Saturday, 26th March, 2005

Transvestite Cybermen!

OK, so I know they weren't actually Cybermen, rather scarey living plastic mannequins in wedding dresses, but c'mon! That was fucking great!

It was like a souped-up version of every lonely 1980's boy's favourite film starring Andrew McCarthy

Dear BBC 1,

I love you. I love Christopher Eccleston too. Please tell him I would like to have his babies. I know that some people are going to be grumpy and mean — but let's face it, they just spend their whole lives on the Internet and they're all sad.

Please also tell Billie Piper that her skirt didn't go with her top.

Yours,

Siobhan

PS. Can I have some pills to take away the image of Chris Evans please?

Speaking of Pills...

Rachel, just going back to something you mentioned in yesterday's rantage: quite a few people have suggested to me that I should maybe try without the pills — but I want to give them a chance. This isn't the first time that things have gone like this, and every time before I've either slogged through it with therapy, or thrown myself into dressing more than usual. Admittedly, each time they've helped — but I want to try something different.

Besides, I have no problem at all with being Graham — I like being a man. It's (let's face it) bloody great sometimes.

I was thinking about this earlier on today, whilst walking into town...

I have a little thing inside of me that I get my sense of worth from. It's very small, but it's pretty powerful. Usually, when I'm feeling down I just clutch onto it, and everything is OK.

At the moment, I'm not sure where I put it. I know it's somewhere around here, and I'm sure I'll find it soon enough — but in the meantime, I find it difficult to feel good.

Please note: That was a metaphor.

So yeah...

Wanna know what I did today?

Not a great deal actually — Kath and I stressed over the crossword this morning (Araucaria is being a git and has a very complicated system to this holiday's crossword), then, after she left for Leeds I pottered round a little.

I even managed to go into town I was going to go to Accessorize and buy hair grip things, but I chickened out and ended up in Sainsburys.

Having said that, I did buy hair grips there — so all afternoon I've been playing with try out different hair styles. I would have taken pictures, but, well, I'm crap.

For what it's worth, I worked out the cunning crossword thing, and I've only got four clues to get (Oh, that Collins ), and I'm a little drunk.

I've got to come back to yesterday's rantage — but not tonight. I'm slightly fired up by things at the moment — but not tonight.

Tonight, I've been going through a friend's CD collection and ripping all the mp3s that I used to have before someone nicked a bunch of CDs from my car years ago.

Which means that I'm going to be sat here all night, getting steadily more and more drunk, listening to crap trance music and waving my arms in the air.

If youre passing the back of my house, and you see strange shadows flitting across the blinds, then do, please, feel sorry for me

Goldenlad, cool — fresh blood

NRT, honey, you think I didn't have you in mind when I wrote "I know that some people are going to be grumpy and mean — but let's face it, they just spend their whole lives on the Internet and they're all sad."

Lauren,

am I a lesbian T ?

You want me to go there? You seriously want me to go there?

Trust me, you don't

Oh Fuck it, I'm going there...

OK

"I'm a Lesbian"

Let's just spend a few minutes pondering why that is the worst thing that a transvestite can ever possibly say shall we?

It's not like I haven't heard it before — I've even heard Eddie Izzard use it, and if I ever get the chance to talk to him again (when I'm not pissed as a fucking newt) then I'm going to pull him to pieces on it.

It's just so wrong. On every possible level that there can possibly be

I can see the intent behind it — trust me, I can — the intent is "I like girls. I am pretending to be a girl. Therefore I must be a lesbian"

But no

Reason Why This is Wrong #1

We are not women. We will never be women. For as long as we pretend to be women, we're pissing off, oooh, about half of the planet. The minute we start to just admit that we're blokes in dresses, then maybe the rest of the world will take us a bit more seriously.

We Are Therefore Not "Lesbian"

Lesbians have a hard time. Seriously they do. It's not all top-shelf Tiffany and Michelle in Panty Fun you know.

Lesbians get beat up, lesbians get abuse. Lesbians get a seriously raw end of the stick. And, quite reasonably, lesbians get fed up with transvestites who latch onto them and try to claim solidarity.

Because, at the end of the day, we're blokes, who perpetuate the stereotype of lesbians being top-shelf material. We degrade lesbians every time we claim that we share something in common with them.

C'mon — think about it for a second — this is where transvestites piss off the whole of the Gay community — we declare ourselves to be "not gay" yet, we're quite happy to suggest that we're lesbians.

That's fucked up

It shows a lack of thought — a lack of awareness about the issues that exist withing the LGB community — and if we want to get tacked onto the end of that community, then we have to start appreciating the issues that we're accepting.

Lauren, sorry — I'm not trying to pick on you. I just don't want people to get the wrong idea.

We owe a lot to the Gay Community — and the last thing I think we need to do is blunder head-first into some situation where we stand to infuriate the people who have been so acommodating to us over the years.

We're not women. So we can't be "lesbian". "lesbian-trans" is a shorthand for something else. It's a lazy way of saying "I'm a straight man who wears women's clothes". And I hate it. It's exactly the sort of thing that came up in the argument that I had fifteen years ago when I first started questioning what it meant to be what I am.

I think we walk a thin tightrope sometimes between the people that we intrisically are, and pissing off everyone in the world that might be able to help us.

We. Are. Not. Lesbians.

We. Are. Blokes. In. Frocks.

And the sooner we start appreciating the issues and difficulties of those around us (I'm thinking Lesbian, Gay and Feminist issues here), the sooner that the people that are able to support us, will stop treating us like the shit that we, quite frankly, deserve. And start helping

Exactly

"Meh" ... now that was worthy of Mr Barley himself.

There's no irony in Michael Winner dressed as a woman. True, I'll go with you on the "so bad that they're good" aspect to most of that series of adverts, but not that one. That advert is the point at which they just don't get it. For something like that to be funny, there has to be some sense of self-awareness about it. And I don't think there is. I can't see the irony.

Geena, ah Yes, well, I , er... I'd better let my other half explain that when she get's back from Leeds

Honey, I thought you were at your mothers?

pee-ing off the very people we should be thanking

You read My Husband Betty too then I see Karol?