You Don't Live Like I Do

Bit of a diary catch up here. Before last weekend, on Thursday 21st August, I spotted an advert for Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 matches in Manchester. I looked this up at home and learned that there were two matches that Saturday 23rd at the Salford Community Stadium near the Trafford Centre - Australia vs Samoa, and Wales vs Scotland. I knew that cosmolinguist, angelofthenorth and P would all be interested, so after work on Friday I tried to make the logistics work. I finally got everyone to agree a plan... and found out that the tickets were no longer on sale! I swore a lot and went to bed, grumpy.

On Saturday morning, the tickets were back on sale. It was too late to make the first match so we watched it on iPlayer instead. It was a drubbing for Samoa and probably wouldn't have been much fun anyway. Once it was over, I drove our gang over to the stadium. There were a couple of logistical snags but nothing that stopped us getting to our seats. I've not watched a sporting match in a stadium before, and it was good fun to be part of the crowd and watch the game up close. For £25 each we got decent seats near the centre line, which was very reasonable for international sport. We were yelling support for Wales, and behind us were a group of Scottish fans, but we never felt threatened or intimidated. Sadly Scotland rather handily beat Wales at the actual rugby, but it was an exciting match all the way and it was good to lean into the energy.

Not something I'd do all the time, but definitely a good experience.

This weekend was Trans Pride Manchester. I'd been looking forward to this for a while - it's a very different occasion from the big corporate Manchester Pride, and there's something very cool about thousands of trans and nonbinary people (plus supporters like me) marching around Manchester. It's a low-budget affair, lots of home-made banners and placards. This year cosmolinguist and I were marching with Not A Phase, who organise the trans gym sessions. The idea of marching as a bloc fell apart pretty much before we left the rally area, but there were still a bunch of relevant T-shirts scattered throughout the parade. P was there with roller derby people, and I gave her a little flag I'd made at Queer Club for her to wave.

Before the march started, there were some good speeches, including from both the outgoing and new directors of Trans Pride Manchester. There's been a changing of the guard at the top, which is a good thing - the old crew did their best but were swamped by the commitment and weren't great at either seeking or accepting more volunteer help. I'm hoping that under new leadership the event will go from strength to strength (and they'll put the events on the website rather than locked behind an Instagram login, and I'll actually get chased up when I volunteer to steward the march!)

Much like last year, fascists happened to pick the same weekend to have their own little shindig in the city centre. On an organising group, somebody from the Socialist Worker's Party was claiming that Trans Pride Manchester should cancel itself and everyone should go join the SWP (Stand Up To Racism being an SWP front) protest against the fascists. And if we didn't, and went to Trans Pride instead, then we were enabling fascism which made us fascists ourselves. This is the kind of bonkers nonsense the SWP usually come out with, but I intended to go from the end of the Trans Pride march to a non-SWP counter-demo anyway. So the message on my placard was "No TERF, No fash, No SWP, Trans Rights" in coloured bubble lettering. Lots of people commented positively on my placard, particularly the "No SWP" bit. They're not actually popular among the communities they claim to represent; just well funded and obsessive.

The march itself was good fun. Positive vibes all around, friendly faces from trans gym, Queer Club, UTAW and other places. The vibes were excellent. My favourite chant was "We're here, we're mad, we're gonna trans your Dad." I'd planned to meet up with a couple of the young queerlings I know from the Internet but neither of them managed to make it and were terribly apologetic. At the end of the march we sat and chatted with friends in Vimto Park, before heading up to Piccadilly Gardens. By the time we got there, we couldn't see any fascists or counter-protesters. So instead we went for a drink with a friend at Mala in the Northern Quarter. Turns out that the fash had marched off to St Peter's Square which is why we missed them. The drink, food and associated chatter was lovely, but I was soon flagging and we had evening plans, so we headed back towards the bus stop.

On the way back through Piccadilly Gardens about half a dozen fash had returned and several of them approached me on seeing my sign, asking to interview me for their shitty fascist YouTube channels. I'm pretty good at being boring, and I didn't rise to their bait or give them any "content". Some other people had come over to make sure I was OK and they said they appreciated the way I handled the fascists. Sadly the buses were screwed up and it took us a long time to get home, and we were both too tired to go out to the trans show at Contact we'd planned. Still, it was a good day!

The next day, I saw pictures of the fascist march. A smaller group, all waving the same flags, looking miserable and practically outnumbered by their police escort. Of course they got all the press coverage again. But we had the better day, the better cause, and the better lives.

This weekend, me and cosmolinguist went to Goths on a Field 2025. Long-time readers will remember last year, my first GOAF, where I drank too much and spoiled the weekend for myself. This time I had an emotional support boyfriend with me, and it was in the middle of a heatwave so the prospect of drinking lots didn't appeal anyway.

This year I was a bit more prepared than last, or so I thought... ( length )

It's a weird little event but it's great fun. It was good to see people, and to banish some of the ghosts of the year before.

