I AM JOY - Views of Joy from Meditation and from Church, Experiences of Yesterday

My subject for today.  For someone such as me, who has suffered with depression for most of her life either at a low level or in a major outbreak, the following subject can take a lot of faith to enter into.  Nevertheless a lot has changed in the last eighteen months and I have been set free, and set myself free, from a great deal.  So today I say, in faith:

Last weekend, after a series of false starts and much procrastination, I found my way back to meditation.  I'd been putting it off for a while but I found a book about meditation in a charity shop that looked as if it might be useful.  It looked clearly written, clearly explained.  It started with the minimum of explanation before ploughing straight into the practical.  A series of one hundred exercises, one for each day unless you choose to repeat days or if you don't meditate on a day.  They start very simply and slowly expand.

The first thirty days are spent on technique, explaining through the exercises some different ways to meditate.  You can then choose which seems to suit your own temperament best.  I like that.  Too many meditation books give you one way to meditate even though everyone is different and what helps one person may hinder another.  Given that there are hundreds of ways to meditate it seems problematic to limit a person to one or two of them.  The remaining 70 days expand upon and deepen the meditation with a thought to sit with as you meditate and as you go through the day, with some explanatory text.  And between each ten days exercises there are several pages of text to help.  Tomorrow is day ten, after which comes advice on 'Overcoming Obstacles'.  For most of us those obstacles arise from within rather than from outside.  I'm sure I will write more about this book and give the title before long.

Yesterday was day eight.  The bulk of the exercise for the day was a mantra.  Some mantras are one word.  This was four phrases repeated across two breaths:

Breathing in, my body fills with light

Breathing out, I find myself at peace

Breathing in, my mind fills with joy

Breathing out, I realize that I am the joy

Of course the words "breathing in and out" don't need to be said.  Simple enough.  I had the time yesterday so was able to enjoy three sessions with this mantra of fifteen to twenty minutes each.

There have been "good" and "bad" days so far in which I could focus and concentrate and just be with the mantra or the breathing to a greater or lesser extent.  It's been easier than expected so far and I feel that enough has changed in me and I've been set free from enough of what has held me back - and enough of what I've allowed to hold me back - that this time progress can be made.  I truly hope so, having had so many kinds of spiritual false starts over the years.  Today's mantra ended with "I am stillness."  And I realise that I am experiencing a greater stillness in meditation than I've experienced in many years.  I'm sure that compared to the stillness of the future what I am experiencing is an insanely busy hive of activity, filled with all the tricks that ego can play, many of which I haven't begun to recognise.  But I'm encouraged by the stillness, the peace, and the joy.

I see in the mantra a view of the reality of a person.  "I am the joy."  "I am stillness."  That's a view that's common in religions and philosophies originating in India.  The author of the book is very influenced by some of that, having learned much of his own meditation practice through the organisation founded by Paramahansa Yogananda whose Autobiography was read by so many people forty years ago.  As a teenager I read some of it - and I've recently bought another copy.

It was Sunday yesterday, and in the evening I was at church.  The church has been running a little series on "The Fruit of the Spirit" a list of virtues found in the Bible, in Paul's letter to the church at Galatia.  Here's the list, from a blog containing lots of similar images that some of you might enjoy.  I hope she doesn't mind me grabbing one of her pictures here but I like it better than the many free images of the fruit being represented by smiling strawberries and suchlike.

Yesterday, quite fortuitously considering my meditation exercise, the series had reached "joy".  So the songs were joyful celebrations.  The Bible readings included joy.  Part of the prayer centred on joy too, but thankfully (for me at least) not in a "Whoop! Whoop! Dance around! I've got that Holy Ghost joy!" kind of a way.

I realised in the time of prayer that I could use the mantra when considering joy for myself.  And I could adapt the mantra too as a prayer for others and for the world, "holding them in light" as many Quakers might say:  "The world or person fills with light.  The world or person finds itself at peace."  Now of course me sitting and holding the world in this way for five minutes is not suddenly going to lead to a cessation of all war, hostility, hatred, revenge, horrific misuse of religion and everything else that is going on in the Middle East and elsewhere.  It's not going to suddenly halve the crime rate in Newcastle.  But if all are ultimately one, or if we're all interlinked then even my small and non-theistic prayer will be added into the melting pot of the psyche of the universe.  In this way even intercessory prayer becomes just as possible without a personal, supernatural, all powerful God as with such a being.   And even if you want to call that a kind of pseudo-spiritual hogwash then at the very least such a visualisation or meditation will in some way change how I view the world, how I view humanity and so it will change how I live.  And that change will have a ripple effect.

A question asked in the service - apart from the preceding question "What is joy anyway?" amounted to "How do we get joy?  How do we become joyful?"

The answer given says that it comes through relationship with God, with the divine.  That frequently preached answer says that joy isn't something that we humans naturally have but it is God's gift to us, given and grown when we spend time with God, turn ourselves to a life with God, and in faith receive from God.  The fruit - including joy - is of the Holy Spirit, a gift that arises and comes out of our relationship with that Holy Spirit.  Most churches teach, much as the Catholic Church, that spiritual fruits are "the observable behaviours of people who have allowed the grace of the Holy Spirit to be effective in them."  And that can work out fine.  The god-life can lead to a joy-life.

