about me

Totally self serving blog today.

I've entered a comp to win a holiday to Ireland.

Only problem is ,it needs votes. I had a quick look a the first few pages of entries and there was only handfuls of votes, I think 21 was tops...then I looked at the leader board....I have to beat 327 votes somehow.

I don't have this many friends even on Facebook!

This couple is about 200 votes ahead of the next highest, they must be harassing friends, neighbors and all and sundry...........so I thought I'd give that a go,

Consider yourselves harassed and BEGGED .

Here is the link, if you have a spare 3 minutes PLEASE vote for Bernadette and Les.You need to signup to the websiet to vote but yu can leave the email box unticked so the leprechauns wont clog up your inbox. We don't deserve to go to Ireland any more than the next person...but it would be fun to win ...and dammit I want to beat someone who has 327 friends :)

here is the link http://www.romance.discoverireland.com/profile/2476/Browse.aspx

Thankyou !Thankyou!..if I win I'll send you a postcard ^.^

Whats a girl to do?

Being born with parts of anatomy that don't match the chemistry in your brain is not a personal choice, not only is there a public stigma but it seems a beaurocratic one as well.

As you know my daughter is a transgender girl. More than a year in now and it's a pleasure to see her so happy. What would make her happier though is to have the surgery to give her the rest of her female body, this doesn't even take into account that she has long had a medical problem that this surgery will end once and for all.

Herein lies the problem. Money. It costs at least $10,000 dollars to have the surgery presuming that some item numbers are covered by medicare.

It seems there is only one doctor in Australia at present ,Proffessor Bennet,who is capable of this surgery and has retired from the Public Hospital System.

He recently offered to do suregery on a young biological woman born without a vagina, but NSW health will not allow it.Apparantly she can go through Sydney Childrens hospital as a public patient but the doctors really don't have the expertise for this surgery.He has treated 130 girls in the past 5 years, the birthrate is 1 in 5000.

If this is the case for bilogical girls with genital problems, where does this leave the transgender community male or female?

There is a 2nd doctor,Ass. Proffessor Grover who is away o/s training and will not be back until 2011. Even if he operates in a pbulic hodpital there is still the high cost of surgery because of medicare and what is covered and what is not.

I cannot find statistics for transgender numbers , the statistics I did find are grim ,suicide 1 in 5. The turmoil this group of people go through is incredible.They are fighting what their society tells them they should be and look like, discrimination, ridicule, families who feel personally affronted.

Why is it so hard in our society for people to get their head around the fact that some peoples brain and body don't match. Especially men, I don't understand how they are threatened by this.There is not some secret enclave of transgender girls out to trick and shame them somehow and funnily enough the type of male that is so offended is the guy these girls never wanted to be let alone hook up with.

Discrimination for being transgender is illegal in Australia, but in day to day living and getting on, it doesn't seem to matter, try finding a job, accomodation , giving your female name out with a male sounding voice , the 2nd and 3rd looks etc.

There have been some wins in our story though, very early in transition, just after Chloe had changed her name,she had to go to Canberra hospital for surgery.I have to give Kudo's to them,they were so professional and understanding,no raised eyebrows ,funny looks,they addressed Chloe as Miss and used all the right pronouns,that put me to shame at the time...I was just learning, and it's soemthig I will always rembember.It was extrememly encouraging for both Chloe and I, esp considering the nature of her problem and how early in transition she was. Her employers have been excellent,one would wish all employers so enlightened.

But back to surgery. It is about time that in this country SRS surgery is covered in its entirety by Medicare. Just recently Young Bridget Clinch appeared on SN and Sunrise and highlighted this issue. Bridget is in the Aust Army and had to fight to have her surgery covered my medical , she fought them and won as she will be a good Captain male or female. Thats a very simplified sentence describing her journey as it is her story to tell, but Bridget does highlight that this surgery is free in the Defence Force and in the Prison system in Australia. And borrowing from Bridgets reasearch several other countries fund SRS the UK, Canada, Iran and Cuba.

Its about time Australia follow suit.

