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OPINION: Sugar Swan – How she sees it!

The impossibility of attempting to adhere to cis-normative femininity and beauty standards by Ms Sugar Swan.

AT the very start of transition I felt that I was forced to perform femininity to be taken seriously as a woman. I felt that I had to wear feminine coded clothes, wigs and a lot of make up, more make up than any one woman should wear, before I was able to leave the house. Should I not wear prosthetic breasts, tuck my genitals and ‘make the effort’ to look as feminine as possible then I would be gendered as male?

I was under no impression that I blended into society as a cis woman, I was very clearly a trans woman, but the aim of my performative femininity was to be gendered correctly. This worked to some degree. It was most difficult in those early days to hold my head high when the majority of society looked upon me as a cross-dresser.

As I moved into medical and surgical transition the need to perform femininity began to lessen. Once my transplanted hair started to grow in I was able to stop wearing wigs which helped me feel more authentic in myself. Once laser hair removal freed my face of hair and hormones started to soften my skin I was able to stop wearing heavy make up. This again made me feel more like myself and less like I was putting on a show for the general public, all in a bid to be called ‘Miss’ instead of ‘Mr’ by shop assistants and other such strangers.

The real game changer for me came when I went through facial feminisation surgery and breast implants. Having the bones and soft tissue of my face augmented into a more feminine shape and having bigger breasts than those which hormones blessed upon me bestowed a new feeling of natural femininity, one which I didn’t have to paint on, nor strap on, one which was just there when I woke in the mornings. Having hair after being bald, a smooth face after a full beard, soft feminine facial features after hard, strong masculine ones and large, full breasts after small buds all contributed to me feeling my authentic feminine self.

I had now got to the stage where I didn’t need to wear make up at all to feel feminine and at some indistinguishable point my sense of style and how I dressed had changed. I was finally dressing for myself and my choices in fashion were no longer centred around trying to be gendered correctly by strangers, and this felt great. I still however, experienced gender dysphoria.

I would often be ‘clocked’ as trans by strangers but I was in a fairly good place where I was so happy with my surgical results that I didn’t care. I had to be somewhat realistic. I’m six foot one, I’m broad, and I’ve had 35 years of testosterone running through my system, I couldn’t erase that with a few years of oestrogen and some feminising surgeries.

More than all of this, however, was the underlying knowledge that I still wasn’t done with surgical transition. I still had a penis and subconsciously I foolishly believed that getting rid of it would fix all my problems and I would be transformed into a ‘real woman’. However, at this time I was no longer performing femininity and that felt just great.

My vaginoplasty came and went last year, and quelle surprise, whilst I’m elated by the fact that I now have a vagina, I still suffer dysphoria. This was very much an obvious outcome and one which, of course, I knew would be the reality.

I spent the latter half of last year trying to work out what more I could do to feel more feminine and to pass as cis more often in public. At one point I even contemplated removing my already plentiful breast implants and going for bigger. I considered doubling the size of my lips, pumping more fat into cheeks. I already have a ‘G’ cup chest, large lips and sharp cheekbones from my first set of surgeries. Would having larger breasts really make me feel more feminine and would they help me pass as cisgender more often? No, of course they wouldn’t.

To try and hold myself to cisgender beauty standards is futile. There’s absolutely no way that I can compete in the beauty stakes with cis girls and neither can I turn back the clock to a time when testosterone didn’t masculinise my body. I have to try and accept the fact that I’ve had some good surgical results and that I’m deemed a beautiful woman. I’ve had, what is seen as a successful transition – yet somehow, because I can’t help but compare myself to cis women of my age, I feel less. Less feminine, and less of a woman.

I’m walking a tightrope where if I try too hard to perform femininely I can come across as a parody of a woman and if I don’t bother at all then it could be questioned why I even bothered transitioning at all if I’m not going to ‘make the effort’. Societal beauty standards for women suck and are of course, totally unrealistic for most women, both cis and trans.

I’ve finally come to the realisation that there’s no amount of surgery, make up, fillers, or implants that will make me more passable than I am now and I must try to come to terms with that the best I can. Will I forever be jealous of cis women and trans women who pass better than I? Of course I will, but all I can do is face the mirror each morning and tell myself that I’m the woman I am, and that is okay.

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – Trans Positive Healthcare

First, before I get on my pedestal for the month, I have to convey my sincere apologies to my regular readers for my recent hiatus.

You may well remember that this time last year I spent a month in India having some surgeries; well, with nine months to allow myself to heal, I have just spent the last two months away having some more work done. Due to the nature of the surgery, I was unable to honour my work commitments with Gscene and I thank the editor and you, my regular readership, for understanding. I am not really well enough to be writing again, but this month’s topic is a far too important one for me to miss.

In last year’s HIV issue I wrote of my personal experience of living with HIV as a trans woman and the difficulties and heightened stigma that I have faced post-transition rather than pre when read as an MSM.

I also spoke of the lack of sexual health awareness for trans people in general and the lack of support from nationwide clinics unless within reach of ClinicT or ClinicQ here is Brighton. I ended with an open invitation for any trans positive people to feel free to contact me should they want some signposting, support, or just a chat.

This opened up the floodgates and got the ball rolling for trans people to come out to me who have been harbouring their status as a secret for many reasons, including stigmatisation from friends and family, being scared that their status would affect their hormone regimes and any gender related surgeries they may wish to have. They could see me living trans positive and proud, and my status not affecting my sex life, my relationships, my HRT and my fast-paced surgeries.

Over the last year I have spoken to many a trans positive person for one reason or another, many of them coming to me as a referral from my surgical team in India who wanted some reassurance that their trip to India for surgery would not be hampered by their status.

