The Death of Adam

I've spoken a lot about some of my struggles as a public transwoman, but I haven't really touched much on my interactions with the public. I have a unique opportunity to do that tonight, because today I was sexually assaulted. That word has a lot of meanings. It conjures images of rape and heinous bodily harm, but those aren't its only meanings. Rape is sexual assault, but sexual assault is not just  rape. So I was at Town Hall station at about 11:30am this morning. I was coming up the escalator from the platform when I felt the back of somebody's hand against my buttocks. I turned around to see a man, maybe sixty or so, moving back down a step like he had moved for somebody, but there was nobody behind him, at least  not close enough to warrant him moving towards me. Did I just feel what I thought I felt? The way he was acting seemed like he  thought he'd just done it accidentally. Don't get me wrong; accidental bodily contact happens a lot. In elevato...

22/01/18 So... yeah, it's really  been a while since I updated this. I mean, yeah, I sad that last post but damn,  this is something else. An insane amount has happened between, including me moving twice (spending... four months in the refuge?). But the biggest thing, and the reason I'm writing this post, is because I've started HRT. It took me a long  time to get, at least comparatively speaking, from what I have heard. I had four sessions with a clin. psych, which went through my whole life and mental health history. I now have a piece of paper that says "Adam is Transgender", which -- by the way -- isn't my name anymore. I've been full time for a few months now. That is, I now live my public life as a woman. I don't mean I ever really intentionally said that "from today, I'm full time." This was. kind of gradual. One day I decided I really liked my makeup. I looked like a raccoon for a bit, then I got the hang of my eyeliner a...

Went to the Yes rally (it's not about Optus) Been a while since I updated, hasn't it? There's actually a lot to say, I just haven't known how to say it. I'm not sure if I've said this here already, but my parents and I are no longer speaking. It's been a long time coming. I don't know if it's going to be a permanent thing or just a temporary thing, but... with the way things are, there's no place for them in my life. This is about more than just my transition, although they've made their position perfectly clear on that. It started with my new therapist (gods bless that man!) He told me that a lot of what I was saying about my parents, specifically my mother, was giving him red flags about abuse. In a previous post, when talking about things that were happening between us, I urged the reader to stay neutral. I'm now backtracking that. I have been apologising for the way my parents have treated me for as long as I can remember...

So I keep hearing that I need to update more often, and they're right. I'm hoping to spend a little time every day writing in this blog. It might only be a short entry -- a quote or a song -- but it'll be an entry at least. Things at the moment are... haywire. I have to move again, for financial reasons that I'd rather not get into too deeply, and I'm moving into crisis housing. Long story short, I thought I'd be able to afford this place but because of reasons that I wasn't aware of at the time, that won't be possible. It was going to be a tight fit to begin with but something happened that further decreased my funds and... I just can't afford to live here anymore. It's a real tragedy because I love it here. I love the people I live with, I love the dog, I love the neighbour's dog, but I have to make the call. I can live under the red line or I can cut my losses and start over. I've only been here three weeks so it's not suc...

Hello, Coathanger. Sorry if you're the dude pictured. No royalties. Do you ever get the feeling that somebody who is not  you is in control of your life? Like, supernaturally? Serendipity, fate, all that hocus pocus? At this point of my life, I'd say it's the Norns. At another time, I'd say it was God but I sincerely doubt an Abrahamic god would help me transition and be nice to me throughout. The truth is I really don't know who  it is, but every so often they line me up to either fail or succeed miraculously. This time it's lined me up to succeed. There were so many variables moving down, which I've already written about. Where would I live? Who would I live with? Would I be able to find a place within the two weeks, given Sydney's housing crisis? I was fully aware that I could end up homeless and sleeping rough (and let's be frank, it's fucking cold down here!)  but somehow I've managed to find a room and a bed to sleep on, and I ...

