My Transgender Coming Out Story - A Tale of Difficulties and Deep Joy

So this is me.  Or one version of me.  A selfie taken a few days ago in a moment of deep joy and contentment at the top of a hill not too many miles from home.  I share it because it's where my story is right now, four years after coming out as a transgender woman.  There I am.  Just me.  In what is one of the stranger pictures.  You won't see many selfies of a transgender woman in a post about being transgender that look quite like this one.  Welcome to my reality.  I like it.  Especially when I'm being a little more crazy or weird than usual.

I just read an article about what one person has learned coming out as a non-binary trans person at the age of 43. After 100 days they say they did everything too fast. Their experiences are those of one person.  It is their truth.

My experiences and truth are also those of one person. They're bound to be a little different because I'm a woman, pure and simple, and about as far from non-binary as any woman gets. The article got me thinking about my own transgender life and the way I came out to the world and began to live publicly as a woman.

Here's a little of my experience. Just one woman trying to navigate her way into her truth. I've free written what follows and haven't edited at all.  Any mistakes are my own.

I came out to myself in a way I couldn't ever deny again at the age of 43. 43 years to get to that point. From then on things moved quickly.

2 weeks on: I dressed solely in women's clothes. Except when preaching. Not publicly in skirts and dresses. Not yet. But solely in woman's clothes I'd bought for myself via the miracle of very cheap charity shops. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Everything was a matter of experimentation and sometimes I got it very wrong and nobody told me quickly enough before I had a chance to inflict my lack of dress sense on the world.

4 weeks on: I had told pretty much everyone that I was now Clare. The church leaders panicked about how to tell everyone and that delayed legal changes and the whole process. Most people were okay about it. Some people rejected me. Some people told me at length how staggeringly wonderful they were to not totally reject me. Gee, thanks!

8 weeks on: Having sorted things out with the church and had a ten day holiday as Clare (during which time my transition was officially announced to the congregation) I got round to legally changing my name. Much paperwork. Some people change their name quite often. They must love paperwork.

I was that (appearing to the world) 40 something man in a frock. Dark shadows of stubble. No make up. No hair removal. Hair that I'd cut short a few weeks before coming out. Totally, completely obvious. I was yet to meet anyone from Tyne Trans (as was). I had asked the GP to refer me to the gender dysphoria service – 27 days after coming out to myself, half of which was waiting for the appointment! - but my first appointment wasn't until three and a half months after signing that deed poll. To all intents and purposes anyone who saw me in the street would have clocked me as a cross dressing man not as a woman determined to be herself.

And sometimes, unsurprisingly, the world made things bloody difficult. Bloody difficult. Transphobia is real. If I had phoned the police every time I experienced it I would have been phoning a lot. Every. Single. Day. At times it was horrible. Truly horrible. And I was one of the more fortunate ones. Others have suffered a hell of a lot more than me after coming out. Every one of them is amazing for getting through that hell. When people quote the suicide and attempted suicide rate for transgender people I can only wonder why it isn't higher. For the record, in the UK nearly half of all transgender people have attempted suicide.

Four years have passed since I came out and demanded to be called Clare and she. Woe to anyone who deliberately calls me he or protests that they don't see an issue with it if I get misgendered or who tells me it's too hard to remember that I'm female and so would like to be addressed as female. Fortunately that doesn't happen much now – and most people I see never knew me as he. Yes, pretty much my entire life, excepting family, is filled with people I didn't know four years ago.

I've learned a lot in those four years.

Would I do it again? Come out like that?

You bet I would. Except I'd have done it quicker.

And I wouldn't allow a religion to delay anything. I truly wish I'd come out to the church in the middle of a sermon I preached. It was very tempting indeed and I wish I'd done it. After coming out I was told that it would be "inappropriate" for me to preach or lead anything in case "anyone is ever worried." All the confusion. All the having to meet with diocesan pastoral advisors and so on. Just so I could be banned and yet find that the congregation itself was supportive. Yeah, I wish I hadn't let the panicking of the CofE delay me for one second.

If I knew now what I knew then I wouldn't have been so afraid. And to be honest I spent the entirety of those 8 weeks in a state in which my great joy at accepting myself was mixed with an immense amount of terror. Some days I didn't know whether I could do it and without my immediate family and the support of another church - Northern Lights MCC - I might have taken longer about the whole thing.

If I knew now, there would have been less fear. And I would have reached that deed poll milestone quicker.

I have regrets. I shouldn't. Because what's the point? I might as well regret not coming out when I was at college – and I was thinking only this morning of a couple of times the truth was very close to the surface in my mind and how things could have been different if I'd only chosen to speak one sentence differently. I might as well regret my A level choices or giving up the violin when I was nine or anything else that I can't change. Maybe they're not regrets. And each one led in some way to my life being as it is.

But I'd certainly change some parts of the coming out process if I had the chance. Not just the CofE thing.

I regret not telling my online world en masse rather than having to pluck up courage - through terror, always through terror - to tell people one at a time. I'm grateful my mum accidentally outed me to some people, after which I just said "To hell with it" and told the rest.

I regret that my Facebook account is not the one I had under my old name. There were many years of history on that old account and I wish I'd kept it back than and closed this one. The account is still there. With no friends. My old name isn't even friends with my new name.

I regret how defensive I've been about the whole trans thing and how much of that arose from fear and an expectation, borne of 43 years of self rejection and self hatred, that many people who reject and hate me too. I guess most people who come out can got through an over-defensive time arising from that same fear. Bear with us, we get over it – just don't expect us to ever give way to prejudice. We won't.

But these regrets and others are only little compared to the satisfaction and life-changing wonder of coming out at all, of acceptance. It's not just that I'm happier as Clare, more content, and so on. My life has been completely changed in many ways that wouldn't have been possible probably had I not done this. Or if possible, very unlikely.

I have met so many amazing people I wouldn't have met otherwise - including many of you. I've been so blessed. And I meet many more amazing people every time I uncover a little more of myself – this transgender, autistic, creative, weirdly spiritual, nature loving woman.

