A link to a dysfunctional dandy

I could never hope to be half as stylish as you. But if you’re ever giving out tips, do let me know.

Thank you, Dickon Edwards.

 

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criminally under appreciated blondies

You know how brownies are like the popular girl in a tacky high school movie? She’s got the moves, the clothes, the car, the popularity – the unthinking star of the show?

Well, I always think of blondies as the nerdly best friend – she’s studying in the library, always ready with a sarcastic remark, quietly being the brains of the operation. Except, of course, that if you take the time to look, you’ll realise that she’s the beauty of the operation too. Keep the glasses on! No ‘makeovers’ be needed!

Okay, most people go crazy for the sheer CHOCOLATEY nature of brownies. But for something a little more understated, but no less delicious, give these a try. Perfectly partnered with glasses of cold milk and a person who makes your glasses steam up with shy devotion.

200g milk chocolate, roughly chopped

1 1/4 cups soft brown sugar

1/2 cup salted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 eggs

1 /4 cups plain (all purpose) flour

1. Preheat the oven to 160 and line a brownie pan.

2. In a large saucepan (preferably nonstick) melt the butter and sugar – take off the heat when just combined into a sticky butterscotch mess.

3. Stir in the vanilla and cinnamon. Inhale. Fuck that’s good.

4. Beat the eggs in, one at the time, quickly so that they don’t set. The mixture should be gloopy and glossy and very tempting.

5. Stir in the flour – don’t worry about folding – just make sure it’s incorporated into the mixture.

6. Tip in the chocolate and mix quickly to distribute – don’t take too long – you don’t want all of it to melt.

7. Pour into brownie pan and bake for 30 mins. When you remove the blondie you should see the distinctive ‘brownie’ crust.

8. Leave to cool in the pan, then lift onto chopping board and chop into individual blondies with a sharp nice.

9. As always, add edible glitter. Enjoy.

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A love letter to Canada…

Take a look at the view from the window nearest to you. And now take a look at this:

 

 

Yeah…I know which one I prefer.

 

That, by the way, is the view from the deck of my aunt and uncle’s cabin, hidden deep in Ontario’s cottage country. I’m lucky enough to head out each year for Thanksgiving (no, not the same as American thanksgiving – honestly.)

 

And this a just a short note to say that, despite all its inevitable problems, well – Canada, I just fucking love you. So much. And not just for your beautiful lakes and howling wolves and the constant access to Tim Hortons. But for three very specific reasons.

 

Firstly: if you’ve ever met me, you’ll know that I’m, um, just a little bit of a coffee addict. It is in Stratford, Ontario, that I have found the (previously regarded as mythical) perfect cup of coffee. Not kidding. Not only the best cup of coffee, but the best coffee shop, best muffins and prettiest ever baristas. If you should find yourself in Stratford (perhaps on a Justin Bieber pilgrimage) then you owe it to yourself to head over to Balzac’s.

 

 

Secondly: one of the most amazing bookshops – Fanfare Books, again in Stratford. Russian novels handpicked by translation, graphic novel adaptations of ever single full-length Holmes book, feminist classics you’ve previously had to order and wait for, more volumes of Shakespeare studies than I’ve seen in Stratford (England) and a rainbow-coloured kids section? Pure joy.

 

Finally: Canadian breakfasts. Specifically, the full Canadian breakfast my aunt conjures up after a spot of canoeing as the sun rises. Just – just book yourself a morning off – go outside, get cold and exhausted and hungry and come home to this.

* Fresh filter coffee with cinnamon and maple syrup

* Grilled thick cut bacon

* Soft scrambled eggs

* Buttermilk pancakes – with so much maple syrup that it spreads all over the bacon and eggs, uniting your food into one heavenly mess of glory.

 

It will make you a better human being – I promise.

 

Little pieces of paradise (aka buttermilk pancakes)

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tbsp sugar

1tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking (bicarbonate) soda

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

1. With a balloon whisk roughly beat together all ingredients

2. Heat a skillet or non-stick frying pan to a medium heat, oil lightly (an oil mister is your friend)

3. Pour on ladles of batter – cook until bubbles rise to the surface, flip – cook until risen – each pancake will take three to four minutes

4. Keep warm on a plate in the oven – then devour and feel better about the world

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Today I have been mostly reading…

 

Okay, that’s a lie – I was reading this three weeks ago. But a few recent articles in which members of the trans community went after their own in really quite horrible ways, and the ongoing controversy about the use of the word t**** (can it ever be reclaimed? If so, who gets to reclaim it? Under what conditions?) made me think of this book, and long for Leslie Feinberg’s compassionate spirit and quiet wisdom.

