F: So, my name is Fox and I live in Brighton. I’m 33 years old and I’ve been in Brighton for about 13 years, give or take.
INT: And do you think that you’ve had a unique… is being trans unique to Brighton, like…
F: Is trans being… is trans unique to Brighton?
INT: You know what I mean.
F: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think trans is kind of unique to Brighton in some ways. I mean…
INT: Is being trans… do you have a unique experience being trans in Brighton, is what I mean?
F: Okay, I don’t know, I’m not sure, because I’ve always been kind of involved with the gay scene I guess, so I was… like I was co-Chair for the LGBT at Sussex, like when I first moved to Brighton. So, because of that I have more of an association with the gay scene in Brighton. I think the trans scene is developing, and it has been in the past, I don’t know, really recently, like past three years or so, that I think things have kind of exploded a bit more and people are finding each other, so. And I say that because Trans Day of Remembrance has been growing in numbers every year and you see the same faces over and over again and Trans Pride obviously as well, so there are definitely more trans people I think. I mean back when I was co-Chair there was one trans person that was part of the LGBT society, which was the biggest LGBT society in the UK at a university, I mean Sussex’s and I didn’t even know how I could help them, you know, because I just didn’t have the training for trans awareness and I just wasn’t aware of my own trans status, so it just, yeah, it kind of didn’t… I think my perception of trans issues have changed a lot too, so I think we’re growing.
INT: Fox, you’ve got a high public profile as being trans. How does that shape your experience? Are you aware that people know you’re trans when you walk out of the house?
F: No, not at all. I think that even though I was on that documentary which was watched by like 5.5 million people, like each time, not at all. I mean it’s so easy to just go out and just kind of just live my life, I think I have that passing privilege now and it wasn’t always the case, obviously, but now I feel I take great satisfaction in just being able to go on and go to the shops and, you know, just live my life and it’s not a huge deal and people who do know that I’m trans, they’ve got some sort of association, I guess because they’ve… because I put myself out there, and they’ve watched something about me or they’ve watched a YouTube video, or whatever, because I vlog as well, people feel more connected perhaps, because there’s more of a… they just know more about me, so they feel like I’m a friend of theirs or something or, you know. So it’s always nice stuff, so if I do get recognised or if I do get noticed, then people will tell me a story about, you know, how their children are trans or they know someone else who’s trans, or how they watched it and they didn’t understand before, but then all of a sudden everything clicked into place. So it feels like, it feels like it was the right thing to do to kind of be out there as such and it’s a good time, I think, for… I encourage, thoroughly encourage everyone to kind to kind of stand up and tell their stories and that’s why I like the Brighton Transformed project as well, because this is the right time to be doing this, and hopefully, in, you know, 5/10 years time, it’s just going to be a complete non-issue, it’s just another flavour of being human and, you know, I think we’re progressing, definitely.
INT: What are the biggest issues that you still think face the community, here in Brighton as well as the bigger community?
F: I think that we have… I think that trans people still experience prejudice from other minority groups, I think that the gay community still doesn’t quite – well, I’m speaking very generally – but I think the gay community, there’s still prejudice amongst them, and I notice it, and there’s prejudice for, you know, for either transwomen or transmen for different reasons as well. I think it’s just about raising awareness and just still being kind of like putting ourselves out there and making sure that we don’t go away or disappear and, you know, we don’t need to hide away or anything like that. In Brighton I think things are shifting and there’s good things like the Trans Alliance, which obviously marries up all the different groups and, you know, good things have come out of that, like the Trans Swimming Initiative and, you know, and stuff like that. I mean just in itself, it was just such an exciting moment, when the first session happened and every session actually, just to kind of personally to feel… I mean all these issues about having to wear, you know, something skin-tight and, you know, so revealing and, you know, your scars are on show and all sorts of stuff like that, and your body doesn’t really match what society says your body should be like, you know, based on your gender, and it’s so good to just be in a space like that where we can all just wear what we want, nobody’s judging each other, you know, I was… there’s so much anxiety that goes with something, you know, like going into a public swimming place, and it’s actually just the most wonderful thing, you know, like it’s been so good for like stamina and fitness and all that kind of stuff and for socialising in a place that’s not a pub and it’s so, you know, bar/club centric as well, you know, in Brighton and other places too, so I’m really glad that that’s actually started at Brighton, the trans swimming thing.