I would like to share with you one particular call for help which I received in India in August whilst in the middle of five surgeries in four weeks so I was unable to offer immediate support. It has probably been the hardest and most difficult for me to deal with both practically and emotionally.

She wrote: “Hey there Sugar, 

“Hope you don’t mind me messaging you out of the blue but I follow you on social media and really just need someone to talk to. Obviously I’m trans, that’s all great and I have no problems there and I’m a non-sexual partner to my adopted son’s mother. I have an amazing family but I found out six years ago that I’m HIV positive. God, my head is spinning just typing that out to you, Sugar. 

“Seriously I just haven’t accepted it and still can’t even think about it. I’m not on any meds and never have been and I’ve only ever seen a doctor anonymously when I got my diagnosis at a sexual health check up. I used a false name and address so there is no record of it and the secret is hard to deal with. The truth is I don’t deal with it, I ignore it. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t tell my family but I also know I can’t ignore this forever. Can you help me Sugar?”

Now, what am I to do with this? This is a woman who received a diagnosis six years ago and is so scared of the social stigma that she has run from her diagnosis, buried it and only even thought about unpacking it when she read my work and realised that just maybe, she could live as I do. This woman needed so much help and support.

I first had to get her to trust me, which wasn’t particularly hard as she had been following me for some years and had already reached out to me and told me something she had never told another soul before. I then had to get her to trust the medical system for trans positive healthcare and that was somewhat harder.

Eventually, after many weeks of dialogue, she agreed to make the four-hour drive to Brighton to visit ClinicT. She was adamant that she was not going to go anywhere within a 100 mile radius of her home and that she would only see a clinician if I accompanied her.

This is how scared this woman is. This is happening right now, as I type I am arranging clinic appointments for her. This is the reality of trans positive healthcare in 2018. It is so easy to think that we have everything wrapped up and we are doing just great with HIV care for all LGBTQIA patients because we fall under the same umbrella as cis gay men, who, by comparison, and from my own lived experience, have got this shit nailed.

As I said in my last HIV edition of this magazine the stigma is in no way comparable and the level of care and understanding from medical practitioners is excellent. I am not knocking this service provided by clinics, such as Lawson Unit and Dean Street – locally and centres across cities in the rest of the country, the care for MSM is exemplary and is something to be commended.

However, I am sad to say that the same cannot be said for trans positive healthcare – it is almost like our practitioners don’t know how to deal with us, like we are a curiosity, something to question and often asked inappropriate questions and make statements that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else if we didn’t really need our meds. It’s like we have to hand hold our doctors through our appointments and be the doctor, not the patient.

In my six-monthly appointment with my HIV doctor last week I was asked directly: “I’ve been your doctor for 15 years now, why did you only tell me you were trans three years ago?”, and: “I don’t know if you need a smear test now, leave that one with me.”

The first of those statements is just pure idiocy, the second is lack of knowledge. These are just two examples of many a stupid question I have been asked by HIV service providers since transitioning.

In December of last year my public husband and bed partner ‘#nohetto’, Jak, a trans MSM, was diagnosed positive. Obviously, I accompanied him on his appointments and at his first meetings with HIV consultants, pharmacists etc, as is the nature of our close relationship, he was dealt with by a petrified consultant who was clearly out of his depth.

He tried to hand Jak a booklet on HIV and Women, which I quickly snatched out of the doctor’s hand and scolded him, telling him Jak was a man after he had tried to tell Jak that he could use the women’s only clinic. I scorned the doctor and told him the women’s clinic is somewhere that I would use, not a man. Jak and I didn’t see that consultant again.

I am used to being asked stupid questions, I have been positive since my early 20s and I am now almost 40. Jak, however, and any newly diagnosed trans person who walks through the doors of an HIV clinic, has to put up with this kind of nonsense that can make people like the woman who wrote to me whilst in India, run away from the healthcare services altogether.

Jak and I started to read the material produced by sexual health clinics and it has always been part of my freelance work to consult with providers and make sure they are representing us right. Jak is now doing the same thing and is working closely with THT to make sure their sexual health booklet for non-binary people is correct and uses the right terminologies.

Although I have been very busy working as an advocate, mentor and liaison for many trans positive people since I came out publicly as a trans positive woman, Jak raised the fact there is actually no peer support for trans people other than the ones that reach out to me for 1-2-1 peer support.

We searched Facebook and there is not one single support/peer group for trans positive people, so, if it doesn’t exist but it is obvious there is a need from the number of requests for help I receive, we must build it.

Jak made a peer support group for us. It is simply called Trans Positive and it is a closed group on Facebook. It exists for us to create a community of trans positive people where the intersection of being both trans and positive come together and for us to discuss and support each other around the very specific issues we face.

We welcome all trans positive people to join our peer support group regardless of where you fall under the trans umbrella and we look forward to welcoming you soon.

I wish all my positive siblings, both trans and cis, a very safe World AIDS Day – I encourage you all to be kind to yourselves and I will see you at the vigil in New Steine Gardens on December 1st at 6pm.

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – Going Stealth and being outed

Transitioning with Sugar – Going Stealth and being outed, by Ms Sugar Swan.

WHEN asked why I waited until my mid-30s to transition I tell people a myriad of lies; “It wasn’t the right time”, “I couldn’t afford it”, “I wanted to get X, Y and Z out-of-the-way first”. However, the real reason I delayed transition for so long is that I never thought I’d ever be cis passing and I’d never be able to spend at least part of my life living stealth. This was reason enough to delay or even not transition because we only need look how trans people are treated in society and ask ourselves; “Can I handle that?” 

