The Joy Tuck Club
A podcast that celebrates the diversity and beauty of transgender identities and expressions.
How well do you truly understand the vibrant spectrum of transgender identities? Get ready to challenge and expand your perspectives as we share personal stories, debunk myths, share news, and provide helpful insights, advice on transitioning, and tips on being a better ally.
The Joy Tuck Club
Transpiration Special: Robin Hague, Changing Orbits for Corsets
Have you ever wondered what it means to truly be yourself? Join us in a heart-to-heart conversation with Robin, a brave individual who shares her enlightening journey of self-discovery and transition. This captivating episode unfolds Robin's tale of unveiling her true identity during the pandemic; an extraordinary period that had us all locked away in our homes and lost within our thoughts. Robin opens up about her exploration of gender identity, throwing light on the unique opportunities and challenges that the pandemic presented.
Transitioning is a journey, not just a destination - and Robin is here to share every step of theirs. From their first night out presenting as their true self, their medical journey involving private consultations, referrals to the NHS, to their experience of facial feminisation surgery - Robin leaves no stone unturned. Not just that, Robin also talks about her newfound passion - the arts. Post-transition, she discovered a love for performance that has further helped her express her true self.
But what does it mean to transition in a professional environment? As an engineer in a male-dominated realm, Robin takes us through her experience, highlighting the impact of transitioning on her career aspirations. The episode concludes with a meaningful discussion around the importance of community and allies, as Robin recounts personal stories of coming out to friends and family. So, plug in your earphones, make yourself comfortable, and get ready to be inspired by Robin's journey of courage, acceptance, and self-exploration.
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Visit The Joy Tuck Club online at redandfreckles.com for transcripts, commentary, community, news, and much, much more.
Meanwhile, you can always find red+freckles (Rachel & Phoebe) on
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The Joy Tuck Club is written, produced, and edited by red+freckles, of Two Damp Trans Ltd, UK.
Robin, do you remember when we met and you quite unexpectedly pronounced that name to the Welsh town, the longest one in the world? Perfect.
Speaker 2:Are you sure you don't want to try pronouncing that station? You've seen very good words this morning.
Speaker 1:Klangfeir Quigwing, klogery, chai Windrow.
Speaker 2:Go, go, go yes.
Speaker 3:Do you want to give it a go? Klangfeir Quigwing, klangty Chai Windrow, go, go we're not leaving until you get it right. Klangfeir Quigwing. Klangty Chai Windrow Go Go.
Speaker 2:Play the music.
Speaker 1:Hi Robin and welcome to the Joy Tuck Club. Hello.
Speaker 3:Again, thank you for having me, technical challenges aside.
Speaker 1:So it's very, very nice to have you on at last. Thank you. We met, as we all have, through Twitter, trans Twitter, when it was a very, very pleasant news.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, it wasn't, massive.
Speaker 3:I've always had a relatively Trans Twitter was. I've always had a relatively positive experience of it. I don't know what I did. That was different, but I didn't, Unless it's just that the sort of the bad stuff washed past me a little bit more. I was a bit more oblivious, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it depends on how you engage, like the other day I started poking some turns. You know you report yourself.
Speaker 3:Recreational turf baiting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was Billy a Spile.
Speaker 3:Yes, Twitter has been responsible for a remarkable number of connections and friendships in this new world. I always have a certain affection for it as a result.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the same. You know, since Elon Musk took over, people have been abandoning Twitter and their droves. But I'm a little bit hesitant to do that because I do have a yes to Twitter. Yes, and I think it was someone Was it Captain Amy the other day saying that she's not going to leave Because when she started it was such a big help to her and she just can't imagine coming out now and looking for connections and not been out of find them because Twitter's such a hell site now. So she's hanging around. I kind of feel the same.
Speaker 3:I was speaking to somebody recently who's been out and within the trans community for a much longer time and as the conversation had progressed, I said what? So you didn't? So did you not have a trans mother, and was it? Well, no, I suppose in effect, it was Twitter, which sounds much sadder than it actually was to experience. But because I was in theory, in theory, my insight was actually just pre-pandemic. I really should have been part of an earlier group, but everything the first things that I was going to go to as part of working out what I wanted to do were the first things that were cancelled for lockdown. So, essentially, I'm pandemic trans rather than slightly, but really I'm slightly before, and it was the social media connections that then made all the difference.
Speaker 1:Can you say that again? The pandemic, the pandemic, yeah, because we were all on lockdown.
Speaker 2:I came out in the pandemic, so I'm a pandemic baby as well.
Speaker 3:That was just for two. I was trying to say pandemic trans rather than the pandemic pan.
Speaker 2:No, the pandemic works, it really appeals to my pun side of me as in the fun side of me, which is Spooning is always popular, but spoonerism can be fun too.
Speaker 1:Oh, favourite spoonerisms. Our queer old Dean so you were pre-pandemic.
Speaker 3:Yes, After the pandemic. No, I was Sorry you probably was pandemic.
Speaker 2:I was just before I think I came out in March and in March was when the lockdowns began. I think I probably got one of the last appointments with the doctor asking if he referred to the GIC and then everything shut down, all these support groups that I had researched. They didn't exist anymore and when we came out the other side they didn't come back up. It killed off a lot of support groups.
Speaker 1:I came out during the pandemic, but towards the end of Well, we're still in it in many ways, but towards the end of the main part. It caught me on the tail, though, because I'd flown across the US at the time from. Connecticut to San Diego, and I was off to some meetings. Except that I tested positive. I didn't feel great on the plane, and then I tested positive immediately, and so I basically just had to spend 10 days in a hotel room. Oh, gutting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I let myself go out for half an hour a day to go find some takeaway food?