So this is my bandwagon, feel free to jump aboard, I've started letter writing to the Health Minster ,the PM etc If enough of us write and mention the Australian Human Rights Commission report 2009 's reccomendations for transgender ,then we might be able to force changes.

I must be getting shorter, it's taking me longer to jump down from my soapbox lol

We, being me ,Les and Gemma left home the day before our flight out as we live 5 hours from sydney and stayed at the formula1 in St Peters,Sydney.This is where Les grew up,so we took a snapshot of him outside the terrace house he grew up in.
We flew Pacific Blue as we got such a cheap flight, but ,it's a bit like going to Bali on a bus, not very comfortable and Les's back was screaming by the end of the flight,other than that uneventful and boring as you have to pay for entertainment but we arrived half an hour early.
We had booked the contraversial VIP service with worldsafarisbali and probably didn't need it, as being early ,we seemed to be between flights and it didnt seem as awful as last time. Getting off the plane on the tarmac and bussed to the terminal is a novelty, but it beats how it was 23 yrs ago when you had to walk across to what was a tin shed surrounded by machine gun weilding polisi.
We were to look for a person with a sign with our name on it once we got to the terminal, no sign, but we looked confused so they found us anyway. We were out in about 10 minutes into the sea of smiling dark faces and name cards. Again we had to find a card with our name on it and pay for the vip service........and..... I saw a card with our name and off we went....with the hotel driver. I completely forgot about the VIP people until a knock on the hotel door about 8pm that night........sooooo embarrassed and gave them the extra rp they asked for to cover petrol.

We stayed the whole 2 weeks at LumbungSari in Legian. Its a small quiet hotel, one of the older ones, it needs the rooms refurbished but we didn't care. Our requirememts were comfy bed, clean, airconditioned with a pool and to house all 3 of us on a budget as Miss Gemma was on a tighter budget than even we were . We did have intermittent hot water during the day and the foods not the best but the staff are lovely and I enjoyed it here just as much as the brand new All Seasons .It's very "Bali" in architecture and friendliness compared to the modern hotels where you could be pretty much anywhere in the world.
The first night we went to Goodies for dinner, its my favourite place for pizza. It was exactly the same as last year, frienly and great pizza. We decided to walk along the beach road home, and thus began the quest for vegemite for Gemma as we stepped into all the little supermarkets.
Every other step we took brought us another hawker, by the time Les got back to hotel he had half a dozen light up toys and a wallet that bursts into flames.
The quest for vegemite was like finding the holy grail.

We ate a lot of the time at the warung kartini, in three brothers lane,it doesn't look much decor wise, but the food is freshly cooked,yummy and cheaper than chip sandwiches at home!

We had a nice chicken curry at Je-Jes jsut at Padma Utara end of the lane, love their banana pancakes and a take away milkshake in a plastic bag is a hoot.good value for money and nice staff. wish they would bring back the music,to get the place busy again.


WE did the Rick Stein thing and went to IBUOKA.. well I can say I've done it.I found it too spicy to taste the pork really, but leaving our shoes in a pile with all the others and sitting on the floor was a novelty. Thing is after eating here, a few hours later hubby got sick, really really sick,vomiting, temp,runs etc. we both ate here,luck of the draw? its the only place out of the ordinary that we ate at,only one with out a "proper" kitchen and food out in the open up until that time.And you have to sit on the floor so you're using your hands on the floor, we do use the hand sanitiser....but... luckily we had some of those new specific for travellers belly antibiotics with us and he recovered in about 2 days.

We went out to the Beach Shack at Canguu, its lovely out there,pretty rice paddy scenery on the way.
We had arranged to meet a girl I went to school with from way back in 3rd class ,when she was the new kid. Her husband and 2 of her children were with her as well. It was absolutely amazing to catch up with her after all these years and it must be something about us Heathcote girls that we can just pick up where we left off and none of us seem to worry about who's got what. It's great.
We ate the tables just above the beach, shame we had cloud cover as the sunset would have been gorgeous.It was still pretty the little bit we had. The food was ok, nothing spectacular, but it was a great night until it rained.
Going back to Legian we had need to use their transport which is a set rate, it was 100,000rp back to legian.........funnily enough a faster trip back than getting there which cost us 85,000 after we got lost twice lol
.

