Price List...

Unless there's something I've forgotten or don't know about yet, here is the total bill for me to achieve full legal status as a female :


Application for gender recognition :  £30.00  (would have been more but I got a doctor's report free and got my stat dec signed for free by a kindly barrister)


Petition for divorce and decree nisi :   £340.00  (OUCH!)


Get Decree Absolut :   £45.00  (also full gender recognition cert issued at the same time)


Civil Partnership notification fee :   £67.00   (even though we are exempt from 
giving notice - we still have to pay the fee.  Go figure.)


Civil Partnership :  £40.00


Civil Partnership Certificate :  £3.50


TOTAL :   £525.50   !!!


All so I can get legal recognition as something I already am... a girlie !!


Mind you, some people spend that on a handbag.  Spending this money now means that I will be legally female for the rest of my life - and will even have been born a female on the 31st August 1974, seeing as my birth certificate will be changed.


So you might almost call it a bargain.


Er... almost.

Civil Partnership Stress!

Well, the notes the Gender Recognition Panel sent me about how to change from being married to being civil partners were rather unhelpful - they just said 'discuss the matter with your local registry office to ensure you can take advantage of the special provision...'


The special provision is that you can (THEORETICALLY) go along and get your marriage annulled, get the Gender Recognition Cert and become civil partners all in the same day.


I rang my local registry office today, from work, and was passed around several nice, friendly people who didn't know what the bloody hell I was on about.  They give me the number of the registrar general or something and I got passed round several more nice, friendly people who knew moderately more - but not much more.


I had to quote from the GRP website to prove there even IS such a thing as a streamlined process !


So, eventually I spoke to someone who was able to give me more details.


He seemed to think I have to get a petition for divorce from my local divorce court, fill that out and send it back.  Then after some more fannying about we will get a court date and go in to get our marriage annulled.  Then the court will issue my full certificate and we will go to the registry office - if we can book it on the same day - to get married again!!!


What a palaver.


And it's even worse because it's a bureaucratic nightmare in which the bureaucrats themselves don't know how it works!!


So, I have to ring the court now - and of course I couldn't get through today so dead end.


Oh well - I am sure we will get there, thanks to Becca's support and patience.  It's not nice having to ring up and ask to get divorced from someone you still love!


I am still pleased to have my interim certificate - this is a nice dilemma.... kind of.


x

The Mike Leigh Blog 9

Topsy Turvy (1999)


Periodically, stylistically, in every way the biggest departure from the Mike Leigh signature style.  Probably.  This film, about the writing and rehearsal of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado, appeals to me in much the same way as 'Fame' and 'A Chorus Line' in that it has that 'backstage' quality.  


I think if you've ever been involved in the theatre (I have) you will enjoy this kind of thing.


But it is also a gentle comedy with some beautiful performances and the music is fantastic - it's a real manifesto for G&S.  I had no appreciation of it before, and I can't say I've searched it out since, but Leigh handles it so well - just sitting the camera basically in the audience and letting the theatrical performance do its thing.  You will enjoy it, whatever your precious feelings about the two Victorian fuddy-duddies (who are portrayed as being no such thing).


It's a gorgeous little film - I love it.

All or Nothing (2002)


This film returns very much to Leigh's usual style - in fact it seems more like one of his 80s films in many ways.  It was proclaimed as being his best film on release - but then every new film he brings out is lauded in that way these days.


It isn't his best film but it is an excellent character piece with fabulous performances once again.  The standout performance for me was actually James Corden as the unbelievably grumpy and non-communicative teenage son who ultimately has a heart attack and brings about one of those Leigh crises - a moment which hurls the characters together and explodes their attributes. 


Like the birthday party way back in 'High Hopes', the argument about the country code in 'Nuts in May', Cyth's revelation in 'Secrets and Lies'.


It's a definite Leigh technique :  build characters, then drop a bomb in their lives and see what happens.


Returning to James Corden, this was the first thing I ever saw him in and for ages I thought of him as 'that bloke from All or Nothing'.  He really is a great actor - as are all the other more regular members of Leighs 'Rep' who appear here.

Vera Drake (2004)


Another film often said to be Leigh's best.  No doubt, the standard of his films from the 90s onwards has been constantly, brilliantly high - so why he is still not given the recognition he deserves is utterly beyond me.  Where is his Oscar?


