people like Kim Nolan, and the AXM people, and the hundreds of other people who put an amazing amount of effort into making Sparkle happen.

That's important, but that's not it.

We took quite a few pictures:



But, believe it or not, that's not the most important thing.

This is the most important thing: I felt great. And, for the first time in a fair while, I felt like I looked great. Which, sometimes, is the most important thing of all.

Save the planet

I need to work on this a little more, but I couldn't resist letting you try it before I go away for the weekend. :-)

Vaportrannies

You've heard of vaporware, right? The term is used to describe software which announced to great fanfare, with loads of great promised features, but then sits in development for years and is never actually released.

I've noticed a similar phenomenon, the vaportranny.

This kind of tranny appears suddenly on the online scene, writes copiously about their transvestism on internet outlets, particularly about their desire to "get out and meet all the friends I've made online" and their frustrations of not having any decent pictures to show yet, but never actually seems to get round to being seen out in public, or even posting pictures of themselves for people to see.

Now, I know it's a shallow to base the entire legitimacy of a transvestite on whether they've posted a few thousand Boudoir shots on Flickr or not, but sometimes I left with the nagging suspicion that some trannies online are little more than the figment of the imagination of some bloke with mild tranny tendencies but no real desire to actually act on them.

None of you, of course. ;-)

The Five Versions of Becky

Becky is, to a large extent, a digital entity. In reality at the moment I only answer to the name "Becky" about one night in a sixty, but virtual Becky exists all the time.

24/7 you can see her pictures, or browse her web site, or send her an email. This Becky (I'm tempted to call her something like CyberBecky to avoid confusion with the real flesh-and-blood Becky, but let's just make it clear that from now on when I'm talking about Becky I'm talking about the virtual version of me) is like my Electric Monk.

Douglas Adams invented the Monk in his book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency as a labour-saving device for a technologically advanced society. In this society they had devices to do every tedious task, from VCRs to watch tedious television for them, to the Monk to believe in things for them. The Monk believed in things so people didn't have to. In the book he went wrong, and started to believe in all kinds of things. It's a great read, but I digress.

Virtual Becky cross-dresses so that I don't have to. I get some of the caché of being an active full-time transvestite without the tedious daily shaving, making up and dressing bit.

There have been several versions of Virtual Becky, as my transvestism has changed, and technology and my relationship to it has evolved.

Becky 0.1 Alpha

This was pre-release, and actually pre-internet. This early version of Becky was the subject of stories, basic tranny fantasies, written furtively on MacWrite and stored on a carefully hidden floppy disks.

You think that's weird? This first version of Virtual Becky was weird. Over time as Becky became more "real", Virtual Becky became less weird. But here, right back at the beginning, Becky was a very private, very odd, thing.

Actually, it was actually a bit weirder than that...

I found this little program that wrote random sentences, based on fairly complex grammatical rules. I re-wrote this program to make up random tranny fantasies with Becky as the subject. Because then it wasn't me making me dress up, it was the computer telling me to, do you see? Do you see? I'm not a transvestite... it's the computer making me do it!

Er... yeah... pretty weird, now I think about it.

Becky 0.5 Beta

Fast-forward quite a few years and I've discovered the Internet. At first I'm happy to treat it as a read-only medium, voraciously hunting down the tranny fiction that other people had posted. I remember looking at tranny sites a bit like this one and thinking it was all very interesting but it wasn't really for me. Because I wasn't like those transvestites who went out and did stuff, it all existed in my head and that's where I was happy to keep it.

I still had the creative urge to create "tranny interest" stuff, and I started to make "captioned images" with Photoshop. They followed quite a simple theme, a picture of a real girl with a caption that suggested she was actually a boy. Actually "caption" isn't really the right word, they were little stories. Some of them even had plots! ... Well maybe not plots as such, but definitely a form of narrative.

But yeah, still deeply weird.

The difference this time was I was sharing them with other people. I set up a little group on Lycos (remember when Lycos had groups?) to publish the captioned images to. It was quite a popular little group (by the standards of these things), and for the first time there were people who "knew" me as Becky, albeit only as an online persona.

Joanna knows me from back then. She's probably got a few captions of mine from back then that could really embarrass me if they ever saw the light of day... but we have enough dirt on each other to ensure mutual distruction!

After a while I started to get to know via chat some of the people who were reading my captions, and struck up online friendships.

One of the people I got chatting to was a guy called Jay, whose went by the femme name of Jade and the online name of Jaded. Jaded because he'd done the whole "out every night" tranny thing and got tired of the whole scene.

One day I really must write properly about Jay. He was instrumental in helping me find a proper place for Becky in my life, and I owe him a lot. Unfortunately he died suddenly of a heart attack a few years back, just as I was getting on to the tranny scene, and I never got to meet Jade en-femme.

Becky 0.9 (Release Candidate A)
Through the gentle encouragement of Jay, I was eventually persuaded to go on my first ever "proper" tranny shopping trip. Within a day I'd made my second trip to Transformation (the first was back in the Becky 0.1 days and involved a hideous velour maid's outfit) and bought a set of nasty silicon boobs and an M&S bra to keep them in.

Becky still wasn't out. But she was making tentative steps in that direction. I'd joined the Angels Yahoo group and had started talking properly about my transvestism. This was a major step. Up until now Becky had been just a fantasy, a mental construct who formed the subject of silly stories revolving around being made to dress up. For the first time I was admitting that I wanted to dress up, and that was a real watershed.

Becky 1.0
Within months I'd made my first outing, and within days of that outing I'd bought the beckysweb domain and set up this site. It was basically just a place to show off my coveted first makeover pictures, but I put a little thought into the design (I went for the "deliberately crap" look... it's served me well ever since) and I was quite happy with the result.

Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, you can get an idea of what my site used to look like all those years ago. Some of the pictures are broken, but it still kinda works.

Version 1 of Virtual Becky lasted quite a while, with just minor increment upgrades. I kept going out, and I kept posting pictures. Each new set of pictures had a bit of a background story to accompany them, but I didn't really say much about me, I wasn't happy revealing too much about Simon, or what I really thought about stuff.

I also started sticking other stuff on the site, the tranny licence dates from about Becky 1.2.

Becky 2.0

The latest, and current, version of Becky was brought about by sticking a blog onto the site, and then realising I actually had to write stuff to fill it. Suddenly I realised that to have a blog that was anything more than "what club Becky went to this week" I'd need to write about me, and that meant writing about Simon as well as Becky, and re-incorporating Simon and Becky into one entity.

Thus Virtual Becky completed a arc, starting as a very private thing in my head, moving out onto the web, then further out into the real world and finally home again. Now she's in my head and "out there".

It seems to be working like this.

But I feel vague twinges, like things are going to change. I wonder what Becky 3.0 will be like.

...

I kinda wrote this in the hope that other people might be able to relate... maybe not to the weirder bits, but in general. Have you gone through your own "ages" online?

This morning I are mainly knackered

Blergh... it might not look it on the map, but Britain is big. Traveling any distance across it is a tiring process.

The main purpose of the trip was a party at Jessica's to celebrate her quarter-century, which was great fun. Look, I dressed!



Yeah, I know it's not that good a picture, but it was the best of a bad bunch and, as Siobhan points out, I'm bound by The Law. If we don't post pictorial proof that we've dressed in public within 48 hours, according to Transvestite Law it never actually happened, and these big black flying monsters turn up to erase the event from history. True! My hands are tied.

Oh, and guess who we went to see on Sunday! Only one of the icons of the UK tranniesphere, that's who! She might seem to disappear occasionally, and she's getting a little long in the tooth, but she's still one of Lancaster's finest. I'm talking of course about, Erin. Well, we were kind of in the neighbourhood, seemed rude not to. She's looking well. Oh, and Siobhan was there too. Which was nice. :-)

British Trannying: time for a rethink

So once again Britain makes an ignominious exit from an international competition. I was shocked and appalled, but not entirely surprised. It's just yet another example of Britain being outclassed in an activity that we practically invented.