I noticed how different this totally orthodox Christian view is from the view expressed in my meditation.

The meditation mantra says "I am the joy".  I am already the joy.  The real me - beyond the physical, beyond ego - is joy.  The real me is love, peace, goodness, faithfulness and all the other fruits.  I don't have to receive these things because I am them already.  I just have to realise that I am that fruit and let go of the ways of ego developed since birth that tell me that I am not.

The Trinitarian Christian says "I am not the joy" and "I must look beyond in search of that joy and seek that it is given to me in and through the Holy Spirit."

That's a massive difference.  The meditation says "I am."  The Christian says "I am not."  I suppose like so many things much of this arises from concepts like original sin.  So while the Taoist claims that every child is born in the Tao, perfect and can find that perfection again, the Christian (usually) claims that we are born faulty, born under a curse passed down literally or symbolically from Adam.

So who is right?  The Christian who claims that fruit such as joy is an added extra, a gift given from without.  Or the Taoist - or Sikh, or many schools of Hinduism and Buddhism - who claims that fruit such as joy is an already state to be realised in an event or ongoing process of enlightenment?  And if we call God instead "source" as my meditation book will later, or if we call "The Word" from the beginning of John's gospel "The Tao" as Chinese Bibles do then does at least some of the difference fade away?  When I say "I am the joy" I look to "source" to consciously realise that truth, for enlightenment that truth may become my lived experience in this chronos (time-bound) existence.

Personally I'm plumping for the latter view.  I am joy.  I am peace.  I am stillness.  I know this is counter-intuitive because my experience in this world contains so much within my mind that is not joy, is not peace, is not stillness.  But I have come to believe that my experience, though it most certainly exists, is not the reality that underpins existence. 

But last night in church that made little difference.  As we asked the Holy Spirit to grant us joy I could join in the request.  Not that I be given a joy I lack by an external being.  But that I come to realise the reality that I am joy and realise that by a work not of intellect but of spirit.  And given the nature of that request and that spirit I can call it Holy Spirit.  And as the devout, good, honest Christians prayed their prayer may be answered too.  They may find that joy that is within and is real, interpreting it as an added gift, given by grace, planted at conversion and grown by God in relationship.  

Will their prayer be answered from within of by a supreme creator/redeemer?  At least on this day I have no problem with either answer because - just to leave you in confusion and bewilderment perhaps - I am a nontheist who believes God exists (but not for my experience) and that God does not exist, believing that this personal Christian God story is not the Real but that the Real has room for all kinds of stories, simultaneously existing and not existing together within this unreal universe of existence.  Confusing?  Perhaps.  But ultimately it seem liberating and maybe it will lead me to the place where I can walk in faith with any creed, rooted in love and the wonder of the other, which does not claim a monopoly of truth or hope.

"I am Joy" image taken from this site - from which the acrylic painting can be purchased.

An update - Summarising Some of the Many Difficulties of Life

It's been a while since I wrote anything.  Life has been busy.

I am currently in Sussex with my mother.  I'll return home to Newcastle on Thursday, just in time for the end of term, having been away for almost the whole of  a month.

So what's going on?  What follows are some of the negatives.  Some of them.  There are positive things too.  Just at this moment they seem outweighed.  And today there was more to add to the unbalance.  I'll come to that below.

Gender

Actually, gender is a positive and learning last year who I am and jumping in at the deep end to live as me is at least one of the best things I've ever done, if not the best.  Getting married was great.  Meeting daughter was great.  But the transformation and healing last year probably beats all the other good things.

I'm still waiting for an appointment at which I might be diagnosed as being me.  But I'm by no means alone in that.  It's frustrating though - not because I've been waiting over a year now since asking the GP to refer me to gender clinic but because for most of that time I have been full-time.  I have, as they call it, "real life experience".  I took full control of every aspect of my transition in terms of the mental, emotional and social sides.  I have done pretty much all that it is possible for me to do without breaking the law to repeatedly get illegal supplies of female hormones. But I have no control whatsoever of so much of the physical side of transition and that is difficult - for me and for many people, whether full-time or not.

According to NHS guidelines after a year of that I can be referred for surgery.  Here I am, with the diagnosis process incomplete, and with a GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) that won't even think about referring for surgery until someone has been steady on HRT for a year.  So in terms of my treatment in the future the fact that I transitioned so quickly and arrived at the GIC having already done it is pretty much irrelevant.

In terms of my life though it has made a big difference.  A massive difference.  Just think, if I'd waited for someone to officially diagnose me or even longer then I'd still be living as a man now.  I'd have missed out on so many good things.  I'd have probably missed out on some of the difficulties and the abuse I used to receive so often but they were worth it for all the good things involved in living the last year as the person I am.

I have heard a lot of trans people say that they wish they had gone full time sooner.  I haven't exactly heard many (none so far) say they wish they had waited longer.

Let that be a lesson:  If possible,live as yourself because otherwise you're wasting your life living as someone else.  Be authentic.  Because what is worse than any negative consequences of being yourself are the negative consequences of not being yourself.  That's not transgender life advice.  It's life advice.  In the end, which is worse: being rejected for being who you are or being accepted for living a lie?  The answer depends on which we value more, the applause of others or a life of reality and freedom.  Yes, it can be a challenge but it's an incredibly worthwhile challenge.

