Everyone has an opinion : The first month of Kate

Hello all

In March I decided that it was time to finally go ahead with becoming the person who I always wanted to be,  I decided to become a woman. On July 2nd that journey took a major step as I started living as a woman full time and came out to everyone.

We're now coming to the end of the first month of being Kate and it's been interesting to say the least.

Whilst I am loving the opportunity to finally be who I want to be, the one thing that I have noticed is that everyone has an opinion, not about the actual desire to be female, but how I should dress, make up, etc, and I'll be honest, it has frustrated me. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate everyone's help, but the problem with everyone giving advice is that with opinions being different I am getting confused with what I am supposed to do or who's advice to take. 

I openly admit to needing as much help as I can get and I love that lots of people want to help, but again it's just confusing that everyone is telling me considerably different things. With my clothes I am starting to get happy with what I am wearing and I think that combined with my current hair style, I'm not doing a bad job in terms of the look, it's just the make up that I'm really struggling with. Those who were with me at school know that I've never been overly good at doing things with my hands, my creations in Graphic Technology and wood-work were....interesting to say the least.

I think, much like driving, stuff like make up is going to be one of those where I have to find my own way of doing it, but again, I appreciate the advice. I have applied to do a make up course at Lincoln College, that'll look interesting on the CV when put next to the qualifications I already have.

There have been a lot of other interesting experiences and learning curves along the way as well. It's not until you do something like this that you truly appreciate just how many differences there are between the genders. There's the obvious ones such as the actual body, but it's mannerisms, the way things are said, the way you bend to pick something up, the way you walk, talk and so many other things that I can't even begin to mention. It is quite possibly the biggest learning curve out there as nothing I've ever encountered is similar in terms of how much there is. It's good though as I'm learning new things each and every day, although it would be nice to have just one day where I didn't have to leave my flat.

Why yes, I have dyed my hair.

At the time of writing I've still only had trouble from two people really, but neither lasted more than a few seconds, and it's quite strange. I expected the public to be better than you'd think they would be due to transgender issues being considerably well covered these days, especially compared to the past, but to have only been abused twice has surprised me. Obviously I would have preferred to have had no abuse, but I'm delighted with just two in a month compared to what I thought it might be.

I've also dumped the wig. During last week's very hot weather my head got ridiculously hot.....so I got rid of it and I've also now coloured my hair, and my own hair rather than a wig certainly helps the image.

And finally, one thing I love is that it's given me the chance to get to know some people a lot better, as well as seeing some old friends. My oldest friend is a girl called Jenna, and we've known each other since we were 4 but we hadn't seen each other since 2001, but I got the chance to meet her and her lovely daughter, Niamh, recently, and it was good for a catch up. There are also a few who I've worked with for some time that I have never really shared a conversation with, but now I'm having in depth chats with them, so that's nice.

But anyway, I'll leave it there and hope you're all having a good time.

Peace out.