INT: Do you think there’s issues that affect trans guys and transwomen and genderqueers in between differently? Have you… do you notice things affecting you as a trans guy?
F: I think yeah I guess there are different things that affect me as a trans guy. I think that people just assume that I’m a gay guy now, so that’s got a whole other stigma attached to it, which I don’t mind too much, but it’s interesting when people like my dad, you know, are turning round to me and going, you know, like he’s trying to police my gender now and back when I was identifying as female, you know, if my hair was too short he’d get really upset, and now if my hair’s too long he gets really upset, so it’s just… it’s nuts, it’s so weird how people just like fit into these, well don’t fit, but how people kind of, yeah, just decide that they’re going to, I don’t know, like it’s so weird it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me actually, like why are people like that and why is… why do we have these weird notions about gender and culture and I think it’s so easy to think that being trans is such a niche and it’s not actually, I mean I really think that gender is something that affects everyone and so many people, like cis-allies have said to me, you know, how they always felt like a tom-boy, or how they, you know, just… people don’t actually feel like they belong or they don’t… like people don’t actually… there’s very few people that really connect with the stereotypes associated with gender and, you know… I don’t know.
INT: Why do you think trans people have to take it one step further and act on their disassociation with the body they’ve been given?
F: I think that for me personally I wasn’t given any choice about that, so it’s less action and more necessity or something like that because I felt like… I kept on having panic attacks before I transitioned and I don’t have panic attacks now, so, you know, that for me is proof of the pudding and I felt so inherently disconnected from the body that I was in and I had so much self-loathing about myself, I just hated every cell in my body and that was really hard to live with because I realise now that people shouldn’t feel like that, and life is here to be lived and life is here to be enjoyed, but, you know, I’m just glad that I could get through that point because I know that a lot of people, or a lot of cases of people, who didn’t make it that far, you know, and they just kind of bailed out or… you know, and also on the flip side as well, I hear there’s other people that confess to me that they would really love to transition but – and I’m talking about male born people who really feel very associated with the feminine side of things, and they say that because they didn’t do anything about it, and because their bone structure’s set and they got through the first puberty and all that, they just felt like it was too hard and too difficult to go down that path and I just think it’s so sad that we have to police gender in such a way that in order to transition successfully you have to like look like you’ve… you know, look like, in a way that people would never even guess, or know about your history and I’m not here to erase history, I’m here to kind of, I don’t know, to… but that’s the genderqueer thing I think too, it’s about being genderqueer and I really, really love that name, or that box, because I feel connected to it because I would never… I’m not that kind of person to want to just forget my past, because I feel like that it’s such a rich background and such a rich history that’s got me to this point and I’d never want to just pretend that I just, you know, was born and my life was easy because it hasn’t been and, you know, but, you know.
INT: What things did you find hard?
F: Growing up I found… I think my dad always wanted a son and I wasn’t a son, so my parents were quite gender restricting. So, because we were girls we were treated a certain way, even though I was very much a tom-boy, you know, even things like, well, my dad used to work for British Airways and then he got head-hunted for Saudi Arabian Airlines when I was four, we moved out to Saudi Arabia and we went to like an American school and, you know, we got loads of free tickets, like stand by tickets and so in order to get on the flights we’d have to dress in pretty little dresses, smile sweetly, so I feel like there’s so many instances in my childhood where I felt traumatised by having to put on, you know, these outfits which just didn’t feel right at all, it felt so completely alien to me, and because I didn’t… I wasn’t aware of anythin trans, you know, I just wasn’t aware that females could actually do something about transitioning to male to feel better about yourself, I just felt like I was stuck in being who I was and I just felt like there was something inherently wrong with me, you know.
So, my childhood was kind of littered with stuff like that and that, in contrast, with my sister cutting my hair super, super short and me like passing as a boy pre-puberty, and really enjoying that as well, you know, kind of getting into fights with people and, you know, like, you know, playing with all the boys in the neighbourhood and, you know, chasing each other and all that kind of stuff, I felt like I did have a partial boy childhood because I lived in a fantasy world and, you know… but for the rest of the time I just buried my head in books, I feel like I kind of wasn’t as present in my childhood as I could have been, I feel like I was escaping the whole time as well. But that’s formed who I am.
INT: You mentioned dress, did part of… I’m very conscious of the whole you have to dress for two years before you can have access to your hormones and all that malarkey, has dress played a part in your transition and how?
