At the end of every year I reflect on the year that came before, it’s a process I find hugely informative and cathartic and I’ve got a lot running through my head as I sketch out this year’s post.
In last year’s post I said what I wanted from this year was calm and stability. Although there was not a lot of calmness in the first half of the year, around the local and general elections, I did feel stable, and as I end the year I do feel calm, although potentially scared of the year ahead.
I feel like I’m over the burnout and I am truly so deeply happy with my life at the moment in a way I have never felt before.
My girlfriend and I have made our home together, I have an amazing group of friends and I’m content (for the moment) in my career. I feel confident in my role as a local councillor, and the steps I’ve made in my transition this year, and the only notable thing that weighs me down is just the unending pressure of systemic transphobia and the constant emboldening in transphobes to spew lies and hate unchecked. It’s a huge weight on me, but despite the transphobia, the life I now have is so full of joy, love and confidence I know I can persevere despite the efforts of those who wish to exclude people like me from public life.
Professional reflections
I’ve been working at a national charity as a web developer for coming up on 2 years now. I have been asked several times to apply for the Head of Development role there, but I am absolutely enjoying the role back as an individual contributor (particularly as the only developer on my immediate team) and working with peers directly, whom I have a great respect for which I think is returned.
I’m really happy that I can use my skills to help an organisation which works for social good, and being at a place which allows me to use my skills to do good work. Making a break from the hamster wheel of continual professional growth and climbing a career ladder has also been incredibly important for me to recover from the state of burnout I was in when I left Culture Shift. I have still learnt things though – the Citizens Advice tech stack is Ruby on Rails, deployed to Kubernetes and I’ve definitely become more comfortable with both of these technologies and further refined my devops/SRE skills (whilst working as a software engineer).
But… I know I can’t stay here forever. I miss being in a role which professionally challenges me, and after a great deal of reflection, I know moving back into tech leadership is not one for me. Good tech culture is one based on mutual trust, and embracing agile practices which mean you can organisationally respond to a changing world. Traditional business leadership outside of tech dominates which takes a different approach to managing change, which is to build a command-and-control structure that lacks the resilience to deal with change, instead preferring layers upon layers of risk mitigation to eliminate the chance of change occuring. The two worlds are fundamentally incompatible and I attempting to advocate for the former in a world of the latter I can only see leading again to burnout, and I’m unwilling to professionally do anything other than build a high-performance team on agile principles.
I can not do my best work in an organisation with an unsupportive culture. And I want to do my best work, see positive impact from my work, and be intellectually stimulated along the way. I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever had all 3, other than for brief periods of time. But on reflection, the place I came closest was at BBC R&D. Sadly, it seems that BBC R&D is being severely downsized, with many of my former colleagues losing their jobs. But I want to move back into a research & development role, working on the cutting edge of tech, and ideally using my skill of taking concepts and executing on them well to ship them. Which means I’ve started looking for roles closer to the research technologist role I held at the BBC.
I’ve also given a great deal of thought to studying a PhD in a cutting edge tech field, and have even inquired for some, although I’ve not yet been succesful in finding a supervisor who’d like to work with me. From people I’ve spoken to who have studied for or are studying for a PhD, finding both a topic you are interested in and a supervisor you can work with are crucial in not getting burnt out in academia, something I’m keen not to repeat. So I’m keeping my eyes out for a suitable one, and trying to find time for projects which might bring some of my AI knowledge back up to date.
One big constraint is that when I was younger, I was more than happy to move for my career. This is not true now – I have made Manchester my home and want to stay here, not least because I’m an elected councillor for the city! But I also have a wonderful life and friends in Manchester that I can not imagine leaving behind. And R&D software engineering jobs in Manchester do not seem easy to come by, although at least when it comes to a PhD there is a world-class university on the doorstep.
So professionally, things are steady, and I’m ready to put myself out there a bit more again for the right role. I’m a bit concerned about the potential for change at work (my employer is going through a change process which might mean organisational restructures that are less favourable for me), but I’m not itching to go somewhere else, but if the right opportunity pops up… well we’ll see.
The final note to reflect on professionally is my book! I can tell from my royalty statements that sales have dropped off, presumably as it’s now 6 years old, ancient in the world of tech. But I’m confident that it is mostly still relevant and perhaps a 2nd edition is needed just to polish it and bring it up to date, although I have no idea when I’ll find the time to actually do so!
Politics, activism and beliefs
One of the things I’ve really had to come to terms with since being elected is that my power as a local councillor is limited. I got into politics to fix broken systems, but as a local councillor what I can do best is advocate for residents, provide a point of contact and help them navigate complex the systems and use my influence to guide more local developments to varying degrees of success.