I talk so much of gender because it is easier than other subjects and completely to do with my own life.  By talking of gender I don't feel I'm intruding into the stories of other people that in some ways are only theirs to tell.  And gender is easy - I am me.  I live as me.  And in the course of time the under-funded gender clinics of the NHS will sort out the rest.

When I say "I am me" that's a very earthbound view.  Many philosophies, faith systems and religions would query my loose definition of "me".  Which brings me to

Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Call it what you will

I based my life, or a vast proportion of it, on my Christianity and found meaning there.  I no longer have that Christianity.  I no longer have the supernatural ear of a God to talk to.  And the temptation arises to ask the question, like so many before me, "Is there any meaning outside of that God?"  But I know the answer is yes.  It'll take a while to find where I belong and how wide a range of stories and apparently contradictory views I can hold in balance.  But with all else that's going on my old religion would have made a great crutch and a comfort, regardless of its objective or subjective truth.

My parents

My dad has frontal lobe dementia/Pick's Disease.  Last November he drove up to Newcastle with my mum and we were able to have good days, going out and doing things.  Of course things weren't right and help was being sought but we could still live.   The progress of the illness has been swift since then and my mum has had to cope with a vast amount.  My dad is now in a good care home and that's where he'll stay.  I saw him a few weeks ago and it was not easy at all.  He's seemingly quite happy but the illness has done so much.  I may see him again next week before returning home.  And I know there's always that chance it may be the last time he knows who I am.

My mother had to cope with my dad while struggling with her own health and getting progressively more ill.  She's documented much of these struggles on her own blog.  She has cancer and it's spread lots.  Chemotherapy begins next week.  She is physically weak due to the illness and getting out of the hospital bed in the lounge to do anything at all is very hard work.  Things are not good at all but somehow she generally remains mentally strong and relatively content.  I could write a lot more, a lot more, but I don't want to say too much on a public blog.

My wife and daughter

I'm not going to say much at all.  I am fortunate to have my wife and daughter.  But ...

My wife has some health problems.  They're nowhere near as serious as those of my mother but they can be annoying, painful and physically and mentally draining.

My child is thirteen, a geek and had parents who weren't exactly ideal models of being comfortable socially.  Any thirteen year old has issues and difficulties.  She has them too.  I had plenty; at school I was in the "withdrawal unit for maladjusted children" for much of that academic year.  Hopefully we'll be able to help with any problems that arise and can encourage them to be theirself and be proud of who they is.  And hopefully by fifteen they won't have disintegrated like I did by that age.

Our cat, Isaac

Our cat died today.

I reckon that in the last 15 years that cat has been the creature with whom I have spent the most time.  He was an annoying creature but we loved him and gave him a good life, a life that got off to a bad beginning in which he and his brother had to be rescued from bad homes twice.

My poor wife has had to deal with him getting rapidly sicker in the last days, with taking him to the vet and with seeing him slipping away.  But in the end he died at home, peacefully and in the place he wanted to be.

I'd post a picture but with the internet router in this house being what it is it will be a semi-miracle if this posts even without pictures.

Our house

There is still lots wrong with our house in terms of walls, floors, ceilings, the roof and so on.  We don't have the money to fix it.

So this summer I plan to sign up for local agencies and once term starts in September get on with seeking some work.  Unfortunately I'm not sick enough to get any vocational help from anyone and I'm not well enough to get any vocational help from anyone.  But I need to work whether I'm ready to or not because our financial situation just gets worse.  We had precious little money when we lived in Wales and now, three and a half years on, we have less than that and much higher bills.  The accounts don't really work.  Well, they're fine until something breaks or we have to maintain the building.  The government official figures say that if we had about an extra £3,500 a year - an extra £70 a week - then we could afford a 'basic' standard of living.  So I need to work and hope that my mental health will be able to deal with that after all these years when coping with a job just wouldn't have been a foreseeable option.

If anyone in Newcastle has a suitable job for me, let me know!


So those are some of the negatives.  There really are too many of them at the moment and some days a custard tart or a new (charity shop) purple dress from Fat Face don't quite balance the scales.  Maybe I should do a blog post of positives.  Thirteen years ago I was in an online support group for something and many of us tried to write lists of "pozzies" every day.  Sometimes it could take an hour to write a list containing one positive.  There are many stresses at the moment but I could still write a good list of positives.

Or maybe positive and negative are both illusory value judgements?  Maybe.  But it's hard to be neutral when witnessing the suffering of loved ones and hard to be neutral when witnessing their joys.

The Truth About Same Sex Attraction?

A priest today posted a link to an article by Joseph Prever, a gay Catholic with orthodox Catholic views on sexuality, intelligence and good taste in his reading.  I was meant to be doing other things this afternoon but allowed myself to be side-tracked by the post.

The article is titled "The Truth About Same Sex Attraction".  I looked up "transgender" on the site (Catholic Exchange).  Obviously that's a subject important to me.  The first post returned was about how evil it was for a transgender woman to challenge a school that sacked him for insubordination (she refused to dress like and act like a man).  The second repeatedly called a transgender woman, Amanda Simpson, a man.  I can't blame the site - it's Catholic teaching, as expounded at length just 18 months ago by Pope Benedict XVI, that I am a man and live in sin every moment I live as a woman.  Another article accuses people like me of "impersonation" and "deception".

