Transgender Life

I don’t want this site to be solely about being transgender. From my experiences so far, it’s not even something I could write about every week – being in the closet is far more intense and frustrating and writeable. However, there are moments when things happen, unique to trans people. I’d like to share those moments with you, and let you into the mystery.

Dining Out

Scotmid
Dining Out 28.07.17 Edinburgh is well into pre-festival mode, and I have already attended its film festivals (one quite good film for £10), its jazz and blues festival (one quite good band, also £10) and its food one (one burger for £5, a single-scoop ice-cream for about £3 and a bit of free cake). You may say: Gina, you're really splashing the cas...
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Summer in London: interview with Ash Palmisciano

summer_web2
Summer in London is a play written and directed by celebrated playwright Rikki Beadle-Blair, and is currently being performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London (8-29 July). It features an all-trans cast, including up-and-coming star Ash Palmisciano, who has kindly agreed to be interviewed by me for Edinburgh Trance. Ash, first of all, c...
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My Love of Ozzy Osbourne

jakeelee
My Love of Ozzy Osbourne 23.07.17 That's of, not for, in that the object of my passion is a band whose 1980s heavy rock I still feel something for. As for the man called Ozzy Osbourne who fronted and sang, and whose charisma and status gave the band its stardom, I have mixed feelings. Why write about him, about them, the band? Perhaps simply, I've ...
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Friendships in Edinburgh

marvel-netflix-jessica-jones-slice
Friendships in Edinburgh 15.07.17 Saturday evening, and outside a band is playing. It's July and the festivals are coming back to Edinburgh; already, the park at the centre of George Square has been taken over with fences and security and people in red coats whose purpose is mysterious. Just over two weeks from now, this city will become the larges...
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Finding Work as a Trans Person

office-space-the-nightmare-version
Finding Work as a Trans Person 08.07.17 A second week of part-time teaching work passed on Friday, and already, it's not about being trans. I enter the classroom, the lesson begins, and I am from planet teacher. The students are nice, and everything is about them, not me. I always wondered how it would be as a trans-female teacher. Last year I...
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Escapist Thoughts: On Germany

Goretzka
Escapist Thoughts: On Germany 02.07.17 To watch them is to be seduced by their hypnotic passing rhythms, Kroos to Ozil, Ozil to Kimmich, Kimmich to Ozil, Ozil back to Kroos. They usually win, and when they don't, it's controversial, or at the very least, surprising. I'm talking about a cycle of individuals who I've watched with growing passion, eve...
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On the Issue of Accommodation

56-Leonard-Street-NewYork-Herzog-de-Meuron-home
On the Issue of Accommodation 24.06.17  I have a place to stay,that's not the issue. My friend and I, though, are looking for somewhere toshare, to reduce our rent. Edinburgh rent; I'd like to talk about this. For acold and basic flat some 40 minutes' walk from the centre, I'm paying £7200 peryear, or if you prefer, £600 per month, as a mostly...
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Acid for Blood

neruda
Acid for Blood 18.06.17 The bitterness flooded briefly on Thursday, having burst its banks. The Funded Ones in my PhD world had returned from glamorous research trips abroad or from conferences, while I had done nothing, sat inert for weeks at my desk with books about Lacan, trying to refocus after a stop-start May. In July I will teach foreign stu...
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I Bore Myself

AKA-Jessica-Jones-begins-filming
I Bore Myself 11.06.17 In the embers of a party, I sat there, with two friends occupying corners of the living room. I talked about the past. I can talk all day about it, but a feeling of weariness arises: oh not again. I bore myself. This conversation. My voice dips, perhaps, in a way it didn't when I arrived in this city with a suitcase full of s...
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Reflections on the General Election

General-Election-2017-Polling-Day
Reflections on the General Election 09.05.17 I do feel tired, after staying up longer than I'd anticipated. I had thought to watch the announcement of the Exit Polls at 10pm, just for confirmation that the Tories would get their 100+ majority. To watch Theresa May's goading of and gloating over her opponents, for just as many minutes as I could sta...
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In London at an LGBT conference

Gina-in-pub-in-profile
In London at an LGBT conference 04.06.17 It seems strange to be writing this on the morning after a terrorist attack in London. I was there in the city at the beginning of the week, attending a conference on LGBT networks in Higher Education, and now this. London struck me as a beautiful place when I was there. I grew up in the 1980s and 90s and im...
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It's Grey Outside And My Face Isn't Hurting

Grey-skies
It's Grey Outside And My Face Isn't Hurting 29.05.17 It's grey outside, in the same way that last Thursday and Friday were golden. I walked past Edinburgh's Meadows park back then, watching what looked like a peace festival but was actually just the whole world relaxing, with friends and barbecues and pets and different ball games. It was wonderful...
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20.05.17 On the release of Chelsea Manning

Chelsea_Manning_on_18_May_2017
On the release of Chelsea Manning What would I have done? You're in the closet about being transgender but have an aptitude that's marketable: brilliant with IT, you can draw on five-figure salaries and be an 'asset' to your nation, in the James-Bond world of spying. No longer a small-town, small-time figure, you're far away in a combat zone in Bag...
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The Next Morning

Gina-Brown-Black-and-White
14.05.17 The Next Morning It's Saturday night and I'm sitting in my apartment. On the table next to my laptop is a bottle of wine, and a small bouquet of tulips, bought at Lidl. The tulips are now resting in a glass of water. In the picture you can see me wearing a shiny top. I bought it to wear at parties a few years ago but haven't worn it u...
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All Things Considered, A Better Week Gone By

Gina-07.05.17
All Things Considered, a Better Week Gone By 07.05.17 The rats have gone, the poison worked, for now. There was a crisis point last week as I ate dinner in the kitchen, and could hear a rat eating simultaneously behind a cupboard, eating the poison I'd left out for it, rat insouciance as if to say, 'Got any more?' But even Rasputin died in the end ...
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Rats and Torture

1984
Rats and Torture 30.04.17 I was woken up yesterday at around 3am by sounds of scuffling behind me, behind my bedroom wall. It's a sound I haven't heard in months and it means the rats have returned. They originally appeared and disappeared last year, between November and January, my poison didn't seem to work, actually it seemed to encourage them. ...
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Sunday Skies

Serafin
Sunday Skies 23.04.17 How strange to read my previous post, the bitterness and hatred. Today outside is beautiful, blue skies and almost no one here in the study room because it's too nice to be here. My essay is done, I don't feel like doing anymore, have reached that saturation point where you're staring at words on a screen, and wondering what m...
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Alone In The System

Alone In The System
Alone In the System 18.04.17 I broke down today, in tears, in someone's office. It's the first time it's happened, crying in front of other people like this. A colleague from the university's staff pride network, I didn't know who else to turn to. I got a job rejection this morning. So many qualifications and so much experience for a post well with...
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One-year anniversary

One-year anniversary
One-year anniversary 16.04.17 It feels slightly ridiculous to write about my one-year anniversary of being out, full-time, as trans. It is, medically (or should that be bureaucratically?) an important moment because it means you can start discussing gender reassignment surgery with your doctor for real. That meeting comes in early May for me. Havin...
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Dealing With Failure

Dealing With Failure
09/04/17, Dealing With Failure It's a pivotal moment that didn't seem so pivotal after the event, though I know things are going to change in my life now. My application for funding for my studies got rejected on Monday. It is a big deal. It means I'm going to finish my studies in two years' time considerably poorer than when I started. I'll still ...
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