Atmospheric Rises

So, let's get this into some kind of perspective:

In June 2001 I would have been so nervous about being seen wearing a dress by anyone at all. I was just coming to terms with the fact that I was trans-something. It didn't mean that I didn't want to be seen - it's just that I feared the reaction.

In June 2003 I had plucked up courage to wear a dress in a "safe house" - J having seen me only a couple of months earlier.

In June 2004 I'd just lost my job and was considering going full-time.

In 2 days time it looks as though I'll be walking through the security gates to Downing Street and joining in a reception at one of the most exclusive addresses in Whitehall, in full view of various media types.

Excited, scared, trying to maintain a sense of cool, wondering how on earth I'm going to fit everything else I need to do this week in - the gamut of emotions is huge. I thought meeting Ofcom in May 2010 was a huge step, then meeting folk at the BBC, then meeting one of the senior guys at Channel 4 in August, then having a series of meetings at Channel 4, then meeting/hosting a serving government minister at Trans Media Watch's launch in March, then being appointed to the Parliamentary Forum on Gender Identity last month... Since August life has been a whirl of ever escalating steps.

On Saturday afternoon, as the situation had just unfolded, I was standing in the churchyard of All Saints Church in Wokingham - half-an-hour before the rehearsal was due to start for a choral concert I was singing in that evening. In 2003 and especially the first part of 2004 that same churchyard was a bolt hole - my place near my office to walk and try to think. Seven years from taking her first tentative steps out into the world at large, Helen will be going into the heart of government.

Absolutely amazing. I still can't quite believe it. What on earth am I going to wear?!?