So I didn't hold out too much hope that I'd be in full agreement with an article on the site about sexuality.

I can respect Joseph Prever.  He's devoutly Catholic and lives that life to the full with all the joys and challenges that entails.  He's pretty firm and steadfast in his faith.  And he's chosen, as a gay Catholic, to live that challenging life of celibacy, in obedience to the teachings of the church and in the conviction that his churches teachings on homosexual relationships are entirely correct.  I believe too that he's right that celibacy is a perfectly acceptable choice and that our society - including parts of the gay community - greatly overvalues sex.  Too often celibacy is seen as weird, cranky lunacy rather than a decent way to choose to live.  Prever has chosen celibacy and while I may not agree with the faith that aided that choice I in no way criticise him for that choice.

If I met him I'd probably like him and happily sit and drink tea (or his beverage of choice) with him.  Prever is doing his best, and doing his best to live in love and service in the ways he believes are right.  And that's a lot better than most of us do.  There are plently of Catholics like Prever.  We can't ever forget that they're good people seeking to follow a path they believe in, and believing that path to be fully based on love.

But I'm an ex-Catholic.  And so can disagree with Prever too.  And he can disagree with me.  And probably we'll never come to any agreement on this issue.  He would continue, if we debated, to stand on the view that "the Catholic Church is right and what it says about the Bible is right and this is dogma given to the Church infallibly by the Holy Spirit."  I recognise that view - I used to share it, my Catholicism was serious!  I would continue to affirm a view that homosexuality is normal, part of the range of healthy humanity and that it's not a consequence of our being fundamentally disordered or subject to any kind of original sin.

I started to wonder whether the priest posted the blog as a recommendation or just to cause discussion.  It's hard to tell as he made no comment.  I guess he recommends it and I know he would go along with the teaching that gay people didn't choose to be gay but should always choose to be celibate.  I know too that he wouldn't call himself "anti-gay" in any way, and has been involved in gay pride celebrations.  Combining gay pride with the teaching of his church and his faith is at times a balancing act but he usually balances well with a compassionate balancing pole.

I started to wonder too whether the priest would also recommend the websites and books that Prever recommends in his blog post.  I clicked on the first of these and it claims on its front page to teach how to "resolve" homosexual feelings and lead to "our innate heterosexual masculinity".  It teaches how homosexual or same-sex attraction is an unwanted thing.  It teaches that homosexuality is caused by "a longing for a father's affirmation, perhaps, or a peer group's inclusion, or our own internal sense of just being "one of the guys"".

The site looks to people being able to talk about their "former homosexual condition."  In other words, it's a gay cure site.  Pure and simple.  Get therapy - psychological or spiritual - and find a cure.  Become a proper man with proper attractions.  The site even has a page called "Who Succeeds at Change in Therapy?" written by a "reparative therapist".

I'm sorry but this is blatant homophobia.  It's doubly sad because Catholicism - in her Catechism, many leaders, preachers, publications and a proportion of the laity - continues to teach homosexuals to be homophobic, to reject themselves rather than embrace themselves and to believe their homosexual attractions, whether physical, romantic, or emotional, are a disorder.  Being taught to be a homophobic homosexual is a terrible thing.

Joseph Prever in his writings points out a belief that homosexuality is something he HAS rather than something he IS.  It is very sad that he's been taught this and has accepted that teaching.  Our sexual attractions are part of who we are, they're not something like an ailment that we have and can fight with.  It's very sad that he refers to same sex attractions as "sexual dysfunction".  To believe that being gay means you have a dysfunction rather than that you are as fully functional as anyone else is to bear an unnatural cross placed on you by a dogmatic religion.  It's a cross Prever knows well.

The sooner the Catholic Church and other churches realise that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and that it isn't gravely disordered the better.  I've heard Catholics talk of how the Catholic Church is "gay friendly" because it's attitudes are better than some churches.  True, some churches are far worse but that doesn't imply the Catholic Church has good answers.

Prever writes of the sufferings of gay people, "Put the sexual aspect together with the other things that homosexual men and women often experience — depression, low self-esteem, loneliness, a sense (however false) of being utterly different — and you have a heavy cross."

The question is, why are these things so often experienced?  I believe the answer does not lie with homosexuality.  It lies with the way people treat homosexuals and homosexuality - and thus with the way homosexuals are taught to treat themselves.  It is not gay people who need to change.  It is a world that makes gay people feel second class, dirty, stained, disordered, for being gay.  It is not gay people not need to deal with a "sexual dysfunction".  It is religious people who need to stop calling homosexuality dysfunctional.   A banner at church here reads "Fabulous and Beautiful", two words taken from placards from the Stonewall protests nearly 50 years ago.  It is so sad that people still need to be told today that they are beautiful, having been told by religious people that they are not.

The cross is caused by the Church, not by the individual.  It is caused by the society the Church has helped to create, not by the individual.  The individual is fine.  The individual is healthy but so often has become convinced that he is not healthy or believes herself healthy but is weary from being told that she is unhealthy.  The Church imposes the cross, imposes the suffering.  The Church is the one that needs to repent and change, not the individual.

Gay people do not need to change their sexuality, their same sex attraction.  Churches need to change.  Political parties need to change.  Anyone and anything needs to change when they tell gay people their sexuality and attractions are bad things that need to change.

