It's an 'end of the rainbow' sort of deal

 Nobody ever tells you that when you get older you get less hung up on your body

Like I'm slightly saggy and squashy as I head to 30, and that's mostly fine. And if people have an issue with the fact I can rarely be arsed to shave my legs I'm more than happy to take them on. Actually, to destroy them. Just try and shame my body, you try it.

It's sort of freeing.

 Yesterday, forthwritten and I attended the Alternative Parenting show, sponsored by the Guardian and Stonewall.  Stonewall; that oh-so-disappointing, oh-so-well funded LGB, no T, charity.

I didn't have a clear idea in my head what to expect - I knew there would be information on surrogacy, IVF, and adoption as that is made explicit on the website.  Additionally I suppose I expected resources and information on social issues relating to being a queer or 'alternative' parent, community groups, and perhaps personal stories from people doing it already and having a great time.  That is not what we found.

My overwhelming impression was that "Alternative Parenting" is all about money; we overheard one adoption agency representative talking to a mixed-race couple, he - apparently under the impression this was a 'selling point' - told them "once we have you registered you'll be a valuable resource we can sell on to other agencies, particularly because you have a mixed heritage".  I understand that forthwritten , my 'mixed heritage' partner for the day, shared a knowing look with the non-white partner in aforementioned couple.  They were, quite explicitly, treating would-be-parents as a commodity to be bought and sold, where the children looking for adoption fit into this transaction is unclear; it's all about acquiring the resource, and selling them on.

Later, I hovered longer than necessary as I collected a leaflet on International Surrogacy.  I listened in as the representative told a woman that anything she wanted from a surrogate could be accommodated, and that using an Indian surrogate would save her money.  My hackles rose the moment I saw that the key information contained on the leaflet were prices.  The going rate for a baby - no strings attached - is a mere £26,900.  Naturally the price rises somewhat if you want a white baby - £33,597.  Grown to order.  To fully understand my horror at this I suggest looking up a documentary I watched a couple of years ago entitled "Google Baby", about the growing 'outsourcing' of surrogacy to India.

After a much needed, spirit raising cup of tea away from the Parenting Show venue - and something of a rant on my part as forthwritten listened, tweeted, and nodded sympathetically - we returned for a workshop on the options for childbirth.  As it turned out, nobody else had turned up apart from the lady running the workshop who represented one of two organisations I had identified as 'the right sort of thing'.  She ran a company who offer low cost parenting classes to expectant parents - be they adopting, having a surrogate, co parenting, or pregnant - and welcomes both queer and straight parents wanting to know what to do with a tiny new born.  

After a moment of hesitation, a nod and a wink, forthwritten and I decided to come clean on our true purpose on attending the show.  The woman immediately warmed to us and we started talking cynical corporations and the business of baby making.  She told us she attends a lot of parenting shows and cannot believe how much money was floating around and poured into the show - apparently normally they are sponsored by the local rag, this obviously had the weight of the Guardian, the London Women's Clinic, Stonewall and a number of legal firms.  The pink pound has gone baby crazy and the companies are closing in for a cut.

And then, after playing "spot the consciously mixed race happy family photo" with all the magazines, leaflets and stickers we'd been issued up until then, it was time for the seminars.

First up was the Bridge Clinic who, in the literature, said they would inform us of treatment options for "every budget" and how 'lifestyle' could affect our options.  Predictably, they did neither of these things.  They launched almost immediately into the hard sell of fertility treatment - IUI and IVF.  I am well aware of the importance of IVF and its potential effectiveness for infertile couples but no mention was made of infertility - it was simply the 'correct' way to get pregnant - beg, borrow or buy some sperm (preferably from the London Sperm Bank who have a catalogue) and hand it over to them, along with some eggs, and they'll pop a baby back in your oven.  

The key thing I took away was that if you choose to share your eggs, you can have free IVF.  I know that for most/many women undergoing IVF this is not an option because their fertility issues mean their eggs are not suitable to be shared with another woman.  But, if you sell IVF to lesbians who are undergoing IVF to get pregnant, not because they can't conceive any other way - then you've got a load of free eggs to pass onto paying couples.  Fertile lesbians having IVF for free turns into a lot of money down the line for the clinic.  It's just good business sense!

