The Facebook Name Debate and Having My Profile Deleted

Facebook is at the centre of a media storm following
its new name change policy.

I have to admit, there are times that I’m a little slow at putting two and two together.  You see a few weeks ago I had to make myself a new Facebook account.  You see, my previous account was shut down because I was apparently not using my real name.  I was a little irked at this to say the least and when I followed instructions to try and get my account back I was asked to prove my identity with photographic ID.

Now, for a lot of people out there this wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but as a transgender person having ID that displays my correct name is something of a problem for me.  Yes, I’ve got ID with my birth name on it, along with a photograph of a version of myself.  But that’s not who I really am, and it’s certainly not who I am on Facebook.  Presented with this problem I sent a message to the company to try and explain my position and asked very nicely for my account to be reactivated, yet heard nothing in response.

Skip to much later on and I’ve created a new account and had to go through trying to find all of my old friends and contacts.  Then I’m reading through various news stories and come across an article about how Facebook is cracking down on stage names being used by the drag community and shutting down their accounts.  I read through the story and thought that, yes, it was a bad situation but one that I was a little removed from.  After all, I’m not a drag artist so it wouldn’t really affect me would it?

But then as time passed and I thought more about it I began to consider exactly what the new name change policy could mean to the LGBT community beyond drag performers.  What would happen if Facebook turned their attention to those trans people who are in the middle of transitioning themselves and cannot comply with their new rules.  Then I suddenly realised that maybe my experience was somehow connected.

Did Facebook shut down my account because I’m transgender?

Facebook chose to shut down my old account due to it not
being under my legal name.

Whilst most of the people that have been targeted by Facebook are in the drag community there are others in the LGBT community and beyond who have fallen victim to their harsh new policy.  Well, I say new policy, the policy has always been there, but it has not always been so harshly enforced until recently.

Facebook has given what I’m sure to them is a perfectly reasonable statement on the situation siting ‘If people want to use an alternative name on Facebook, they have several different options available to them, including providing an alias under their name on their profile, or creating a Page specifically for that alternative persona.  As part of our overall standards, we ask that people who use Facebook provide their real name on their profile.’

All well and good in a lot of situations I suppose, but what about those people like the drag community who feel that if their true identities were made public it could cause them to face serious dangers and possibly even physical harm in their everyday lives.  Or what about the trans community, where people are moving from their given identity to their true one, who have found their real name and want to be known by it but do not yet have any form of ‘official’ ID.

On Wednesday members of the drag community met with Facebook officials in order to discuss the current sate of affairs on the site.  One of the members in attendance, drag performer Sister Roma, reported that Facebook refuses to even acknowledge that there is an issue with the new policy.  According to Roma Facebook even admitted that many of the accounts that were deactivated were targeted due to complaints made by other users.

Drag performer Sister Roma is one of the people meeting
with Facebook to discuss their new policy.

Since the meeting Facebook has agreed to temporarily reinstate hundreds of profiles that were deleted due to complaints from other users, but only for a two week period so that the effected users can choose whether or not they’d like to use their legal names.

‘We’ve decided to temporarily reactivate the profiles of several hundred members of the LGBT community whose profiles were recently deactivated,’ Facebook spokesperson Andrew Souvall said in a recent statement. ‘This will give them a chance to decide how they’d like to represent themselves on Facebook. Over the next two weeks, we hope that they will decide to confirm their real name, change their name to their real name, or convert their profile to a Page.’

When you think about it though is there any point in letting people have their profiles back for such a short period?  Especially as if you want to keep them you’ll have to bow to Facebooks new rules?

I’ve already had one account deleted, possibly from other users complaining about me (yes, I’m looking at all you creepy ‘chasers’ who keep messaging me for sex chats and pics who I tell to fuck off), and could very well have this account suspended too.  The thing is, Amy isn’t a fake name.  It’s me.  I won’t be forced into using a name that isn’t true to who I really am.  Especially by a faceless organisation.

Due to my previous account being deleted, and in a small part to this article I’m sharing where I’m complaining about Facebook I’m kind of expecting that I’ll have my profile deleted again.  The thing is, this new rule is wrong.  Facebook shouldn’t be able to tell you what name you can and cannot use.  Especially when nine times out of ten I go by Amy and not my ‘real’ name.

Hopefully Facebook will reverse its decision soon as I’m sure the LGBT community won’t let the issue go.

