What is Angel & Princess about really?

I have been overwhelmed, delighted and moved at the recent massive increase of you reading the blog and leaving comments.  A very warm thank you to all of you, and I hope you are back for more this week.

Last week I went to a conference held by Marie Claire magazine; ‘how to get published’.  A key discussion was; be passionate about what you are writing and you cannot go wrong.

I thought back to the beginning of my journey with A&P.  I started this project because no one had written anything which resonated my experience of being a partner of someone trans.  In fact no one had really (discounting two major titles) written anything at all, certainly not the positive relationship I enjoy.

I am passionate about trans people to have the right to be themselves in society, without being judged, or discriminated against, or attacked (physically or verbally).   But A&P is more than this, because I believe that every individual should live their life under these rights.

My work has evolved into a relationship book on the next level to John Gray’s Mars and Venus, because relationships should be free of any gender boundaries.  I realised recently my book is 3 fold in concept.  Its themes are; ‘you’, ‘relationship’, and ‘trans’.

‘You’; are the most important thing in your life.  Think about it nothing can happen without you.  Put you first.  This may sound selfish, but if you are a; fully, well-rounded, confident, happy individual, fulfilling your own needs and not expecting a partner to fulfil them for you, you can share yourself as an amazing whole person with who you have chosen to have a relationship with.

‘Relationship’ – so if you are both putting yourself first, how can this work?  Because you have to communicate, communicate, communicate.   If you love, and therefore I hope respect your partner, you should be working together for each other’s best interests.  If your partner has a dream, support them in it.  You cannot achieve it for them but you can be there to cheer them on.  If they have a problem, you can be there to talk it through and hold their hand; but you cannot fix it for them…oh and share taking the bins out!

‘Trans’ – oh where do I start.  I think it is fair to say that the most important thing to a trans person is to be accepted as themselves.  If you are in the closet you most likely dream of what it would be like to be ‘out’.  If you are ‘out’ you want to move forward with your life and develop the ‘you’ you have probably been hiding all your life.  Essentially overwhelming you just want to be ‘you’, as I described above.  In a relationship, under the rules of ‘you’, if you are putting you first you are likely to have to be honest with your partner about being trans, this means; communicating, communicating and, you guessed it, communicating.

‘Trans’ because my god the whole world has so much to learn from you.  To understand and acknowledge your bravery, your fear, your strength when society tells you being ‘you’ is wrong.  Yet you fly in the face of its ignorant rules of gender.  Because the story of angel and princess, in the context of the struggle trans people face, should make anyone reading it realise following the rules of ‘you’ and ‘relationships’ are easy in comparison to the journey of a trans person.  And we really should all stop worrying so much about what others think of us, start being honest with ourselves about who we are, and be truly ‘you’.