My Original Flickr Profile

When I first joined flickr I wrote a long and detailed profile that very few people read and in July of 2019 I stripped it out and replaced it with a shorter description. I was reading my friend Sue's blog in which she describes well the cruel nature of our developing in a society not sufficiently equipped to allow our individual gender expression and how we may then behave in response. It reminded me of  that profile and having searched in vain for it on my current laptop I was spurred to dig out my previous laptop which has been languishing since an update of W10 caused it to become virtually unusable. Now I can clean it out and load a linux OS instead. 

Onto the history recorded in the profile ...

BORING HISTORY (Jungian terms in italics)

Some Jungian cod-psychology (mine) suggests (rightly or wrongly) how this may have arisen in my youth. As a child up until encounters outside the family, I was quite extroverted; this changed with socialisation, which I didn’t manage well – I was torn between an exaggerated male behaviour and a need to be treated as a girl. My shadow started to gain expression. By my teenage years, the shadow was in command and I was buried in deep depression. This was eased by dressing, but also confused by its meaning. Sexual excitement and subsequent self-loathing simply reinforced any lack of self-worth.

School was awful – I performed poorly in almost every aspect, yet that was not from lack of intelligence, more that I found school and its teachings facile (my shadow speaking). Leaving school, and contrary to my teachers’ predictions, I threw myself into academic studies. These gave the lie to my poor performance at school. Acknowledgement of academic achievement helped the process of enantiodromia and re-balancing of my persona. It was by no means perfect. My dressing, the outward expression of a strong anima was just about manageable. My animus hid itself in alcohol. I could cope, but life was still marked by very dark and irrational episodes.

EMERGENCE

In my fifties, I visited a dressing service and my life changed forever. My anima finally found its rightful place which, in turn, helped my animus be brave in ‘letting go’ the false manhood that I had busily constructed since childhood. All round, life improved. While my emulation of women developed, I also realised that being transgendered had an advantage – I could play ‘dress-up’ within my female presentation and reclaim some of my lost female youth; likewise I could experiment with androgyny – a far more dangerous and potentially powerful state.

NOWADAYS

Quite a few of my pictures were taken at my friend Barbara's, in Folkestone. She used to run the makeup parlour I first went to and has helped many girls gain confidence in themselves. Together we ran SouthCoast Crossdressing, an MSN Group. With MSN closing their groups some years back, the growth (albeit still tiny) of the TG presence in society, and the changing face of the internet, groups we have tried to keep going are now moribund and will be closed soon.

Although I do get out and about occasionally, most of my dressing is at home. I don’t get that buzz that some transgendered do from ‘mixing it’ at Bluewater and so on, but that just reflects my personality – I’ve very much a home person no matter which gender I’m presenting.

I love clothes and buy far too many, but I'm not into labels, just things which seem right for me at the time. I'm equally happy expressing the butch as the femme and in 2010 took on sweet lolita cosplay as well as floaty maxi-dresses. In 2011 dirndls and sissy satin dresses have been added, just because they're there! One of the great things about being transgender is breaking away from stereotypes. Why should age dictate what one wears, anymore than gender?

BITS AND PIECES

Some of the following is not relevant, but I keep it in as a record (italics and small font).

An update from 27 August 12 ... I have a mix of photos on this site, showing off serious clothes, playful clothes, sensuous clothes and plain silly clothes, so it is a really pleasant surprise to find that the first (by a long way) photo to get over a 1000 views is one of my favourite dirndl portraits!

Stats ... for what it matters ... thanks for all the views, 100,000 as of 2/10/12

Update 23/10/12 - I am going through my contact and changing some levels of contact; welcome those who can now see my 'friends' pictures; for those who now can't ... well you've never been that interested ;-)

Update 31/12/12 - In this last year, it is evident that flickr can be greater than the sum of its parts and I have been privileged to make new friends who have seen that there is something more to me than an endless succession of new dresses! I think 2013 is going to be fun!

A short update for August 2014 - I am organising my picture collections and albums, a task that may never get finished.

A bit more, now we are in 2016: the more important things slowly come onto this flickr account. I have loved travelling through Europe since the late 1960's and have an abiding interest in landscapes, plants and history. Images relating to these interests intersperse my transgender pictures, if they bore, then I probably do!

Coming towards the end of 2016, I am slowly re-arranging things. Flickr is a repository of images and memories. I choose to share these with the world, but if the world does not respect them, I can either delete the image or the commentator.

W B Yeats wrote -

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

On 28 June 2017, my dearest friend Barbara died. It was she who freed Nikki, yet was herself trapped by abuse from childhood on. Barbara underwent life-saving surgery 18 months ago ... but that's all it was. Her quality of life deteriorated severely in the last year and she wanted peace and freedom from pain. It is at a time like this I desire there to be a heaven, somewhere for her to enjoy eternal love.

It is now August 2018 and, as I understand mourning, my loss of Barbara has taken a year to ease. During that time friends have been kind and welcoming and I have started to reforge an earlier relationship but all through that period it has been as if Barbara was looking on and making sure I walked in light rather than shadow. END

So  there it is. The last two paragraphs came as a surprise when I refound this profile and affected me deeply.