The Theme Reveal Of 2018

April is coming and it’s another chance to attempt the A-Z challenge. Last year was a total disaster where I had to drop out half way through but the year previously was a success.

This years theme is about “Gender and Disability – looking critically and how to be more intersectional” This sounds like a total mouthful and yes I have made me work my fucking ass off this year but it was something I could actually do for a month that would still keep the ethos of what my blog was for originally.

If you have joined me because of the A-Z master post, hello!!! Some of the stuff might be confusing, some might be uncomfortable also. Whilst I am catering this month to the idea that there will be a lot of people reading this who have not only never encountered a trans person, let alone a disabled one – I will not be toning down language either and I will be pulling apart the cisgender heterosexual able bodied approach to life and how we need to adjust society.

Some posts have already been written in advance – on the 12th I am having major surgery. If I am slow to reply to comments and stuff. That is why.

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m more than happy to talk about certain things on here. Good luck to every writer taking part this month and I look forward to looking at what everyone has done

TC Austen

H – Hell

Hell. A place or being that’s just awful. I think when I was given thus topic, I was told to choose things that were my own personal idea of hell. So I shall list them off.
1) Being stuck in a room full of furbies. I think I’ve spoken about my phobia of the bug eyed, fluffy, evil fucking cunts. I hate them. Nothing screams hell to me then those shits staring at me.
2) A conversation with my biological father. I have no intention to build a relationship with him. He made that choice, and I’m happy without him.
3)Having banana cake as the only option as desert. Because banana is gross

Those are my ideas of hell. Sorry that this is such a short post, but there wasn’t much to cover. Monday is I for Invention

G – God and Gravestones

God, religion, faith. What the fuck is all of this, and why are you writing about it Tyler ?
I don’t often speak about it, mainly because its often seen as a taboo but I am a person of faith. I suppose I choose these words as opposed to just saying I’m Jewish, because the faith itself never truly sat well with me. I have always considered myself to be more of mixed faith then just solely part of one.
Judaism has taught me that to find your own faith you should be educating yourself in it. You should not just choose faith because its easiest but because its who you are. I originally didn’t believe that queer spaces should ever be linked in with places of faith but as I grew up, I realised it was the individual to decide on what makes them happy. I am not an Orthodox Jew, far from that. I believe that to find your own path you shouldn’t look blindly into faith, and should study it in your own time as opposed to temple. I am also a fan of pork. I also believe in the true Satanist teachings as well. That you shouldn’t harm anyone unless they have harmed you, and that organised faith can be fucking dangerous to people. Organised religion as a whole is a huge grey area for me personally. I have felt that there has always been hidden motives behind it. That teachers use it to spread hate as opposed to what its meant to be, an over view of life and how you should try and find yourself.

I suppose that god and faith is often linked in with death. I found comfort in faith when my nan passed. She was also Jewish and certainly not Orthodox. I think we find comfort in the possibility of their being an afterlife. I suppose mainly because this world is so full of pain and bullshit, that there must be something better after it.
Death is going to happen to everyone. Rich or poor, its a constant we have in life. The differences we have are how we handle death and how we decide our final resting places are. I personally are comfortable in the knowledge that I am going to die. Whilst I probably am not going to make it to 110, I hope that I at least make it to 40. I know that my mental health isn’t great, my physical health is pretty piss poor at times and I should have already been dead already from drug overdoses and seizures. I decided a while back that I would just take each day as it comes and hope that I can enjoy life as it comes before deaths grip takes me.
I have already decided that I want to be cremated. Now past that I’m not too sure what I want doing with my body, but I have come up with a few conclusions.

A part of me wants to be carbonated, turned into a collection of stones and have me given to family members for them to make me into something. Probably a collection of rings knowing my family. Another part of me wants to have my ashes put into fireworks and shot up in the air. I think that it would be a great send off for me to be shot up in the air 100 ft and scattered over a wide area.
I don’t know what will happen to my body, or whether there is such thing as an afterlife. All I know that there will always be religion and faith, and that will often determine how you live your lives.

Thank you for reading this pretty long post. Tomorrow is H – Hell. Please feel free to comment and share this post.

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

E – Emptiness

*Content warning – some of the content written may be upsetting for some readers. Contains talk about death, miscarriage and abuse*

When you spend ages trying to put of writing something, you know there is often a good reason for it. When this word came up, I almost decided to throw in the towel and not do this. But I’m here and I’m talking about emptiness.
There have been many points that I have felt like there is nothing inside of me, that I’m just hollow and nothing can fill the void that’s there. It doesn’t help that I suffer from poor mental health, if you have read some of my other posts outside this challenge, I have spoken about my battle with bipolar and clinical depression. I have also spoken very publicly about being in a relationship with a partner who was abusive. Which I suppose brings me to the first point of feeling empty.
When you go through abuse, you feel like you are the only person in the world that feels like its happening to them. You feel like no one is going to believe you and that you are the reason why its happening. Its nothing but both internal and external bullshit around you and it takes a lot to get out of the cycle, in one piece. It took me a long time to get back to the person I was.