I've done amazing things too. In my own way. And being Clare has allowed me to start to work through other aspects of my life and being and slowly begin to heal and allow myself to be me.

Without coming out I don't think I'd have been able to accept being autistic. I don't think I'd be exploring creativity as I am. I wouldn't have encountered Broadacre House, wouldn't have completely transformed my faith and spiritual life - and I don't think I'd ever have found the freedom to leave church and start to find my own path again.

Yes. It's been bloody difficult. And there have been lots of difficult things in the past four years. Autism - yeah, that's been tougher than being transgender in very many ways. I've cried. Lots. I've been rejected by some. I've been labelled an abomination by my own church pastor (not the CofE or MCC one). My mental health, while generally much improved, continues to be a minefield just as it always has.

But it's been worth it.

Fabulously, profoundly, superbly worth it.

And I look forward to my future as Clare, as the person I'm discovering myself to be. I am excited for my future. Excited to meet more amazing people and do more amazing (for me) things. Excited because there always seems to be a new surprise when you allow the surprises and give them permission to bring change.

I'm typing all this in my bedroom. Nearly everything in here isn't just something I didn't own before coming out. It's something I wouldn't have considered owning at all. Not just the obvious clothes. But soft toys, my books, the purple Buddha on the wall, that whisk over there that doubles as a head massager (buying it was hilarious), precious things from autism conferences, poetry books, writing books, the meditation material on the bed, precious items from Manchester, even a series of books called Skulduggery Pleasant. I wouldn't have read those if I hadn't come out.  I look at this room and know that my life is almost infinitely better for coming out.

My life is very much not as I would have expected it to be. And the changes just keep happening.  There are more on the way that I know about.  And there will be more surprises too.

I give thanks for Clare.

In ten days time I will give thanks again. For it will be the fourth anniversary of the night I looked at myself in a mirror, fully dressed as myself without guilt for the first time in my life, and greeted myself as Clare for the first time. Welcomed myself into the world.

A Grand Day Out In Durham - 4: Sacred To The Memory Of ...

I was having a - mostly - wonderful time in Durham.  And the day was about to improve.  I've been wanting to post this ever since that day.  It just hasn't happened though.  I've been writing about Blob Thing instead, getting out to places as much as I can, and generally trying to get my brain working properly again.  The path back to decent mental health after eighteen very tough months is hard work.  I'm still not there and I have to accept that there are some things that will be with me for the rest of my life that I once would not have said were part of a suitably decent mental health.  The path forwards involves acceptance, embracing those difficult parts of me that I have both fought and denied for so long.

During the couple of days before visiting Durham a couple of news stories had come my way.  People were getting stunningly enraged about similar activities.  And I wasn't.  I was thinking that their rage was pretty daft and I couldn't see the problem.

News story one:  People were sometimes dressing up and having their pictures taken in an old graveyard.  Other people were shocked and dismayed?  How could anyone disrespect the dead in this way?  How could anyone be so dreadful that they would do this terrible thing?  I wasn't shocked or dismayed at all.  Instead I thought it was wonderful.  People were enjoying themselves.  Nobody was being harmed.  Great.  And they were bringing life and celebration and happiness into a place of death.

News story two:  Some children had been photographed lying in an old stone coffin, with their hands in a praying position as if they were corpses placed that way centuries ago.  People were shocked and dismayed.  The outcry on Facebook was great, far greater than it would have been if those children were photographed lying dead in the sea having drowned when their boat full of suffering refugees sank.  Okay, I might be a bit cynical.  But I might be right too.  How dare children do this?  And how dare adults encourage children to do something so awful?  And there were lots of comments too along the lines of "This would never have happened in my day.  What is the world coming to?  This generation are being brought up terribly."

I saw the offending photo and I thought it was really nice.  Children playing.  Being children.  Sweet.  And then I thought, "Hang on, haven't I seen something like this already?"  And of course I had.  A photograph of myself and my brother, taken when we were maybe about ten years old, probably younger.  We were lying down in two stone coffins.  Pretending to be centuries old dead people.  And at least one of us had our hands in that praying position.  Yes, it's true.  We were that awful!  Our parents were that awful!  And we were the precursor to this terrible generation of children!  We were part of the end of civilisation.

Except of course we weren't awful.  We were just having fun.  We played.  We didn't disrespect dead people by having fun.  I rather suspect that if those dead people in their graves could have sat up and watched us they would have had a good laugh and thought it great that children and families could have a good time even in such a place as a graveyard.

Those were the two stories.  Fresh in my memory.  And one phrase stuck out above the others because it had been spoken so often about both stories:  It's sacred.  You have to treat it a certain way because it's sacred.  You have to act with due decorum around anything related to death.  Because it's sacred.  So treat graves and graveyards like this.  It's THE way.  The ONLY way.  Those places are sacred to the memory of people.  That was said.  On TV.  On social media.  Sacred to the Memory.

And I was in Durham looking for a quiet cafe in which to have a drink before heading for home.  I'd walked up a road that led up from the shopping street.  A sign pointed up to a cafe and when I got there I decided that I wouldn't go there.  There didn't seem anything wrong with the cafe and I don't know why I didn't drink there.  Indecisiveness and the difficulty of making any decisions when overwhelmed and, if I'm honest, quite close to melting down or shutting down or somehow managing to combine the two in an impossible way.  Later I would be very glad that I had walked away from that cafe because I found another cafe that I loved.

Opposite the cafe that I didn't use was a church.  This was St. Margaret's.  I want to go back and explore the church building.  Parts of it date from the twelfth century and there's a lot to see.  When I was there a small choir were inside practising some sacred music.  I'm sure they wouldn't have minded me doing the full tourist thing inside and I was feeling fragile and didn't want to disturb them too much.  Exploration of the building can wait for another day.  It's been there for 850 years.  So I expect it'll still be there for me even if I don't return until next year.

