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� In this diary, I record my life as a transvestite. Perhaps it will help somebody else, who finds their lifestyle doesn't quite match that endorsed by the 'tranny mafia'. Well, I've been there... and survived. The debriefing starts here.

�loves: All kinds of stuff that society thinks I shouldn't.

�hates: Microsoft. Obviously.

�reads:
secret-motel
artgnome
enfinblue
stepfordtart
ten-oclock
boombasticat
lawliiet
annanotbob
fifidellabon
my-serenade

Lynn Jones
Becky
Samantha

When I couldn't afford emotion
7:47 a.m. -- 2008-07-16

I'm a cold fish, really. At least, I have tried to be... although I have shed a tear in the dark during the happy bits in certain movies (and even the finale of Doctor Who, last week).

But I've needed to be cold and unemotional at times. There are few things quite as brutal as a posh boys' school. Granted, there are nastier situations to be in - being conscripted as a child soldier in Africa comes to mind - but it's quite startling how at age eleven a group of outwardly tidy, respectable boys unthinkingly embrace a social code of bullying.

I was one of the bad guys myself. Just because I'm a transvestite doesn't mean I'm a sissy. In fact, because I had more to hide, and more to lose, I had to make sure that I was never slow to criticise or tease. This was my camouflage. I wasn't as big as some of the others, and I wasn't all that great at fighting, but I knew instinctively that I was going to have to be nasty.

The rules of life in a boys' school are simple... and they need to be, because they were established by the stupidest, most brutal inmates. Here's what I learned, while I was having to pretend not to be interested in learning anything from the teachers:

Don't be different. Don't volunteer for anything. Never raise your head above the parapet, or it's likely to get shot off. Don't admit that anything matters to you. If you care about something, it can be used against you. Never show weakness. Never show you're hurting, or you'll be pounced upon. Never, ever cry.

Thus, years of my life went by, an education being lavished upon me, and largely squandered. I was really quite good at some subjects, but I was careful to maintain an outward air of indifference... and I was pleased to fail certain subjects (such as languages), because a 'straight A' student would have attracted too much attention.

Also, I have to admit that I absorbed some of the macho bullshit. A black eye from the rugby field was a badge of honour. As was the time somebody threw a padlock at my head. I have to concede that, from clear across the playground, it was a brilliant throw. Scalp wounds bleed copiously, giving my assailant a hell of a scare... and it made me a celebrity, for an afternoon.

I didn't like the time the class fuckup threw a craft knife at me and it stuck in my hand. In fact, I have to admit I broke my strict no crying rule. Not because of the pain (that came later) but because of the injustice. Fortunately, I managed to leave the room, on the pretext of dressing the wound, before I blubbed.

"Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of."

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