What Martin Luther King Told Me When I Said His Dream Had Come True

I'm taking a break from writing from the list of prompts today.  I felt I had to at least attempt to write about something very different.

Today I attended a conference that was part of a series of events in Newcastle commemorating the occasion in 1967 when Doctor Martin Luther King was invited to the city to receive an honorary doctorate from Newcastle University.  While in the United Kingdom Doctor King received only one such honour and here in Newcastle we're proud that honouring the great civil rights campaigner is a part of our heritage.  Geordies have historically been proud to be a welcoming people and I am glad to live here.  Newcastle is also an official City of Sanctuary and this year is known as Freedom City.  There are racists here too of course, various social issues and we've got levels of economic disadvantages that are by no means the worst in Britain but which would be unknown to someone living in Guildford!

I was only able to make the first half of the conference unfortunately.  The second half looked very interesting and included talks about people's experiences both working with refugees and being a refugee.  I wanted to hear them but was getting pretty overwhelmed and anxious and ended up finding a quiet room that I possibly wasn't meant to be finding and hiding on the floor behind some chairs for a while before deciding that even if I did manage to get into the main hall again I wouldn't be able to take in anything that was said.  Sadly, I had to leave.

The main hall was an interesting place to hold the conference.  Because it was the place where Doctor King received his degree.  He made a speech too.  It's not as famous as "I have a dream ..." but it's worth listening to.  Fortunately it's available on YouTube.

He speaks of three major problems affecting people in 1967.

Racism, poverty, and war.

Fifty years later none of those problems have been solved.  Fifty years later there is still a need for people like MLK to speak out and act for justice.  Some of the battles today are different.  Some remain the same.  Some things have improved.  Unfortunately others have not.

During the first talk today I scribbled a few notes and thoughts.  They've formed the basis for a bit of free writing this afternoon.  I scrapped my first attempt because I could see it wouldn't work.  The second is entirely unpolished.  The form is not as I wanted but the idea is.  Perhaps one day I will return to it and change the form.

I want too to write about the churches one day.  About their involvement in civil rights both as a positive force and a negative one.  Many of the churches who fought for equality on racial grounds are the very same churches who fight against equality on grounds of sexuality and who preach against transgender rights too.  They say they're being Biblical.  They said the same in 1967 too even though there were Christians of that day telling them they were being very unbiblical, and some who even talked about all black people being cursed.  I could give you chapter and verse for that curse - at least, that's how they interpret it.  It's a sad thing too that so many churches are still totally segregated both in the UK and here in the UK.  There are white churches and black churches.  And never shall they meet together unless Songs of Praise is being filmed.  This segregation is rooted in a history of racism and oppression.  Jesus wept.

If you want to know more about the Freedom City events the website is http://freedomcity2017.com/


Free writing attempt number one:

They said we stand on the shoulders of giants.
They were wrong.
Today I caught a glimpse of a giant
Caught hold of his coat and asked him to lift me up.
He refused to carry me.
Told me to stand on my own feet, find my own strength
And become my own giant.

Today I walked in the footsteps of a hero
Until he turned to face me, held out his hand,
And pushed me away with his wisdom,
Saying "You see where the tracks in the sand finish?
That's the end of my journey,
Make it the beginning of your own."

Free writing attempt number two:

I bowed before the dreamer.
Fell prostrate before the prophet.
In ignorance I spoke:
"When you spoke out your dream
The whole world listened.
When you spoke out your vision
The whole world changed.
For justice you were matyred
But your dream came true.
In death was your victory.
In suffering you won."

He answered.  "Did I?
How can you bear to tell me such lies?
You think because we had a black president everything is renewed?
You think just because there are black men scattered
Irregularly in government that justice is borne out in the lives of all?
You think legislation has triumphed over hatred?
Whatever gave you those ideas?  Who gave such notions to you?
Just look around you again.
Look at my country, look at what we've become.
How can you say that I've won when I fought
For racial integration in the schools of America
And fifty years on they're more segregated than I ever dreamed?
How can you say the black man lives in the land of free
When our prisons are filled with my brothers
And our streets are unsafe.  When my people
Are stopped, searched, Tasered, brutalised and killed
By the government funded police forces?
How can you say we're all equal now
When my brothers live in greater poverty in a divide
That keeps on growing in ever despairing circles,
When many of us can't gain employment from the white bosses
And those of us who do end up still bottom of the pile
Working lives, underpaid and hungry in fast food restaurants?
How can you tell me my dream came true
When black and white still can't meet together in a house of God
And when the Ku Klux Klan still burns it's anti-Christian crosses
In hatred and its membership roll continues to blossom?
How dare you point to one black President and say I won
When he's gone, and racism rules in our nation again,
When every freedom that one black man achieved for us
May be wiped away as quickly as the tears that fall from my eyes today?
How can you say we all walk hand in hand when the normal response
To learning that the life of a black man matters
Is to say that all lives matter?  As if all lives are the same.
As if there is no privileged place for those of lighter skin.
And when my brothers and sisters continue to die young
And live their shortened years deprived of basic rights
You cannot tell me I no longer need to dream that dream."

I closed my ears and shook my head.
Placed my hand over his mouth.
I did not wish to listen to such words
When it was easier to rest in satisfaction
Easier to congratulate the fighters of the past
And turn my back on the fight of the present.
Anyway, that was his country not mine.
So what did it matter to me?
Why care if their justice has been trumped?

He threw my hand off, stared at me in anger.
"If you won't consider my nation, look at yours.
You think everything is perfect?  You damned fool.
Race relations acts, equality acts, every kind of act?
Do you fancifully fantasise that a mere piece of paper
Can change a million hearts?  You couldn't be more wrong.
See too how those acts are rarely enforced and impermanent.
They give out Human Rights and then take them away.
Look to the broken windows of the black family
On your own estate, how they were forced to flee.
Look to the insults you've seen on the street.
Take note for once and take action for the abused.
See how the Nazis gather even at your own freeom Monument
Under other names but full of the same hate.
Remember how many people clicked that they liked the
Fascists and racists of Britain First
Shared their ravings, spread the word at exponential speed.
See how your own government promises justice
And then turns away from it as soon as they can.
How the welcome for refugees becomes a slammed door.
Remember how many millions still buy papers
Unashamed, boasting of the racist lies on the cover.
See how many of my brothers are in your own prisons,
How many are deprived in so called freedom.
If that isn't enough to convince you, consider this:
See how many black people you can see here today.

And I looked.  He was right.
Fifty years before we had honoured him.
He'd stood on that same spot and we said we loved him.
Proclaimed him Doctor Martin Luther King.
I looked at the walls, the portraits staring down at the dreamer
I saw the ten white men in their robes.
And the one white women.
I looked too and I saw more women,
The inspiring women of the North East
Among their faces I tried to find some colour
A women I could point to as a sign of the Doctor's victory.
There was none to be found in those portraits of whitewashed inspiration.
Doctor Martin Luther King.
Alone of his colour.
As alone now as he ever was.

I bowed once more before the dreamer.
In revealed anguish I wept.
Asked what I could do.
He lifted me up, embraced me tightly
Saying "Be a brother to my brother,
A sister to my sisters."
Then he turned to the white walls and shouted.

"I still have a dream.
We shall overcome.
Some day."

