Oh Hai!

So here I am. I've created a vanity blog.

I guess if it's all about me, I should talk about myself then. I'm a forty-something professional, mother of two wonderful children (now adults) from my previous marriage. I'm onto my second go now, and have been happily married this time for getting on to ten years. My hubby is wonderful and patient and we have a really strong healthy relationship. We live in a wonderful house in a small town with our seriously spoilt cat.

I'm Australian, and am a fan of Australian Rules football, having been born in Melbourne, the home of footy. Fair warning. I'm a proud Collingwood supporter, so I have very biased views on the game.

I love the outdoors, I love music, and have an enormous collection of sad eighties pop and rock. I'm an unashamedly great cook, and subscribe to the Maggie Beer philosophy on food, with a deep appreciation of traditional provincial recipes and slow food. I have rather more well-used Le Creuset enamelled cast iron pots than is perhaps healthy, and as a result we're all (including the cat) a little overweight and should look after ourselves better.

Oh, and I'm a transsexual woman.

Which gets me onto my reason for this blog. The moment you read that you formed an opinion, didn't you? I dare say an opinion that's influenced by some pretty sensationalist media. By the Daily Telegraph, perhaps? A little bit of "Orange is the New Black", maybe some of that Jenner person from the Kardashians? Perhaps some "Transparent"? Oprah? All so, utterly wrong.

When you wander around the internet, in my experience you encounter three broad groupings of trans people. Our "public face", if you will:

• Professional trans people. Jennifer Boylan is the example that springs straight to mind. She's an established academic who transitioned in her forties as a professor of English Literature, did a couple of spots on Oprah and Larry King, wrote a memoir and cashed in on her notoriety.
• Celebrities. When I was young it was Boy George and Tula. Now it's more likely Laverne Cox or Andreja Pejic. Oh so representative.
• The publicly transitioning and genderqueer. This is two groups, I know, but from the outside they can be hard to separate. They fill forums and blogs with drama and agony. Relationships going south, unemployment, discrimination, bad things.

Anyway, there's a fourth group, and I'm a member of that group. We live next door to you in suburbia. You don't know we're transsexual and you never will. We live our lives and go to work and get on with it just like you do. We're just as boring as you are.

So more on me. I had a pretty rough childhood due to gender stuff. As a result I'm estranged from my parents and most of my siblings. I haven't seen or talked to my parents in more than twenty years. My mum passed away a couple of years ago (I didn't go to the funeral) and I was relieved more than sad. Relieved that the one sibling who I do maintain vague contact will give up on his periodic attempts to reconcile the family.

Anyway, like a surprisingly large number of queer kids I got in trouble as a teen, had a couple of babies, and did the shotgun wedding thing. Like most queer kids in that situation it didn't stick. Getting married only postponed the inevitable, and then only by a couple of years. I divorced and transitioned at 23, went back to uni, got my shit in a pile and made a decent life for myself.

So now the only person who I have any regular contact with in real life that knows I'm transsexual is my husband. My kids have moved on and live a long way away, and I've got a ruthless knack for cutting ties.

So yeah, that, in a nutshell, is me. Anything that could identify me in real life carefully omitted. Names changed to protect the innocent and all that.

I'm often frustrated by what I read regarding trans subjects, and occasionally wish I had a place to air my views. I hope this is it.