Speaker 2:Did you have access to the correct clothes? I did Perfect that turned. Those were healthy.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:There were no signs. There were no signs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and after that little trip I definitely knew what my future looked like, and it wasn't how my past had been at all.
Speaker 2:So do you think the pandemic had any influence on you coming out? Because, like me, because and I think a lot of people that came out during the pandemic, they Because everything shut down and they weren't going out and they were forced to stay indoors. It forced them to look inwardly and also then they had more opportunity to explore. Yes, Did you think that's something that might have happened with you or did it have the opposite effect in you? I know I want to go out, it just held me back.
Speaker 3:I mean, my insight was still in flux, yeah, but yes, if I had been able to then immediately connect with the community rather than gradually have it build up. I mean, social media made the difference in the end. But yes, the lockdown just Is this this might be what's going to, and then no, everything's on hold.
Speaker 1:It's terribly frustrating, I think it ended up saving a lot of people from. It made it easier to socially transition because everything was on your own terms. Oh, yes, you weren't forced to come out at work or something.
Speaker 2:Yes, or make that leap you could, just Because you weren't going somewhere for the day, and then presenting it was the rise of working remotely, and I just had this image that all these people that were eggs before the pandemic getting online and the top half they're wearing a shirt and a tie and the bottom half they've got a mini skirt and tights because no one can see it.
Speaker 3:I was sort of undeclared to work for some time. It was sort of 50%, I mean, during the main pulse of the lockdown. I hadn't got there anyway. I wasn't actually properly beginning. I was realising myself but I hadn't told anyone. And then I feel like as people familiar with my bio will have seen from ages. Now it says I feel that I dissolved rather than cracking. There is no point where I can say oh, it was that.
Speaker 3:I thought I had realised that I was genderflute, that it was an aspect of my identity, but from my then understanding of what trans was, I didn't think I was trans because it didn't fit the cis presented version that's in the media I am wrong body and all that. I thought that gender dysphoria was knowing, since you were four, that you had a profound sense of being in the wrong body and I know some people do experience that but it wasn't my experience Because I didn't associate with that. I didn't think I was trans. I knew there was definitely something other. I knew that my identity was not straightforward and, yes, I thought I was genderflute. I thought I had a range of identity that I really, ideally, could do with expressing. However, I'd already been in a long-term relationship for a long time. The point that I realised this, and inevitably there is the fear, of course, but inevitably the feeling of trade-off as well, the idea that I wasn't trans, that it was only identity and that well, for the upheaval, and so thus not doing anything about it. And we actually came to an end, sort of holistically and mutually, and actually not so I am another divorced trans woman, but it's not actually because of the transition. We sort of come to an end.
Speaker 3:Naturally, we felt like we were complete and if separation was going to happen, I would go so far as to say that we're fortunate in the way that it happened and it's worked out and we really were better friends than we were spouses by the end of it. But it was then finding myself single. It was the question of well, I have the opportunity to think about what would I do with this fluidity? It's striking how quickly afterwards then, looking into the people's stories and following people on Twitter, discovered the actual, much broader and common experience of this variety of depersonalization and derealization and feeling like you're living through a plate of glass and feeling like you're disconnected from your, combined then with an interest in affinity and presenting to what was seemingly the opposite gender, and so, yes, it was probably only over about the course of six months that I realized, well, if I'm fluid, I want to flow in one direction and stay there, and then immediately interrupted by lockdown and things.
Speaker 3:And then we had a very fortunate lockdown experience of being able to work effectively from home and everyone in a house that was big enough to cope with everyone being home all the time. And it was a slow process of gradually then realizing no, so it's not just a compulsion for pink and Barbie dolls from the age of three that this disconnection from oneself and I once described it as it was like instances that something was happening and feeling like, oh, is this? If this thing that is happening to me were happening to me, I'd be feeling like this, but just, you know, as a remove.
Speaker 3:The process of coming out itself then was sort of a gradual process which reminds me was was sent me off in this direction, and so I kind of consider the starting point to be July 20, no end of June 21. Because that was the first time then going out with friends, endeavoring to present in the way that I wanted to and slowly building up from then. So, told family that needed telling directly. I felt like me detailing directly. I mean, you know it's, it's, it's a question of how things are working individually, but for me I told the ones I felt like me detailing directly in August 21.
Speaker 3:And my parents were up and because they live near Edinburgh and they still live near Manchester, where I'm from, and telling the children and telling, telling the ex, and it all went very well and I've been very fortunate. It was funny telling the children because my daughter was 14 at that point and she pretty much went yes, I knew it. And my son, who is as smart eight or nine at that point, says, ok, can we watch Ninjago now? So it's, it's been. I've been very, very fortunate with how it's gone. Yeah, I really I feel like, apart from, apart from taking so long to realize and apart from, you know, as a lot of us have to, funding as much of it as we can while we wait, and I've really had a transition experience that Most people should have.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you a couple of questions. I'll ask a couple of questions about what. What you just said. You know, you said you didn't have the cisgender and a perspective of what you thought being trans was. But did you always know that you were different? Was there always a little feeling? Yes, because in my experience, I think that's the, the trans understanding of what it feels like to be trans. Yes, you don't know, you haven't, you haven't got the words to put on it, you haven't got a label for it.
Speaker 2:But you just know some things off. And sort of how long had you felt that? Because I knew when I was six that I wasn't the same as everybody else.