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Words Are Bloody Painful

44. Insult: Write about being insulted.


In my last post I wrote that I was in a privileged position in that I have never been the victim of racial abuse.  Nobody has ever shouted at me in the street that I'm a white scumbag or told me to go back to my own country.  I'm fortunate to be white in the UK.

That doesn't mean I possess every privilege I could ever own.  Not at all.  I used to be able to claim almost the entire set and for much of my life I was pretty oblivious to the issues and failed to notice how fortunate I was - and still am.  But in the past four years I've lost some of my automatic privileges.  Things changed.  

Four years ago I would never have ticked the "do you have a disability" box.  Now I do and I will continue to count myself as disabled.  I've always had problems with mental health and with various social and practical skills.  It turned out that many of these were related to being autistic or to co-morbidities accompanying autism.  I'll have problems for life.  Blessings too.  Being disabled in this way is not a problem when I'm walking in the street.  Nobody stares at me or points or calls out for being autistic.  I'm lucky.  If I had Down Syndrome or had to use a wheelchair or had some other obvious physical characteristic to mark me out as different I would, from time to time, be openly insulted for it.  There are issues that have arisen now I tick that disability box but insults from random strangers are not among them.

I'm no stranger to being insulted though.  At this point someone will respond by saying, "Well we've all been insulted."  Of course we have!  It's true.  But some people always say things like that.  They probably say "All lives matter" too.  That's also true.  Obviously.  But usually in saying it we turn our backs on a very real problem.  Try to explain the depths of how difficult it is for me to get through with the problems autism gives me and inevitably there will be people who respond in such a way as to take a dump on disability by trying to make out everyone is the same.  Nobody would tell a person in a wheelchair, "Well we've all got tired and had to sit down sometimes."  Nobody would tell a blind woman, "Well many of us have to wear glasses."  But if you try to explain autism and you're not what people would label as "low functioning" then they tell you.  "Well we all get anxious sometimes."  "Well we all misunderstand people sometimes."  "Yes, it does get a bit noisy sometimes."  Save me from people who tell me that sometimes it's a bit noisy.  They tell you many other things too.  They remove your autism.  Try to make out you're just like them and that autism is just normal life.  It isn't.  It's difficult every single day.  Lots of people with mental health issues may get treated the same way.  The person with severe depression is told, "We all feel a bit blue sometimes, so just pull your socks up and get on with it."

When I was assessed for PIP the assessor nonchalantly dismissed all my problems with anxiety and all the struggles I have - even when I look serene to the world - in getting through each day and each encounter.  She said she had a few panic attacks once so there was no difference between me and her.  And I was in no position to get her to understand.  She might have had to carry a heavier weight than usual for a while.  But I carry a ten ton load pretty much all the time and because autism is a lifelong disability I'll be carrying a load for the rest of my life.  I make it look so easy.  Sometimes.  In effect when I was assessed for PIP the assessor removed autism from me and then assessed on the basis of me not being autistic.  That's not only an insult.  It's dangerous.  It's heartbreaking.  And quite probably it's illegal too.

That kind of thing, where the person with little or no problem tries to make out that they suffer and struggle as much as I do, is an insult.  It's a result of not listening to me, not understanding, and of whitewashing my truth and making it invisible.  But it's not what I want to write about this morning.

I want to write about being insulted in the street.  As you may know, in June 2013 I began the process of coming out as a transgender woman.  At the start of August of that year I legally changed my name.  Coming out changed a lot for me.  I lost some of my privileges.  I admit to a large extent I'd taken them for granted.  Perhaps for many of us it's only when we lose something that we realise how precious it was.  Joni Mitchell sang it didn't she?  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"

I'd spend my life living as a heterosexual.  A man.  Cisgender.

I possessed three big privileges.  And at a stroke I lost them.

And when I plucked up the confidence to dress outside as I wanted to dress the insults happened.  From strangers in the street.  Even in this city of welcome in which I live.

For a while it was constant.  Every single time I left the house alone wearing a skirt I would be verbally abused.  Every single time.  But I kept doing it.  To the abusers I looked like a bloke in a frock.  Fair enough.  I hadn't had any hair removal treatments.  [Oh God, the number of people who said to me "Why do you need it?  All women get some facial hair."]  I hadn't got any make up.  My hair hadn't grown out.  Man in a frock.  It wasn't true of course.  I was a woman in what is often defined as a man's body.  To the abusers a man in a frock is fair play to be abused either with laughter or much worse than that.  Outright hatred.

I hated the abuse.  Who wouldn't?  I was experiencing what others had talked about.  Race hate, disability hate.  But transgender hate instead.  And in the experiencing I am better able to understand at least some of what others suffer and how they feel when abused for being who they are.  I am glad of the insight brought by my own experience.

It was awful though.  To know that leaving the house carried the punishment of abuse.  It didn't matter that I could try to rationalise it and say, "I know I'm doing and being nothing wrong.  They're just ignorant/fearful/foolish and I shouldn't worry about them."  I told myself that all the time.  I was right.  But it was still awful.  It hurt.  There were times I didn't know how I was going to manage to continue to walk through the path of gender transition.

I did continue though, just like so many others.  I don't know a single transgender person who hasn't had to fight hard to become who they already were.  We should all be very proud of ourselves.

Three and a half years after legally changing my name things are different.  I haven't worn make up in over eighteen months but hair removal has made a big difference.  My hair grew.  Perhaps hormone treatments are making a difference to my face.  Perhaps not.  The biggest change to my outward manner has been confidence.  I walk proud in my womanhood now and can hardly imagine how I ever used to pretend otherwise.

I still get insulted in the street.  But it's rare now.  Mostly I "pass as a woman" or get stared at as people try to figure me out.  Passing through the fire has been worth everything.

I still get surprised by the good reactions sometimes.  In the autumn of last year I gathered my courage and joined a new women's choir.  The first time I'd ever intentionally entered a women only space.  I admit my initial surprise and continuing thankfulness.  Everyone there accepted me without a single question or second thought.  It's a wonderful place.  It's not always like that.  The second time I tried to join a women only group I was told by the organiser it wouldn't really be the right place for me as a transgender person and that I could well not be safe there.  I was banned from turning up at all.  Later she relented and said to come but it was too late.  There was no way I was going to bother with such a space.

People say things that still take me by surprise.  After forty years of living male - and thinking being trans made me a monster - it will probably take many years before I cease to be amazed at times.

A couple of weeks ago I was joking around with someone who knows I'm trans and who I know accepts me as woman.  It still caught me when she said words to the effect of "I could never fancy you anyway because I'm not a lesbian!"  Ignore that the sentence makes bisexuals invisible - she wouldn't do that except in joking around sentences.  I was so happy.  Her words just showed her total and complete acceptance of this woman with no doubt, no question, no hint of a worry.

When I am accepted like that it makes social transition worth more than gold and diamonds.

When I accept myself like that it makes inward transition a place of great peace.

Don't Tell Me The Ni****s Are Taking Over. Just don't.