If you went back in time and told Muslim-me that I'd be in Mecca in 2017, I'd laugh! Ok, so the above photo is actually Brisbane airport, BUT STILL! WE HAVE NOTHING LIKE THIS IN MACKAY! So yeah, if you missed it, I'm back in Sydney, baby! I'm gonna keep this short because I'm... so damn tired, but I thought that you, my seven loyal readers, deserve to know that I have arrived safe and sound. I'm in West Ryde for a bit, or possibly longer since I'm looking at a place on Thursday night which is in the same suburb, basically. I'm feeling... nervous, happy, excited, euphoric, terrified, so many things! I was on a train today. I haven't been in a train since 2012 and they all use this card system now which took me a couple goes to work out. I looked like an idiot lugging a 23kg suitcase on a bus but hey, I arrived, and I did it myself! I need to stress that last bit. I had help, of course, but the bulk of the legwork was done by me. This might...

Yeah, it's not one of those  before and after's. I'm still a potato. But I'm a potato who is trying very hard to keep their blog updated. All is going well, the apartment is clearing out, and next week I'm flying 1700km south and not coming back. For a while. On a side note, my sister broke up with her fiance . It happened on the day I had my two teeth removed (did I write about that? I should have) and that day was still the best day of the week. I mean, it's caused some kerfuffles with my plans but omfg, Nobby Doldrums will not  be my brother in law! That's a celebration right there!

My everyday look right now. I haven't updated in a while. Sorry about that. It's just over a week now from D-Day and I'm aware of just how fast time is slipping away. Cinnamon (my tortoiseshell) is gone now. The guy who came to get her seemed to know how to handle a scared kitten, which was miles above the family that wound up scaring the shit out of her. It's really not that strange; she's spent 90% of her life with me and one other cat in my apartment. She's living with a family now, and it's another reminder that things are ending here. I'm... coping. I think. I'm still pretty scared but I'm fairly certain I can make this work, even if only for a little while. I'll be staying at my parents' house for a while ( euuuuuggghh ) before I fly out so I can focus on the apartment. It occurred to me that when I leave Mackay, it will probably be the last time I see the family mutt, too. He hasn't been well, and it might not be lon...

Whatever, here's a photo of me. Feeling conflicted. It's not long before the move now. I can't decide if I'm excited or terrified. I got some weed a few days ago and spent a couple days freaking out that everything was about to end, that my parents were right about me, and that I'm about to fuck up my life. It sounds bad, but it was actually pretty productive. I spent like two days listening to Lana Del Rey's Lust for Life album and spacing out. My mother would immediately tell me that I am far too close to the precipice to be spending two whole days stoned, but I'm glad I did it. When the weed ran out and I had to return to reality, I actually felt a lot more confident about the way things are. I think towards the end of the bowl of weed (I'm back to being a lightweight after giving up) I realised that all of the things that I was worried were going to happen may just  happen. But even if they did, even if all the horrible catastrophes I...

Okay, so these aren't actually my bags. So much is happening. I'm selling my TV tomorrow. Sounds like nothing, but it's the beginning of the end here in Mackay. I'm... terrified. I'm really petrified right now. There are so many variables, and I could really end up screwing myself over and ending up homeless or worse. I don't know how long it's going to take me to find a permanent place in Sydney. Everyone I talk to thinks I'm insane for doing this, and I'm not sure that they're wrong. But staying behind is the worse option, by far. My life is nightmarish right now, although I understand that it's so hard for people around me to see that. My own apartment, two beautiful cats, a town in North Queensland, why would I want to throw all that away? The truth is that this life is draining my life away. I'm not this person, and this town was never intended for somebody like me; there are insufficient services and an oppressive atmos...

So, they told me something yesterday that I'm having trouble understanding. It was during our conversation over lunch. There were a few times where I could get them to talk about my gender issues, but for the most part, they only wanted to speak about my move. There was a point where I managed to change the subject, however. I said that I don't think I particularly look like a man, not when compared to my father and brother anyway, and they told me that they knew why. When I was sixteen and going through all my psychosis issues, I was put on risperidone. My father told me that he asked my psychiatrist why he wasn't seeing physical developments that he'd expect of a late teen, and they told him that it was because of my medication. That was apparently never important enough to tell me about. I feel betrayed, and it makes me wonder what other secrets they've kept from me. There were a lot of meetings behind closed doors in doctor's surgeries that I wasn...

