Coming Out Again

I seem to have been hiding away on this blog, with nothing posted since November 12th – obviously I got carried away with all that Rembrance Day stuff and then forgot about everything else.  So it’s about time my blogging instinct got turned in the direction of this blog.  I have not been completely absent from blogging, as this is my personal blog, but there is also Trans Scribe – a blog about trans matters in general – and Equality Bill 2009 (UK) – about the campaign to make the UK government legislate in favour of all trans people.  Speaking of Rembrance Day, I am coming out again, and Remembrance Day was a major feature of my past about which I now being fully open.  No I was not in the army, but I was (and technically still am) an Anglican priest.  As such, I have spent the previous 16 years of my life very involved in such things as Rembrance Services, Christmas Carol Concerts, Holy Week Vigils, and Easter Eucharists.  Unfortunately, my experience in my last priestly post was not a positive one, largely because I was vexing about what would the parishioners think if they knew that the curate was transsexual.

When I made the decision to live as a woman full-time that meant leaving paid employment as a priest, and I kept my religious involvements largely away from the Church of England (having moved from Cork to Manchester by this point).  I attended Manchester Metropolitan Community Church [MMCC] and was even on their dish washing rota until last week.  I also began to explore Quaker worship, attending a Quaker Quest course for enquirers and being an occasional attender at the univesity and Central Manchester Quaker Meetings.  Quakerism was not for me, although as a flat-voiced person I liked the thought of worship without singing, and as someone who preached weekly for years, I liked the thought of worship without a sermon.  Ultimately, the Metropolitan Community Church also turned out not to be for me, even though the worship in the Manchester church is very close to the moderate Anglo-Catholicism that I had known in the Church in Wales.  I had not wanted anything more to do with the Anglican Communion, as my own problems had co-incided with a lurch to the right in Anglicanism that targeted Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals, and I knew that the fact that Transgendered people were ignored did not mean that they were welcome – and anyway I am a strong supporter of LGBT being the best place for trans people to exist.  I did miss Anglicanism, though, and being a bit of a girly, it was my tears that showed it.

The first Anglican service that I attended since leaving Cork, was the 1st birthday eucharist of the Diocese of Manchester’s Communion service, which is a monthly gathering for the diocese’s LGBT members, and which meets in the same Church of England parish church that MMCC use, St John’s Chrysostom’s Church, Victoria Park, Manchester.  I was holding back to tears as the Bishop of Manchester, Rt Rev Nigel McCullough, celebrated the eucharist and realised how much I missed being an Anglican priest.  Then at Christmas, I attended the MMCC communion service, and could not hold back the tears at all, as I thought that for the previous decade and a half it would have been me celebrating the eucharist.

What really changed things for me in relation to re-embracing my status as an Anglican priest was going with the University of Manchester LGBT Society to see Milk, the oscar-winning biopic of the murdered LGBT rights campaigner, Harvey Milk.  I already had a vague awareness of Harvey’s story, but it was something right at the start of that movie that struck home (note that this is not a historically accurate part of the movie, but an amalgam of a series of events in Milk’s pre-San Francisco life).  Harvey is in bed on his 40th birthday with new boyfriend Scott Smith and says, “I am 40 years old and I have never done anything that I am proud of”.  That struck home with me as a 41 year old who had begun to live full-time as a woman at the age of 40.

When I had made the decision to live as a woman, it was because I felt that I had the brains and the nerve to fight on behalf of other trans people, and that such a fight could not take place while I remained concerned that someone would out me.  So I began a gradual move to my beloved Manchester, and began being interviewed for office jobs, with the idea that this would leave me free in the evenings for voluntary activities to benefit other trans people.  However, after two unsuccessful interviews I began to think could I not do more if re-trained as a mental health professional, and when the Salford Advertiser carried an advertisement about training as a mental health nurse at Manchester University, I applied and was acceptted.  Nursing, however, meant compromise.  I had set out with the idea that even if I could pass as a natal (biological) woman, that doing so would not help Manchester people to get used to transwomen.  Yet as a student nurse, I was working out how to play down my androgynous looks until such time as I could properly fit in as a female.  That is why Harvey’s words brought me up short.  At 40, I had made the decision to be Out and Loud, and I had let a worthy desire to help trans people with mental health turn me into a compromiser.  Right at the start of that movie, I was already thinking “I am heading in the wrong direction.”  That feeling increased as the rest of the movie revealed Harvey Milk to be the sort of LGBT leader that I could look up to – he was radical, Out and Loud, yet concillatory towards all LGBT factions, so long as those factions did not fight against Gay Liberation.

