Month: September 2022

I like bad boys but why do they treat me like s**t?

Ok, I’m really failing to understand what it is is with women who say they like bad guys and then complain that they get treated like shit by the very same men!

You constantly repeat the cycle of going out with bad guys who treat you like shit or beat you up!

What am I missing here?

Do you think it’s that you actually go for men who treat you like shit or is it that every man that you meet treats you like shit? Or is it because you let them treat you like shit? Or the unthinkable/unfathomable to me, you either like it or you think that’s how things should be!!!!! WTF!

I’ve had partners treat me badly in the past but I don’t go out to find another one straight after.

Maybe you like the bad boy image and tolerate their behaviour?

But why would you tolerate being treated like shit? Surely, at the first sign you’re being treated like your last partner treated you, you’d drop them like a stone off a bridge!

But alas no! Why the would you do that? Why put yourself through that again?

Just can’t get my head around it!

But what I do know is there are a lot of absolute knob head men out there that treat women badly.

Stop it you bastards!

You’re Beautiful

When I tell you that you are beautiful, I don’t do it because I’m being nice but because I genuinely think you are beautiful.

Not just beautiful to look at, but beautiful inside, in your heart and your mind and a beautiful nature.

Please don’t cast my words aside as a throw away comment, embrace it in the spirit it is offered.

Even if you don’t see yourself that way or self-doubt stands in the way.

Believe in yourself, you are beautiful and believe that others can see beauty in you.

You are beautiful.

Mikki Tiamo, 2022

Inner Cinema at Equinox Festival

Can’t do that at home, dancing!

You can’t do that at home, dancing!

After this year’s many events and talking to lots of people, I’ve come to the realisation that dancing for some folk is a release.

Let me clarify, you can dance at home, Yes! However, not to the level you can at a festival, rave, or live event.

Personally, I like to dance to Psytrance, Techno, and sometimes Drum and/or Bass music and this stems from my youth.

My journey

I grew up as a child of the 80’s and when house music arrived on the scene I was 14 years old and started going out very soon after. I went to my first nightclub at 15 and loved to dance but the music wasn’t exactly when I liked because not only did we have “Pump up the volume” by MARRS but the DJ would also play “Never going to give you up” by Rick Astley but in 1986 I started buying records from Vibes in Bury and I ended up listening to lots of early house music. One thing I loved about vibes is they had a very loud sound system.

Anyway, I also got to hear about illegal warehouse raves and attended a few with friends in the Blackburn area and these afforded me the ability to really jump around and dance as I wanted.

Most nightclubs of the time, and even now, are scenes of drunken debauchery and the raves of old where places where very few people drank and the atmosphere was very much that of love for the music and dancing.

The raves I attended were basically free for all’s with music sometimes so loud they would shake your very insides. There was when I first started going lots of space to move around and jump about. Something I love about some of the events I attend these days!

Acid house and frequent visits to Ibiza cemented the need to dance in my very soul as these happened in my life around the same time and I can still remember some of the Acid House Parties I went to in Manchester at this time.

The first time I went to Ibiza, was in 1988 and this blew me away!

The clubs over there were nothing like what we had in the UK at the time and one night ending up dancing at Amnesia was like I’d attained a heavenly place. Especially when coupled with MDMA!

For me listening to loud music is a visceral experience but it is also a spiritual one as well.

The beats of very loud music often lead me to experience euphoria even without the need for chemical enhancement.

Why can’t you do that at home?

Well for a start many of us don’t have the space to jump around in our houses, as most of the property in the UK is bereft of space. Even my house doesn’t lend itself to more than 3 or 4 people in the same room dancing.

Sure, some of us have larger houses so what’s the problem there?

Well because we live in a supposedly civilized society, the powers that be have deemed excessive noise to be unnecessary or in some instances illegal. These noise abatement rules mean elevated noise levels in an urban environment can be dangerous to your health and your financial status! Setup a 10k sound system in your front room in a row of terraced houses in Grimsby and see what happens when you switch it on!

