Right back to the blogging. I've been really busy, it's the first couple of weeks back at uni and I've had no internet access. I've also been trying to write my first one hour show "Beth Becomes Her" which is at Vanilla in Manchester on 29th October and which the www.vanillagirls.co.uk website describes thusly:

"Our infamous resident comedy night compere performs her own one-woman show, chronicling her amazing life story and the journey she undertook to become the star that is Bethany Black. You're guaranteed to laugh and cry, but a fantastic heart-warming evening is most definitely in store."

So there you have it, I'm a star! It says so on a website!

In the brochure for the festival though they have written in the picture who the picture is of and in mine they say that I'm "Mick Ferry" which does both of us a disservice though I must say, Mick's never looked better.

I'm hoping the show goes well I've written most of it and there's still some more to do but it's been quite stressful. I did nearly decide to pull it through my own fear, but as part of the show's about facing your fears and that they're usually the most difficult part of any life changing journey it would seem foolish, plus there was an article about me in Diva, the lesbian lifestyle magazine this month which advertised the show so I can't get out of it now. It's a lovely article which I'm considering using for my CV, and as a strange side note since it came out every woman I've ever given my phone number to, snogged, looked at funny or dated has been in touch to tell me that they've seen it and to ask if I'll go out for a drink with them as well as being introduced to people like this "This is Bethany Black, she's, like famous and shit." the and shit is a turn of phrase like "and stuff" only using swearing, it's not a critique of my act, at least I hope it's not.

I'll kind of explain what it's all about here as I promised you an explaination with the references in previous blogs to writing "Personal material" as this show is all about that, I talk about my life over the last six years and how it's changed, how I've gone from depression and aggoraphobia, a nervous breakdown and suicide attempts, getting drunk and changing in the dark because I hated my own body and self harming, through to a point where I could dance naked on stage and be totally comfortable with that whilst also getting over a broken heart and co-dependency issues.

Admittedly that doesn't sound like a laugh riot, but wait and watch whilst I weave my magic. Actually having written that down I can kind of see why people describe me as "Dark" I've never really seen it. When I first started out I thought I was "dark" and "Edgy" but in reality I was just trying to be shocking and cause offense, once I realised that and tried to move on to writing stuff about my actual experiences I thought I'd no longer be dark but as it happens I apparently still am.

Turns out the advice that Dolan gave me of "think of things that you'd never normally tell another human being, things that are difficult for you and talk about them." and he's absolutely right.

And though I'm not shy about talking about them and am fairly open about stuff sometimes not saying something comes back to bite you on the arse. It has done this week.

My mad landlady told me when I moved into my new house (in amongst her questions about whether I'd be ok sharing with a black student and a Polish student - I'm still not entirely sure why she thought I'd have a problem), that my two flatmates were "From a different culture and they're very naive, so don't you go... well... scaring them" I didn't know what she meant by this, I assumed it to be because she'd seen some of my P.V.C. trousers and a couple of dog collars lying round the house at my previous address, and the fact that she's more than likely been in my room and seen sex toys lying around. And the time that we had a centre-fold from 60+ in a frame in the lounge at the last house. And that I bought everyone glow in the dark anal beads for Christmas last year and some of those were left in the lounge when she came round.

But that's because we were all really close, and living in a house with two lesbians and a heterosexual guy and a girl who should have been a sex toys tester, and the house reflected that.

It was only when my flat mate Amber told my two new flat mates that I'm gay that I realised what the landlady had meant. Not that they were over the top about it or homophobic in any real way but it did freak them out. their homophobia comes from ignorance rather than anything else, and Ella was really intrigued asking questions like "So what's it like going out with a woman? I suppose it's like when I go out to meet up with my friends only with sexual tension." Which in my experience is totally accurate, though she did say that when she told her boyfriend that I was gay he told her to lock her door at night so I didn't try anything.

Anyway this all ties in with the show because of what happened yesterday as there's little things that you do when you're not out to people where you don't use gender specific terms, and I do that occasionally, though not frequently, usually when I know that it'll just make things more difficult, though I can't keep that up for ever so usually I slip and say girlfriend instead of "ex" or "Partner" and then don't really make any mention of it so that if they want to make something of it it's up to them. But in this case it's something else.