It was hardly Leah's fault, she was up against insurmountable odds and huge competition, from countries with governments that take trannying seriously. A lot of those other girls were obviously the product of intensive training regimes from childhood (I also wouldn't be at all surprised if some of them were drug assisted)!

We might mock the Pacific Rim states for their high-pressure training techniques, but with results like that, who can argue with them?

Two problems need to be resolved immediately, in my view. Firstly, British Trannying needs to get wise to sponsorship opportunities. To cross-dress at an international level these days requires money, and lots of it. Leah may have been rightly lauded for being the only girl in the competition to make her own costume, but the day of the self-financed gentleman tranny is over. After all, would you expect Fernando Alonso to roll up to the starting line in a car he made at home? And am I the only one who saw Leah's fabulous unfolding fairy-light costume and immediately thought "there's an ideal spot in the middle for a Tescos logo"?

Secondly: education, education, education. Britain needs a national training programme starting now if we are to have any hope of competing in the world arena. National Lottery funding should be diverted into setting up several Academies of Tranny Excellence, to identify and nurture the promising tranny talent. Spotted young enough, and given the right tuition, our young girly-boys of today could be the world-class ladyboys of tomorrow!

Transmission interrupted

If you're part of the UK tranny scene you may have already heard that Trans-MISSION has been suspended until further notice. The organisers have really been messed around by the Masque Bar, and it looks like they're going to have to seek another venue.

Vicky and Jasmine have worked really hard to make the club a success, despite this and other setbacks. But of course that doesn't stop people kicking them while they're down.

It really narks me when I see this kind of thing. Okay, so everyone has different tastes, and Trans-MISSION can't possibly appeal to everyone, but to say things like that about Vicky and Jasmine just because of a perceived slight makes me despair at the vacuousness of some trannies.

For the record, Sparkle did grow out of TX's annual birthday bash. I don't think even Kim Angel would want to deny that. She used a lot of savvy by building Sparkle around the kernel of an already popular tranny event. Saying that doesn't lessen what she and others achieved with Sparkle. The tranny scene in the UK is very interconnected, and despite some monstrous egos, remarkably collaborative.

I hope that TX gets it's issues sorted soon. If only because if they don't I'll have to re-write my standard form letter reply to closeted trannies who write to me to ask how to get out of the closet! At the moment it basically says "get a makeover... go to Trans-MISSION".

But it does sound like an end of an era. Nevermore possibly will the sparkly curtains be hung from the windows of a bar next to the Barbican!

Case closed

Do you remember the case of the mystery football fan? An unknown work colleague of mine who'd been defending the rights of transgendered people in the unlikely auspices of a Middlesbrough supporters forum.

At the time I racked my brains trying to recall anyone at work who I knew supported Middlesbrough. In the end I gave up, and I'd more-or-less forgotten about it until yesterday.

I was just heading out of the office when a work colleague I'd not seen in a while nabbed me and said "can I have a quick word?". When we were away from prying ears he smiled and said "I'm NorfolkNGood".

After the penny had dropped, he explained that he'd not had the opportunity to talk to about it at the time, that he'd found my blog in the same manner as Mrs. Y, and he'd kept reading because he found it entertaining (entertaining in a "this is interesting" kinda way, not entertaining in a "what's the weirdo up to now" kinda way).

Which is incredibly cool, and sobering.

Sobering because this guy was one of the people who I'd considered as the mystery Middlesbrough supporter (he comes from the North East), but discounted because he didn't fit the profile of what I thought of as someone who'd be sensible, cool and groovy about the whole tranny thing.

Which, at the end of the day, is all about my prejudices and nothing to do with his. If I want to expect people not to judge me on something as superficial as wearing frocks, then I certainly shouldn't use similarly shallow methods to measure others.

Barcelona retro-blogging

In June 2005 I went on holiday in Barcelona with 4 friends. 3 of them are T-girls like me, one of them is a real girl, but we don't hold that against her. With so many trannies in one place, at least some dressing-up fun was on the cards. While I was there I kept a bit of a diary of events, or a 'blog' if you will.


June 11th 2005 - 11.55pm
Arrival

We've arrived at our apartment in the Raval district of Barcelona. The apartment itself is very nice, but the Raval is distinctly seedy. It's described in one guidebook as "historically a den of thieves, artists, prostitutes and transvestites". So we should fit right in!



June 12th 11.00am
Packing for Two

I've unpacked. There is a slight problem.

I'm used to packing to go away for tranny weekends, where it's essential that certain items are included (boobs, wigs, etc), and normally the only boy clothes I'll need are the ones I'm travelling in. In my determination to make sure I'd packed all the tranny essentials, as well as enough clothes to give Becky at least 4 distinct outfits for going out in, I've forgotten to pack much boy stuff! My boy wardrobe currently consists of 3 pairs of trousers, and 3 t-shirts. This wouldn't be a big problem if I was planning on dressing en-femme full time for the next two weeks, but I really don't fancy two weeks in the sun wearing full slap and the functional equivalent of a woolly hat.

There's a great big pile of guy stuff sitting in my cupboard at home waiting to be packed, but it looks like one of the first jobs of the holiday is shopping. For boy's clothes. Oh the horror!


June 13th 9.14pm
Retail Therapy

The shopping opportunities in Barcelona are superb. The Passeig de Gracia, the city's equivalent to the Champs-Elysée, has lots of the familiar big-name clothing stores. I spent a few minutes in H&M grabbing some cheap t-shirts and trousers to wear in boy-mode.

After that we headed off into the back streets of the ancient Barri Gothic, where there are less familiar shops with strikingly varied and vibrant clothes. The only problem for the tranny shopper is that everything tends to be sized for tiny Spanish girls! Even tops labelled as "extra large" seemed to be the equivalent of a UK size 12!

Later we travelled further to the east of the city, into the Born district. This is the most fashionable area of Barcelona to live, and the stores reflect that! Lots of achingly chic but horrendously expensive jewellers and dress shops.

I was finally tempted by a fab pair of pink camouflage combats back in one of the less expensive stores. Well you didn't think I was only going to buy boy clothes on this holiday, did you?




June 14th 2.07pm
Metro-sexuality

I've just finished a rather late breakfast of baguettes and cheese. We needed a bit of a lie-in after the first Tranny Night Out of the holiday. Well I say "first", but actually Sophie Green's been en-femme more or less all the time since we got here. She's decided to try and do most of the holiday in girl mode, she's a lot more committed than me. I like dressing up to have fun, I'm not really a full-time kinda gal!

Last night we decided to visit a nearby gay club called Metro Disco. Despite it being my first time out dressed this holiday, it's not actually my first time at this club. We went there during a shorter holiday last year and liked it so much we decided a return visit was in order.

Metro was just as I remembered it. The entry price of €9 includes the first round of drinks. So it was vodka and Cokes all round when we arrived, with those 'tip over the bottle and count to ten' vodka measures you never seem to get in UK clubs!

A couple of those and I was ready for anything!

A couple more and everything was kind of a blur.

I seem to remember daring each other to run through the "dark room" in the club (quite why a gay club needs a room for photographic development is beyond me), watching some of a Spanish drag show, and being chatted up by a short fat Frenchman who swore he was an English teacher but didn't seem to speak a word of English. Luckily my schoolgirl French was good enough to make myself clear.

"Non, merci!"


June 16th 23.44pm
In Sitges

We've spent most of the day in the town of Sitges, 30 minutes by train down the coast from Barcelona. It's a really nice resort town, with long beaches and a buzzing club scene. Sitges has been know as gay resort for many years, but apart from the odd rainbow sign and a few well-bronzed gay couples on the streets you wouldn't really know.

