So, This Transitioning Malarkey...

So I tried in Jersey to get some kind of medical help for literally years. I spoke to my doctor many times about wanting to transition. Once I was referred to a psychologist who admitted she had never even met another trans person and then proceeded to tell me that in her opinion I was only feeling  like this because I was unemployed at the time and I should just get a job... Thanx... The last time I saw my doctor I went presenting as female and asked them to refer to me as Sarah and to help me to find someone who would know what they were talking about. A week later I received a letter from my doctor;

Dear (Male name)

Unfortunately after contacting both the psychology and psychiatric department on the island there are no service (sic) available on the island with regards to gender change. The only was (sic) forward therefore would be a private referral to a unit in the UK.

Yours, Doctor.


I was blummin fuming!!! I gave this doctor bloke forty odd quid for a badly spelt letter telling me they were not going to help me at all! Grrrrr.

This was the final straw for me and Jersey. I had to get out. Not for the first time I had been slapped down by the medical profession in my island. I already wanted to move away to transition as I felt that the anonymity of a larger city or town would help me be more expressive and open than I could back home but this, this just made me even more determined to succeed with my plans to move.

I should add that the day after the boat dropped me off in England I received a call from my doctor and he said he had managed to sort a psychiatric appointment for me but not to hold out any hope of getting any more help than that. Too little, too late for me. I had made the leap and wasn't turning back.

The day I moved to Wales was the first day of the rest of my life. I have dressed as female everyday since. Within a couple of weeks I had an appointment at my local GP's office and met a new doctor. I went in for the appointment armed with the International Standards of Care for Transgendered people ready to assert my need to transition and fight for whatever rights I thought I had. She was actually really nice, she said that she'd never treated a trans person before but was willing to do some research and learn more about what it involved. I made another appointment to come back the next week.  

When I went back I couldn't believe how helpful my new GP was. She'd done a load of research and had come back with a more definite course of action. First a psychology meeting to make sure I'm not completely crazy then I've gotta see a kind of gatekeeper person to get the NHS Wales funding for a referral to the gender clinic in Charring Cross in London.

So I had my first psych appointment last Tuesday. That went really well too!! We talked about lots of things, memories of first being trans, family, friends, my past, my future... The upshot of all this is that I'm not mad!!! Yay!!! The Psychs assessment is that from her clinical point of view she won't need to see me again and she will write a letter to the next person up on the list to refer me. :)

So now I wait. one thought that has been playing on my mind a little bit is that this whole thing is going so well, I'm almost waiting for something bad to happen. Things have progressed so well and so quickly for me the last couple of months that I'm just waiting for things to slow up and for a setback to happen. I know it's the wrong thing to be thinking about but it's been in the back of my mind for ages now. I think I should just relax and enjoy the good times now and deal with whatever problems come, when they come.

The UK is Fucking Big.

Where I come from, my entire universe, everything that mattered was contained in one nine miles long by five miles wide island. It takes fifteen minutes to get everywhere. Everybody knows everyone. Jersey is so small that it doesn’t even show on a world map. Now I move to the Mainland and I’m struggling to get to grips with the enormity of the place. In forty eight hours I drove almost nine hundred miles last week. Nine. Hundred. Miles. That’s like, St. Ouens to Gorey a hundred times!!!

Home.

Maybe it’s not just the size of England and Wales, overt advertising is still rare in Jersey, for me it’s a strange sight to see a taxi with a corporate logo or bright pictures stuck to its doors. There are no roadside signs trying to tell you which car you should buy and the busses are just plain blue. I go out to any large town in Wales or England and my senses are assaulted by giant illuminated signs, billboards, stickers on bins, flyers… Almost everywhere I turn everyone’s trying to shove an advert down my neck. 

Everyone seems to know what they’re doing, where they’re going and they’re getting places as fast as they possibly can… Jersey seems so tranquil compared to the mad world I have moved to. 

   I took this one just before I left Jersey.