I woke up and had a shower and was getting ready for college when Amber knocked on my door and I said hi and she asked if I had any AAA batteries, which I don't I've only AA but thats not important. she then asked if Ella or Victoria were in and I said I didn't think so. and so she said "It's just I saw Ella this morning and she was freaked out, she'd had a bottle of wine last night and was in a really weird place because someone at work off your course told her that you're a transsexual, and she flipped."

See, now this is true and it's not something that I've got a problem with, and it's not something I've got a problem telling anyone about, well not these days though six years ago I'd have rather died than tell anyone, but as it turns out I was shit at attempting suicide and faced being sectioned, and whilst I'd have rather died, I'd rather tell someone and get help than spend time in a psychiatric unit. So that's what I did. It's just a medical condition, and just like I'd not tell casual aquaintances about my irritable bowel syndrome unless it cropped up in conversation I don't see why I should immediately tell anyone about this, though of course on stage, with a mic in my hand I'll tell people about my irritable bowel and that I'm male to female post-op transsexual, but that's because I've got funny things to say about both. Though the question does crop up how can I be gay and trans, which is easier to explain without comedy as gender and sexuality are different things from each other and from outward sexual characteristics. Essentially what makes us feel deep in the very core of us that we're either male or female comes down to a section of the brain called the hypothalamus which controls all sorts of things and there are differences between the sexes in a particular bit of this section of the brain called the central region of the bed nucleus of the stria terininalis or BTSc for short, it's a tiny thing but it's slightly larger in men than it is in women, and a Dutch scientist, Dr Dick Schwab (I kid you not) looked post-mortem at the brains of a number of transsexuals and discovered that in all cases this section of the brain matched that of the gender they claimed to be.

So if you look at it like that, and consider it as if there are three compass points, one which denotes outward sexual characteristics; male, female and all the variances in between (intersex conditions affect around 1 in 500 babies born), along side sexual orientation as the second compass, and gender or the brain sex, that state of feeling male or female as the third compass.

In most people these three match up as either male outwardly, attracted to female sexually and internally having male gender, or outwardly female, attracted to male and internally having female gender, but there are all sorts of ways in which they don't line up. In my case before I started on this crazy journey outwardly I looked male, was attracted to female but the gender was female, now I outwardly look female, sexually am attracted to women and inwardly have female gender.

I'm not sure if that's still confusing or if I've managed to explain that right, if you're still confused about how I can be both trans and a lesbian let's just say that I just really really hate cock.

I was going to talk about this in my blog from the start as it's just over a year ago when I did an interview for Paul Provenza that I took to the stage at Spank! in Edinburgh and talked about it for the first time in front of an audience. So I didn't really want to hide it. I remembered what it was like for me growing up and not knowing that there was anyone out there like me and feeling very very alone and so I thought that if I could talk about it, maybe it'd help people to understand a bit better and maybe make life easier for anyone who has to follow me.

Then earlier this year my local paper decided to out me, in spite of the fact I'd not spoken about it in the interview that I'd done with them, which I didn't want to happen as although my family are all totally cool with it, my brother's kids are still at school in the area and it may have made their life a little more difficult and I didn't want that. So I did an interview with them in order that they would hold off printing that and they asked me not to mention it on her until they'd printed it.

So now when I see my flat mate I've got to explain all this to her, and I think that more than anything the reason I didn't say anything is just because I get a bit bored of having to try and explain myself, when at the end of the day I'm just a girl who used to have a boys body who likes girls.

Anyway that's what the show's about, the last 6 years of my life, that's why it's called "Beth Becomes Her" and I've got a feeling it's going to be something a little bit different.

the next blog will be back to being silly and embarrassing and about some of the strange things that have happened recently, so expect rock'n'roll stories of drunken married couples asking me for a three-some and pissed audience members thinking that I'm married to Jonathan "the most obviously gay man I know" Mayor.

Oh, Add me to facebook and myspace.

until next time, I love you all

BB xXx

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Comments:

Comment from: Sarah [Visitor]

Haven't checked your blog for ages. Had a nosey to temporarily escape from biology revision, and then I get another biology lesson here, lol. Very interesting one though, but maybe telling me to get my head down again!

Permalink 17/10/07 @ 18:28

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