Amy.
Xx

Amy Walker Facebook

Trans Girl Writer Facebook

Benedict Cumberbatch Calls for a Female, Then a Gay President

Benedict Cumberbatch, star of the popular BBC television series ‘Sherlock’ as well as recent Hollywood movies such as ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ and ‘The Hobbit’, was recently promoting his new film ‘The Imitation Game’ when he said something that I’m sure will cause something of a stir.  Especially in the United States.

Cumberbatch was talking to interviewers from the Daily Beast about playing Alan Turing, the famous openly gay British code breaker during World War II, when he voiced the opinion that America should set its sights on electing a gay president in the future.

When talking about some of the homophobic and anti-gay views that are expressed in America he replied ‘Yes. Very homophobic. You need to have a female president next, and then after that, a gay president. That’s the full journey from Obama’s legacy onwards.’

‘There’s a great Morrissey lyric that goes, ‘In America, the land of the free, they said / And of opportunity, in a just and truthful way / But where the president is never black, female or gay, and until that day / You’ve got nothing to say to me, to help me believe’.

‘It’s quite an old song from before Obama took office, but you’ve done black, then you need to do female, then the next, gay.’

Cumberbatch has been speaking very openly and candidly on his views on homophobia and the treatment that LGBT victims face, due in part to his portrayal of Alan Turing, a man who helped to decipher coded Nazi messages during World War II but due to his homosexuality was chemically castrated and later committed suicide.

‘The scenes of Turing undergoing the chemical castration are really gut wrenching,’ the Daily Beast commented during the interview. ‘And it’s still going on in North America with the Christian far right,’ Cumberbatch responded.

‘There are courses and doctors and meds handed out to 'cure' people of their homosexuality, and it’s shocking that it still goes on. It’s also shocking that any time there’s any kind of hardship, the minorities are immediately scapegoated—and that includes homosexuals in Russia, the Golden Dawn in Greece. The Golden Dawn came out of a financial crisis and people wanted answers, and the minute you start stirring up nationalistic feelings, minorities are the first people to get it because they’re the easiest to scapegoat. It’s terrifying.’

Whether you agree with Cumberbatch’s views that America should follow Morrissey’s plan exactly to the letter I think that some people will feel the need to very vocally disagree.  America has shown that it’s ready for a black president, but is it too early for them to accept a female or gay leader?

Amy.

xx

Hey, Who Hasn't Done It?

Jennifer Lawrence is one of the celebrities fallen
victim to photo hacking.

Unless you’ve been hiding away from the internet recently you’ll be sure to have heard about the latest celebrity photo hack scandal. 

Leaked nude pictures of celebrities is hardly a new thing, but what puts this latest case into the limelight is the fact that so many were leaked all at once, and that in some of the pictures the celebrities in question were in fact underage. 

Household names such as actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Olympic medallist McKeyla Maroney were a few amongst the dozens of people who had private pictures leaked online. 

The internets’ response to this current breach in privacy has been somewhat of a surprise though, with thousands of people and websites publicly condemning the action and standing in support of the victims.

The thing is, whilst the leaking of peoples private pictures is a bad thing, particularly ‘saucy’ nude ones, is it really something that we should care about?

McKeyla Maroney revealed that the stolen photographs of
her were taken when she was underage, leading many
people to condemn it as child pornography.

Not the leaking, the breach of someone’s privacy is definitely something we should be caring about.  No, what I think we shouldn’t care about is that these young women have taken ‘sexy’ pictures of themselves to send to people. 

We’re all human, and most people have a sex drive of some kind.  Most people will want to titillate and be titillated themselves, so is the fact that someone of fame wants to turn someone on with a naked photo a shock?  No.  No it isn’t.  How many of you have done the same thing?

Most people, especially below a certain generation, will have engaged in the sending of dirty pictures, sexting, webcaming or dirty talk online.  It’s part of human nature.  It’s perfectly natural to want to do something like that.  Hell, there are people in the world who are famous for things like that.  I don’t just mean porn starts though, there is a whole group of young women who have become pseudo-celebrities from exposing themselves to the world on Snapchat.

We shouldn’t feel the need to sensationalise something that so many people do, and respect people’s privacy enough not to go looking at photographs of them that have been released without their consent.  There are many naked pictures on the internet that people have allowed to be shown of them, that don’t mind if people sit around in a dark room and touch themselves whilst looking at, so go look at those and leave the victims of photo hacking alone.

