I so love being called 'sweetie'!!! Now that is a sentence that if you had asked me a few months I would have told you where to go, and even a few weeks ago I might have found my self struggling with accepting being called it! But as I move towards femininity I can understand the charm and respect the word holds.

It does of course help that one of my best friends in the whole word insists on using the word towards me and when I hear it now it almost feels like a warm cuddle!! And there are not many words you can say that about. That's why I was surprised on the stink that was kicked up on the US election trail yesterday by the use of the word.
..................................................................................................................................

This from BBC News:

Obama sorry for 'sweetie' comment

Barack Obama, candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination to run for US president, has apologised to a reporter for calling her "sweetie".

Reporter Peggy Agar, of the WXYZ television network in Michigan, had shouted a question as Mr Obama toured a Chrysler car plant in Detroit.

Mr Obama said: "Hold on one second, sweetie" and did not answer.
He later left a message for Ms Agar saying it was a "bad habit" and he "meant no disrespect".

Ms Agar told the Detroit News: "I've been called worse."

The full story and a video of the incident is at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7402101.stm
..................................................................................................................................
I just wondered if any other girls struggle with being called 'sweetie' or do they accept and enjoy it as I now do?

Indeed like the cat in this video, which funnily enough is called 'Sweetie', I almost 'Purr' when a fellow TS girl calls me it!

I said in my last blog that I had an important telephone call to make today, hence the video above 'Telephone - Long Distance Love Affair' by Sheena Easton. From 1984, when I should have been looking to transition, the video is incredibly 'cheesy' - and if the characters in it were the kind of men she liked - I really don't fancy hers at ALL!

Anyway, I had to get in touch with the psychiatrist, who I had been seeing for a while about the problems caused by the breakdown of my marriage, to see if they could help move my transition forward. As I didn't know if I was going to be talking to the psychiatrist or his secretary I was dreading making the call. I put off ringing until almost the last possible moment and wrote myself a 'script' of what I wanted to say.

Taking a very deep breath I keyed in the number and as the psychiatrist was out of the office I read my script to his secretary, expecting her to think, "What the hell is he talking about." So it was such a relief when she said the letter from him to say he's more than happy with my transition will be on my doctors desk tomorrow! It was so good to see that some people will do even more than they really need to!

For me and I suppose most of us my dream of womanhood started very many years ago. In my case I can almost certainly say that that was before most of the girls reading the blogs on Live Journal were born! That was 33 tears ago in my case! And in all that time the dream never dimmed whatever I did to attempt to deny it!

Over the years I have spent countless hours imagining what it would be like to finally be a woman and each day is bringing me closer to changing the life-long dream into a reality so that I will not have to imagine any longer. That's the reason I started this blog with 'Imagine' by John Lennon.

Becoming a woman has been a waking dream for decades, but I just wish my dream of going to sleep as a boy and waking up a girl could have come true! I remember years ago when I was involved in one of those Network Marketing 'things' hearing the saying that 'When the people lack vision they perish!' I think the same goes for dreams! And as dreams of womanhood have played such a huge part in all our lives our they really will come true.

A girlfriend of mine rang me earlier to see about an appointment, which sadly I missed this morning. Whilst we were talking she noticed a possible way for me to get through the 'log-jam' my transition appears to have fallen into. So tomorrow I'll be making a phone call which could go along way into turning my dream into a reality!

I don’t suppose it is something that any non-transsexual could ever understand, and I am not even sure that most of the girls on here would have done what I did, I am not even totally sure why I used to do it, unless like me they had tried to keep their transsexuality under wraps by getting married or finding a female partner, to fit in with their appointed place in society.

It is sad, but true, the only way I could ever seem to … er … rise to the occasion was by imagining I was the woman who was being made love to by someone else, i.e.ME!! Just in case you think it sounds like the ultimate case of self-love, I do know that some other girls have done the same, and like me it was the only way they could … er … get lead in their pencils! (Message to self – posts reading like a naughty seaside post card DO NOT show off your femininity in the best light)

Anyway, and I don’t know about other girls who allowed themselves to be ‘trapped’ in the male gender. But it was commented on by several people that when I came to being male I was strange. That sounds like a queue for a song
_______________________________________________________
People Are Strange - The Doors
(J. Morrisin & R. Kruger)

People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
streets are uneven when you're down
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange_
People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange

Jim Morrison was depressed. He went to Robbie Krieger's house, they went to a canyon to watch a sunset, at which time Jim realized he was depressed because "if you're strange, people are strange." He then wrote the rest of the lyrics.
_______________________________________________________

To be honest even when performing the sex act as a man I felt disgusted with myself for apparently being so intimate with someone whilst my mind and, to me, body was somewhere else, even if I thought of my body as being the woman below me!

