I've been wondering just what to write about for almost two weeks now, life just seems to be so normal now, even though I'm doing things that I never used to do. My transitioning seems to have activated a bit of an activist streak in me, I joine LGBT Labour nearly a year ago just before presenting full time en femme. LGBT Labour is not part of the UK Labour Party, but supports and advises the Labour Party on LGBT issues, and policy contents. A couple of months ago I joined the Labour Party proper too, my wife was already a member. Last week we attended our Local Constituency Labour Party meeting, we had both feared that we wouldn't enjoy it, but much to our surprise we did and we found that there were others out there that shared our particular views. On Tuesday this week I went along to the West Midlands local office of my Union, the General, Municipal and Boilermakers Union (GMB), they had invited members along with friends and families to a film night, I took my close trans friend Sharon along with me. There was a very friendly welcome from all who attended and to our surprise there were snacks, beer, wine and soft drinks supplied by the Union.

We settled watching the film called "Pride", for those of you who haven't seen this Brit film, it's set in the 1980's when our miners went out on a prolonged strike, and were opposed by the Thatcher led Tory (Conservative) Government, a group of lesbian and gay people in London, had the idea of supporting the miners and started collecting for them, they had to overcome the normal hostilities from the miners, toward non white straight people then prevalent in UK society. They eventully achieved this and long lasting friendships were made between a south Welsh mining village and the group of gays and lesbians from London. Eventually after the strike had ended the south Welsh miners turned out en-masse in support of the 1985 London Gay Pride event. Their union the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), massively helped gay rights to be adopted by the Labour Party soon afterwards.

So in the UK, LGBT rights can be traced back to the events shown in the film, and interestingly to me, when I first joined LGBT Labour I was told that it had evolved from being called Lesbians and Gays in Support of the Miners. The film ending was quite emotional, my friend cried and my eye watered - yes just the one! LoL. I am proud to be a member of LGBT Labour, and the next big challenge is to get full equality within same sex marriage, for trans people such as myself, who were (and remain) married when in their cis gender to a member of the opposite gender e.g. a man to a woman. Presently in the UK if I want to get a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which changes my birth certificate from male to female, I'd first have to divorce my wife and then re-marry once I have the GRC. An absolutely typical British legal system balls - up, straight out of an cormy old black and white Ealing comedy film.............If you don't push, shout and fight for something, you won't get it, that's history, and that's Pride!

Anyway enough of my democratic socialist politics!, I'm off with my wife tomorrow for my Step-Son's graduation from Sheffield University, he's now a Master of Engineering with Honours (MENG (hons)), I now call him Meng the Merciless, which is how he behaved when fooling around and playing practical jokes, as he grew up, not that I was any saint either, but that's another story....................

Cheers all,

Eve