We went to Pizza hut of all places but its so different to australia. we all really enjoyed the meal here and went back for takeaway lol pastas are scrummy, pizzas are very different esp the choice of crusts...i had one with chicken sticks,tasted better than it sounds. They also make nice mocktails and fruit smoothies.


why oh why do we not have JCO donuts in australia instead of donut king???? so light so fluffy, like fairy floss with icing lol i won't tell you how many i bought :O

In our room somehow the the bathroom door had locked from the inside we told the staff and they scratched their heads as you have to actually turn the lock to lock it,theres nothing loose that can just fall into place. So lots of balinese chatter and the boss sends 1 guy to have a look. Theres no gap where the door joins the wall so their first thought of knife or credit card didnt work. Are you sure theres no one in there?,they ask. nope.. all 3 of us here.
Another guy comes along. There is a brilliant idea to do the equivalent of the coathanger in the car door trick. The door itself is on the front right of the bathroom as you walk in....so walk in face left and about 13 feet away is the wall with the cement brick window up high. Theres two up on the ladder with a long pole which they poke through the window and wave about trying to open the lock. The door is 13 feet and to the right of the window away and a target of about 10cm. We're hearing chatter, cheers and dissapointed sighs...............2 hours later, they decide to take the frame off the door,which left a gap for them to slide the lock open, remove the lock and put on a new one which took about 15 minutes!
Enough entertainment ,we headed off to Mataharis........Caught a taxi to Mataharis.....who knew there were two? so we caught another Taxi to Mataharis...

Lots of shopping to be had here, DVD's clothes etc......helps if you don't leave the shopping in the tax and wave it goodbye! I lost 13 DVD's leaving the bag in the taxi.luckily they're only $1.20 each.

We went out to tahna lot, ubud, the safari park this trip, we saw these things last time, but it was great to show Gemma.

I hope Gemma had a great time, she said she did,even though it was with us oldies , she did get one night out at Apache for her 21st, came home tipsy on the obligatory motorbike taxi .

we had too much shopping and had to get my friend to post some things back for us.
flight back wa uneventful,boring, though they did give gemma whatever she wanted to eat for free as it was her birthday. long wait at the station for our train and finally home....long 24hr trip.





Things I noticed this trip :you can a get a cab down to the bottom of jn 66 to legian beach for those restraunts BUT try to get one back!!!! There are several there waiting all the time and they refuse to put the meter on and want anything from 50-100k to get you back to legian. We just walked till we found a blubird or jumped straight into one where someone else was getting out or just hoof it.

it rains when its not the rainy season lol

there is no vegemite in bali.......trust me, we looked!!!



Now saving for the next 2 yrs to get back again

Humanity?

This made me cry. The message this young womans brings is the same for ALL people who suffer from discrimination and ridicule.

ANYONE HAVE A ROOM????

When and how are young people going to be able to leave home in any major city and outskirts in Australia?

Anglicare Australia's, Kasy Chambers said rent more than 30 per cent of a person's limited income was generally regarded as not economical.



Students who have to leave home to study because they live in country towns, are severly disadvantaged.In Canberra, Room rental STARTS at $150pw ...thats a ROOM, not a bedsit or unit. A ROOM. It's usually room only, so they are at the mercy of the other sharers who may use more electricity or internet than them but have to pay an equal share.

Affordability =30% of income? On YA for students living away ,the over 18's get $480 a fortnight..that includes rent assisitance!!! 30% is approx $80 per week affordability for rent.... repeating my self here.....in Canberra a ROOM starts at $150 pw, room only, and they still have to pay utilities.

Because we live in a SMALL country village, rents are a bit cheaper, so my duaghter studies by distance.... so after her rent,phone, elect, and car payment...she has $60p/w left to buy food and petrol and anything she needs to replace like if her shoes wear out or, she needs a coat for winter etc.

