Why Barbra Streisand should be held accountable for her comments.

If you have followed me for any length of time, you know that I’m fairly vocal about the fact I went through molestation, emotional, and physical abuse at the hands of my father. You will know that as a result of this I am living my life with C-PTSD. That I regularly have flashbacks, nightmares and panic attacks, and that I’m working to deal with these things. You will also know that as a result of untreated C-PTSD, General Anxiety Disorder and depression, I have attempted to take my life five times, and planned it a further two. The last time I planned it being five years ago this May.

Life as an abuse survivor is difficult. It is a life lived with shame for the abuse you have been through. It’s fear that you will be abused by others. Sometimes it’s being abused by others. It’s being in a position where you are very often left dealing with trauma that haunts you for the rest of your life in one way or another. And just because I everything can look good on the surface doesn’t make it so underneath.

Ms. Streisand has stated:

“His sexual needs were his sexual needs, coming from whatever childhood he has or whatever DNA he has,” she said. “You can say ‘molested,’ but those children, as you heard say [the grown-up Robson and Safechuck], they were thrilled to be there. They both married and they both have children, so it didn’t kill them.”

Quite frankly for this alone I would like to sit down and talk to her. I want to explain to her that she is beyond out of line. I do not care if the allegations are false or true. I do not care if, as many believe, the men are after money, I want her held accountable for her words. I want her to realise that words like that have an impact.

What would she say if someone told her that people who survived the Holocaust and went on to have families clearly didn’t die so they are fine? And before you jump down my throat, please remember with the exception of the fact I’m not Jewish I hit many of the checkboxes for the camps, I’m disabled, autistic, have mental health issues, am Romani, I’m lesbian and non-binary… I could go on….

Her words are uncaring, extremely disappointing, and as an icon within the LGBTQIA community, a community with an extremely high rate of sexual abuse, appalling.

Dear Barbra,

I respectfully ask you to look at what you said.

I am not about to voice my personal opinions on what Mr Jackson did or didn’t do. But I will voice my opinions on your horrendous comment.

You have chosen to alienate people with an opinion that does not and will not sit well with people. Are you trying to be controversial? Or are you really that metaphorically blind that you can’t see the damn wood for the trees?

International Womens Day 2019

I always feel a little out of sorts when it comes to International Womens Day. I mean I am female-bodied, but I don’t identify as female. So where does that leave me in the grand scheme of things? There are Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists who would say that today has nothing to do with me. But I’d beg to differ. You see, I am a woman, I’m just not female. My sex and my gender are not the same thing. To be honest, gender and sex are very complicated in and off themselves. Neither really makes much sense, except that both are very much social constructs in the sense of the binary.

There are those who would argue that genitals do make your sex/gender. Others would argue it’s down to whether or not you have XX or XY chromosomes. But hey, kids, it’s really not as simple as that. There are women who are born with female genitals who have XXY chromosomes or XO chromosomes. There are men born with XXY chromosomes and male genitals. Intersex people exist. Transgender people exist. Non-binary people exist. Some species of animal have been known to change sex because they loose an appendage (octopi), some because of an overwhelming number of a particular sex being in their particular group (frogs), and there being a need to reproduce. 

So the fact I’m non-binary, or several of my friends are trans women, shouldn’t stop us being included today. We are just as worthy of recognition as every other woman on the face of the planet. And before you argue we’re going against God…. Whose God? Because my Gods and Goddesses made me perfect just the way I am, and they intended me to be non-binary, lesbian, and fabulous as f*ck.

On International Womens Day we often forget that we should be uplifting all women’s voices. The LGBTQIA+ women, the women of colour, the disabled women, the autistic women, the women who come from poorer backgrounds, the infertile women, the women who live on the street, all women deserve to have their voices heard, respected, and listened to. Because every woman is worthy.

It’s taken me a long time to realise that I’m worthy. I was beaten (literally, emotionally, and sexually) into submission from a young age. I still carry around some of those issues. Okay, a lot of those issues. I still struggle to deal with that that means for me in regards to where I am with accepting myself and my self worth. But I am worthy. I am worthy of being included, and if you’re reading this and struggling today, let me tell you this:

SO. ARE. YOU.

You are worth so much more than you realise or know. And you will always be welcome to fill out the contact page on my site if you need someone to boost you up and remind you that you are worthy. That you are perfectly able and capable of finding that self-worth. It may take a long time, and I may not have the answers. But I can promise you that I’ll tell you those three words.

I was born with a severe heart condition.
I should have been dead by my fifth birthday.
I was abused by my own father.
I was bullied at school.
I raised my brother.
I took care of a disabled mother and uncle.
I was abused as an adult.
I’m LGBT.
I’m disabled now myself.
I have physical and mental scars.
I’m in therapy.
I’m on anti-depressants.
I have severe chronic pain.