F: Yeah, I think dress definitely has played a part, I mean first of all, I think that’s nuts that you’d have to do this two year thing for someone else to tell you that you’re trans, I mean come on, like you know who you are and that’s just, that’s just stupid. I think that they might have actually abolished that now, because it’s dangerous too, for people who, you know, if you can’t take hormones and yeah, you put yourself into dangerous situations. But for me I definitely played around with it and I was definitely a transvestite before I was a transsexual, so the drag kinging really did it for me, and I just, I loved it so much and I remember seeing what people were up to in other towns and cities, like San Francisco or like, you know, places in Australia as well, and they just seem so far ahead of where we were at in Brighton, you know, ten years ago, whatever, and I mean the drag scene was a very exciting time it felt like when it actually did hit Brighton, probably around 2005/6, maybe slightly later than that as well, and I don’t see many drag kings any more and I think quite a few of the people who were drag kinging are actually transitioning now, so it’s kind of a safe, it was a safe ground and for me, packing and binding and like putting on facial hair and doing all that felt really, really great, but it wasn’t enough as well, it wasn’t enough to make me feel like I could just take it all off and live this other life as Rachel as such, I mean that just, for as long as I’ve known, I’ve always had like nicknames and really distanced myself from my birth name and what have you. So yeah.
INT: Yeah, it’s really interesting isn’t it? And why do you think the scene… you said that you thought the scene was behind in Brighton before, in that scene, do you think it’s still behind?
F: Interesting, I think that… I think that maybe because we didn’t pick up on drag kinging back when it was like, you know, for example like in the nineties or late nineties when it was a massive deal in Sydney and places like that and Portland, Oregon, and because we didn’t pick up on it then, I think we almost missed our boat, because it’s… I mean there’s definitely a place for drag kings and I really would love to see more drag kings, because always [we see] drag queens and, which is perpetuated by RuPaul’s Drag Race and stuff like that, but I mean it’s a wonderful programme, actually, I do enjoy it. I guess… I think the trans scene is big now, and it’s because of Trans Pride and stuff like that because people are starting to recognise that there is a safe… a certain safety in numbers in Brighton, because of like FTM Brighton, you can go to a support group every month, I think, Clare Project, you know, it’s available to you, Allsorts as well, they’re doing wonderful things, and when I talk to people from Allsorts, people who attend and people who help run the group, they always… they just say how much it’s growing in numbers and I don’t think it’s kind of reached the glass ceiling yet, as such, I think it’s kind of, it’s still expanding and I think people are still coming out left, right and centre, regardless of age or, you know… it’s to do with people learning about trans, it’s all about trans awareness I guess and people are discovering yeah, people out there who are a little further down the path and for me I always looked to try and find aspects of myself in people that were transitioning, so I was… I relied heavily on YouTube videos and stuff like that.
INT: Who were your role models?
F: A guy called E-J! And I remember seeing a guy called… I remember seeing on MySpace days a guy called Amos [Mack] and I was like “Wow! like you know, I didn’t realise that you could transition and be fashionable as well,” and I was like “that’s so cool” and it just… it exploded my mind, I don’t know why, it was such a basic thing and obviously like, you know, regardless of who you are, you know, yeah, it’s not like you turn into a different person post-transition. Like if you’re cool before hand you’re going to be cool afterwards and all that and you’re still going to have all the same passions and things, but I don’t know, there’s something, something about it that seemed like it was almost like a new wave of trans people were transitioning and it seemed less heavy and less difficult and more kind of like you could integrate… I don’t know, I just started to see things as being more possible.
INT: So, do you have a positive frame of mind around being trans? Are there… what are the things you enjoy?
F: Well, when I first started to talk about the fact that I was trans, I had so much shame around it, I didn’t want to talk about it, I felt embarrassed, I was like blushing the whole time, I just remember thinking, “God! You know, this is really embarrassing” and I don’t know why I felt so ashamed about it actually, because now I love talking about trans issues and I’d say 999 times out of 1000 it’s all good stuff, you know, it’s so rare that… I don’t know, I mean there’s… like when people talk to me I don’t feel like I ever get any abuse from anyone and I know how to stand my ground too, so if somebody’s saying, you know, “So, you know, so how far have you gone with your transition, your surgery” or whatever, and I’m like “If you’re not sleeping with me and you’re not my surgeon, I’m not going to tell you, like, you’ve got no, like… yeah, you’ve got no right at all” and I think when I first started transitioning I didn’t really have those boundaries and I just felt like kind of crappy the whole time and really not that stable at all. So I feel yeah, in comparison, like things are so great now, and I feel like I’ve got that clarity and a sense of self, and that’s what keeps me going and gets me excited about, you know, getting involved with all the things that are happening in the trans… well, in the world, more globally as well, there’s so many things that are going on, and it seems like every week there’s something new that’s gone in the press. But yeah, I think things are getting better, I’ve read some really decent articles today, you know, like New York Times kind of stuff and it’s all very positive.