The rent in the larger regional towns is still over $220 per week for a 2 brm house, this sounds so cheap compared to Sydney doesn't it? But, jobs are scarce and families susually have only one working so its stretching the affordability level. A student has no hope of renting a house in a largish town like Wagga or Orange that have smaller univeristies and larger tafes.

I don't know what the solution is. There is a commonwealth grant available to help with accomodation for uni students, but not for TAFE students. Perhaps any full time study should be eligable ofr an accomadation grant.

I blame negative gearing brought out in the '80s to minimise tax and encourage mum and dad investors, apparantly so everyone could have and afford an investment house. Well a few mum and dads have more than 40 houses, each collectiing rents to pay the increasing morgages from all the borrowing,while the rest of mum and dads struggle to pay the rising rents along with the students who starve so they can pay the rent and study the courses of their choice or talents.


Throw the disabled, mentally ill, disfigured , GLTG and single parents into the mix looking for affordable accomadation and that adds up to a lot of young people trying to get ahead by studying,that are living in poverty.

Just in Canberra alone the afffordability for students in non existant.
The rent for a tiny 1br unit starts at $290 per week. This is a city that has a large University and a large percentage of university students ,many from overseas,all looking for an affordable place to live............AND EAT!!!


Anglicare Australia's state and territory offices looked at advertisements for rental properties in newspapers this month.

The organisation's executive director Kasy Chambers said rent more than 30 per cent of a person's limited income was generally regarded as not economical.
The results of their in-house survey, released Friday, revealed there were virtually no homes listed that welfare recipients and single parents could reasonably afford.

On that basis, Anglicare found there was no affordable housing for Youth Allowance or Austudy beneficiaries in Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Tasmania.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1044135/homes-too-costly-for-welfare-recipients

Carlotta- He did it her way

He did it her way,that is the title of Carlotta's biography.I really enjoyed this read, her complete honesty is apparant behind her wicked sense of humour. The thing that made me laugh the hardest in whole book, was that she is such a glamour puss, she doesnt feel at home without a feather boa, so to speak,so, when she was cast on Beauty and the Beast as a panelist,she hated it as they made her look like a librarian.Funnily enough, to me she looked the best she ever had and I took her seriously as a woman. She hated it though, she lives to be on stage.

Carlotta was born Richard Byron sometime in the 50's....a girl never gives away her age.
In 1963 she began her career as an original member of the long-running Les Girls cabaret show, performed entirely by scantily clad and glam dressed males, which started in 1963 in the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross.She Eventually became the show's compare, which is how I saw her back in 1980 when I was 17.I can tell you there was no "political correctness" back then and Carlotta delighted in giving the homophobic a hard time.
She did put on a great show, we were all amazed...'where do they put it? etc It was all a bit of a giggle at ouryoung age.
I lived in a bubble,I had only just realised that lesbians and gays were real people the year before!
Ha! I was at the very first Mardi Gras in sydney in 1979.......only it was a New Years eve mardi gra and the gay and lesbian group had a protest march in the crowd...I didn't notice !!! People saY Hey your a 79'er... wow.......but really I didn't know anything about it!!!

