LEEDS!
I'm in Leeds now so I thought it might be time to post again. Everything is very confusing, luckily my time at Hampshire fully prepared me for any level of disorganization. Registration and moving in went pretty smoothly. There was a whole lot of waiting in lines to print things that the staff could have easily looked up in the server or even on the application forms. Many, many lines and then being directed towards the next one, most I didn't even have to be in but was misdirected. But that's all right, standing isn't the worst thing. My courses look amazing! I can't wait for them to start but there's still another two weeks. I really want to meet the rest of the department, it'd be nice to have a community again.
I went to the LGBT coffee hour, the group basically seems to have lunch every weekday and go to gay pubs on the weekend. It's disappointing that they aren't involved with the Gender Studies department at all or even invested in the speakers that come to campus. There were no group introductions so a lot of assumptions were being made on all parts. I'm sure that most people read me as a gay man. I went out drinking with a group and one fairly masculine person came out to me as trans, I assumed they were post-transition FTM and when I came out as trans they assumed that I was a really repressed pre-transition MTF. This got me thinking about a difference of mentality between pre- and post-transition communities because she is from an area where most of her community cannot or has not transitioned (socially or medically) where as most people I know are out enough to socially transition (at least part time) and can at least look into whatever medical transition they are considering. But this misunderstanding lasted for four hours and was further complicated by an accent barrier and increasing levels of intoxication.
Really funny thing is that she came out to me because I was talking about being there for Gender Studies and her response was that I must find her very interesting because she's trans, in the kind of way where she was accusing me of studying her. My response was, "Not particularly because I'm trans too." Surprise gender bending!
Mostly things are really boring. I'm trying to set up my room, get a bank account, eventually I should get a phone. I want classes to start because so far I am not terribly impressed with anything except for how utterly confusing it is to get around. I will be walking in between brick building just completely lost and will suddenly expect David Bowie to appear in very tight pants and say that I'm running out of time...
I went to the LGBT coffee hour, the group basically seems to have lunch every weekday and go to gay pubs on the weekend. It's disappointing that they aren't involved with the Gender Studies department at all or even invested in the speakers that come to campus. There were no group introductions so a lot of assumptions were being made on all parts. I'm sure that most people read me as a gay man. I went out drinking with a group and one fairly masculine person came out to me as trans, I assumed they were post-transition FTM and when I came out as trans they assumed that I was a really repressed pre-transition MTF. This got me thinking about a difference of mentality between pre- and post-transition communities because she is from an area where most of her community cannot or has not transitioned (socially or medically) where as most people I know are out enough to socially transition (at least part time) and can at least look into whatever medical transition they are considering. But this misunderstanding lasted for four hours and was further complicated by an accent barrier and increasing levels of intoxication.
Really funny thing is that she came out to me because I was talking about being there for Gender Studies and her response was that I must find her very interesting because she's trans, in the kind of way where she was accusing me of studying her. My response was, "Not particularly because I'm trans too." Surprise gender bending!
Mostly things are really boring. I'm trying to set up my room, get a bank account, eventually I should get a phone. I want classes to start because so far I am not terribly impressed with anything except for how utterly confusing it is to get around. I will be walking in between brick building just completely lost and will suddenly expect David Bowie to appear in very tight pants and say that I'm running out of time...