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Is it all bad? Part Two

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  In my last post I discussed some of the rhetoric that is around at the moment and the effect it is having on the Trans movement as a whole. It would be easy to assume that a Trans Woman going out into the world would be a journey fraught with difficulties and no doubt this fear has put some off venturing out into the wider world. Let's be honest you have to have your whits about you and be sensible where you go, but as I recently discovered all is not bad as some would have us think and you can have a very pleasurable experience out there in the real world. Pink heels! A couple of weeks ago I met up with my lady friend Jen for a three day break. After meeting up and having a coffee we booked into the hotel where we were to stay for three nights. That night we elected to eat in the hotel restaurant, so once ready we met in the hotel bar for a drink before our meal. I wore a white floral dress, with pink jacket and pink heels. Normally I shy away from wearing  four inch stiletto h
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Is it all bad?

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  At this moment in time we seem to be inundated with anti trans comments with some prominent people making outrageous statements aimed at the trans community as a whole. Some of these statements imply that 'all trans' people are a risk to society, which I find not only offensive but quite frightening. When I read that an all female swimming club balloted it's members as to wether it should allow a trans woman to join the club and that the result was in favour, it seemed like a positive report, only to find that once the result had been announced, one female member stood on a chair and denounced the members that had voted in favour going on to say they would all be attacked and raped in the changing rooms.  This sort of thing has to stop, but that will never happen while there is a constant feed of claims and comments demonising trans people. It does not help that certain parts of the media and some politicians seem to jump on the band waggon to advance their own agenda. S
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A wedding

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I don't look too happy here but the emotion was running very high at this point   Some time ago I wrote about my love for wedding dresses, ( The Dress (mylifebyandrearaven.blogspot.com)   I have had an attraction to wedding dresses for many years, dating back to my sisters wedding in the 60's. There has always been something very special about a wedding dress and the dream of wearing one for more that just an hour or so has been with me for a very long time, but until recently it remained just a dream.   At some point I made the comment  " that I would never wear a wedding dress for its intended purpose "  Well that may still be the case but late last year I was lucky enough to get as close to the 'real thing' as I am ever likely to get.  I had planned a few days away with my friend Jen, we were lucky enough to be able to stay at a cottage in Northamptonshire, one of the things we planned to do was a 'Bridal Day' as we were alone in the cottage and we
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This and That

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  It is a while since I posted anything here so I would like to start with wishing all my readers a happy and prosperous New Year...... Assumption, we all do it, even though I made a rule to myself years ago to 'never assume' I find myself doing it, as an example, a friend told me that a male colleague at work had spent Christmas with a man he had met whilst walking his dog, so two single men spending Christmas together, I found myself questioning his sexuality just I suppose as I would 'assume' if he were with a woman over Christmas there was more to it than just friends...... I have no right to do this especially as I have never met him! The truth is I don't know, I should never assume, but human nature intervenes and we start to speculate when we have no right too. It happens to me as well, a good lady friend assumed that as I take so much time and trouble to look the way I do, that I would 'naturally want to be with a man'. I had a hard time explaining t
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Being Visible

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  I have been out to clubs and restaurants many times, at the trans friendly clubs I could easily wear something that 'stood out' as in comparison with many others attending the venue, I would still be somewhat tame in appearance. However when going to more mainstream places be it shopping or for a meal out I wanted to blend, by that I mean not to stand out, I wanted to 'pass' for want of a better term. 'Passing' is the holy grail of many people like me, they want to be out in the world, but without drawing attention to themselves. That is completely sensible of course, because we want to go about whatever we are doing without any risk of confrontation. Although it has to be said in my case, so far at least, I have had no problems whatsoever when out and about.  So far so good, that would be my default setting and I suspect the way many others would feel. However last time I was out, something special happened....... I was due to go to a restaurant with a lovel
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Describing me

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  The other night I was at home on my own sitting in my arm chair wearing a long red dress and feeling fabulous! I thought about how hard it would be to describe to someone who does not understand or even accept my way of life. This is not a fetish or weird and certainly not 'creepy'.  The truth is it is just me expressing the female within me, when I am like this I feel whole, I am the complete person, I am me........ I can understand for someone outside the trans umbrella this is a difficult concept to understand, if you were born in the gender you want to be in your life the path is relatively clear. However if you were born into a gender that is not authentic to your true self then life is very different. So how could I explain this to someone that sees life very differently to me?  I think this is what I may say: Consider for a moment if things were very different for you, so talking from my personal experience, consider then if you will a time when you never fitted in no
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Drag Balls

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  So called 'Drag Balls' have been going on for a very long time and often a cause of controversy, these days they are just another night out and often under more correctly descriptive titles. The Drag Balls I am going to talk about here are the ones that took place in the 1960's through to the late 1980's in London, in particular those that were staged at the Porchester Hall in West London and Tudor Lodge in East London. The only reason I have centred on these two locations is that up until the age of 9 I lived in West London and often passed Porchester Hall and sometime after we moved to East London Drag Balls were held at Tudor Lodge not five minutes from where I lived. Obviously at that age I had no idea of what was happening at Porchester Hall.  What is a 'Drag Ball'? well, basically it could now be described as 'Big Night Out' at pink Punters or 'Leeds First Friday', a night where crossdressers, can be themselves and enjoy a night out. The
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Book Review: Becoming Ted

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 Becoming Ted is a lovely book by Matt Cain about a man who had dreams that never seemed to be fulfilled, he was trapped in a job he didn't want to do with a husband that curtailed his dreams at every turn, that is until his husband left him for another man. We follow the beautiful loving and sometimes painful story....... Will Ted ever be able to realise his dreams?  It's a great book, very well written humorous witty and at times sad. It brought tears to my eyes at times, a great read with a message to follow your dream, be the person you want to be, live the life you want. The story resonated with me in so many ways, as I'm sure it will with you.  Fabulous, just fabulous!!
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The Journey

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  How many of us have said we are on a journey? Well dealing with being transgendered is  always a journey, but unlike any other journey you take in life this has an indeterminate starting point and no destination. All our journeys are different, we move at different paces, we have different goals, but there are a lot of similarities and we can all learn from each others experiences. My journey began many years ago when I was very young, but at the time and for years after I had no idea I was on a journey at all. This crossdressing thing wouldn't go away and by the time I was in my 20's it hadn't progressed much beyond trying on dresses for a few snatched hours here and there. Then it seemed to stop, mostly because of work, family etc, I say seemed as I thought that was all behind me, I was wrong, very wrong. Now I won't bore you with all the details but when I recommenced my journey it took on a whole new purpose, this is when I started to let the female inside of me
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Our World

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 Here in the the UK, more specifically in England and Wales in 2021 the Government carried out a census of the population, this is done every 10 years to provide information on a range of subjects from population density, housing, how people travel to work etc etc. For the first time there were questions about gender and sexual orientation. These questions were voluntary, so although the results will give an indication there is no way of knowing how accurate any conclusions drawn could be without further research.  Results of the census are now being released by the Office for National Statistics and are available on line, search for Census 2021. There are some interesting figures in the report, to me the thing that stood out the most is that according to the census, the group most likely to identify as trans (the report defines this as "gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth") is 16 to 24 years of age, with 1% of the population (63,000) compared wit
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