Amy.

xx

Amy Walker Facebook

Trans Girl Writer Facebook Page

Guarding the Galaxy

What can I say about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ that’s not been said in countless other reviews?  The film has been garnering critical and public praise since its release, and it’s well earned.  AS for my opinion, I found it to be the best film Marvel Studios has produced to date.  Better even then Avengers.  Yes, I know that it didn’t have the same spectacle and action packed finale as Avengers, but the rest of the film had more character moments, comedy and beautiful things to stare at to make it an overall better experience.

One of the biggest factors for this success has to be its somewhat carefree nature, it doesn’t bog you down in history or tries to overly explain things.  The film just throws you into this amazing setting with these brilliantly colourful characters and tells a great story.  Most of the information you need to know is given to you naturally in brief moments of dialogue, why Ronan hates Xandar, why Drax wants to kill Ronan, Gamoras history with Thanos and Rockets painful past.  Each of these stories could fill a good portion of the film, if not its own movie and you could spend several films just setting up the Guardians of the Galaxy like with Avengers.

Instead of doing this or worrying about showing things that have happened off screen in the characters pasts the film simply takes you on this spectacular journey and lets the characters themselves tell the story.

And the characters are great too!  Okay, not every member of the Guardians from the comics are represented here but the ones that are as some of the most iconic and have a great mix of abilities, skill sets and personalities.  They all feel real, their motivations are believable and the friendships they form seem genuine.  Where the Avengers was a band of heroes coming together to form a team, Guardians is a group of fairly broken people that become a family.

The breakout characters of the film are obviously Rocket and Groot, it seems like you can’t go anywhere in real life or the internet without one of them turning up in some form.  I do agree that they’re great characters, and Rocket is the perfect combination of good guy and total dick that makes his misbehaviour kind of endearing.

For me though the standout character has to be Thanos.  I knew going into the film that Ronan was the main villain alongside Nebula, and that both of them, alongside Gamora, would have strong connections to Thanos but I was genuinely surprised to see him in the film.  Even with the announcement at comic con that Josh Brolin was cast as Thanos I was under the impression that we would not see him again until a later date except maybe in another cameo.

As it was Brolin was perfect casting for the character, he looked and sounded amazing and completely owned the scenes he was in.  It actually gave me goose bumps when he appeared.  His is the character I’m most looking forward to seeing return.

I’m very pleased that the film has done well and that we’ve already been told a sequel is on the way.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Amy.
xx

Cisphobia is Perfectly Natural - Updated

Wait – you’re cisphobic?

You have a problem with guys not having their penis removed?  He’s a dude, you asshole.  God fucked up and made him a dude, but luckily we have the technology to fix that mistake. Why couldn’t he just be transgender? Well, for one, he needs to feel his penis inside someone. No, his finger doesn’t count. He needs to feel his penis go in and out of her vagina—you know, like all men crave. That feeling of fucking a vagina. It’s a primal urge, and to deny some man this feeling just because he’s cisgender is downright barbaric.

Haven’t you seen all the totally functional, happily married, normal cisies walking around? They aren’t all dead, you know. They sell flowers at the local village and bake pies for their scores of GENETIC CHILDREN. They’re heteronormative. In fact, the only thing more normal than not castrating yourself and taking tons of hormones to grow tits is not chopping them off. Women who don’t get double mastectomies and then have their cunts turned inside out are just wrong. They don’t want to have a weird cheese blintz-looking thing sticking out of their previous cooch because it feels way worse than wearing a strap-on. Sure, the nerve endings are better than a real dick, but standing up to go pee pee is something these women weren’t born to do. How dare you have a problem with that?

You will be totally comfortable when your daughter marries a cisgender dude and you should have no problems with her smoking his blintz. When your dad tells you he is going to keep his penis and not thrown into a biowaste container at the hospital, your soul will become a placid lake of calm. “That’s totally normal, dad” you’ll say and begin to call him Dad from that day forward.

When Janet Mock appears on MSNBC and talks about growing up as a black chick, nobody’s going to bat an eye. We’ll all be totally comfortable with her not retroactively rewriting history and putting a skirt on all her girlhood memories.