INT: Do you find a certain… is there a camaraderie that’s unique between you and your trans brothers?
F: I would say definitely, yeah, there’s such a… I think because we go through something that is so intense and so kind of make or break, life or death, it’s, you know, for me it was like a definite, yea, it was a risk factor, but I was prepared to take it because I had exhausted all my other options, and it was the right option, so I feel that sense… I feel that in other people too, I feel that we’ve gone down similar paths in some ways, even though everyone’s journey is different. The things that you do have to deal with, you know, just like when you’re changing all your details over and, you know, that kind of time, the intermediary time, it’s really full on, it’s really hard, I think it’s hard enough transitioning, let alone either putting yourself out there on a documentary or, yeah, or vlogging about it or just opening yourself up for other people to kind of either lay into you or, I don’t know, know about your really intimate details too, you know, whether you’re sharing your lower surgery with people or yeah. I don’t know, it’s such a person thing and I feel really connected to people who open up about it, because I understand, personally, how… I don’t know… I mean I respect people who are just stealth, or who just want to disappear, I totally respect that and I get why that is the case, because the other side of things is just kind of opening yourself up when you might not feel that strong to deal with it.
INT: Yeah, because the stealth thing, so to be gay and in the closet is different to be trans and stealth I think.
F: Yeah, yeah, totally, that’s so true, why is that? Because, because if you’re gay it’s just what you do in the bedroom really, generally, other people would argue differently, but I mean if we just put it down to basics, then it’s what you do in the bedroom and that’s really no one’s business anyway. But I think if you’re trans it’s like what toilet are you going to use and how are people going to relate to you, because people do relate… people relate to other people based on what gender they are, so yeah, that’s true.
INT: Do you think that like the, you know, Julie Burchills and that sort of thing that say trans people are reinforcing gender stereotypes that feminism has tried to break down for example, how do you respond to that kind of criticism?
F: Just, I think that’s a really bizarre comment, because people identify with who they are, I mean like I was saying before about some people who are born, you know, you know, cis, like they’re happy with being female, happy being male and they actually really subscribed or really enjoy those attributes as well, I can imagine like an uber-fem girl or, you know, a guy that really like the sports and things, and, you know, those people exist, so with trans people it’s just about our identity and it’s how we feel we want to express ourselves, which is a very important thing, I mean psychologically, if you feel like people don’t get you, that’s a really damaging thing. So it’s more for our peace of mind and it’s more for authenticity as well and for me I didn’t feel authentic, like I was… I didn’t feel like I was presenting myself authentically and that had a knock on effect and now I feel like I’m more of an open book.
INT: Do you think of yourself as a real man?
F: I think of myself as expressing my maleness, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a real man. It’s really funny isn’t it, it makes me think of like Pinocchio and like how he wants to be a real boy and, you know, one day he will be, and… I don’t know, but I never, I never saw myself as a real woman, either, so if I had to choose I’d say I’m more of a real man than a real woman, like absolutely, hands down, but I think that’s really… that’s difficult, that language feels difficult to me, you know, and I guess it comes back down to that genderqueer thing and I’d much rather, you know, choose the title I’m queer, you know, and let…
INT: And when you say queer, does that… it covers, for you, it does go into genderqueer, you feel comfortable with that sitting separate from your sexuality, or it is part of it?
F: I’d say it’s part… I’d say there’s a merging going on, and if you imagine… I think that sexuality and gender are different things, but there is that point where they cross over and it’s more about your… well, that’s why I love queer so much, because it’s just this great umbrella term and I think even hetero-normative people as such, you know, cis-people in straight relationships can still identify as queer, and very like vehemently as well. So, I think, I think queer is a wonderful term and I wish people would adopt it more, because it just means that we’re… I see it as more of an accepting kind of thing and if you label yourself as queer, then it’s up to other people to kind of investigate what aspects of that makes you queer, perhaps.