Speaker 3:Um, I can remember, um, yeah, I can think about the same. I can remember instances in terms of Sort of thinking about where, remembering where I was when I was thinking, what I was thinking, and it certainly sort of Mid primary school, idly daydreaming of situations where I could present the other way. And um, definitely definitely sort of primary school, definitely pre-pubility, still can't sort of put a finger on um, where or on when, but it's definitely of that sort of Um, yeah, but you said you you didn't experience the classic dysphoria.
Speaker 2:But once you Identified yourself as trans, did you then get dysphoria? Yes once, once you knew and had yeah yeah, had a label for it.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah yeah, dysphoric experiences was the, for me was the, the depersonalization, the separation from separation. For myself, and looking back, I can definitely appreciate the sort of the, the low level, uh, background, discomfort, um, in in many situations then that were in terms of sort of traditional male presentation, I suppose. I suppose partly as the realization and the, the, the, the determination then to transition, sort of unlocks Something in that it's the well, it's no longer, it's no longer hopeless, it's um, it's something, something discordant then that you might actually be able to change, which Makes it more difficult to put out with, because it's something that maybe you could do something about instead of just being oh well, it's just Just what.
Speaker 1:I'm stuck with that as a theme coming up, haven't we? Yeah, once, once you can kind of put your finger on it once you've identified it. Yes name for it. You have the ability to look it up and start hearing. Yes, those experiences, then it's very difficult to ignore yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's also one. Once he's got a name, it's Very difficult not to do anything about it. Yeah, it's fine, you can live your life when you don't know, but once you know, it's like, oh, this is gonna become, he becomes unbearable, yeah, yeah. So getting back to that first night out yes, how was that? Were you nervous? Was it euphoric? How did it go? Where did you go?
Speaker 3:It was. It was really good Um.
Speaker 2:How much? How much were you presenting, if you, if you looked back on that night now, from where?
Speaker 1:you are.
Speaker 2:Would you make you go? Oh, what was I thinking. Or would you go? Oh, I looked cute.
Speaker 3:Um.
Speaker 2:I've definitely. I want to stand it because I look, I look back at early pictures of myself and I'm thinking, oh my god, what did I look like.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I look at the night, I look at photos of the night that we met and I'm just what did you even see?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I look, I look back and think the same thing, You're just lucky, you've got a winning person. That's all I could have said. Oh no, have we burnt that velvet top? I gave it away.
Speaker 1:Good, yeah, yeah, they went to charity.
Speaker 3:Crushed, crushed velvet top yeah yeah, thankfully didn't crush or she's got huge tracks of personality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3:first night it was, yeah, it was really good. Um. Funnily enough, the the, the process of, of really of starting to actually do something about it has ended up with the uh. Through a conversation with with one of my friends who's an incredibly cis guy and um he was. He was tweeting um trans supportive stuff on on twitter and uh, it led me to queries Do you have an interest in this?
Speaker 3:Out, I've been up because I do, and um Uh, as that his, his only interest in it is that he's genuinely a very good ally. Is um genuinely a tremendous and Well intentioned and well resulted cis ally? So, yes, he's um incensed by the unfairness of the situation that we find ourselves in and um oh sort of very much focused on the, the well-being of people. He's um really great and he was already relatively well connected to a number of uh, the number of aspects of the queer community, and you need usually well um first of all, if, if you want, if you want to go out anywhere, and you know I'll, I'll be your ally for that, and you need community. I know people to introduce you to too, and so we ended up going to um restaurant in Glasgow and um meeting up with and um meeting up with uh, uh, uh, a lovely uh and and be that he already knew who's who's then continued to be a friend since and um, it was quite a secure and um, low stress uh, first night because I I felt it was it was endeavoring to present completely Felt really good at the time.
Speaker 3:I can certainly see how far I've come since um, um, uh, but you know, I felt very secure in the people that I was going to, the two people I was going to have dinner with momentously normal um, which is something that has struck me about the, the journey a number of times is oh my god, this is happening, this, I'm actually doing this, and everything's completely normal. Um, momentously normal and um, that uh, yeah, then that's so. The journey began in earnest from then and um, so that was. That was the very end of June 21 and um started then also meeting uh, uh, so meeting the first uh trans woman that I met in real life as well, in August 21, and um, uh, starting with gender GP. So I was referred to the NHS um in August 21, august 21, and, remarkably, I have actually now just been seen this last week A speedy 26 months. Congratulations, it's um 26.
Speaker 1:No that, that is quite speedy.
Speaker 3:I mean it's it's disappointing that the bar is so low that I can go. Yes, only 26 months, um, but only 26 months, um. So, um, it's with Edinburgh GIC that the general sort of mood Around them previously was that they tended to be one of the quicker ones. Um, but I was still. I was expecting it to be 2024.
Speaker 3:I mean, and that was that was sort of pre-pandemic anyway. So, uh, I really I thought it was going to be august 24 before I got heard from them, rather than september, october 23. I'm out of the team, get seen as a senior.
Speaker 1:That's their motto. We welcome you cutters walking frame one and all have you spent time thinking about this?
Speaker 3:um, so that had the first appointment on monday and um it was. It was actually, it was really good. Um, I had heard good things About Edinburgh GIC, about the experience of it once, once people finally got to see them. Uh, I had heard good feedback so far of the, of the, the people that you know, our general cohort of Recent years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So how was it? Did they Take into account the fact that you'd already started your transition, or did they? Because I've heard stories of people going oh you know, I've been out and transitioning for five years and I had my first appointment and they literally took it back to the beginning and had to do the dysphoria diagnosis again and ignore, ignore the hormones because I've been DIYing, so they, you know they put we're gonna drop you down and build you on the the classic path has started on the.