Here's something about a place where we used to live.  I don't apologise for the language in this writing.  It does include the N word.  Several times.  It's a word I hate hearing.  Were I not in the privileged position of being a white person in the UK I'd hate hearing it even more because unless I was very lucky I'd have heard it used against myself, my friends, my family, and on many occasions.  "You ****ing N*****, get back to your own country."  That kind of thing.  I've heard it used to the faces of black people.  I've heard similar language used to other ethnic minorities.  I've seen Islamic women face verbal abuse from white scumbags and I've felt a mix of sorrow and shame.  But I can tell you this.  As a white person in England I've never been the victim of racial abuse.  In Tunisia we weren't racially abused.  In Korea we weren't racially abused either - though we did turn heads by virtue of our rarity in some of the places we walked.  I felt out of my depth, out of my culture a few times.  But I never felt unsafe.  I mention head turning in what follows.  It's not a product of racism, just of our brains' tendency to be attracted to whatever is out of the ordinary in our vision.

I have deliberately not named the town.  Originally I'd included it in the final line but I've blocked it out.  People who know my history well will know where I'm talking about.  When we lived there I heard the first line of this writing.  It was said to me by different people on quite a few occasions.  Those exact words.

Each time I inwardly cringed.  Each time I wanted to scream at the speaker of such offensive garbage.  Both racist and inaccurate.  I'm a gentle woman but I admit something in me wanted to throw the first punch.  Although, it would be an ineffectual hit.  To my shame I didn't argue.  Socially I didn't know how.

I am glad to say that an organisation of which I was a part when we lived in that town is now led by a black man and the people in that organisation welcomed him with open arms and love having him as boss.  When they were appointing him - a black outsider - people talked about how brave they and he were and how they didn't know if the town would ever really accept them for doing such a thing.

Perhaps in the years he has been there his presence, his visibility and his character may have done something to lessen the racism I saw too often.  Perhaps he's turned some minds and hearts to truth.  That black people  - and people of any colour - are just people.  Not creatures to be feared and insulted.

It's fifteen years since we left that town.  I hope the racism of the past is dying.  And I hope the town itself doesn't die.  Economically it's suffered greatly.  Wages are low.  Unemployment is high.  The population fell by more than three percent in ten years.  A redevelopment plan was unveiled ten years ago but when visiting last year I didn't see any sign of the plan becoming reality.  The football club is doing very well.  Maybe the town will recover too and thrive again.

The picture below was taken a year ago in Newcastle.  I'm the one holding the sign.  I find hugs very hard usually but I hugged many strangers that day.  It didn't matter who they were.  Some Muslims were running a stall nearby and they loved what we were doing, the light and happiness we were bringing.  They wouldn't hug us though because of a total respect for their own wives.

I include the photo because it was a contrasting day under Grey's Monument.  Before we arrived - we passed them as they left - a bunch of neo-Nazis were having a rally there.  Racists.  Full of hate.  Shouting lies to the people of Newcastle.  The writing below moans about the racism I encountered where we used to live.  This photo is here to stress that there is racism and there are racists everywhere in the United Kingdom.  Even in Newcastle Upon Tyne, City of Sanctuary.

"The niggers are taking over."
That's what they said,
Yeah, taking over.  Niggers everywhere.
Don't shoot me down for my language
I'm only reporting the facts.
Real truths, not the alternative facts those white folk believed.
Taking over?
Okay people, show me.
Show me these beautifully dark skinned human beings
You choose to damn with a word.
Take me out on the streets.
Point them out to me,
Show me how they have gained control of your town.
Or shut the hell up
And sod off with your racist talk that's so second nature
You don't even have to think about it.
Where are the black men on your streets?
Are there gangs of them in charge of the night?
In charge of the banks, the schools?
Do those you call niggers run the show here?
Demonstrate it to me if you can.
Or get real and never say such words to me again.
Look left, look right, up down main street.
It's as white as the snow field.
You might see a blackbird land briefly in the cold.
You might see a black person too,
Shopping.
Doing just the same as you.
In your town he might turn my head too.
Because he is rare.  An out of the ordinary.
With your own eyes you can see it.
You're safe.  They're not taking over here.
And if they were, so bloody what?
Why are you so damned afraid of them
When it's they who should be afraid of you,
White man, oppressor, part of the subjugating empires.
White man, whose casual racism is known by all
Who don't share your lack of melanin.
If anyone is scary it's you.
You don't believe your eyes? Well look at the numbers.
We looked up your town, your borough.
In statistics we tried to find the ones you call niggers.
Yeah, your borough is the domain of the white man.
Ninety-eight point eight percent white.
You're nearly a white utopia for frightened racists to run to.
And of the rest, where are your so-called niggers?
Where are the black people you give so much power to?
They're nowhere, almost.
Nought point one percent of your population is black.
In your town there are twenty-six black people.
Are you an idiot, a brainwashed fool to think
That twenty-six people are taking over your precious white land?
Enough of your crazy talk, white people.
Stop your hate, your language of abuse.
Why do you even use that word at all?
Is it a hatred, a sense of your white superiority?
Or it is a terrible misunderstanding, just a word to you?
Like the football fan who told me
"Yeah, we call 'em pakis and niggers but it's not racism."
Well comrade you'd better get it sorted out right now
Because you're twisting the knife they were stabbed with.Did you get your views Express delivery in the Mail?
Stop it with your fear.
Refuse to listen to those who created your terror.
Open your eyes, look around you and see.
Those twenty-six add beauty to your home
Because they are beautiful men and women of colour.
Embrace them, give them hugs and take them out for drinks.
The white men are leaving your town
Like rats from a sinking ship.
The numbers don't lie.
So grab the black people, the Asians.
Lift up anyone you see from a minority group and tell them
Bring your friends.  Bring your family.
Otherwise your town will die, rotten from the inside.
And you, white men of @@@@,
You will die in your racial ghetto.

Don't You Dare Sing That Song Young Woman. God Hates Ecology.

Here's the next prompt from the daily list I've been writing from.

41. What You Don’t Know: Write about a secret you’ve kept from someone else or how you feel when you know someone is keeping a secret from you.

Nope!  I'm not doing that one.  Not today.  If there's anyone else who doesn't want to write from that prompt today we could get together.  We could form a new Rebel Alliance and defeat the Empire of legalism.

One of the early exercises in a book I have is to write something solely in commands, imperatives.  I can't remember what else it says but the gist of it has stayed in my head.  This morning the exercise came back to me and with it a fragment of a song I used to sing as a child.

I had an American book of folk protest songs.  Some were political, others environmental.  Unfortunately I no longer have the book.  In that book I learned names like Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, Woody Guthrie, and Joan Baez.   Later I heard them sing too, on old records.  I bought a second American book of folk protest songs too which I still own, put together by Pete Seeger.  It was there I learned L'Internationale and used to sing it with dreadful pronunciation in several languages.

The first book contained a song by Malvina Reynolds, written in 1970.  Much of it was written as imperative commands encouraging listeners to behave in a more environmentally friendly manner.  It's at least twenty-five years since I last sang the song but could still remember a few lines and, part way through writing, I wanted to incorporate them into this post.  I have to admit I'll never obey the first line of the song.

I could only find one mention of the song online.  Nancy Schimmel, the daughter of Malvina Reynolds, kept a blog for a while devoted to her life and work.  The words to the song are in one post.  I find that Nancy wrote it, not Malvina.  I'll link to the post at the bottom of this one.  Glad to have found it.  There's a link to a site containing lyrics to all of Malvina's songs.  And there are links there to some amazing resources.  Among them is a site with pdf files of Broadside which was a "magazine of topical songs."  It's a brilliant treasure trove and I think if I allowed myself I could spend many days exploring it and taking up my own guitar again, learning more of the songs of the 1960s folk revival.  Here, for instance is issue #20 which contains perhaps the most famous song by Malvina Reynolds, Little Boxes.  The issue begins with Bob Dylan's Masters of War.  There's some talking blues too and an inspiring version of Wayfaring Stranger. 