INT: And so do you feel like you’re part of the LGBT community on that level, like are you…
F: Yeah, I guess so. I mean I wish that they would abolish and just replace it with “Q” because, you know, in fact I wish that G-Scene would change it to Q-Scene, because that would make it a lot easier for everyone. Yeah.
INT: And, Fox, so the work that you’re doing at the moment, you’re involved in Trans Pride, you’re doing your films, tell me something about that.
F: Cool, yeah. So, since, since taking part in that documentary, My Transsexual Summer, I didn’t have a brilliant time with it, because I think because I was at the beginning of my transition, and I felt a bit sidelined with everything that went on, and none of my family or my partner wanted to get involved with it, so there wasn’t much of a story line for them to grasp hold of. So, I felt like I’d kind of made myself invisible on national TV and I felt really gutted… I was really desperate for top surgery and like, you know, and they kind of dictated what stories were ours. And, so after that, in order to rectify it, and I felt so gutted for so long, and in order to rectify it, I thought, “Right, how can I kind of get the power back?” and I thought “Right, I’m going to get a really nice camera, I’m going to team up with my friend, Lewis”, who was also on the show, “and we’re going to do it, we’re going to cut out the middle man and we’re going to do it how we want to” and that’s exactly what we did. Like it felt so easy for that to become a thing and I was lucky enough to win a competition, so I could afford to pay off some debt and I bought a really nice camera and the rest is history, really. We just… we started to film kind of, about 13 months ago, we made our first film and that was following the death of Lucy Meadows, which was… it really hit me as well, I think, because my mum’s a teacher too, and I just thought, it’s just so… this shouldn’t be happening any more, you know, and the fact that she was hounded by the press and, you know, just awful, a totally vulnerable person, and it shouldn’t have happened.
So, I thought right, people just need a reference point, but a better reference point for what it’s like to be trans in modern Britain, you know. So, we started with Ruben, and you know, he’s a lovely guy, 19, he’s like a, you know, a whole generation below me and I am so excited for his generation, because they get to live more than we have, you know, in some ways and yeah, so it’s just been so easy to make the films, we just kind of self-taught, everything was self-taught and we use our laptops to edit everything and it was… it just felt so good having that control back and overtime it’s really healed all the stuff that went on with My Transsexual Summer, and it’s really nice to have used something that is mainstream, like that, as a kind of a jumping board for this project, My Genderation, which has just been picked up by Channel 4 too, so we’re back at Channel 4 and they’re holding our hand through the whole process. So it feels like, even though they are a gatekeeper as such, because they’re going to be the ones putting it on, I just feel like we’ve got the control still and we haven’t relinquished that at all and we haven’t compromised anything, so far.
So, it’s 25 films that we’re doing, three minutes in length each, people all around the country, either out and about and totally proud of themselves, or living stealthy in, you know, regular jobs, we’ve got a psychic, we’ve got all sorts of different types of people, like really, really fascinating people. So, but it’s again, you know, it’s kind of we’re getting paid a pittance, there’s not a huge amount of funding in this, we’re not getting paid by Channel 4 specifically, we’re going through… we’re working through All About Trans, who are doing amazing things and have done for the past few years, and they got money from the Esmee Fairburn Foundation. So, it’s all good, because I mean last year we did it all for free, so at least we’re actually getting paid like £100 a film now, but it’ll be exciting to see what happens when we get these films out there and it’s not just for… we’re not kind of just preaching to the converted already, you know, because with the films that we’ve been making, I feel that it’s really helped our community and it’s been good for YouTube, you know, people on YouTube to find it and watch it, but there’s something really nice about taking it to that next level and having a mainstream terrestrial channel that actually endorses us and the fact that they’re kind of bite-size pieces, I see them all as trailers, actually, of the, you know, what could be a bigger film for everyone, because they’re only 3 minutes long, and so it’s enough to give you a taste of what someone’s like and what they’re going through, but it leaves you wanting more as well, so I think that that’s a great start to have with this and I’m kind of intrigued to see where My Genderation goes after this year, because this year seems like the focus is on the UK, and I’d love to kind of get out there and look at other cultures globally and just… it’s such a massive project, I mean, you know, seriously there’s so many different ways you can take it and there’s so much that’s happening like, you know, at Trans Day of Remembrance, every year, it’s shocking the amount of people who are murdered because they’re trans, particularly in Brazil, like the Catholic countries in South America. So, you know, we don’t see it and then again it’s like the kind of white trans person verses the coloured trans people that, you know, really get a raw deal generally.