On the far side of the churchyard is a gate.  And something within me piped up and said, "I wonder where that leads."  Sometimes you just have to go through gates.  And sometimes they lead to places that you would rather never have visited.  Other times they lead into wonderment and excitement and a place where Clare is happy and flappy and totally grateful to have explored.

Through the gate.  Completely away from any tourist route in Durham.  I hadn't liked the Cathedral.  But the river was pleasing.  The little church of St. Margaret was pleasing.  And now I was to be very pleased indeed.

Through the gate I found graves.  And more graves.  And a large graveyard.  And it was amazing.

The two news stories came back to me and those comments.  You can't do that.  You can't disrespect the dead.  You can't PLAY near graves.  It's horrific.  All those comments.  And one comment in particular came back to me when I passed what was almost the first of the grave stones.

Sacred to the memory of ...

Because there were those words, on a grave.

Sacred to the memory of.   Sacred?

What does that mean for the site.  Does that mean that all graves and all gravestones should be treated with solemnity for the rest of history?  Does it mean that we should not disturb the sites, leave them in situ until the end of time?

If it's a heinous sin to photograph a child in a coffin or an adult by a gravestone, then why isn't this a heinous sin too:

All those stones.  Dug up.  Ripped away from their associated corpses.  And buried so deep that only half the inscriptions are legible.  What do our attitudes mean when this is acceptable but a fun snapshot is an outrage?

I walked further and had a choice.  I could either walk to the right of the wall, into open space with grass and pretty trees and graves in places through the whole quite massive churchyard.  Or I could walk to the left of the wall, down a path that probably wasn't really meant to be a path - or at least was becoming very overgrown and forgotten.  That way led into the woods and the wall continued to be lined with graves.

I took a decision.  Getting good at decisions now.  I may not be able to decide where to have a quick drink.  But I could manage to decide how to explore a graveyard.  By then I was feeling very happy and was loving being there.  If I hadn't wandered through a gateway and past some houses I would never have found this place of wonder.

Yes.  The graves continued.  Ripped from their original sites.  Separated from those people they were sacred to the memory of.  Buried.  And neglected.  I quite like neglected grave sites.  In these places life triumphs.  Death is not the end.  How can it be when there is so much abundance of life even in the dead places?

Further up the path it became increasingly overgrown - and there was no exit at the far end.  I loved it.  I loved the atmosphere, the light through the trees, the smell of the victorious nature.  These sacred sites were still sacred.  Perhaps far more sacred for being swallowed up in that victory.

I couldn't help wondering though why people would be so enraged by those photographs of fun when nobody was being enraged by realities such as this:

Again, Sacred to the Memory of ...

I looked up from the victorious life around the stones.  And I saw even more victorious life.  The trees of the wood, perhaps holding more wisdom than anything in that place.  The tree looked down upon me and said "In this moment all is at peace."  Peace.  Truly.

The beauty of the tree triumphs over the grave.  We all may triumph over the grave through the way we live as individuals, as a species.  Whether we triumph beyond it I will leave to your own beliefs about the soul of our glorious being.  And if we humans manage through our foolishness to destroy all the trees then the beauty of the Earth will triumph over that grave.  The universe will triumph until that too dies and is lost.  And then what?

From the dead end - very much a living end - I walked back from the not-path and back onto the path and I couldn't stop taking photos.  There are a lot.  Far more than I've included here.  I was filled with joy to be there.

This is in memory of Elizabeth and Thomas Eggleston.  They died nearly 200 years ago.  Is this a fit way to remember them?  After 200 years, should we remember them at all?  Should we imagine the lives they lived and the way they would have loved and struggled?  They must have had good times.  But they had sorrow too.  The stone tells of two children also buried, both of whom died in infancy as many children did then.  As many children still do across the world.  What does the sanctity of life mean when so many die so young?  What does the sanctity of death mean?  If it's acceptable to treat a grave site like this when Elizabeth died in 1826, can we treat a grave like this for an Elizabeth who died in 2006?  If not, what is the cut off point?

Truly the way we treat graves tells us a lot about ourselves.  One thing may be acceptable and another thing unacceptable.  And we will disagree about what those things are.

And all these things are just our way of dealing with death.  Our cultural ways.  They're not shared in other cultures where a corpse will be burned or left for vultures.  Where shrines are erected in homes to honour ancestors.  Where a body must be buried that day.  There are many ways now and there have been many others before.  Are any of them more right than any other?

And our ways are changing too.  It wasn't long ago that cremation would have been totally unacceptable for many Christians.  The idea was that a body should not be cremated because then how can we expect it to be resurrected when Jesus returns?  So cremation was impossible.  That's changed.  You won't find many Christians now who would see the cremation might cause them any problems at all in their afterlife.  As faith changes, and as faith sometimes dies it's own death, our attitudes change too.

I think this century will be an interesting one as far as our attitudes go.  More and more we're entering into a post-religious society where many more people belief that physical death is the end.  We have one life.  And then it's over.  What difference will have have to the ways we choose to treat a human corpse?  At this point we're only just beginning to find out.

I've typed more than I meant.  The plan was to post a load of pictures of gravestones.  Then I started thinking.  A set of thoughts that lead me to questions but which haven't led me to answers as I've typed.

One last picture.  I left the overgrown wooded part of the graveyard and I met a friend.  She's called Kate and she was the most fluffy, friendly, joyous person I met that day.  She wouldn't stop moving for long enough that I could take photos.  There's just this one.  A beautiful bundle of joy who couldn't care less about death and graves and about what will happen to her own body when she dies.

Maybe Kate can teach us something.  Just get on and live.

You have this life.  Live it and embrace the moments.

The very gorgeous Kate

[2187 words]

When I am told that Autistic Pride is a bad thing

 The background:

 

A comment on Facebook saying that we shouldn't have autistic pride - or gay pride, black pride, Etc. - because pride comes from achievements not from something innate.  A comment that said that all this "pride" noise comes from people who see themselves as substandard.  A comment that said that after autism pride could come left big toe pride, skin pride and oxygen-breather pride and it would make as much sense.