It's a shame that the last train back to the city leaves at 10.30pm, as I'd have really liked to have sampled the nightlife in the town. I suppose we could have stayed in-town clubbing and caught an early train back in the morning, but after a day on the beach we were all feeling a bit sun-stroked and weary, and none of us had brought a change of outfits anyway!

If I come back to Catalonia in the future, I think I may use Sitges as a base. If I get bored of the beaches and clubs I can always catch the train into the big city!


June 18th 2:15pm
VIP Treatment

Another late breakfast after another night on the tiles. Actually "on the tiles" is apposite for Barcelona, as there are tiles everywhere. From the big hexagonal ones with sea-life patterns that pave the entire Passeig de Gracia, to the millions of colourful mosaic tiles that encase some of Gaudi's edifices.

Last night we decided to try another club, the Arena Classic in the city's gay district, sometimes called the "Gayxample". There's no real gay village in Barcelona as such. The Gayxample is a large and ill-defined area, and the city's gay and straight club clientele seem to intermingle quite freely. One big happy family!

It was fairly quiet when we arrived at the club, but the music and venue was promising. We'd been there about 10 minutes when I was approached by a friendly local called Olga, who must have thought we were looking bored. After getting over the initial language barrier, she explained that the club she was heading to soon was a lot busier, and free to get in. Did we fancy tagging along?

I was unsure about the "free" bit, but she explained that the club we were in was just one of the Arena chain of gay clubs in the city. If you get your hand stamped in one of them you get free entry into all the others. Apparently we weren't in the Arena Classic, we were in the Arena Madre. The Arena Classic was next door. She was heading to the Arena VIP, a couple of blocks away, and for some reason only known to herself she'd decided to take a bunch of English trannies with her!

The Arena VIP was a lot busier than the Madre, and seemed a lot more mixed than the rather macho-feeling Metro earlier in the week. It still felt very tranny-friendly, as has everywhere we've been on this holiday. In fact, I can't imagine anywhere in Barcelona being particularly tranny un-friendly.

We've tended to stick to mostly gay venues for our tranny adventures, but that's mainly because a T-girl is more or less guaranteed a safe night out in a gay venue. Sophie and Shannon have both been out dressed during evenings when we've gone to regular bars and restaurants, and apart from the occasional bemused look, we've not had any negative reactions. I'm sure that once I got a better feel for the place, there wouldn't be many places in Barcelona that I wouldn't be comfortable going dressed.


June 21 st 2.17pm
Levels

It's remarkable how everyone in the group has had a different frequency of dressing en-femme. We're each at different "levels", but that just makes the group dynamic more interesting.

Sophie H, as the group's token "real girl", has (hardly unsurprisingly!) spent the entire holiday as a woman. You could say she has the least amount of effort to make to look girly… but not in earshot while she's getting ready in the morning or you're likely to get a slap.

Next there's Sophie G, who arrived at the airport dressed and, apart from some odd moments when it was impractical to stay en-femme, has remained Sophie throughout.

Then there's Shannon, who similarly to me tends to dress up for special occasions. It's just that she's less picky than me as to what occasions count as "special"! She's been dressing up every other evening.

Then me, Becky. I often just can't be arsed to make the effort of femming-up. I'd count myself as the laziest T-girl in the world if it wasn't for…

Jessica, the youngest tranny in the group. Often to be found snoozing on the bed while the rest of us run about primping and fussing over makeup. She seems equally happy heading out to a club in boy or girl mode. It's not really laziness that stops her from dressing all the time, she's just got a clear idea of how often she wants to dress, and doesn't tend to dress up just for the sake of it, which I admire.

Last night, however, Jessica did dress up, which made it the first time all the girls have been out at once. We headed back to the Metro club, as it was nearby and we didn't feel like a long walk.



After a slow start the evening picked up nicely. There was even another young T-girl in the club, which was nice to see. She seemed quite shy though, and I didn't pluck up courage to say hello.

It was exactly a week since we'd last visited the club, and so it was drag-show night again. This time we all sat down to watch it properly, and I loved it. Trust me, you've never truly heard Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" until you've heard it sung at breakneck speed in Spanish by a big black drag queen!


June 23rd 4:30pm
Meeting the Locals

We have to tidy up the apartment and head home tomorrow, so yesterday evening was our last opportunity to have a night out and not have to worry about an early start the next day. We were tired, and Jess and I didn't feel like dressing, but we decided a quiet drink in a bar couldn't hurt. So Sophie G, Jess and I ended up retracing our steps from a year ago and finding the gay bar we'd visited one night on our last Barcelona trip.

After a long walk through the grid-like Eixample district, we tracked it down, a swish cocktail bar called Z:eltas. We'd been sitting drinking a little while when an English guy came up and asked if we happened to know of any good clubs in the area. It turned out that he and the group he was with were English teachers living in Saudi. They were all gay, except for the one who looked like Jimmy Somerville, who was apparently straight. I gave them directions to the nearby Arena Madre.

After a drink or two, the tiredness had vanished and it seemed like a much better idea to actually take them to the club!

We'd been told by a local at Z:eltas that Wednesday nights were always quiet, but the Arena Madre was still buzzing. After only a couple of weeks in town I was already starting to see familiar faces, including the Spanish T-girl from Metro two nights earlier!

This time I did pluck up the courage to say hello. It took a little while to explain who we were, as I looked quite different to two nights ago. But luckily Sophie looked the same, and although Jess was in boy mode, she was still just as tall! She smiled when she realised that the lanky guy I was with was the statuesque tranny she'd seen in Metro! We chatted for a while, she told me her name was Sara, and she was thinking about going full time soon. She'd seen us at Metro, but had been too scared to come over and say hi, so I guess shyness is a universal trait in trannies! We exchanged email addresses, Sara's coming over to London later in the year so maybe we can show her something of the UK scene.


June 24th 11.50 pm
Going Out with a Bang

We're flying back to the UK, and everyone's a little subdued, especially after a rather fraught final night in Barcelona. I can only describe it as my first experience of cross-dressing in a war-zone!

Last night was the Festival of Saint Joan, which Barcelonans celebrate by setting off fireworks and partying until dawn. I'd fancied a reasonably quiet night out watching the celebrations, and maybe a meal en-femme… but we emerged that evening into a city gone mad.



Everyone seemed to have bought a hundred firecrackers each, and was going about making as much noise as possible. Even small children were brandishing lighters and fireworks given to them by their dads! We'd planned to watch the display at the famous Magic Fountain in Montjuic, but teenagers were setting off large bangers only feet away from the crowds, and it all got rather hair-raising. After I'd taken a few pics just to prove I'd been there, we headed back home. The back streets of the Raval were just as nerve-janglingly noisy, and we started to get really scared when we saw a guy firing what looked like a very real hand-gun! It seems that to stop us falling too much in love with her, Barcelona had saved her scary side until the end.



June 25 th 11.00 am
Homecoming

We're back in the UK, tanned and exhausted. It feels like the holiday is over, but there's still one more leg. We're heading off to Sparkle in Manchester this afternoon! The last two weeks have been fantastic. Barcelona is fashionable, fun-loving, cultured, dangerous, colourful, crazy and filthy-gorgeous. This just about makes it the perfect holiday destination for any T-girl!


(The above article was originally written for Repartee magazine, I dug it out today when someone emailed me for advice on trannying in Barcelona. I figured that as the issue that featured it came out over a year ago I'd not hurt their sales by using it on my site now!)

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.

Am I a transsexual?

One of the reasonably common misconceptions amongst the TG community is that "all transvestites are basically transsexuals who can't/won't own up to it".

Admittedly it's mainly transsexuals who hold this opinion. That doesn't make all transsexuals morons, of course. Just the ones who think that it's true.

(I think that qualifying statement will once again spare me the wrath of the entire TS community for another day.)

But transvestites and cross-dressers who have no intention of taking the TS route would be forgiven for worrying if maybe they're hiding their innermost feelings from themselves. Maybe they are fooling themselves without realising it. Maybe there's a inevitable mental process going on in the background, which one day will make you decide that you want to be a woman full time.