On to my writing.  Written freely with just a pause to stick those lyrics in.  It's not all written as imperative commands.  There are two characters in this.  Only one would force obedience and conformity.

Pete Seeger's banjo.  Image taken from here.

Don't you dare sing that song again.
Put down your guitar at once.
Don't make me block my ears.
Don't you dare make me come over there and block your mouth.
Stop it!  Stop it now!
Throw away that wretched book.
Close your eyes.
Don't look at the cover, at the horrible face of that old folk singer.
Remove it from my sight.
Traitor to your race, close it again.
Close it now you hear or you won't be welcome here again.
Turn back to the truth of religion.
Repent of listening to the ideas they've brainwashed with you.
Preach it like you used to.
Tell the world of the evils of folk.
Teach about the evil words and deeds of Woody Guthrie.
Make placards to protest when the heirs of Pete Seeger come to town.
I'm pleading with you, return to truth.
Don't make me cry please.
Stop turning the pages.
Stop searching for that song.
And paint out that false slogan you've painted on your guitar.
Repaint the Bible verse that you used to be proud to carry with you.
Try not to hate your mother so much.
Listen to her when she tells you what's good for you.
PUT DOWN THAT PLECTRUM AT ONCE YOUNG LADY!
Come back please.
Draw back from the precarious ledge you're standing on.
Remove yourself from Satan's clutches.
Destroy his works, his words, his lies.
Stamp out ecology.  Let Jesus save the world as he promised.
Throw out the disgusting theory of, I can hardly say it, climate change.
Rebuke the teachers of evolution.
Put yourself in sackcloth and ashes and
Destroy any notion that there is freedom in the cesspit of the world.
Young lady, put it down or you'll not be welcome under my roof.
Don't make me hate what you've become.
Remember The Bible.
Remember the way God touched you in the camp.
Don't try to tell me that Pastor Eric touched you too.
Don't you tell such despicable untruths about that lovely man.
Remember how you used to say that Jesus was your force field.
Remember how cute we said you were.
Think about how God was raising you up into a beautiful woman.

LISTEN TO ME.  Please.

 

In tears, I strummed the first chord.
Through the noise of my sobbing I began to sing.

Don’t use a tissue, sniff instead,

Don’t use a napkin, use a piece of bread,

Don’t flush the toilet every time you pee,

Do your bit for ecology.

Stop it.  Stop it.  For God's sake stop it.
Oh Jesus forgive me for my blasphemy.
Oh Jesus forgive me for raising a child of the devil.
Have mercy on her, she doesn't know what she's doing.
Help me to love her, a sinner.
Help me to hate her sin, her environmentalism.
Jesus Guide me.
Jesus show me your plan.
Help me to be strong when I cast her out as you command.
Never let me waver.

Get out of my house child.
Don't come back until you've learned submission to The Bible.
Watch me and see how much you've hurt me.
No, don't take the book with you.
Don't take the guitar either.
Leave them here so I can burn them.
Get out you socialist!


I left.  A friend took me in.
She lent me a guitar.  She had the same book as me.
She had many books.
A warm bed too and the best hot chocolate.
Mum called hot chocolate decadent,
A distraction from the work of the Kingdom.
My friend called it a taste of heaven.

I sang with my friend.
We smiled.
I cried too about my life.
She called me strong and held me tight.
Then I knew I could persevere, learn true freedom.

And then, the following Saturday, I sang that song again.
On the steps of the city hall I sang.
I sang of freedom too, of hope.
I sang of the power we have to change our world.
The people cheered.

Except for a few who stood where I once stood.
They brought placards.  Bigger than ours.

Repent!
Hate socialism!
Hate environmentalism!
Turn from the lies of science!
Love the sinner, hate the sin!

They looked so angry, so much sadness in their eyes.
They looked lost.
I had once been as lost as them,
Fundamentalists, terrified in case they ever wavered.

And there among them, my mother.
She too, one of the angry, the lost.
I caught her eye as I led my songs.
No pride there.
Just a mix of regret and hate.

I turned away from her
Into the embrace of freedom
And the warmth of inclusive love.

I prayed for her too that one day she might learn the truth.
It was for that same freedom Christ came
And for love Jesus walked among us.


As promised, here's that blog post with the lyrics of the song.

If you're wondering.  I bought some 2017 calendars very cheaply in a Christian bookshop in Bolton.  I plan one day to wreck them for my own purposes.  One page of one is a simple image and the words "Jesus is my force field."  Really.  Honest.  It does say that.  Photographic proof will be provided on request.

The Future Of The NHS. Tonight It Is More Important Than A Cup of Tea

The next prompt in the list at thinkwritten is this:

39. Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!

Ooh, I could really use a cup of tea right now.  Okay, okay, a mug of tea.  Don't you start getting pedantic on me or I won't bother making you one.  It's true.  Some tea would be a suitably calming addition to this moment.  I'm not getting up and putting the kettle on though.  Swore I wouldn't.  Not until I'd written about my drug of choice.  Tea.

I love my tea.  My kitchen would testify to this fact if my kitchen had the ability to stand up in court and speak.  Instead I'll just say that my wife would testify.  My child would testify.  And anyone who knows me well would testify too.  If the Tory government introduced a law making it illegal to dislike tea and I was charged as an anti-tea agitator I could easily win my case against the Crown.  Just you try it Teresa May.  I dare you!  On second thoughts don't.  Please don't.  Not only would it be a very stupid law, even more stupid than selling off parts of the National Health Service to private companies, there are those around me who don't like the taste of tea.  I may think them strange but I pass no moral judgement on these creatures who have been known to call my drinking habit disgusting.

And if you are going to flog off the NHS Mrs May, why throw it in the path of companies from the USA?  That's hardly going to save any money is it?  What are you thinking woman!  Have you seen how much private companies charge for health care over there?  Have you seen how worried poor people and disabled people currently are at the changes the new regime there is trying to introduce?  Let's be thankful for what we have in the UK.  And let's properly fund the NHS.  I know it's expensive but over all it's much cheaper than those Americans have to pay.  Let's give it an eight percent rise in funding each year to cope with the demands of an ageing population and the growth in medical technology.

The people of Britain are worth it.  Heck, half of us voted to leave the EU and one of the major arguments for leaving was the amount of money that would (supposedly) be saved by leaving and channeled straight into health care.  Our foreign secretary, master of the undiplomatic gaffe but you can get away with anything in politics with a bad haircut, stood in front of a big bus didn't he?  Were we lied to?  Make your own mind up.

Tea.  I'm meant to be writing about my beloved tea, not about my beloved NHS.  My family do not have a lot of money.  Without the NHS we would be struggling to pay for our health care.  As part of my necessary treatment for different issues I am prescribed various medications.  One of them costs over a pound a tablet.  I wish it didn't and I wish cheaper medicine helped me like this one does.  I've tried most of them.  They don't.  We'd find it hard to pay for that.  Another medicine I have to take would cost me well over three-hundred pounds for a private prescription every twelve weeks.  I'd love to cost the NHS nothing at all.  I really would.  But unfortunately I need these things.