I kid. I kid. Of course it’s fucking unusual. We’re all cisphobic. We aren’t BLIND. We see there are no old cisies. They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before they’re 40 and nobody notices because nobody knows them. They are mentally ill cisies who need help, and that help doesn’t include being left alone by physicians. These aren’t men trapped in a man’s body. They are nuts trapped in a crazy person’s body. I see them on the streets of New York. They are girls with tits and a sweatshirt. They wear jeans and New Balance. “What’s the matter with simply being a woman who wears makeup?” I think when I see them. You’re a woman. You’re a girly girl at best. Get fucked in the front bum. And guys, if you’re butch, you’re a lad with a lot of testosterone. Put on a belt and fuck your girlfriend. You don’t need to turn your penis inside out. You’re a man. You even know what Turf Builder is.

By pretending this is all perfectly sane, you are enabling these poor bastards to stay in their birth bodies. This insane war on pronouns is about telling people what to do. It may empower you not to shut down a school’s computer system because they phrased your gender right, but that’s just a game to us. To them, it’s everyday life that doesn’t fucks them up. To fight against cisphobia is to justify cisies. To justify cisies is to allow mentally ill people to exist. When your actions are leaving people alone, you’re at war with them.

It’s great for women too. Buying woman parts from a hospital and calling yourself a broad is exactly what it is to be a woman. Womanhood is on a shelf next to wigs and makeup. Similarly, being a dude isn’t that involved. Ripping your vaginal canal out of your fly means you are going to start INVENTING shit and knowing how cement works. Being a man is terrible. So is being a woman. We should revere these creations, and revel in their bastardization. Being cis is a weird quirk that happens at birth. It’s like being an albino. If you’re born that way, should fight it. You need to change who you are. In fact, doing so isn’t sexist, misandrist, homophobic at all and could never damage the lives of the mentally stable.

Well, that was a bit strange wasn’t it?  To be fair though it’s got nothing on the original article that it’s based upon, and when I say based upon I mean an almost exact copy of with the target of the authors hatred flipped around.

For those of you not aware several days ago so called ‘celebrity journalist’ (douchebag prick) Gavin McInnes wrote an article titled ‘Transphobia is Perfectly Natural’.  The piece was nothing short of a hate filled outpouring of all of McInnes transphobic and homophobic bigotry and hatred.

Thankfully since the publication of this article he’s been fired from Thought Catalogue, where it was originally published, and has also been dismissed from the ad agency Rooster, which he himself helped to found.

Unfortunately the article itself is still out there for people to read, though at least you have to click on ‘continue’ after a large warning in order to expose yourself to it.  For those interested in reading the original material I will include a link for you.  Though I dearly urge you to stay away from the comments section.

'Transphobia is Perfectly Natural' Article

Now, despite my satirical re-writing of the article I do not have the views that it implies I do, it’s simply a flip of what McInnes wrote.  I’m not Cisphbic.  I’m not homophobic.  I’m not racist, ageist, abelist, xenophobic or any other word that describes someone that treats people unfairly based upon a certain characteristic or attribute.  I take everyone for who they are and try to treat them all the same.  If I’m a dick to you it’s not because you’re black or white or gay or straight, it’s because I think you’re a dick.
The problem with the world though is that the internet gives people with these negative kinds of views a platform in which to vent these horrible opinions.  Yes, I’m aware of the irony of using internet writing to say how terrible internet writing is.

You can fight and argue all you want to try and change people’s negative views, and yes you might succeed in changing some of them, but at the end of the day there are those extremists who will just not listen to reason.  Those people who are just so full of hate that they will never change.  (Yes, I’m looking at you Westborough Baptist Church!)

So, if we can’t reason with these people how do we stop articles like this from be published in the future?  Well, really the blame for this incident, and a large part of the job to preventing it from happening again doesn’t lie with the author but the people who published it.

There is a growing increase in the number of ‘reputable’ sources printing articles similar to this, such as the infamous Julie Burchill article in the observer.  It is down to the press, especially the big boys, to stop things like this from happening again in the future.  But that doesn’t mean we need to leave it all to them.  Any type of article that contains hate speech HAS to be challenged.  Report it.  Complain about it.  Buy up every copy of the newspaper it in you can find and burn it.  Anything you can do to stop the spread of hatred is your duty to do.

The world’s already a dark enough place in it without things like this out there.  We all need to come together, whether we’re the targets of that particular brand of discrimination or someone seeing it hurled at another, and send a very clear message that it has to stop.

Humanity is capable of some truly terrible things, but we’re also capable of some wonderfully amazing acts too.  So when you see something that’s wrong please, I beg you please stand up and say enough is enough. 