Speaker 3:They um, uh, no, they were, they were. Uh, it's sort of practical about it and, um, understanding you know that they, they needed to, they needed to take notes on history because it needed to be logged into the nhs system because, um, there was, there was a, a zero interview to start off with in september, which was a remote one, with just Hello, sorry, you've been waiting, um is, are all the details correct? And, uh, what have you been doing in the meantime? Uh, so, this person, person, um, as the actual proper first interview, and you do have to have a diagnosis, because that's what then unlocks the, the process within the nhs. They have to have that box ticked. But, uh, but yeah, they were as they should be.
Speaker 3:It's like, yes, you've been with these people to see you're on hormones. We can, uh, we will check your levels now so that we've got it in the, in our system. Um, but have you been tested of the levels? The levels have been good. What methods have you been on? So so, yes, they did, they did everything. Well, they did everything the way you would hope. So the server, the immediate services that I can draw from them, doesn't really make much change.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, what services did I that I offer you then? So the the voice coaching do they offer?
Speaker 3:Yes, so there was taking on taking on the HRT prescription and the monitoring through the local gp Um, because I've I've just been been buying the HRT um as a prior prescription and and then that, yeah, they can, they can provide the voice coaching and her removal. Um, I'm looking at, I'm considering I'm pursuing lower surgery Myself because you know the the actual, the wait time For that would still be a lot longer than, yeah, I can arrange myself.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm and because the the NHS uh route to lower surgery, uh requiring the two, two site letters which then each have their own waiting list. So Wait for one psychiatrist, wait for another psychiatrist, wait to see the surgeon, wait for any hair removal assessment Feels necessary and then to get done. So yeah, yeah. I'm coming to the conclusion. I couldn't wait that long, so I'll continue to pursue that Avenue myself, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you mentioned surgery, which is an. What surgeries have you had, if any? We all know, because we've followed you on Twitter. We all know you've had surgeries. But just just just for the uninformed.
Speaker 3:Last year, just coming up on one year, I Went for f of s it wasn't. For fuck's sake, sorry for our assist list facial feminization surgery.
Speaker 1:I'm an Isation surgery? Yeah, and yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have my foot, fucks sake in.
Speaker 3:If that was going to, if a fucks sake was going to refer to any surgery, surely it would be lower.
Speaker 1:Oh Nice, because ffs can mean many different things. Can you describe what it was for you?
Speaker 3:overall. I was, I was on HRT and I was definitely getting positive changes there, but I felt I felt quite discordant with with my face, with with how your face changes, with to test, toaster, test toaster own puberty, that the brow accumulates more, more bone doesn't change back, it's even if, even if the actual dimensions are very small, just the fact that that shape is there and the flattening of the top of the shape of the brows and Various trends in the nose and and the Adam's Attable.
Speaker 3:I must acknowledge I was quite fortunate in that I had, I was in a position where individual aspects was still within the cis female range. But you know, it's what's the whole package is together of brow and nose and things that I had experienced and so I didn't in in my case. Um, yeah, did that include the drawer as well? Yeah, for the listeners, obviously, a lot of people commonly find that that also the draw, the jaw gets Deeper and then that is something that they they love to reduce. So I was. It became something that that I really wanted to do and could see the, the, the benefits that it brought to other people and the joy that, the joy that it brought to them, the results that they were getting as well. Because you know, inevitably this sort of well Can it, can it really work with me? And you would occasionally see a An account through through the social media again, where somebody was doing a little bit of research, the social media again, where somebody says I'm going to get this, I'm going to do this. And you see them it's like why, why are you doing this? And then you see the results and, oh no, they, they still did gain. And so, yes, so I was looking, looking into it and Was able to do it with t-change in Buenos Aires In oct, in october 22, which was a, which was a really great experience. Uh, funnily enough, the thing that, the thing that freaked my parents out I mean that they they don't know what the process is I haven't told people what the process was, but the thing that freaked my parents out about it because, no, I can understand why you would want to do something like this the thing that freaked them out was the concept that it was in Argentina, which is a much better functioning country than a lot of people in britain think. Um, I probably wouldn't have looked into them, but I'd been to argentina for work and found that I really liked the place and found what it was really like. And, um, I did speak to morbea, but I I knew that I wasn't going to be in a position to procure their services and, uh, I was as leaning leaning towards brighton and um, who also have really great word of mouth and it was just chance.
Speaker 3:It was a the other trans experience of a discord channel of somebody posting well, I'm I'm looking at dr Rossi in um, buenos Aires, and posting their details and, um, their, their galleries were. Obviously everyone's galleries are going to be encouraging, but their galleries looked good and um, they were. They were coming in very cost effective, such that you know, I would have been suspicious. But I looked at loads of reviews and, um, they, they were all good. Um, there's one negative one, which is somebody who's negative about everybody. They seem to have had a particular personal um, oh, presumably mental health issues that, um that they had been to mexico, they'd been to Buenos Aires, they'd been to facial time team and they were, um, really complaining hugely strongly about all of them. Um, and that was the only negative one I could find. Maybe about 30 percent of the people didn't like his bedside manner, but even they were still pleased with his results.
Speaker 1:Did you think this person complaining would had just unrealistic expectations? Because yes, right you can't show a photo of someone that's different to you and say make me. Yes, Like yeah yes, and so it doesn't work that way. All they can do is remove what testosterone did.
Speaker 2:Speaking of expectations how did, how did you? What kind of expectations were you hoping to get out of it? Did they sit down with you beforehand, give you some idea of how it might turn out, or they're a bit like their, their approach.