There was some breathtakingly manipulative language in all of this - they made a big noise about IUI being "the closest thing to natural conception" meaning, presumably, that IVF, home insemination and any number of other options are "unnatural" ways to conceive.  Next, a fertility counsellor assured us that being stressed was no barrier to successful 'treatment' because "women get pregnant in war-zones and famine and there is no way you're under that much stress".   I'll give you a minute to let that one sink in.

She went on to peddle a book and course entitled "fertility thinking" which helps you think yourself into a fertile state - although given it's possible to get pregnant when starving and being shelled I'm not sure why state of mind matters.  Perhaps I missed her point.

The Bridge clinic closed with a line graph showing the declining fertility of an 'average (cis) woman'.  The vertical line showed level of fertility, the horizontal line showed age/time.  The line was at it's highest point on the vertical axis against the age labelled '0 years' and declined steadily to around 18 which was marked 'optimum fertility' and continued to head down to meet the horizontal line as age increased.  In short, it showed the months immediately following birth to be the most fertile time in an individual's life.  And there was me, thinking starting menstruation at around 10 was a signal of the beginning of fertility.

And, so, we reached the highlight of the day, a seminar by Stonewall on the work they are doing to make sure 'alternative families' can send their kids to school without fear of the child being bullied for their family.   Wes Streeting treated us with details of how Stonewall are helping schools "celebrate different families" and the "transformation he's witnessed".  The content of his speech is another blog post in itself - wilfully ignorant of many issues - such as faith schools refusing to teach sex education, much less lessons on different family forms - and actively arrogant on others - such as describing Stonewall as being at the forefront of the equal marriage campaign, a campaign they actively opposed for many years.

His political [bullshit] credentials shone through as he repeatedly spoke about "winning hearts and minds" in schools to protect and celebrate "children like mine" in all of society.  Children like his and, it would seem, only those like his.

The Q and A, I decided, was my moment.  I stuck my hand up and asked, "we're still working out what our family will look like but it will certainly involve an extended family of trans friends and possibly a trans co-parent.  I've worked in schools and I know that transphobic bullying is an issue - how are you going to extend your campaign to help my children when they get to school?".

"Stonewall," Wes hissed, "is a lesbian, gay and bisexual charity.  We have neither the experience or expertise to advise on trans issues.   Although it could be argued there is some cross over in the issues, we will not deal with that as we would be stepping on the toes of many other charities who do that work.  We are often asked, when we go into schools, how they should tackle transphobic bullying, so we advise them to contact a trans charity."

I was, perhaps naively, gobsmacked.  Kids bully other kids for being 'gay' for the same reason they bully for being trans* - they see gender transgression.  Moreover, as forthwritten pointed out, Stonewall take up a lot of funding, funding that could go to charities who include a T and even a Q in their LGB.  Trans charities have neither the funds nor the reach to team up with 60 Local Authorities (a stat Wes proudly trotted out) and their schools and make the impact that Stonewall can and do.

Also, Stonewall charge £100 per school to 'advise' them on homophobic bullying and including alternative families in their teaching - and they can't even make a partnership with a trans charity to do what they can't, or more accurately, won't when, as Wes himself admits, schools are explicitly asking for that information!

Wes thanked us all for being there and " being a part of our campaign" - forthwritten and I shared a look over that, you can be sure.  Wes' seminar partner Charlie Condou (who is apparently in a soap? And a Guardian columnist?) was glad that "you - I assume I'm right in saying you are all gay or bisexual? Yeah - you are all here"

A couple of minutes catching my breath after such a whirlwind of nonsense and misinformation, and we were off, in search of a nice gay bar - one which had hung knitted bunting that said "queer" on it, as it happened - to drink heavily, decompress and perhaps regain some faith in the notion of alternative parenting as being about parenting, making a family, and living a good life - not paying a corporation to make or steal a baby for me in order to purchase the title of 'parent' but not make a 'family'.

A friend sent me this, and although I have a few comments and responses I have yet to share with her and don't agree with her on all points, I think it makes for an interesting read, so I'm sharing with you.  

