At the beginning of last year I had to visit the doctor because there was something seriously wrong. I had become pregnant and there was no way that I could bear the child to term.   I hold the view that a fetus becomes a child when the woman in question decides that it’s a child and, well to me, it’s always been a child as soon as that little stick changes colour.   So, I couldn’t have this child.   My relationship was having issues and to put it frankly I just didn’t think that I could handle a second child.  If I had had that child it would have meant that my existing child would suffer as a result.

I was lucky.  I had a miscarraige.  It meant that I didn’t have to skip through all of the ridiculous hoops that countless women before me had to.

I couldn’t have that child because it was just the wrong time in my life.  Not only would I have suffered but so would my child and my partner.  I couldn’t do that to them.  Yet that would not have been reason enough to get an abortion under our current laws.  I would have had to exagerate the truth somewhat and say that ‘my mental health would drastically suffer’.  The fact that my life would become CRAP just wouldn’t be reason enough.

Why don’t we trust women enough to decide what’s best for them?

We just need to trust them.  They know what’s best for themselves.  We need to support them in whatever decision they make and we need to make sure it is safe, affordable, accesible, without question and on demand.

BUT, hang on…. I hear some of you asking…. Isn’t this supposed to be, well like, a blog on your transitioning and stuff?  What does abortion stuff have to do with that?

EVERYTHING!!  Trans Rights and Abortion Rightsare the same thing.  They are about trusting people to know what is best for themselves in their own very unique and personal situation.  Nobody has the right to say what you can and can’t do to your body except for YOU!

Abortion is a crime in my country and that’s just wrong.

All I want is the right to decide what happens to my body wether that’s aborting an embryo or getting chest reconstruction.

It’s my body, get your stupid laws off it!

Go have a look at ALRANZ, read up on the ridiculous situation at the moment and write a letter to your MP.  Hell, get all uppity and join one of the pro-choice groups near wherever you are and go on a protest or rally, attend a hui or better still let some of your friends know whats going on.

You should also pop over to The Hand Mirror and read the other blogs in the swarm that are phrased a lot more eloquently than mine.

(I know I haven’t been posting much, I’m trying to pass papers at Uni)

On the other hand we were actually invited.  Me and a friend were even palbearers.  I’ve heard of plenty of funerals where the parents are conservative and the children are liberal where the friends don’t get invited at all.

So, it could have been worse

ON TO SHIRT SHOPPING!!!

So I panicked a bit about what I should wear.  Most of my nice stuff are, well, dresses.  So I needed to go shopping.  I’d set my heart on wearing a long sleeved black shirt with a black tie.  So shopping I went.

I’m 5ft 1.5in (I don’t know how to write it properly we use metre’s and centimetres over here but somehow that’s how I know my height)

So, they don’t make shirts for guys with my length arms.  XS got close to the right arm length but were a bit to snug for my little tum and 4hrs of labour hips.  Which is fine.  When I have the spare cash I’ll buy myself some really nice ones and get them altered.  All good.  Didn’t solve my current problem though.

When I went into Hallensteins in the central city I got really nice service.  The guy was really polite and nice and when he realised they didn’t have an XS on the rack he went upstairs to look for one.  He was really apologetic that they didn’t have any in.

So I try the Hallenstiens in my local suburban mall.  They even have a kids section so I thought that maybe I stood a chance.  The woman who served me took a look through the kids shirts and was like ‘No, no black sorry’.  So I asked if there was a chance there was an XS in the adult section.  She went over, looked and said ‘No’.  She was being rather curt at this point.  Then she suggested that I tried a couple of womens stores.  Now, I haven’t been binding every day recently because the heat has just been killing me.  I was binding that day though because I wanted to make sure that the shirt looked right.  The way that I was dressed was an obvious indication that while I may have a vagina (the child was with me too) I obviously don’t shop in the kind of stores that middle-aged suburban women shopped in.

The message was clear.  I’m not comfortable with you.  Please go to another store.

So I did.  I walked a couple of metres over to Barkers.  While the guy there seemed a bit suprised to be dealing with me he was nice, kind and polite.  When it was clear that, no, long sleeved shirts would not fit me he suggested I try on a short sleeved one.  He was even apologetic about it to because he knew I wanted a long sleeved one.