It will happen.  It is happening.  But even here there in our fortunate society where LGBT people have legal protections there is much homophobia.  A survey just published showed that only 73% of UK football fans would be comfortable with their national team including an openly gay player.  The Guardian article rejoices in the worldwide support for gay players to come out.  But consider, that's over a quarter of football fans who care more about a player's sexuality than their footballing skills.  Football fans were questioned in a number of nations.  The UK came third, behind Sweden and Denmark, but in the USA only 52% of people would be comfortable with an openly gay player on the team.

There is still such homophobia and such stupidity as to care about the sexuality of a football player.  Churches should be leading the way in the journey away from such homophobia and indeed away from any prejudice - another survey today revealed that 30% of the UK population consider themselves to be racially prejudiced in some way.  Nearly a third of us here thus admit to being racists.  That's a rise.  It's doesn't take much imagination to see why that rise exists - and that white British people hold the bulk of the blame rather than people of any other race, nationality or culture.

Churches must lead the way else they deserve the fate suggested in the book title "Why Christianity Must Change or Die".  Some churches are helping lead the way.  Too many are not.  And too many are proud of not doing it, blinkered into a view of their own rightness, blinkered into a view that regarding same sex attraction and so many other things they have "The Truth".

Come on Church:   Change.   Or just die, as is inevitable and deserved.

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!

A Walk By The Tyne - Part 2 - The Bridges of Tyne and Wear County

It's not a long walk from Dunston into Newcastle.  The whole route follows a path by the river unless you want to divert into the Riverside Park above and visit a sculpture trail.  Something for another day.  I left you with a view down the river, some of the bridges over the Tyne.  Of course this post isn't about all the bridges of Tyne and Wear, just the few that you walk under when walking into Newcastle or Gateshead along the river.  I've walked the paths on the other side of the river last year when a 'short walk' from home suddenly included a bus ride into Denton before walking down a recently flooded Denton Dene until it meets Hadrian's Way, then down to the river and into the city.

One of these bridges is the famous "Tyne Bridge" but it's shrouded by the five bridges in front of it.

The first you come to is Redheugh Bridge.

This is a modern road bridge, opened in 1983 by The Princess of Wales.  It's the third bridge on the site.  The first, opened in 1860, had to be closed 25 years later because the structure was unsafe.  The second lasted for 50 years before succumbing to the same fate.  The current bridge is meant to have a life of 120 years so should be there a while.  Including the approaches it is 897 metres long.  That central span is 160 metres long and it's 26 metres above the river.  It's a long way up.  Or down.  That's enough statistics.

Moving on you come to the King Edward VII Bridge.  I'm guessing that even if you live in Newcastle you wouldn't know that.  We had a local knowledge quiz at a church social evening a while back in which we had to name the first seven bridges over the Tyne in order.  Nobody could name this bridge.

This rail bridge was opened in 1906 by Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.  Enough said.  If you're a train or bridge enthusiast there's plenty of information online.  One interesting website, covering all of the bridges on the Tyne from source to estuary is http://www.bridgesonthetyne.co.uk/  For anyone elsewhere in the area there are links to bridges on other local rivers too.  It's the site of a happy enthusiast.

 A train!

Four bridges in the background and in the distance the tower of St Willibrord with All Saints, previously a Church of England building but currently an Old Catholic church.

With my upbringing it would be abnormal if I saw arches and didn't take a photo.  The KEB has arches.  Here's the photo.















It's not all bridges on this walk.  Here's the riverbank by the path.

And here is some of the (not very) wildlife.  Out of the city there are plenty of herons, cormorants and waders by and in the river but I didn't see them yesterday.  The water looked murkier and cloudier than I've seen it before.  There seemed to be far more floating in it too.

Onwards again to another bridge, with the unimaginative name "Metro Bridge" or to use its full title "Queen Elizabeth II Metro Bridge," opened in 1981 by The Queen.  Do you think she is happy that the Metro Bridge is named after her?  According to the Bridges on the Tyne website, "trains plunge into tunnels at either end".  I'm not sure "plunge" is the right word.

A Metro train.  You don't have to wait long to spot one - most days there are ten an hour in each direction. Unless Metro is apologising for the delays, a situation not unknown to the seasoned Metro traveler.

Another spire.  This time it's St Mary's Catholic Cathedral.  I am informed that it is the 5th tallest building in Newcastle.  All Saints (mentioned above) is the 7th.

If you're into stained glass, this site has good pictures of some of the windows of St Mary's.

To the next bridge - the High Level Bridge.  A double decker bridge.  The top level is for trains and the lower level for pedestrians and for buses and taxis heading from Newcastle to Gateshead but not in the other direction.

One more church tower - the Anglican Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Nicholas.  To its right is Newcastle Castle Keep, the official end of my walk.  To its left is the "Turnbull Building", built in the early 1900s.  The building has been a print house and a store for prosthetic limbs but is now full of apartments.  The penthouse apartment became the first home in Newcastle valued at more than a million Pounds.
 

The "High Level Bridge" was built in the 1840s and so is the oldest of the bridges that cross the Tyne at Newcastle.  Sometime soon I must cross it again on foot and take pictures of padlocks.