 

Many will be familiar with Feinberg’s seminal work Stone Butch Blues

 

Drag King Dreams, published in 2006, hasn’t received the same level of attention but is, I think, essential reading for anyone involved in the fight for trans liberation. The brief synopsis: Max Rabinowitz, a New York drag king struggling with the hatred of the world around him, rediscovers his activism after a series of brutal attacks made against the people he loves. But, as usual with Feinberg’s writing, it is the journey, the depths beneath the events, that make up much of the work.

 

Feinberg’s prose inevitably reminds me of the writer hirself – lean and sinewy – the hard rock of muscle gentled over by a feather-light sweetness. And the message of Feinberg’s activism is something we desperately need to remember: that every single one of us is different – but that without each other we could not keep going. That gender is something so complex and unique and strange and bone-deep and shallow and changing and contradictory that we should never seek to impose our definitions on others – but that we can know each other, and love each other, if we can find the humility needed to listen. And, trite as it may sound here, if we can recognise our common humanity then our shared strength can move mountains.

 

If I may, I’d like to quote from the book (and hopefully give you the push to go out and read it). Max is speaking at the memorial of his friend Vickie/Vic – a person who lived a dual-gendered life, murdered for their transgression of gender norms.  I think it says it all, really.

 

“I loved her as a friend. But deep down, I never felt a connection with her as a cross-dresser.

“Which you might think would be the most obvious.” I look down at my own suit and tie, “because so am I.

“But Vickie and I weren’t the same kind of cross-dressers. She was fluent in two gendered languages. That’s how she conveyed who she was. But this is the only way I can articulate who I am.”

“…I thought that she could just take off her wig and her dress and move through the world another way – a way I thought of as closeted. But it takes two pronouns to even approximate Vickie’s life. And she wasn’t just half and half of anything. She was trying to be understood for the whole of who she was.

“Now I wish that Vickie could ask me again, once more, where I live. I would tell her: I live at the intersection of oppression. And you and I were neighbors. The same sky above us. The same earth. The same red blood, metallic tasting on our tongues. You lived under the sun. I live under the moon. I was sometimes envious that you could walk in the daylight, welcomed by smiling strangers. And I wasn’t a very good neighbor sometimes. For that, I am truly sorry, Vickie.

“My aunt Raisa taught me an old Sephardic Jewish proverb: Dime con quien conoscas, te dire quien sois – Tell me who you know; I’ll tell you who you are.”

My voice cracks. “I knew Vickie.”

 

 

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Make-up for everyone (who wants to wear it)

Feeling pretty down about the horrible bigotry of some in the trans community, I thought it was time for a very, very silly post. With ogling.

 

As anyone who knows me knows, I like eye make-up. A lot. Like – take ‘a lot’ and multiply it by ‘very’. That much.

 

I was born in the 80s, and my parents are SERIOUS fans of David Bowie and Lou Reed. The models of male beauty I grew up with had sexy, smoky eyes and a fuck-you attitude. I was desperate to be like them. And the minute I was old enough I ran out and bought the mascara, lash curlers, eyeliner pencils, little pots of shadow – the works – and locked myself in the bathroom to practice.

 

The problem is (shit – this becomes a little serious) – it can often feel that, in order to prove our authenticity as trans people, we have to buy into cissexist binary notions of gendered behaviour. The majority of that comes from cisgender society and wrong-headed and reductionist narratives of trans lives. But, sadly, some of it can be a form of self-policing from within – that trans men have to be butch and love women, and trans women have to be  high femme and love men, and that anyone else doesn’t really count. And whilst butch hetero trans men and femme hetero trans women are fantastic, so are the rest of us – those of us who might be straddling a whole bunch of definitions, and are most comfortable expressing a mixture of gender signs and signifiers.

