Hello 
I'm Siobhan Curran/Kisa Naumova, and this is my weblog. I tend to write about stuff like crossdressing, Macs, code, cats, wine and Second Life, but in general it's just an ongoing conversation about all sorts of stuff. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what this all is, I recommend starting on this page which has a little bit of info on who I am, and what I'm trying to do — or you could dive into my five years worth of archives if you like.
Otherwise, feel free to close this box and explore...
It's all a Bit Exciting Really
I didn't get to sleep for ages last night. To allay any fears that a certain person might have, this has nothing to do with excited late-night visitors and stories of glow-worms and bats (it's an in-joke). Nor is it anything to do with watching Steven Segalle kick butt on a train (although I did have a dream involving guns)
Nope, nothing to do with either of those. Rather it's to do with a few things running around in my head at the moment, one of the most prominent being my increasing ecitement about Sparkle
I haven't a clue what I'm gong to wear yet 
I know I'll have a couple of outfits for the fashion show, but neither of them (well, perhaps one) is particularly suitable for going out on the lash afterwards.
Nor do I have much of an idea what I'm going to be doing on the day. I think I'll be spending most of my time mulling around and talking to people, waiting for the chance to embarass myself in the obligatory drunken-toush-dancing-off session later on.
But yeah, I'm very excited 
In preparation then, I'm going to attempt to do something with my eyebrows this morning. What that "something" is, we'll have to wait and see. But I might even extend the experimentation to trying to get a fab bronzey-green eye-makeup thing going on too.
After I've been out to the shop that is
I do have some slight reservations about Sparkle though. The elegaritan intent behind the event (from my point of view anyway) is to provide a space where we can break out of traditional victim-based roles, where we don't have to feel the butt of jokes, where we can celebrate ourselves rather than apologise...
But I don't feel that this helps at all:
Miss English Rose competition
Promoting real femininity
(NOT about dress nor looks, but a traditional test of feminine deportment and poise!)
I'll leave you this morning with a quote I found from Germaine Greer.
Older women can afford to agree that femininity is a charade, a matter of colored hair, ecru lace and whalebones, the kind of slap and tat that transvestites are in love with, and no more.
Discuss.
The idea of feminity is also very class based
This has a lot to do with my recent rantage over language, and its use in public vs private spaces.
Within the confines of a TV-only environment, the word femininity (which is hard to type, as you're never quite sure if you've put enough 'in's in it ) carries a completely different meaning than it does in the outside world. Descriptors like "shorthand" tend to crop up a lot — and I think, that within such spaces, and laced with just the right dose of knowing irony, then that's probably OK.
It's when it seeps outside of that context — like in the description of the "English Rose" competition, that I believe it steps into the arena of naive offensiveness.
Femininity, as a concept (back me up here Kathie) is a vast area of research, debate and discussion within feminist circles, and the minute we use it in the open we, well, stand on everyone's toes.
I'm trying to think of an analogy here, and the best one I can come up with is when your Dad waltzes into a conversation you (as a teenager) are having with some friends, and comes out with things like "Hey kids, those Spice Girls are cool aren't they?"
Know what I mean?
(More suitable analogies are being requested)
...
Years ago, I got into a heated debate with a woman about how she felt that transvestites were offensive to women. And thinking the whole idea of that competition through in my head, I can see what she meant.
It's basically, a bunch of men, deciding which man can pretend to be a woman, based on a series of ideas that, as you quite rightly point out Jane, only dubiously have a place in the 1950's, let alone the 21st Century. Words like "deportment" and "poise" — is that how far we've come?!
I worry sometimes. I really do.
Begin the Invasion of Lancashire County Council!
Remember a week or so ago, I went completely out of character and adopted a Felicity Kendal kinda attitude to home composting? It was born out of Lancashire County Council's offer of a free composting bin for ever household that wanted one.
Excited by the thought of something for free, I signed up there and then...
...it arrived about five minutes ago:
But there was something wrong — something gnawing at the back of my head — something telling me that leaving this thing in my living room wasn't such a good idea — something that it reminded me of...
Argh! It's started! Already!
I'm about to start checking the foreheads of this lot for zips...
But beware the Emperor Compost Bin, the God of all Compost Bins. Worship Him! WOR-SHIP-HIM!
Ahem. It'll be good for my sanity when this series is over- I can get back to the simplicity of gender rebellion...
Mel xx
the God of all Compost Bins
"They survived through me — but they're, um, a bit smelly"
you only need to worry if you have a plunger in the house and it came free from the council too!!
Becky
re: Miss English Rose et al
All very good but it's just blokes projecting their ideas of femininity. It's a fucking bad joke.
What is a bit worrying about Sparkle is the lack of 'serious' stuff IMHO. You know the whole anti-discrimination, anti-violence agenda. Not saying we should come over all Millie Tant but its not all Bacardi Breezers and twin sets.
We're lucky, but people die around the world becasue of what we are.
I take your wider point about anti-violence, anti-discrimination and agree with you. I am also not averse to a bit of Millie Tant-cy (?).
But I feel that one of the problems with sexism is that lots of it is "just blokes projecting their ideas of femininity" and so if I, as a feminist, take issue with one of them for an event like this or the showing of porn in a bar or lots of other little things I am overreacting or spoiling something that is a bit of 'harmless fun'. The issue is that all these things work together to maintain and reiterate an idea of femininity and therefore (in most minds) women that continues to forefront looks and image as important. This then — I would argue — feeds some of the bigger problems like rape victims being asked what they were wearing in court where victims of other crime (mugging for example) are not asked these types of questions. Like women in power suits being thought of as ball breakers where a similar dress and attitude would be praised in a man.