I just had the face-to-face with my parents. It... went worse than I was hoping. I was meant to be there for dinner and I'm home now at 4pm, so that should probably speak for how it went. Basically, they're intent on making moving hard for me, and they're not even thinking about my being transgender yet. That at least went as I was expecting; they think it's just another one of my phases, and I can neither show them otherwise nor convince them that most  of the reason those identity crises happen is that I've been forced to clamp down on my personality for years. So I want to be fair here. There's a remote chance that one day the world will look at this blog and try to understand what I went through and what it was like for me. I could spend this time talking about old wounds and how my family have made me feel over the course of my adult life, but I don't want to sway you to my side because I made a flowery argument. I'm going to present what hap...

I did it! I'm out of the closet to my mother. I had this entire scenario in my head. We'd meet up for coffee somewhere within walking distance of my house, so if I had to split I could walk home by myself. The conversation would begin with me asking questions; did you notice anything strange about me as a teenager? Do you remember when I started wearing mascara as a young adult? Do you think my gay uncle, who's spent his whole life in the closet, lives a happy and fulfilling life? I manage to ask some of those but, in the end, it didn't go as I'd planned. That's okay, though. I came out over the phone because I was sick of waiting for her attention, and I thought it would be easier than saying it at theirs and then having to spend the rest of the evening over an uncomfortable dinner. Dinner is happening tonight and (with luck) they've had a whole night to digest that their 30-year-old son wants to become a daughter. I don't think she was actua...

I'm coming home! Good news. Also bad news. Let's start with the bad. Yesterday, my town received their quarterly electricity bills. People who know me personally or are familiar with Mackay may remember that earlier this year, we experienced a cyclone (or a hurricane, if you're across the pond. Not a tornado). I wasn't actually that affected. I went to my parents' house; they lost power and one of their coconut trees, but other than that the worst that happened was that the internet went out and I was bored. We ran the generator most of the time so we had at least minimal appliances, but it was mostly just boring for us. This was not a universal experience; some people lost entire houses, particularly close to water or on slopes. The day after the cyclone hit, I went home and realised I was one of the blitheringly small  amount of homes that still had power. Good for me! Bad for everybody else. Fast forward to yesterday, when I got a power bill for $1000....

"If you fell down yesterday, get up today." --H.G. Wells I had this dream last night. Things are a little rough at the moment. I found out yesterday that moving to Sydney might be a lot harder than I expected, and there's a very  real chance that I'll end up sleeping on the streets if I do go. I could end up in crisis housing but that'll only last three months, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get a place through priority public housing (where I tell them I'm homeless or at risk of homelessness). So, can I do it or not? Is it worth the risk of sleeping on the streets? I can't transition in Mackay; not safely. It would be easier to get a house in Brisbane but it'd take me longer and I don't know anybody down there. I'd be a stranger in a strange city. At least I have a few friends in Sydney, so I wouldn't be completely alone. I also know the city pretty well because I grew up there, so getting around ...

Sorry about the blur. I have hand tremors and struggle to hold things still.

VENT WARNING. The backstory: I'm trying to come home to Sydney. I need to do this so I can transition in a place where George Christensen doesn't live, and where the general population aren't coal miners. Have you ever lived in a mining/agricultural town? Then you might understand how oppressively heteronormative Mackay can be. So there's that. The problem is, I haven't been able to work for years because of my BPD / PTSD , and there's no way I'm going to be able to work while I transition. Especially  while I'm doing HRT  (mood disorders are bad enough on their own). So my options are basically limited to public and social housing, but I really  want a permanent place to live that doesn't cost too much. Here's the thing: I live in Queensland. According to FaCS policy, I have to have a NSW address in order to get a property. I can provide a medical reason that I need to live in NSW but if the same can be accomplished by moving somewher...

For the purposes of this blog, my name is currently Adam. That's not my real name, but it works well enough. Adam was the first man, according to the religions I was taught to follow; the ones that told me a man becoming a woman was vile. I don't believe in those faiths anymore, but their weight still presses down on me and the way I see myself. Even after I'd stepped out from under their umbrella, I kept torturing myself for not being the way they said I should be. Adam is going to die. I've been trying to kill him for a long time and it took me until I was thirty to understand why. From time to time he would leave for a while and I would take on a new identity, often with a new name or handle. In recent years this went into overdrive and I found myself bounding from identity to identity, trying to cope with what was inside without expressing it. In order to explain this, I have to explain Adam. This is a long story, so please don't feel pressured to r...