The next bridge - and the last on this walk - is the Swing Bridge.  You can't pass under this one without getting very wet and I didn't take a picture of it - just a few from it.  So here's a postcard from the past, showing the bridge in action.  It still swings, but far less often than it did when dozens of ships went up and down the Tyne - some to Dunston Staithes.

Finally, from the side of the Swing Bridge we get an unimpeded view of the famous Tyne Bridge - the model for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  In the background, along the Quayside you can see the Gateshead Millennium Bridge

Views were obscured.  People are in the process of repainting the bridge.  In the left gap is the Millennium Bridge.  In the right gap is the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

So the walk was nearly complete.  There's only one trouble with this river walk.  The river is in a valley.  My bus stop is not.  Hence this, and more than this:

There is a road from the Quayside to the city centre but these, "Castle Stairs" are quicker and lead eventually to the castle, a short walk from bus stops - and charity shops that I can never pass by.  I may not have wanted to wander round all the clothes shops in the Metro Centre but when charity shops have one Pound sale sections I can happily browse.  And on this occasion I bought a skirt and a top.

The end of the walk.  Not a long walk but with much to enjoy and with opportunities to repeat the walk later and detour from it and see more things.  This is the Castle Keep.  I've been up the tower twice.  Once as a child and once as an adult, with my child.  And both times with my parents.

To finish.  My first visit, in 1977.  Here I am with my brother and mother at the top of the Keep.  I am the little one on the right.  Canny people will note that the view has changed since 1977.

A Walk By The Tyne - Part 1 - Metro Centre to Dunston Staithes

Yesterday I went to the Metro Centre.  It's not my favourite place.  Some people enjoy going there regularly and have a fun day but for me the range of big chain stores, big chain cafes and restaurants and wandering through big enclosed corridors of commerce does not appeal.  If I must shop I'd prefer to be among smaller shops and more inspiring architecture.  As large shopping malls go the Metro Centre could be a lot worse.  But it's not my idea of an ideal fun day out and I was not inspired to take photos of the place yesterday.

However I was at the Metro Centre.  I've been going there regularly in the last year for laser treatment.  This is for hair removal on my face.  Scroll down to the photos if you want to avoid my transgender talk.  I know there are very hairy women and some with conditions that mean they have as much facial hair as any man.  A century ago some of them were exhibited in freak shows.  Now we think ourselves far more civilised so we just stare at them, point, or make rude comments if they don't shave thoroughly or have painful hair removal treatments. 

Anyway, I don't want to be looked on as either the bearded lady or as a guy in a frock.  So I've been visiting the Metro Centre.  The simple reason is that the clinic there is the cheapest for laser treatment in the area.  It's still not exactly cheap, just less expensive.  In theory there is funding for laser treatment for facial hair removal on the NHS for transsexual women, but first you need to be thoroughly diagnosed.  This takes time.  I have not been diagnosed by a "medically qualified" person so I cannot be referred for treatment.  So in practice many, perhaps most, transgender women pay for lots of the treatment themselves.

For me it's been important.  I live as myself full time and wear skirts almost constantly.  Feminine skirt combined with masculine stubble doesn't make walking round Newcastle easy.  The plan is that I won't have any more treatment until the NHS helps but that may be a while.  They now say my appointment with that "medically qualified" person may not be until June (it was meant to be in March) and I could well have to see her twice before she gives a diagnosis - which would take another eight weeks.  And then who knows how long it takes for the laser referral process to happen?

Anyway, this isn't meant to be another lengthy transgender monologue.  Back to the Metro Centre.  Not a place that inspires me to great raptures of excitement.  But I had a plan.  I decided that since the weather was good I would walk from there into Newcastle.  Much of the route is along the river so it seemed a good idea.   And there would be photos.  Too many photos.  Too many bad photos.  I'll post some here, and then some more later.

It's not a long walk from the Metro Centre bus station to the river.  Just across the road you join the Keelman's Way.  This is a cycleway that runs for 14 miles along the river or near the river and is part of a longer national cycleway that starts in Darlington.

Keelmen were men who rowed keels - smallish boats.  I say "smallish" but they were 40 feet long by 19 wide and I can't say I'd have enjoyed rowing such a boat if it were empty, let alone fully loaded.  The keelmen would row up and down the river from collieries, where they would be loaded with coal, to collier ships down the river.  The collier ships were too large to navigate up the Tyne.  Their work looked a bit like this - at least according to JMW Turner in 1835 in this painting "Keelman Heaving In Coals By Night."  

It was hard, hard work, with low pay.  The Keelmen would make a decent blog subject but there's a perfectly good wikipedia article already.  And there's a song, which some of you will know.  Here's an instrumental version played by Kathryn Tickell.  The words are included on that page.

Back to the walk.  On joining the Keelman's Way it's a short walk to join the river for the first time.  Here, the first view down the river towards the centre of Newcastle and Gateshead.  A police helicopter is in view in the top right corner, but I didn't know why at the time.

And two views across the river.  The spire is of St. Stephen's Church, Low Elswick, which closed in 1984. Only the tower remains.  Behind it is St. Michael's Catholic Church.  Just about visible poking above the trees on the right of the second photo is another tower, that of Newcastle Central Mosque.  That's a pretty new building - their previous mosque was burned down by racially motivated arsonists.  I must wander round that area sometime and explore it properly.