If I can come out of all of that and find my self-worth again because of a another human being giving me the time of day, then I should do the same in return, and pass it forward. Five years ago I was suicidal. Today, I want to live. I wake up each morning with a song in my heart, because I’m still here.

I’m not going to lie and tell you it has been easy or it’s easy now. It’s not. It can be a hard slog. But if you’re reading this and you’re wondering where you fit in to today’s picture, if you’re even worthy to count yourself a woman on #IWD, then let me tell you, that you are.

You my dear reader are beautiful.
You are intelligent.
Your smile lights up a room.
Your ability to get this far means that you can try another minute, another hour, another day, another week, another month, another year.
I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but you are perfect just the way you are.
Your imperfections, the ones you see that no one else does, are there for a reason. And they make you perfect in your own right.
You don’t want to be the same as everyone else, they are boring.
You my dear are magical.

Book offer ending tomorrow at midnight

Only two days left now to snap up my ebook offer! So what are you waiting for? Click the payment link and you can walk away with all three ebooks for £4.99! That’s right! When you purchase The Stolen Generation, you get the first two books in The Lunegosse Tales free! https://www.paypal.me/NatLeBrun

Sailing Somewhere – on a cruise ship with Suanne Braun

There are three types of theatre my Theatre Studies teacher told me she hated like the plague. The first is pantomime. Well whilst I don’t hate it, I certainly have to be in the right mood for it. The second is musical, something I find a tad ironic considering she seems to perform in a lot of them. The third is dinner theatre. In all honesty I don’t think she knows what she’s missing. Especially as Sailing Somewhere fits into the last of these categories and it’s leading lady has done all three types of theatre.

It’s always, and I do mean always, a treat to see Suanne Braun perform. Especially when you find yourself in an intimate theatre setting where you’re sat (unintentionally) in the front row, or on this occasion at one of the front tables by the maître d’. Sailing Somewhere is no exception on that list of treats that have joined my list of favourite shows in the past twelve months, and three of them have involved performances by the wonderful Ms. Braun. It’s filled with humorous moments and also has an extremely heart-wrenching core that caused me to sob amongst strangers for the first time in a very long time.

Sailing Somewhere is the tale of a lounge singer on a cruise ship. She’s quite vivacious and rather bawdy on the surface, but when you scratch underneath, there’s so much more there. The depth of character and the difficulty of the life she’s led aren’t the easiest part for any actor, seasoned or otherwise, to undertake, and not only does Suanne do so incredibly well, she does so with a layer of depth that I honestly hadn’t seen in her performances until tonight, and I have always known that she’s capable of depth in performance.

With the play being set around the life of a ship’s singer, you’d expect there to be music involved, and the piano playing that accompanies Suanne singing is expertly done, with some wonderful moments of comic brevity. The musical score itself is divine and the book compliments the script perfectly. Suanne’s depth of performance carries on over into her singing. The sheer amount of emotion that is pushed through every song pulls on your heart strings as we go from the typical cabaret style song at the beginning to the heartbreaking lullaby for her daughter Zoe.

I might be a sadist in that I enjoy opening night performances as an audience member and in my amateur theatre days I enjoyed them as an actor, so seeing tonight’s opening night was my ideal chance to see the performance as close to raw as possible. And if that was a performance with first night glitches and snags, we as audience members didn’t notice them, at all. In fact, I’m sure that there may have been one or two ad-libs in there somewhere that covered them up if they happened at all.

The show has been written and directed by Matthew Hurt, with songs by Conor Mitchell. Both of whom have worked amazingly well together to produce something cohesive and, well, perfect for Suanne’s skillset. With Musical Director, Noam Galperin, Stage Manager, Reuben Batdorff, and Producer, Zoë Simpson.

Sailing Somewhere is being performed at Crazy Coqs at Brasserie Zédel until 2nd March with Saturday’s performance sold out from what I hear, so get your tickets now!

As always, my usual disclaimer – I have not been asked to write this review, any review I place on my website is because I think something is worth talking about and deserves to be put out in the universe.

Goodbye 2018….

This year has been an interesting one. As with all others there have been some ups and downs and I’m sure there are so many things that I could mention that will get missed along the way. I’m not going to pretend it’s all been a bed of roses, because that wouldn’t do the year justice, but I know that with the bad I’ve been able to better appreciate the good. So here’s a run down of the points I want to make in no particular order.

We finally moved out of Yorkshire and to one of my favourite cities in the world and I couldn’t be happier for it. I feel alive again. I’ve lost weight, and I’m finally getting the healthcare that I deserve. Not saying that my old GP wasn’t fab, she was, but the other healthcare there was useless.