But I have had some wins that I hope will personally change people’s lives, including intervening with several homelessness cases where the council had failed to correctly apply the rules, one of which risked putting someone back into a domestic violence setting. I’ve helped rebuild trust between residents and housing associations and been a trusted person that can be approached by proud people pushed into poverty access benefits that they are entitled to. And of course, I’ve managed to get some potholes fixed, road safety improvements made and cancelled incorrectly issued parking tickets.
These things do matter, and they’re important, even if they’re not big. I’m proud that I can do them, and I think I do this job well.
One of the key achievements this year was securing my ward colleague Alan Good’s re-election. I led the campaign organisation and with an amazing team we pulled off a very strong victory, especially when faced with a nationally popular Labour party, and electing at the same time as the very popular Andy Burnham. We managed to overcome the “Burnham bounce” and re-elect Alan for 4 more years! Every election campaign we run in Manchester we’re getting better and better at organisationally, as we learn from mistakes and build experience. Our goal for the coming years are to secure the 3rd seat in my ward and expand organisationally to take on other wards outside of the south of the city to grow our council group, and we’re making great strides in this already.
I’m confident in my campaigning ability, and was pleased to once again be asked to mentor campaigners at ALDC’s Kickstart weekend (an absolute must for campaigners who want to build effective, winning teams) and deliver training to party activists at party conference. It’s kind of scary to be mentoring groups that have a high chance of taking control of their county council, but also very re-assuring to see that even much smaller campaign teams like ours in Manchester have built winning systems that just need scaling.
I was very pleased to have been appointed as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Manchester Central in the general election. Fighting a General Election is an incredibly interesting experience, and the support I got from the party, even in a “paper” seat where we’re not expected to win was excellent. Not being expected to win is very freeing, and the party encourages you to focus on goals that are not winning, which for us was to recruit and motivate people to the campaign to support our closest target seat in Hazel Grove, and then retain them to support local election campaigning beyond the GE. This meant I could campaign on core liberal principles in order to attract liberally minded pople, and this was a big success for the campaign. I’m proud of what I achieved.
It is of course a bit sad to come 4th, and despite beating the Tories, I did come behind both the Greens (whose candidate couldn’t resist gloating at the count with a bit of classic transmisogyny to my partner) and more worryingly Reform, but the overall vote share did grow and I’m pleased of the campaign I ran.
Being in a political party is a compromise. Good political campaign teams are better than the sum of their parts, but you’ll never find a political party that 100% shares your beliefs. The question is which party involves the fewest trade offs. For me that remains the Liberal Democrats. On paper, the party is dedicated to building a society “in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”. These are views I certainly share. In practice, the party has a culture that is extremely competent at achieving that aim (more so than, say, the Greens – who are not as adept at execution, and whose value statement is less clear so I’m not sure if I align with them or not).
There are of course trade offs in practice I’m less comfortable with. For example, with trans rights, some of my peers are more comfortable with tolerating intolerance (in particular, tolerating transphobia even when they reject the premise of transphobia themselves) than I would like, but I can see no other party which would give me a better way of enacting change and moving towards a society that shares my values that I believe will result in a better world.
In a conversation with one of our newly elected MPs, Lisa Smart, she remarked to me the oft-quoted “if you don’t do politics, politics will do you”. Being a trans person in politics makes this apparent. The level of misinformation about trans people abounds, with transphobic messaging detached from reality successfully electing populist politicians in the US that I worry we’ll see adopted closer to home.
Although I know we do have some good allies out there, I strongly believe that the best way to ensure systems work for trans people is to ensure trans people are included in the systems of power, with our hands on the tiller and making our own destiny rather than expecting others to do it for them. I look up to US trans politicans like Zooey Zephyr and Sarah McBridge and hope to emulate their success. Closer to home I’ve spoken at length with trans politicians like Helen Belcher and the now retired Sarah Brown who have both been at this longer than I have. It is hard, demotivating work.
I might be one of the most senior trans politicans in the UK. I don’t feel like it. I don’t have much of a profile outside of my immediate electorate or my political party, but there are currently no other trans people elected to higher tiers of government, and I am deputy leader of the opposition here. (I am not claiming to be the most senior British trans politician, but I’m likely in the top few). The fact we have no higher levels of representation is terrifying, and that’s not through lack of trying. There were trans candidates that had a chance of winning seats in parliament, but it was not to be.
It’s a heavy burden to carry, especially when my focus is to be a good councillor in a time when local government is still struggling with no signs yet of a plan to fix our underfunded frontline services. I try not to burnout, but it’s hard.
I want to make sure I’m leveraging my position and skills as best I can to reverse the wave of transphobia currently washing over us. I don’t know how to, but I know I need to work with more people to make it happen, but it has to be with people who value effectiveness, rather than just achieving self-congratulating catharsis as a campaign goal. Repeating slogans and talking to ourselves and attacking visible trans figures who are imperfect will not dismantle a system of transphobia.
