Mission Accomplished

We are almost past September and making our way into Autumn with darker nights and ghoulish things later on which may have its negatives but such changes make for variety and being more engaged with things.

One thing that I have been very much engaged in across the last two months is the moving across and reforming of a Tumblr from a frankly very messed up account to one that was quickly created with everything that started in late May threatening one account and two tumblrs on it.

The first tumblr I made on it was a more age regression friendly interests based one born of the realization that if wanted to be with a group that did more for my mental health needs, then what I needed was to just accept their limits and make it to fit that.

After all unlike most Tumblr users I do have own blogs off there where I can beat my own drum around topics and not have to deal with what often seems like arbitrary "triggering" definitions but that left the ashes of TSB/TSBII in their varying forms.

Both of those were formed more with a adult schoolboy, past schooldays core that had been altered skirmish after skirmish although they were very much safe for work and certainly okay for anyone past nine years of age to had seen.

For me That Smol Boy 10 alias pasttimesforever10 is less around new things such as tv shows but more as the url would suggest past times so while a few vintage school and scout based photographs are in there, because as you lot ought to know that's about my own past, it does major more on past tv shows, the books we read, family life in the past the hobbies and games we played as boys.

It is also purposely non community to avoid issues although the aim is to get things very much more "at peace" with those people while at the same time avoiding those people who think anything connected to schoolboy life is all about adult content and from that being seen as linked to it.

Well at long last this weekend, I have finally remade it so in time all I need to do is delete the old version given I can't even delete the account it's so messed up

Free to be me

 

Sometimes I feel I've gone on about some aspects of this life which admittedly are necessary but may also in minds of others get in the way of seeing what indeed the biggest thing about being that person, the adult little child is really about although we did briefly touch on it a few weeks back

Really  it is the freedom to be you, to enjoy being what you are, a child and to be naturally child-like in your sense of fun and adventure several steps away from the grind of adult responsibilities that you struggle to understand never mind do.

It's having a laugh, being from what might be seen from a grown up angle to be silly, not risky, just anything but serious and that's what it's all about.

Twenty years on

 It's a recovering Wednesday here so I'm kind of reflective.

Weekend of course included the Twentieth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers way back in 2001 as much as for me it might as well of been yesterday because so much is etched on my brain from the long wait to hear if a friend who did work inside the WTC was alive as he was scheduled but fortunately he'd called in sick.

It was the period we yes the people the other side of the Atlantic stood up in solidarity with Americans as much as it transpired we'd lost 67 of our own, putting up tens of thousands of copies of the Stars and Stripes in our windows, doing all we could to help those stranded where out of necessity all air travel across the Atlantic was stopped for a period and where the American national anthem was played at Horseguards Parade, London.

We were as one, United, in those dark hours facing an evil act that cost over 3,000 lives.  

During that period another concern for me was as a school governor was just what were we going say and do to help the children deal with what they'd seen as it was bad enough for the staff.

I'd decided given the non-stop coverage with images on loops which still run through my head today to take time out from media consumption and read cartoon strips and focus more the good taking place in situations.

Post Experience Project edition

A few years ago on the Mark 1 version of That Traditional Schoolboy I posted a few things around trends which I felt strongly about.

The right to be addressed as him/he/himself and all other masculine pronouns

The right to have his gender affirmed, being referred to unambiguously as a Boy

The right to single gender spaces

The right to wear shorts, longs or a kilt at school and at work.

The right to adult Male input throughout his life including spending time just with men and other boys in male only activities together to help him grow.

The right not to be discriminated against in any programs and employment opportunities, being assessed purely on his abilities compared to others for the task and nothing else.

Although that Tumblr went and it is unlikely in current conditions anything so forthright could return two years and four months on I still very much feel the same.

Outdoor math lesson by the very kind of man most of us would look up to in flash as boys.

“For boys”  is an electric sign we need to be prepared to stand up for because whatever certain usually pre-feminist people say, Boys ARE are Gender distinct from Girls which while individual variations exist, we graduate toward similar hobbies, interests and like the company of fellow males.

To me it is sad that we seem to be going backwards in this regard. 

When I was growing up in the 70’s, the goal was to achieve a society in which a male or a female might do or become anything they wanted, without their sexual identity being questioned. Boys could play with dolls, girls could climb trees, anyone could wear anything they wanted or do anything they wanted, without it impacting what we now call “gender.” It was a great goal. 

If you want to get a feel for what that movement was about, listen to Marlo Thomas’ , Free to Be You and Me, a famous series of songs recorded to help introduce children to this concept. Boys can cry, girls can compete in races…nothing you say or do changes what you inherently are.

Our conversation about gender appears to have taken a step backwards. Once more we are talking about ‘male’ and ‘female’ behaviours, and suggesting that if one gender does something associated with the other gender, the gender must be wrong. Once more we are creating boxes to define and contain gender identity, and if you step outside the box, it is deemed a denial of that identity.

Some men like to wear women’s clothing. Some girls disdain traditional “feminine” activities. The first group are still men, and the second still girls. We do them a terrible disservice when we read deeper things into that. Not every pair of high heels on a guy is a cry for help.

A trans man feels like he has always been a male, just in a female body. He has always felt like a male, regardless of what he wears. A trans woman has always felt female. Sometimes this manifests in traditional activities, and certainly clothing is used to help present the correct gender, but at its core it is a deeper, more fundamental issue than what toys one plays with or what clothes one is wearing.

I did have a love of flowers and some collectable porcelain dolls of various girls which in that era wasn't very cool to admit to other boys which was a shame but that didn't mean I had a deep seated need to change my sex because I was happy to be a boy and to be a male.

In all other respects as was as rough and tough if not tougher than my peers and having fought attempts to see me as anything other than the boy I am I do feel strongly this message that is getting muddled up by transgender activists needs to be said.

It is personal and no, I won't shut up about it cos it's harming boys who may be as I was a little different from getting on with being the boys they are.

The Tudors

This Thursday sees the return to school in this area, a few days earlier than normal because of the complications of Covid, not wishing to lose any more time than sadly has been study wise and  also with next years extra day's holiday to be slotted in the 'formula' needed to be changed.

It's a time of year where my Dysphoria tends to be at it's worst because psychologically my body clock expects to be returning to school and needless to say visiting the uniform shop and talking of which I expect my new school shorts around mid September.

I had a fairly wide ranging education even though I missed chunks and arguably wasn't properly taught but I did study History to English A level standard and a chunk of that was about the Tudors and Stuarts in England and Wales.

We did go on a number of  visits to important buildings such as former Abbeys and Halls built for the nobility such as Hardwick Hall in nearby Derbyshire and looked at things such as fashion and public health in that era outside of domestic policy, endless religious squabbles and the likes of the Armada. 

We didn't go too much into education back then, although it was very much something the really well to do boys had back then and as can be seen from this marvellous illustration  a boy in a state of disgrace regarding his conduct would be birched in front of his peers.

It also was a period of judicial Corporal as well as Capital punishment if you were caught begging or stealing.