And, even scarier, maybe this mental process then re-writes your memories so that you think you always wanted to be a woman. After all, you often hear transsexuals say stuff like "of course, I knew deep down I wanted to be a woman, I was just afraid of admitting it to myself."

So, as an aid for those transvestites who might be worrying along these lines, I present some tips on how to spot a pre-TS TV, by which I mean someone who's actually a transsexual and is pretending to be a transvestite/cross-dresser until they're ready to own up to it.

Just read the following traits and score accordingly.

Trait 1: Growing your own hair. If your hair is bob length, and you're not in a Beatles tribute band; or if your wig's currently perched on a massed thatch that's "not quite ready to be shown off yet" because it resolutely refuses to grow back over the shiny bit at the front - score 1 point.

Trait 2: The "Blatantly Obvious Secret". If you pepper your blog/forum posts with comments such as:

• "I just wonder if I'm being honest with myself."
• "I wonder sometimes if things would have turned out differently if I'd never married."
• "I hate labels, but I guess I'd describe myself as transgendered".

and other statements that you think make you sound wonderfully unknowable and non-commital, but actually make everyone think you're fooling yourself - Score 2 points.

Trait 3: Passing. If your idea of the pinnacle of TG achievement is a dressed-down visit to Meadowhall to buy a beige jumper without being clocked as a bloke - score 2 points.

Trait 4: Knowing far too much about the process. If the first thing you think of when you hear the words "Charing Cross" isn't railway station; if you don't have problems with referring to private medical consultants as "Uncle"; or if you've run the online COGIATI test so often you know how to get the secret easter-egg "You're actually Kylie!" ending - score 1 point.

If you scored zero, then be rest assured you're not (unknowingly or otherwise) harbouring latent desires to go the transsexual route.

If you've scored one or more points, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a transsexual. But it does mean that your tranny friends who've read this (or have a grain of personal experience) probably think you are.

If you scored 6 points... stop messing about, own up to being a transsexual and put us all out of our misery!

(A "I'm only joking" wink smiley is available for this post. If you'd like one, please send a stamped addressed envelope to BECKYSWEB c/o Microsoft Plc, 1 Microsoft Way Ste 8, Redmond, WA 98052-8300)

Heavenly bodies

For a while now, the rhythmic nature of tranny behaviour has fascinated me. The way the trannies seems to ebb and flow in their levels of "tranniness" and visibility over time. I've slowly worked this up into a new theory.

If you've been collecting my theories, this one can be filed with the others in my Overwrought Analogy series, along with "Trannies are like Snowflakes", and "Trannies are Like Gases". When I get five theories I'm going to present them all as a series of Christmas Lectures. You have been warned.

Trannies are like heavenly bodies. They orbit around a sun that - if you'll permit me a certain about of sickliness in my theory - we'll call "Femininity". The Femininity Sun warms all the bodies around it with a girlish glow, and the closer you are, the girlier you get.

Some trannies are comets. They fly in from the cold depths of space, swing perilously close to the sun (briefly becoming the most spectacular thing in the night sky) and then head out again into interstellar obscurity.

Usually the orbit is an ellipsis. No matter how far away the comet gets, it feels the gentle pull of gravity and is doomed to repeat it's flirtations with the sun.

Sometimes the orbit is hyperbolic, the comet is seen once but never comes back again.

Some trannies are planets. They find an orbit that's just the right distance from the sun, and steadily follow it. The hot inner planets are analogous to the "full timers", the outer planets are less obvious or open, but are still warmed by the sun's rays.

Even the Planetary Trannies aren't on entirely circular orbits. Sometimes they get closer, and the influence of the sun grows stronger. Sometimes they're venturing out into cooler climes.

I'm somewhere between a Planetary Tranny and a Cometary Tranny, I think. My orbit is more elliptical than many. I occasionally get so far in as to skim the asteroid belt of the "Tranny Scene", but I also spend long periods out at the edges of the system.

I can think of good examples of "inner planet" trannies, and several "outer planet" ones too. The internet is my observatory, allowing me to look out and see where my friends are in their orbits.

But the ones that really interest me are the cometary trannies. Especially when they disappear completely off the scope.

I'm not sure if the fact that I always expect them to come back shows that I'm ever-hopeful, or just overly cynical.

Tranny and TV are still on holiday.

Why

I was asked it again tonight. By a twenty two year old straight girl who'd just been dumped by her boyfriend and was "off men".

"Why do you do it?"

It's not a question I can even attempt to answer when I'm sober.

But at the moment I'm gloriously drunk and about 2 hours ago I had one of those moments. A moment where something clicks, something engages in my brain, something falls into place, something makes a connection, something in my hindbrain says:

"This is why, Simon. Remember this."

It's not a religious experience. But I imagine that maybe that's what religious experiences are like.

Put it this way: if I ever had a religious experience I'd want it to be like that. A moment of total clarity that lasts for a brief time and then...

I awake, clutching desperately at slippery gobbets of meaning as they skitter giggling into the shadows.

...

Why?

Because Becky isn't Simon. Because Becky can engage with people when Simon can't. Because I've been given a small portion of "me" that's not me.

"I can't imagine you ever being a man", she said.

"Neither can I", said Becky, in my mind.

"I'm a man 99% of the time," said Simon, out loud.

And then there was dancing. And getting the meaning of songs. And more dancing. Not with anyone in particular, just with people who didn't know who Simon was and didn't care.

One of the gobbets of meaning is still here, squirming unconfortably in the daylight of sober reason. I think it says:

"It's a joyous thing, to have a real-life avatar. Many people make do with avatars that exist on another plane. Most people don't get an avatar at all."

...

Enjoy this post. I might delete it tomorrow.

...

"Why do you do it?"

So people can ask me why.

Somebody else’s problem

That possible TG sighting on my course today got me thinking about ‘passing’ again.

Some trannies really fret about passing. They go on and on about it. The highlight of their week is a successful trip to Sainsbury’s without being clocked by anyone. I applaud the achievement, but I don’t personally want to replicate it.

Leaving aside the fact that I personally have about as much chance of passing as an oversized kidney stone, I’m not that interested in going unnoticed anyway. I want to ‘pass’ just long enough that the person on the street’s initial impression is that I’m an attractive girl, and then for them to realise that I’m a guy who looks like an attractive girl.

Yeah, basically I want to mess with people’s minds. So sue me.

I’ve said this before somewhere. I want to look like a pretty tranny. That’s different from wanting to look like a pretty girl. In my head.

Some trannies I know seem to have a kind of Somebody Else’s Problem field.

The SEP field is a cloaking technology invented by Douglas Adams for a book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Basically you could park a spaceship fitted with a SEP field in the middle of a cricket ground during the Ashes and no-one would see it, because it’s Somebody Else’s Problem and doesn’t even register at a conscious level. It takes a lot less energy to make people think that something's invisible rather than actually make it invisible.

My TG friend Sophie has a brilliant SEP field. I’ve watched her walk down busy streets and not one person bats an eyelid. Despite the fact that she’s got several features that betray her genetics, she somehow sublimates them and passes seemingly effortlessly. It’s almost magical to see. I always felt a little guilty going out en-femme with Sophs because my natural Stick Out Like a Sore Thumb field almost always cancels her SEP field out!

I felt like that today with the girl in the training centre eating her lunch at her laptop. The Trannydar went ding and I was left with the strong impression I was witnessing a top-class SEP in action. And maybe if I blinked or tilted my head a certain way I’d see through to what was really there...

...or maybe it was just a girl with big-ish hands and a continental attitude to eyebrows.

...

Come to think of it she’s probably wondering who the nobhead who kept tilting his head and blinking was... :-/

Dingdingdingding

There's a girl taking a course at this centre who's making my Trannydar™ go off like crazy but I can't find anything definitive. According to her badge, her name is Alexis.