Having spoken to a few girls who are now complete women, I now know what an amazing experience I have to look forward to in my first time with a man as a woman. Whilst I have been undergoing the ‘Dark Decade of the Soul’ (As opposed to a ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ where you are down at the bottom of your pit for just one night) I have had no desire to have sex with or as either gender.

Now as I see Davinia coming to the fore in my life, I fully realise I no longer need the meat and two veg (as I heard them described) and the sooner I finally get rid of my outward signs of masculinity the better.

Any genetic males reading this will hardly understand what I mean as they place such ‘pride’ in their ‘equipment’. But it is something I don’t want, didn’t ask for and don’t need in its current form, all it really does now is allow me to urinate and remind me of a life I desperately want to forget.

Imagining you are making love to yourself as a girl when you are making love to a girl is quite simply unnatural, not to mention a little complicated, I seem to remember talking to the girl me instead of my wife onetime!!!!

Becoming the woman I have always known I am will make everyone’s lives so much easier, even if on occasion love making may turn into opening my legs and ‘thinking of England”!!!

Well, at least that’s the way this transforming ‘malarkey’ seems to work out. All the way it seems for me that when all I really want to do is get on and be a girl, I just get knocked back and forced to move forward little by little. I’ve had 33 years to advance so I should be used to moving slowly!! I should have used my mental health situation, which developed as my marriage disintegrated, as a way to push my transition forward but I never have. I think it was because I thought it would damage and destroy my chance of transitioning.

So in some ways I have only myself to blame, but it is only since Christmas that I have ‘come clean’ and told the professionals helping me regain my mental health about my deep-seated and long-standing desire to become a lady. By never revealing the real facts about myself before it was like giving someone a book to read having removed the key chapters, so they would never be able to understand the full story! These experts have been helping me recover from my whole world imploding back in 1999, so why did I never have the guts to reveal the controlling desire throughout so many years of my life of my life?

What was happening inside my head that I didn’t reveal such a key fact of my life sooner? Why did I never feel comfortable to reveal the key fact as to who I am and why I act the way I do? I AM A WOMAN TRAPPED IN A MAN’S BODY!!

Anyway this morning I did it and told the chief of the psychiatric team who have been treating me since1999 about my dream. He was very accepting of it and says he will support me every step of the way. But to me the best thing was he said if it was him making the decision I’d be on my way as I didn’t actually have any really major mental health problems anymore, and I didn’t think I was Napoleon, Julius Caesar or even Henry VIII –speaking of which click on the image below!

With thanks to Shania Twain for yet another corny video link into a blog! (come on you can tell me if this is getting too boring! I won't cry ... much!!) When I rediscovered this video tonight after maybe 10 year of last hearing it I suddenly discovered the hidden meaning to the chorus.

It's true! Every single day in every possible way my feminine side is getting stronger. Even as I walk down the street in my imagination I can feel my skirts brushing against my legs, I can almost taste my lipstick, smell my perfume and feel my handbag on my shoulder! I still have a very long way before I am one, but inside ... MAN!! I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN!!!

At last, this was it!!! 1986 and I was rich beyond dreams of avarice, my starting salary in my first job was an unbelievable £3 500!! (Even back then it was bugger all! And at lest half of my wage went on travelling into work) However, it was an unbelievable apprenticeship as while in my first job I got to work with famous names such as Peter Sallis, Robin Bailey, Harry Enfield and Steve Coogan. I even got to fly for the first time all the way to London!

All the while, when time allowed, I kept the dream alive and dressed when I could. My career was mapped out, I was doing brilliant work which is why i had chosen the career, and I was certain the money would come. Indeed, after a year my salary was doubled. However, Phoebe had other ideas. She was a nurse, so she should have been fully aware of the female reproductive cycle, whereas I was a virgin until I met her. She wanted unprotected sex and said she was 'safe', guess what, she wasn't and got pregnant! I suggested she had a termination as I thought we were not ready but she persuaded me she couldn't have one. Ultimately I am glad as the child she had (I have severe doubts still that he is mine) is a strapping 20 year old man.