That's an opinion.  And he's entitled to have that opinion.  And disagreeing with an opinion is not a judgement on a person.

 

But I'm the kind of person who is into the whole Pride thing.  I am transgender and I'm autistic and that's made life hard.  But I am proud of who I am and proud that I am finally learning to accept myself and be myself and that will lead to a better future.  And I'm so into it that I wear badges that say "Autistic Pride" and a bracelet too that was made for me.  So a short (by my standards) response to the comment happened.

I'm posting it mainly because it's part of who I am and I can look back on it here when I am feeling bad about myself or feeling low because of the latest social or sensory problem that's hit me or I've not managed some really basic thing due to a lack of EF skills.  That's a function of this blog for me, or at least it has been recently, that I can look back on the bad days and know that actually life is pretty damn good even with the difficulties I have.  If there were zero page views I would still post because it's worthwhile for my own well being.

 

Image taken from here. I'd be very tempted if I lived in the USA.

 

The off the cuff response:

 

I'm proud to be autistic (and queer and trans ...)

All of the various pride groups come from people being told they have to be ashamed of one aspect of who they are or told they are less than other people because of that aspect or are or have been discriminated against socially and/or legally.

We are proud to be these things because we've been told we shouldn't be. It's not because we see ourselves as substandard. It's because we've been told that we are substandard and we deny it, and continue to deny it and say that we're as good as anyone else and we're proud to be who we are in the face of having so much crap thrown in our faces by those who would put us down.

One of the definitions of pride in the dictionary is "conscious of one's own dignity." Yes. We're proud. We know our dignity as autistic people. Even though it's been a fight - and it still is a fight in some ways and in many places - to have our dignity accepted by others. We refused to have our innate dignity stripped away by society or individuals. Because we KNOW that we are different, not less. Autistic pride is autistic self respect. It's acceptance.

Well I'm proud anyway, regardless of whether anyone else is proud.

Left-toe pride? Skin pride? Oxygen breathing pride? Of course not. Because none of those things has been a cause for discrimination, bigotry, hatred, or anything else. Nobody has insulted me in the street for breathing oxygen. Have they insulted you for it?

More Complete Bullshit About Vaccines and Autism

So this lovely image popped up on my Facebook wall today.

Now, this is me.  I can't resist sometimes.  So I just had to respond.  It's probably much blunter than it should be.  A politician wouldn't use words like bullshit.  They would say "In due respect to the right honorable gentleman, he is perhaps misinformed."  Because in politics you're not meant so say "You're talking crap mate, and here's why."  But I'm not a politician.  I'm just a normal autistic person.  And stereotypically, we are not noted for our tact!

There's a ton of information about this subject online, sound information.  I really should read a lot more of it and get it all in my head so I don't have to look anything up.  I should read all of my books on autism too.  I received my first book on the subject just a year ago, an early birthday present from a friend who thought it would be good for me in exploring my own self.  It was.  The book was "Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate" by Cynthia Kim.  Her blog, which is no longer updated, is Musings of an Aspie, contains loads of good material.  I recommend it highly for those who want to know more about autism or are looking into the possibility of diagnosis or what to do with a diagnosis.  Now I have very nearly a shelf of books on the subject.

So.  My tactless response.

This is bullshit.

Please give details of ALL cases where the US government has compensated people for "vaccine induced autism" since 1986.

Can't do that? Okay then. Give me just TWO cases. Just two.

Wow. You can't do that either?

That's because it's bullshit. And there are not two cases to be found.

There was ONE case, just one, in which there was compensation for "autism like symptoms" but that child was later diagnosed with something else that caused the symptoms, a mitochondrial enzyme deficit. (damages awarded to the family of Hannah Poling in 2008)

The previous year saw the start of the omnibus autism proceedings. The claimants, the family of Michelle Cedillo, went to court after being convinced by ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield that MMR caused their child's autism and through a "Defeat Autism Now!" conference. The judgement ruled that the evidence was overwhelmingly to the contrary and that they had been misled by medical professionals.

In fact, a total of zero autistic people or the their families have been compensated for so called "vaccine induced autism."

Zero.

Yes, zero.

Now can you please stop sharing this total garbage.

I await a reply.

To read more about autism omnibus proceeding, look here, a clearly written web page.  It even has a link to a complete transcript of the trial if you have a lot of time and obsessive interest to spare.  For a scientific, medical view on the Hannah Poling case, there's this.  Then there's this, an article published a few days ago, on the lack of a link between MMR and autism as proved in a study involving 95,000 children.  And for reading on ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield's article that claimed a link between vaccines and autism, you could do worse than this from the BMJ.  To summarise: the article was fraudulent.  Not a surprise.  Wakefield has been called the "father of the anti-vaccine movement."  As such I believe he has a lot to answer for.

People still want to believe even though the evidence is very clear.  This site for instance has nearly 400 articles about Andrew Wakefield.  They say autism is man-made, environmental and can be cured.  They still believe that vaccines cause it.  And yes, they're very into "Autism Awareness Day" too, a day that needs eradicating because we need "Autism Acceptance Day" and then "Autism Celebration Day".

It's understandable people want to find a simple cause for autism.  And it's understandable too when people want to seek a cure for their child.  Because, there's no doubting it, autism is bloody hard work for parents.  It is.  And without decent support it can be easy to despair or look for ways out.  Unfortunately often that support is not available and parents are left to deal with everything themselves.  They love their children and give them everything they can but the honest truth is that it's exhausting.  Without proper education and support and celebration of their child by society it's only natural that parents might want a way out.  Chapter two of Neurotribes, by Steve Silberman gives an account of such a family and all the things they tried - and the reasons why - and how they came to embrace and celebrate their autistic child and how they feel about all the things they tried that damaged their child, including their own involvement with "Defeat Autism Now!".  It's sobering reading but such parents deserve much compassion at all stages of the journey.  These are good people, trying their best.

