Mx.D.P

Gender dysphoria is a funny old thing. You never know when it’s going to come and f*ck with you!

When I first came out as non-binary I had mixed reactions from those I care about. I think most queer folks experience that when they come out. The overwhelming take was, well you are the same it’s just the label that’s changed.

Well that’s not really true. If you are reading this and you are queer you will know that and have a little giggle to yourself and say err noooo it’s not really like that!

You see once the constraints of heteronormative labelling are removed all bets are off…

Everything changes. My husband asked how I should address me, am I still a wife? My kids said you will always be mother to me… and so the box is open and you are allowed out but you are not yet free to be you. Not that anyone wants to ‘keep’ you in your box, but the familiarity of a foundation of safety has the potential to shift.

I said no, of course that won’t change… but everything does…

My daughter for my 60th wanted to get a tattoo of a star with the word Mum in it. During the early years of the walk-in shop every other tattoo request that came in was ‘stars’ they are by their very nature a bad choice for a tattoo because they have straight lines and nothing on a human body is straight and if it is it won’t be soon…

Eventually, when folks came in I would say, ‘sorry we have run out of stars, how about something else?’ Sometimes they would have something else and sometime they would leave confused…

My daughter said wouldn’t it be funny if I tattooed this mum star on her and put next to it:

The Last Star

Lots of truths have been told over Christmas and I’m sure you will have those moments too…

But for me I realised I had never been a Mother, I couldn’t fulfil that task because I wasn’t a woman and I have never been very womanly or motherly… my son had brought me this book:

I have parented, but I haven’t mothered…

My mother used to say you have done a job at parenting if your kids forgive you… she also said that as a parent you should do it your way, that the parenting experience is for you, not your kids, they will think you have f*cked it up any way, so crack on and you can have a laugh when they try to do better…

Smart woman my mother…