I have felt emptiness on other occasions. I have lost several people in my life, and it’s ripped my heart out. I have also suffered multiple miscarriages because my body has just not allowed a fetus to develop. They have all been at very early stages, but it still fucked my head up each time it happened. I would feel just dead inside, hollow, that there was nothing there. Now at the time, it nearly killed me being unable to bring a pregnancy to full term, and I used to think the phrase “everything happens for a reason” was utter bullshit. Then life changed.

I came out and I realised that if I hadn’t had everything happen to me, that I hadn’t felt this empty void in my life, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I had come out because I realised that I needed to sort my shit out and stop running away and pretending that what was going on inside wasn’t going to kill me if I didn’t resolve it.
As I worked on my treatment for gender reassignment, I started looking at all the other issues I had and started going into recovery. Whilst I am still very unwell at times, I have been able to function better and find better coping skills.
The emptiness that is there is slowly getting filled with other things in my life. One day it will all get better

Thank you for reading this. Please feel free to comment about this post. The next post is F.

D – Domestic Abuse

*Content note, contains domestic abuse, violence and discussion about abusive relationships that some people may find uncomfortable to read*

I did a blog post last year about how I ended up in an abusive relationship and how I hate people that lie about it and it exhausted me to write it. As I said at the beginning of the challenge I opened up all the titles up to members in a group I’m in. This was the title that came up and I didn’t want to not do it.
Domestic abuse fucking sucks. And it happens to anyone regardless of gender.

A lot of advertising and media is often directed at straight couples where the male partner is abusive. It is shown that only men can ever be violent, and whilst this is often the case in a lot of abuse cases, ITS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. This also happens with rape and violent assault too.
There is a taboo about discussing violence towards men. That men that have been violently and/or sexually abused are seen as weak. NO! It’s in our culture to laugh at men for getting emotional support or that they “allowed” themselves to be abused by their partner. They are suddenly not a man. This stops men from reporting people to the police or other organizations, because they are told daily that it’s a joke. We need to start supporting men who have suffered abuse from their partners.

We are also told that queers do not suffer domestic abuse, and that it’s mainly a cis white heterosexual problem. We are often told that we are making it up, or that it never existed. We are sometimes told by people of authority that we deserve it, and that we should be grateful that we are even with someone in the first place.
We are also told that when we are standing up for people who are abused (regardless of gender) that we are “Feminazis” or “SJWs”, implying that trying to stop something as serious as domestic abuse isn’t something we should be fighting against.
No I fight because as a queer man I do not want to see anyone raped like I was, I don’t want people to be violently assaulted and I don’t want people to be in a domestic abusive relationship.
Regardless of political or social stance, it is something we ALL should be fighting against, and not making it into a joke.

Thank you for reading this post, I know it was pretty heavy. If anyone wants to talk about abuse and societies views, please feel free to write in the comments. If you are experiencing this, please try and get help from trusted people, you are never alone

C – Colour and Candles

I was given two options for today and I couldn’t pick between either one of them, so I decided to go for both.
Colours mean a lot to me. I picture the two flags that symbolise my identity as a person. The two flags colours are blue, pink and purple / blue, pink and white. The first one is the bisexual flag, the second is the transgender flag.

Please reverse google image search for original artist. I couldn't find them and i would love to credit them.

I use these flags and not the generic rainbow flag because of its representation it now has. The rainbow flag to me is about the cis lesbian and gay community. Something that I am neither. I hold my trans status with pride because I have fought battles with my own gender and overcome them. I hold the bisexual flag close to me because I love people regardless of gender or genitals.
Colours show me what people have to overcome for equality, be it people of colour who get mistreated by our white culture. Black power still gets labeled as a hate group to this day, even though what they protest is justifiable. All black lives matter keeps getting white washed on the internet and as for queer POC accurately represented in the media, forget it. People of colour are still getting murdered for being who they are, and it needs to stop. Right fucking now!