On Not Liking and Not Sharing the Autism Speaks Teddy

This has appeared on my Facebook wall today.  It was shared by a very nice woman who of course only meant it for good.  Of course that's the case and I am not criticising her.  I know her to be a good woman who tries her best for everyone.  Let's face it, not so long ago if I'd seen the photo on my wall I'd have probably shared it too, a little gesture to help people be more aware of autism.  Because on the face of it that's a good aim to have.

And without some autism awareness people aren't to know that this is totally not the sort of awareness we want to be spreading.

The last year has been a steep learning curve for me and one of the things pretty much everyone said to me when I started reading about autism online and when learning to accept that I am autistic was a simple phrase.  "Avoid Autism Speaks."  (Apart from the people who implied I was an idiot or bad to even be wondering if I could be autistic.)

So I had to comment.  Bluntly.  I had to try to stop the progress of Teddy.  It's not Teddy's fault.  Poor Teddy.  They're a cute bear who has been recruited against their will.  If the bear could speak they would cry out "No! I don't want to be used this way!"

I'm posting it here partly because I believe in it and partly because the links below are pretty good and worth reading and if I don't blog them I'll lose them.  The letter from organisations like ASAN and the blog from thecaffeinatedautistic are far better than anything I'd be writing myself on the subject.

___________________________

Sorry, I can't like or share that. Because I am autistic.

So. To spread some awareness:

It's an Autism Speaks blue bear. You probably don't know about Autism Speaks. I hadn't heard of them until a year ago. I think they're really very horrible. They have so often stood in the way of the rights of autistic people and have usually not allowed autistic people to have a voice or any say in how the organisation is run.

Here's a letter signed by The Autistic Self Advocacy Network and a whole load of other good groups:

 

http://www.boycottautismspeaks.com/why-boycott-1.html

This information page is clearly written and has sources for everything:

 

https://thecaffeinatedautistic.wordpress.com/new-autism-speaks-masterpost-updated-62014/

This wiki page is pretty good too and has lots of links at the bottom to nice people.

Yes - I've ended up with some strong opinions!

_____________________________

To be honest I don't think autism awareness is enough.  I am pushing for autism acceptance, just like everyone in the autistic rights movement.

That word map is excellent.  It comes from a really good website about autism acceptance and which calls, as I now do, for an autism acceptance month rather than an awareness month.  It's another site that is well worth reading.  It also has links to some great material on other sites and autism blogs - and the links change regularly.

Six Months Ago - Positives, Gratitude, Hard Days and Craziness

I've been looking back at old Facebook posts this morning.  And there are things that I'd completely forgotten about.  Six months ago someone inspired me to write five positive things a day for five days.  I ended up writing them for ten days - the days immediately before Autscape, which was itself filled with positives.

The days contained so much good.  And so much bad.  Unless good and bad are just labels we apply to things and not a reality in themselves.  I've added in a few of the photos taken in the good of the days.

Six months ago I was into some quite crazy stuff.  And then I pulled away from it because of my mental health and because living in the security of habitual living was easier than living in the possibilities of craziness.  I think now I am returning to the crazy and this time I might be ready to lay aside the habits.  Time will tell. 

Six months ago today was day three of the positives.  Yes.  Six months ago today I helped plan and then officiated at a pagan dog funeral.  That was such a strange and happy day.  I need more of them.

OK. Someone inspired me. So here goes:

Day 1 of 5 positives.

1. Spending the evening in a healing environment with some rather wonderful people.
2. Eating too much of the chocolate banana bread that Beth cooked.
3. The words received in meditation tonight.
4. Learning that there is a mantra/prayer with the gorgeous name Ho’oponopono.
5. The unlikelihood of having met the person who inspired me and the way Spirit arranges these things.

Very little sleep. Haven't been able to go to the sacred drumming and have spent time collapsed on bed crying my eyes out because the sensory crap is just so damn painful today. All out of spoons today. So this is going to be a challenge:

Day 2 of 5 positives.

1. The friends I've met in the last two years.
2. The books I'm sharing this bed with.
3. The partial relief gained by sticking in Alpine MusicSafePro earplugs.
4. An unexpected decision made about placing tattoos on my wrists.
5. It's been hard work getting to number five but this is just a bad day, not depression and not despair. This - on bed, alone, only semi-functional, with earplugs - is so much better than things used to be when writing lists of positives every day as part of a self-harm support group and some days sitting for an hour and struggling to come up with a list of one. Of course there are many other positives - the roof over my head, having Beth and Kit, abundant water from the tap, the sunlight, and so much more.

Here goes. Far later than planned.

Day 3 of 5 positives. Ooh, they're positive today.

1. Helping to write and then co-officiating at a pagan funeral for a dog owned by some people I've never met before. I kid you not!
2. Spending so much time outside in quiet places and getting mildly sun burned arms.
3. Lying, deeply relaxed and content, in the grass on the route of an old railway while H sang Wiccan and Sufi chants to me.
4. Sticky toffee pudding and cream in the house of strangers and gluten free steak pie in the house of a friend.
5. The sheer unexpectedness of the day and the joy and laughter shared, even on the day of a funeral and that this list could extend a long way today. On days like these it is so easy to so much love my life and how different much of it is to how it used to be. 

Positives. Day 4 of (unspecified number)

1. The completely unhealthy indulgence of eccles cakes covered in left over clotted cream from last night.
2. Being so massively touched by part of "The Dying of the Light" (the last Skulduggery Pleasant book) even if I may be emotionally scarred for life by the trauma caused by what happened!
3. Giggling repeatedly at just how unexpected yesterday was and how different life is than I could have ever planned.
4. The deep love I have for certain of my friends and the joy that knowing they exist brings to me.
5. Spirituality is becoming light-filled and joy for me rather than an excuse to continue to chastise myself and live with guilt or shame.

Positives. Day 5 of however many, written while unreasonably stressed about a missing phone.