Gah, we should have developed a secret handshake or something by now.

Guys, agenda item for the next AGM, okay?

Holiday '06

That was a fun week. :-)

It started with a Very British Tranny Night down in London. I looked like this:



For about 5 minutes before we went out of the door. Then as usual it all went a bit rough round the edges. The outfit was kinda built around the gold lamé skirt, which I found a couple of weeks ago in Milton Keynes. It sang to me.

Amazingly, I sucessfully recognised and chatted with everyone I was supposed to at Trans-Mission. Including the delegates from Tokyo, Sydney, Finland and All Points Not King's Lynn.

Then a brief Thistle Full English Breakfast and a snooze and it was off to Portugal. The bit at the bottom they call the Algarve.

Which was great. I've never done a "beach" holiday before, normally I like to keep busy and go places where I can point at architecture and say "that's interesting" in a John Major accent. So it was a nice change of gear.

The Algarve during the summer season must be absolutely heaving, judging by the number of bars and restaurants there are to cater for tourists. The great thing was they were all still open despite the lack of customers, so we were spoilt for choice for places to eat and drink. At the same time the weather was still very good, so it seemed like the best of both worlds.

We spent most of the time lounging on the beach. I caught up with some essential work: reading a Pratchett Backlog and finding the entrance to World 4 on Super Mario Brothers. You know, real important stuff that tends to slip if you don't make time for it.

I also took some nice pictures, I'm not going to bore you by showing you them all.

I am going to bore you by showing you some of them.

This was the view from our apartment.



The cars really did whizz past leaving lines like that. But only after the third or fourth glass of Port.

Here's a shot taken on the beach that I'm kinda proud of.



And finally, a shop for Lady's Things.



Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've also been reading the most astonishing piece of transgendered fiction ever commited to paper. I've got no idea how or when I can blog about it though.

Or if anyone's even interested. I always get the feeling after coming back from a blog break that everyone might have wandered off to do Other Things. ;-)

A properly researched, rounded tranny character... In Hollyoaks??

So I'm doing the washing up with the Simpsons on in the background, which ends and then Hollyoaks comes on. I never watch Hollyoaks. I'm not saying it's crap, it's just not aimed at my age group, but my hands were too soapy to change the channel so I kept it on.

And... there's a tranny in it! Why did no one tell me!?

And what's more, the writer's have actually done their research, judging from the episode I saw. The character, Kris Fisher, has been beaten up for dressing. He talked about keep a stash of clothes when he was young, being discovered by his parents, and not wanting to be a woman, just wanting to wear the clothes. Channel four have even gone to the effort of promoting a link to an article on cross dressing at the end of the program.

Okay, it's not going to be perfect, and I bet there are trannies on forums right now berating Channel 4 for getting it horribly wrong. But I'm very impressed indeed.

From what I've seen it's not being sensationalised, and the character isn't "just" a tranny. He's not effeminate, they've even given him a Northern Irish accent* (officially the most manly accent in the UK). More importantly he's not being presented as a pervert. But perhaps most importantly of all: he's a young man, on a program that's watched by young people.

That's really to be applauded, I can safely say that I never saw anything like that in my teens or twenties, when I really could have used it.

I've long hoped that someday a mainstream British soap would tackle transvestism in this way, I must admit I didn't expect it to be Hollyoaks!

*Makes you wonder what websites the writers studied. ;-)

Replaced

There was a gap in the door, he never closed it properly. Through it I could see part of the bed, and the package that sat there. A slender unmarked padded envelope, with a bulge in the middle. We'd seen them before.

"Looks like we've got incoming," said Black Bob.

"What do you think it is this time?" I asked, straining to see the label.

"Could be anything, you know what He's like. Fickle."

"A new friend?" said Angelica. She was always after someone new to talk to. She used to talk to Blondie, but Blondie never talked to anyone anymore. Just sat in the dark at the back with her memories, and the dust.

I wasn't too sure. It was a different kind of parcel from the others. It made me nervous. I'd seen one like it before, a long time ago, but I couldn't quite remember where.

Then He came in. He grabbed the parcel and carefully tore it open. He pulled out the contents and held it up to light.

I gasped.

"It... it looks just like me."

"Another Noriko?" Black Bob said, disinterestedly.

"No, exactly like me," I said. "Same colour, same style, same everything!"

"Ah, damn. It's that time."

"What time? What's going on?" I asked. "Time for what?"

"It's not a new member, it's a replacement," Black Bob said, his tone even more dry than usual. "A replacement for you."

"But... but I'm his favourite."

"So was Blondie once, and Angelica. Hell, even I was favourite once. Favourites change."

"But..."

"Look at yourself, " Black Bob spat. "Not quite as shiny as we used to be, are we? Those monofilaments ain't exactly frizz-free anymore. Aren't you supposed to be 'Paprika'? I'd say it's more like 'Cumin' these days. Did you think it would last forever?"

"But I'm the one... the one that suits him best. His... favourite."

"There's a price to pay for being popular, kid."

"You mean?"

But Black Bob didn't have time to answer. I felt myself being lifted from my stand, in the best spot by the door. A brief glimpse of another me being put in my place. A few seconds of hurried movement and...

Falling... landing... looking up at a circle of light far above me... and then...

darkness.

Getting in touch with my inner tranny

We spent the weekend up in Derby with Shannon, Mini, Sophie, Thom et. al. and a jolly good time was had by all. As always it's great to catch up with those guys.

I didn't dress, but...

On the way up we stopped off in Grantham at one of those enormous ASDAs (that's Wal-Mart for overseas readers). It had a sizeable clothing section, and as I looked round I found myself having a strange thought:

Girls clothes are quite nice. I would like to wear them and look pretty.

Yeah I know what you're thinking, Transvestite in Wanting To Wear Girl's Clothes Shocker.

But the thing is, I've not had a thought like that in ages. I've always had fluctuations in my "levels of tranniness", but this current lull is of El Niño proportions. Sometimes I wonder if there's an end in sight.

That little thought was comforting. It was my Inner Tranny letting me know she's still there. It's funny to think that a few years ago I'd have probably the opposite reaction to discovering I'm not "cured" of TVism. Then I'd have been upset, now I'm reassured.

Tranny Makeup - The Becky Way (Part One)

I get the occasional email from newbie trannies asking me how to get started with cosmetics. I normally end up firing off an email with some of the basic things I've learned. Each email ends up being pretty similar, so I thought, why not write down everything I know about makeup in one place?

So here it is, my guide to tranny makeup.

The first thing to say is that this is by no means definitive. And what works for me may not work for you at all. Everyone is different, and everyone finds their own best practices. So this is my personal guide to what works for me. That's why I called it the Becky Way. If you want a second opinion, I suggest Miss K's excellent tips. She'll tell you to do it completely differently. Neither of us is wrong.

In the beginning I used to experiment a lot, but when I find something that works, I tend to stick to it. I'm not one for trying new techniques very often, especially as normally when I'm getting ready I'm in a hurry, and experimenting leads to mistakes which leads to delays. If you're reading this and you're already good at doing your own makeup you'll probably think some of my techniques are dumb, and you're probably right. But, like I said, they work for me.

That's why everything is written from my point of view. Read each sentence as if it starts "in my opinion" or "in my experience". If you think that what I'm talking about will work for you too, then try it. Just don't blame me if it doesn't!

Attitude

The first thing that it's important to get right is how to approach makeup. We're not trying to emulate how a woman applies makeup, we're trying to emulate how a woman looks with makeup on. It's the difference between method and result. Girls don't use makeup in the same way that trannies do. Girls already tend to have feminine features, so they use makeup to enhance and add colour. Guys tend not to have feminine features, so makeup serves to modify the shape of the face, as well as enhancing and adding colour.