Having said that, I think I’m getting used to this place, I managed to go all the way to London and through the half closed down Underground the other week all on my own! I still feel very much like a small town girl in a very, very big world sometimes though.

I have been unbelievably busy for the last few weeks. In the two months I’ve been here I have been to London twice, Crawley, Brighton, Okehampton three times, Bristol thrice, Cardiff many times, Manchester, Wakefield twice and a few more that I’ve forgotten. Everywhere I’ve been there has been parties, clubs, hugs, cups of tea and a few tears. Every journey I take is one of epic proportions for me, both geographically and emotionally. 

My First Blog. By Lady Muck (Age29 1/4)

So.... First ever attempt at a blog or even some kind of diary thingy... We'll see if this thing lasts... I guess I want to record some of the random things I seem to get up to because life is going past so fast recently...

First Things First.


I've lived in Jersey, UK for all my life, apart from a few summers in Ibiza and France but always knew deep down I had the wrong body for my internal gender. It caused me to fuck up a lot. I hurt people i loved and hurt myself. So I decided enough was enough. I was going to tackle this gender problem head on. If I was ever to get on in my life and actually be happy then I have to sort this out. Now.

So I packed all my belongings in the world into my cavernous volvo and set off on the boat to Weymouth, UK with about £5 in my pocket and a bucket load of hope. It doesn't sound like it never seemed like a big step to me, more like the next, natural step in my life. I'd just have to figure out things out along the way.

I had met a guy, M, who said I could stay with him in his spare room, and pay rent as and when I could afford it, which was lucky because without that offer I would be living in my car... Not good for a glamorous girl like myself...  So here I am in Swansea, new to living as female, having thrown all my male clothes away, I know nobody here apart from M, I have no job and very little money but even this is better than living my life as a lie.

The great thing about staying with M though, is that every weekend he goes out to different clubs, nights and events all over the country so I get to meet loads of cool people and do lots of cool things.


Sparkle, Manchester, UK


The first weekend after arriving in Wales we went to http://www.sparkle.org.uk/ which is an annual transgender pride sort of event. It's held in and around Manchester's Canal Street and gay village area and theres nights out, workshops and a big party in the park on the Saturday.

 

 
First night there we went to a cool club called V Bar or something, just on Canal street and met with Aerie, Sophie and a few friends from Devon too. It's kinda hard to describe the feelings I had as the night wore on, within a week I'd gone from living on an island 9 miles by 5 where there was only one gay bar and I was the only TGirl who wasn't scared of going out clubbing to a metropolis in England surrounded by literally thousands of other TGirls, partners admirers and any other poor bugger that happened to be in Canal street that weekend. I think I was out smoking a cigarette when it dawned on me how amazing my life suddenly seemed, I was surrounded by all these people and none of them batted an eyelid at me, there I was in my slinky polkadot dress and stupidly high heels and nobody gave me a second look...

Now I'm not sure if I should have been annoyed that i wasn't getting appreciative glances left right and centre and I don't know if it was the vodka lemonade I was drinking but I felt something strange, a liberating, freeing feeling, within a couple of hours of going out I was chatting to random strangers and walking up to random people and introducing myself.  I'd never been like that before, always been the quiet one. It really felt like am epiphany moment, I could for the first time start living my life how I wanted it and not have to hide myself ever.

The next night was even better, during the day I went to a workshop on surgery and saw the fête type thing in the park on Canal Street  I met up with the lovely Wendy and a couple of her friends and had some food and headed back to the hotel and got ready for the night out.

This night I went for it, there was nothing holding me back I went off on my own and found a rock club! Now I love rock and metal, the amusingly named Satans Hollow had a big dance floor in the middle and a massive grinning devil above the DJ booth and to my surprise there was about 30 TGirls and friends mingling with the straight crowd. I was in heaven! My only slight niggle about the whole club scene was the crappy music everywhere seemed to play and here was a place that played the music I love.

I maybe got a bit too drunk but I had the most amazing night, I danced!! I've not danced in a club in years and had never danced while all dressed up in heels before, I probably looked a right state but I didn't care, I had never felt so free before.