1. Buying a nice Celtic knotwork ring in Tynemouth for 50p.
2. Sitting out on rocks near Tynemouth, proving that it's possible to be completely alone at a tourist seaside place in August, chanting and praying and generally getting on with nature.
3. Being lent some books. Obviously someone thinks I don't have enough to read already!
4. A surprise phone call when I got to Whitley Bay resulting in a total change of plans and time spent with a friend by a river (which may now be home to my phone).
5. The feeling of tiredness having walked from Tynemouth to St. Mary's lighthouse before going for a walk.

Positives day 6 of 5

1. Church tonight and completely losing it in giggling fit during the service. Pub after church with friends.
2. The friend whose photo is on the facebook wall immediately under the box I'm typing this in. Love you.
3. I have my phone back and the hug from the friend who returned it was a wonderful hug. Love her hugs.
4. A happy afternoon with another friend, sitting in the deliciousness of Tea Sutra and wandering being a tad insane with her before meeting the friend mentioned in 2.
5. BUS PASS! Wow, so excited. Impatient too because it can't happen yet. But I learn it will be able to happen. Bus Pass. Bus Pass. Wow. Wow. Wow. Hallelujah. Now wondering if another friend knows about this.
6. The number of friends mentioned in those positives. And now I'm home and my family are here. As is another friend.
7. Blimey, when did life start to get good?

Positives: Day 7 of 9. Minor geek edition.

1. Sense8 got renewed for a second season. We walk with pride!
2. Beth says she's going to buy me a Leeloo multipass toy.
3. Person of Interest season 4 awaits me.
4. Skulduggery Pleasant. All of the series. All of it. And that the three of us are going to the Derek Landy talk and signing in a couple of weeks.
5. The hope that Star Wars episode 7 will adequately compensate for episodes 1 to 3. I can live in hope, even if it's unrealistic.

That's enough of that because there has been good on this quiet day. Being outside early this morning. Getting important financial things done and only having to pretend to be my aunt twice in order to get them done. So many good things to be thankful for. And things most of us take for granted - like automatic washing machines. 

Crappy head day. When the social and sensory is massively draining before it even begins. Nyah. Nyah. (But not Nyan. Cat. Not that cat.) But. Here goes.

Positives: Day 8 of 10

1. Daniel Barenboim is playing piano for some Beethoven with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. 'Tis stunning. Love Beethoven. Love Barenboim.
2. Spending time with a friend. Long text conversation with another friend. Friends. And that there are very special ones. The ones with whom the connection runs so much deeper for me than family.
3. Tea in Tea Sutra. Of a variety that the staff pretend to be able to pronounce but they never pronounce it the same way.
4. The name of Valkyrie Cain. And that I'm getting closer to working out my own name. But not my true name. Wouldn't want that of course. At least 4 friends will know what that means!
5. The book Everyday Meditation by Tobin Blake. Among the best £1.50s I've ever spent in a charity shop. So glad to have come back to it, each day with it is a pleasure.

Brain fog, foggy, foggety, fogged.

But the lights that unexpectedly penetrate fog can be incredibly beautiful.
So the plan is to enjoy the lights when they appear rather than spending all the time shivering in the dark and chill of the inner fogginess.
And then the wind will blow and the fog will clear and the greater light will warm and heal.
Blessed be.

Get 'em in early today. Positives: Day 9 of 10.

1. All the overload symptoms earlier were complete horrible (swear words) crud to cope with. But they don't last forever and concerted self care means crisis level has been reduced to "Danger, Will Robinson" level and that feels SO much better. Things DO get better.
1b. Ear plugs. Silence. Closing the door of the room.
2. The jar of lemon curd I bought in Scots Gap last week.
3. Only 117 pages left of the last Skulduggery Pleasant book so I can finish it before going away.
4. Today's sunshine and warmth.
5. The anticipation of the Autscape conference this weekend and the talk and book signing in ten days time. Anticipation can be a wonderful thing.

Positives: Day 10 of 10 It's the final count up.

1. The day improved greatly. Felt so rubbish this morning and everything was still too loud and cried quite a few times. It's much better now.
2. Walking this afternoon with a friend at Shafto and at Bolam Lake.
3. The carrot and coriander soup that friend bought me from somewhere.
4. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9R3IchTZBENine days until we go and get the (signed) book.
5. My counsellor/guide from White Lodge when I was sixteen, who has just published some wise and relevant words.
6. That this is the final day of these positives because tomorrow I leave for the Autscape conference and that's exciting. And it's the unknown too so that's a bit daunting. 

Being Transgender: A Sudden Decision? No. Of Course Not.

I entered into a facebook discussion again just now having been asked to weigh in and be the person to answer all the questions that can be asked about transgender issues.  Again.  Maybe I should just write a book about it and then when the same questions get asked again and again and again I can just say "Buy my book, the answer is on page 82."

My plan was just to say that I'm not up to answering questions.  Instead I was forced to correct a mistake that had been the basis of much of the conversation up to that point - the quite common belief that the word "woman" is derived from "womb."

The discussion, as too many are right now, revolved around Caitlyn Jenner and whether she could possibly claim to be a woman.  (She can.  Case closed!)  And the accusation emerged that her decision to transition was of a man suddenly deciding to be a woman.  (There's no sudden.  Case closed!)

My plan tonight was to write something about myself.  Because it was two years ago tonight that I stood in front of my mirror and everything that I'd been hiding from for so long, in terms of gender, could not be hidden from any longer.  Two years ago tonight I said hello to myself as Clare - a name I already knew - and welcomed myself into freedom.  Two years on and I have not regretted it for a moment.  The last two years have had lots of difficulties, as those close to me know well.  But my life is vastly better now than it was then.  Once you learn to love and accept yourself it changes everything, no matter what happens in your outward circumstances.  My only regret is the same one that so many transgender people have - that we didn't do it all a lot sooner.