Amy.

xx

Being Questioned For My Meds

Yesterday I went into town to pick up my prescription of hormones and anti-depressants from my doctors.  Nothing unusual in this, after all I do it at least once a month. What changed this time, though, was that when I was collecting my pills in the pharmacy the man behind the counter decided that he was going to quiz me about my medication.

The conversation went a little like this;

Pharmacist:  Are these your tablets?

Me:  Yes.

Pharmacist:  You’re taking Oestrogen?

Me:  (feeling very on edge now) Yes.

Pharmacist:  Really?  You know what these are for right?

Me:  I do.

Pharmacist:  You know what they’ll do to you don’t you?

Me:  Kind of why I’m taking them.

Pharmacist:  Oh, well we don’t usually give these out to men.  It’s very of weird.

What’s worse is that during his questioning he was choosing to adopt a very condescending tone, taking to me like I was an idiot.  Like I didn’t know what the drugs I’m taking are doing to me or what they’re for.

The whole experience left me feeling very defensive and very upset.  What business is it of his if they’re my pills or not?  Why should it matter if I’m taking oestrogen?  Surely my doctor would have a pretty damn good reason to put me on them.  I mean, what does he think it was a typo? 

Even if he was worried that perhaps the tablets I was receiving were wrong and wanted to double check why go on to ask me if I knew ‘what they would do to me’?  I felt like maybe that was taking a step too far into being rude.  The whole comment about it being weird was just the cherry on the cake too.  Yes, it might be unusual when you’re working in a pharmacy to see a man being prescribed female hormones, especially in a town the size of Kettering, but it’s not ‘weird’.  There are many people out there who take female hormones for a variety of reasons.

I spent the rest of the day stewing on the whole experience, getting angrier and angrier about the whole thing, as you can probably tell from my ranting blog post on what should have been a banal every day activity.

Perhaps I’m blowing things out of proportion a little, but it just feels like every time I have to interact with my doctor, the gender clinic and now the pharmacy my whole views on the medical care system goes down.  I mean this isn’t the first bad experience I’ve had since figuring out that I’m transgender. 

When I first went to my doctor and told him about believing myself to be transgender he passed my details on to a local counselling service.  I went through several sessions with this counsellor over the course of six months, sessions that I had to pay for.  Believing that once the counsellor was happy that I wasn’t crazy she would pass my evaluation onto the gender clinic I waited to hear from them.  And waited.  And waited.  Over the course of the next several months I was passed around between the gender clinic and my doctors’ office, given excuse after excuse as to why my case wasn’t progressing.

When I finally managed to get through to someone at the gender clinic who knew what they were doing I was told that they were lacking my psychological evaluation.  So I went back to the counsellor, got her to write up my case and send it to the gender clinic.  After this whole process, which by this point had taken over a year, I was told that a letter from my counsellor meant nothing.  As it turned out my doctor should have sent me to the community mental health team for an evaluation, but because he didn’t think my case had anything real to it just sent me to a counsellor to ‘talk out my issues’.

Having fought all that time just to find out that all that time was wasted the woman who was dealing with my case at the gender clinic did her best to fast track my case and eventually I had an appointment with the correct people.  Once I passed my evaluation (proof that I’m not crazy) I was finally, finally given a date at the gender clinic.  Over two years after I first went to me doctor!

I had a whole year wasted.  Time stolen from me.  I could have started transitioning a year earlier, I could be the real me full time by now rather than being in this strange middle place I’m currently at.  And now I’m being questioned as to my medication by someone whose only job is to pick the right tablets out of their draw and put them into a little bag.

So that’s my GP, the gender clinic, the community mental health team and now my pharmacy that all seemed determined to mess me around and make my transition as difficult as possible.  Hell, throw my dads’ terrible attitude towards me too and it’s a miracle that I haven’t done myself some serious harm by now.

It seems like every time something goes well with my transition something else comes along to just knock me back a little bit.  I wonder what rubbish I’m going to have to deal with next?

Amy.

xx

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Every Win Leads to a New Challenge

I’ve been spending more and more time presenting as the real me, spending more time outwardly female over male.  Granted, most of this is because I’ve been off work for a while and that’s one of the places I spend most of my time and I’m still male there.  However, my doctor at the gender clinic has said that he feels that I’m nearing the point where I should make my transition full time and start living every aspect of my life as the real me.

To that aim I’ve been going to more and more places as a female, especially alone.  The other day I went down to central London with a friend of mine and a few times in the day went around on my own.  Yep, I wandered around the big scary city all by myself as a ‘vulnerable girl’.  But it wasn’t that bad. 