It’s also time consuming to do this – this is one of the reasons I took a step back from Trans Pride Manchester, and have formally resigned from my position as a Director and stopped volunteering with administrative support. I need to free up time to use my skills more effectively and spend my energy on activism in a different way.
Transition
In last year’s reflections, I mentioned in passing I had a brief trip to Marbella booked for a consultation with Facialteam on facial feminisation surgery. This very quickly escalated – after a few days reflecting I made the decision to go ahead with surgery on my forehead and nose and made enquiries to book. I was told that I could have it as soon as 2 weeks later due to a cancellation and decided I didn’t want the stress of waiting so very quickly made arrangements to commit to this.
The recovery from surgery was extremely hard. I was constantly in discomfort, and a result of sleeping on my back also developed sciatica. I was constantly tired during the first few weeks of recovery, and the swelling and numbness persisted for weeks which left me questioning the results.
Ten months on, I am in no doubt that I made the right decision for me. I like how I look. For years I didn’t feel at all connected to my body, and after coming out and starting my transition, came to realise there were features that never sat comfortably with me. I was so lucky that was in a position where I had saved up enough to fund the surgery, which was unsurprisingly not cheap at around €29,000 in total.
I can not speak highly enough of Facialteam. The level of care I experienced during recovery was incredible and one I’m unlikely to ever experience again. The system they have of patients all staying at La Villa so you are going through the recovery with a cohort of people, with our own social area, is also something I believe is unique and massively helped my experience to know that the lows I experienced after surgery were not unique.
I have also grown comfortable with my voice. My voice remains my biggest cause of misgendering (phone calls remain a nightmare) and the uncomfortableness of that, but it is my voice and I’m starting to embrace that.
Transitions are never really done, and there are more steps ahead of me, including finishing “second puberty” and all the results of hormones. But I’m here, and I’ve done it. I am a woman. I live as a woman. And it’s fantastic.
I embrace my femininity and style in a way I’m comfortable with, and interact with the world in a way that feels natural to me, unlike the performance I felt I had to put on when I was out and about as male. I’ve fully embraced the idea that it’s absolutely okay to improve things if you don’t like them and want to be better. I’ve gone blonde as it suits my style better, I’ve had lip filler as I think it balances my face out better, and I’ve had microblading to give my brows definition and shape. I do these things for me because I think I look good, and I love the fact that I now like how I look.
Personal highs (and not too many lows)
Outside of work and politics, I am just… so happy. My partner, Meg, and I have taken a major step in our relationship and moved in together, and found a new home together.
This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be on a personal level. I’d lived in my flat for 12.5 years and it became a very comfortable safe place for me. I hadn’t realised how much of an impact losing that would be, especially combined with the stress of moving and the need to compromise when building a house with your partner. My autism certainly had an impact on this, and I unfortunately had a few difficult meltdowns, which I blogged a particular perspective on earlier this year. It took a while for the new house to feel the same, and being in rented accomodation (both Meg and myself are selling our homes, which are both in the sales process at the moment) also means there’s a level of temporaryness to get used to which you don’t have in home ownership (although we do hope to be the house we’re in). It’s certainly odd to see the flat empty, and even odder to know that I’ll be back as the person buying it is a friend.
But, coming home from Christmas at my parent’s made me realise that the house we’ve made is home now, and it feels like home. What we’ve found in Ancoats is brilliant, it gives us the space to settle down and grow into and together we can just about afford it.
I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about Meg. I love her so much, we support each other and everything feels comfortable. She’s so wonderful and I’m glad I found her.
The other thing that’s really grown this year is I’ve built such close connections to my friends, some of whom I barely knew a year ago. Christi and Emily in particular have entered my life and I’ve found a natural friendship with both of them, in addition to forging stronger bonds with friends I’ve known for longer like Jess, Katie, Ashley, Sadie and Fiona. We have grown into a tight knit group of girls who support each other and bring each other up as well as go on mini-adventures like aurora hunting. It’s a friendship group I’ve never had before and always searched for and now I’ve found it. The group ebbs and flows naturally and we spend way too long playing Factorio (a game I’ve got very into) and hanging in a Discord voice chat. But it’s wonderful. I feel so loved and I hope I return that. Having a cake made for me with a “mini-me” on it brought me to tears at the joint birthday I held with Jess.
The new house has played into this so well, as we’ve become a natural central hub for Girls Club, with people coming and going for social activities, planned or ad-hoc. We are slightly odd in that we also have each other on Google Latitude so we can see each others location on Google Maps, and several of my friends live in Ancoats. I love opening the map and seeing lots of blobs close to each other. It’s a very warm feeling.
I have been less good at keeping in touch with friends I’ve known since before transitioning, and I worry that I’ve ended up in some very queer spaces that my non-queer friends have trouble relating to, and I do want to work on maintaining those friendships as those people have been very important throughout my life.