When I think of candles, I think of the people we have lost. Our loved ones that are no longer a part of us anymore. At the last transgender day of remembrence we lit a candle for every person who had died that year. The amount of people of colour that had been murdered was fucking disgusting. Each year the number seems to get higher and higher, it needs to stop. The murder of trans women of colour needs to stop. Everything needs to stop.
Candles also remind me of my birthday, and this month I turn 29 which is a huge thing for me. Considering my life I always thought I would be dead by now. With each year passed I am thankful that depression hasn’t destroyed me.
Finally candles remind me of my mum because she’s do obsessed with them, they always remind me of being at home with her, liking all the different smells and colours. She normally has about 20 different ones around the house at a time. My favourites are always the Christmas cinnamon smelling ones, because they always smell so good.

Thank you so much for reading my blog post. What does Colour / Candles make you think of? I would love to hear from you.
Tomorrow is D. I look forward to letting you read the next post.

B – Best

Best. The best is always looking at the good things in your life and that’s what my post today is about. The best bits.
Firstly meeting both my wonderful partners are in there with my greatest things that have happened to me. I am thankful that I have two great human beings in my life that I am able to share my life with that understand being poly (both my partners are also poly) and are understanding with both my transition and my mental health.
My best friends should get a mention whilst I am talking about the best parts of my life. Daisy and Aidy have been around for so much of my life and continue to be huge rocks around a sea of bullshit. I am sad that I can’t see either of them as much as I would love to, but I am grateful for the time we do have together.
So what about the best things that have happened in my life? I could probably list of a million things that have happened that have been amazing, but I’m going to list of my top 3.

1) The best thing by far I ever did was to come out and start gender reassignment treatment. I am finally at the back end of treatment for now and awaiting chest surgery. Everything that I lost, I gained back twice as much. I gained friendships, relationships, volunteering places. Shit happened that I never thought would. I started to be finally happy in myself.
There is still a shit ton of accurate educating needed to be done about being transgender but I think we are very slowly making improvements.

2) Joining FTMB. They have been a huge fucking rock to me over the past few years. They have not only put up with my bullshit, they have trained me and made me not only come out of my shell as a human being but also to be a much better person. They have taught me to pick my battles and to let go of the small shit that’s been in my life. They inspired me to do the one last “Fuck you” to my estranged father and to stand up for the marginalized queer people in our community who need to be represented.

3) I am my mothers child. The one stability in my life. The beautiful human being that is my mother. She has been the person who has kept me going in my darkest days. She has been my supporter, my inspiration to be better and my care giver. She has given me my best days in my life. She is the one who tells me to give people hell and to not take shit from anyone. She is my drive to keep going when days are darkest. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I would be around. She is the best and nothing would ever change that.

Thank you for reading this. Please feel free to tell me what you think the best points have been in your life. Next time we are on the letter C.

A – Animal Rescue

Hello and welcome to the first day of this. If you didn’t read my original post about the challenge, rather then choosing a specific theme , or go on and on about how I’m trans, ect. I got people to throw out ideas. DO NOT GET PEOPLE TO THROW OUT IDEAS. As we go on throughout the month, you will see why.
So A is about animal rescue.
So what is my views on animal rescue? Anyone who rescues animals instead of buying them from puppy farms or other places like that, are the real MVPs. There are far too many animals that are in shelters and getting put down needlessly.

My mum has a crow called Russel that was rescued. He has a happy life, and would have died in the wild because of his deformed foot. My mum also has horses that are rescued or from homes and wouldn’t find a place elsewhere because they have physical or mental problems. I’ve been brought up to have the animals that often wouldn’t find homes, because they are often with the best characters. One of our horses that passed away not that long ago was bat shit crazy and had been abused previously, but was such a giant Teddy bear.
As well as common animals, we need to start protecting the rarer and Wilder animals on our planet. You should visit zoos (good zoos that do both rescue and conservation programs) and safari parks if you get the chance to, if you don’t you may not be able to see the animals that are close to extinction.

If you get a chance you should go to your local shelter and see how you can support the animals around you.
Thank you for reading this post, please feel free to comment about your experiences of animal rescue and how you think we should be helping our planet.
The next post is B. You should check out the A-Z challenge, the website address is on the image below.

A-Z April Challenge

Kai told me earlier today that they were going to do a blogging challenge this month, and since I am a terrible person I am stealing this idea from them.
Rather then pick an idea I let people from “The Witnesses” decide what I should write about each day. As I am writing this, they are going through the alphabet now.
I am probably going to regret making this choice because quite frankly they will say anything. So expect everything from cute fluffy animals to violent butt sex. Am I worried, yes I fucking am, but do I like a challenge, certainly.

The posts go up each day, starting from the 1st. There will be no alphabet posts on Sundays. Whilst this is going on, regular posting might still go on. It depends how exhausted I get with this.

If you want to join Kai and I doing this, please feel free. Show us your plans for the months alphabet challenge.