Speaker 3:Certainly that I experienced. I mean, I I guess, yeah, I guess probably one could go to them with a explicit aesthetic request to say what can be done. But overall their, their approach, and it's the ones I was looking for, as just as you describe. It's just Take away what testosterone has accumulated, as as as we can and uh sort of it does feel like it's revealing. It felt like it was revealing my face that had been hidden behind the testosterone.
Speaker 2:Hmm, that's your experience as well, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was yeah, exactly that's.
Speaker 3:We'll find, you'll find what's there and it's very much because I wanted, did very much want to still still look like me and, um, yeah, I'm. It's worked out Just just in the way that I'd hoped. I feel like, I feel my results are quite natural and, um, I still, I've reached the point where I look, I look like siblings, and you know the before and after pictures, um, even the yeah post after starting transition, but before surgery, I, I look like siblings and, yes, I feel that's, for for me, I feel that's the sort of Effect, the sort of journey that I, I wanted.
Speaker 3:By that I don't mean I don't mean anything against people who want a more extreme processor, who want a more pronounced look, but for myself, that's what I was looking for and, um, I'm so glad that I did it. It's been such a positive experience and, um, such a sense of security.
Speaker 1:And your journey is, you know, publicly available through twitter yes. Your timeline, yes. Lots of photos, yes, and um.
Speaker 3:Ever took photos in the before times Phone's Right none of us do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I hated them. No one does. And now it's selfie heaven all the time.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I have found myself um, becoming um, becoming involved in performance, which kind of kind of crept up on me and um. I had previously done like science talks, sort of popular science type level talks and things, and I have I've liked doing public speaking, um and uh. So one of the things that I wanted to do, once I realized who I was and where I was going, was as fun, I just realized I've got the t-shirt on um. I had heard in the before times of girls rock school in Edinburgh, which is a, a free, fundraising supported workshop that runs for six weeks, sort of three times a year in Edinburgh, and it's focused on Trying to. The idea is to try and encourage the formation of more bands that are not cis male led, and so, though, are, through the six weeks, you can go and you can opt to do drums or bass, or guitar or vocals, and, uh, the beginning of the six weeks, those, uh, those groups are sequential through the evening and then on the last one, it's like everyone's together, you, you and you Play together, and everyone's been learning the same three, the same two songs. So there's there's that to do, and the jam at the end was was really good, but it was.
Speaker 3:It was a little bit um, watching the video it's quite chaotic. Um, I, I got lost. I couldn't hear myself. I did vocals. I opted to do vocals. Really, the obvious thing would have been drums, because I'm always compulsively drumming on everything, but it was just because I'd been looking at, because I'd been looking at voice training and really, well, I can, I can match a note, so maybe, maybe I can sing, and so that led me to do the, the vocals, and um Was able to put together a A bit of a, a bit of a band with another couple of people that have been through it at the same time for the showcase that the the rock school always has, a showcase sort of two or three months afterwards, um, which fortunately came after ffs and it was just, it was such a, such a good experience.
Speaker 3:It took a little while then to get around to doing something myself again afterwards just what's gonna happen, what I'm going to do and started in July, singing um, singing a cabaret and then running three nights at the fringe with my own cabaret, with uh three, three friends who are all local, who were proper performers. When we started the fringe I had four minutes experience. They had actual experience. Um, oh, you're now. I've got three hours, four minutes experience.
Speaker 3:Um, well, a little bit more, because you do that um so um With the with the fringe so I was hosting, which meant that I was doing stand-up and I hadn't quite realized I was doing stuff. It crapped up on me and, um, we had, uh, we had a drag king, we had, um, comedy, comedy, poetry. We had a, uh, individual, really excellent individual socialist singer with the guitar, and they're, they're um, I'm I'm sure we're going to hear a lot more of them. They're really good, and so for, for my bit, I was doing you the same song again, which is Amanda Palmer's Vegemite, which is a wonderful song. It flows Like a, like a normal ballad, but it's about, uh, how we fit together so well, everything's so great. So how can you like Vegemite? And then, about how, how bad Vegemite is, do you like Vegemite? It tastes of sadness, it tastes of batteries, it tastes of asses. One of the funny things was singing that in a queer venue meant that the the ass is.
Speaker 1:Then, instead of a noise of disgust, um can you, can you please compare Vegemite to mama? There is no comparison.
Speaker 3:There must be one, even if it's the song, the song, does the song, the song, um, that that's why she's so traumatized about, about Vegemite, is that? Well, when, when she was six years old, the, the babysitter, made her eat an entire spoonful of marmite, which is just like Vegemite, except it's even grosser. And, um, they may beat it by telling it was chocolate fudge, so I had to swallow the whole thing. So I swallowed the whole thing and I had to run to the bathroom and throw up, and it traumatized me and I'm sorry I got so emotional because there's a rant in the middle of the song. It's great, um and um. We had a, we had a group song, uh, that we'd written, which was about the, the moment of fear and trepidation. When, um, someone you like starts trending, it's called dead or problematic. And then, um, I, I, I myself reinvented victor borg's phonetic punctuation and um Phonetic. So go on, go on, go on. So those go on. For those unfamiliar with the routine, and Because I'm slightly older, within the community, queer community, essentially it's everybody.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, it's Victor borg, come on, I mean. Yes, there's an age cut off, I think.
Speaker 3:He had a.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I'm too young to get this reference.
Speaker 3:He has a a number of, a number of really ingenious musical and word based routines that he then Reproduced word for word, including the ablibs, for a couple of decades. Um, so one of his was phonetic punctuation and we we Wanted to redo it, didn't want to copy it, so we created a new, new text for it. But it is that, um, when we speak, we're not necessarily clear about the understanding always, whereas when, when we communicate through writing, we have punctuation marks. So it's the concept of let us introduce punctuation marks into our speech so that we can make sure that the meaning is clear. Um, we have the comma, the full stop and the full stop, of course, lets us put together more advanced punctuation, such as the exclamation mark, the question mark, which is a little bit more challenging, and of course the ellipsis and it's it's just, it's, it's lovely, silly and um, and most of the audience haven't heard of it before.