Vera Drake was nominated but it wasn't to be.  It's another historical tale about a woman who is a kind, caring member of society who happens to provide the service of abortionist to the community.  She is eventually punished by the intolerant society in which she lives - even she would have saved countless lives no doubt by doing this deed with at least some experience.  Although the grimness of what she does is not passed over - and she is certainly not a medical professional.


It's not one of the films I am most familiar with - I would like to see it again, definitely.  


It features a well known example of Leigh's method - her family weren't aware that she was an abortionist when the film was being improvised and written.
It was while they were improvising a family get together that the 'police' burst in and arrested her.  Once again - throw a grenade into their lives and see what happens.


It's a powerful film, essential viewing.  Would you expect anything else by this stage ?

































































  

Gender Recognition...

So, yes - got my interim gender recognition certificate and might be going on about that for a bit - sorry.


But then I have been dreaming of this for several years now - it means I am over the hurdle of having to prove myself, at least in legal terms.  I have done it - lived two years as a female  (two and a half years now) and provided all the necessary documentation to show it.


It's a huge sense of achievement and validation after all these years of feeling like a woman and having no evidence - physical or legal - for it.


So, just to explain, I would have got my full certificate now if I wasn't married - the interim cert just allows you to dissolve your marriage.  It's a pain in the arse but the law is that two people of the same sex cannot be 'married' - so you have to dissolve the marriage first.


Two people of the same sex can be civil partners of course - which is exactly the same as being married - so the whole thing is stupid really.  It's just what you call it.


There is provision in the Gender Recognition Act (2004) for married people to go through this process on the same day - so hopefully me and Becca won't be unmarried for longer than a few hours.  I'm not quite sure how it will work in practice though - I've been too busy just trying to get to this point to find out!


They have sent me some notes but it's all pretty legal and complicated.  First thing will be to ring the registry office and see what they have to say - they should be able to give more advice.


I have met a trans-woman who got the interim cert but has never gone through with the full process because she and her wife don't agree with the discrimination inherent in civil partnerships.  I really admired her stand but I want to go 'the whole way' and thankfully Becca is supporting me.


It makes a huge difference - once I get the full certificate my birth certificate will be changed to say 'female'.  So it's like they originally wrote it down wrong and the whole thing is being corrected - which is how trans-people feel really.


Then I am female for all purposes and it would be illegal to discriminate against me - I will have all the legal rights and responsibilities of what the law calls my 'acquired gender'.  If I apply for a new job I will have no requirement to disclose my original gender and if my employer did that they would be breaking the law.


I will never again have to remotely sweat about using a changing room or a ladies toilet - not that I've ever had any trouble with those things but it'll be good to know.


My car insurance will go down - really!


And I would be able to marry a man - although I am sticking with Becca of course!


My P60 and passport and all that stuff will say 'female'... I will be done and dusted.  ON PAPER.


Then it's just a matter of getting the rest of me sorted out.


So, not there yet - much still to do.  This is only the end of the beginning and the start of the rest, if you get me.


Happy though.  Very happy. 

Update...

Today was my fourth appointment at Charing Cross GIC so I am becoming quite used to that journey from Victoria Station, then to Hammersmith Tube Station then up Fulham Palace Road.  Nowhere near Charing Cross, rather oddly.


Here it is - in this picture.  No, not Sainsburys Local - above that.  Doesn't look like the place dreams are made of does it?


I think I am doing everything they want - basically if you are waiting to get your Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) and surgery and everything else so that your life can start then you probably aren't ready.


It's one of those things - you have to show you can live without it in order to get it.  I think I have shown that.  I live as a female... and I can prove that I do.


The guy I saw today is the head clinician (they call them that, rather than 'psychiatrists') - James Barrett.  He is mad as a box of frogs but very charming - although likely to say rather contrary things.


Like last time I saw him he said I was unlikely to get my GRC - this time he seemed to think it would be fine.  Apparently 98% of people are successful - 1% of the others have filled out the form wrong, half a per cent have just failed and the other half a per cent are mad.


So hopefully I will be OK!


He is going to chase up the surgery on my 'adam's apple'.  I really want that to happen now - it will make such a difference to my confidence.


The delay is apparently nothing to do with budget cutbacks (people have been telling me the budget for gender identity stuff is being cut) - cutbacks in the NHS aren't affecting this yet.  According to James 'box of frogs' Barrett gender identity surgeries / treatment are quite cheap on the NHS really because there are so few of us.


