English Eccentrics

I'm on the bus home. I spy a man - it's not apparent at first he's a man, only when he speaks with a quite deep voice, because he's wearing a floral summer dress, pink birkenstocks, bright pink nail polish, carrying a bag with pink polka dots, a pink plastic bangle and pink plastic watch, white framed sunglasses a la Paris Hilton, and with long blonde hair streaked with Krazy Colour pink.

So there are trannies in London, I hear you say - tell us not old news. What is more unusual is that sitting across the aisle from him are his companions - a blonde woman in her early forties, and a little blond boy of about 7. The little boy, with total unself-consciousness, calls him dad. He is much more interested and excited about his new Sonic the Hedghog game than the fact that his dad is wearing a frock. Apart from the odd curious glance, nobody on the bus bats an eye.

Hurrah for the English!


In fact, this reminded me of one of my colleagues in my old job, whose boyfriend of 10 years confessed that he'd been having negative feelings about his, um, manhood... that he'd been thinking about it for some time, and that henceforth, he'd like to be addressed as Mary. As Mary, he applied for the big op through the NHS and was successful. He started taking hormones and began dressing as a woman in everyday life while he was on the waiting list.

I met Mary once when we all went to see the Buena Vista Social Club at the South Bank, and was intrigued to see that she modelled her whole self as a woman on her girlfriend, same facial expressions, mannerisms, laugh and all... it was somewhat eerie, like they were twins.

What is amazing is that my colleague, we'll call her Amanda, stuck by him (her?) 'It's still the same person that I love' she said. I thought she was truly amazing, a person in a million. Can you imagine if your other half came home and told you they wanted to change sex? Would you say 'It's alright darling, whatever you want - as long as you're happy'? Or would you run for the hills?

It also brought up interesting questions of sexual orientation - Amanda wasn't gay but her boyfriend's change of gender made her lesbian by default. When we were out for drinks one evening, someone braver at work than me asked 'Are you still having sex?' 'Oh yes,' she said.

Still, it came as no surprise when I'd left that place, I heard that Amanda had found a new boyfriend, and got married shortly afterwards. It was maybe a bit too much to ask of someone else.