Tonight, me and V went to the People's History Museum for Solidarity Forever: 40 Years of Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners. We got there in time to see the original LGSM banner in the second floor exhibition hall, and to tour the pop-up exhibition of artefacts from the archives.

The main draw of the evening was Mike Jackson and Jonathan Blake, two of the original LGSM activists, doing a Q&A on stage. They set the background by talking about conditions for gay men in London in the 80s, and the founding of LGSM. There were anecdotes about skint LGSM activists entertaining striking miners in London, including Richard Coles playing piano at the then-new London Gay & Lesbian Centre for a sing along; a gay pub put on a vegetarian buffet but the miners got fish and chips because they thought it'd just be lettuce leaves!

There was an interesting discussion about the difference between solidarity and charity. LGSM were oppressed queers raising money for oppressed miners, but they integrated into each other's lives and built friendships which have lasted for decades, rather than being in a position of power over them and just handing over money with no personal involvement. And when the miners' strikes ended, the miners continue to support queer people at the TUC and Labour conferences, using the National Union of Miners bloc- vote to support LGBT rights, which is why Labour started supporting these issues (some 5 years after the Liberals).

There was a lot of ahistorical praise for Labour here. Civil Partnerships didn't happen because the UK finally got a Labour Government in 1997. It happened many years after, when that Government fought and lost a case in the European Court of Human Rights. Having previously rejected a Lib Dem private member's bill for French style civil unions, Labour introduced the bare minimum "separate and kind of equal" civil partnerships required to comply with the court judgement.

It's important that we get this history right. Same with the Gender Recognition Act. Same with serving in the UK military. Happened under Labour because the Government lost cases in ECHR. No Government in the UK has been on our side without the pressure of the courts and the public. If we want to stop the UK backsliding on LGBT+ rights, and maybe even make some forward progress, we need to build that support. We need to create the bandwagons that political parties can jump on.

There was really interesting discussion about where to draw hard lines and where you allow yourself to be flexible to build partnerships and solidarity in activism. No hard answers other than listening and going with your gut. But it was great to see these two old cis gay guys utterly committed to trans rights.

There was final question about disability representation and exclusion in LGBTQ+ spaces. It's been a problem for decades, because the people with the money don't listen. The final summing up was by new PHM director Clare Barlow. It's the museum's first major exhibition since she took over and she's thrilled it's about solidarity, class and queerness.

The local Queer Club had their Halloween party last night. They meet in an old library - it's a big room, and they have an air filter, so it's relatively low risk activity. I've been once or twice before and had a nice time - there's usually enough structure that it doesn't feel awkward. The Queer Club had a "costumes optional but welcome" thing on their party flier, and I've not dressed up for Halloween since I was at Uni. I always end up over-thinking it and not managing to do something that lives up to my expectations, or to get around to organising things. I've been planning to do a really good Hellboy cosplay for about 20 years now...

So I thought about doing something deliberately low-key and mediocre - getting one of the boxes out of the loft from when we moved house, and making a robot costume out of it. This is a proper five year old kid level of costume, so I picked up some cheap poster paints from B&M for decoration. I happened to crack open a large cardboard box full of Diet Coke cans, which I could repurpose as a helmet. As it happens, work was too busy (or rather, I slacked too much earlier in the week) to even decorate as minimally as I had planned and I ended up largely scribbling with a few markers. Also, I got down two boxes in case I messed one up, and cosmolinguist claimed the other for his own robot outfit. He put more effort into decoration than me, as I was focussed on putting enough sellotape on the cardboard shoulder "straps" to make sure the outfits didn't collapse around us.

About half the people at Queer Club had dressed up, mostly as various characters from film etc. One of the club hosts was dressed up as Section 28, having literally printed out the relevant legislative clause in really big text on a A1-sized board around his neck. Our robot costumes were well received, and I added "beep/boop" to the pronouns on our name stickers. About halfway through the evening I took the costume off, because I couldn't sit down and I was getting too hot. We mingled and chatted and snacked.

Just as we were about to leave, the organisers called for a group photo so we put our costumes back on for that... then they reminded us that the flier had also talked about a prize for best costume, and E won for his better-decorated robot! All in all, it was a good evening. I felt good about the costumes - about having actually done something, however imperfectly.

Last Saturday, I went to Trans Pride Manchester for the second time. With the far right protesting in the city centre, I wanted to be there to help protect my trans friends, if only by being tall and huge at potential troublemakers. So I got on the bus with cosmolinguist who was heading to the gym. A few stops later, some student-age young queers got on with their mobility aids and trans flags and we made eye contact and nodded. There were also half a dozen middle-aged ladies speaking some Southern European language too fast for me to identify it; their leader asked me in halting English if I knew how to get to Oxford Road station and I promised I'd tell them when to get off the bus.