So, why do it?

Some of us need that visceral feeling of the sound to appreciate it properly. And who doesn’t like several thousand watts of bass shaking their body to the bone? The very same people who made the above rules probably!

And definitely not your neighbors, Mr and Mrs Miggins the merchant bankers at number 53!

Also society in general looks down on groups of people having a good time by making noise, taking drugs and dancing.

We also have a very authoritarian system in place in our pubs and clubs where alcohol is the main drug of choice and dancing under the influence of this isn’t the same as dancing under the influence of drugs.

In an alcohol environment, the crowd does not share the same experience as those taking drugs such as magic mushrooms and MDMA.

Fights and rowdy behavior is rarely seen at dance music events and I haven’t seen any at the Trance events I’ve been to over the past 20 years.

Can’t say the same for nights out at clubs where alcohol is the main drug of choice. There’s trouble at most bars and clubs in Manchester most nights of the week.

Summary

The festival world is a vital necessity for lots of people because our own homes aren’t big enough or suitable enough to let us listen and dance as we want. Plus throw in the social element of the dancing and other elements and the festival world gives a release to many.

Roll on the next festival and roll on many festivals yet to come!

Equinox festival at night

Equinox festival 2022, September 16th-18th

First off let me get this out of the way, the Equinox festival has been the best festival I’ve been to in the past few years. Images and Videos are at the bottom of the page.

Why Mikki? I hear you cry!

Well, just because of the relaxed vibe, the fantastic company, the new friends I’ve made, and because I was with so many of my existing friends.

For those that don’t know the Equinox festival is held every year in mid-September in a discussed quarry at a location just north of Lincoln and just south of Grimsby

The event is an eclectic mix of trance, psytrance, drum and/or bass music, along with a few live stages offering folk, reggae, and many other types of traditional music over the period of three days.

The site is well laid out and offers other activities such as a circus tent, firepit (with fire act performers), processions, and performers doing things like juggling, a troupe of drummers, stilt walkers, and generally fun things.

There’s also plenty of food stalls and shops selling festival-related clobber.

I’ve personally bought some of the best juggling balls I’ve ever owned. For those who know me well, know I can juggle, and brought clubs and rings with me to juggle while listening to the loud hypnotic beats of the festival.

I also bought them to wear my brain out as I do get hyper when at these festivals.

The campsite here isn’t too far from the main event and because the main stages are in a quarry the sound doesn’t travel. and I even managed to get a few hour’s sleep.

The wardens on the site are rather good as well and there is a moratorium on noise between 3 am and 9 am.

Arriving on Friday you know you’re in rural Lincolnshire as this is in the middle of nowhere and entry to the site did make me wince as the sound of the bottom of my car hitting the ground on numerous occasions was not something one enjoyed!

Check-in for me was very quick and painless as my tickets were scanned when I was in the queue and my wristband tied on for the weekend.

There is loads of camping but unless you are sleeping in your vehicle it’s not allowed on the campsite and once unloaded you must park it in the main car park. Fortunately, this was close by as well.

I had arranged to come with a friend with a van and we were going to sleep in this but alas at the last minute she had a family emergency, so I ended up being able to leave my car on the campsite as I had a sleep-in vehicle pass. Still, put my tent up as I’ve slept in my car on numerous occasions and it’s not something I look forward to.

Friday Evening was fantastic and I spent most of the night, (cough, weekend, in the Sunrise tent dancing to Psytrance music.

Saturday I spent all afternoon and evening dancing outside in glorious sunshine and in the evening ran around the site with my friend Sarah!

Sunday was amazing as I went all around the festival site and sat and watched some things I wouldn’t necessarily have gone and watched as I was with new friends all day.

The weekend for me has been kind of a blur but I know I’ve met some fantastic people, listened to some great DJs, and thoroughly enjoyed what has been the best event of the year for me… So far 🤪

I’m already planning to go back next year.

