The poor soul

Here's a phone call to emergency services made by a five-year-old whose mum is lying on the floor unconscious, and he is alone with her and his 2-year-old brother.

You can hear his despair and distress as he is trying to get help, and his inability to understand what the operator is saying to him 'is she having a fit', 'move any dangerous object' - what's an 'object' to a five-year-old? My heart goes out to him!

'She's not the man I married'

Not sure what to think about this book. The author, 'Helen Boyd', is a woman married to a guy who is 'trans', as she calls it. When she got to know him, he was a cross-dresser, but now it seems that he wants to live more and more in a female role. She is worried that 'he' will become 'she' one day and she does not know how to handle this.

It seems she has already written a book about him/her - 'My Husband Betty'. But this current book is actually mostly about her self, 'Helen Boyd' (a pseudonym). The additional problem is that for a woman she is actually quite masculine; she was a tomboy as a child, and as an adult she is often seen as a lesbian, what with her dress style and, I suspect, general demeanour. So the roles in the marriage are all over the place; sometimes she is the husband, sometimes he is - but she does not fancy women, hence her concern about the future. Nothing actually happens in the book; she just reviews her childhood and their lives together, and Thinks About Things.

The whole book goes on and on and on about the accepted binary division of society into men and women, what she thinks makes women feminine and men masculine, although all the time she kyboshes stereotypes about typical 'male' or 'female' behaviour. Mostly she complains about being taken for something (ie lesbian) which she is not. To some degree one wonders if the problems could not be solved by some transplants - from him to her and vice versa.

It's quite interesting, reasonably well written, and tries to be a bit scientific/authorative but not the kind of book you could quote in an essay about sexual difference (which I will have to write in the next fortnight or so). It's better than 'misery lit' - but she could have said the same stuff in half the length of the book, or in a few articles. One wonders if it was meant to be a bit of therapy for the author. Those who know nothing about gender theory might find it illuminating (though they might not know that they need illuminating). Not sure that it is totally worth the money I spent on it.

'Sacred Country'

Why did Rose Tremain call her book 'Sacred Country'? What sacred country?

It's a book set in time from 1952 (the death of the King - of England) until more or less the present. A girl grows up in the countryside, but from the age of six identifies as a boy. She grows up in a farmer's family, where her father much prefers her younger brother, who his father wants to take over the farm. There's also another young man, Walter, who does not want to follow the path his family has prepared for him.

So all three are unhappy. The parents of Mary/Martin are not totally delighted themselves; mum keeps drifting in and out of the local mental hospital, and dad takes to drink. And you are expecting a happy end?

The book tells of Mary's/Martin's struggles to be who s/he is. It is only when s/he is 20 (in the 70s) or so that she first hears the word 'transsexual' (a lot earlier than when I heard it!). Finally she begins the treatment....Meanwhile Timmy, her little brother, feels that the land is not the right vocation for him and finds another one. And Walter also looks for his own direction, and eventually finds it.

The greatest of literature the book is not; not exactly at the level of Booker prize winners - not wonderful skills with words, the way some writers have. It's quite interesting, and unusual. Mixes the 'exotic' with the very plain. I wonder if Walter's story was a bit of padding. Does not really get into the minds of transsexuals, or show the distress they suffer while living in a role that the midwife/society has assigned to them; and the section on the treatment is rather poor - makes me wonder how much the writer researched that. And do they really do breast operations like that in the UK? But it might give people who know nothing about these topics a little bit of information.

I think there are better books on this topic - but I suppose it's a start. Very readable, for a longish flight or so.

'She's not the man I married'

Not sure what to think about this book. The author, 'Helen Boyd', is a woman married to a guy who is 'trans', as she calls it. When she got to know him, he was a cross-dresser, but now it seems that he wants to live more and more in a female role. She is worried that 'he' will become 'she' one day and she does not know how to handle this.

It seems she has already written a book about him/her - 'My Husband Betty'. But this current book is actually mostly about her self, 'Helen Boyd' (a pseudonym). The additional problem is that for a woman she is actually quite masculine; she was a tomboy as a child, and as an adult she is often seen as a lesbian, what with her dress style and, I suspect, general demeanour. So the roles in the marriage are all over the place; sometimes she is the husband, sometimes he is - but she does not fancy women, hence her concern about the future. Nothing actually happens in the book; she just reviews her childhood and their lives together, and Thinks About Things.

The whole book goes on and on and on about the accepted binary division of society into men and women, what she thinks makes women feminine and men masculine, although all the time she kyboshes stereotypes about typical 'male' or 'female' behaviour. Mostly she complains about being taken for something (ie lesbian) which she is not. To some degree one wonders if the problems could not be solved by some transplants - from him to her and vice versa.

It's quite interesting, reasonably well written, and tries to be a bit scientific/authorative but not the kind of book you could quote in an essay about sexual difference (which I will have to write in the next fortnight or so). It's better than 'misery lit' - but she could have said the same stuff in half the length of the book, or in a few articles. One wonders if it was meant to be a bit of therapy for the author. Those who know nothing about gender theory might find it illuminating (though they might not know that they need illuminating). Not sure that it is totally worth the money I spent on it.

Screening is bad for your ... nerves

Don't let anyone tell you that medical screening is good for you; the amount of nerves it must cost for every cancer it actually finds must almost balance out the benefits, quite apart from the cost of unnecessary and sometimes uncomfortable investigations.

There I was, about to begin some long-term treatment, and needing some tests beforehand. I swear that every time someone pointed an xray or an ultrasound at me they found something. Which then needed investigation, amongst others two cancer marker blood tests and a biopsy.

Result? I'm as fit as a fiddle. Just my hair has got greyer over the last few weeks....