At the time I had managed to save up £2 000 which was a sizeable sum back then, and a friend off mine thinks once she knew how much money I had, I was an answer to her financial prayers and nothing more, and what better way to catch a man than to get pregnant. All the time I kept dressing as the girl who would later be called Davinia, but allowed societal pressures to demand, that despite not really wanting to, I got married.

As a man I never really got into 'Sex and the City' the story of Carrie and her friends. Looking at it now I would probably love to wear the clothes, and I'm not amazed how brilliant GGs think the clothes are. I would just love a wardrobe packed full of such style.

It was the World Premier in London last night, and all the stars were there. The clothes looked stunning as they walked down the red carpet as did the girls themselves. Except that to me the hat worn by Sarah Jessica Parker just looked more than a little silly!! Don't get me wrong, I love hats, but I thought wearing THAT hat THEN was simply strange!!

What do other girls think?

The song above is 'Sex and Drugs, and Rock and Roll' by the late great Ian Dury and his band the Blockheads. I was just browsing around You Tube and some old favourites, when I remembered this old track - it was 30 years ago that it was first released, but to a certain extent it illustrates a question that I am not sure how to answer!

You see on line last night I was asked by a man at what stage in my transition would I consider having sex with a man. He is in Egypt so it is unlikely we'd ever meet, but it got me thinking (A dangerous pastime - I know). I always thought the earliest time I would think about it would be after I had healed, when I will be as close as I can be in this life to a full woman.

Back to rock and roll, and I don't mean Joan Jett, I do love my music and still have loads of old fashioned vinyl albums and signals! As for the drugs in the song in our case I take it the drugs will be hormones!!!

Even as a man I always fully respected women for their choice of what to do with their bodies, but as a woman should I simply be prepared to satisfy any man who want's it??!

I have only just started dressing as a woman, but ever since I finally decided that I finally HAD TO make my childhood dream come true I have been suffering from what I can only describe as 'female seepage'.

For almost as long as I can remember I have been almost allergic to the colour pink!!! As a boy I always saw it as too 'girlie' and a total cliché. Since when did colours have anything to do with which sex you were? As if any intelligent person would fall for this rot? Isn't it yet another clever marketing ploy?

It seemed to me as if it really was a 'marketeers' dream and women just fell for it hook, line and sinker! As if anyone in their right mind would equate a colour with the sex they were!!!

Then it happened!!!

I had made the decision and I knew this was the time. I am going to be the girl I was always meant to be!!!!!

No sooner had the thought coalesced in my head than the strangest things started happening!! Whatever the occasion and where ever you are when it comes to a colour I realised, pink is just perfect!

It's so feminine and warm. It separates the better sex from the simpletons (men). It's a colour that shows your true sex for all to see. We wear it with pride because on a woman the effect of pink clothes is simply wonderful.

A life long prejudice against pink simply melted away, after all I AM A GIRL!!

As for Blue!!! (Yuck!) Isn't it a disgusting colour? It reminds me of smelly pubs and clubs. All boys together and not one brain cell between them! I've even heard that some football (soccer) teams play in blue strips, what softies? Why don't they choose the winning colour and choose to play in pink!!!??

The song above is 'I am Woman' by Helen Reddy. The video also shows the sad toll of violence against women in the USA. Don't worry I'm not about to say how bad things are in the US compared to anywhere else, as they are horrendous everywhere.

As you may well have noticed we are a group of girls going from a position of relative power as male to a far less safe role as women. Heaven forbid that any form of violence happens to one of us girls, but statistically I would imagine if is more than likely that it will.

I don't know about other girls, but you could say I was subject to constant domestic violence whilst I was married. I was often verbally attacked which then turned into physical attacks. However, as a man I could not retaliate against a woman. I couldn't help thinking that in terms of her violent nature my wife was 'more a man than I'd ever be!!!"

Perhaps my wife's 'antics' were just giving me a taste of what it was like to be a battered woman, which is something I would hate to happen to a single one of us! If iit does happen please report it and get help!

There are some brilliant things to come out of Wales, and I don't just mean the M5 motorway! (lol) There are singers such as Tom Jones (who we women used to throw our knickers at in the 60s - I just hope they were clean!!), brilliant Actors such as Richard Burton or Anthony Hopkins and writers such as Dylan Thomas. I would also include the group Manic Street Preachers, who's album 'This is my truth, tell me yours' includes the track 'Born a girl'.