Big high to Warwick, Andrea, Kenny, Helen, Ed, Kaz, Sarah, Shammy, and many more for making this Equinox festival weekend very special.

I feel let down again by my Doctors

It would seem my suspicions about shared care between Gender GP and my doctors were completely correct. Yet again I’ve been let down by my doctors!

After the elation a few weeks ago that my Doctors were finally going to help, this week it’s made me realise than the help is still not forthcoming, and nothing has changed since I started this process.

Gender GP told my GP years ago I would need blood tests done at the minimum of every year.

They have done this once so far and now the doctors will not share the blood test results with Gender GP unless they write to them again and request this. Alternatively, I must collect these results and pass them on to Gender GP.

This has never been an issue when I’ve had private blood test done.

From this point on I’ll be cutting my own GP out of the loop as they’ve had my blood test results each time off my care provider.

My doctors have also told me today my Oestradiol and Testosterone levels are normal? Normal for what?

It took me 20 minutes for them to give me the levels over the phone. 0.9nmol/L for Testosterone and 101pmol/L for Oestradiol. Which is on the low side. I know this because I’ve been paying for blood tests every quarter for the past 3 years and its always been between 142 and 207 for over 18 months.

I was so right not to wait for the NHS and do my own care, and after this fuck up, I’ll be doing the same again next quarter.

Next step is to get my Gender Recognition Certificate completed, my GP to sign it and then once that’s done I can fuck off to a more Trans friendly GP.

The irony of the doctors surgery not willing to help me so now I am self-medicating and thats not supposed to happed under NHS guidelines especially as I am under the care of a Gender Identity service, albeit not an NHS one because the waiting time is not over 5 years from date of referral!

 

NHS Guidelines

In March 2016 the General Medical Council (GMC) published Guidance for Doctors Treating Transgender Patients. This guidance reiterates the advice previously set   out by NHS England in SSC 1417; and also explains the legal protection against discrimination and harassment given to trans people by The Equality Act 2010 and Gender Recognition Act 2004.

 General Practitioners should co-operate with the specialist Gender Identity Clinics and prescribe hormone therapy (feminising or virilising endocrine therapy) recommended for their patients by the Gender Identity Clinic. The specialists at the Gender Identity Clinic make recommendations for the prescription and monitoring of these therapies but they do not directly prescribe them, or provide physical and laboratory monitoring procedures for patients.

 The decision on whether or not to provide long-term feminising or virilizing endocrine therapy requires the skills of a gender specialist physician, usually working within a Gender Identity Clinic.

 Typical drugs recommended by Gender Identity Clinics include oestradiol preparations (e.g. transdermal oestradiol gels and patches, and oral oestradiol preparations), testosterone preparations (e.g. gels, and Sustanon® and Nebido® injection), gonadotropin releasing hormone analogues and depilatory agents (e.g. Vaniqa®); this list is not exhaustive. Apart from Sustanon®, there are no licensed products with an approved indication for the treatment of gender dysphoria. There is, however, extensive clinical experience of the use of these products in the treatment of gender dysphoria over decades, which provides evidence of tolerability and safety comparable with their use for approved indications. The prescription of licensed products outside their approved indications, often but not always at the recommendation of a specialist provider, is not uncommon in general practice.

 General Practitioners should collaborate with Gender Identity Clinics in the initiation and on-going prescribing of hormone therapy, and for organizing blood and other diagnostic tests as recommended by the Gender Identity Clinics.

 General Practitioners are also expected to co-operate with Gender Identity Clinics in patient safety monitoring, by providing basic physical examinations (within the competence of General Practitioners) and blood tests and diagnostic tests recommended by the Gender Identity Clinic. Hormone therapy should be monitored at least 6 monthly in the first 3 years and yearly thereafter, dependent on clinical need.

