Fitful sleep.
After attempting to explain as eloquently as I can what trans is all about, it's clear that even some of my most intelligent and liberal friends still don't get it.
So frustrating.
Acceptance on a superficial level in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings is meaningless.
I would rather be alone on a desert island with only a coconut and parrot for company than have someone pretend.
Pretending means the charade goes on, but in reverse.
They swap positions with me and become the actor.
For my own happiness I'm not interested in superficial acceptance.
Being told I am male when I know I'm not is something I have tolerated all my life to keep others happy.
No more.
I think I'd like to cover a few of the more frequent questions I've been asked.
Q:Why are you doing this?
To make me whole. Most people never have reason to question their core identity. They just 'are.'
It's the same for me. I've always known who I am.
Q: Isn't there a less drastic option?
Whatever happened to my brain as I grew in the womb is real, and not a delusion.
I'm not mentally ill, confused or a fetishist.
Brain transplants are currently unavailable for the transgender community, so we have to bring other things into alignment.
Q: Maybe you just find the idea of being a woman exciting?
There is nothing titillating about the surgery, which is painful, or sexy about having to pop pills for the rest of your life.
Trans for most people is not frilly and pink. It's jagged and black.
Fortunately my features and physique meant I never encountered some of the horrendous situations that happen every day to trans people - but that doesn't mean I turn a blind eye to it.
Emotionally it's extremely bruising.
Q: Are you gay?
I've heard it suggested that maybe I'm a repressed gay man who through guilt can only have sex if I look like a woman.
Bizarre!
I'm not sure how many gay men want to lose what is a fairly important part of their anatomy but I guess it's...zero.
Sort of defeats the object really, doesn't it?
I'm sure being gay isn't an easy option, but once again it's confusing sexuality with gender.
The two are not inescapably linked.
Q: Are you a transvestite?
The other common thing that crops up in recent conversation is clothes.
Yes - I LOVE CLOTHES! As do a lot of women! Do they excite me? Not in the way the questioner thinks.
I wear jeans, t-shirt and Converse trainers most of the time.
No air hostess or French maid outfits I'm afraid
Q: So why are clothes important?
They are the most immediate flag when we meet someone about who that person is.
If we lived in a society where men and women wore identical overalls, I would still know I'm a woman.
However we live in a world where each gender is marked out by different garments. If I'm a Woman United player, I'm not going to pull on a Man United shirt.
Clothes are the quickest gender reference point, and the first thing people think of when hearing someone is trans.
Amusingly I've heard that a former colleague claims I used to wear women's knickers to work.
I'd quite happily admit to that if it was true, but it's not.
I always wore trousers in the office (non transparent variety).
I don't ever recall sleeping with her, so
I can only presume the circus tent she wears every day as a dress conceals a man doing an act with a faulty pair of x-ray glasses.
I'm a size 10 by the way. Sometimes an 8.
(I can get my claws out when necessary)
Q: Isn't gender a social construct? Does it really exist?
Some radical feminists believe that we are all born as blank pages, free of genetic gender programming. Bring a boy or a girl up without steering them down a male or female route, and they will be a person.
It's true that clothes, colours, jobs and a multitude of other things have been divided between men and women traditionally - but is that really 100% down to conditioning?
I'm guessing a boy and girl lion don't get told by their mum which jobs they are going to do, or how they should act.
They just go on instinct. The two have different biological strengths and skills.
The girl lion being the hunter.
For me, gender identity is not something that can be shaped, socially engineered or changed.
We download it in the womb, and that's who we are.
Q:If you weren't born with female anatomy or organs, you can't ever be a real woman.
I've always been a real woman. My consciousness does not exist in bits of flesh and organs.
Take me apart bit by bit in a giant game of Operation and my gender identity remains the same until you take my brain out.
Q:What's your favourite perfume?
John Paul Gaultier 'Classique'.
