25 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 06

Future me here *waves* It’s incredibly funny reading this diary entry right now in December of 2020. Cycles … everything goes in cycles. This diary entry, about my visit to The Laurels Gender Identity Clinic, was mainly about me dealing with the emotions of separating from my Mum; I had just moved in with her and than back out within only a handful of months.

I walked out in December 2015, and it wouldn’t be until 2019 that I’d see her again … I actually reconnected with Mum after she appeared in a serious of Lucid Dreams. When we got talking again, it turned out she had just started reading a book called Magic, all about manifesting your dreams, and she had been asking the Universe for me to return into her life! 

We both needed time apart to find ourselves. It’s now December 2020 and guess what? We’re planning to move in with each other in 2021. I’ve been going back and forth about it for months now, it both feels right, and not so right lol Something is saying to do it though, only time will tell if it’s the right thing to do I guess.

*end of future me*

Twenty minutes early, sat on the train to The Laurels Gender Identity Clinic with only one other person in the carriage; I can hear him rustling away, he can probably hear me scribbling this diary entry down :) I’ve just finished work and realised I’ve forgotten to hand the keys back. Doh! I’ll have to drop them off later tonight. It’s currently 11:10, train leaves in fifteen minutes. I’m going to see my gender therapist at 2pm, than I’m going to my first non-binary support group at 4.

No idea what to expect at that group session, wonder how it will compare to my first Transgender Support Group visit? I’m going to write a little intro about who I am, as last time I didn’t plan anything to say and so want to make sure this time is different. The truth is, It’s been a funny few weeks. Engines are running! I’ve done a lot of thinking lately … The quote my gender therapist said at my last gender therapist visit, “Sophie’s time will come!” has kept playing in my head. It’s allowed me to find a new clarity, but it’s been very sad.

I realise I can’t do both. I can’t follow my art dream and have all the Sophie time taking Modelling Photos I want. I had to admit to myself that one needed to take a backseat. My Art is too important. Art has allowed me to achieve so much. I wouldn’t even have accepted Sophie without Art. Sophie plays into my art, and it does feel like dedicating myself to studying, practicing and producing art is the right thing to do.

Sophie isn’t going anywhere. She’s coming along for the ride with me. I’ve accepted her now and so her taking a backseat simply means I can focus. It’s the same as someone who has two hobbies. You can do both at once, but you can’t truly take either to their true potential if you have split focus.

Balance.

This is the key. This is what I’ve struggled with for years. I thought acceptance would solve it and allow me to find the balance. It seemed to make it worse at first, I need both to be in sync and I had let the pendulum swing too much in Sophies direction, losing sight of my art dreams.

Sacrifice is needed.

I’m looking forward to talking to my gender therapist today and seeing who turns up at the non-binary group.

Session over.

I’m sat outside now, waiting for the non-binary group to start in fifteen minutes. That was a strange one. We spoke about how confusing it is having Sophie in my life. How sometimes I don’t even feel like Kevin or Sophie, but someone, something, else. She mentioned tri-gender … I’m beginning to not care about what I am anymore. I am what I am. I don’t need labels, it’s all about the feeling. That was the best thing to come out of that session today.

I don’t care what I am :)

The rest of the session was spent talking about my Mum. There’s a lot of pain inside still. I feel I’m suppressing some of it… in fact, a lot of it. I said about how Christmas is coming up and how I feel uncomfortable at the thought of not seeing Mum over Christmas. I’ve visited Mum every year on Christmas day, so this year will be strange. My gender therapist said I must watch my thinking, that I mustn’t put all my attention on Mum at the expense of me.

“This is your path,” she said.

I know I can move on from Mum, it’s just so out of character for me. There are parts of me still trying to make me go back to helping her … but I said to my gender therapist, I can feel that once I’ve moved my stuff out, I’ll be able to move on. It’s been emotional this past few months, but I’ve learnt so much and it will be worth the suffering.

I told her about some of my future art related dreams. Until now I’d only shared them with my Sister, but one of them is to start up a Transgender Life Drawing class. She said she would put flyers up in the clinic to advertise it. This is an idea I’ve had for a while, but it’s only since I focused on my art again that I really sat down and started to process the idea of doing it. The more I think about it, the more it becomes something I must do. This will lead to me meeting Transgender models, who could become the subjects of future paintings. Sophie herself could even become a model at the life drawing class. Who knows where it could lead!

I have no idea where to start, or even when I will start, but I know at some point I’ll get this up and running. I’m excited but terrified. I remember a quote, “If you’re dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”

I have ways to channel my femininity within my art. Bringing it all together in a beautiful way, it’s just going to take time. I also told her about my plans for a little manga inspired web comic based around the adventures of lilSOPHiE and her pet cat Kevy. It’ll be a transgender related adventure with lots of humour, and overflowing with femininity. Having accepted Sophie I have more freedom to do what I want, and not hide anything anymore. Sophie’s a big part of my life and will forever be in my art.

My long term goal remains the same, to be the best artist I can and bring Sophie and femininity to life via paintings. All of this needs dedicated focus and time. For now though, my gender therapist made me realise it’s ok to move on with my life and not have to feel guilty about my Mum. I did everything I could to help her.

Let it be.

Being non-binary, transgender, or whatever you want to call me, is like them dolls you get. You open one and there’s another one inside, layers. Layers upon layers of complexity. One day I may get to the center layer, the center doll. She’ll probably be a trans doll, but you have no idea what the future holds, or what the next layer may be. I just know I’m going to give it everything I’ve got and adapt to whatever obstacles get thrown my way.

My gender therapist also said something that made us both smile “NO ONE’S EVER GOING TO ACCUSE YOU OF NOT THINKING ENOUGH KEVIN :)” *I was living as Kevin when she said this, but Sophie is just the same as Kevin … always thinking :)*

I’m a thinker, I like being inside my head, sometimes I find myself thinking about the fact that I’m thinking lol I realise though that I sometimes think too much, so I have to be self aware of this and keep the thinking under control, but her saying that made us both laugh!

The fact is, to some extent I feel like I’ve lost my Mum. This hurts, especially when you consider she was the first person I ever told about being transgender. Everything happens for a reason I guess. I truly believe that. Maybe my Mum’s actions have given me the greatest gift of all. When I moved in with my Mum, I moved in believing we would help each other. Maybe we have, just not in the ways I expected.

I live in hope that Mum will one day help herself, she is the only one who can. Looking at it though, she has helped me. So thank you Mum.

Visit seven took place on 5th February 2016 and was the ‘let’s talk about Anime‘ visit