An Announcement

This is a big day for me. For sixty-one years, I’ve carried a picture in my head of who I am. Turns out it was the wrong picture all this time.

If you had asked me during any of those years to pick a label, it would have been cisgender, heterosexual, white, male. And I would have been lying - not by intent, but through lack of self-awareness. The truth I’ve discovered over a long period of self-reflection and conversations with my therapist is that I am a trans lesbian.

You might think that sixty-one is an odd time to realise something so fundamental about yourself, and it probably is. All I can say is you don’t know until you do. And now I do. I don’t have all of the answers, but I am firm on my path. This post, coming out on Facebook, telling my family and friends is all part of the journey.

I am beginning the process to transition, to become the person I truly want to be. To become the woman I need to be.

None of this changes the stories. None of this makes me less inclined to write about love between women, about joy and sorrow, about family. None of it changes what I felt, and still feel, for Kate Clarke. No matter what else changes around me, she is still the love of my life.