When the alternative for many of us is suicide, we choose the lesser of two evils and prepare to put ourselves through ridicule for the rest of our lives, hoping that just sometimes people will see us for who we really are, men and women. Not trans men and women, just men and women. I can only speak here from a binary woman’s point of view and by no means talk for all binary trans women, men or non-binary people, whose experiences of passing and living stealth are far removed from mine. Not all binary trans people want to pass as cis, to blend in, and nor should they have to. Everyone’s experience is their own and only theirs and all of our hopes and desires in transition are valid and just as important as each others.

Now there are some people who I can never be stealth to. Anyone who knew me pre-transition, anyone who reads this or my other work, but if someone meets me in a public setting I’m blessed with the privilege of being able to be stealth – to not automatically reveal my gender history by my voice, my facial features, my body shape – to be assumed as cis by the cis people I am interacting with.

This is important for many reasons; the main one being safety of course but it also means that there isn’t a ‘but’ attached to my womanhood, I’m not Sugar, ‘the woman who used to be a man’, simply “Sugar, the woman”. This is also super important for my mental health too as it reduces gender dysphoria when I’m read as cis.

I realise that I’m speaking from a position of privilege here and that many trans folk will never blend as cis and for those who want to, that’s a hard thing to come to terms with. There was a point in my transition where I thought I’d never blend and I spiralled into a deep depression where I wondered if it was all worth it.

Was it really worth losing my family? My job? Spending tens and tens of thousands of pounds on cosmetic surgery, and the same again on hair transplants, laser hair removal, make-up tattooing? Going through the physical pain of it all just to be met with the mental anguish of not reaching my goal of being able to pop over to the shop in my joggers and a hoodie with no make-up on and be read as female? That part of my transition is long behind me now as the cosmetic surgery is all finally calming down and I’m read as cis more and more as time goes on.

Do I want to blend in with the cis community completely and start a new life where nobody knows I’m trans? Absolutely not! I love my trans family and don’t want to give up my trans-related work. I don’t want to erase all history of me from the internet, and I don’t want to stop mentoring young trans people and signposting them to services and helping them in their transitions.

I just want to be afforded the same privileges as cis women, privileges like not being beaten up, spat on, attacked verbally, receive death threats, all because of my gender history. That’s right, not receiving death threats because of your gender is a privilege cis women hold over me.

Ten weeks ago I met a man, two years my junior, on a dating app, and whilst I was clear about my gender history on my profile, as a cishet (cisgender heterosexual) man he had no idea what that meant, never asked me and after chatting for a few days we arranged a date. It wasn’t until during our date that I realised he thought that I too, was cis. I explained things to him and I had to give him trans 101 but at the end of it he said that he never saw me anything other than the woman I am and my history didn’t bother him.

Fast forward 10 weeks and we’ve been seeing a lot of each other. He comes from a very, very tight-knit family of seven brothers and his family kitchen is always a hive of activity, there are always parents, brothers, friends all popping in. I’ve been living a stealth life and it feels good.

Nobody has clocked me as trans, they treat me as the woman they see and I’m privy to conversations they may not have around someone they knew was trans. I’ve been spending most weekends at his house and I’ve been enjoying not having the prefix of trans attached to my gender. It’s been a fantastic experience, until one weekend his mother showed her friend (a cis gay man) a photo of me on her phone as she was proud to show her friend the woman her boy is dating. This guy outed me to her, told her I was trans, that I ‘used to be a man” and then to top it off he deadnamed me.

One of the very, very worst things you can do is out someone. You put them in potential danger, you trigger them of their history, you betray them. What followed was a horrendous few weeks for me where family members lacking the terminology contacted the man I was dating and asked him if he knew he was dating a tra**y, a transvestite, and other such terms that quite understandably caused me upset. I was lucky. Apart from losing my status as a woman like any other, some uncomfortable conversations with some of his family, a lot of upset and turmoil, nothing more serious happened to me.

As members of the LGBT+ communities, which is dominated by cis gay men, you men are aware of more trans folk than your straight counterparts. That’s just natural, we share space, we’re part of a wider community. You men are privileged enough to know more trans people than most and if you hold that privilege of knowing us pre-transition or knowing our deadnames don’t you ever let that out of your mouth. Forget it, erase it, for when you out somebody you’re quite literally putting their life on the line. Enough trans people are murdered each year as it is, don’t add to those numbers.

Respect us, respect our privacy and get the idea out of your heads that you have the right to know and share our history. We deserve to be treated like anyone else, don’t be disrespectful to us, don’t add to the numbers of trans murders and suicides and, please, let us have our dignity. It’s only humane.

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar: Trans healthcare and the Gender Recognition Act

Sugar, still in the midst of surgical recovery, asks, is it all worth it?

As I sit at my desk on a hot mid-June’s day, already five days behind deadline (oops, sorry ed and design), feeling somewhat overwhelmed with my scar management and post-operative care, I’ve spent the last week plagued by writer’s block.

Recently, I’ve been suffering with activist burnout. 2018 was supposed to be my year of rest after six gender-related surgeries last year, but I’ve never found myself busier. Never have I had so many organisations come to me to ask me to write for them, to talk to them, to sit for paintings, to hand hold girls through Gender Reassignment Surgeries that I’ve previously undertaken myself, my continued work in empowering other trans women to take control of their own hormone and surgery regimes and my work in consulting with the medical profession on trans healthcare.

Great! It may seem that way, until I feel so exhausted by it all that I just want to run away, live a stealth life where nobody knows I am trans, get myself a cis partner and just be known as Sugar, the tall, tattooed bad ass woman, not Sugar, the trans woman. For that is what I am, a woman; and as the period of time elapses since I started transition the more the stealth life appeals. I used to look at girls who were stealth and I would judge them. I’d think to myself, ‘Why are you hiding? Why aren’t you educating? Where is your visibility? Where is your Pride?’ Whereas I now fantasize about running away and going stealth myself.