 

I tried to be ‘traditionally butch’ for a whole year when I was seventeen – think of that, a year with no brightly coloured eye paint! I thought it was the only way to prove to people that I was genuine – and, because of my face, if I did venture to express myself through mascara, no amount of short hair/no breasts/skinny hips/male clothing was going to convince the majority that I was anything other than a lady. And it was blissful, not to be mistaken as a girl – but I was having to leave something of myself behind in order to do it – and wasn’t that the whole point of coming out, so as to be whole and sincere and honest? In some ways, yes, I guess I’m pretty butch – I love my muscles and body hair and shaved head and beaten-up DMs and horrible old leather jacket – but with a slick of black liquid liner on top, if you please.

 

So, the ogling part – may I present a small number of gorgeous role models, make-up and all…that’s what I call ‘inspiration’.

 

Lou Reed is the king of kings

 

 

Except, of course, when the king is David Bowie

 

 

Decadent genius from Alan Cumming

 

 

Michael Stipe was my hero when I came out (and is still my hero today)

 

 

 

My heart is forever tied to 'My So Called Life'

Sigh.

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Sacrificium

I met so many wonderful people at the London TDOR memorial on Saturday. One of them was Roz Kaveney, a phenomenal poet, activist, writer of many kinds and all round brilliant lady. She’s generously given me permission to use one of her poems here, on that topic so dear to my heart – the castrati singers. Enjoy!

 

 

Sacrificium

Little hot knives, salt baths, and many died.

And some had voices that were nasal, flat

or squeaky. Some grew spindly thin, some fat

and some were glorious. Their special pride

 

was in the notes that poured out and sustained

trilled ever higher yet had strength as well

the voice of Orpheus overwhelming Hell

breaking its gates. And if the hot knives pained

 

cutting the boy, the man surely forgot

what he was sold to. Was the shower of coin

and praise well worth the aching in the groin,

Long cramping legs? We can’t imagine what

 

it cost in pain, frustration, anger, tears

to bring those crystal high notes to our ears.

 

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infamous multiple orgasm brownies

So called for three reasons:

1) If you haven’t been having any multiple orgasms for a while, I’ll think you’ll find a great deal of solace in a batch of these brownies.

2) If you’ve found someone you’d like to invite to join you in the pursuit of multiple orgasms then I would advise you to add this recipe to your seductive arsenal.

AND FINALLY

3) Having been lucky enough to find a person or people to share multiple orgasms with, there is no greater reviver than these brownies – a midnight snack to extend the amorous exploration of delight, if you will.

So, I present – the pinnacle of my baking career – CN Lester’s infamous brownies:

(Oh, and before we start, may I remind everyone – brownies are not cake. They shouldn’t rise like cake, you don’t mix them like cake, you don’t bake them like cake – leave them be)

200g dark chocolate (70% to 85% – if you use cheap chocolate you will suffer for it, I promise you)

200g white chocolate

175g salted butter

125g dark brown sugar

200g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

130g plain flour

Preheat oven to 180c and line a brownie pan.

Roughly chop the white chocolate and put to one side.

In a large (preferably non-stick) pan, gently melt the butter and dark chocolate.

Take pan off the heat and stir in the sugars. You’ll end up with a rather granular mixture – this is how it SHOULD be.

Stir in the vanilla, and then beat in each egg with a wooden spoon, one by one, stirring vigorously all the while to avoid setting the eggs. The resulting mixture should be glossily unctuous – very similar in consistency to home-made mayonnaise.

Fold in the flour until just combined and then stir in the chopped white chocolate. Pour into lined brownie pan and bake for 30 mins.

Wait.

There is no point to this picture – I just wanted to share the fact that this is what I had for lunch – leftover brownie batter.

Voila! Your brownies are done – DO NOT LEAVE THEM IN THE OVEN ANY LONGER. They may not be all that set by this point – you have to leave them to cool. So long as you have the distinctive crust on the top of the brownie then you should be fine. Now leave the pan in a cool place and forget about it for several hours.

Of course, if necessary, you always have the option of eating it straight from the pan. I won’t judge you.

However, if you’ve managed to keep away – turn the brownie out onto a chopping board (keeping the lining paper on) and chop into pieces with a sharp knife. How you serve is to you – but I find it’s less messy to put a small piece into a muffin cup.

Oh – and nothing is ever as good if you forget the edible glitter. Don’t forget the edible glitter. It’s the closest we’ll ever come to eating a rainbow.