Without the NHS - or other national government appointed "free at the point of delivery" health care what would we have done when my mother was ill with cancer? Four times.  What would have happened for my dad when he got ill?  What would happen to you, to your friends and family if there was no NHS and you weren't rich enough to pay for private care?  Sometimes I'm not sure if those currently in power in our country think about such questions enough.  We have a cabinet of privileged millionaires.  Without an NHS they don't personally suffer.  We just have to hope that they can't cope with the pain of needlessly allowing others to suffer.  We have to hope they might decide that giving someone a hip operation before they're in a wheelchair and in excruciating pain (moderate pain isn't enough to get you help under recent proposals) is a better use of cash than renewing the weapons of mass destruction in our arsenal - weapons we signed international treaties against.

At the weekend there was a protest in Newcastle.  A thousand people marched.  Most stayed around for at least part of a rally at which ten people gave short speeches and Bethany Elen Coyle sang songs.  She's sick.  I heard that a young person who joined the rally said so.  As a compliment of course.  We marched and rallied about the NHS, in particular about the NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans that are proposed by our government.  The government says the STPs will revitalise the NHS.  NHS workers, users, and campaigners say that the opposite is the case and the NHS will be further weakened, if not walked further down a path to a terrible destruction.  It's a cost cutting exercise.  £22 billion cut by 2020.

Yes.  Cut.  None of that £350 million a week extra.  Roughly £350 million a week less.  I wonder how many of those voting for Brexit voted that way to stand for our NHS.  I wonder how many of them now stand with those campaigning.  And I wonder, as others have, how to get them involved more in the campaigns.  I think in order to do that the campaigning has to be unabashedly positive.  It must stand FOR the NHS rather than against people.  And I do know I've moaned about people and parties here.  If the Labour party or the Lib Dems were pushing the same policies I'd moan about them too.  Like it or not, no change will ever come by emailing Jeremy Corbyn.  At least not until the next General Election, should he win it.

The people marching and rallying were mainly the white liberal elite.  Yet the future of the NHS affects every one of us.  I looked out at the people listening to speeches.  After the march I decided for reasons unknown to myself not to follow the marchers but to climb the steps at Grey's Monument and stand nearer the speakers.  From there I could see everyone and I took pictures.  I felt proud to be among those gathered, honoured to be in a city where so many people come and stand for a cause.

And yet:  I have to wonder.  Almost everyone in that crowd was white.  Where were the faces of people of colour?  That's not a criticism.  It's just a wondering why those communities among us have not been reached with the message and how come they have not been galvanised into action.  The NHS belongs to them too.  I wonder too what the proportion was of Guardian readers to readers of The Sun.  Just how white middle-class liberal elite was that crowd of good people?  Because everyone is affected by STPs and cuts.  Everyone.  Somehow a campaign must be inclusive if it is to be truly powerful.

After the rally I attended a public meeting where questions like those above were asked.  The meeting was about one thing only:  Where do we go from here to build the campaign for the sake of the NHS and all of us who benefit from it?  One thousand people marched.  Twenty attended that meeting.  I was one and I had only gone to listen and learn and my head was wrecked by that stage so I left early.  Yeah, autism makes it costly for me to attend rallies.  Twenty.  Out of a thousand.  In the end it's easy to walk through the streets in a crowd on a dry Saturday lunchtime.  It's harder to do more.

I was there but I don't say that out of pride.  It's the first time in a long while I've been one of the twenty.  I cannot yet hold up my hands and say I am anything like the activist I want to be.  I fall short.  Far short.  And this year I'd like to find some ways to fall less short.  To be of use in some way beyond being a number on a street every now and again.

As for the NHS.  I believe together we can save her.  Before me I have a piece of paper handed to me before the march.  It was printed by a campaigning group called Keep Our NHS Public.  They tell me of some things I can do.  You could do them too.  Or the first of them at least.  The sheet says this:

Find out what's happening locally and join a local group.  See the KONP website, www.keepournhspublic.com

There's also a Facebook page and group should you wish to like one and join the other.  There are also regional groups and pages.   That's easy.  I've just done that thing.

The KONP are pressing for (from the paper again)

• Full funding of the NHS - to at least EU average levels.  We spend 75% of the EU average per head on healthcare.  How can we expect our NHS to be the best in the world if it's not properly funded?
• No changes to be made without sound evidence being gathered and consent obtained from both medical professionals and the patients.
• Support for the NHS Bill to restore the NHS.  That's due to get its second reading in a couple of weeks.

The STP plans are very worrying and most of us don't know anything whatsoever about them.  I didn't know either.  This is not about fighting a political party.  It's not about chanting that Jeremy Hunt has got to go, and just what would be the point of him going?  It's not about breaking down Teresa May.  No.  It's about fighting to regain a health service that's the envy of the world.  While that entails fighting government policies and by necessity involves taking the debate to politicians the fight must be positive not negative.

None of this is meant to make you feel bad for not acting.  Or feel good for acting.  It's not meant to evoke guilt or pride in me either.  I am though forced again to ask myself questions.  What can I do?  A very serious question because with my mental health being so variable I have to be careful not to head down laudable paths that will reduce me to a blubbering lump of no use to anyone.  Then there's that other question.  Where can I do?  Should I be fighting for the NHS or for other issues?  Instead or in addition.

I do not know.  I mean to find out.

This was meant to be a post about tea.  Perhaps that will get written tomorrow.  It's late now.  Too late for my promised drink.  I didn't mean to splurge out something heartfelt about the NHS.  I didn't mean to turn political on you after recent posts about teddy bear wars, jigsaw puzzles and a woman condemned as a witch.  Sometimes the free writing goes where it goes and I just follow.  Perhaps tonight it's gone in a direction worth travelling.

Fun fact:  www.keepournhspublic.com is caught by the Open Office spell checker.  As an alternative it suggests pro-Republican.


[1891 words]

Why I Am Ashamed To Have Marched In Newcastle For A Good Cause

It is very hard for me to march and attend rallies. It's hard to explain how hard it is for my head to cope with the noise and crowds and the fact that 56 hours later I have not recovered from being there. For me to attend such an event and stand up for equality, fraternity and liberty and all those nice things is a big sacrifice. 

I would still want to attend. Because there are things I believe in that trump the difficulties of being the owner of my lovely little autistic brain - and the shaking and tears and pain I've had the last couple of evenings as a pretty direct result of putting myself through the event.

But I am not going to attend. My conscience is such that I must in future stay away from them unless things change.

See if you can spot why I can no longer attend these rallies. Clue: It comes about 1 minute into this video:  https://vimeo.com/184366522

Newcastle Unites, "a broad coalition of the left" have shared the video on Facebook.  It's called "The English Defence League v Newcastle Unites."  A great title for a football match.

Answer: The call for people to commit suicide.

I cannot be associated with that. Ever. It's evil.

 

I don't care who the people are.  I don't care what they say.  I don't care what they have done.  It doesn't matter.  Shouting at them to commit suicide is never justified.  Never.

I am rubbish at social initiation. But I did it on this occasion. Telling them just how vile the chant is. The response I got was, "Well they say bad things so we can too." I felt physically sickened by that response.

Others disliked that chant too. But there it is in the video as if this is something that supposedly nice people should be proud of. It isn't. Newcastle Unites should be profoundly ashamed that such things happen on their watch. Not proud. Ashamed.