INT: How do you feel about Trans Pride here? What kind of work are you doing there and how do you feel…
F: Trans Pride is a really special thing and it came about… last year we had about I’d say 3 months in which to pull it together, because it was somebody’s brain child and then they kind of dropped the ball on it and then we picked it up a little bit later down the line, but it was about 4 of us, the kind of the core group that helped to pull it together and we had so much support from trans allies, that worked for the council, or used to work for the council, so it wouldn’t have been possible without other people stepping in from the community, or like the LGBT community to help us, like GScene for example, James Ledward promoted us in the June issue of GScene, and he’s also so keen to do that this year as well, so the June issues is going to be the Trans issue, he wants to make it more like Vogue than GScene apparently, which I’m really excited about. So it’s going to be all images and stuff.
So I mean I think that Trans Pride is really special and we had 1500… we had over 1500 people attend last year, in the park, we had a completely packed, full house, for the film night, the night before, and it’s the same things are going to happen, it’s going to be the film night on the Friday, on the Saturday we’re going to have a march actually this year, which we couldn’t have last year, then the park event with a very special guest, and then in the evening we’re going to have a party somewhere… and then on the Sunday, just a big picnic, weather permitting. So it’s all very, very nice and it’s very focused on families and friends and allies and all that kind of stuff. So it’s just an opportunity for us to celebrate and the reason Trans Pride came about is because we were so sad about actually meeting every year, that one time for Trans Day of Remembrance, you know, and it seemed like the year would go by so quickly we’d be there again, sitting in that room, counting out the names of all the people and, you know, that’s just not right. So, and especially since big Pride – as I like to call it – has become further and further removed from how I feel that Pride should be, you know, it just seems like such a corporate affair now and it’s kind of really focused on booze, you know, drink, drugs and house music, so yeah, it’s nice to be offering that alternative and a real kind of family vibe and that’s what people were saying, they were like “Oh, this is so amazing because it’s how Pride used to be” and I feel good about that.
INT: And why do you think it’s important to the trans community?
F: I think Trans Pride is so important to the trans community because it gives us an opportunity to make the “T” bigger, you know, we can actually sit there and talk about issues that really affect trans people, which are quite specific, I suppose, you know, gender-related stuff and well we don’t need to sit there and talk about trans issues, we can just kind of, you know, enjoy ourselves and yeah, I mean there were so many support groups that helped out last year and we had loads of stalls and stuff like that, it did feel like it was just a good reason to have all the people that are doing great stuff come together and we can just share information and I guess it’s good for people out of Brighton as well, that can kind of take home leaflets and information about getting involved or joining support groups that exist.
So, I guess it’s just about awareness, because there is a growing number of trans groups and support groups out there, but if you don’t know about them then you can’t go to it. So, you know, and also to celebrate the amazing people who are trans that, you know, like musicians and, you know, people who, you know, yeah, are just more than just being trans like, you know.
INT: Do you find that… do you think that trans people, there’s something uniquely creative that comes out of the experience? Is there something, you know what I mean? Like a…
F: I think… I find trans people to be highly intelligent, generally, and really clued up. I think the flip side of that, there’s kind of if you’re not dealing with your trans status, as such, then there’s many mental health issues that go with that too, but I think that because, because we’ve… something to do with gender I suppose, I guess because we kind of recognise what we’re not and we’ve gone down a path to work out who we are, it does give you a sense of self and I think that that’s something which people can pick up on, because I think there’s everyone, you know, everyone on the earth seems to be struggling to work out, you know, what their path is, you know, we all want to work out what our personal path is and whether we’re at the right place in life and, you know, and all that and I do think that life is about progression and whatever that means, you know, I always like to try and move forwards in life rather than mess my life up I guess and I think being trans is definitely something to be proud of, because it gives us that perspective, I don’t know, it’s funny isn’t it?
INT: I keep meeting amazing trans people and wondering how it can be.
F: Yeah, yeah.
INT: But I think you’re right, I think a lot of it comes from the results of having such a deeply intense journey to get to where you are.
F: Yeah, yeah, totally. It doesn’t kill you so, yeah, it makes you stronger. [LAUGHS]
INT: Thanks, man. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we…?
F: No, we talked about My Genderation, talked about Trans Pride, that’s all good stuff. No, I think that’s cool.
INT: It’s very nice to talk to you.
F: Yeah, you too.