Trans Pride Brighton 2016

So Christmas has happened, its been and gone and we are going to have to wait another year for it to come round. This year was bigger and better than ever, and over 1500 people attended the protest march and well over 4000 people made it onto the park itself. 

As per usual I was with my adopted child FTMBrighton mainly, which was an amazing success thanks to the beautiful pronoun badges designed by Finn and 48 hours of hard fucking graft by a fair few people to make 2500 for 3 different stalls. This year was the first year of NOTA being around and Brawlers were also there bringing a huge crowd talking about skating. We are also finally in hopefully the last stages of changing FTMB’s name to something far more inclusive, which I’m happy about. 

After my speech on the main stage (yes I still can’t believe they let me fucking speak) I was both thanked for speaking up for queer disabled people and avoided by a few others. I promised myself that I would never mention the events or why I was avoided, or even who, but in all honestly it did me a huge favour that I could actually relax in the park without fear. Although one thing got answered for me thanks to my quick observations and I now know why all this shit has been allowed to happen. 

Now I know what you are thinking, because both my partners are on the committee, I’m going to sugar coat everything. No. I am not. For starters there was some transphobia that happened in the park, I felt that whilst an effort had been made, there was still not enough POC representation across the whole park (such as there being not many POC specific organizations involved) and the stage was not accessible to wheel chair users. These are things that have been noted and will be addressed for next year. Also some of the atendees were still shitty about sex workers being there and people shit talking about the people not wanting the police there. There should be platforms for people to talk about why the police do not make trans and queer spaces not safe and those people should not be shut up, but instead should be allowed to talk freely about their experience. 

I would like to say that “screaming toenails” are a fucking amazing band and that I want to see so much more of them! Also anyone who has an issue with them saying “ACAB” and “Black Lives Matter” on the stage should reevaluate their thought process because they had every right to say it on a protest stage. I could go on and on about how I personally feel that police shouldn’t be involved in anything trans pride related but that would take a long time and we are on this blog post to talk about trans pride itself. 

The acts were amazing and so were the speakers. The volunteers worked their butts off. It was also Phoenix’s last trans pride volunteering and I would like to say how amazing they have been with it all. They have put in so much work and so many hours and they deserve a fucking medal for everything they have been through. 

We also attended the gig that happened at west hill hall. All the acts were really good and we had so much fun. The next day we did the picnic at the Marlborough pub and it was really good. I met so many wonderful people 

I can’t wait for next years one. Its truly the only pride worth going to. 

Trans Pride Brighton Speech 2016

I spoke on the main stage on Saturday. I would like to say thank you to everyone who attended, the 4000+ people.Trans pride is my favourite part of Brighton and I feel fucking humble to have had that couple of minutes on stage. 

I have put my speech up here, so if anyone wanted to read it, please feel free to read it. Apologies for spelling and punctuation as it was the only draft, and my dyslexia would have kicked in. 

When I was asked to talk about my trans intersectionality I was like “cool” I can do this. Then I remembered, I cover a lot of boxes! And I’ve got a fear of public speaking

I’m bisexual, that’s probably covered. I’m a person of faith, I’m poly, I’m on the spectrum, have epilepsy, tourettes and I’m disabled. I think That covers a lot of boxes. 

My “disabilities” are pretty hidden. I get tired a lot, I am in more persciption medication that you can probably legally aquire and I black out and sometimes have seizures. If I included all my mental health issues I would be here longer than the few mins I’m allocated. 

When I joined FTMB committee (and after a while the trans alliance committee) I was totally honest with them. I’m clinically insane, I have involuntary outbursts at stressful times and physically I will be unable to perform even the basic of tasks. They took me in with open arms, told me that I can do this and inside this bizarly and sometimes broken brain of mine is actually a highly intellectual human being. Both groups were highly supportive when I said that I was a non binary trans masculine person. That I would never be just a average man. 