July is the busiest month for us trans folk in the UK and, just when I want to be slowing down, I find myself having to speed up. We have the annual Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex conference happening this month and I’m particularly looking forward to listening to friend and fellow activist Mx Tyler Austen speak on the subject of activist burnout. Conference is always scheduled for the week leading up to Trans Pride weekend, a Pride event that I can really get behind and give my full support. As Trans Pride enters its sixth year we’re reminded that things really aren’t that great for trans people.

Many assume that our city is a utopia, a bubble where LGBTQIA folk roam free of oppression and hate. This simply isn’t true. As our visibility grows the push back against us grows at an extraordinary rate.

In the last few months many of us have felt the pure hatred aimed at us from Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist groups (TERFS). We’ve watched dinosaurs like Germaine Greer afforded prime-time television where she can repeat her tired old rhetoric. We’ve had to watch as cis people discuss our rights as if it has anything to do with them whatsoever (hint: it doesn’t) and we, as a city, have been plagued by hate groups who’ve been putting up stickers on lamp posts and pedestrian crossings hating transwomen specifically. We’ve had to gather our troops and do all we can to stop these groups of TERFS congregating in our city and spreading hate speech. I’m part of an underground network of people on the lookout for these stickers, amongst other things, and we do our best to deploy our forces to remove them as soon as we spot them.

We will not be bullied into submission by people who are trying to take our rights as women away. Our genders ARE NOT up for debate and the only person that can decide whether someone is trans or not is that very person themselves.

The whole NHS Gender Identity Clinic structure needs to change. From GP referral, we currently have to wait around two years for a cis person to tell us if we’re trans or not, then we have to wait six months for another cis person to agree with them and allow us hormones, and then another six months for one of them to say we’re trans enough for surgery, and then guess what? Another six months for another to agree with them. After this, we have to wait another six months to see a surgeon and, if they’re happy to proceed, we wait about a year for surgery. That’s a minimum of five years to get to surgery, much, much more for many of us, that is, of course, if we haven’t already killed ourselves. The system is broken and we need to continue to fight for change. No cis person gets to decide whether we’re trans or not, that’s something that can only come from within.

The Gender Recognition Act of 2004 is in the middle of a huge shake-up, and quite rightly so. Self Identification for trans people which, in a nutshell, means trusting us to know our own minds, instead of cis people deciding for us whether we’re ‘trans enough’, is something that should have happened years ago and we need to keep pushing hard for this, however much the TERFS disagree. Their rhetoric is that I need cis people to decide for me if I’m a ‘real’ trans person or if I’ve had my balls cut off, had my face rearranged, taken oestrogen every day and had a pair of big old tiddies put in for shits and giggles just so I can go around creating havoc in women’s bathrooms.

Urgh! It is just so, so tiring. We really aren’t asking for a lot, we’re just asking to be allowed to be ourselves and to be trusted that we know who we are, it’s not that hard, is it?

When I reflect on the state of the regime in which so many of us are forced to live under I realise that my work is absolutely worth it, that it’s imperative that I continue and that I remain united with all my trans siblings and running away to live that stealth life isn’t a luxury I can afford yet as there is much work to be done.

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! By Ms Sugar Swan

The Munchkins, a good witch, a wicked witch, and ruby slippers. A yellow brick road, a paradise, an all-seeing entity that can grant us that which we are lacking. We all know the story, we can all relate. As a lifelong ‘friend of Dorothy’ I have always felt close to this story, and in this month’s ‘Bears’ edition of Gscene, its narrative is one that mirrors many aspects of LGBTQ subculture.

Just as our young protagonist, Dorothy Gale, a scared, confused girl sung of a place where dreams really do come true, when we find LGBTQ subculture that works for us, we can often feel like we have found our very own somewhere over the rainbow. After a lifetime of being told that we’re too tall, short, fat, thin, femme, butch or awkward to fit in anywhere else, queer culture finally feels like a place where we belong – but what happens when that place no longer feels that you belong to it? This is where the intersectionality of being seen transitioning from bear to trans woman clashed.

For many years I did a relatively good job of hiding my gender underneath a bear costume, but that’s all it was for me, a costume. I grew in a huge beard, my tall, wide frame lent itself to a belly and plenty of muscle which I adorned with tattoos, a chest pelt and my pathetic wisps of hair that remained from my male pattern baldness, wet shaved, completed the look. It was a good look on me. I fitted in, it was comfortable and I was deemed a very attractive bear – there was only one problem, I wasn’t one.

The bear scene turned out to be a very unhealthy place for me. The type of masculinity portrayed in bear subculture was one which was really quite toxic to me. I was praised for a set of physical attributes, attributes that I had carefully cultured, but unfortunately were a hiding place for me. Instead of being a place that I felt at home, that I belonged, the bear label soon became a prison to me.

When I first came out as non-binary and started presenting as a femme bear, albeit still with the beard and chest hair, but in makeup, I started to get the side eye. I was no longer conforming to a rigid stereotype of what a bear was, and the subculture didn’t like that. I was told, many times, directly to my face and online that I was ‘losing my bearishness’ and that was something negative.

When I started to wear breast forms, I think, that was the straw that broke the bear’s back. I was no longer made to feel welcome as part of this community. It struck me as most strange at the time as by its very definition the bear subculture is one that understands what it’s like to be rejected by the mainstream LGBTQ culture and I’d hoped for a little more understanding, however I was not afforded it.

As I moved across from my non-binary femme identity to that of a binary woman and I began my hormonal and surgical transition, the beard went and the facial surgery came, the chest hair went and my breasts came, and the hair surgery brought back my (goldie) locks. I shed the muscle that I’d worked so hard to hide behind and my belly started to roll into my new-found hips, and as time elapsed I looked less and less like a bear.