It is for these reasons that I am 'politically correct' in my use of language and cannot understand why this is considered to be an insult. I do not want to be sexist or racist, I do not want to cause offence. Politically correct is not politically stupid — I still talk about 'manhole covers' and 'black coffee' I do not believe that these terms have any connotations other than those things that they describe. However, I object to myself and a group of friends being addressed in a bar by a stranger as 'you girlies' — I am 30. This is a fine line and is highly context based, for example — in Yorkshire I would not have a problem with being considered one of the 'lasses', as 'lads' is equally used to refer to grown men. In my mind political correctness is about being aware of the power of language and its use and then at least your language use is deliberate rather than a random constitution of the status quo.
I seem to have gone off on one — oops.
Katie
Do you know where I think the problem starts? Miss Sparkle.
First, they set up a divide that says, "We're going to pick the prettiest person*, and that person will be awarded the position of Most Important, and their title will be 'Miss'" There, we've set up a frame for what's counted as valuable, the title it recieves and the classification of that title.
Then, because it's a competition, you divide the community into one winner and N losers. That's not so bad in itself, except that the nature of competitions is to say, "My aim is to bring this game an end, as quickly as possible, with the result that I am the Most Important Person." Because competitions are end-games they care nothing about the present, only about taking a particular future and turning it into history. In contrast, real dialogue is about interaction for the value of interacting. It's an in-the-present activity involving the reactions of at least two people, serving no end except relationship. Competitions, being final, are inherently anti-dialogue.
Now let's skim over the fact that 'Miss Sparkle' will never be expected to interact with the real world, and look at the people who think they have no chance of winning this particular competition. What's their next best option, given that everyone wants to be as valued as much as the winner of competition A? The logical step is to twist the rules of competition A just enough so they they're competing on a similar playing field, but one that gives them a chance. So from the bollocks of, "Who's the prettiest?" we go to the bollocks of, "And who's got the best deportment?" Both ways it's complete rubbish, with the added destruction that it manages to divide a group of people into winner A, winner B and a bunch of losers, and not once will anyone be expected to touch the sides and engage with real women, the populous of Manchester or even their fellow competitors.
No competition will ever help because the rewards are finite, the means divisive. Once things are twisted in that way, the results can only lead to more stupid divisions. I have every sympathy for the organisers of 'Miss English Rose'. Once they've been tricked into thinking it's about winning and losing, they've probably come up with their best option...
* And don't tell me 'personality' counts any more that it counts in Miss World.
Kat, Kathie, I've continued this over on the 17th: http://www.tranniefesto.co.uk/2005/06/17/#t_and_sympathy
Kris, a damm fine set of points there I'm not sure which came first — Miss Sparkle or English Rose, and I can't quite imagine that English Rose was set up to provide an alternative to Miss Sparkle, but either way it echoes an objection I had quite a while ago. In my head, I had envisioned Sparkle to be an opportunity to carve out a new identity/role for transvestites, and what were we doing? Having a bloody beauty pageant 
I think ... well, I think a couple of things actually...
Firstly, I think a beauty pageant could work, as long as it's done with enough of my favourite word at the moment: irony. I'm not quite sure exactly how you would achieve this, but it could, I'm sure, be possible to turn the idea of a beauty pageant on it's head — to subvert the traditional "I wish for world peace" type of thing with a particular trannie-slant to it, and perhaps contribute to the ongoing debate surrounding issues like these.
My God, we could actually do something positive for feminism for a change 
Secondly, I spoke to Kim about the very same thing. I was worried that Sparkle was turning into Just Another TrannieFest™, and it was things like the English Rose competition that got me worried.
But, as Kim pointed out, this is only the first year. And, let's face it, my initial "Let's have a National Trannie Day" enthusiam wasn't exactly backed-up by a list of things we could do.
Sparkle is a long game — it's going to take quite a while for there to be a shift in ideology regarding its purpose.
The thing is though, I'm very aware that I'm ranting from a distance here. For a start, if I wanted to voice my dissent with the idea of the English Rose competition, then all I have to do is email Bella Jay. And I haven't even done that.
I accept that it's going to be a while before we see any real change for the better in regards to events such as these. But I think that what's important is that debates are had — both online and in person. Which is why I'm starting this debate.
I often worry that I spend far too much time ranting against things, rather than doing anything positive about them. But I think that this is positive. I think debates need to happen, and (quite frankly) bloody quickly.
I wish I was militant enough to voice my concerns in public, rather than just hiding them all here or in my head.
Well I would be knocked out in the first round even if I could enter! I think the pint drinking and going over on ankles would do it for me.
As an observer I have to say it seems to a lot of trannies have a very old version of feminity it seems to be stuck in the 50s and then it almost certainly never existed then.
I agree with Germaine the whole idea of feminity is a charade it should be harmless but unfortunately it hasn't been from when women were served smaller portions in resturants for the same price as men because as "ladies they have smaller appitites (sp)" to the rapists defence of "I could tell she was wanted it because of the clothing she wore."
The idea of feminity is also very class based how many of the contestants will be modelling themselves on Chavettes?