I'll pass on the link to this post to her if people make comments as I'm sure she'd be interested to engage in debate with people;
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Modern women are sexually liberated. There’s a sentence. I can speak from experience- I have, in my 26 years on the planet, had sex whenever I fancied, with whomever I fancied, assuming they fancied me back. Simples. Thank you, women’s lib ladies, flinging yourself in front of horses and inventing the pill and writing controversial polemics. I vote, I shag, I wear what I like, I work and procreate as I please (economic crisis notwithstanding), and if I ever took up exercise (lots of exercise) I could compete with the chaps on an equal footing, and all thanks to your marvellous efforts. Job well done.

Of course, it’s alright for me. I’m white, British, irreligious, liberal, and (officially- I have all the paperwork) educated, with two middle class parents who love me. There are others, ( Read more... )

In response to some persistent themes being expressed on various platforms of late, or, the 'feminist' return of body fascism;
I shave my legs because I want to.  I like the way skin feels against skin. I like the way clothes feel against skin. I do not like the way hair feels against skin or clothes.  I shave my arm pits because as clean as you are, you'll never find an anti perspirant that works as well when it is applied to hair covered skin.  All the hair removal and trimming I do is because I like it.  Society has not compelled me to do it.  My bare legs are not representative of my subjugation to pervasive beauty narratives.  My clean shaven armpits are indicative only of what I find to be aesthetically pleasing and what gives me confidence regarding my personal hygene.  Do not assume differently without asking me, or any of the other women you are battering with your rhetoric.  Thank you.

On queer liberation;
It is no doubt the proliferation of mediocre to poor dramas on tv of late centring on both fictional and real life gay men and their lives and loves, but increasingly I recognise and understand why lesbians wished to campaign for gay lib separately than gay men.  I also feel the strong tug of obscurity as the voices of queer women throughout history go largely unrecorded and so the obsessive bio-pic making so recently in vogue has no material from which to draw.  I sense also that - in the programming directors minds - the 'edginess' of making a film about men having sex and putting it on at 9pm on BBC2 would be lost were it instead about two women.  Female sexuality is, after all, neither urgent nor insistent nor selfish.  Women do not fuck but make love.  Or so social norms would have us believe, and to counter those ideas is to shoot too often over the head of the viewers,  How to explain that urgent sexuality and sexual satisfaction is not an exception to femininity or characteristic only of lesbianism?  On the occasions strong representations of female centred sexuality occur it is, more often than not, presented cheaply and sordidly - the atrocious scripts and production values on both the Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet serve as excellent examples.

I cannot think of a single film which concerns a lesbian relationship as it's primary focus which is either beautiful or moving.  I can think of plenty which are trite and poorly executed and a hundred more which have only sold because queer women are so desperate for filmic representation they will buy and watch any old crap - I count myself among that desperate majority.

I have lost interest in stories about gay men struggling in historically-hostile times; they speak to me no more than a mediocre romantic storyline in a heterosexual drama does.  I always felt that LGBT history was a shared discovery, that hearing from one group can tell us about another/our own, but I see now that was naive.  I want to know about the lives of the women who have brought the world to the point it is at now for me - as a queer woman.  My social ancestors are silent - or at the very least silenced - in the current trend for period dramas about minority groups.  

On the ignorance of youth
I was in STA Travel today with a friend from work; we are probably going on holiday for a fortnight in July/August.  The travel agent was suggesting modifications/changes to the route I had in mind, after she mentioned Prague and I rejected it as I have already been there and she went back to furiously tapping away on her computer I turned to my friend, pointed to a photo from the old square in Prague and showed him the hotel I had stayed at for 2 nights.  I commented, in telling the story of how we ended up there and not in the hostel we had booked, that 'and they were also lovely there; they didn't bat an eyelid at the fact we were gay and sharing a double room".  He replied, shocked "is that something that happens then - is that a problem?".  "Yes," I said "indeed, in Paris we were initially refused the key to the double room we had booked (at a major hotel chain no less) until another member of staff intervened".  I watched the information processing on his face; I'm not sure he really believes the world is like that, even now.  Maybe another day I'll tell him about my friends who got beaten up by some thugs in a gay bar, for being gay, whilst the bar staff looked passively on.

On what my life is like of late;
I wake up every morning before my alarm goes off.  I trudge to the bathroom to shower.  I cry as I wash, dress and eat before leaving the house.  I pass through my days like a zombie and I am ready to go back to bed and to sleep at 3pm. I force myself to stay up until 10pm.  I cannot sleep.