You wouldn't think so when you look at all us trannies crammed into the waiting room above Sainsburys Local - but true transsexualism is actually pretty rare.


Anyway, he looked at me today and asked a wonderful question : 


'...so, is it time for surgery?'


I think it is - and he agreed.  Two shrinks have to agree that you need the surgery before it can happen so my next appointment in April is being described as a 'Surgical Review'...   wooooo!   It's with a new Shrink I haven't previously seen.


Assuming he agrees with Dr Barrett I suppose I will be referred after that.  I think the wait will probably be in the years rather than the months for the surgery to actually happen - we'll see.


Of course I am scared about it - it's obviously going to be terribly painful - I mean, well duh.   Some trans-women act as if the desire for it outweighs all possible considerations of fear - I think that's nonsense.  If you aren't scared, you aren't taking it seriously enough I reckon.


But walking out of there today I just felt immensely happy and excited about becoming a real girl (Pinocchio moment).  I've had enough now - I am ready.  
I want to be complete.  Not because it proves anything to anyone else - just because I am a girl and that's how my body should be.


Long way to go anyway - but every step is in the right direction now...

Manners...

Thought about it and I am going to talk about manners because of certain incidents which occurred last night.


It's time for a slight rant.


Now who is this beautiful lady pictured, you may be asking..?  It's actually Barbara Cartland - yes, the woman who ended up looking like a big pink monstrosity - bless her.  Wasn't she lovely?


She is there because I have a book which she wrote called 'The Etiquette Handbook'.  Actually it's very well written, beautiful prose.  There's an awful lot of stuff in there about how to behave at a supper party and whatnot - but she herself says that good manners are really just being kind and considerate to others.


She says : 


'If I had to write down the unwritten law of good behaviour in one simple phrase there would be no negative 'You Shall Not', but a strong 'You Shall'.  And first and foremost - 'You Shall Possess Tact'


So true, Barbara. 


When you are trans some people don't know how to behave and they throw the normal rules out of the window.  They don't see you as a person - just an object to be prodded and poked.  They also offer 'advice' - like last night when a man was trying to tell me what was wrong with what I was wearing.


No.  No.  No.  You mustn't do that shit.


Christ, the amount of time and effort and worry we girls put into picking an outfit for the Christmas party - or even just to go out the door in the morning...   I am hardly likely to be LESS self-conscious than the average woman.  I would argue a whole lot more.


So how cruel and mean to offer me 'advice' in this way - to tell me that what I am wearing is drawing attention to me.  What did that person know?  How fucking dare they.


Then he started asking about my voice and saying would it get less deep.


Now people have asked me that before - people I know well.  You can't ask someone personal questions like that when you've just met them.  I am obviously going to be sensitive about it - what a horrible thing to ask.


It's like saying to someone who is overweight :  'so when will you be losing weight then?'


And it doesn't mitigate it if you say 'I hope you don't mind me asking...' or 'you look really good but...'


NO!!  It doesn't make it right.


It all comes down to that old thing - if you are different people think you don't have feelings.


But while I may look different to you - I feel like a normal woman to myself - just a woman who has things wrong with her body.  OK?  


So just extend the same courtesy to me that you would to any other woman... and any other person.


That's all I have to say apart from (cover your ears Barbara) :


What a cunt he was.  What a fucking cunt.

Proust (long sentences)

I am fond of pointing out that if Proust had been able to type his novel(s) into Microsoft Word the whole thing would have been underlined in green for the reason : 


long sentence (suggest revision)


Imagine if he HAD revised the sentences - there would be no Proust, his style would be dead.


Getting your head round the long sentences is one of the most challenging and important things about reading Proust.  Probably it's where a lot of people give up, because it is very difficult at first.


It's the endless parentheses, you see, which break up the sentence so that by the end of it, if you are able to get that far, and if you haven't given up in the way that so many readers do when faced with Proust's masterpiece, usually about the time they reach the third volume, by the end of it, and yes there may often be a small recap of what he just said in case you've forgotten, you may have forgotten what he was talking about.


Proust has to be not just read but re-read - as you go along as well as by volume.  You often have to start again at the beginning of the sentence and pick it apart - it's a manner of reading to which people are not very accustomed, but it does actually serve well as a method.