So I bought the shirt.  With my skinny black jeans I looked totally kick-ass hot.  I didn’t wear a tie because the internet informs me that ties with short-sleeved shirts are bad.  I even just got a txt telling me that I totally pulled off the whole short-sleeved thing.  I think my friend would have liked that.

So guess where I’m going to go to buy my shirts now?

(although I have to point out I’ve always been served well at the Hallensteins in town.  Perhaps the staff are just a bit more cosmopolitan than the suburban ones…)

So, the Dr Who knitting pattern hunt begins!

The Scarfs

A fancy looking scarf site.

Very basic looking scarf site but with nice picture of finished product.

A scarf site with the pattern written out differently than I’m used to but with a crochet adaption for those of you who are into that sort of thing :-/

Avery hardcore scarf site. Which also has patterns for Tardis socks.

Creatures

The most deadly adorable Daleks ever!

Sewing pattern for an adipose.  The instructions are out there in the interwebs but you pretty much need white polar fleece, stuffing and could do some basic embroidering if you don’t have transfer stuff.

Other Stuff

Awesome page with old school logo patterns.  You’ll make all the other hipsters jealous.

Roses wrist warmers from that very tragic beach scene.

An awesome Rose hat.  Because Rose is so very awesome.

A sonic screwdriver.  ‘Nuff said.

So instead, I’ll be doing a summary of a Friday divided into fairly equal parts of good and bad stuff.  This is mainly because a lot of really shit stuff happens and sometimes I think we need to remind ourselves that good shit happens also.  I really want to look out for my friends who haven’t been having a good week either, they can just click on links to the positive stuff and ignore the rest.

Good Things

• Boo’s mother is pleasantly surprised by a care package.
• Tboy Jacky shares their encounter with the award nominated Buck Angel. (which is good news because it has inspired me to move from print to DVD format with regards to private entertainment)
• Amanda Fucking Palmer got married!  YEAH!!!!
• black and pink put out their first newsletter of the new year.  These people are amazing and wonderful heroes for the work they do.
• Victoria Kolakowski was sworn in as the first elected trans trial court judge in the US. (thanks to TransGriot for the story)

Bad Things

• So I was going to link to some bad(stupid) things that happened locally.  Then I realised that that would raise the possibility of linking the idiots concerned back here to my blog.  So I decided not to add that.  Which is, in and of itself a bad thing.  Poos.

His mum comes over and visits a couple of times throughout the year when she’s over this way on business so she was already used to my new look.

The major difference I noticed this year was what the guys called me.  His dad and his brother used mate/man/buddy and various other masculine phrases.  Not once did a feminine turn of phrase escape their lips.  It was kind of awesome.

The thing is, I haven’t told them.  His brother has enough mutual friends with us that I have told about being genderqueer that he might have heard from them but they haven’t been told officially.  They just took one look at me and started treating me the way they expect someone who looks like me should be treated.  Which was pretty awesome.

I’m pretty sure they think that somethings up but they are way too respectful to pry.  It’s why I like them so much.  They’ve noticed I’m a bit different and have adapted accordingly but will let me come out to them when I feel ready to.

So I enjoyed this Christmas.

On the other hand it was so ridiculously hot that I haven’t been wearing my binders as I would be absolutely sweltering.  I want summer to be over.

Today it’s so hot that the breastages are producing the oily pre-milk stuff even though it’s been nearly three years since I weaned the child.  Bodies are gross.

*Not technically in-laws but it’s the easiest description of their relationship with me.

S.E. Smith over at This Ain't Livin' wrote something that hits very close to home for me (and I'm betting for a lot of people in my social circle): One very widespread perception about nonbinary people is that we don’t need to transition. Nothing could be further from the truth. While every nonbinary person is different and not all of us need or want to transition, some of us do, and we cannot access support for transitioning without lying and pr … Read More

via Tboy Jacky

I also need to get a blogroll sorted.  I follow some awesome people that should be shared with you.

I also decided to do the FutureMe letter thing.  Which is reminiscent of something that the teachers made us do on camp when we were 15…..

Anyhoo, hope that you aren’t suffering that much from your New Years celebrations and I hope that you’re as excited about the New Year as I am.

