Hi all.
Well, I’m back, to hopefully enrich your lives with my goings on, or something.
As usual, there’s a lot of things to write about because I leave it ages before blogging. If I did one every week, you’d really get bored, seriously.
November saw the international transgender day of remembrance or TDOR. This is a day when we trans folk get together in various cities around the world to remember those that have been murdered for just being who they are. Sadly, it’s still quite common for people like me to be killed by some sad, pointless lowlife who thinks trans people shouldn’t exist.
I attended the vigil held in Manchester’s Sackville gardens, along with a good few others. It was my first one last year, which was a sombre occasion. Standing there with fellow transgender people while a group of others read aloud what seems like a never ending list of names, each of them a person cruelly taken from us. A lot of them had no name, and were identified by just a statement saying something on the lines of “unidentified man in women’s clothing”, or similar. This was even more distressing.
It was the same this year, and again the town hall clock seemed to chime at the right time to add to the atmosphere.
The day was made even more stressful for me because I had a row with my parents, and while waiting for my friend leia at the bus stop in Manchester, I had my iPhone pinched right out of my hand and it was my only way of contacting anyone. Obviously I let them take it. who knows what would have happened if I had kept hold of it.
When Leiah arrived I just burst into tears. I didn’t know what to do.
To cut a long story short, I reported the crime to the police, but as expected I didn’t get my phone back – it probably supplied someone with a bit of crack or something. I didn’t have it insured either, so I had to buy a new one. Now I have the iPhone 4s and yes I’ve played with Siri loads. so in a way something good came out of it.
The day after all that happened, I went to a gig in Nottingham with my friend Kay who I have mentioned on here before. I had booked us tickets to see Rumer in the Royal Concert hall. I have always wanted to see her live since I first heard her debut album, and I recently gotten Kay in to her music, so now I had someone to go with.
This was the second concert I had gone to as myself rather than being disguised as a bloke. The first was to see Peter Kay in Liverpool with Oliver in April, which was amazing.
When I got to Kays, it of course took us hours to get ready. Neither of us could decide what to wear but I went for jeans, my favourite top at the moment and knee-high boots.
Kay had booked us assistance at the theatre. I had never known you could do that before. It really is handy. They make sure someone meets you in the entrance, shows you to your seat and they’ll bring you any drinks and whatnot during the interval before showing you out at the end.
None of the people helping us seemed at all phased by me because of how well I apparently pass, which is a good thing. One of them even called us both Ladies, which so made my night. that will never get old I can tell you. I don’t think she was bothered when I opened my mouth and my male voice came out either.
At the theatre I felt a bit underdressed. I imagined most of the girls there were probably in something a little bit more fancier than what I had on, nothing OTT obviously. The reality of it could have been that they probably weren’t, afterall, it was cold but that’s how I felt.
Rumer is in my opinion one of the best live acts out at the minute. She is an amazing singer/songwriter who writes about her life experiences in a way that we can all relate to. Even when she does covers she makes them her own.
Her style is very much like the Carpenters. She sings like Karen and writes songs like Richard. the band was spot on too.
Before each song, she explains a little about the background of it, which made me appreciate them even more. A lot of them are autobiographical, including one which made me cry as it contains lyrics that are something her mum used to say to her when she was growing up.
She really engaged with the audience, drawing us into her world.
She performed her entire debut album, plus a few covers that I think will be on her next one. I enjoyed every moment of it.
After the gig, we were informed that Rumer would be available to sign CDs. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to meet her, so off we went to queue up. After what seemed like ages, we were at the front. As we had no CDs for her to sign and not enough money to buy one, she signed our tickets for us. It was a real pleasure to meet her and have a quick chat. She was as down to earth as she seemed on stage, so she was very easy to talk to.
I think it’s lovely when someone like that can take the time to show their appreciation of their fans.
The friends keep coming, and old friendships have been rekindled again. Through someone else on twitter, I got in contact with Eliot, a VI transman. Naturally this got me excited since us transpeople lacking in the eyes department seem to be a minority in a minority. We tweeted back and forth for a bit. During our conversation, he asked me if I had gone to any colleges for the blind. As I have said previously I studied at the RNC in Hereford. Back then, I was hiding my true self from myself as well as anyone else, so I told him my old name. The reply I got back was something like “Oh my days we were in the same class!”
Well, this was interesting times. He was also in denial back then, but he was so obviously not a girl. It was pretty easy for me to figure out who he was back then.
We last saw each other in 2004 or something like that, so it’s wonderful to be back in touch again, both of us having changed quite a bit since back then. We’re hopefully going to meet up, and perhaps with some of his other friends like Sirius, Sarah and a few others.
So, that’s about it for this post and I’ll write another one sometime.
Kara
xxx
I feel quite tired reading about you being so busy!