And so I came to Dunston Staithes.  The was a sad situation ongoing yesterday.  Police had been called to the river at 12.26 because there was a woman on the wrong side of the barriers on Redheugh Bridge.  That's the high bridge in the background of one of the photos below.  By the time they arrived the woman was in the river.  By the time I passed, which was only about one o'clock there were police and fire officers lining the river at intervals, several boats scouring the water, ambulances waiting on both sides and the helicopter searching from above.  The tide was coming in quickly so they were searching upstream.  They found the body of the woman last night as the tide fell, downstream near the Millennium Bridge.

If you want to you can read about it by clicking here.  A sad story.  There are photos there too and you can see Dunston Staithes as viewed from the other side of the river if you're not too overcome by the story.  It did seem a bit weird to be taking tourist pictures with such things going on but it wouldn't have helped in any way for me not to take these pictures.  I did at least wait for the police boat to move on before taking the pictures!

Yes, that's Dunston Staithes.  But what is this thing?  It was built in the 1890s and had rails on the top so coal could be transported from the coal fields direct to the river and transferred directly onto big ships.  At their peak, 140,000 tonnes of coal were loaded here every week.  It is claimed that they are the largest wooden structure in Europe with over 3,000 tonnes of wood.

They're not looking too healthy as they haven't been used in decades and there have been two fires since 2000.  Apparently there is lottery funding to restore them and work is meant to begin very soon.  Yes, lottery funding to restore something that is of no use to anyone beyond being a curiosity of industrial history.

Three Dunston facts:  (1) If I turned round I'd be looking at some flats and houses partly designed by Wayne Hemingway of the Red or Dead clothes fashion label.  They're rather nice, for a new development, but would be better if money existed to finish the estate.  (2) Brian Johnson, who has been lead singer of AC/DC since 1980, grew up in Dunston.  Yesterday there were rumours that the band may be retiring. (3) Dunston Power Station (now demolished - Costco is built on the station ash pits) is visible in the movie Get Carter.

Things looked a little different a century ago:

Onwards.  There was more walking to be done.  Looking towards my destination from Dunston.  Bridges.  Lots of bridges - sorry about the low resolution.  Believe me, six bridges are visible here.  From front to back:  Redheugh Bridge (road), King Edward Bridge (rail), Metro Bridge (Metro), High Level Bridge (road and rail), Swing Bridge (road), and Tyne Bridge (road).  Not visible is the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (pedestrian) as that's just round a bend in the river.

Next time I'll take a little look at a few of the bridges - yes, more photos - and finish the walk.  It really isn't a long walk.  With photo stops and at a very relaxed pace it only took 90 minutes to get from the Metro Centre bus station to the centre of Newcastle.  Not far at all and I recommend doing it if you have the time and opportunity.  If you aren't into spending a day in a shopping mall then get the bus there and walk back.  If you are wildly keen on such a fun day out then walk there and enjoy the river and the sunshine, rewarding yourself with food and drink when you arrive.

Quick Changes, More Overcoming of Fear and Waiting For the Great Leap Forward

I've had a speech therapy appointment today.  It seems that the bulk of male-to-female transsexual speech therapy can be summed up as follows:

• Speak higher
• Modulate with a feminine rise and fall
• Just do it

While I was there I asked about the appointment I'm waiting for with a gender specialist, the person who can give me a diagnosis.  Until I am officially diagnosed I can't be referred for hormone treatment or laser hair removal.  Since I have lived full-time as myself for the last eight months this is difficult.  (full-time in this context means living at all moments in one's preferred gender 'role' - it also gets called 'real life experience'.)

I can't complain too much though, it was only recently that someone like myself would have had to be full-time for a period before being referred for treatment - it's only in the last few years that the NHS has moved towards removing that mandatory period.  And the waiting times for appointments used to be much longer - indeed, in other parts of the UK they are still much longer.  I talk to people who transitioned more years ago and their stories are even harder.  A woman I know could not be diagnosed at all until she had lived as herself for a year and then had to sit before a panel of psychiatrists and fight tooth-and-nail for that diagnosis.

Socially, the process of transition was much harder then.  The stories of suffering dwarf anything I've experienced in the last year.  Every transsexual person who transitioned back then amazes me for the things that they had to go through.  And I thank them for what they've done, that their actions and courage and, often, campaigning have been big steps to making the whole process comparatively far easier today.

But it's still hard to do this.  I've heard people ask, "How did people manage to go full time without hormone treatments?"  Answer: you just do and you cope with the difficulties that come your way as a result.  At least that's my experience.  But my experience is not anyone else's experience - there isn't any single right way or right experience in gender dysphoria.

One thing I find hard is not having control over the process.  I had almost complete control - and support of family - in moving from living as him to living as her.  I could choose times, places, clothing, levels of comfort or discomfort, the levels to stress I was prepared to face head on and overcome.  I could choose who to tell and when.  I could choose the speed of the process.  Most of it in any case.  It did speed up after my mother accidentally let things slip a bit too publicly.  In the end that worked out well because people were not shocked or dismayed and it meant that I got the whole process of coming out over with in a much quicker burst than I might have done.  It was stressful, but the stress of not telling people and the fears of what might happen are almost always far worse than any consequences of telling them.