Variations are many. My favourites include:

* Sour berries: halve the quantity of white chocolate and add bucket loads of sour dried cherries, dried blueberries, dried cranberries or a mix thereof.

* Rum and raisin: Soak a whole bunch of sultanas in a good quality rum and add to the mixture. Swap 100g milk chocolate for the white chocolate.

* Spiced: Add a teaspoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of ginger and a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper (adjust all these for taste). This is great with chunks of Green and Blacks ‘Maya Gold’.

What are you waiting for? Get baking!

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Can a person be a trans ‘tranny chaser’?

Trans readers of this post will already know what I mean by ‘tranny chaser’. Cis readers may need a little introduction.

May I present DAR? Go on, check it out. Then come on back for the discussion.

Yeah, so, um…well, that’s fairly disgusting. And is dissected, far better than I could do it, here.

And that’s just for us trans guys. The SHIT that trans women have to deal with. Just think of the phrase ‘chicks with dicks’. And then feel pretty fucking sad about the state of humanity. And the misogyny, disrespect and all round crap that trans people, particularly trans women, have to deal with.

Tranny chasers: (cis) people who fetishise trans people, and want to sleep with us not because of WHO we are, but because of WHAT we are. Or, rather, their simplistic and (frankly) ridiculous interpretations of what we are.

I think we can agree that this is pretty awful.

But, my confession: I find other trans people ridiculously beautiful.

I wish I could give an exact quotation from Julia Serano’s must read book ‘Whipping Girl’, but I can’t, because my mother has borrowed it and won’t give it back.

I shall attempt to paraphrase. Ms Serano discusses the fact that, although she is in a committed relationship with a cis woman, she finds other trans women particularly attractive. Mostly, in part, because of their bravery, and because she understands the agony of the journey they took – and the depth of character it required to take it.

And I completely understand.

There’s something about the majority of trans people (obvious exceptions for the horrible specimens that exist within every group of people) that I find compelling, beautiful, attractive.

I worry that this makes me as shallow and sinister as the cis tranny chasers who label us as ‘exotic’, ‘different’, ‘unique’ – who tell us that our genders are mere ‘performances’ and that the so-called ‘discrepancy’ between different parts of our bodies is a turn-on.

But, actually, no. I think it’s far more simple than that, and it’s been on my mind, as we come up to the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, and respond to the ‘It gets better’ project.

We talk about how difficult it is for LGBT youth, and address the horror of their suicides. But I don’t feel that we’ve adequately addressed just how painful life can be for our trans youth.

Not just because of the bullying, and the cultural stigma, and the fear and/or actuality of being cut off from our family and friends.

But because of the essential nature of gender dysphoria, and the pain that it causes.

I remember being fifteen years old, binding so tight it hurt to breathe, searching the mirror desperately for a sign of my own face, not understanding how I could keep going in a body that was not mine, feeling so ugly it hurt to look at myself. I would wake up each morning from a dream where my body was mine, into a a body that was hostile and alien. I was terrified of the future that I knew lay in store for me (how much would the surgery cost? How many scars would it leave? How many people would abandon me when I told them that I needed it?). I was so frightened that I would never be found attractive, for who I really was, and the thought of being at home in my own skin seemed ridiculous.

Eleven years down the road – I wish I could tell my younger self that it gets better – only with courage, and only by struggling, but better, nonetheless. And admit that there is still a large part of myself that fears that I am unloveable – unattractive, unnatural, unconvincing. And it is this part, I think, that needs the pride, the confirmation, the sense of solidarity, that finding other trans people so attractive provides.

XX Boys, for example. {Edit – by most accounts the guy who runs this project has serious sexual assault/rape allegations he has yet to face up to. No support for him. But support for many of the people catalogued there}. Each and every guy in this project is beautiful, in so many ways – beautiful for his authenticity, his audacity, his sincerity – oh, yes, and general base hotness. And, maybe, I look at these guys and think ‘how wonderful you are’ – and hope that maybe the same is true of me. If I can think of all they’ve been through, and acknowledge how they’ve grown as human beings because of it – maybe not only can I do it for myself, but think that someone else might be able to do it for me.

Tranny chaser? Not so much. But deeply invested in the strength, determination and the beauty of the transgender experience?

Yes.

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This is why I study music

 

Visit Aish.com for the full video. This is why we’re musicians.

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