With the passage of time, I’m now able to go for a drink on the bear scene without the hostility I was once met with. This begs the question: Why? Why am I accepted now but I wasn’t then?

After a lot of consideration and discussion I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m now seen as the female friend of a bear rather than someone trying to be part of the community – and a friend of the scene is something they can get their heads round whereas a trans feminine bear was something they made very clear to me they would not.

This saddens me and I would have hoped for more tolerance and understanding around this, for if bears did not feel oppressed by mainstream LGBTQ culture there would be no need for events like Brighton Bear Weekend.

So it had been made very clear to me that a trans feminine bear was not something that would be tolerated (apart from the beautiful Brighton Muscle Bear who still kisses me with as much gusto and excitement under his kilts as he did 10 years ago, you know who you are), but how would the trans masculine be tolerated?

I spoke to a range of trans masculine bear-identifying people and they had very mixed experiences to report. Some trans men who identify as bears say they have to fight hard for their place in the community and despite their beard, their shaved head, their tattoos and their chest hair, having a vagina seems to disqualify them. This is disappointing to hear but not exactly surprising.

It’s counteracted somewhat though by friends of mine who feel that the Brighton bear scene, at least, does not exclude them solely on account of being vagina owners. They tell me that bears understand what it feels like to be excluded and to be pushed aside for someone younger, fitter and adhering to the white, hairless, tanned, muscle guy we see on flyers for most gay male events. This acceptance at the intersectionality of trans men and bears brings me hope for the joined future of all LGBTQ subcultures.

I wish all you bears out there a very Happy Brighton Bear Weekend and I hope that somewhere your dreams really do come true.

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – Drugs and the Trans Community

Ms Sugar Swan looks at drug use and asks if trans people are overlooked as an at-risk group within the LGBT+ communities.

PARTY drugs are a problem, they always have been, and whilst I think some members of our umbrella communities are well looked after and catered to when it comes to party drugs and picking up the pieces when things go wrong, I fear that, as with many things in the community, trans people are often overlooked.

It’s impossible to walk into an LGBT+ venue which caters primarily or exclusively (through discrimination) to cis people without seeing posters advocating for services designed to help those who need support surrounding drug habits that may be becoming or which have already become out of control.

There is very little stigma left within the cis gay community when it comes to chems. It’s something that’s quite openly spoken of amongst my cis gay friends and there’s little taboo left around chems with people even stating their drug preferences on dating apps.

This cumulatively has never made it easier to turn for help. I’m aware that help surrounding chems for cis people is not always easy to ask for, if wanted. I myself have felt the tight grip and despair after losing someone I had loved dearly for 17 years when their addictions got the better of them 18 months ago.

Although I recognise it’s not easy for my cis gay siblings to ask for help, the help is there, and it’s something that can be accessed without judgement or question through charities, organisations and peer to peer support groups. Trans people are not so well catered to in the same way and we have a need for these kinds of services too.

I used to be a fairly heavy user of chems and party drugs as well as alcohol, tobacco and marijuana when presenting as a cis man. It was quite usual to use drugs when socialising and as a physical relaxant and mental stimulus when engaging in sexual activity.

Since transitioning, and finding my trans community, chem use seems and feels much more of a taboo subject. Many trans people aren’t as open about their chem use as their cis counterparts and I’m struggling to work out why.

Maybe it’s because paraphernalia around support aimed at trans people isn’t so prevalent? Maybe it’s because trans people are held under a higher degree of scrutiny and we therefore feel that we have to present our censored selves to the outside world?

I don’t interact with drugs like I used to some years ago, I don’t feel that I need to. I’m so much happier in myself now and I no longer feel like I need drugs (or alcohol) to engage sexually. I’m comfortable with how I look now and I don’t have that need to alter my mental state to have sex or to let my metaphoric guard down as I once did. I’m one of the lucky ones and I never became addicted to chems and for that I am truly grateful.

After the drug-related death of a loved one (mentioned earlier) I was asked to sit on the steering committee of a forum that created a safe space where all people could come together to talk about their relationships with drugs and sex.

I’ve spoken about this with other trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people in doing prep for this article, and while I’ve heard from many different points of view – from the person who loves to go to sex parties with strangers and indulge in chems to someone who can’t bear to be around those under the influence in any circumstance and all sorts of people in between. One common theme seems to occur – trans people have often taken some form of chems and often as a way to help them cope with their gender dysphoria.

Pre-transition, people seem to have taken drugs as a release, in a similar way that we have high percentage rates of self-harm. It can be most hard to socialise with others when you’re presenting as, and assumed to be, a gender that you are not, and taking drugs is one way to make this a little more bearable.

Another trend seems to be that the use of chems amongst trans people pre-transition helps with sex when you’re not having the kind of sex you want, in the ways you want, with the people who you want it with.

During transition, which lasts up to 10 years or more for some of us, we are at a vulnerable point in our lives where we may be getting used to changes within ourselves and within our bodies, and again any kind of drugs can offer a temporary relief for us.

Another trend, within myself and others, is that at whatever point in transition we are, we face oppression, and again drugs help us forget that for a short spell.

Finally, of course, why should we, as trans people, not use drugs in the ways that our counterparts do, should we see fit, and why is it more underground?

If trans people are as likely to partake in drugs as cis people then why are we not being supported in the same way?

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar: www.ilovetheinternet.trans

Ms Sugar Swan explains what the internet means to her.

I love the internet. It has saved my life. Quite literally. Without the internet, I would be dead.
I remember being in my early teens when we got a PC at home. I was one of the first of my friends to have one and therefore was suddenly very popular, much to the disapproval of my mother and younger sibling who were unable to spend hours speaking to their friends on the phone (we were yet to get mobile phones for another few years).

