Something I was writing to an old friend, adapted slightly for a general audience: 'Put it this way: I'm still allowed to attend Question Time, despite my awkward crush on Chloe Swarbrick. That's something that I won the hard way. 🤣
I'm there for real reasons: it gets me out of the house (and into theirs .. that's a joke).
Gary and I are quite serious about our kaupapa and our method.
It's very important that I be there for 2024. If I play my cards right, then I'll have the legal right to scream bloody murder next time someone misgenders me at the office or refuses to employ me' - for being too ugly (or, to be accurate, gender non-conforming). - My Māori course is on Thursday evenings, but Gary says Wednesday is probably the best day to attend Parliament, as that's when the PM is there. Luxon's on my fantasy team, so that favours me attending on Wednesdays, though we could do some trades before the next sitting session. - Misgendering is a really important issue. Ask my fellow non-passing trans women how they feel about it when they're given he pronouns... I bet they hate it as much as me. 🏳️⚧️ It demonstrates a total lack of respect, which is precisely why I use that to needle people that I think could be standing more strongly on this issue (aka trans men). Surveys show that trans men are more likely to be employed and make almost as much as cis men. 👋🏻 - Has anyone else been keeping score for their fantasy teams? -
The Greens have yet to announce that they're still sponsoring this Bill (despite my asking Ricardo Menendez March to follow up 👋🏻), but the Law Commission is going to release a review of the law in mid-2024:
It's an internal politics thing: Elizabeth Kerekere, who drafted the Bill, was ousted from the Green Party after a workplace relations scandal. That's why they're slow on the uptake with this imo. -
Yes, I fully intend to be the mascot for this law change. Unwittingly perhaps, but I think that I've been pushing that kaupapa solidly. - 'Crossdressing isn't inherently erotic, and please stop filtering my life through a purely erotic lens. I regret telling you about that erotomania diagnosis: I'm asexual; seriously. That's a choice that I made over the last year or two. These Words Are Meant For Someone wasn't my words; I got paid $2500 to make Emanuel's erotic dream a reality. I can't have hetero sex, and I'm not keen on anal either, so I'd rather choose not to put myself in a dangerous situation. That's what sex is to me: a dangerous situation where I might get assaulted. I've never had anything close to sex, though I've been assaulted a couple of times. I don't get hard just because I'm wearing women's clothes. 😡 That story I wrote was supposed to make fun of fan culture; interpreting it as a cri de coeur is obtuse. I was making a point about the predatory sexuality of fanboys and fangirls, and also a point about planned obsolescence and AI. I'd much rather you asked me questions about cognitive science and AI and the rates and the taxes and all that stuff that we're both interested in, rather than treating me like a patient that annoys you.' - 'I'm masochistic, and people laughing at me for being effeminate resulted in a complex where I yearn for humiliation. That's also what underpins the obsessive writing, by the way - my feelings of inadequacy because I'm not hetero or cis, and therefore outside the bounds of discussion for a serious relationship. It's honestly a better choice to be trans and chaste than to be trans and actively searching for partners. That's what I've discovered. 🐸 Who could love a freak like me? That's the question that my name change and social transition was designed to answer: as you probably know, I chose the name Amanda because it means 'deserving of love' in Latin. People used to put up with me writing to them constantly when I was nominally cisgender (including you). I don't see the point of a medical transition, and with bipolar I, then I think it's not terribly likely that they'd recommend that.' - I've felt very supported by the mental health team through the transition. There were some awkward moments, but I think that my clinicians were very solid, though I also notice that they never mentioned hormones or a medical transition to me; I think that I'm probably correct that it's not something that a psychiatrist would recommend. - 'So, this is why I'm so strong on this gender expression issue. I think I'm a better person since I came out as Amanda than I was as Michael, and the clothes are inextricably part of that transformation. I felt more confident, and I was shunned and rejected despite that feeling of self-esteem and self-worth that I got from living my dream. I learned to stop caring what people thought. It may make me seem self-involved, but it's definitely made my writing sparkle in ways that it never had before. That's where that energy used to go: me writing to real people about film shoots and music rehearsals and videos that I stumbled across, then I discovered that the real me wasn't deserving of love. Now I've been excluded from polite society.' - 'A little smug about being older, aren't we? I've spent all of this year since my 29th birthday taking stock of my life. I realised that 30 was coming up, but I'm planning to take it easy: my forties are the really critical decade for someone like me. That's when I'd have the requisite experience and wisdom to write the sort of stuff that sticks around forever. I'm lucky to have had a few early successes, but it's that 35-50 bracket where a lot of composers write their best stuff.' - 'I got told at uni that I'd be broke until my early thirties if I majored in composition, so I've been preparing with the long view in mind since I was 17 or so. Pippa reckoned that I should wait a decade or so before attempting a concerto. Pippa's my Mum. She's a good musician, and my singing voice is mostly hers. I'm writing to you because I want you to be a part of my life. I miss you; I miss your fucked-up sense of humour and grandiose fantasies, and I miss talking with someone who is as crazy as me. My goal for my thirties is to tour the Pacific Islands and learn some new guitar strums. That's part of why I'm taking Māori: I'm hoping to eventually be able to sing in Māori, Samoan and Tongan.' - Hopefully this clarifies things. ✍🏻
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