My family remain close to me and I feel very lucky to have been able to maintain that through transition as I know not everyone has. My niece is growing up and it fills my heart with love when we play together, and it tears me up that I find it hard to find time to head back to Yorkshire to spend more time with her. The time committment required of being a councillor and campaigner makes large chunks of free time hard to come by, and it’s a difficult trade-off. We have a family ski holiday booked for February though and I am very much looking forward to that.
I only travelled a small amount this year, with Spain being particularly over-represented. After having surgery in Marbella, I spent 10 days there recovering, and it’s a beautiful place to do so although I didn’t experience too much of it, other than the local crêperie as I tried to get out a bit every day. I visited Edinburgh as per usual for the Fringe, and after the general election (which fell a few days after my birthday) Meg took me to Wales for a couple of days for some much needed R&R. It was a lovely mini break, and I got to ride the Great Orme tramway!
The house move scuppered plans of a longer summer break, but we did also manage to get 5 days in a resort in Mallorca, a holiday involving little more than reading by the beach and being absolutely relaxing.
I also brought Meg along to EMF Camp, the every-other-year festival of geekery and I’m glad she was blown away by it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a space like no other and I just enjoyed vibing in the outdoors, seeing queerness normalised and seeing some absolutely incredible things that make me wish I was anywhere near as creative.
The surprise trip to me though was when my friend Emily invited me to join her on a trip to PortAventura World in Spain. She’s a big theme park fan and hadn’t been before. With a few days of holiday left at work I decided to join her and had a blast doing so, travelling with a new friend and the ups and downs of that! We tried our best to channel our inner travel vloggers and filmed quite a lot of content (I even bought myself a set of those fancy RODE wireless microphones) which is currently stuck in editing although I’d love to share that when it’s done.
Doing an intense theme park holiday was a lot of fun, and spending some time travelling Spain by rail was an experience (I have less good things to say about the buses!) but I did need a break when I got back to the UK though.
I’m happy to have also managed to enjoy some live music this year, seeing Laura Jane Grace at Band on the Wall, the kind of intimate gig I very much enjoy, and on the other end of the spectrum, Charli xcx at the Co-op Live which made me realise that I prefer the intimacy of gigs that arena concerts will never be able to provide (although Brat is an incredible album that grew on me throughout the year). Meg and I also made a trip over to Leeds to watch Public Service Broadcasting, who remain one of my favourite bands, and I’ve enjoyed their Amelia Earhart themed album, and I was once again over-awed with emotion hearing Night Mail performed live. Next year my brother got me tickets for Scissor Sisters at the Co-op Live and I hope to find some more live experiences too.
Recapturing the joy of technology
Towards the end of this year, I’ve picked up some personal tech projects again, and I’ve rediscovered the joy of playing with technology. To help my girlfriend with her professional development (expanding her skills from Windows Servers to Linux and cloud stacks) we’ve deployed our own bare metal Kubernetes cluster (the first real workload on it being a Factorio server!). And we’ve adopted a couple of steadfast principles to help us with this – the first is to self-host everything to give us experience across the whole stack (although in the real world you would absolutely not do things like self-host your own authentication system, but instead use Okta or something) and the second is to embrace automation and infrastructure as code, so everything is defined programatically rather than manually configured by GUI.
To help with the second, we’ve set up a Vagrant “testlab” to allow us to spin up VMs locally to make sure we’re not just doing things that work on the cluster, and reducing the pain of this and making destroying/recreating from scratch as easy as possible is driving the automation work a lot. There are a few exceptions so far – certificate issuing and DNS being the two biggest ones!
I feel like I’ve learnt a lot along the way, and come up with some good approaches to problems that don’t seem to be well documented, so I’m going to try and find some time to share this knowledge wider soon.
The other tech project I have on at the moment is that I’m now leading a working group within the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Council to look at the party’s technology and governance. Good governance is really important to me, and building a good tech culture really is too, and I suspect there’s a few ways the party could do better (even though with tools like NGP VAN we probably have the best technology of any UK political party, it’s important to not get left behind), and I’m looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this work and actually leave a positive legacy from the first term of Federal Council which I’m otherwise very pessimistic about.
And 2025?
So what will 2025 bring? Well, I’m on the waiting list for NHS bottom surgery and I am hopeful that I’ll be seen next year and that will be another major step on my transition. And politically, there are no local elections in Manchester next year which brings a degree of calmness. I want to refocus my energy into trans activism and see what can be done to reverse the tide on erosion of trans rights and acceptance, and we’ll see if I can take a tentative step forward on my career again.
But most importantly, I will continue to surround myself with the love and joy of my friends, and building my home together with Meg. I look forward so much to seeing in 2025 together with them tonight.