Once the night fell and I was alone and I could use the computer without friends or family seeing what I was doing I first found people who understood me. I found what we now collectively call Queers. I found chat forums for just about everything I was interested in from someone to suck my c**k, sex workers openly plying their trade, polyamorous people looking for like-minded folk, and it was here amongst the dark side of the internet that I found other trans people for the first time in my life, real trans people who I was able to talk to.

I made online friends with trans women in the US and I was able to speak to them about how I was feeling as a teenage girl being forced into a male role as puberty was changing me physically in ways in which I hated.

Many, many times I tried to speak of my gender identity to both my family and my school teachers. The result of this was me being put under child psychiatry and fed Prozac, and I soon realised that the more I insisted I was a girl, the worse my life was made in the education system and at home. This led me to suppress my feelings and I stayed in the closet for another 20 years on the back of how I was treated then.

The women I met in those chat rooms in the early 1990s did so much for me, they reassured me that I was not mad and that things would get better for me eventually, and they were right, eventually, they did. Without them, I would have most likely been the victim of teenage suicide believing that I was mentally ill as I was told by the system.

Fast forward 20 years and I finally came out and without the internet, which was now an integral part of our lives, I would have struggled in transition much more than I did. When I finally came out I was at a crossroads in my life where I had only two options, transition, or end my life. I am so glad I chose to transition.

This time around, it was so much easier to find my community online and I didn’t have to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to talk to trans women on a shared PC, I could do it straight from the palm of my hand on my mobile phone. I joined online groups, where I could connect with my trans elders who were happy to offer advice and experience (something I now do for the new generations of trans people dipping their toe into the world of coming out).

I was able to find the information I needed to get myself onto hormones as the wait to be seen by a Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) of up to two years in the UK was not something I could cope with. I was able to arm myself with all the tools I needed to transition in the way in which I wanted to. I was able to do my research on hair transplantation, facial feminisation, breast augmentation and genital reconstruction surgeons so that I was able to get the best possible results for me.

Without the internet I wouldn’t be where I am today. I would never have found one of the best hair restoration surgeons, which saw me go to Latvia for surgery this time last year. I would never have found some world leading surgeons working in the field of feminisation and pioneering techniques in genital reconstruction which saw me spend a month in India last September.

Without the internet I wouldn’t be as educated as I am in Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and the use of cross-sex hormones in trans women. I wouldn’t have obtained the base breast tissue required for successful aesthetic breast augmentation or the hips and butt that I’ve grown through fat redistribution. I wouldn’t have the soft skin or the female pheromones that I do. All of this, whilst of course, the result of many, many hours of reading, is thanks to the internet.

The UK GIC guidelines for HRT in trans women are woefully behind the times and it both saddens and angers me that I see so many of my sisters come to the forums for advice around their HRT and their GIC has them on a regime that isn’t strong enough to trigger female puberty. We have to take our medical care into our own hands with a good network of understanding GPs who are happy to monitor our bloods for us and regularly test our liver and kidney functions, and thanks to the internet we are able to find private gender practitioners and the means to obtain our own hormones.

My own transition aside, the internet has meant that I’ve been able to reach and help a wide selection of people, both cis and trans, through my activism and work as an advocate. The popularity of social media has meant that I’m able to educate people as often as I have the ability, not to mention this Gscene magazine column along with my other freelance work.

Of course, for every positive there has to be a negative and transitioning so publicly and writing about it so frankly and honestly puts me in direct target of hate mail, but the love and support I receive and the messages from trans people who my work has helped far outweighs any amount of negativity.

May the Gods and Goddesses bless the internet!

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar: Ms Sugar Swan asks what the LGBTQIA community means to her

This month’s Gscene theme is community and having lived, worked and volunteered within the local queer community for the last 17 years I have very mixed feelings about the community and what it means to me.

When I moved to Brighton, a fresh-faced early 20-something, I threw myself into the local community. Presenting at the time as a cis bisexual male, although read by the majority as gay, and being white, I felt that I very much belonged and the community was set up around and for people like me.

I was welcomed with open arms and this was of great comfort after growing up in places that weren’t as liberal. I enjoyed working in scene venues, going to many charity events, performing at them in drag, which was something I used to do at the time both to earn money and to help relieve my gender dysphoria.

When my HIV diagnosis came a couple of years later, I found the HIV community. I found Open Door (yes, I’m going back a few years now), where I was supported by Gary and his team who went on to create Lunch Positive. I’m off there to volunteer this afternoon to do food prep for the Community Lunch day at the B RIGHT ON LGBT Community Festival. If anyone finds a two-inch long pink fingernail in their food, I apologise in advance, but a girl’s got standards.

I found great support from Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) and the HIV+ community of Brighton back in those early days. From my position of privilege and being young at the time, I thought the ‘gay community’ of Brighton was the most accepting and wonderful thing I had ever had the incredible fortune to find. Once I was settled into my HIV diagnosis it was time for me to give back and I worked at THT for a number of years giving my support and experience to those who needed it most.

As the years went by I’ve watched us lose community members to illness or accident, the most important one to me being the death of one of the few to ever get as close to me as he did, Mouse. His death was no different to any other I watched in the community with everyone rallying around, pulling that circle in tight, sticking together when times got tough as that’s what communities do, right?

I’ve watched the most beautiful gestures as people donated to pay for funeral costs when we lost those without family or financial back up, there’s rarely a time I can remember when we weren’t fundraising for something or other for someone or some marginalised group and that hasn’t changed. That is the Brighton scene at its very best.

