Daily Discussion Thread: Sat 26 Aug 2023

Pretty decent and full day overall. l chilled with a US mate on discord early in the morning for a bit of a catch up and shit talk. My other US mate bailed on our online makeup session, so I had one attempt at doing a face, fucked up my mascara and eyeliner and got it off. My skin is so much better from never wearing make-up anyway. The mascara stayed on a bit and aggravated my eyes all day. I was going to get nicely dressed and presented for the trans fete Transgender Victoria held today, but it was so generally casual I'd have looked a little out of place anyway in a full face.

I met a new work colleague there, totally by surprise and that was great. She's just moved here and only speaks Spanish. She's moved here to live safely as a trans woman, just like I did and we share a lot in common with music taste, general positivity toward being trans and feminism. So we spent the day translating to each other, scored some new clothes and it turns out she also is a going to be a volunteer at the same place I am. She made a lot of connections. She ballsed up dinner plans because she confuses days of the week, but we hung out for hours waiting to go to dinner and became friends in the process. It's nice to meet someone who wants new friends because I do too. We'll be working together soon a lot so it was good to get comms happening and I so rarely have visitors it was just nice to have someone in the apartment to drink tea with, play with the cats and talk about clothes. Our boss is really trying to support her as well, so I'm only too happy to do so as well. I haven't felt so calm and secure that I'm on the right path for many years and it's like all my best personal characteristics are being utilised by those who are also really good people.

The Fete was a success, I did some work but it was great that I now know a bunch of people who are all proactively living their best lives as trans or gender diverse people and actively trying to make a lot of us live better and healthier. There's a whole other paragraph about sober living for trans people and the people I've met in recovery who were there but let's just say everyone is super damn wholesome. I got a lot of positive feedback about my contributions and the staff know they can count on me. I've been giving the option to potentially start helping with their advocacy work as well. It feels like the best activism I've ever lent myself to and I'm so glad to have the time to do it properly without deadlines per se or money constraints to limit the amount of time I can spend on it if I feel it's warranted. It's devoid of the anger I associated with a lot of activism I did in the past, often rightly so of course. It's just a different approach, a bit more intelligent than what I'm used to and aimed at higher levels, less grass roots. I have an inkling that maybe activism in general has matured a lot.

Its good to make another journal entry and thanks everyone for being positive here about my constant references to my gender transition, it's really important to have these positive stories because almost all we hear in the media is about the few people who hate us and the response to it.