Horrendous generalisation: most woman haven't a clue how to do tranny makeup. Of course, they'll tell you that they've had a whole lifetime of practice, but it's practice on their own girlish faces! Their whole ethos is "less is more", and "subtle is better". This works really well on a female face, on a male face it tends to get lost in the general cragginess and blokishness. Ask a girl who's never made up a guy to do your makeup and, while the result will be expertly applied and beautifully subtle, you'll look like a geezer wearing expertly applied and beautifully subtle makeup.

Don't listen to girls, they're scary and they carry cooties. Listen to me!

My ethos is more is less: put more on than a girl would, and you'll look more like a girl.

Within reason, obviously. Put on too much slap and you'll look like a clown, or a bad drag queen.

But "drag queen" isn't necessarily anathema to trannies. Actually, a lot of what I do is based on drag queen makeup techniques. This is because drag queens tend to be doing an extreme version of what we want to achieve. Drag queens want to over-emphasize all the feminine features: high thin eyebrows, strong cheekbones, full lips, wide eyes. By taking what the best drag queens do and throttling it back a few notches, we can get results which feminize the male face enough to make it look girlish but not too "draggy".

Time and Patience

One of the most important things when working with makeup is giving yourself enough time.

A tranny once asked me how long it took me to get ready. I said "all told, about three hours".

They laughed and said that was a ridiculous amount of time, and it never took them more than 30 minutes.

I smiled and thought, "yeah, it shows".

Of course, every tranny has a different idea of how much they want to achieve, and how long they want to spend on achieving it. From a cold start, it takes me about three hours. Of course, that includes cleaning, de-fuzzing, plucking, dressing, re-dressing, wigging, bejeweling, manicuring and perfuming; as well as the actual time spent making up my face!

The important thing is that good makeup takes time. Especially when you're new at it. It's important not to feel rushed, because that's when you make mistakes which are hard to fix.

Also it's important to have patience. During the process of making up you're going to look worse before you start looking better. In my early days messing about with makeup I used to get half way through applying foundation, see my Bride-of-Frankenstien reflection in the mirror, and give up. With makeup, things never really come together until you've completely finished, don't get too disheartened half-way through.

...

Wow, a lot of writing and we've not even touched the makeup case yet! In the next installment I'll write about my essential kit, and how to prepare your face.

That is, if you're interested? :-/

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?

Not quite over the counter culture

My brother said something insightful to me once. Actually, he'd probably argue that he's said several insightful things to me, but for the purposes of this blog entry I'm going to choose just one.

It was several years ago, I'd been out clubbing a couple of times as Becky and was really enjoying myself. We were sitting in a pub and I was enthusing about this whole new lifestyle of tranny clubs that I'd discovered.

He smiled, and said "you've found your counter culture."

He went on to talk about how he'd got mixed up in the drugs scene of the town where he'd lived in his early twenties. It was self-destructive, expensive, and ultimately lead him down some very nasty paths (from which he has since returned and is now flourishing, I'm pleased to add).

The thing was, he explained, that a big part of what had drawn him to, and kept him in, that scene was the sense of belonging to a group of people that weren't part of accepted society. Running underneath and at opposite directions to the social "norms", with people who were interesting, scary, weird and talented. It wasn't just a group of people who bought,sold and took lots of drugs, it was a whole rich social network of people who just so happened to also buy, sell and take lots of drugs.

My Bro had gained strength from that feeling of belonging, but not belonging to the mainstream. The feeling of "not being like everyone else", and that rang true for me too. I'd found my counter-culture, for the first time in my life, and I was loving it.

Maybe everyone has their own counter-culture. Their own way of feeling that they're not "fitting in", even if to everyone else's eyes they appear to be doing just that.

One of my favourite songwriters is Ben Folds, and one of my favourite songs by the Ben Folds Five is "Underground", which sort of sums up the feelings I got when I first discovered the tranny scene.

I was never cool in school
I'm sure you don't remember me
and now it's been ten years
I'm still wondering who to be
and I love to mix in circles,
cliques and social coteries,
that's me...
hand me my nosering
(can we be happy?)
show me the mosh pit
(can we be happy?)
we can be happy
underground


Okay, so trannies don't traditionally habituate the mosh pit or sport noserings (although it's not unknown), but in my mind that song is about the joy of being part of a counter-culture, something hidden "underground".

In some ways I've moved on from my tranny-club days, but I'm still part of the culture. The feeling of belonging is now spread thinly, like a weak glue connecting me invisibly to a huge social network of interesting, scary, weird and talented people.

And I like it like that.

Tranny Confessional, part 1 of infinity

Er... I was very very slightly turned on by the bit in The Silence of the Lambs where Buffalo Bill puts on the woman suit and parades about with "Goodbye Horses" playing in the background.

I know, I know, it's wrong and I'll go to a special level of Tranny Hell reserved for the HPWs and online tranny novel writers. :-(

I don't know why I'm telling you this. I'd forgotten all about it until saw the trailer for Clerks 2 earlier. :-/

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.

Go North West, young tranny!

Well, I've just had a long bath and dumped about three pounds of keratin into Anglia Water's sewerage system, and I've spend the rest of the evening trying on outfits. It can mean only one thing.

Think of that bit in every bloody wildlife documentary about Africa ever where you see the first raindrops thud into the dusty ground, and then it cuts to an extremely pissed off and bedraggled looking cheetah in a downpour and the voice-over man whispers "the rainy season returns at last".

The drought has ended. Well, maybe lifted for a bit.

I've blogged about sponsoring Sparkle, written guides and poetry about it, but I don't think I've actually said in my blog that I'm going yet.

Yes, I will be there. Look for me on the "Trannies Who Aren't Nearly as Good Looking or Interesting in Person as They Appear To Be Online" float. We'll be coming down Princess Street at around 14.00 hours.

Seriously though, folks. Look out for me and come up and say "hi" if you see me. I'll probably be in one of the clubs or something. I dunno. I've planned nothing.

Oh, and the usual caveats apply: I either won't recognise you or I'll have forgotten your name. I could keep pretending that this is because I'm a bit ditsy and forgetful, but it's actually because I really do think that I'm more important than anyone else. As you probably suspected.

;-)

Girly boys, oral sex, and living la vita pensioner

Three things have made me smile this evening.

First, watching the first episode of Boys Will Be Girls on my Sky Box. It was dumb and a little exploitative, in other words typical reality show fare. If I wanted to be po-faced about it I could also complain that it was a little bit too sniggering schoolboy about the whole idea of boys wearing girls clothes, but actually I quite liked it.

Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago, in my first flowerings of teenage tranny sexuality, I used to spend ages flicking through the channels on my bedroom telly looking for some kind of televisual stimulus to, er, inspire me. These were the days before t'internet, mind you!

Boys Will Be Girls would have been manna from heaven for teenage me. Young boys "forced" to be in a girl band? You couldn't write this stuff! And then I realised that there's young trannies out there now for whom Boys Will Be Girls will be just what the doctor ordered. Probably. I've gone a bit weird haven't I?

Look, if Russell T. Davies can allude to oral sex on a prime time family show (Doctor Who on my Sky Box - my second smile of the evening), I can get a little bit nostalgic about teenage tranny fantasies on my blog, okay?

Okay, the third smile was from my Granddad ringing me up. He's my last living grandparent, who was widowed my Nan died late last year. He's now starting to enjoy life again a bit more, as was regaling me with tales of spending the day washing up for the canteen at the village flower festival (and getting two potions of meat on his plate at lunchtime for his troubles), and a great barbeque organised by four women in his bowling club who decided to invite four men along who (in his words) "knew how to have a laugh".

He said a lot of drink was drunk, and it all got a tiny bit saucy (by Granddad standards, nothing sordid). He had a whale of a time.

And that gave me the biggest smile of all. My granddad, living la vita pensioner. I want to be like that when I reach that age: surrounded by friends, getting double helpings at flower festivals, and telling dirty jokes to old ladies. Bliss!