It was only when I was ready to tackle my own gender identity and came out first as non-binary, then as a trans woman, then as lesbian, and then as pansexual, that I started to see the cracks in our community that had been there all along. I was no longer the safe option. I was no longer the ‘cis white gay man’ who’s always been so well catered to. I lost that privilege and now found myself in one of our most marginalised groups. One would hope that it’s our most marginalised and oppressed members that receive the most support, but I very quickly realised this isn’t the case. As I rapidly approach my 40s as a trans woman, Brighton’s LGBTQIA community means something very different to me than it did almost 20 years ago.

I no longer feel that it’s the safe space for me that it once was. I no longer feel that I’m rooted right in the middle of it as I was. I’m very much fighting from the sidelines now rather than from the core. I’ve suffered a lot of adversity and oppression from within the very ranks that I was an integral part of. I’ve suffered much verbal, physical and sexual abuse from the very demographic that I was so proud of once upon a time many years ago. This has led me to find a new community, the trans community, and finding that was possibly one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

In the trans community I’m welcome without question, these are my people. These are the people who’ve all felt the oppression from the rest of the scene and been abused in similar or identical ways to which I have. If I felt the greater community pulled ranks and looked after its own in times of trouble, I had seen nothing until I saw the trans community do it. I’m so lucky to be part of this network of people, not just in this city, but world-wide; and I’m so proud to be an out trans woman who is just trying to do her best for her community as she did pre-transition, albeit coming from a different angle.

I still fight the fight, I still do as much for my community as I can. I hold space in Gscene every month along with my other trans-related activism and advocacy work. Helping other trans people is now very much my priority and I’ll always fight for my community in whatever way I can. A lot of my work also involves educating cis people in the struggles that we as trans people face and that’s the harder part of the job as although we have some wonderful allies within the greater community my biggest oppressor is still the white cis gay man.

I do my best to help him learn about us and what we go through and I do it in the sole belief that it may help to reduce, for other trans people, the negative experiences and the oppression and abuse I’ve suffered at their hands. But there’s only so much that myself, or the trans community can do.

So, in this month’s Community Issue, I call on all cis people to support your trans siblings, to become better allies to us. To learn about us, to understand us better, to teach each other if you’re an ally in a position to do that. To call out transphobia when you hear it between cis people even when there are no trans people around. To NEVER misgender us or mention our dead names if you hold that privilege of knowing them and to elevate us, the most marginalised of our society, back in the middle of the community where we belong, for as well you know, without trans people, there would be no community in the first place.

Learn your history, and respect it – and remember, Google is your friend, use it.

“One would hope that it’s our most marginalised and oppressed members that receive the most support, but I very quickly realised this isn’t the case.”

OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – TNG – The Next Generation

TNG – The Next Generation. Ms Sugar Swan looks at her feelings towards children and motherhood.

Firstly, I need to apologise to my regular readers. I’m sorry there was no January column from me, I’ll be open and honest as to why. A lot of people look up to me and I get a lot of positive feedback from my work, other trans people are glad to see trans representation in Gscene and strangers get in touch telling me how great it is that I’m holding space for trans people and that they can often relate to what I write, whether they’re trans masculine, feminine, non binary and regardless of whether they’ve been transitioning for two months or 20 years. People think I’m brave and strong to do what I do, but it’s important that you know I’m not Wonder Woman. I’m not always strong and brave and my smile often hides sadness, just like everyone else.

These last few months I’ve been struggling, struggling hard. Last year was a huge one for me in both losses and gains and in December and January it all came to a head. December marked the first anniversary of Mouse’s death and January marked the 20th anniversary (yes, I’m that old) of my first partner Clare and our baby’s death. Whilst 2017 was the best and most productive year in my transition it was the most painful personally for me. Losing Mouse was horrific and something a year later I haven’t even begun to fully unpack. The 20th anniversary of the fatal road traffic accident is a big one, an anniversary that shouldn’t have happened would have left me with a 20-year-old child of my own and I can’t help but wonder how that would have turned out.

This brings me onto this month’s topic of children. Would I have made a good parent? Would I have made better life decisions, would I have transitioned earlier or not at all? Would they be proud of their parent and what I’ve achieved in life, or would they be estranged to me? I’d like to think that I’d have been more responsible with my young life if I had someone 100% dependant on me as their single parent. I’d like to think that I’d have taken fewer risks. However, this is just speculation and I’ve no way of predicting how things would have panned out. What I can do is look forward and look at the relationships I have with children now and possible relationships in the future.

I’m estranged from my only sibling as she turned out to be terribly transphobic so I’ve no scope for being an auntie there. I have friends with young children in our home town, but due to the distance I’ll never be anything more than a family friend, albeit one who they hold very dear. I was absolutely honoured when, in November, I was asked to be godmother to the son of a long-standing friend who I’ve known from the Brighton scene for around 15 years and now we’re busy planning a christening.

When it came to my transition I was asked twice about freezing my sperm for future use should I wish to become a mother, once before starting HRT and again before ‘The Op’. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a viable option for me being HIV positive. So I, like many other trans people, am infertile. It’s something I have to struggle with on a daily basis. I so desperately want a child of my own. I long to experience pregnancy and childbirth and bonding with my baby, something I’ve watched countless people do with a tear in my eye. I’m painfully aware that if I were to meet a male partner and he desired children I cannot give them to him. Yes, plenty of cis women are infertile too, but it still doesn’t help make me feel any less of a woman.

To make the whole thing worse I go through a period of symptoms once a month. Yes, female hormones Oestrogen and Progesterone make me not only crave a baby I can’t have, but they also put me through hell and back once a month just to remind me I can’t conceive. I go through all the standard pre menstrual symptoms that my cis counterparts do, except I don’t bleed. I start with the emotional imbalance and find myself teary-eyed for a day or two, followed by a loss of appetite and the smell of food making me feel sick, then comes the diarrhoea and vomiting, often both together at the same time while I spend a day or two in bed with a hot water bottle feeling sorry for myself that I have to go through all these symptoms but will never get to the end goal of what they are all about.