I haven’t exactly had the greatest experience in coming out as non binary trans man, I have experanced some of the most hateful treatment and most of it from binary trans people. I have had to leave services and I have lost friends because they didn’t believe that anything other then the binary was legitimate. I was also told in emails by well known trans people that I should resign from my volunteer roles because of this. 

Whilst its had its ups and downs, my transition and disability has not held me back. Last year I was offered the job by Josh to run a page called homos, heteros and a whole lot more with one if my partners, and we are now only a couple of hundred people away from 50,000 followers and have over a million people every week viewing our content. It gave me a platform to write about being queer and disabled and with the thanks to josh, my partners and my family I’m now slowly writing a book. 

I spent a lot of my life being stuck in a bubble where I was unable to communicate and because of FTMB and the wonderful people around me I am now able to speak here in front of you. 

Thank you

F – Friends

I am lucky that I have several good friends in my life. I have both my wonderful partners who are just amazing. As well as them, I have gained many friends over the past few years.
Whilst I lost several friends when I came out as transgender, I was lucky to gain so many more, thanks to joining FTMB and going out to queer spaces and groups. I met both my partners in queer spaces also. I have gained so much more than just friendship within people in the community and its made me become a better person.
I have also gained lots of friends online, thanks to admining a few groups and pages online. What’s great about people online is that you are friends with people because you share common interests and if you don’t like someone, you don’t have to see them again.
This post is probably going to be one of my shortest ones, but there isn’t much I can cover with just friends.

Tomorrow is G – Gods and Gravestones. Please feel free to follow me during this A-Z challenge, all of the words were picked by people online, and I had to make posts about them.
Want to talk about what friends are to you? Feel free to post in the comments

Ten Things I’m Thankful For – 15

So this past two week a fair few things have happened, so let’s get down to business.

The start of April brought us the A – Z writing challenge, so I would like to thank the creators for this wonderful event. I’ve come across so many different styles of blogging and its amazing.
I’m finally up seeing my family. Woop woop. So I’m thankful for my family being there for me and me being able to spend time away from Brighton.
Some arsehole decided to not only rip off one of my old posts, make a transphobic piss take from it, they linked my post in their shitty thing. Plus side, free advertising. My blog blew up with views. So I thanked him for doing what he did.

It was also transgender day of visibility. Which meant that for one day, non queers apparently go on about how they love transgender people and think its all ok to not even bother the rest of the 365 days of the year. I thank everyone who is honestly respectful to the trans/non binary community and we need more allies that give a shit as opposed to people who give us lip service.
Kai took me to the sea life centre on Good Friday and it was really cool. I thank the sea life centre for giving us the backstage tour and being fucking awesome. Also I thank Kai for just being amazing.

I haven’t had as much time as I have wanted to with Steph recently and I hate that. I am thankful that they are so understanding that we are both really busy at the moment.
I am now the chair of FTMB, which is both terrifying and rewarding at the sane time. I thank everyone who has been around and just been amazing.
I got my hair done at a barbers / hair salon for the first time in years. I was called He the whole time, so that’s made me really happy.
I also took a really fun picture and got people no “Name my album” which ended up being really funny. So I’m thankful for humour.

I think that’s it! Its been a pretty busy couple of weeks, I’m surprised that I managed to squeeze this post in if I’m honest.

I shall see you all in two weeks time

Trans Pride 2015

By now you are probably thinking that I’m going to blog about the acts, my experiences and how the parties went…… Well you will be wrong. What I saw of trans pride was about 30 mins -1 hour of acts.

What I can tell you is the run up though. It was started a week ago with a photo shoot. It was hot, I was sweaty but I can tell you now that the photos were AMAZING.