The bus was just about level with the Manchester Aquatics Centre when the driver got a phone call and stopped the bus to take it. After a long conversation, he announced to us passengers that bus routes through the city centre had been suspended due to the presence of the fash, and we'd have to get off and walk into town. We were about a mile short of my intended stop, and between the delays and extra walking there was no way that E would make the gym, so he decided to come along with me.

The middle-aged ladies and the baby queers didn't know how to get where they were going from where they were; we were going to the same place as the latter and it took us past the former's destination, so I ended up leading an odd convoy! It turns out that the ladies were from Spain and were escaping the heatwave in Barcelona by coming to Britain; they were headed to Liverpool for the day. They asked me why the bus had stopped, and I simply replied "fascists". It's a usefully international word in that regard. When they got to the station their leader kissed me on both cheeks, wished me "Adios" and "Gracias", and they filed off up the station approach.

We escorted the baby queers to Castlefield for the start of the march. We avoided St Peter's Square where there was some kind of noisy demo, and instead took part of the march route, backwards. It was their first Pride-type event and they were excited. They found their friends, we sat on the grass in the shade and relaxed among hundreds of trans people and allies, recognising a few faces and saying our hellos here and there. We listened to speeches and poetry, fierce and angry and proud. Just as the march was starting off, we met up with some friends as planned, and the four of us walked together. The march was great - no trouble, lots of chants, good signs, seemingly lots of support from passers by and even the motorists we were holding up. The route kept us away from the city centre so there was little chance of running into the far-right. However at one point the stewards forgot the changed route and started marching towards Piccadilly Gardens, before doubling back on themselves and heading down into the Village. This was great because it meant that people on the march got to see other people on the march. And also because it happened right by a Yates pub, where a bunch of fash who couldn't get served in Piccadilly Wetherspoons had ended up, so they got to see even more of the happy, weird queers marching past them, chanting and waving banners.

We ended up walking through the Village and into Vimto Park on the old UMIST campus on Sackville Street. Originally we'd planned to picnic there but it was clearly too crowded. We ended up in the beer garden at Yes on Charles Street, a good enough place for food and drinks. We spent a few hours eating, drinking and talking nonsense with our friends, before getting the bus home, back on its normal route. On the way back to the bus we ran into one of the baby queers who'd been to the LGBT Foundation to have their deed poll witnessed by a lawyer, and they were clearly stoked by the experience.

All in all it was a very positive day - we actually outnumbered the racists in the city centre, not that we got any press coverage. There was no trouble that I saw or heard about. People were supportive. We made new queer friends and helped some foreign ladies. The only shame is that E didn't make the gym and had to walk too much on his dodgy ankle.

Last Friday, cosmolinguist and I met up with a bunch of people from t'Internet for a Greggs crawl. Like a pub crawl, but with Greggs. We started at 6:30 and finished around 8 when most branches closed, and managed to hit up four branches in that time. I had a sausage and bean melt in the first two, a steak bake in the third. By the time we hit the fourth, the teen/twentysomethings we were with were full, but I was insistent that it didn't count if nobody bought anything, so I got a doughnut and shamed some of them into purchasing too.

It was stupid and pointless but it got us out of the house, and got us talking to some strangers. It was more accessible than a pub crawl too - less time to get served, the items were cheaper, and open to people who don't drink or don't like pubs.

Afterwards, E and I did go to an actual pub for a pint and I taught him how to play Pokémon Go. Sadly on the bus back we were harassed by somebody for wearing masks, which is actually the first time that's happened, and it happened all the way back home. 20 minutes of being yelled at is hard to ignore.

On Monday night I went to the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to see Elliot Page talk about his memoir, "Pageboy". He was in conversation with the gay actor Russell Tovey. The first half was questions from Tovey, then during the interval they put up a QR code which allowed audience members to submit questions for vetting, and vote on others'. The second half was Tovey asking these questions.

There was some interesting trivia - Elliot has never seen a Bond film, and likes karaoke post-transition - but no earth-shattering revelations. What did come across clearly though is confirmation that he's a decent human, aware of his position of privilege as a white, rich trans guy. He was keen to pay tribute to the trans people, particularly women and people of colour, who came before him and who still struggle more than he does.

Afterwards, on the way to the pub with friends, one of them mentioned that our ticket stubs entitled us to a free copy of the memoir. So I headed back to the Bridgewater Hall, and just caught the stall as it was being taken down. I returned to the pub with three copies of the book, for me and the people I'd been with, feeling victorious.

Compared to the Q&A, the memoir is heavy going. It's not a difficult read - I devoured half of it very quickly before getting distracted. But the subject matter is deep. Tovey described it as an "exploration of the power of shame", and it certainly feels like that, describing Elliot struggling to fit into the world of a straight, cis Hollywood actress. However, it also explores liberation from that shame, and how his journey to self-realisation has helped him start to escape these expectations and feelings. I'm looking forward to finishing it.