I digress...back to Carlotta.
Sometime in 73 or 4..she can't remember(honestly???) She went to Hong Kong and came back with breast implants and it was widely reported she had a sex change while there but she hadn't. That happened in Australia.Carlotta was in fact one of the first three people to have gender affirming surgery performed in Australia. It was performed by a British surgeon at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. She was the only celebrity of the three and her story made huge headlines here. She paid just $5 for her op - for legal documents, waiving any right of compensation from the hospital should the op go awry. She signed,happily went under the knife, the op was a success, and she's never looked back.
Around this time there was an Asutralian Soap called Number 96 which was literally a shocker. It liked to shock the Asutralian asudience. I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid.It was set in a block of units and floowed the lives of the tennants. there as the gay guy, the first gay kiss, plenty of boobs and bums and Australias first full frontal female nude.inot this mix is the character of Arnold, mild-mannered and puny , oddly, young Arnold would be hit on by a stream of glam young women falling at his feet.Arnold's new romance was with a lovely blond showgirl Miss Robin Ross, played by a glamorous newcomer named Carolle Lea, Arnold was surprised to learn Robin had been born male and was a transsexual. At the time it was a daring and contraversial, they had secretly cast Carlotta in the role.
quotes from her bioraphy:
The joke was that Arnold fell in love with me without realising I was a man. He thought I was a genuine showgirl. I remember Abigail(another acress on the show..blonde...boobs and bum ) used to turn up to work in these baby doll nighties. She was always getting into trouble for being late, but she was so pretty"
“Number 96 was my first real acting job and I was petrified. What made it worse was they kept me locked up on set because my true identity was supposed to be a secret. Pat McDonald, who played Dorrie Evans, was wonderful. She would pick me up in the mornings and tell me to just be myself. The funniest scene from Number 96 was when they had me in the dressing room and my flatmate walked in and caught me shooting up with this hypodermic needle that must have been fourteen inches long. And she asked me if I was a drug addict and I said ‘No, I’m just injecting some hormones’. Which I thought was hysterical because the only hormones I ever took came in pill form.
“Eventually Arnold Feather asked Robin to get married so it was essential to the plot that I revealed that I was a tranny. The way they did it was for Arnold to put his hand up my dress and say ‘Miss Ross, I mean, Mister Ross’. It was quite scandalous for its time. As soon as that episode finished the phones didn’t stop ringing with people complaining.

“The original ending would have shocked them even more. It was planned that I would be in the bathtub when Arnold walked in so I stood up in surprise. They were going to film me from behind so you’d see Arnold having a look and then fainting. It would have been a better ending but you might have had half the viewers fainting as well. Fred Nile would have had a coronary.

“Because my identity had to be kept a secret they locked me in this very small dressing-room on set. I called it a cupboard, it was so small. When it was time to film one of my scenes they would order everyone out of the studio except the crew and the actors involved. At lunch breaks I would have my meals sent in to my room, while all the others went out to eat. It wasn’t exactly fun."
“Abigail once said that she thought I had better tits than she did, but hers were pretty damn good, and they were real. She had trouble relating to me as a man (this was before my sex change) so she always referred to me as a she.” Producer Bill Harmon had always insisted that Carlotta’s true identity be absolutely kept secret, to the extent that Carlotta’s contract specified she could not reveal her involvement with the show to anyone - not even her closest friends. TV Week reported that the day after the revelation that Robin was transgendered the switchboard at Channel Ten was jammed by amazed viewers wanting confirmation as to whether Robin’s portrayer was male or female."
Carlotta says she was pleased that the script was not in poor taste and did not ridicule “female impersonators”. “I was delighted when I saw how beautifully the writers handled it. Various ways of revealing my true identity were discussed. But the final outcome was that I would confess to Arnold - an ending I much prefer. Sadly even Number 96 was not ready for a transgendered character full time, and Robin made no returns to the story. “Although I love stage work I would really love to be given a chance as a serious actress. People like me are seldom given an opportunity to prove themselves on television and I think Number 96 has been a real breakthrough. I’m hoping now that other doors will open for me. I wouldn’t mind playing a female impersonator, but naturally I would prefer to play a straight female role.”

Carlotta returned to Les Girls and has been with the show in one form or another ever since. seh has made jsuest appearances on TV her most recent being a panelist on Beauty and the Beast.



I had this wrong, I thought Priscilla was inspired by Carlotta but its the other way around,her show continued in the Les Girls building until 1993, then,inspired by the film "Priscilla Queen of the Desert", they took the show on the road. The show is still touring, though I haven't seen anything on her website since Dec last year.

I must get her book and reread it now,with a new insight :)

Becoming Chloes Mum

10 months ago I had 3 kids,2 boys and a girl,now I have 2 girls and a boy.
It's been an interesting journey, one I didn't plan on ,yet here I am.
Here on blogger and in some forums I've been congratualted for being a great parent.If there was a medal though,I think I'd have to give it back. I don't feel like I've done anything extrodinary. I love my children. beginning. middle. end.