These photo’s were to be displayed on Brighton town hall the day of trans pride.
The Friday before trans pride I was out, and ready to go to the resource centre. It chucked it down, so I had to have my hair protected for the day (not vain, had just dyed my hair). If you haven’t had the chance to go to Brighton’s resource centre , its like Santa’s grotto of the equipment and office supplies. FtmBrighton hired a giant genga. I also spent the afternoon making stickers and badges (pins for American readers). That day was also my testosterone shot day and that was my 2 year anniversary shot. Needless to say my arse still hurts.
In the evening I made a picnic for the Saturday and finished of making my order for the Brighton Brawlers Roller Derby team. I had managed to super glue my finger to the tube of super glue by the midnight.

The Saturday morning, we finally woke up and arrived at the park. We set up the FTMB stall and Kai’s lover Vince attended to help with set up. I sat at the stall whilst there was the march between the Marlborough and Dorset gardens. Photos here are from the wonderful Kai (HariboHeart here)

SO MANY PEOPLE ATTENDED OUR STALL AT FTMB. We ran out of badges pretty quickly because we didn’t think that many would be needed. So many of our members past and present turned up and a couple of people broke me during the day, one being Sabah, who is on the FTMB blog roll and you really should check them out. I was truly thankful for him speaking to me, and I will always remember his words. Although you made me cry you little puppy!!! A few other people turned up and thanked FtmB for all the hard work they had done, and a few kids came and drew some awesome pictures (and some adults too).
We had a picnic and I got to see some of my amazing friends and allies, and I thank you all for turning up to the event . I got some serious cuddles from the youngest FTMB ally Grace. I managed to squeeze in some time for a quick selfie with Kai

I managed to go round a few stalls, got my face painted and was interviewed. I had already signed the petition, but the English collective of prostitutes were there and that was amazing. What wasn’t amazing was that people complained that they were there. Seriously, if you know trans people, are trans or are a supporter, you should know that sex work links up with many trans people, and having a stall to help and to talk about the decriminalisation of sex work was a great idea. I honestly have zero time for people to think its OK to moan at a stall that’s helping the trans community and helping with safety.
The beautiful man was signing all day and I’m so proud of him, I managed to see him for a few minutes.
I also did an interview with Ed, about ftmb and what trans pride meant to us. It was so amazing. We packed up at about half 5 and managed to pick a fight with a gazebo and I lost. I ended up with a small lump on my head. I managed to get home at about 7 and had a little break before I met my other partner Steph (they had been busy running the whole event) for the photo projections. I also saw Ben again – I had seen him at the park , and it was also amazing to see someone else from last years projections and someone i truly look up too.
It took forever for it to get dark enough and there were quite a few difficulties but eventually they came up and it was amazing to see everyone’s beautiful faces. Eventually I left Brighton at about 11 and met up with Kai. He wasn’t there since he had a “family” dinner where his brother proposed to his gf. Turns out I’m family enough to exchange gifts and take care of their Kai for nearly 3 years, be engaged and deal with them, but not family enough to attend a family function. Turns out when you call out his brother for his bullshit (ie copy and pasted the shit he said to Kai), rather then being praised , you get ostracised. Also I don’t think I got the happy tears “oh my god your now really family” when we announced our engagement. We got moaned at. So thanks. Here is done photos of our faces being projected.

On the Sunday morning we had volunteering for doggy pride. We got up early and we got rained on. Doggy pride got cancelled and we went home till Vince and Lizzie picked Kai and I up to go to the trans pride picnic. I got to see the adorable Steph and lots and lots of other trans and queer peeps. A huge shout out to the Marlborough for allowing us all to be there for the picnic. It was an amazing afternoon.
We finally got home at about 7 and totally crashed out. It was a great weekend.
On a different note – several people were attacked during the weekend and I am so sorry that it happened. This event has been going on for 3 years and this is not what we are about. Transphobia in any form is not tolerated and I hope that the victims get justice.

T-shirts designed at FTMBrighton

We did a T-shirt session, this is what we designed , I hope to see them all at trans pride on Saturday

These were not all of them, they were all wonderful in their own right. I love when we do making and craft sessions and the more paint the better