Whether I continue as a student nurse is very much open to question, but re-embracing my Anglican priesthood came about because of the political activism that I became involved in.  I was briefly a member of the recently formed Gender Spectrum UK lobbying group, and I had been selected to lead their Equality Bill campaign.  As an initial step, I noted on a forum only viewable to campaign members that I was Rev Dr Mark Walker in a past life and that I would seek to use the media interest in Church of England clergy to boost the editorial impact of press releases. However, Gender Spectrum as an organization proved too immature to be a campaign vehicle, as members were still arguing over what sort of campaigning organization it was, so I resigned as campaign lead on the Equality Bill to become a freelance campaigner on this vital and urgent issue.  I did, however, remain a member of Gender Spectrum long enough to be notified of a (non-Gender Spectrum) campaign about a vile episode of Moving Wallpaper, in which a transsexal is verbally abused and finally sacked while working as a writer for a production company.  It was supposed to be comedy, but it was pure transphobia.  So I decided to come out (and loud) over that, and as the campaign was taking place on Facebook, I changed my Facebook profile picture to me as a male priest, and it will remain as that until a proper apology is given by ITV1.

As I was talking about being an Anglican priest, I realised that in working for trans people, I could have more impact as an unlicensed priest in a sometimes homophobic and transphobic establishment denomination than being a fully welcome member of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.  So now I am coming out again, not as an ex-Anglican priest, but as a current, if inactive, one.  Although, I am stopping short of changing my name to Rev Dr Mercia McMahon.

Sorry I Cannot Help, I am Too Busy, I am in Nursing School

The title of this post is also the title of a Facebook group that I belong to. It is my excuse for the recent silence on this blog. I am now training as a mental health nurse at Manchester University.

Clothes Shopping Anxiety (Again)

I could feel myself get very anxiouas when I was buying some clothes in Marks and Spencers. The anxiety began when I was at the till and the clerk ran off to fetch something. The anxiety continued as I walked away with the sale finally completed. I then realised what it was I had just done. I was dressed in boy mode and had just bought some menswear for myself. Buying womenswear used to get me anxious, now it is menswear!

Stares in Their Eyes

Over the last two years I have experienced a lot of stares, even smirks and giggles at my appearance, and this is when dressed as a man. People seem to think, I am guessing they are never brave enough to say anything, “That is a man wearing make-up,” “That man has lip-stick on,” “That way walks like a woman,” “That man stands like a woman.” Then one day I decided to walk around a shopping mall dressed as Mercia. Again the stares, but I realise the stares were not anymore insistent than when dressed as a man. The only difference is that on this occasion (not in the mall but later walking in the city centre) that two people felt free to shout out comments. This experience is a large part of my final determination to live full-time as a woman. If I am going to get stared at anyway, it may as well be as Mercia, and not Mercia cross-dressing as a man.

Trans Kids on Barbara Walter’s 20/20

Barbara Walter is a well-known TV documentary person in the United States. She did a documentary on trans kids in April 2007, and when I saw it on You Tube I cried. Now the scientists tell us that tears of joy and sadness have different chemical compositions, well my tears were very mixed in their composition. I cried tears of sadness for these children who have had to go through what I went through. They just want to embrace their gender identity, but society will not permit this. I cried tears of joy for the support they were getting from their parents and schools. And I cried tears of regret that I waited until my twenties to tell anyone else about my gender issues and only really started telling people in my 40s.

See http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3091754&page=1 

 

 

Trans Kids

I am starting a new category on trans kids, those transgendered people under the age of 18. I never knew any existence in my childhood and youth other than being a trans kid. Whether I was born trans, or had become trans by my first memory at the age of 4, is for scientists to debate and my mother to worry about. The fact is that trans is all I have in my memory and so I feel a sympathy for the plight of today’s trans kids and more than a touch of envy that they had the confidence I lacked and talked to their parents.

About This Blog

Mercia’s Musings is a site for Mercia McMahon’s personal reflections about life as a transsexual, and anything else that takes her fancy. If you are looking for her articles on transgender matters go to http://transscribe.wordpress.com.