The lyrics to the song are reproduced below and I would probably have it playing in the background if I could work out how to do it. (I don't know, finally starting out as a woman [most of the time] and already my technical know-how has disappeared.) The chorus of the song sings out to me so strongly it nearly bursts my ear drums. I have been a vegetarian for 15 years, but if wishes did come true when you pull the wish-bone I'd be having Chicken Tonight and ever night, because I really do 'wish I had been born a girl'. And as a man the word 'Mess' is far too mild to describe the wreck I had become.
------------------
Born a Girl

Do I look good for you tonight
Will you accuse me as I hide
Behind these layers of disguise
In the mirrors of my own happiness

I’ve loved the freedom of being inside
Need a new start and a different time
Something grows in the space between me
And it’s twisting and changing this fragile body

And I wish I had been born a girl instead of what I am
Yes I wish I had been born a girl and not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man

The censorship of my skin
Is screaming inside and from within
There’s no room in this world for a girl like me
And place around there where I fit in

And I wish I had been born a girl instead of what I am
Yes I wish I had been born a girl and not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man
And not this mess of a man
------------------
To me it could almost be the TS theme tune, but what do others think?
Click below to listen!:
http://www.last.fm/music/Manic+Street+Preachers/_/Born+a+Girl

Why is it? I am still a man with (sadly) all my parts, but on one of the internet 'friends' boards I still get a succession of what I can only describe as dirty old men wanting to get into my knickers!! They would certainly get a shock if they did for the next few years!! (lol)

Ok, so I admin I managed to look feminine in the photographs. And this is railing against what is still my physical sex, but why is it the most ugly and lecherous men who become the dirty old ones?

Please tell me if you are getting bored of my livening up blogs with some of my favourite music and some of my favourite bands, but when I discovered this clip of one of my all time favourite bands I just had to post it.

The song title is 'Born at the Right Time', which I believe is something which is true for all of us, only now is transsexuality beginning to become somewhat accepted in society and only now are we starting to be treated less like freaks.

Over the years I have been lucky enough to see Lindisfarne many times since I first saw them back in 1983 in their hometown of Newcastle. Sadly they finally split a couple of years ago, but if ever you get the chance to see 'Rod Clements and the Ghosts of Electricity' put together by one of the founder members of the band - don't miss them!!

I am a very new girl in terms of actually beginning to transition and as I say I honestly do not believe there has ever been a better time to become a girl! On-line over the past few months I have developed a whole network of intelligent, caring and talented 'sisters' who I love and care for dearly.

With the talents my 'sisters' posses we could almost take on the whole world together and make life better for transsexual girls everywhere. But I don't even know some of the basics, such as is 'sisters' an accepted phrase to describe 'fellow travellers'?

If 'sisters' is acceptable way of describing members of our community I think this song by the English group The Eurythmics 'Sisters are Doing it for Themselves' would be a superb anthem for us. (Especially in the original version with Aretha Franklin http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BqU8407iof8 (which won't embed))

Having spent a lifetime being a purely hero-sexual male it constantly amazes me that it is quite possible I may become a purely hero-sexual girl. This does of course mean I am starting to look at men in a slightly different way, I will probably soon start fancying them and before too long want to be bedded by them. This could hopefully, as I don't think I'm that kind of girl, lead to marriage!!

Looking for another song, I came across the song above, and it straight away bought out the woman in me!! (It would probably have gone weak at the knees, but I'm laid in bed, it made me go all weepy any way.) The song is called, '(Today I met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry'. I hope each and everyone of you girls find the right boy or girl for you,

Please sign the petition asking the APA to remove from the DSM-V
Sexual disorders committee 2 of the more outrageous members who
promote junk science and reparative therapy

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/412001300

As a male my surname was Hill, so I suppose Phoebe's father's comment in his speech was quite 'entertaining', indeed 21 years later I remember it as if it was yesterday. However, about ten years ago I did do jury service and ended up as the Jury Forman (I hope they’ve now changed the term!!) I got to say “Guilty” to a woman we had to 'find on’ in court and judging by the way she broke down I would think she remembers my words in court! The difference being with good behavior she will have only been imprisoned for a few years I have carried my ‘punishment for over 20 years (My nickname in court was 'Hang 'em High Hill'.)