Moving out of that awful flat means that both my asthma and J’s have improved tenfold. That bathroom was awful and there was no sign of it being fixed before we left.

I published The Stolen Generation on Amazon and received some good reviews for it.
I made some amazing new friends through autistic activism and began to support Autistic Inclusive Meets with some of Redbubble profits.

My Patreon is slowly starting to make some headway and I’ve been publishing monthly stories for my patrons.

I started a short story series called the Intergalatic Miltary Series, two of which can be seen on the aforementioned Patreon.

I’ve also made and lost some friendships this year, and that’s been tough. Really tough. I learnt the hard way this year that sometimes people are just not what they seem. Sometimes helping someone leads to them stabbing you in the back and causing more drama than its worth, and quite frankly I’m tired of the high school attitudes that accompany that drama.

My heart has taken a beating in several ways this year. Friendship issues not being the only source of that pain. The loss of a dear friend who I had spent many long conversations with shook me to the bone. Clay Cross, a gentle giant of a man who came into my life through another mutual friend passed away on 11th December 2018. He was an absolute sweetheart with as open a mind as they come. He never judged, but he loved and protected fiercely, and the world is a sadder place without him, but the skies have gained another star.

As we head into 2019, there are so many things I hope for, but the one thing I want more than anything else is to remind myself that I am worthy of love, respect and dignity. That I deserve to be treated properly and that I’m not longer going to take any of the nastiness that people have decided to throw my way over the past.

In 2019, I have a list of goals that will be achieved and I intend to stick by them. 

Writing wise:

  • I will be publishing The Final Battle – the last in The Lunegosse Tales Trilogy.
  • I’ll also be bringing out the trilogy in one book.
  • I will be publishing a short story every month on my Patreon.
  • I will be submitting more short stories to magazines and anthologies.
  • I will be aiming to publish more than one book in the coming year. So watch this space as there are a few percolating in my mind right now.

Art wise

  • I intend to make more #ActuallyAutistic designs on Redbubble and my other POD sites to support Autistic Inclusive Meets.
  • I intend to work on producing new designs in general.
  • I will be offering some existing sketches and some customised pieces for sale.

Personally:

  • I’m going back to therapy, spending time working on myself, and looking after me. That means that if I need a break I’ll take it. This is my life and I’ll live it the way I choose to do so.
  • I’m not going to live my life for anyone but myself.
  • I’m going to focus on my health and doing what I can to make the best of my life.
  • I’m getting a new wheelchair.
  • I’ll be doing more social things.

Activism wise:

  • I’ll be attending more protests
  • I’ll be keeping my voice strong in the communities that I’m an activist for.

To those who have wronged me in 2018 – I forgive you.
To those who have harmed me in 2018 – I forgive you.
To those who have thought of doing either of the above in 2018 – I forgive you.
To those who have chosen to walk away from me in 2018 – thank you for being in my life as long as you were, if you choose to come back, you may find that you are welcome again, but trust may take some time to rebuild.
To those who I lost in 2018 – may your spirits soar, you will be thought of often.

#StayTrueandStaunch – Fanatical About Fanatical

Whenever I decide to write a review about something I’ve been to see it’s usually with a hint of the fanboi in me. And sometimes I feel extremely guilty about that fact, but when it comes to Fanatical – A Sci-Fi Convention Musical I have no need to. It’s a musical that literally pulls at the heart strings of fandom. It’s extremely clear that Reina Hardy and Matt Board know fandom at an intimate level, the script and the songs are sheer genius (and if you know me, I don’t say that lightly).

I really don’t want to spoil people when it comes to the plot. But I can honestly say that every single science fiction, convention going geek, like myself, will find themselves in the characters of the musical. And see reflections of other familiar faces too. It’s also, for the Gaters amongst us (Stargate fans to the unknowing), particularly poignant, as Suanne Braun (SG-1’s Hathor) plays Trix, the con organiser who has worked her behind off to pull together a convention for Angel 8 fans. And knowing a few con organisers myself, I can honestly say, I definitely recognised a couple of them in her character.

The music in this show is lively, it sticks in your head, and J and I may have walked back to the station singing one of Trix’s songs from the second half whilst creasing up in giggles. I’m currently praying for a soundtrack (Reina tweeted me about hoping to get funding), because it’s definitely one I would be singing along with in the shower (and the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom…).

Screen Shot 2018-11-24 at 7.45.20 PM

The only downside to today was the size of the audience. Fanatical may be a small show in terms of musical theatre audience size, but it deserves to be filled to the rafters every night. Sophie Powles epitomises every fangirl who has found her connection with a strong female character in her role as Andra, whilst Eddy Payne’s Baxter will be familiar to every man who was once that awkward sci-fi fanboy. Stephen Frost is as Scott Furnish is every single fan’s experience of a worst nightmare – meeting your hero when they are in a bad mood.