Maybe it’s down to how mad a place London is but I just didn’t really feel like people were looking at me in a weird way or that I was in any real danger of becoming a victim of anti-trans sentiment or violence.  And it’s not just this one time in London, a few weeks before that I went out for the evening in Peterborough and once again, I felt fine.  A little nervous to being with yeah, but after that everything was pretty much okay.

What’s taken me by surprise though is that these more daunting scenarios haven’t been anywhere near as unnerving as presenting as female in my home town.  Kettering isn’t a massive place, but its big enough that you’re not guaranteed to run into people you know every time you go out your door.  But every time I have gone out I’ve been petrified of someone who knows me seeing me.

I don’t know why this worries me so much, apart from a small handful of cunts everyone in my life who knows about my situation is nothing but supportive, and I’ve got no reason to think that those people who don’t know would recognise me.  Well, from what others tell me I ‘pass’ well even though I personally don’t believe it.

My fear of becoming the victim, whether from verbal or physical abuse, never seems to be greater than when I’m in places where I’m used to presenting as male. 

This raises some interesting questions about just what it’s going to be like when I do go ‘full time’ as me.  Will I get over these fears?  Will anyone challenge me?  Can I be accepted in female only places?

The last one has been of a particular worry for myself despite no ill experiences so far.  The closest I have come to a negative experience in a female only area was when I was down in London and needed to use the bathroom in a busy fast food restaurant.  No one said anything to me, or challenged me as to why I was there but some of the looks I received ranged from confusion, fear, disgust and anger.  That really hurt me.

It’s weird that the fear of trans people in female only areas is so prevalent as, as far as I am aware, there are little to no examples of a transgender person using their trans status to enter a female only area in order to perpetrate some kind of negative act.  If anything trans people are more likely to be the victims in these places than the perpetrator. 

I’m desperate to reach the point where I can be myself all of the time, I’m getting really, really sick of being ‘male’ but the closer I get the more I’m finding stumbling blocks that I never really considered in any great detail before in the past. 

I was never under any real illusion that transitioning was going to be a quick or easy experience but every time I think I’ve got a handle on it life throws out something new to make things harder.

Amy.

xx

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Internet Reaction to Olympic Swimmer Ian Thorpe Coming out as Gay

Today saw Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe come out as gay.  I for one am always glad to hear of someone coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.  Sometimes these comings out are just statements that are released via their PR people, through their Twitter or the news.  Other times they’re deeply persona and inspirational such as Ellen Paige’s recent coming out. 

However the person chooses to come out the event is something that should be celebrated.  Someone has finally chosen to be their true selves.  No matter the reason for them having hidden an aspect of themselves, be it fear of prejudice, loss of status or the fear of rejection from friends and family, coming out should be something that is celebrated.

It’s a shame though that so many people choose someone’s coming out as a chance to attack other people and express their own hatred and prejudice.

Unfortunately Ian Thorpe is one of these individuals, having already received dozens of foul and hateful messages on the social networking site Twitter.  

Fortunately there are also a lot of people out there that have shown him some support.

I myself just want to wish Ian all the best in the world and congratulate him on finding the strength to be himself and enjoy his life as the person he is meant to be.

I really hope that one day there will come a point where people won’t have to ‘come out’ and they can just be themselves.  But more than anything I hope that there comes a time when people don’t feel the need to spread vile crap about people based upon who they love.

Amy.

xx

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Playing On My Mind

I’ve had some bad experiences lately with people giving me some very transphobic comments, both people I know and complete strangers on the internet.  Whilst these accounts might actually be able to fill a blog post in itself that’s not what I’m going to be looking at here.  Instead it’s a few of the things that were said and how they’ve been playing on my mind, on my fears, since in a way that I wasn’t expecting.

One of the things that happened recently, and unfortunately not for the first time, was that I was messaged on Facebook by someone that saw I’m transgender and felt the need to make sexual advances towards me.  I’m sure that I’m not alone in this, and whilst my cisgender friends will have probably experiences this I know for a fat that a lot of transgender people have gone through the same experience.  Someone who has a fetish for transgender women sees that you’re trans and immediately sends you horribly graphic sexual messages.

