Tara's Thoughts

This book was totally different from what I expected, just going off the blurb. I went in fully anticipating a road-trip novel: Act One setting up Maria, Act Two kicking off the trip and introducing James, and Act Three giving us the emotional payoff — James figuring their shit out and Maria finding some closure. That… is very much not what happens. Part One being as long as it is felt wildly unnecessary at first. To be honest, I actually put the book down for a bit before I came back to it to finally finish it, yesterday. But once I got into Part Two, I realised just how much all that setup and all those establishing shots in Part One mattered. Interestingly, I found myself relating way more to the people around Maria than to Maria herself — mostly to Piranha, actually.   She’s the stalwart, friendly face of the NYC trans community. Kind of where I sit in Southampton — the one who seems to have their shit together, who everyone comes to for help… while secretly very much ...

  Hi, welcome to another one of my essay-ramblings about my life, reflecting on bits and bobs.   What I want to talk about today is two concepts that I have felt a lot, and when I’ve mentioned it to friends, they’ve expressed great solidarity with my words. As a trans person, there are moments that leave me at a loss for words. Moments so specific and so visceral they deserve to be named.   However, the vocabulary we use is quite difficult to change.   Sure, we’ve had recent additions to the common lexicon – brainrot, transmisogyny, and compersion are the examples that spring to mind, but for the most part it takes a while for these to filter through. Lacking a proper name for a lot of these feelings, I’ve decided that where a word doesn’t exist, you can just invent them – a kind of linguistic liberalism. --- Comphoria The first of these concepts is a kind of joy I’ve felt many times: when I witness someone, especially another trans person, finally start to be...

There is a fundamental problem with the way we approach sport in this Country.   As I write this, it’s August 2024.   It’s the off-season for a variety of sports.   Football, Rugby, Cyclocross - sports that are important to me.   Some I have participated in and some I wish I could participate in.   We have also just had the Olympics.   I have written before about how these Olympics have not gripped me anywhere near as much as other games have, as well as how vitriolic so much of the media coverage has been, particularly surrounding a certain Algerian gold-medallist boxer.   These feelings have not subsided, and the simmering feeling of disillusionment with Sport that I had prior to these games has only festered further.   This is something I have discussed with my partner a great deal.   She is formerly a professional criterium cyclist, and for over a decade of her life cycling, in many disciplines, has dominated her free time.   She...