Speaker 3:So I did. I didn't lay claim to it, but people were saying that's great. How did you come up with that? Um? But when our three shows were done, I discovered that I really, really would have wanted more than just three shows Seeing other things in the French. You need audience participation. I'm there. Give me more, um, so.
Speaker 1:Um, so you knew this was your passion, but perhaps not how bigger passion it was.
Speaker 2:Did you, did you feel the draw towards the arts in the before times? Did you have any inkling that?
Speaker 3:I I endeavored to write stories, or is this new, new?
Speaker 2:new ground since transition. I can, yeah, I can certainly see that it's.
Speaker 3:It's partly what I liked about the Science presentations and the public speaking was was actually just getting to show off Um.
Speaker 2:But did you think now, now that you're happy with your appearance and who you are, that you're happy for other people to see that? And this is this, this is this is something you never would have considered before.
Speaker 3:When something so fundamental that has seemed an impossible dream is actually realized, I guess it makes you more willing to consider the other things are possible too.
Speaker 1:You had a similar experience. In the transformation that occurs, it's not a change in personality, for example. It's actually letting something out that was always with you. The release.
Speaker 2:I think yeah, because when I was younger I was always the center of attention, cracking jokes and whatever. And then I think I went through my teens and then it was like oh, I don't want people to see me anymore and so faded into the background. And now it's like someone's colored me back in and it's like hi, it's so good.
Speaker 3:It's interesting how Before I didn't have any confidence. Yeah, the trans people seem to end up then doing something, gaining some creative outlets or some sort of performance outlets post-transition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we truly become ourselves.
Speaker 2:If you ask around, why not know him?
Speaker 1:There's no trans arts, no trans creativity, no movies, no music, no.
Speaker 3:You might end up doing a podcast or something. Well, you might do Go imagine that.
Speaker 2:That would be great, wouldn't it Nice, I could never imagine myself doing a podcast. No, no.
Speaker 1:No, maybe we can work up to it Baby steps. So did you notice a change in acceptance at work, jumping all the way across?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's been great. I maybe mishandled it a little bit. How? So? I was undeclared for a long time. Partly it was 50% it's 2022. I don't have to say anything and 50% being scared, of course. So I was up to a year of HRT Over the 15 months that I'd been involved with the place. It had started off when they were still in lockdown measures, and I'm doing design engineering, so as a contractor, so I do a lot from home and I would only need to be in if I actually having to deal with real hardware.
Speaker 2:Is that a very male dominated environment?
Speaker 3:It is yes, yes, overall the company is reasonably mixed, but certainly the directly with the hardware side is, then is very male dominated. But it also meant that I was always just in an overalls and I've always been off the bottom of the normal overall scale, so they're always baggy, and so, yes, I was infrequently in completely shapeless clothes, and it was coming up to Buenos Aires and I thought, the way people know that I'm going to be away. If somebody asked so where are you going to go, what are you going away for? Well, and then I would tell them and I was also contracting for another company at the same time and that worked yeah, well, I am actually transitioning and I'm going for this surgery, the only in the main job.
Speaker 3:However, the only time somebody said so where are you going, it was at the end of a meeting and immediately a whole group of people turned up standing at the front of the meeting room sharing it at all, because we were late and they wanted the meeting and I just couldn't do it at that moment of probably about 20 people of between the two meetings. So I just, I'm just, I'm going to Argentina and they actually that's the company that I've worked in Argentina for in the past. So they, I think they probably just thought it was related to the power stations. So I arrived back a month later, post FFS, still recognizable but different, and came in in in a bra, in a blouse, so my figure was visible, my boots were visible, I had a different face and didn't say anything.
Speaker 2:You didn't officially announce your your coming. You didn't have an official coming out.
Speaker 3:You just know well people just carry down as normal. Really, as you would hope in that situation. It's an open plan. It's an open plan hot desking office. I had been trying to avoid the office bit and previously and discovered that I'd ended up picking a seat next to the the loudest mouse person, the person that, if there was going to be anything, that was who I expected, and they just they were having a bad time with the project that they were working on and they just came, you know, and just went into a typical sort of frustration with work. Don't know why you keep coming back to this place. It's, like, you know, a typical frustration with work, grants and, again, just completely, completely normal. And I did email afterwards and said I probably should have said something beforehand. But this has happened and thanks everyone for being well, it wasn't, it was only to the people that I was working for. Thanks, thanks to people for being normal. And, yeah, there's there's a little bit of habitual. He's just because I've I've worked with this, this place, since 2008. And so some people have known me for quite a long time. So it's there's, there's definitely habitual. There's. There's no, there's no malicious misgendering. There's the occasional habitual one.
Speaker 3:And I ended up working. I ended up doing some site work at the beginning of the year, which was six weeks at a power station, or night shift, which is the biggest job that they do. It's safety inspections. So when the power station is being refueled and serviced, all these critical bits get inspected. So there's a team of maybe 60, 70 people over day shift and night shift and I was doing night shift technical supports there was. There were only two women on the night shift and there was only two women on the day shift out of this this big team and there was not the slightest problem. Everyone was using she, her, say, a cat pot from the occasional one, from people that have known me for a long time, and I was. I was quite confident overall in the team, but there's like there's a fair number of leery Glasgow lads that, while I didn't expect any prejudice from, I thought there might have been some, some banter, there was none. All these people just went straight over to she, her and I don't call it banter, I I call it.