My best hope is that I meet a partner who already has young children and are in need of another parental figure in their lives. But then of course, my relationship with them is determined by my relationship with their parent and if that relationship were to not work out some years down the line, the likelihood is that I’ll stop seeing these children too at some point, so I’d lose not only a partner, but children too.

Fostering queer kids that don’t fit into mainstream foster accommodation is something that I think I’d be good at and am looking into for the future. Uterus transplants (whilst being trialled on trans women) are still some way in the future yet and I don’t have time on my side. I’ll be 40 in a few years and I don’t want to be the 60-year-old mother waiting at the school gates with the 40-year-olds. I was born to older parents myself and spent my whole life wishing they’d had me earlier in life.

Whatever the future holds for me in the way of children, I hope that I get the chance to be there for some in need and to help shape them into well-rounded adults, starting with my one-year-old god son who’ll certainly grow up to be no transphobe!

FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – A year in her life 

Sugar Swan looks back at her first year writing for Gscene and what’s changed in the year she’s been on board.

This year has been one of the toughest of my life, and I’m no stranger to tough years. December marks the first year of being without the best and most consistent person I’ve been lucky enough to have had in my life, having lost them after 17 years together. Next month also marks the 20th anniversary of my first partner’s death so I’ve found it particularly hard to write a positive ‘end of year’ piece.

This year has seen me terribly abused. I’ve been sexually assaulted, received death threats, rape threats and hate mail, including being told that if I don’t stop writing this column then “there will be consequences”! (Hey you! Write to me soon – I miss your anonymous messages! Don’t you just admire cowardice?). I’m a social outcast after revealing my HIV status last month, and I’ve been subjected to the most foul and disgusting transphobia and sexism when writing throughout the year about the struggles of trans folk and women.

The pure hatred aimed at me has pushed me to the ends of my cognitive ability, but yet, I’ve continued. I’ve continued to write, to grow, to love, to share, to laugh, to make my way through life. No amount of negativity will ever stop me because my past has made me strong and as often as I cry I remain resilient.

Being so open in transition and gaining a following of readers, despite the minority being negatively fuelled by my work, I’ve realised that I can do good. By sharing my experiences I’ve been able to educate those cis folk who are willing to listen. I’ve been able to deepen their understanding of trans folk and help them become better allies to us.

I’ve been able to reach the trans folk yet to come out and offer support. I’ve had countless messages from trans folk of all ages, genders, points of transition, telling me how they’ve related to something I’ve written and are grateful that someone is speaking out in the way I am.

I’ve equal parts honour and very heavy heart that I’ve saved two trans people (that I know of) from suicide this year. I’ve widened my circle of real life (as opposed to internet) trans friends thanks to the added visibility that Gscene has given me. By having this page, regardless of whether you agree with the content, I’m visible, and therefore to people with no or little interaction with trans people other than this column, keeping us in mainstream minds.

I’ve been interviewed for trans specific medical research; invited onto a mental health podcast; and maybe most importantly been asked to consult with the NHS on point of delivery trans specific gender care at GP level.

Next year I’m getting involved with another trans specific health service and I’m chomping at the bit to get going. These positives that have come from my open, honest, no holds barred transition have kept me going through the abuse and hate.

This year I underwent an intense surgery regime. Despite maintaining my work in journalism, activism, consultation, advocacy and research, I’ve spent the whole year in surgery and in surgical recovery after countless operations and procedures. I started the year 80% bald, a full-time wig wearer, and headed off to Latvia for two 14-hour days in the theatre of a specialist hair transplant surgeon back in February.

During recovery in April, I accompanied someone to France who had been inspired by my story to undergo their own surgery, a kind of bus woman’s holiday for me. In May I went back to Latvia too for the third and fourth full days of hair transplant surgery once my head was adequately healed from the first trip. After a subsequent healing period I went to a cosmetic tattooist for four sessions of Scalp Micro Pigmentation (head tattoo) to thicken the look of my newly transplanted follicles and had eye liner tattooed onto my eye lids.

Throughout this I’ve been maintaining monthly laser hair removal sessions to my face and body whilst physically preparing myself for the trip to India from which I’ve just returned. Whilst in India, I had multiple surgeries to my face and upper and lower genitalia. The schedule this year has been absolutely gruelling, but it’s one that I’ve been working towards, one that I set at my own pace, knowing my own body’s healing abilities and my mind’s ability to deal with the change.

All these operations and procedures have formed part of my Gender Reassignment Surgeries as a whole (get it? as a hole?). Oh dear! I am tired! The joys of working in bed, in my face bra, in post-op pain is real.

My journey this year hasn’t followed the trans narrative of healthcare in the UK. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to beg, borrow and save for the treatment I need and I’m fully aware and riddled with guilt that I’ve been able to have these surgeries when others can’t. These are surgeries that haven’t just enriched my quality of life, but saved it. Without these medical interventions, from HRT to surgery, I would be dead. So why do I feel guilty having necessary, lifesaving surgery?

I feel guilty because every day I see trans folk dying because they don’t have access to the hormones and surgeries that they need for survival, and I do. I recognise that privilege and I’ll continue to do all I can to help other trans folk. Our trans-specific healthcare is appalling in the UK and working with the NHS to address this will always be at the top of my agenda as will helping my siblings at a grassroots level.

I head into 2018 with my shoulders back and head held high, proud of the woman who I am and proud of how I live my life. My goals for 2018 are to be as successful as I was in 2017 and I wish you all the same too.

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