There's no rush - what else are you going to be reading?  Another work of comparable genius?   Good luck finding one.  Your brain is adaptable and will reach up to Proust's level if given the chance.  Talk about brain training - that is what a genius does.


Great writers have to be read a page, a setence, even a word at a time.  There is a sheer pleasure in the placing of one word next to another which can be forgotten about in the rush of plot and narrative which drives most fiction.


Proust provides an atmosphere - a sensual portrait of the universe, heavily laden with sights, sounds, and particularly smells.  He is the cosmic laureate of smell.


The basic point is : the length of the sentences captures the meandering nature of his own thought structure in the most perfect marriage of form and content yet achieved in the novel.


That's what the long sentences are really all about - and they are part of the joy of Proust.  I am discovering that joy anew and finding that 'In Search of Lost Time' just has more and more to give. 

Thoughts provoked by Josie's Make Up Blog...

Well, I think makeup does improve the appearance of most people - if it's done right.  Including men.

Although it's true that when you see those pics of celebs with no make up on they often do look better.... maybe that's because they tend to be pretty anyway and so their natural beauty can shine through!

That's OK if you have natural beauty.  Actually that's something that all women have, and I suppose make up in its ideal form accentuates it rather than covers it up. 

Men tend to say they prefer women with less or no make up - I'm not sure they appreciate the artifice of it all in most cases.  It's a bit like when people say you should be 'real' and be 'yourself'.  What's so great about being 'yourself'?

Make up and clothes allow you to play different characters.

'Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth' Oscar Wilde said...

I feel a bit self-piteous having read Josie's blog because I would rather like someone to say I was beautiful without make up.  Becca says that of course - but I think it's in a 'why do you put all that crap on?' kind of way.  Kind of the way blokes say it really - not that Becca is butch because she's not - and she used to be a dedicated make up wearer herself so she's recanted the Holy ways of cosmetics and become all natural coz she's a gardener probably!

Anyway, I don't think I can possibly be beautiful without makeup because I look like a man.  I probably look like a man with it on too - just a man with make up on!!   Hence all the fuckwits who should 'tranny' at me constantly - they're saying that predominantly because they can see my face - and it's my face I cover up when I don't want people to shout at me.

A bit self piteous then but there's no point.  Fact is I have a male body and therefore a male face and that's that - no point crying about it (anymore).  And it's not quite as male these days because hormonally at least I am pretty much female now.

My face has changed a bit because of fat redistribution so I will look more female as I progress with HRT - so that's good.  I still rely on my make up though - although I can go to the shops without it.  But I feel rather uneasily 'male' if I do - at least appearance wise, not inside.

Make up for me makes me feel authentic - and I kind of feel I need it to be a woman.  Also there are issues with covering up my, thankfully small, amount of facial hair - which is rapidly decreasing these days. 

But on the whole I do need it to have my identity.  But, you know, as time goes by I think I might stop needing it.  Then it'll just be fun without dependency.  I'll wear make up because I want to.

I wonder how many other women wear make up for similar reasons?  Not because they look male - but to reinforce their identity.

Feel a bit emotional now.  Time to take my make up off anyway...

Heroes...

I don't keep up with the farce which is the singles chart these days (who above the age of 13 does?) so I hadn't heard the X Factor finalist's version of Bowie's 'Heroes' until today. 


I am annoyed about it.


I hardly think that was what Bowie had in mind when he wrote that song - it's about heroism in your own life - about self realisation.  There's also that famous bit about the two lovers standing by the Berlin wall - it's use in this most recent context seems very inappropriate to me.


So much of this talk of 'heroes' in the army these days is basically a reaction to protest about the wars - it just has that taste to it.  I think we all know that's what it's really about.  I think you can tell this because the pictures of wounded soldiers is not accompanied by any message of 'this shouldn't be happening'.  


It's not inevitable.  Unlike the soldiers and everyday people who lived through World War II when this country was under direct, tangible threat.  No one could say 'this shouldn't be happening' - only 'it's sad - but this must happen if we are to survive' - when we saw pictures of the consequences of war.


But the more recent conflicts we've been involved in are much more complicated and difficult than that.  


