Fair warning: this story doesn't end well. On Quora this week I came across the tragic story of Fred L. "Bubba" Copeland, the mayor of a small town in Alabama, in the United States. Copeland, 49, was a local businessman, the pastor of a small Baptist church, and was married with three children. Outwardly, he was a pillar of the community. Pillar of the community: Bubba Behind the scenes, things were somewhat different. Bubba led a secret life as a "transgender curvy girl" (his phrase). His fem name was Brittini Blaire Summerlin, and under this pseudonym she posted social media pi ..read more

For some time now I've been considering the subject of drag. I'm still not sure about the relationship between drag and trans. I've asked quite a lot of people, without coming to any firm conclusions. One thing is certain. Drag, as a form of entertainment, has really hit the big time, and become much more mainstream lately. I'm certain it's due, more or less completely, to RuPaul (which, I just discovered, is actually his birth name) and his various shows, which have become popular all around the world (even here in New Zealand). Condragulations! But my main discussion of drag will ne ..read more

You can think of this article as JK Rowling part 1.5 if you like, but it involves a significant digression which I thought deserved an article of its own. I've worked through the whole of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, and there's a lot to talk about. My initial thoughts about the podcast are this: Megan Phelps-Roper, the presenter, has an absolutely beautiful voice, which is a complete pleasure to listen to. Interestingly I had never heard JK Rowling's voice before I started listening to the podcast, and it wasn't quite the voice I expected. The podcast has a very American slant to it. It p ..read more

In a previous post I talked about some people whose behaviour is seriously not helping the cause of trans people. These are people whose antics and conduct are so unreasonable that they are creating a backlash of resentment which is making things worse for the rest of us. Aaaaaand I've come across some others. The first person I've heard about lately is Jessica Yaniv, a 35-year old Canadian transwoman, described on her Wikipedia page as a "transgender activist". Yaniv has been causing all sorts of trouble in British Columbia. Jessica: seriously?? The issue I first came across was hear ..read more

While it's still my intention with this blog to write articles exploring aspects of gender, I still want to write about my personal experiences in 2022, which seems to have been a watershed in my life as Vivienne. Let me take us back to 2012, when I posted this article, which was about trying to evaluate the place of crossdressing in my life. At that time I was married, closeted, and dreadfully miserable. The article contains this paragraph: Another symptom of need is that crossdressing haunts my dreams. These are frequent; at least once per week, and for the Freudians among you they are sim ..read more

It’s one of my favourite things to get an invitation where the person says “Vivienne is welcome too”. A few weeks ago I got an invitation to a friend’s birthday party. It was to be fancy dress, with a Prohibition theme. While I could use this article as an opportunity to show more pictures of myself (and I will!), there are actually other aspects to it which I’ve been reflecting on since. How do I look? As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t normally enjoy “dressing up”. It feels like pretending to be something I’m not, while dressing as Vivienne feels like doing something that I am. But t ..read more

In the last couple of weeks I've finally come out to all my children. This was a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Not because I didn't want to, but because there were significant obstacles in the way. Those of you who know me (and followers of this blog) will already know how much my ex-wife loathes cross-dressing, and how manipulative and obstructive she can be. Without going through all the exhausting and tedious details (and there are many!) I managed to navigate the worst of her obstacles and finally do the Big Reveal. Having been very careful in making this move has allowed sev ..read more

I've been collecting a few items of news, which aren't really worthy of a blog post all by themselves, but I have decided to put them together here. Ukraine Obviously, as much of the rest of the world is, I am appalled by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Zi Faámelu Before this invasion, I knew very little of Ukraine. On the other hand, I was surprised to find that if you rank my blog hits by country, Ukraine comes in 10th. This is almost three times higher than my own country, New Zealand! It won't come as a surprise that hits from Ukraine have all but disappeared since the start of the ..read more

Let me open this first post of 2022 by wishing all of you a very happy and productive New Year, and let me also hope that COVID-19, in whichever variant, doesn't interfere too much with your plans and your lifestyle. I came across a cartoon this week on my Facebook feed. It was drawn by Sophie Labelle at Serious Trans Vibes. She also has a Facebook feed called Assigned Male Comics. Some of her comics have been anthologised into printed volumes which are available from her website store in both English and French. According to the Wikipedia page, the comics have been produced since 2014, and ..read more

Since Christmas is fast approaching, every shop and radio station is playing Christmas songs all the time, and one which has always stood out for me is Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I'd always thought Rudolph had started life as a song, but Wikipedia says the story was originally written in verse for the Montgomery Ward chain of department stores in the US in 1939, and only became a song in 1949, popularised by Gene Autry. Rudolph leading the other eight Before Rudolph came along, the names of Santa's other reindeer had come from the familiar poem A Visit From St. Nicholas by Cle ..read more