Speaker 2:I see, I call it trance.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Transulated banter. That only I can get away with saying.
Speaker 1:Right. Can you have an example handy?
Speaker 2:Not really, but it pops up at work. My friend at work is just like oh great.
Speaker 3:You can say that, but I couldn't possibly.
Speaker 2:Nobody else could say it to me, but I could, because because I, I could, I can say it. Yeah, yeah, I called it. I called it trance.
Speaker 1:So we jumped from your performing and you know that passion that I imagine you think about far more than your actual yes, it's.
Speaker 3:I'm curious to see how things are going to end up, because I was always I was previously always looking for creative fulfillment in in work and in innovation there, and I I would have for a long time. What I wanted to do was to have have like a start up built around my own inventions or something, and I ended up working for three years in launch vehicles in essentially as a startup, because I actually started in rocket engines, satellite launch vehicles, reactors and rockets. I feel like I'm carrying out my engineering career in the 50s and so really being in a kind in theoretically senior position in a satellite launch vehicle startup should have been the absolute ideal, the apogee. And yes, indeed, I do feel that transition is like that. Actually, it's like suborbital space, Like it takes a lot of energy to spend a few minutes past the Carmen line to start off with, and then you get better and better and you spend more time up at that until eventually, at some point you achieve orbital velocity and are always there.
Speaker 1:Oh, but not geo stationary. We move around too much. Yes, you always like you say, if you still yeah.
Speaker 2:It's harder to hit a moving target.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it, that's why.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, so it should have been. It should have been the ideal, and launch vehicle companies tend to fold. They haven't. They're doing very well, yeah.
Speaker 3:And my thought at the beginning was oh well, I know the investors now I can always see about my, I can see about my wave energy device as a startup, and I rapidly discovered that I'm not suited to anything corporate or management. I struggle to manage myself. So that sort of thing that I would have thought I would have wanted to do, it just doesn't fit. I'm waiting, I'm awaiting assessment for ADHD Another neurodivision, trans and, remarkably interestingly, I've managed to get into the GIC quicker than I've been able to get ADHD assessment.
Speaker 3:What I didn't see, that one coming With transition. So I, I, I got to the point of being sick of, sick of what I was doing. I didn't want to be, and it was coincidental then that actually I left them to go and do this contracting back with the company that I had been working with before, very much as just as a bill paying, bill paying venture. Yeah, get money as efficiently as possible with us, as you know, without it being a vocation, and I am conscious that it may be that the, the, the transition, is the project, because I was always. I always had something that I was thinking, I was working towards and never actually getting there. So human powered airplane projects and trying to interest people in electric vehicles, startup and wave energy generator and innovations in robotics and Ah, instead of working on yourself.
Speaker 3:Yes, and actually in practice, I think because of the ADHD, they never went in it. None of it ever happened. I continued working as an employee and getting good results as an employee, but none of that stuff actually ever came off and I just I haven't thought in that way since. Yeah, and I don't know if it's that the transition is the project and that once I I know that's the question of does it ever finish? But we do get to a point of stability later on, yeah, so maybe I will think that way again Once I get to that point. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, I was told the other day that my transition was finished by someone at my GPS. Yeah my practice manager.
Speaker 3:Congratulations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're done transitioning, I feel like there should be cake yeah. Oh, bless you yeah. It is that simple you just transition and you're done. Yes, nothing else to do. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you have any advice you'd like to share with a say, freshly cracked egg.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, yes, I mean I haven't heard the most recent interview yet, which I really looking forward to hearing, but I heard Mayors and I would definitely reiterate what she said about community. Oh, you mean our podcast?
Speaker 1:Yes, oh yes.
Speaker 3:Oh yay, this lovely new podcast I can recommend. Yeah, yeah, so definitely the community and, as we found in our peculiar period of time of coming out, it was such a lot of it for me was Twitter, but it was still community. It was still what unlocked the insight, because then it was a route to other people's descriptions and stories. I was trans by Twitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so community, ideally real community in person it's definitely better, but the online communities are hugely important and while probably easier to access, because now you're a freshly cracked egg community is definitely to begin lacking a bit of confidence.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, you know what? Yeah, we haven't offered this, but if anyone out there is listening who wants a little boost into the trans Twitter community, dm us and we'll do it Absolutely At two damp trans.
Speaker 3:The other thing I would say from a trans woman perspective is get your brows done so, community and brows Like such a difference yeah. Because you're ordinary to the difference the eyebrows make, possibly a fringe, depending on how you're feeling about it. The first I guess you two have experienced the same just the first feminine haircut was an extraordinary experience and really a sudden change of visual and the brows they're subtler, but the eyebrows definitely almost as significant as the haircut, even before HRT and things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've fond memories of my first haircut. I actually had it done in Brighton. Yeah, I don't know if you did this thing, but I was so worried about going to a hair salon and you know them thinking, man, get out, you don't belong here. I kind of had a pretty woman experience in one of the local ones. I did my research online and everyone was saying, oh great, they're brilliant.
Speaker 2:So I didn't want to just book it online because I didn't want to turn up and them see me and go. Oh sorry, we don't cut men's hair in here. So I tried to make the appointment at the shop and I went in and I knew they had appointments that day because I checked online. But I just wanted to sort of say that I'm trans and I want to friendly stuff, yes. And I went in there and I said, can I make an appointment for Saturday? And she's like I don't know, we just look after, giving me like, looking me up and down and tapping on a keyboard. I'm sorry, we don't have anything for that day. And it was a little bit like when Jude Roberts goes into the shop and a pretty woman you don't, because you've probably not seen it, you're social.