Other chants distress me too:

Calling people scum. Yeah, they might be wrong, they might be racist. But is anyone scum?

Saying they're "our streets." Er, no. They're everyone's streets. Because we live in a free society. This isn't some gang warfare, Jets versus Sharks. This is a call for unity, for the celebration of the dignity of all human beings.

So yeah, no more marches and rallies for me unless I can be assured that this awfulness can be consigned to the dustbin of shame where it belongs.

 

I strongly dislike the English Defence League and the things they believe and proclaim.  I believe their brand of racism, like any other brand of racism, is cruel, ignorant and inhuman.  Earlier today I watched the video the EDL produced of their rally.  The ignorance is plain.  The hatred is plain.  The fear of other people is plain.

 

Some of their members even proclaim these things while carrying banners claiming to be "Christian" defenders.  I'm not sure they had read the parts of the Bible about how to treat the alien in your land.  Or the parts of the Bible in which Jesus - an interesting middle Eastern guy whose family were forced to seek sanctuary in a foreign land - talked about love and mercy.

Yes.  I'd love to see every member of the EDL give up their ways and wear nice "Refugees Welcome" badges.  It would be wonderful.

 

I am proud that I stand, as much as my head and variable abilities allow, against the hatred and racism that organisations such as the EDL churn out.

But.  I am ashamed to have walked in a parade and stood at a rally where the encouragement was given for those members to commit suicide, to shoot themselves.

I am ashamed.

And I won't be doing it any more.

Days of Gratitude - For Food, Friends and Fellowship ... And Unexpected Meetings

Hoorah!

Some more days from my gratitude diary.  I am immensely grateful for the diary.  After nearly six months I can say that it has helped me a lot.  It's not the only thing that's helped me in the first half of the year.  The biggest three helps - all of which either didn't exist six months ago or were very new six months ago are this diary, the realisation of how much I can do with a bus pass, and my friendship with Amanda.  Without each of those three I would not be as well as I currently am.  I am immensely grateful for them all.

I have come a long way in the first half of this year.  My mental health has improved a lot, especially since the middle of April.  I'm actually quite proud of having reached the point I am at now as I was a long way from it six months ago. It feels good.  Or at least it feels good when it's not feeling bad!

So here we are.  Four more very varied days.  A couple were very quiet.  A couple were very busy.  And one of them went in a brilliant direction that I couldn't have predicted if I'd had all the astrological skills of Russell Grant and Mystic Meg combined and if I lived in an alternative universe where such astrology actually works.

18^th June

Grateful for a quiet day and for friends.

Grateful to have had the time to write blog posts for Blob Thing who is getting increasingly thoughtful at times.

Grateful to have learned more about quick photo editing on this phone. On the old one I could do nothing.

Although it turns out that negatives can be almost terrifying!

Grateful to have the confidence in me to go out unshaven and dressed in a short skirt and a panda top complete with panda hood.

Beth's friend saw me and called me adorable. Yay!

19^th June

Grateful to visit the Quakers today for the first time in ages. It was nearly silent worship but I go away with things to think about.

Today they unveiled this colour wheel. Each crayon is next to handwritten text, adjectives that members of the meeting had written about Quakers and being a Quaker. Each crayon has a specially made label.

It really is rather a special thing.

And afterwards there was a shared lunch.

Very glad to have been there today.

20^th June

I went for a short walk today. But plans changed quickly when I encountered these people crossing Monkwearmouth Bridge. Grateful to have joined them and walked with them to North Shields.

Grateful too for the good people at The Sage this evening singing songs to protest Nigel Farage and the UKIP event.

Glad to actually have the mental health today to stand with them, hold a placard, and sing out.

21^st June

Grateful for this £1.99 box set from Oxfam. I just finished season two and am almost in awe at it. This was 1984. Tea-time children's television. Yet it was THIS show.

Probably the best Robin Hood version ever. I can rave about it.

And grateful to look at my photos and other people's photos from Monday.

Many good people.

Pleased with how this picture worked out for me.  I took it on Marsden Beach if anyone is wondering.  Just before this we made a friendship circle round the rock stack.

Life on Facebook: Biblical Hedgehogs, Transgender Toilets and Cosy Cafes

I am so far behind on blog posts.  So many days out with photos.  And a couple of weeks of nice things from the gratitude diary.  I will catch up.  I will catch up.  I will catch up.  Saying it over and over as a mantra doesn't make it true any more than ten thousand people quoting Andrew Wakefield makes it true that vaccines cause autism.

Part of the reason for the lack of posts is that I haven't had the spare spoons for writing posts.  I haven't been doing well and spoons have gone on survival and on improving mental health by going to pretty places, or to less pretty places and buying liquorice.

Part of the reason is I keep getting distracted by Facebook.  I know Facebook is meant to be about sharing pictures of kittens and talking about babies, drunken nights and food.  But I can't stick to those rules and thankfully quite a few of my friends there can't stick to them either and post all kinds of interesting things.

Sometimes I do post about food.  Sometimes I post daft things that my head hasn't been able to avoid thinking about and analysing.  Sometimes I post serious things that are dear to me.

For examples, this is what I've posted in the last thirty hours.  Four posts.  With explanatory notes to follow.  As if the posts weren't tortuous enough.

Having written all those notes I realise I am still just as behind with blog posts.  Never mind.

1.

Poll: 6-in-10 oppose bills like the North Carolina transgender bathroom law

Or to turn it around:

Nearly 4-in-10 Americans support laws to keep transgender people out of the restrooms that most closely correspond with their gender and a quarter of Americans strongly support such laws.

Even among American liberals, 1-in-5 say they support the laws.

I wonder what the statistics would be here.


2.

Feeling very sorry for hedgehogs in the New American Standard Bible and wondering what the translators have against them.

First God is having somewhere made into a swamp for them to live in. (Isaiah 14)

Then they're being made to live in a land where the ground is unquenchable burning pitch. (Isaiah 34)

And then it turns out that hedgehogs are having to roost at the top of columns, which does not seem to me to be a completely natural place for them to live. (Zephaniah 2)

This persecution of hedgehogs by God never came up in any sermon I preached, back when I preached sermons.

3.

Really very overloaded / overwhelmed in town. But I decided to stay out and try a cafe I haven't been in before.

It's nice but I would prefer it with no music playing. Glad to have headphones nowadays and to know it's okay.

4.

Meet The Doctor Social Conservatives Depend On To Justify Anti-Transgender Hate

Today is like most days. Because this guy's name has appeared on my facebook wall.

Yep, nearly every day I see his name. Probably every trans person I know has seen his name sometimes.

He is a Doctor. But he is one man. There aren't many like him, which is why he is quoted so often by so many people.

They say "trans people are female impersonators". They say "Surgery for trans people is a bad thing and must be because they stopped it at Johns Hopkins." They say "We shouldn't encourage trans people because then they'll be suicidal." They say that "transgenderism" is a myth, a pathogen that is destroying society. They say that transgender people really have autogynephilia - that is, we get so sexually aroused by our own genitals that we completely change our lives.

They say all kinds of things and time and time again it stems from this man or is backed up by something this man said.


Notes:

1.