A Sparkle Spotter's Guide

or How to Recognise Different Types of Tranny from a Long Way Away

With Sparkle just around the corner, many newbie trannies will be taking the opportunity to debut for the first time in public. Equally, many dyed-in-the-wool trannies will be looking for something to actually do at Sparkle once they've exhausted the entertainment potential of The Tranny Hall of Mirrors and the Seminar About Trannies During WWII*.

So if you're coming to Sparkle and you want to make it just that little bit more fun, why not bring along a copy of the Sparkle Spotter's Guide, and check off each type of tranny that you see?

*Note: that these might not be actual events at Sparkle, I couldn't be arsed to visit the site and get real ones.

The Distant Starer

Often spotted at furthest side of a bar or club from where you're standing. Usually on their own, holding a drink and just staring at you in a way that suggests that either:

1. They know you and they're kind of miffed that you haven't recognised them and come over and said hello.


2. They've recognised you from a picture in Repartee and think you're some kind of tranny superstar, but they're too scared to come over and talk to you.


3. They're a contract killer who has only dressed up as a lady to blend in, and is actually here to kill you.

Most likely to say: nothing. Just stare.

Spotted:          Date & Time:                            Location:

The Entertaining Drunk

More common towards the end of the evening. Can be seen in various locations so sometimes hard to track down. Try looking:

1. on the dance floor in the middle of a zone of safety created by the other dancers (sometimes called a "Trance Bubble").


2. by the canal, being consoled by a slightly less drunk friend and occasionally leaning over the wall to increase the canal water's already impressive pollution levels.


3. in Napoleon's mirrored dance hall picking a fight with their reflection.

Most likely to say: Letcsh all go to Naps! It'sch great ininin... in there!

Spotted:          Date & Time:                            Location:

The Midget Sex Maniac

A tranny about 4 foot tall that seems to have been imbued with the pent-up sexual tension of an entire teenage girl's slumber party.

Look for:

1. Bare midriff displaying a slogan painted on in lipstick, eg "Slut Princess".


2. A tendency to dance in a manner somewhat akin to a Jack Russell making love to your leg.


3. The surrounding loose mob of tranny fanciers, each given the occasional wink and each under the horribly erroneous impression that they've pulled.

Most likely to say: I'm such a slut, me!

Spotted:          Date & Time:                            Location:

The Albatross

That tranny who you used to talk to a lot on the internet when you were still in the closet, but you dumped unceremoniously from your contacts list when you realised that they were weird / annoying / deathly dull / creepy / sociopathic (delete as appropriate), and who you haven't actually told you were going to be at Sparkle even though you promised them you'd let them know the next time you were out. Has a tendency to sneak up behind you during a conversation with someone else and say "hello stranger!" in a way that makes the skin on the back of your neck bunch up into your skull, and then engage you in an hour-long conversation guaranteed to make you want to top yourself within 5 seconds.

Possible conversation openers:

1. "So I told you I decided I'm transsexual now, right?"


2. "What road did you come up on? I swear by the B159972"


3. "So why doesn't your mobile number seem to work anymore?"

Most likely to say: "I thought you said you left the country?"

Spotted:          Date & Time:                            Location:

The Hanger-On

Deep down they realise they don't quite fit into the tranny scene, but they haven't managed to find a group that caters for their fetish, so they tag along with the trannies instead. Probably in a belief that a crowd of trannies will act as a protective barrier from the great unwashed, and that trannies are so open-minded that they'll accept anything (when in fact behind their back all the trannies are whispering "what the fuck is that supposed to be?").

Difficult to pin down in appearance, but costumes may include:

1. adult-sized baby clothing (of either sex)


2. patterned lace body stockings that leave very little to the imagination


3. one-piece baggy clown jumpsuits complete with curly wig and clown makeup (you think I'm joking, don't you?)

Most likely to say: "This cost me £1000, I had to get it made especially. Can you believe that?"

Spotted:          Date & Time:                            Location:

That's your lot for now. Good luck Spotters!

The Great Tranny Drought of '06

From our trans-environmental reporter.

At first I thought it was just me, but trannies up and down the country have been reporting the same thing: we're in the middle of the greatest Tranny Drought of recent memory. Trannies just aren't dressing, and even when they do they're finding the experience unrewarding and vaguely unsettling.

The signs are there for everyone to see. Tranny clubs that were overflowing this time last year, today appear more like deserts. And tranny blog feeds have, in some cases, reduced to a trickle.

Tranny levels in some parts of the country have got so low that the authorities have been forced to take drastic steps. I spoke to Jocasta Kittenstrangler, chairtranny of Thames Valley Associated Transpersons (TVAT) about their plans to overcome the drought.

"At first glance our measures might seem counter-intuitive," she told me. "We actually aim to reduce the levels of femininity in an area."

"And why's that?" I asked, putting my hand to my chin in a sincerely inquisitive manner.

"The idea is to 'dam' the remaining tranny levels in that area and force them to the surface. We find that when trannies are forced into not dressing, tranny levels eventually rise to well above their usual levels. The first step is a hose ban."

"A hose ban?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, during the filming of my cutaway shots about half an hour after she'd left.

"Yes," she said. "We ban the sale of all types of hose. Stockings, tights, hold-ups, etc. It's suprising how much trannies miss this luxury. Particularly the gardener trannies, who like to wear fishnets under their corduroys while they're pottering around the allotment on a Saturday."

"I see, and what if that's not enough?" I countered probingly.

"In extreme cases we might introduce communal pipe-stands," she answered. "But that really would be a last resort. We've not done that since 1976."

1976. So long ago that most trannies would have been too young to really appreciate it at the time. So I spoke to Martine Tulip, a "golden girl" tranny who remembers the Summer of '76 all too well. We met up in the pub she now owns in the East End of London.

"Oh yes, I remember the pipe-stands," she said, laughing into her pint. "They put one down our street. We didn't 'arf laugh."

"What was it, exactly?"

"A stand for pipes. You know. Like what you smoke. The man from the council comes and puts it up and loads it with pipes and tobacco and says 'This ere's for you trannies what ain't dressing'."

"And did it help?"

"Not arf, I took one puff and caught a glace of meself in a mirror. I looked such a geezer I immediately ran and put on the wife's wedding dress. The 'ole street were out in the street partying in frocks. It was just like the Blitz! The repartee was luvverly."

So, perhaps hose bans and pipe-stands are a possible solution to counter this current drought, but the question still remains: what's causing the problem in the first place? Back to Jocasta.

"It's to do with global warming," she said.

"I'm not an expert in tranny climatology," I replied humbly. "But surely that would increase Tranny levels?"

"Not necessarily, it's all to do with the Gurl stream, a cultural current that flows from America. The UK is right in the middle of it, and it keeps tranny levels in the UK artificially high. There are signs that some parts of the Gurl stream have already shut down."

"That's just bollocks, isn't it?"

"Er... yes. I just wanted to use the Gurl/Gulf pun."

So there you have it. Tranny levels at nearly an all time low, so much so that next month Manchester (traditionally a net exporter) is being forced to pipe in trannies from elsewhere. And no-one really knows why.

Although I think maybe it's just something in the water.

Every Tranny's Free

(to wear foundation)

Ladies and trannies of class of '06... wear foundation.

If I could offer you one useful tranny tip, using a good foundation would be it.

The shadow-covering and complexion-enhancing benefits of a decent foundation have been proven, whereas the rest of my advice is based on the experiences of a tranny who hasn't really managed to get it right herself yet.

I will dispense this advice now.

If you want to go out dressed, do it now. It's never too late to come out of the closet, but the later you leave it, the more missed opportunities there will be to regret in hindsight. Trust me, in 20 years time you'll look back and be glad you had a chance to be the person you wanted to be.

You are not just a guy in a dress.

Don't worry about "passing" as a girl. Well, worry about it, but don't worry so much that it stops you ever getting out of the door. Know that being a tranny isn't about passing, it's about feeling good and knowing you look the best you can.

Do one thing each day that makes you feel girly.

