I am now legally Claire Jenny Rice. I signed my deed poll yesterday (witnessed by my good friend Jay). "Tim" has been consigned to history.
So this was my first week at work and I feel it went very well. There's only one chap I've noticed not make any effort to call me Claire. Whether this is deliberate or he's just thick I don't know and I don't care - it amounts to the same thing. However, I shan't be getting argy with him as I feel that would be counterproductive (unless he did something more obviously transphobic) and am just hoping peer pressure will get to him and he'll follow suit like the rest of them.
So one tiny fly in the ointment then. A far better result than I feared! :-)
On Thursday I went to Rhyl to get my haircut by the wonderful and wonderfully talented Penny. Up to now I'd just been growing it and letting it do it's own thing because I didn't really have much of a clue what I wanted to do with it. However, I asked my friends and had a good search on Google and came up with some ideas. Penny wasn't so sure it'd work with the hair I've got so she handed me a few hairstyle magazines when I got to Rhyl and I found a couple more styles I liked. With all that information Penny had an idea of the kind of thing I wanted and then set about personalising my hair to suit my face and my personality and I have to say she totally hit the nail on the head! I love it! In fact the last couple of days I've been getting a wee bit emotional every time I look in the mirror - I finally look like the woman I always felt I was! And this is what it looks like (with the fabulous Penny beside me)...
After my haircut I stayed for the Unique meeting that was being held at the same place. We had a talk from someone doing research for hate crimes which lead to a 'heated debate'.
I also met a young lady there who was recently outed by The Daily (Hate) Mail and has subsequently been the subject of the oik known as Richard Littlejohn's column in the same rag as well as finding herself on the website for the National Front! Now considering she's a copper you can imagine the danger she's now been put in because of some stupid newspaper (if you can call it that!) thinking it's OK to out someone just because they're a transsexual! So, if you can all do me a favour and boycott The Daily (Hate) Mail for the rest of it's existence I'd be extremely grateful!
On Friday I had my fourth session of laser on my beard area. This time she started on my top lip (the most sensitive area!) which made me wonder what I'd done to upset her!! Lol!
However, I am really happy with the results and so must she be as she doesn't want to see me for five weeks (instead of the usual four) when she previously said at the initial consultation it wouldn't be until the sixth session before she started to reassess things.
On Saturday I went to Transforum again (with Jay and Gwen giving me a most welcome lift in their car) where we had lectures on the new equality legislation - which doesn't seem to be worth the paper it's printed on! It's so woolly you just know it's gonna get used and abused by all kinds of unscrupulous people!
Afterwards we went to the Shang Hai for their all-you-can-eat buffet as usual but, whether it was just because it was quieter than usual or I don't know what, they brought out a lot more food to our table than usual - which made the buffet almost superfluous! :-)
So, coming up to date, today I have done the weekly shopping by myself again as John just does not have the energy at the moment. Still, I did have a nice brave soldier type chap collecting for the Heroes charity help me pack which was most welcome! :-)
But John did have the energy to cook some Chilli for tea. :-)