I find it interesting to be part of a marginalised group - in fact part of several marginalised groups.  For most of my life I lived in such a way as to not be part of any of them.  Because I was straight, male, cisgender, neurotypical and followed the official religion of my country.  Well, that's the person I presented as anyway.  While out today I used the toilet in the cafe and of course used the women's loo.  The thought that one in five American liberals (and a higher proportion of every other group) would support a law to make it illegal for me to do that raises certain issues.

2.

Yes, I know that other translations don't say hedgehog.  Quite why the NASB translators chose hedgehog when the Hebrew word so obviously means something else is a bit of a mystery to me.

My hedgehog thoughts arose when a preacher I know in Blackpool (one of the good guys) posted his daily five facts and/or thoughts.  Today they included the word "wankers" which is a word many preachers wouldn't use.  Yesterday they informed us that the cat is the only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible.  I check facts if I can.  Sometimes I check unimportant ones.  And sure enough, the fact was wrong.  I used the Wikipedia list of domestic animals.  No, the Bible does not mention the zebu, water buffalo, llama, alpaca, yak, gayal or ferret.

I wasn't sure about hedgehog so I looked it up and found that while many translations don't mention hedgehogs, the NASB does.  The King James Bible has bitterns living in swamps, not hedgehogs.  It could also be an otter, a porcupine, or an owl.  Hedgehogs share that fire land with three other animals - all of them birds.  The first of these is mostly called a pelican.  But the Emphasized Bible calls it "the vomiting pelican" which is nice!

Christian fundamentalists often talk about the "plain, simple truth of Scripture."  You just tell it as it is and believe it, literally.  I think that, whether you broadly want to believe the Bible or not, that's a laughable and dangerous viewpoint.  If your Bibles can't even agree whether a word means hedgehog, owl, bittern or otter you have problems being able to read anything like the "plain, simple truth" from it.

Yes, my head often takes me further than it reasonable into looking at things.  And while I never preached about hedgehogs, I did once include a section about the occurrences of laurel trees in The Bible in a study I led at a Baptist Church.  Possibly the most over-detailed series of Bible studies ever led in Lancashire on the first half of the book of Zechariah.  I can now remember pretty much none of what I talked about so it was probably not particularly important.

3.

Yes, the cafe.  Place of my use of a toilet that a fifth of American liberals would want to make illegal.  Not my only women's toilet use this week.  And other such restrooms contained other women.  Guess what?  Nothing happened.  I honestly hope things are different in the UK and rather less people would support a change in the law here.  Probably things are different here.  I'm choosing to believe that.

Almost a food post.  But just a tasty smoothie and a comfy chair to sit in.  And photos that will end up in the gratitude diary probably and so reappear in another post here.

The cafe is Super Natural, Upper Princess Square, in Newcastle.  It seems pretty good and the salad bar is decent.  They're starting a second cafe with an expanded salad bar and with all the profits going to some charities.  It's likely I'll be trying it at some point and returning to the first cafe which would be a good place if meeting someone.  The cafe next to it, Painted Elephant is a vegan place and is meant to be great in terms of both friendliness and the quality of the food - though I confess I still miss the cafe that was there before it, The Laughing Cat, one of only two cafes that I've written an entire blog post about.


4.

The name of Paul McHugh has cropped up quite a bit recently.  More so with all this fuss about American toilets and cisgender heterosexuals saying they want to ban transgender people of any variety of sexuality from toilets because cisgender heterosexuals sometimes do despicable things.

But today I made a mistake.  I answered back to someone posting about him.  I don't usually do that.  But for some reason I was annoyed at a guy laughing out loud because he agreed with the claims that "transgendered" people are impersonators, counterfeits.  Annoyed because I know that I am me.  Simple.  Annoyed too because I fell into the trap of being annoyed by someone whose opinion on the matter should not matter in the slightest to me.

So yes, I argued.  With Mr. Colditz.  I'm sure he's a nice guy, just one who happens not to agree that I am me. (Is that part of the definition of nice? You tell me.)  In any case, like anyone else he's doing his best.  I didn't know until I first saw his name that people were called Colditz.  I am stopping arguing now and thus I find I have Escaped from Colditz.

Sorry.  Couldn't resist.

Mental Health Hell and the Positivity of My Life

My mental health has been pretty damn naff recently.  There have been horrible days and even worse hours.  Mental health has stopped me doing many of the things I wanted to do.  It's paralysed me at times.  It means that instead of going to Sussex for 11 days I have had to stay in Newcastle.  I've cried lots, broken down very publicly in the city centre, hurt my head through banging it, had a constant headache from sensory overload, and really struggled to keep going at times.

Yes.  I could look at the last month and choose to say that it's been a terrible time.  I could focus in on the bad things.  I could focus on the painful meltdown on Tuesday and the way I stopped being able to function when sorting things for refugees and the way I had to walk out of my mindfulness session and cry in the corridor.  Or I could focus on the good.

I could focus in yesterday on how awful I felt in the morning, how I didn't even have the spoons to get back on the metro and come home from town.  Or I could focus on how good the day got when it became a surprise.

I have a choice.  To focus on the bad and the pain.  Or to focus on all the good things, accept the bad, and move on from there.  Because the bad is bad.  And the pain is pain.  I can't deny it.  I can't pretend that all the rubbish isn't there.  But I can choose to focus elsewhere and see that, even with all the rubbish, life is a wonderful thing.

Because there is so much good and so much hope and so many good people.  Taking - as examples - my Saturdays:

Four weeks ago I danced with a new and very valued friend, barefoot in a thunder storm at Autscape, a conference/gathering run by and for autistic people.  Four weeks on I know that Autscape was very important to me and there are things that happened there and things it taught me about myself that I haven't even begun to process.  In some way Autscape will affect the rest of my life.  That weekend I met awesome people.

Three weeks ago I went to a barbecue from which arose decisions that are majorly affecting my life.  Majorly.  Three weeks ago I found somewhere that has almost become my second home.  Somewhere that I hope will become a big part of my life.  That barbecue was just a barbecue and the person who invited me was really just inviting me to a barbecue.  Neither of us knew that it would lead to so much in such a short space of time.  That weekend I met awesome people and because I met them I went on to meet more awesome people.

Two weeks ago was a day I could say was rubbish.  Because the first half of it was pretty bad in terms of mental health difficulties.  I wouldn't wish those difficulties on anyone.  But then there was a wonderful message from an awesome friend, a message that really helped me face the day.  And then on what had been that rubbish day I had a surprise meeting with another awesome friend.  We pretended to have an appointment at the optician in order to help ourselves to hot chocolate (my awesome friend does things like that!) and then we sat in the street drinking and laughing with each other.

On the worst days there is good.  On the day I broke down so much in town my friends came to the rescue - especially three wonderful people from Autscape who stayed with me as much as they could through constant text messages until I was recovered enough to get myself safe.  I count myself as massively fortunate in the people who have come my way recently, some of whom I've met in surprising ways.  It's like I suddenly have this brand new extended family of people who I love, who love me and with whom there are all kinds of unexpected connections.

A week ago I belatedly got involved in the work going on in solidarity with refugees.  It took seeing people and donations in my new second home before I finally decided that I couldn't stay away from giving something to the cause.  It's entirely possible that the future will see me continue to be involved in that in bigger ways.  And I've met awesome people.  It takes a lot for me to stand up and do something positive.  But I think right now I am standing and I don't want to sit down again.  The work is there and will continue to be there and, if I allow it and choose it, there is space for me to be useful.