Smile.

Don't waste time on people who mock you, and don't mock others for being different than you are.

Pluck.

Don't be jealous of other trannies that look better than you do. There'll always be girls who are thinner, or have more feminine features, or have better clothes. Equally, there'll always be some trannies who are less fortunate than you are. That's just the luck of the draw.

Take compliments at face value, give compliments honestly.

Remember the name of every tranny that you meet. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Exfoliate.

Don't feel guilty that you don't want to be the same kind of tranny as your peers. If you want to go around looking like an Vegas showgirl then do so. There isn't a right way to be a tranny. Once you choose to ignore the taboo that "boys don't wear girls clothes", every other rule becomes pretty much optional.

Buy good quality makeup.

Maybe you'll transition, maybe you won't, maybe you'll give it all up, maybe you won't, maybe you'll marry someone who hates you dressing, maybe you'll be the bride at your own wedding. Whatever happens, don't be too upset that other people are "better off" than you. Every tranny wants to have something that some other tranny is taking for granted. Trust me, that other tranny wants things they can't have too. The phrase "the grass is always greener" almost perfectly describes the tranny condition.

Talk things through with your partner. Even when it hurts. Even when you don't really know how you feel. Even when you think they finally understand and accept it all... they don't. Talk and keep talking.

Accept the fact that most of the stuff you buy you'll never wear.

Always dress to your age. Or younger than your age. Or older than your age.

Don't follow tips in beauty magazines, most of them are written for real girls and don't work for guys. For example... usually less is NOT more.

When it comes to telling other people, choose wisely. Never tell someone just because it's fun to surprise people. But equally, never avoid telling a friend because you're afraid how they'll react. They'll be cool with it, that's why they're a friend.

Accept that even your closest tranny friends are on different journeys from you. Work hard to stay friends even though they might be dressing more, or dressing less, or transitioning, or starting a family. Deep down, you'll share a bond that formed at that brief moment where you were both in the same head-space at the same time; and that never goes away.

Be a French maid, but don't equate femininity with servitude. Go blonde, but don't associate blonde with dumb.

Tuck, or at least try to hide it well.

Accept certain inevitabilities. People will stare, some will be even be rude. Just remember it's some people's fate in life to be assholes, and it's your fate in life to reveal who they are.

Don't shop at Transformation.

Don't take risks just for the thrill of it. Don't walk the streets at night on your own. Don't meet up with people without telling a friend where you are.

Be careful when taking advice from other trannies. They're all doing it for their own reasons, they all have their own agendas, and what worked for them might not work for you. Trannies like to flock together for moral support and guidance, but no one tranny in the world has all the answers. They just like to think that they do.

But trust me on the foundation.

Becky EnVérité

(with apologies to Mary Schmich)

The Blaine game

"He's like a god in a mortal body," added Hector Rodriguez. "I think he's just showing everyone there's nothing that man cannot do. He can do everything and anything."

Who's Hector talking about? Some explorer of great renown? A peace-making politician maybe? Some inventor of a life-saving product?

No, he's talking about David Blaine, who's stunning achievements include Staying in a Box for a Long Time, Staying in a Lump of Ice for a Long Time, and now: Staying Underwater for a Long Time.

The English have a long tradition of lauding magicians until one day we realise what arses they are, and turn against them overnight. You have to be an arse to become a magician. It takes a special kind of sociopath to sit up all night learning how to do stuff and then not tell anyone how you did it, with a smug grin on your face.

One by one, magicians have fallen foul of the British publics annoyance at not being told how it's done. Paul Daniels fell out of favour quicker than his original hair fell out of him. David Blaine went a similar way very quickly when Londoners were not impressed by his box-staying abilities. It wasn't even a proper trick, for heaven's sake!

Derren Brown must know he's on borrowed time. I think he'll squeeze one more series out of his "I'm much cleverer than you" mentalist act before people start saying "Yes, but you're a bit of an arse really, aren't you?" You mark my words.

I actually have a personal tranny-related story about David Blaine.

A few years ago I was just getting over a nasty relationship and just starting to find my feet as a tranny. I decided, last minute, to book a hotel in London and visit Trans-Mission all on my lonesome. The hotel I managed to get in to was the Tower Thistle, which sits directly on the Thames by Tower Bridge.

When I arrived at my room I was suprised to find that I'd managed to wangle one with excellent views of the river, and Tower Bridge itself. And there, on the other side of the river, framed neatly by one of the arches in the bridge, was David Blaine in his glass cage.

This was causing chaos on the bridge itself. People were slowing down to rubber-neck at the Twat-in-a-Box, and traffic was backed up way past the approach roads to the bridge. Little did I realise how it was going to affect my evening.

I got dressed and ready to go out, and went down to the main entrance of the hotel to wait for a cab. After about twenty minutes it became clear that none were coming. The traffic was so busy on the bridge approach road (which was also the access road for the hotel) that no cabs were bothering to come down.

So I decided to walk to a better vantage point for cab-hailing. This meant walking all the way along the bridge approach road. Which by now was basically a parking lot.

I pretty much became the second attraction for rubber-neckers on the bridge that night. The cat-calls rang in my ears all the way up to the main road junction, where I managed to hail a cab.

The cab driver actually said he'd not realised until I spoke that I was a bloke. Which did my confidence the world of good.

In fact, just the experience of walking along the bridge did wonders for my confidence too. It showed me that usually the worst that can happen for a tranny in a crowd is a few cat-calls and horn-beeps.

So, David Blaine helped me become the tranny I am today. I'm starting to believe Hector after all. Is there nothing that man can't do?

The pursuit of cool

When I started up this blog, I made one pledge to myself:

Do no harm.

Then I realised that doctors had taken first dibs on that pledge, so I came up with another one:

Be original.

Which fitted me better, and had the added advantage of leaving me open to do as much harm as I jolly well liked.

But of course I didn't really actually go so far as to think up a pledge and write it down. It was just there in the back of my mind, what I thought made a good blog and what didn't. Over the time I've imposed on myself a few rough-and-ready rules such as:

• It's not a how-to-write-a-blog site: Don't blog about blogging(oops)


• It's not a link aggregator: Don't just post links to other people's work


• It's just not a place for posting personality quiz results: "I'm the Franco-Prussian War! Find out which German War of Unification you are by clicking here!"


• It's not a diary. I don't want to write about what happened every hour of every day of my life, and I'm pretty sure most people don't want to read it.


• It's not pretty and it's not clever: I'm not a programmer, so the code will be functional rather than whizz-bang, and I'm not a designer, so it's never gonna be a Thing of Beauty.

I am, sometimes, handy with words and I think I can craft something funny when the muse comes to me. So that is what I decided to do, play to my strengths.

Hopefully it works. Rather than falling between the two stools of "aesthetically pleasing" and "technically clever", I made a third stool. A stool for putting the stuff I do on. It's my stool and I like it a lot, thank you.

You see, I realised a some time ago that I'm not cool.

Being a transvestite isn't cool, it might be interesting, sometimes exciting, and it's edging towards socially acceptable. But it's not "cool". If it was then more cool people would do it (or, at least, own up to doing it), but to a fairly great extent they don't.

Neither is having a blog (popular or not) cool. It stopped being even remotely cool sometime around the time Boris Johnson got one.

Being funny isn't cool. Comedians aren't cool. A lot of them became comedians because they weren't cool. Uncoolness is almost a prerequisite.

Being good at programming isn't cool. Even if you write AJAX code on a Mac made out of lemon-scented Buckminsterfullerine. Sorry, it just isn't.

So, the pursuit of coolness through dressing up in ladies clothes, and blogging about it in a funny way with the occasional bit of hamster-related programming thrown in for good measure... is basically pointless.

Coolness is elusive, and it is nice to achieve, but it comes to you, you can't go to it.

What's the point of this post? I don't know. It almost certainly falls foul of at least one of my rules.

It's just something I wanted to say.