[The following takes place between 12:00am and 1:00am, and also specifically focuses on individuals' choices to be vegetarian and attend Christmas family gatherings.  Obviously the principles in question are not unique to vegetarianism or Christmas; and in other situations other considerations/context may apply.] I was at a loss for a post this evening, and went in search of any NZ media touting Christmas ZOMG OBESITYTURKEY panic.  I’ve always th … Read More

via Ideologically Impure

My friend M. was my next door neighbour.  I have one photo of him playing tea party with me.  He looks pretty much how I remember him.  Overweight and blonde.  I’m in a many-ruffled pink monstrosity of a creation, but I’m pretty sure that I’m wearing it over something.  I’m in dress-up.  Drag Queen age 4.  For his fifth birthday he got a stamp with his name on it.  I took it (I was a rather dominating friend as a child.  My friends now would probably say that that hasn’t changed).  While I was at school I stamped his name on my hand.  It was red ink.  Such a masculine name too.  No gender ambiguity about it.  I stamped it a few more times on my hand then worked my way up my arm.  Then I stamped the next arm.  I got my face too.  I had tattooed myself with a boys name in red ink.  Only it was my name.  I had taken it.  It was mine now.  My teacher asked me where I had got the stamp from.  I said it was mine.  She kept on asking me till I finally said it was my brothers.  I didn’t get a brother for another four years.  We moved house.  No more M. to play tea party with, boss around and steal off.

I went to a Catholic primary school that had predominately Italian and Greek students which meant that playground was divided neatly in the middle with boys on one side and girls on the other.  Not an actually physical line, it was never enforced, but it was there.  I was obsessed with the boys.  The boys that I couldn’t play with.  So that meant that I was boy crazy.  If you have a vagina and you can’t stop thinking about the boys that’s what you are.

It took me a couple of years to make friends with girls.  They were really nice.  I’m still in contact with a few of them.  I used to try and gross out the other girls.  I’d put snails on my face so they could crawl around.  When I grazed my knee I’d sit down, bend my knee and lick the blood off gravel and all.  The girls would go ‘Eeewww!’ but the boys weren’t impressed, they just thought I was weird.

Towards the end of primary school there developed an intergender game of ‘kiss and catch’.  No actual kissing was involved because eww, germs!  So it involved chasing someone with the supposed opposite genitals down kissing your hand and then slapping them with it.  I loved it.  The boys were letting me play with them and we were playing rough.

I was sent to a girls only high-school so I didn’t learn any social skills with boys there.  Hell, I didn’t learn social skills with girls either.  But around that age I did learn something.  If you have a vagina the boys will want to hang around you.  They’ll actually think that you are pretty cool.

Introducing….. (drumroll please)… the girl in the little top and little cut-off jeans (so short that my ass was escaping slightly) who would do whatever you want!!  I thought I was so awesome.  Looking back I think I actually scared quite a few guys, I was so sexually aggressive.  If you have a vagina you’re not meant to be sexually aggressive.  It freaks them out.

I realised when I was fourteen that I liked girls sexually.  My sexual fantasies (based on T.V. shows) kept on morphing and I’d end up being the guy fucking the girl.  Again and again and again…  So that meant that I was a lesbian.  Right?  What else could it have meant?  There were no words in my adolescent mind for someone with a vagina who wants to fuck other people with their cock other than lesbian.  So that’s what I was.  I didn’t know how to tell anyone so I asked my mum to shave off my hair for me.  Because that’s what lesbians do right?  They have no hair?

I still did my thing with the boys.  Because, you know, I kind of like cock.  A girl who puts out and likes to fuck girls?  I was their wet dream.  You need to keep in mind that I mainly met these boys through Catholic Youth Group… They weren’t my friends though.

When I went to University I kind of made male friends.  I say kind of because there was always the sexual undercurrent.  I was awesome because I was so overtly sexual/laughed at dirty jokes/took my top off in public.  If I wasn’t fucking them I was flirting with them.

Now I’m in this weird situation where I have male friends who kind of respect me.  Some are actually a bit intimidated by me.  Which is kind of awesome.  When I told some of them that I was Genderqueer and was talking about clothes a couple of them actually offered to take me shopping.

It’s weird.  There’s this group of people that I desperately want to be a part of and I don’t know how to interact with them because nobody taught me how.

We went to a meeting last week where a scientist talked about his research of chromosomes, and how he has an interesting theory about trans people. Biological determinism kinda freaks me out in general, but at one stage he told Joe and I a story that he thought we might like… … Read More

via Rooster Tails