 The Gender Identity Clinic is expected to assist General Practitioners by providing relevant information and support, including the provision of guidance regarding the interpretation of blood test results

 

British Medical Association guide for dealing with patients with Gender Dysphoria

I also love this article, parts copied below, on the British Medical Association website: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/gp-service-provision/managing-patients-with-gender-dysphoria

Be mindful of the sensitivity of their condition and of how difficult it might have been for your patient to seek treatment.

Yeah, that didn’t happen!

Be particularly mindful of medical confidentiality, when addressing your patient in person and in written correspondence.

Yeah, that didn’t happen either and my GP are still dead naming me now

Avoid misattributing commonplace health problems to gender.

They refuse to look at me as someone who has had 2.5 years worth of HRT and look solely at me as male.

Assist those patients who wish to change their personal details on their practice medical record. 

Thats the best one. Despite having 2 copies of my deed pool in person and one via emails my GP still dead names me.

Inform your patient of any gender-specific disease prevention and organ screening programmes, including offering information on how to opt out and discuss any future family plans and fertility treatments options.

Nope, nothing!

Refer early to a reputable NHS GIC (gender identity clinic).

You mean like an NHS approved service where the waiting list is many years long? How many people either kill themselves, self harm or give up because they are unable to access Gender services?

Get informed about prescribing medicines that you are not normally familiar with. 

My GP haven’t spoke to me once about this

 

Manchester Pride 2022

Well, it’s the end of another Manchester Pride and Manchester Pride 2022 to will go down in my thoughts as the best Manchester pride to date.

It was best because of the people in general, the venue entertainment and the people I met along the way.

However, there are quite a few things that need a massive improvement for the 2023 event, and I’ll come on to those very shortly.

After pride 2021 I made the conscious decision to attend Manchester Pride for the entire weekend as last year I missed Sunday evening and Monday’s events, I cried having to go home on Sunday, and this year I wanted to attend the vigil in Sackville gardens on Monday evening.

Thursday

So, I arrived bright eyed, and bushy tailed on Thursday afternoon. This is despite having fallen over that afternoon and bruising my ankles and cutting my legs!

High heels plus Macclesfield cobbles don’t mix!

I’d only been in the village for a few minutes, and I bumped into somebody I haven’t seen for almost a year because we fell out over the covid vaccinations. I’m not going to go into the story here, but we kissed a made up and many drinks ensued on Thursday evening. I had missed him, and he missed me ♥️

The Thursday evening did set the tone for the entire weekend, but Thursday night was quite subdued compared to the rest of the weekend and I’d gone on Thursday to watch the inter bar Olympics which was highly entertaining with three-legged races, and other bar events involving alcohol as both a prize and a forfeit. Check out my Instagram post here.

I don’t think I have laughed so much for a very long time especially when the staff started racing.

I met up with Dougie and Lisa in Centrestage and listened to Lisa prattle on as we went to the Goose. Dougie was his usual charming self. Love these two.

I really enjoyed Thursday but got very drunk and didn’t return home until gone 4am and vaguely remember going in the Thompson Arms which was surreal as I was the only female in there!

Friday

Despite only having 4 hours’ sleep I was up bright and early on Friday morning and went out for breakfast with a few friends before proceeding down to the village which even at dinnertime was still being set up.

On proceeding to get my prepaid wristband for entry from the ticket office I found out it did not open till 12 noon. I hiked back later and the queue by 2pm was ridiculous!

It was like waiting for a ride at Alton towers except the payoff was a wristband and not an end of ride photograph!

I’ve been told, had read on the Manchester Pride website, and had seen on social media that the bars were operating a wristband pledge system. This was so that attendees of the event could only buy drinks if they had a wristband.

This of course was utter bullshit and I was never challenged once even when wearing a long sleeve top which hid my wristband.

I even attended one of the bars whose owner had been quite vocal on social media about the pledge system, with a friend who didn’t have a wristband and she was not challenged once despite going to the bar numerous times even after 10 pm!

Which has made me question what the fuck have I bought a wristband for again?