Early in the process I saw a video on youtube.   Click here for the link if you feel like watching it too.  I haven't turned into a transgender video addict but there have been some useful ones.  The video was about fear overcoming fear.  The fear is normal.  But inaction doesn't tend to remove fear.  And it doesn't remove many of the barriers that seem to stand against oneself and positive action.  Yes, we're back to overcoming fear but this isn't the blog post I've been meaning to write about it.  Sorry about that.  Maybe I'll have to let that post slip away.

The question was asked:  "Which is worse, the possible consequences of being yourself or never being yourself?"  That's not just a transgender question.  That's a question we can all ask ourselves.  Is what people might think of you worse than being yourself?  And if you're not yourself who are you going to be?   It turns out that many people's reaction to me has been based on this question.  They say things like "You can/only be yourself."   "You only live once - so live."  They don't generally say "Eeeuurrrrgh!  Go away and hide in a box."

At the start of June last year I quoted the video on my facebook account - of course without saying where the words were from.  Lots of people liked it.  I'm sure people could find lots of problems with the video - people generally do - but in those days of early June it helped me immensely.  The video helped in my decision to run with my identity and live it to the best of my ability.  If we could all be inspired to do that for ourselves and let others do the same for themselves then society would be transformed in amazingly powerful ways.

Most of you are not transgender.  But take these words to heart and be courageous.  Go out.  And live.

"Don't let fear stop you. 

Because it will take away the minutes of your life

and then hours, and then days,

weeks and years

when you could have been you, 

when you could have been happy."

And no asking "what about people who want to murder or rape?"  People always ask questions like that, just before asking one of the most common questions asked in any discussion group: "What about Hitler?"  Probably none of you want to do those things and none of you have become who Hitler became so there's no problem.  People ask questions like that seeking an excuse to not live for themselves.  In any case, murder and rape are not start points.  They are end points that very often arise in people who have not been allowed or allowed themselves to be themselves.  The truth is suppressed whereupon it mutates and what may have been a perfectly natural bit of anger or an attraction to another human being goes mouldy, strengthens and emerges again in a far worse form.

Anyway, as I said, I asked about the appointment I'm waiting for with a "medically qualified" specialist - because (she said cynically) you need to study for years and have a certificate on the wall before you can spot the profoundly obvious.  Anyone else who meets me can correctly diagnose me in two minutes even though they may not have a certificate.

When I contacted the clinic in February I was told the appointment would be late March, which is what I'd been told back in November at my initial clinic appointment with a "non medically qualified" therapist - someone who can have a different certificate on the wall.

A month ago I was told that my appointment would be in early May or possibly in late April.

And today I was told that my appointment would probably be in May, unless anything happened and it got knocked back.

It's frustrating and tonight I'm just a bit grumpy because they tell me one thing, then they tell me another thing, then they tell me another thing and at this point there seems to be no progress in how long the wait will be.  In reality I'm further up the waiting list but it feels a bit like being left on hold indefinitely, just much worse.  And each day I live as myself - I wouldn't have it any other way - but there are some challenges doing that.  I said I like to have some control.  I have control over my name, outward gender, clothing, reading, jewellery, perfume, and so much that has changed in the last year.  I have no control over my appointment - and no control as to whether an "expert" will even be able to diagnose me during that appointment or whether I'll have to wait even longer to get the help to begin to live the life I'm already living.  I controlled the practicalities of social transition and I'm very happy with the result and with the still ongoing process of self-discovery.  But nobody can control the NHS!

I didn't really have a choice - it was either live as me, quickly, or die again.  Or rather, I had choices but only one was acceptable.  Maybe it's because I'd so thoroughly squashed the truth that, realising it and pretty much healing and understanding my life in three weeks, I couldn't not jump in.  If I hadn't mainly successfully covered up who I am and rapidly stamped on any clues, if I'd been more aware of it all and more used to it then perhaps I'd have had a choice.  I don't know - as we can only really know our own experience.

So it was fast!  Swapped clothes totally in weeks, told everyone - family, friends, neighbours, strangers, church quickly, which meant weeks of hyper-adrenalin and stomach pain.  Got barred from the things I was doing in the church - which had been leading into much more official ministry.  The parish were supportive but I was told that word had come down from on high!  In this diocese that's not a big surprise.

And verbal abuse in the street was very regular:  I can't say I recommend the experience of walking as female before laser treatment and after having a short male haircut, while not being good at faking some bravado.  Abuse wasn't going to stop me - I could not go back, horrific thought (ah, my screwed up psyche!) and fortunately nobody attacked physically.  Nowadays that verbal abuse is pretty rare - wouldn't say I "pass" but I don't obviously "not pass" (to use that problematic term).

I tried to delay for a bit - I thought I should save my mother the stress because she was dealing with some big problems and I didn't want to add to them (I thought I was a problem).  And so there were lots of people I couldn't tell without risking her finding out from them.  But I couldn't bear not being truthful with her and having to lie on the phone about such a big part of life.  Glad I told her.  She accepted the news pretty easily.  And if I had delayed due to her situation I'd still be delaying now - that situation is still there, and worse than it was.  It also meant I could visit my parents last summer in my clothes not his clothes - which would have hurt so much.  Of course I didn't really know how to dress then and some of the photos are quite scary!  Happier face, terrible dress sense.

That's enough writing.  More than enough.  This is essay length - 1,800 words.  Sorry!  Congratulations if you've stuck with it to the end.  You deserve a medal.  Or at least a hug.