I went for a trundle yesterday: a nice, long roll up towards Woolwich and then over the river to explore the regeneration around Silvertown. I think I’ve described before how such nose-following helps me to think and contemplate all kinds of issues. On and off recently, I have found myself captivated by gender again. As I wrote here a couple of years ago, although I still think and dream about it from time to time, I haven”t actually cross-dressed in quite a while. However, a couple of times recently I have found a single question quite intriguing: what if I had taken my dressing even further? What if, at the height of my cross-dressing ‘phase’ ten or fifteen years or so ago, I had acted upon my curiosity and chosen to transition? What would life be like now? How would I feel? What would my chest feel like if I had started to take hormones? What would getting dressed in mornings feel like? What would my relationship with my family be like? Would I have taken comfortably to my new role, or might I now regret it? I find such questions strangely intriguing, but I suppose I’ll now never know the answers.

Today would have been Lyn’s sixty-fourth birthday: I still miss her a great, great deal, and think about her daily. Lyn, of course, transitioned in the year 2000, when she was forty. Thinking about her yesterday, I realised something quite profound: Lyn probably had roughly the same desires and curiosities I do, but she acted on hers when I did not. Lyn chose to take the step into the unknown where I found it safer and more reassuring to stay put. What, then, is the difference? Were Lyn’s feelings stronger and more compelling than mine? Or could it just be that Lyn was braver than I am.

That is the conclusion I came to on my trundle yesterday. Lyn was a truly remarkable person; she had a kind of strength and wisdom I haven’t come across in anyone else. She chose to explore an aspect of her personality which I now seem to repress, the difference being that she had a fortitude I do not. Where I probably felt various social and cultural pressures to remain as I am, Lyn chose to ignore them, step into the unknown and smash down the very barrier I feared. That is, at least in part, why Lyn was such an incredible person; and why I’ll never stop missing her.