[The reader is advised to to hear the following in an Alan Bennett-style northern lilt.]
I feel torn between congratulating myself on how much I achieved this year, and chiding myself over what I didn't do. It's just my way, I suppose.
I Went Out in Public as Me
It seems hard to believe now, but the most I'd ever done prior to 2023 was to occasionally sneak out onto the back stairs of Hellscape Court with a glass of wine, late at night when I was reasonably certain the psychopaths had all passed out.
I'd been growing increasingly tetchy about having to change my clothes just to take rubbish out to the bins, or pop across to the post office. This one evening, I heard music coming from somewhere nearby, and thought it sounded like a band playing in the street. I was curious enough to investigate, but not enough to change my clothes, and thought well, it has to happen sooner or later. So I pulled on a pair of sneakers, and went out. The timestamp on a photo taken at the time puts the date somewhere in February.
I never did work out where the music was coming from; probably a private party upstairs at a restaurant, because I couldn't hear it at all at street level. So I just walked up Lygon Street in my mum jeans and fitted t-shirt (not a big pink frilly dress, because that's not my bag, baby). I thought I might get a pint at the Green Man if I was feeling brave. I wasn't, but I walked to the top of the strip and back. The sky didn't fall in, and nobody in the street glanced up from their dinner or window shopping to give me a second look. The seal was broken.
I Came Out to My Psychologist
This too was back in February. It was getting slightly awkward not addressing the elephant in the room. Or, in my case, the largest of the many elephants in the room, and the only one not yet addressed. I'd been dropping hints, but to be fair, I'd been dropping hints with everybody, and nobody else had caught on either.
As we were wrapping up one "telehealth" session, I raised the issue, as casually as one can, in order to warn him about the topic for our next chat. Bless him, he took it in his stride and has only stumbled on the name a few times since. As he's based back in suburban Reejnal 'Straya, it's not unreasonable to suppose that I'm his first ever trans client, but he's been an absolute trooper in unfamilar territory. I think it's better to stick with someone who you know from experience will be supportive and insightful than to gamble on a new specialist who may seem good on paper. Plus I've been seeing him for about a decade, and the idea of starting from scratch with my entire bleeding life story doesn't bear thinking about.
New Rule: Only Crossdress at Work
Within a few weeks, the switch from t-shirt and jeans to… erm… a nicer and more figure-hugging t-shirt and jeans, became the norm.
Oh my goodness. To go clothes shopping without having to do it quickly and furtively! Just walking around town feeling like a civilised human being! Touch wood, I've never had a bad experience with other people. With my own reflection in shop windows, yes, but never with other people.
Started HRT
This was in June, so nearly seven months ago now. To be fair, it's only really been more like three months; we titrated up from a very low dosage over the first few months, as I'm a timid old bird when it comes to drugs.
I really didn't need the Global Estradiol Drought of 2023. I spent so much time in a panic, shopping my increasingly crumpled prescription round every chemist in the CBD and inner suburbs. It felt rather like Peter Sellers' joke about the old thespian trying to cash a cheque: "Well, can you at least iron the bloody thing?"
I'll write more about this later, but as so many girls say, you're prepared for physical changes, but it's everything else that really gets you. I've been on an emotional rollercoaster since my egg cracked years ago. What's changed is that now I can take the ups and downs with some measure of grace and poise. Not to mention the occasional blissful wave of tranquility.
And bless my new GP, who is an absolute angel.
Started Voice Training
This is something my GP suggested. In a very polite way, not in an "Oh, my god, you sound like Darth Vader!" way.
I'd been trying to follow along with various YouTube tutorials, but most of those are by very young American girls with those Californian chipmunk voices that would sound ridiculous coming out of an enormous old lady. So it was helpful to be referred to a service provided by very young Australian girls I also couldn't hope to emulate. Actually, it's more the paying for the Medicare "gap" that made me work more diligently than in the past.
Since the partially Medicare-covered sessions ran out, I have the contributors to #TransVoiceFriday on the Fediverse to keep me motivated. I record something every week. You wouldn't know it, because I only post something once a month or two, as it's all so horrible.
When the stars align, I don't sound too bad. If I could stay consistently at that level, I'd be happy with that as a platform for future progress. But when speaking to anybody who knew me in my past life, or in a situation where I feel like I have to be a serious grown-up, I can't help slipping back to the flat, dead, phony voice I cultivated as a child to ward off the gender police. I feel like a tourist with a foreign language; I can say "hello", "excuse me", and "thank you" like a normal person, but anything more involved and the confidence drains away and I just revert to shouting loudly and slowly in English.
New Rule: No More Crossdressing (i.e. No More Work)
I had a teensy meltdown at work back in September. When I got the job soon after moving to Melbourne in 2022, I thought it would do for a few months, after which I'd have blossomed and found myself a proper, lucrative job. By the time those few months had elapsed I'd received via email my PDF file commemorating five years service in the supermarket dogsbody business. (A boozy lunch out to celebrate, maybe? Fat chance!)
I run on vanity, and the more that I was assured that my hard work was appreciated, the more I just kept on pushing myself past one red flag after another. Eventually I exploded in a burst of shouting and swearing and, after diligently continuing to work the rest of my shift, shaking and in tears, I walked out and never came back. Not one of the swines has since phoned or even texted to see how I was getting on, despite at least half a dozen having my number.
So that was for all day-to-day purposes the final curtain of my past life. And a relief to take my old fat clothes out of the wardrobe and pile them up to take to charity.
Legal Name Change
When I posted the form off, along with my old birth certificate (which I used to carry with me in those far-off days when I would be challenged to prove my age in pubs), to the New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages, it felt like a big thing. However it was a big inevitable thing, so it was not actually a thing at all. There was no question of not doing it.
Getting the new birth certificate back was marvelous.
I am a real person, with a real name. I have real plastic cards in my purse with that real name on it, and a well-practiced and rather cute real signature to boot.
To Do in 2024
I've been socially cocooned here in Melbourne for a year and a half. I had intended to come out to friends and family further afield by the end of 2023. But as it happens, the old show had one final encore last month when I had family visiting. After much agonising, I felt that the timing was not right, and - rightly or wrongly - that it would be too much to ask them to deal with just yet. So I put on multiple layers of baggy old clothing to hide the HRT curves, and did my best to keep the tears at bay. (FYI, it felt weird, embarrassing, and upsetting.)
In the case of most people I know, were they to take the news badly, so be it. But in a couple of cases it would be heartbreaking. Yet, again, there is no question of not doing it. My late father never got a chance to know the real me, to my lasting sorrow. Should anybody take the news badly and refuse thenceforth to have anything to do with me, well either way they never knew me. At least I can offer them the chance.
And I haven't, as planned, seized all - or even any - of the opportunities that the big city has to offer. I know that I'm smarter than the average doddery old lady, but I seem unable to use this in pursuit of a decent (both morally and remuneratively) living. I have never done so, really. I have become very good at living on next to nothing, and working in a supermarket for six years has been a very effective way of covering up the fact that I fear I may be fundamentally broken.
These are the elephants to address in the 2024 room. I've sufficient savings to pay the rent and scrape by till the middle of the year if need be. Damn blasted elephants.