And tomorrow I go to a meditation group for the first time.  The start of what will be a weekend I am really looking forward to - though a very different weekend to the one I would be having had I not had all the mental health issues I've had recently.  There will be awesome people there too and awesome people throughout the weekend.

So.  My life has been a mental health hell.  And I could choose to see it that way.  But it has also been a time of massive and unexpected blessings and of meeting the awesome people - many of whom I would never have met had I not experienced the mental health hell.  For the future I can only see more blessings and more awesome people even if the hell continues.

I had an hour this morning when my head was not hurting from sensory overload.  The first hour in a few weeks.  It was bliss to not hurt.  And sometimes it hurts so much and that pain inside my head falls down and across my body too.  But in this life, painful life, I rejoice and in the last weeks have become more and more thankful and more and more able to see the light that comes from without and the light that I have been becoming from within.

My painful life is one of positivity.  And overall, I love the way it is becoming.

IDAHOT 2014 - International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Newcastle event

Last Saturday was IDAHOT, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.  A day to stand in solidarity with all those around the world who suffer mistreatment through homophobia or transphobia, whether socially or legally.  It's taken me a while to write about it.  Then again I've still got to write about the May Day march that happened weeks ago.  I'm a bad blogger!

There was an event organised in Newcastle.  Two years ago this took place at the Monument.  This year it was more out of the way, outside the Civic Centre.  I don't know if that was by choice or because the main city centre was having a busy day with a march by the English Defence League, a counter protest by groups including the Anti-Fascism League, and the Orange Order picked the same day to march through the city as well.  Unfortunately the one thing the Civic Centre lacks on a Saturday lunchtime is passers by so the event was preaching just to the gathered crowd, all of whom knew much of what is going on round the world, all of whom were firmly against homophobia and transphobia, and most of whom were somewhere within the LGBT communities.

The event began with the ceremonial raising of the gay pride rainbow flag.  It's an amazing thing that such a flag can fly at Newcastle Civic Centre.  It would have been unheard of here in the past.  And in many nations around the world such an act would be illegal, punishable by imprisonment or hard labour rather than arranged hand-in-hand with the city council.

The rainbow flag flies in Newcastle.

Our host for the event was our very own Rev. Cecilia Eggleston of MCC (Metropolitan Community Church).

I was talking at the event with an atheist.  He said he loves and admires Cecilia greatly and that if he was a Christian then she is the sort of Christian he'd want to be.  Many people - whether atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Christian or whatever - would share that view.

It is sad that even in the UK there is still a place for MCC to be what it is and that in other nations that place is more urgent.  Then again in many so-called Christian nations such a church would be illegal.



The first MCC began because there was no place that gay Christians could worship without being told that their sexuality was sin.  It is shameful that even today, in the UK, many churches still preach the same thing.  I look forward to a day when no church, beyond a few fringe elements, preaches against those who are gay or trans and that we'll think of such preaching much as we think of that preaching in the past that claimed that black people were cursed - because Noah cursed them.  We'll look back and wonder how Christians could have been so stupid, arrogant, judgemental and hateful.  That time has not come yet.  As it approaches then the reason MCC exists round the world will cease to be a reason to exist.  I'm sure it will continue to adapt and continue to preach, as the T-shirt proclaims, "God loves LGBT" and indeed that God loves all people.

Three speakers spoke at the event.  The first was Tara Stone, chair of Tyne Trans, the local support group for Transgender people.  Some people need a lot of support, some very little.  Tara works hard for the group and for acceptance of all transgender people.  Her vision, in part, is for a society where everyone can be who they are and what they are, without fear of persecution or abuse by individuals or media - with the usual provisos of course of being who you are based on love and respect.

It's a message of living, of being, of doing.  It's a message of freedom and even in the UK it needs saying because so many gay and trans people are afraid to be openly who they are and hide in shadows.

There are challenges in this of course.  To be openly transgender, especially if you're not cis-normative can be hard and I do find that trans people can be judged on a harsher scale than cis people, even by those who are our allies.  If a cis woman has a "bad clothes day" it can pass without comment.  If a trans woman does the same she will be criticised.  If a trans woman doesn't look enough like someone's picture of "a woman" then she is criticised.  If a trans man doesn't look like "a man" the same happens.  And if you're trans and don't really identify as "man" or "woman" and live as yourself then people can make things difficult for you - even people who are LGB.

And this photo shows another problem trans people have:

LGB people forget us.  Frequently.  In Newcastle we celebrate IDAHOT.  Here's a big UK poster from UNISON, advertising the website IDAHO.  Other sites are named "dayagainsthomophobia" and so on.

So often trans people are forgotten and LGB people fight for their own rights and leave us out - sometimes even actively standing against trans people.

This needs to change.

Our second speaker was Abraham, representing Rainbow Homes, an organisation for LGBT asylum seekers, many of whom have had quite horrific experiences in their countries of origin.  Some of them can show you the marks of torture they have received for being gay.  27% of votes in the UK European Election last week went to a party that wouldn't want to let these people into Britain.  But they are real people, with real stories of terror and suffering.  They are not demons - whatever newspapers and politicians repeatedly tell us.

Abraham spoke about Africa which he called the most homophobic continent and the lives of LGBT people in the 20-something nations there were being gay is a crime.

Also from Africa we had the FODI African drummers performing and supporting us.

Our final speaker was Janet, who works for an LGBT organisation in the city.  She spoke mainly about life in Russia.  Its anti-gay policies were much in the news during the Winter Olympics.  The media have gone.  The policies remain and life is getting harder for gay and trans people
there.

To follow our speakers we made a noise.  A minute of noise.  Loud noise.  We did it not for ourselves but for those across the world who could not do what we have done.

In 81 countries, same-sex relationships are illegal.  In 10 countries the death penalty applies.  This represents 40% of the world's population.
70% of people live somewhere where freedom of expression is limited for sexuality and/or gender.  They couldn't gather peacefully as we gathered.  They couldn't speak out.  They couldn't be sanctioned by the Council to raise the flag, watched by one friendly policeman from a force with LGBT liaison officers working against any hate crimes.

So we made a noise for those people who cannot make a noise.  We made a noise, a cry for justice.  For freedom.  For people to be allowed to be people.

And then there was cake.  Tasty cake.

There are better photos of the cake - and indeed better photos of the whole event - by a Newcastle media project called "Look Again".  They can be found on their facebook page.  There's also a 25 minute interview with Cecilia that they did a couple of weeks ago when visiting and filming at MCC.

Cake.  Always a good way to finish any event.









We were fortunate.  The weather was warm.  The sun shone.  Apparently it poured with rain two years ago at Monument.  And a passer-by called Cecilia the daughter of the Devil.  I'm sure there are plenty of Christians who would agree with that.  But like Jesus, Cecilia is more the friend of sinners than the friend of the self-righteous judges.

And people came and said hello.  People from the trans group.  People from MCC.  A couple of Green Party activists I'd met briefly at the start of the month - after the May Day march mentioned at the beginning.  And a woman I completely failed to recognise who I'd met once at the Unitarian church which I really should pay another visit to sometime. 

A good day.  A peaceful celebration.  And thankfully the marches and protests and parades elsewhere in the city remained peaceful - thanks in part to the large police presence.  We had one policeman.  The EDL had rather more!