Instead of that writing, there's this.  A single response on facebook.  Much longer than planned because it gives so many reasons why this "sudden" decision is delayed by so many transgender people.  And in some countries and societies there are far more reasons for delay than here.  Sometimes good reasons why someone will never be openly transgender at all - such as wanting to stay out of prison or wanting to stay alive.

Apologies for the bluntness in this.  Actually I don't apologise.  That's a lie.  But if you are offended by swearing, don't read this - there are a few naughty words arising from feeling very strongly about these things, feelings that come from my own experiences and the experiences I've heard of in the lives of friends or seen in the lives of others who I do not personally know.  Some people have experienced far, far worse than me.  Compared to many, I've really had the whole experience of transitioning very easy.  But compared to NOT being transgender, it's been bloody hard.

No need to read on.  Of course, there's no need to have read this far either, but thank you. I'm mainly blogging this so I can look back on it myself and remind myself, not that I'll ever need reminding, of all the reasons why there's nothing sudden about the choice to come out and live as the person you are rather than the person you were told you had to be.  The following was just typed straight out and has not been edited in the slightest for posting here.

___________________________________________

The word "woman" is not derived from womb. Not sure where that erroneous idea came from, but: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=woman There's loads online about the etymology of the word.

In any case, there are medical conditions in which cisgender women are born without wombs. Is anyone here accusing those women of not being women? Is anyone here going to define a person's gender by their genitals or their reproductive organs, rather than by the actual person? Is anyone here going to reduce such questions to body parts? Is anyone here going to say that those women cannot be women because there were born without something "fundamental" to being a woman? I sincerely hope not.

I am the friend in question but I'm really not up to answering all the questions at the moment because so much is going on right now that's taking pretty much all of my energy. There's so much good information online. So anyone who wants to learn can learn, from loads of transgender people who have written a ton of good stuff about their experiences. Just google it. Take time to research it and read just what transgender people have gone through in order to be able to live as the people they are.

But here's a rant I accidentally typed:

Just to say, it's not sudden. By no means sudden. This has always been with me in some way but I couldn't face it, face myself and accept myself until two years ago. Because from earliest childhood society told me that I couldn't be me, that such thoughts were evil, even that I am an abomination. With such crap thrown at you through childhood and adult life it's hard to accept yourself. And when you know that shit will be thrown at you when you do deal with it, by idiots, by the ignorant and by bigots, it's hard to act on that acceptance. And when you start to deal with it and get rejected by friends and family and when every time you leave the house you are abused by people then it's fucking hard to continue. And when you haven't got the privileges and riches of Caitlyn Jenner and the cash to pay for everything she's done then it's even harder. When private health care isn't an option it's difficult. When national media insults you. When hatred is thrown at you for even daring to live as the person you are then life can be more than a bit difficult. Overcoming all the crud that's been thrown at you for decades when you have done your very best to deny who you are because of who society thought you should be when you were born is never easy. Never. When people fear you. When news agencies and politicians try to get other people to fear you and think that you're only doing it because you're some kind of sexual predator who wants to assault and rape women in a toilet. When you are at far greater risk of being beaten up, and in many countries murdered. When obstacles are put in your way or it's made impossible to be legally recognised as your own gender. When in many countries even trying to be yourself would result in a prison sentence. When you see transgender friends assaulted. When you are sexually assaulted in a transphobic attack (which happened to me). When churches reject you. When they throw you out of ministry. When they seek legal help to try to make it impossible for you to even enter the building. When ministers try to exorcise the devil from you for daring to openly be who you've always been inside. When you are told you are damned to burn for eternity for being transgender. When friends turn from you and family members won't even speak to you at your own mother's funeral (which happened to me). When all these things happen it's just fucking hard to even consider coming out and saying "Yes, I am transgender. Yes, I am going to live as myself rather than as a shadow, a wraith. Yes, I am going to accept myself and love myself". So difficult.

So no. It's not sudden. It's not sudden at all. It's just very, very difficult because of all the crap that gets thrown at us and which makes us feel worthless until we find that immense courage needed to turn round and live as the people we already know we are.

To accept myself is a decision I made two years ago. In my early forties. Two years ago tonight. A decision which pretty much instantly ended a period of thirty years of constant depression.

The Problems and Politics of Passing for a Proud, Autistic, Transgender Woman

What follows is part of what I wrote to someone today on facebook.  They were asking about some transgender issues, mainly about hormone treatments and surgery.  They weren't asking about "passing" though we'd mentioned it earlier in the conversation.  But I got sidetracked.  And when I get sidetracked into something that I'm passionate about then there's almost no stopping me, especially online (see the other sixty posts on this blog for evidence of that).  So here goes, some thoughts on passing, as written almost stream of consciousness in a facebook message but edited and tidied a little here.  And inevitably added to greatly in places.  There's also a section missed out because it mentions a friend whose life is nicely anonymous to a trusted friend in America but who doesn't need even a tiny part of their story plastered here for the world to see.

_______________________

Passing in some ways is a toughie for transgender people. We know we shouldn't have to pass. And we know that we should just be able to be who we are. But we also know that it makes life easier - I used to get abuse pretty much every time I left the house, from idiots and now it's a very rare thing. So we get caught up in the politics and pros and cons and the fact that some people will NEVER "pass" no matter what they do. We talk of how not being invisible, not passing, speeds up the change in society. And recognise that you've got to be brave to be the one standing out. I've gone through all this with trans issues and many people have written eloquently of the issues and of their good and bad experiences of passing, not passing, and of not wanting to pass in the first place.

And then this year I've been forced, in bigger ways than expected, to consider autism. And then recently I've been starting to read wider into other disability areas, something that is probably going to take quite a lot of time and reading and talking with people to truly get to grips with in any deep sense. And what I find when I read is that there is EXACTLY the same language.  So many groups of people speak of passing - the need to pass as "normal", the different reasons why people would like to pass, the need to not pass if we want society to change at any pace, the dangers to oneself of passing, the dangers of not passing, the politics, the thought that it is not the place of people to conform to society merely because they are different, but the place of society to learn to accept those people.