After the 2021 event, I did ask myself the same question about the need to have a wristband.

If you were in the village before 10 p.m. I don’t think you really needed a wristband. The only time I was asked if I had a wristband was after this time when we left the village to get something to eat! Of course, I know what I bought a wristband for but come on, loads of people there without one. And, yes I know they wouldn’t have got into the staged events without one.

Most of the venues in the village were geared up this year for the sale of alcohol and had bars set up outside their establishments to capitalise on this.

I would ask that next year there is some kind of zero alcohol alternative as one of my friends does not drink but also doesn’t drink soft drinks either. We really struggled to get zero alcohol drinks for her anywhere but the larger establishments.

Friday

Friday for me was the best day as it wasn’t overly busy whereas Saturday and Sunday were just too busy. Sorry, they were! On Saturday and Sunday in some areas of the Village, it was almost impossible to walk down the street. This I was mainly outside the main bars. I’m not blaming the bars for this but more the lack of common sense of the punters.

However, this does happen at all major events on Canal Street, Richmond Street, and Bloom Street.

At one point we walked out of the village and around to the next entry point as this was quicker than trying to walk down Bloom Street!

The atmosphere on Friday was fantastic and I ended up at the Cabaret Stage, which despite its grand name is the car park on Bloom street, dancing to the live entertainment.

My Friday night was punctuated by sitting in the Molly house talking to a lovely couple and just sharing a chat until past 3 a.m.

It was quite easy on Friday to move about the village from stage to stage and bar to bar and because of this, it was my favorite night!

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday and Sunday by contrast were in my humble opinion far, far too busy and the atmosphere was quite different with many people being very drunk even at 3pm in the afternoon.

I know the bars must make money but the Saturday and Sunday for me seemed to be by many people about how much alcohol they could consume.

I saw numerous fights on Saturday and Sunday but because of the police presence these were jumped on almost immediately and the transgressors were removed from the village.

By contrast on Thursday and Friday evening, I did not see one single police officer inside the village.

On Saturday I would say there were two tipping points when the atmosphere changed.

The first of these was between 10:30 and 11:30 when the volume of people in the village seemed to decrease somewhat, and I can only put this down to people catching the last train home.

The second tipping point was around 12:30 and again the village got much quieter during this time, but I cannot explain why this would be. It also seemed to get more aggressive because of the number of very drunk people.

I can’t comment on the events of Saturday evening as I woke up at 5 am in a friend’s camper van where I’d been curled up asleep with her, apparently since 12.30am!

With it being a bank holiday lots and lots of people attended the event on Sunday and it was even busier than Saturday and to move down any of the streets in the village by 5pm was virtually impossible without pushing your way through!

Sunday evening for myself and many of my friends was too much and we left the village at about midnight and went back to one of my friends apartments and just chilled out there as we’d all got a bit sick of the volume of people in the village.

Monday

On Monday there was some semblance of calm back in the village and because of this, I spent all afternoon at the silent disco as I needed to dance. I met some genuinely nice people including one of the DJs who had driven to Manchester Pride from Brighton and was returning that evening. That’s dedication!

When he finished his set, he came over to me because he couldn’t believe how much I jumped about and danced for 4 hours solid. “Where did I get my energy from? What drugs am I on?” (those who know me well, know I don’t need drugs to dance!

That evening the last part to Manchester Pride 2022 was the vigil in Sackville Street gardens, which after the events of the weekend was a very somber affair.

Vigil

The vigil is to mark several things.

First of all, the progress that the LGBTQ+ community has made in the past decades.

Secondly to remember the people who have died from things like HIV, and thirdly, to honor the people who have lost their lives just because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or are on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and have been killed because of other people who don’t agree that they should live their lives as they see fit.

We all stood in the gardens with our candles supplied by the Terrence Higgins trust and stood in silence as the ceremony progressed.