I told my kids they could tell me anything.I told my kids they could be anything. Those words came back to haunt me June last year. I had to put my money where my mouth is so to speak. Adn I did. gradually.
At first I did some ostrich mothering,head in the sand and changing the subject as if not listening would make it not real.My son was so excited by what he was about to embark on that it was all he could talk about and I went thrugh the motions for a little while,not really believing. Within a few months though, it was obvious that my son was living a lie and really meant to change his life to her life.

My child was one of the kids that overcompensate with maleness,so that no one would know,so by the time he decided to make the change, apart from long hair and a habit of shaving under his arms, he was very very male. Motorcycle, heavy metal male.
This made it very hard to understand,but inch by inch I got there. I now realise how unhappy my son was,Chloe is really happy,smiles and laughs and it's a joy to see.

The thing that made it extroadinarily hard for me is that I thought I had a very close relationship with all my kids. So..How could I not know? How could my son have been so very unhappy all these years, and I not know? It made me question myself as a mother and his dad had the same feelings as a father. These thoughts make me more sad than any thing else other than the death of my mum so I try not to go there to often.
I have said something I can't take back and that is that had I known when he was say 10 i would have taken him to a pshychiatrist. I've done much reading since then and understand that it is a medical problem not a psych one and just hope Chloe forgives me for that one.
It has been a fascinating journey watching a very male person change like a caterpillar to a butterfly into a young woman. the hormonal changes have softened her face,the laser hair removal has been amazing.My son had a 5 o'clock shadow at about 11am,very hairy!!! chloe has lovely skin and has just a little hair above her lip....an Italian hand me down...I have the same,so ahs her sister LOL
Her breasts are not growing quickly enough....a puberty lament lol and she has some dreadful weepy mood swings from the HRT. All the emotion of a 15 yr old girl...glad shes not living at home LOL
At 22 she is making her way into the world at full speed ahead. she was only on HRT about 6 weeks or so when she changed her name to Chloe legally, changed her licence, work and super details and started living full time as Chloe. Brave ,Brave Chloe, but it has gone well,work has been fantastic.Chloe has a growing circle of friends where my son was pretty much a loner.
Her biggest concern now is her voice which is still very manly and she gets very dissapointed if she's reffered to as Sir or Mr.
There have been some tricky moments. I was trying to help chloe get a room and was ringing around and explaining that chloe has a male voice and is in transition(some ppl adveritise for female boarders)Most ppl were great but one asian lady was ..no no no I do not want this ..I want a real girl!.Then there were the ones who answered the ad,which had explained everything but still when Chloe was asked for and she said in her male voice "thats me" she got hung up on.Most of the time she takes this all in stride,but every now and then it gets to her.

If you see someone you think perhaps used to be a guy,err on the side of caution and refer to her as Miss,don't stare obviously trying to figure it out,she is trying so hard to "pass",so make her day and say Miss :) I know it means the world to Chloe.

As I refered to before it hasnt been all peaches and cream. I was loathe to tell my husband that it was all systems go. He was very quiet, I didnt push and let him ask questions when he was ready and then he'd be quiet again for a while. He is now,and this has taken all 8 months, referring to his son as Chloe.For a long time he jsut thought his son was wearing dresses,he didnt get the whole change and the hormones.And then it clicked. He saw a couple of stories on the TV,listened to me read some of the forum posts. He is and advocate of the underdog and when he heard stories of discrimination and parents disowning thier kids he was angry. He has channelled this anger into acceptance and would be chloes biggest advocate if she was discriminated against or picked on,he'd be there. But... and thers a but.. i'm still not sure if he'd go to the movies or shopping with her just yet,he still seems frightened of telling his family as if it has somehow will make him look like a bad father. For fathers especially I think it is hard to get past a sense of wrongness. me, I wish I lived closer and could do more with chloe, I went to visit a few weeks ago and we went out to lunch with her girlfriend and her mum.It was a great day and I finally saw Chloe with out seeing my sons shadow. She is becoming a lovely young woman and i really wish her and Jess the best.

There is a lot more I could write,its where to start lol
perhaps I'll take questions and write about them one at a time.
If I can help anyone who is a parent or in transition in any way,ask away :)