I was asked to make some different images for a photo of a friend...

I went to a main police station in Manchester yesterday to meet and talk with a police officer trainer.

Two trans friends were to come as well but unfortunately one was unable to attend due to cancelled trains.  So there was just three of us having a very interesting discussion about police support for transgender people.

Now some people would be moaning in exasperation.  "What about most of us who need help not just the odd weirdos..." blah blah blah.

I'll just stand on the outside here and say, I do understand the
exasperation BUT not the transphobia.  PLUS there's big factors here.

- The law enforces protection for trans people.  The police HAVE to gain greater understanding about assaults on trans people ('transphobia').
- If police officers understand difficulties faced by trans people through the training myself and my three colleagues/friends will do, it helps them understand the similar problems faced by various groups.  There's no massively separate actions with:

- Domestic abuse
(due to sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia etc)
- Assaults outside the home
(due to sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia etc)
- Attempted murders
(due to sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia etc)
- Attempted suicides
(due to sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia etc)
- Support by officers for victims after abuse/assaults
(due to sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia etc)

It goes on....

Trans people face more than the average problems. 

So yesterday I went to an Equality and Inclusion workshop entitled "Inspiring Change in Manchester" sponsored by Shelter.  We had discussions on informing equality issues, the barriers to equality and ideas of how to overcome those barriers.

It was a good workshop.

Maybe this is an indication are changes are happening.

These changes include the expanding political assertiveness of transgender people.  This includes greater awareness of the range and size of the transgender communities. 

Anyhoo... less of the work areas.  Well, kind of.  I watched part of Eddie Izzard's first live video 'Live at the Ambassadors' which isn't on DVD and the video tapes are now collectable.  He hadn't come out as being explicitly a transvestite at that point so it's kind of strange to watch him wearing quite boring drab clothes.

As soon as I wrote that I was thinking, we now expect him to be wearing at least make-up.  That's quite a transition of acceptance I guess.

Although he did get assaulted coming out of a theatre a few years ago for wearing make-up.  Hmmm.... does that mean gay people 'come out of the closet' whereas transgender people 'come out of the theatre'?

I like that phrase!

So here I am... waiting.

My PhD is finished.  Waiting for the examiners to finish their final proof reading.  Basically the last bits...  My supervisor, Prof. Stephen Whittle, has already suggested that I turn it into two e-books.  He's that confident.  And he's published dozens of major books...

Well, my work did highlight the possible harmful/misleading impacts from prior research omissions...

But then to do something that's different from the way things have been done in the past is often difficult.

That's why my PhD was self-funded.  Let's face it if my work is different from many of the previous accepted ways of looking at things it can be wrongly assumed my work could be incorrect.

When it's the other way round.  In fact it's now seen like that.

When I started my PhD I was doing an odd and perhaps dismissible area.

Now it's complete, my work can be seen as pioneering.  In several ways...

Same with my artwork.

Am I blowing my own trumpet?

Of course. 

If Government legal papers are based upon incomplete and inaccurate work then harm and wasted money can happen. 

If companies don't see financial advantages because of that defective work misleading them...

If media organizations like the BBC spend money creating documentaries that contain numerous errors - not because of poor research within the BBC but referring to faulty research because there no awareness that it was faulty...

If organizations don't see the positive visual effects from creating logos using CD fragments... Oh, of course I'm THE expert on that.  After all I did pieces using waste CDs to show how logos and words can be made. 

Now then, what to do?

Oh, yeah, maybe make other different things like helping companies operate inventively and profitably and...

Doing music videos using edited old films that I made to time precisely with the music words.

Have lots of smiles... Night night...

(This is a still from a 1908 film that the makers had coloured.  I edited it to a song I co-wrote called 'Well I Say')

For you to enjoy and download?

This is a film I wrote, produced and directed.  I was using the pseudonym Lee Jackson. I want to remake this film as a play warning about hate crimes.

Join in and be involved.

https://twitter.com/TheDevilsRing

Recent PhD researcher problems 21: So PhD research on transgenderism in universities can be divorced from reality and can be transphobic...