I was standing with some friends of mine, one of whom is in his seventies now and he cried all the way through the ceremony, afterward we discussed how many of his friends he had lost over the years. Some from HIV and many from domestic violence!

Stages

The stages were fabulous this year, well most of the acts were. On Friday I ended up standing in the Bloom street car park, which was ironically called the cabaret stage. Those who know this car park will know how shocking the car park is and I saw quite a few people take a tumble, because of the quality of the surface, the raised curbs, and lack of adequate lighting.

The events here were great but the highlight for me was Duncan James from Blue who came on stage dressed in a wig, a Basque, and stockings and suspenders.

It wasn’t just his act, which was really good, but he gave quite an inspirational speech about coming out and I don’t think I was the only one that this resonated with as he got a massive cheer for his little speech.

Patrick Saint James was also pretty good. He sang quite a few songs by other artists.

On Saturday I flitted between the Cabaret stage and the Alan Turing stage in Sackville gardens and watched a variety of drag queens and drag acts which had me in fits of laughter, however, I do question whether some of the jokes were appropriate for some of the children in the audience.

On Sunday I really enjoyed the daytime events on the three stages, the highlight for me was the main stage in Sackville gardens from an act called TomYumSin. Brilliant act, very entertaining, however, I did laugh my head off at the sign language interpreter as he was trying to translate all the swear words, sexual references, and sexual acts into sign language.

K-class were up next, and they were good. I have seen them live before, the last time being at Butlins Ibiza weekend when nobody got up and danced. There were plenty of people dancing this time.

I was going to stay in Sackville gardens and watch Bimini but ended up going to the cabaret stage and watching Misty Chance, as I do find her very entertaining and she’s my friend.

I returned to the Alan Turing stage to watch Melanie C.

Now, for a start it was terribly busy, she was the headline act but for me, it was a thumbs down.

Shortly, after I actually left the village to go with a group of friends to one of their houses, where we sat and chatted until the small hours of the morning. A few of them had actually been working all day at pride behind bars and they were all knackered.

Aftermath

On both Saturday morning and Sunday morning, I walked home through the village and I was absolutely disgusted by the amount of detritus on the floor.

In some places, you could not see the tarmac for plastic pint pots, fast food wrappers, and other miscellaneous crap!

The whole village also stunk of piss!

The clean up crews who were out in the early hours of the morning deserve a medal for cleaning up all the shit but what staggers me when was there are large wheelie bins all over the village. Just how lazy are some people not put their rubbish in them!

Improvements

While I did love this years pride I think there was a few areas that could be improved.

Food!

So fucking expensive. Now I’m not blaming the sellers for this as I spoke to a few of them and they both told me how much they’d paid to have stalls there so they need to recoup their fees.

We went out of the village because you can get a buffet Chinese for less than a tiny burger in the village.

Entry/Exit

WTF were you thinking about making some of the entrance/exits to the village entry or exit only? Or even blocking them entirely. Case in point, Sackville Street. The north end was blocked off, then an entrance then an exit. Make your mind up. The south end was an exit only.

Volume of people

On Saturday and Sunday the volume in the village was TOO MUCH. You couldn’t move, literally couldn’t move!

 

Thats all folks! A summary.

So, I have left Manchester Pride for another year.

I will be back in a village next week, without the pomp and ceremony of a pride event, and enjoying being around like minded people.

I’ve really enjoyed this year’s event, more so than last year’s events even though I miss some of my friends who purposely did not attend this year’s event because of last year’s.

I will also look forward to Manchester Pride 2023. I will attend Manchester Pride 2023, but I think next year ear I will more than likely only attend on Thursday, Friday, and Monday.

I’ve attached some of my photos from Manchester Pride 2022 and also some of the short videos that I took. Honestly, this year I’ve enjoyed myself too much to be standing around taking loads of photographs!

I’d like to say thank you to all the staff at the Rembrandt, Centrestage, Vanilla, Iconic and Bar pop for just making life better this weekend.

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