The set is recognisable as a convention for those of us who walk (or in my case usually wheel through) those hallowed halls. The touch of the Pop Vinyl collectables was a nice one. I got the opportunity to look at them during the interval and I have to say, as a collector, it did make me smile. I won’t deny that I’ve scoured convention floors looking for particular Pops, or collectables (my Janeway tree ornament that took 3 years to track down for example). The costumes sum up every single convention you’ve ever been to, a mix of cosplay, con crew shirts, and the odd geeky t-shirt too.

If you’re a sci-fi fan, whether you love musicals or not, this show has to be on your must-see list before it closes on December 8th. You’ll love it!

The Stolen Generation – Freddie’s abandonment issues

As a writer, every single one of my characters has a little bit of me poured into them, and none so much as the protagonists I write. With my last published novel, The Stolen Generation, I talked about the nature of being non-binary, about addiction, and brought lesbian relationships to the forefront. I also brought something else into the story that I’ve struggled with for a lot of my own life. Abandonment issues.

Continue reading “The Stolen Generation – Freddie’s abandonment issues”

The bathroom debate

Have you ever sat and listened to the ludicrous waffle spouted by the right wing in the US when it comes to transgender people using the toilets for their actual gender rather than their birth assigned sex? Have you sat and read the articles on how it puts our children at risk of assault, etc. etc. etc.? There’s nothing more ridiculous in my eyes than this debate.

As a disabled person who uses a wheelchair or walking sticks to get around, I use the accessible toilet. I can’t get myself up off the toilet without the bar to pull myself up on or on some days, help from my carer. That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t mean that I’m a pervert, and I don’t think anyone would call me one for needing someone with me in the toilet to help me in and out of my chair on bad days. So why is it that a person using a toilet cubicle or a urinal is a pervert? They are just going about their business.

Also, if you’re from the UK there’s another thing to add to this debate, something that all people who require the use of an accessible toilet will acknowledge, our toilets are unisex. Every single accessible toilet you come across in public spaces is unisex. Admittedly there’s usually only one, unless you’re in a large shopping centre, and it’s usually a single room, but that’s not the point. Ladies get one toilet, gents another, and the accessible toilet is unisex. We’re not expected to want or need a single sex toilet. For us it’s a case of ‘this is what you get’ and this has been the way of it since accessible toilets became a thing in the UK.

At home our toilets are unisex. We don’t have separate bathrooms for the men and women who live with us. We’d think the idea absurd. So why in the hell is it an issue when a transgender person who was born with different genitals from you wants to use the same toilets as you use because it’s the gender they are?

Beware the healthy mommy blogger

So a friend posted that they’ve worked with Goop magazine recently. This has given me huge issues. I get that they were working with a particular friend who was featured in the magazine, but here’s the thing, Gwyneth Paltrow is a hack. Her website advocates crap like Autism Speaks without challenge. In articles such as this one: https://goop.com/wellness/health/the-autism-epidemic/

It talks about chemical contamination from Teflon – science has shown us that in order to be contaminated by Teflon you’d need to be cooking at temperatures far higher than you should be and that you’d be using your cooking equipment really badly. You’d be burning all of your food. Articles like this are misleading: https://goop.com/…/food-p…/what-we-need-to-know-about-pfoas/

Articles that recommend chelation of all damn things! Which by the way is harmful to the human body. Because apparently ‘heavy metal toxicity’ is a thing that we all need to watch out for and it causes things like chronic illness (apparently): https://goop.com/wellness/…/what-to-know-about-heavy-metals/

Look guys I get it, we all need to work. We all need money, and we will all do anything for our friends. But when we sell ourselves short, and when we sell out it really is disturbing. There are certain people who do more harm than good in this world with their views on things like vaccinations and autism, chelation, and bleach enemas. And inserting jade eggs in your vagina. Let’s not forget that Gwyneth and her team really aren’t doctors. They aren’t even trained alternative therapists, they’re mommy bloggers with a desire to push their lifestyles on the world.

I’m tired

I’m tired. Perhaps that’s the hardest thing to explain. Because when I say I’m tired, I don’t mean that I’m just ‘tired’, I mean that I’m tired to my very soul.
 
I’m tired of being a chronic pain patient. I’m tired of being in pain all the time, I’m tired of having to explain what it’s like to be in pain all the time. I’m tired of people telling me that they don’t know how I do it or that they couldn’t do it. Because, actually, yes they could. When you’re faced with this sort of unending pain you get on with it because you have no choice. There is no option but to get up each day and get on with it. And even if you find that you can’t get out of bed, you still have to just get on with it.

Continue reading “I’m tired”