Speaker 2:You were pop culture stunted speebie over there, but it's proving, thanks to your importance here. Every time I walk past that shop. Now I want to go back in there and go. You know what? A couple of years ago I wanted to get my hair cut. You said no Big mistake, Huge, I just spent £130. I just spent £130 having my hair done in a one down the road. Yeah, so my first one was actually in Brighton. If you want sympathetic stylists who are going to treat you like any other woman, then go to Brighton.
Speaker 3:I posted on one of the queer apps to say can anyone recommend anywhere in Edinburgh? And everyone said the same one, and so I called up. Just because some people may know, I'm curly, working with my curls has been part of my transition in itself and I think it's probably a descriptor a lot of people would use about curly. So I called up to say who would be the person to see about curly hair and they said, oh, this person. I arrived to discover that they were also a trans woman. So that was lovely and that was just chance, and so I've been to her since and can have moved salon with her as well, and because it was just being such a such a lovely experience and she's great.
Speaker 3:And what was really wild that week actually was I was not out to that was August 21. That was this. Told had told my, told my children had not yet been able to catch my parents in person to tell them. So some friends knew I got invited out by some friends from the launch vehicle company. We're going to something in the. We're going to see something in the fringe. Would you like to come along as? Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3:And so this this meant nominally going back to boy mode for the first time after the haircut, but I still had. I had red nails and this, this haircut, quite similar to how it's it's looking currently, and the thing that we ended up growing to see was the Ladyboys of Bangkok. So that was particularly surreal, that, of all things, to be needing to go out as a guy going to see. And, funnily enough, the, the, the main friend of that group that I'd been working with the previous three years then messaged the following day and said so can we expect any? Can we expect any changes from you? And so then they're the only person who specifically guessed and asked about me, and it's with the hair and nails that I was an otherwise in sort of the typical black trousers and going out at night shirt, and it's like maybe this person's on a journey.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I am.
Speaker 1:I get Victor Victoria vibes yeah.
Speaker 3:But looking, looking back, you know it's. I remember I remember one of the other Twitter accounts, sort of the year year ahead of me, so the previous year had been posting how's my boy mode and you'd look at the pictures and think what boy mode. And I realized I was. I'd reached that same point Happened quite a lot. Yeah, before, although I hadn't told work it's. You know, there's a few hundred people in the building. I think the people that knew me before were oblivious, just because always tended to have longer hair for some reason, and I think everyone that didn't know me just thought I was a woman in overalls. I think I think my boy mode had a long broken it, just I didn't see it. It's like I didn't pass to me but I was to other people.
Speaker 2:I think being trans is different. You know if you're gay or queer and you come out yes or you choose not to come out. It makes no difference to anybody, but I think as trans people, we come out more for ourselves, so we're letting people know, this is who I am, so you should treat me this way now. Yeah, yeah, it's not that I need to tell you, but I'm telling you this so that you so if you're going to be a decent person.
Speaker 1:You know how to treat me, and that'd be really nice, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically yeah.
Speaker 1:And a surprising number of people online don't want to do that, but that's not reflective of the real world.
Speaker 2:I really isn't.
Speaker 1:Thankfully, we should probably start wrapping this up.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:You always have a question that you ask.
Speaker 2:I do. I think in time on a tradition. Just have what in Colombo style actually, just one more question. Oh no, on the spot. Any regrets?
Speaker 3:from transition, Just the typical, Just wish I'd done it sooner. I mean, I didn't understand I couldn't have done so. Yeah, I have the sort of slight cognitive dissonance of transparent everywhere that you know could only, could only go back so far and still have the people in my life that I do. But yes, I, I really wish that I had been able to do it sooner. There's certainly this this role is about 10 years that I could have done it sooner and it's still want to end on that. It's sort of constant, not constantly, often, often dealing with the grief of the missed time.
Speaker 2:However, to build up again, it's the existential grief, bring it back up again To transition.
Speaker 3:Of course, life could have been easier to have just been say one way or another, but I do feel like it in itself is such a. It's such a, it's such a, it's such a, it's such a remarkable journey and it's really, it's a great experience. The only problem, the only problem with being trans is other people, the actual the. The transness itself is actually good, because we have lots of things available now to mitigate the discordance that we find. So, yes, yes, to have experienced both sides.
Speaker 1:And we experience a richer journey too. I can't imagine what it would be like. I can. I know that just beings this would likely all else being yes it also just seems such a boring one.
Speaker 2:It does kind of. You know, all three of us have sampled that and all three of us are going. Ah, not for me. You know, I want something a little bit more fruity.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yes, yeah, I mean it's. It's sweet and sour, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. A rich tapestry of flavors, tapestry and metaphors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, well, I have one final question, one final one.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Will the world be seeing your fringe at the fringe next year?
Speaker 3:I'm not entirely sure what it will be as yet. I definitely want to do more, and I'm also pursuing some of the comedy aspects as well as some of the music, so I might there's a chance that I might be might be in more than one thing, so I hope it's great.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, I think, I think the world needs to see more of Robin. I think it does. Yeah. Well, robin, thank you so much for being on the Joy Tuck Club. It's been a true pleasure, and an honor Sure, and an honor to and a privilege and a privilege to it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me on. It's been lovely to speak to you, as ever.
Speaker 1:Well, and I feel that lots of people are going to get a lot from having heard your story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that my final word?
Speaker 1:That one is.
Speaker 2:Nope, no, that one Nope. Yeah yeah, that one. Okay, there we are. Thank you, robin. Thanks, all right. Thanks for something you.