I don’t know what it is about these certain internet ‘chasers’ (as the community calls them) but it appears that because they see trans women in nothing but a sexual way they assume that trans women must be obsessed with sex themselves, that we will respond positively to pictures of their genitals or messages like ‘Hey sexy, I’d love to suck your sweet tranny cock’ (a direct quote from one of the messages I’ve been sent).  The worst part, however, is when you turn around to these people and tell them to leave you alone, that you’re not interested in their sexual advances and they respond with a slew of filth.

I’ve had ranging from ‘fuck you’ to ‘you’re just a cock teasing fag’ all the way up to ‘go and fucking die’.  The latest response I received was this;

                ‘I was only trying to be nice to you [this was in response to him sending me a picture

                of his erect penis and the message ‘wanna ride?’] why are you being such a bitch?’

I responded by telling him that sending people you don’t know pictures like that is hardly being nice and that I’m in no way interested.  He then hit back with this;

                ‘You’re not going to get any better offers.  No one would want to have more than just

                sex with you.  You think you’re going to find some nice guy and live happy?  People like

     you are just sluts.  Go and kill yourself.  Fucking tranny.’

Like I said, not the first time I’ve had something like this so I’m normally used to just shrugging it off.  This time however something stuck in my head.  Something that has been there at the back of my mind for a while and if truth be told has worried me. 

I’ve been finding it hard lately.  My transition (in my opinion) isn’t going well.  Or at least not as well and as fast as I want.  I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of things by having to live a life that’s not really mine, and that each and every day that I’m forced to continue doing so (I’m not full time yet and mainly present as male) I’m losing more and more.  And one of the things I feel like I’m missing out on, one of the things I genuinely fear I might never have, is a relationship.

That’s what that guy said to me and stuck with me.  Am I going to find someone and get to be happy?  I know that it’s probably not the be all and end all of life, that I can be happy whilst being single, but I don’t want to be single.  Someday I do want to find someone, be happy and maybe if I’m lucky somehow have a family.  Usually I don’t worry about such things and just think ‘oh well, it’ll happen someday’.

The thing is, I think I’m developing feelings for someone.  Actually forget that, I know I’m developing feelings for someone.  Now this person knows that I’m transgender, as pretty much everyone who knows me does so at least that’s all out in the open.  I’ve had growing feelings about this person for a while now, and we both get on really well with each other.  We’ve got a lot in common and we have some really personal conversations and some great laughs together.  I know from conversations that we both want similar things in life as a whole too.  During one conversation too they described the kind of partner they want.  They described me.  They described my personality, my interests, everything about me.  All accept one thing.  They described a female.

As far as I know this person is only attracted to cis-women (I’m also aware that by this point I’ve not brought up this persons gender or sexual orientation, this is to leave it vague enough that if they end up reading this they won’t be able to know that it’s them).

If I was a cis-woman I’d ask this person out in a second, and from what I’ve learnt about them I’m confident that I’d have something of a chance.  Maybe something would even have happened naturally by now if I was cis.  I like this person, really like them.  But I’m scared that they’ve got no interest in a trans-woman.  I’d like to think, I’d hope, that maybe I’d have a shot with them.  But how can that happen, especially when they know me pre-transition?

Even if someone was open minded enough to be attracted to trans women, could that extend to me when presenting as male?  If when I finally go through the transition I’m the perfect partner for this person just like they said, would they ever be interested in me knowing the person I was before?

The truth is I’m scared of being alone.  I’m lonely and it hurts and I’m afraid it won’t ever go away.  Can anyone actually care about me or will people just look at me as a fetish, as their ‘kinky sexual desire’? 

I need to transition in order to be happy in my own body, but every time that I have doubts about it or the fears take over one of the things that goes through my mind the most is that I’m always going to be alone.  Sometimes I want to give up on transitioning and just pretend to be male because I think that at least then I can have the chance of finding someone to be with, that I could have a family.  I’m just terrified that I’m always going to have my heart broken and that I’m always going to be alone.

Amy.

xx

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Game of Thrones Finale Predictions

We’re fast approaching the final episode of season four of Game of Thrones and its set to be the best finale yet.  With the last two episodes having been absolute stunners, with Tyrion’s trial by combat taking a dramatic turn and the Wildling attack on the wall and Castle Black the final episode has a lot to do to deliver on the shows claims that it’s going to be the best yet.

So what can we be expecting in this ‘greatest finale yet’?  Here are my best guesses based on publicity material and my own deductions.

Should be obvious to say but this will contain spoilers!

Brans Journey

The home of the tree-eyed raven.