It's exactly the same language.  However, I am beginning to work out that there is a big difference though between transgender passing and autistic passing.  A whopping, massive difference that means there are two forms of passing that mean very different things.

Passing in trans land is to fit in to society's picture of what you should look like if you're claiming to be who you are.  Society says that there is a certain picture of what a woman looks like, sounds like, walks like and so on, or what a man is like and if someone appears in public who doesn't fit either of those two boxes then there will be a reaction.  To seek to pass is, in some way, to seek to fit into one of the two societal boxes.  Which is understandable, given that it makes life easier.  Passing says, yes, I am a woman or man and am proud of this but for whatever reason I'm going to seek to fit in with what you say that woman or man should be.  I'm pretty lucky.  I don't have to do a lot to pass reasonably well.  At this stage it's almost not an issue for me - though I'll keep up the hair removal that's already paid for and still spend four minutes a day applying makeup.  At this stage I almost fit into one of the boxes naturally.  But other transgender people will not be able to "pass" whatever they do.  And many transgender people don't fit in one of those boxes anyway - because those boxes aren't the only options for a human being to inhabit.

Passing in autism land is to fit into the picture of someone who isn't you, passing as neuro-typical in order to gain the privileges and simple life of an NT person. There can be lots of reasons for this.  A negative reason is shame.  Many autistic people are told that the outward signs of their autism are bad and they come to believe it and end up spending their lives trying to cover up who they are in order to avoid rejection, from others and from themselves.  A positive one - though one that needs to change in the future as society changes - is that sometimes an autistic person has to pass in order to fulfill a dream or to be able to follow a particular career. Not passing as neurotypical means almost automatic exclusion.

I think that's a big, big difference even though the language used about it is the same. Passing in trans land is hard physical work at times - not that I'm a hard worker.  Unless you are non-binary - which brings up a whole load of new passing issues - you don't pass by saying that your brain and soul are anything other than you know them to be.  You just change the physical. Whereas passing in autism land or in most mental health lands is a mental and emotional thing. And that's stupendously harder. Passing in trans land says "I am a woman (or whatever else) and proud". Passing in autism land says "I am autistic but for some reason I don't want to let you know, or know that I can't let you know because then you won't let me do what I want to do so I am forced into a pretence in order to have anything like the life I want."  Passing in (the binary bits of) trans land is thus all about externals, fitting how you present externally into society's picture of who you already are internally.  Passing in autism land is quite the opposite.  It's all about externals, true, but it's about fitting how you present externally into society's picture of who you are NOT internally.  Which is massively exhausting.  I'm only now realising that as I watch others who have to pass and as I let go of all the defences I'd built up against allowing myself to be me.

I think of those people who pass for neurotypical in their day to day lives because they have to.  At this point they have no real choice.  It's either pass as "normal" or do something very different with their lives.  Of course that's wrong, in many ways it is abhorrent, but just at the moment it's how things are. Hence the calls from many autistic people for autism acceptance rather than autism awareness. I hear the cry and see a local group say "It's autism awareness month, hey let's all wear blue." Except, I say, and my friends say, and those I've been reading online who are autistic and proud, "Hey let's don't because the organisation telling us to wear blue is one that we really, really want to stay clear of if we want to be proud as autistic people rather than thinking of ourselves as deformed."  There are lots of posts online about autism acceptance, such as this one by Amy Sequenzia, whose writing I quite adore.  The organisation mentioned about is called Autism Speaks and almost the first advice people have given me when I've asked is "avoid Autism Speaks."  There's loads of reasons for that - and if you look online you can find a ton of good autistic people who will tell you the many shortcomings of that organisation.  I am fortunate to have people around me who give me good advice and probably that single phrase "avoid Autism Speaks" set up the foundation of the ethos for so much I believe about autism and about wider issues.  Here's Amythest Schader again about that avoidance - I watched this with child earlier today, alongside a lot more of her videos.

So it's only really when dealing with the ASD things, letting the defences down and seeing what happens that I've been able to see just how hard I've been working, every day, to be what I'm not and appear as what I'm not. And it's only when that's happened that I've been able to turn around and say "Fuck Passing!" and believe it. This feels SO good. Physically it feels wonderful to let go and start to learn to be myself - to learn to be autistic as a wonderful blog post put it. Emotionally and mentally, it is a new freedom. Calling myself Clare brought great freedom - without which I wouldn't have been able to take this step. But this brings even more freedom. (By the way, I don't ever swear!  But Fuck Passing!)  Amythest Schader in one of her youtube videos puts forth the idea of "guerilla stimming."  Basically, to stim everywhere whenever you need to and not hide it.  Because society will not change while autistic people are invisible.  Just as the pace of change for transgender people has increased almost directly proportionally to the visibility of trans people in the last few years - and the conservative counter-reaction and shouting has increased too in its death throes - so the pace of change for autistic people and for people from a wide variety of excluded groups will increase with visibility.  To stim publicly and with pride and just to present yourself  as completely normal in your stimming is to change society.  If you don't know what stimming is, here's one of those Amythest youtube videos on the subject.

There was a point in all this that I could have taken the neurotypical blue pill and continued to deny what I'd always half known. I've taken it for years. But thanks to my friend, deep thanks to her, I've been able to find the strength, courage, and curiosity to take the red pill. Staying in Wonderland with all its challenges. Rejecting the false living. And what I'm finding is that this particular rabbit hole is far deeper than expected.

And this rabbit hole doesn't allow me to pass as normal. Because everything adds to everything and words like authenticity have to win. Yep. As you say, be yourself. Be proud. Be free. And so on.

Hmm. Sidetracked a little there and the whole Autism Speaks section was rather a sidetrack within a sidetrack. Kind of foresee that once I get myself a little more sorted I'll have no option but to be some kind of activist in a bigger way than tweeting and retweeting about it all. Actually this whole ramble about passing is a sidetrack and wasn't meant to happen.