So I suggest this - much more appropriate to recent conflicts, although it was written about an older one : 


Is it worth it?
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding

Well I ask you
The boy said, "Dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by Christmas"
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed
in the result of this shipbuilding

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture-postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyard
And notifying the next of kin once again

It's all we're skilled in
We will be shipbuilding

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

The Mike Leigh blog 8

Crikey - this is becoming an epic!!  Nearly there now...

Secrets and Lies  (1996)


I won't go on about this film too much because I think I've sung its praises before on here.  Anyway, it's a very unusual Mike Leigh film in that it's actually possible to 'spoil' the story.  Usually in his films plot is character - in this one there is a perfect balance between plot and character.  


There is an EVENT - something is revealed, and the film is about everyone's reaction.  If you haven't seen it the film will work much better if you just watch it with no knowledge of what's going to occur.  


Odd for a Leigh film to be like this.  It's not what we would expect.  Maybe Secrets and Lies is a bigger departure from the Leigh 'norm' than any other film for this reason - although his signature style is in place as much as ever.


I don't know.  But I can tell you that this is Mike Leigh's best film to date.  
I don't think there can be much argument - it is a perfect piece of sublime genius.  


'Secrets and Lies... we're all in pain... why can't we share our pain?'


Those words are etched into my heart.

Career Girls  (1997)


Hmm - no, not quite as good.  Went a little bit wrong here, Mike.  Basically this film suffers from the old Mike Leigh problem - no one told the actors to bring it down.  The performances are too much.  


The three main performances of the film are like bad impressions of someone else - that's the best way to describe it.  They are, in fact, a twitchy, annoying  fucking nightmare, especially Lynda Steadman.  Awful.  There are also quite a few moments of 'meeting people from the past' which remind me of Anthony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time' in that they are, frankly, absurd.    


But if you can get past all that it's got some funny bits in it and is quite sweet I suppose.   Still, a bit of a dip in Mike Leigh's golden period (an era which is still ongoing).































  

The Mike Leigh blog 7 - NAKED

Naked (1993)


'Naked' was the first Mike Leigh film I saw and I don't think any film since has ever changed me quite as much.  It's rather like when I read '1984' when I was a teenager - nothing was the same afterwards.  For one thing it kick started my love of Leigh's work and instigated that thrill of excitement whenever I hear he has a new film coming out.  But I also experienced once again that rare feeling that an artist is telling me the truth in a world of lies.


It's about Johnny, played by David Thewlis, who is a fucked up genius who wanders round London spitting sagacious venom at everyone he meets.  It's difficult to describe this performance but he's rather like Jesus - he is Messianic and I suppose you could get deep here about Mike Leigh being Jewish and searching for a Messiah - I don't know... could you?

He is frightening, cowardly - the film opens with him apparently raping a woman - and yet we grow to feel deep affection for this character who is so vulnerable and so astonishing.  He spends some time with an optimistic security guard and poisons his mind, we feel, with his thoughts about the end of the world - taken from the Bible, from the book of revelation.


'the BAR CODE Brian, the ubiquitous fucking BAR CODE'


I just can't explain it to you the way he does. You have to see him shout at Brian in a dark room, the two of them in shadow, the camera fixed there forever it seems.  What is this obsession with the future Brian?  There IS no future...


When asked how his mother is he says : 


'she's dead actually.  She's still a good fuck though.  Course I get it at a cheaper rate being her son and all...'


His dark eyes probe mercilessly into the hearts of every other lost, lonely, abandoned character on the screen and into YOU as you watch.  There is no escaping him - he will own you after you have seen this film - if you have a glimmer of imagination, he might just become someone you want in your life,
even though he smells and is covered in his own blood.


He asks :  'what's it like being you?' - without irony.  He wants to know.


I'm not quite sure where 'Naked' came from - it bucks the trend of sweet and sour social observation - it's still intimate but on a grand scale, if that makes sense.


I borrowed it from Strood Library and the Librarian gazed at me with excited eyes as she handed it over and told me how good it was.  She must have been another Mike Leigh type person.


Like Well Self - I saw him interviewing Leigh once and he did nothing but talk about 'Naked'.  Is it any wonder?


This is Ballard.  This is Joyce.  This is Dante.  


Don't get me wrong, kids, this isn't an easy film to watch.  In fact, it's fucking harrowing and difficult and terrifying - but essential.


A true work of utter, utter, utter, utter fucking genius - ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mike Leigh's 

'Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new as long as it's new as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored.'