Bran and his little band of followers have been travelling beyond the Wall for the whole of season four and apart from a brief stop at Craster’s Keep he hasn’t really done that much.  Plus we haven’t even seen him for more than two episodes now.  Seeing Bran in the finale is a foregone conclusion.  But what’s he going to be doing?

I believe that we’ll see Bran reach his destination and find the large weirwood tree where the three-eyed-raven can be found.  Hopefully we will get to see the Children of the Forest and Lord Brynden (the three-eyed-raven) that will set up the next stage of Brans journey for season five.

Aryas Destiny

Aryas destiny awaits in Bravos.

Having just found out that Lysa Arryn is dead Arya and the Hound have been left with their main goal stolen away from them.  They’ve spent months travelling across Westeros, becoming begrudging allies, only to find out that the thing that has kept them together no longer exists.  So what will they do next?

I doubt that the Hound will just abandon Arya now that he cannot ransom her, instead I think that she’ll convince him to let her stay with him.  However, as readers of the books will know the Hounds injury he sustained in episode seven is a little more serious that anyone might think. 

I think that before this episode ends Arya will make the decision to travel to Bravos and train to become a Faceless Man.  Whether this is a conclusion she comes to and decides to leave the Hound or if the Hound will be dead before the credits roll I’m not sure.  But I do believe that we will see Arya finding her new purpose and setting out to leave Westeros and her old like behind.

Daenerys and her Children

Daenerys' dragons grow wilder every day.

The title of the episode ‘The Children’ seem to me to be a hint at the dragons.  We’ve had hints over the last nine episodes of Daenerys’ dragons becoming more and more wild and unruly.  I think that this will be the episode where one of the dragons is responsible for the death of a human. 

With Daenerys having just banished her best friend Jorah Mormont from her new kingdom she’s in a dark place already.  Now would be the perfect time to have her face the harsh reality that perhaps her ‘children’ are not what she would like them to be but wild monsters.

I would also not be surprised if we see the creation of the Sons of the Harpy and their terrorist war on Daenerys in the streets of Meereen.  Something else that connects to the episode title.

The Battle for the North

The Baratheon army comes to the Night Watch's aid.

The last episode gave us a spectacular battle at the Wall that put season two’s Battle for Blackwater Bay to shame.  Ending with a scene that I’m sure had many people shouting at the screen Jon Snow leaves the safety of the Wall, unarmed, and heads out to confront Mance Rayder and stop the attack on the wall.

How’s he going to do it?  Will he succeed or die in the attempt?  Well as you’re reading this I’m sure that you’ve either read the books or don’t care about spoilers so I’m going to say what happens. 

I think that without a doubt we will see Stannis Baratheon arrive at the wall with his new army and defeat the Wildlings.  We’ve seen small hints of this in the series trailers before the first episode even aired with Baratheon knights on horseback in the snow.

Tyrions Fate

Tyrion finds Shae in his fathers bed.

Episode eight saw Tyrion Lannister at his absolute worst.  With Prince Oberyn killed by the Mountain during Tyrions trial by combat his fate has been sealed.  He has been deemed guilty by both gods and men and faces execution for the murder of King Joffrey.  So what’s going to happen to him in the finale?

I believe that this episode will see Tyrion escaping from Kings Landing and the clutches of his father with the help of Jamie and Varys.  What I am hoping we see is Tyrions confrontation with  Shea and Tywin.  After the emotion fuelled trial where Shea turned on Tyrion and we got one of the best pieces of acting from Peter Dinklage we’ve had yet.

However, there is a potential for this episode to outshine the trial, especially if we get to see Tyrion confront and kill Shea and his father.

Lady Stoneheart

Fake or real, when Lady Stoneheart makes her entrance I'll be excited.

The biggest and most exciting thing about the season finale is the introduction of Lady Stoneheart.  I’ve been waiting for her to make an appearance since the end of season three and it looks like it might actually come to pass in the end of this episode.  I’m guessing that if she is in the episode it will be as the final scene to leave the audience going ‘WHAT THE HELL?!’ as the credits roll.

The main thing that makes me think she will be in the episode are some apparently leaked images of her from the episode.  Now, I know that the chances of these being real aren’t 100%, they could easily be photo shopped, but she has to make an appearance some time so why not now?

So there you go, my predictions for what we’re going to be seeing in the season four finale of Game of Thrones.  I hope I turn out to be right.

Amy.

xx

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