After the pub on that night we kissed and cuddled on her friend sofa, but it went no further. It was only a few days later that I saw her again and lost my virginity. As other girls will no doubt have experienced to enjoy (she lied) the most intimate of times I imagined that it was me getting made love to by the man I was, which I suppose could be described as the ultimate out of body experience!

We carried on dating (I hate that term), and it was during that time I reached one of the 'top of the world moments' that really means you have lived life. I had spent two years at art collage in Newcastle and decided I wanted to be an Advertising Copywriter. (They come up with ideas for advertisements for TV, press and radio etc.) I didn't like the idea of living in London, being a country girl at heart, so I looked for a job in the North. I ended up getting what was probably one of the best junior jobs outside London and should have been set for life whatever my sex.

Ever since the age of 11 or 12, I have thought of myself as a transsexual, a woman trapped inside a man's body, but based on a recent message I got from a man somewhere in North America the most important thing in my life by far was that I was transitioning into a woman and that I still had a dick!!

Why is it that such an amazing invention as the internet has to stir up so many of mankind's baser instincts? Whilst a male I always wondered why the term mankind was used in describing our spiecies, since I started to become one it is all too evident why women do not create a 'stink' over the use of the term!

So many 'things' that bear a semblance (however small) of humanity can not be described as relating to all 'mankind', for example which gender buys the largest selection of sex magazines? Which pays for sex? The top-shelf displays in news agents is aimed at whom? Catholic priests are which sex? Which sex usually goes to strip shows? When was the last time you heard of a man being raped by a woman?

It is possible I pre-judged the guy who sent the message, he may have just been looking for some companionship, but sadly as the world seems to be coming more and more extreme in its views and even its sexual morals, I had to put my personal safety first.

My dream of becoming a woman is finally in sight! However, if that means being a 'Chick with a Dick' please send me back to bed and never wake me up!!`

(I found it strange that these two buildings that have more than a passing resemblance to the male phallus were both in the USA! One in Michigan and one in Florida)

The names have been changed on this letter to protect the girl's identity, but I thought you may be interested to see what 'delights!!' girls like us had to endure to become who we actually are. It also appears as if there are attempts being made to discredit transsexuality as an 'illness':
******************************************************************************************************
Dear XXXXXXXXXXX

I am nearly XX and I experienced these reparative therapies when they
were the conventional approach to treating gender variance in
Britain.

When I was 11 I told a district nurse that I was a girl and that led
to my being forcibly injected with testosterone. Forcibly as in
pinned to a table screaming until I passed out. Not once but on six
separate occasions. I that achieved was to integrate into my brain
was recurring nightmares that lasted until I transitioned!

When I was 42 I again asked help of the kind you seem to greatly
approve of. No enforced drug regime this was the modern world or
talking therapies. What that meant was to sit with a psychiatrist
who put on the table a piece of paper he said that `lets approach
this by agreeing you're a man and then we can write on the paper all
the issues that disturb you about masculinity'. Then we would both
sign it and discuss the issues. I said but Iam a women and for the
next three thirty minute appointments that piece of paper remained
blank and the psychiatrists mood became ever more combative and
assertive that I am a man. The atmosphere had more in keeping
with `the interrogation scene' in a very badly scripted crime movie
as he battered on about this and I would not consent to his initial
premise. Eventually at the end of the third appointment I asked him
if he would refer me for surgery (ok I hadn't heard of blanket bans
then) he said `no surgeon would agree to this because that is
mutilation' and expressed the opinion that I was perhaps I had
homosexual tendencies. Oh and he discharged me with no follow up. I
had gone into the first meeting blissfully assuming that I would be
helped to transition and came out and had a nervous breakdown that I
took years to get over.

Mr XXXXXXX I finally transitioned four years ago and since then in
XXXXXXXXXXXX I have fought and will continue fight everything that
your medieval attitudes represent. They are no more likely to work
than the diligent efforts of the Papal Inquisition to truly bring
about the recantation of heretics. Repression and intimidation
cannot work against those with courage and the absolute certainty
about their gender identity which are the men and women whom I have
the honour to know.

Mr XXXXXXX I am sure there is a place for you in society, if not as Ms
XXXXXXXX secretary then maybe administering the healthcare system
for transsexual's in XXXXXXX where you will find like minded people.

XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
******************************************************************************************************
There really has never been a better time to be a girl, but it appears some may be out to stop us!!