Caitlyn Jenner: A Lesson in Being Yourself

Posted on June 2, 2015 by suzie81speaks

Of all of the insecurities I have about myself, my gender has never been one of them. If I’m being honest, it is something that I never even considered – I was born as the person I was meant to be. I am a woman and I am comfortable with that.

The Internet exploded yesterday with Caitlyn Jenner’s “Call me Caitlyn” Vanity Fair photo shoot. While I’m not a fan of anything Kardashian, I’ve been following Caitlyn’s story for quite a while. Recently, like millions of others, I was moved by her honest and frank interview with Diane Sawyer. Why? Because, while I am comfortable in my own skin, I have witnessed a similar journey first-hand.

As a teacher, I’ve worked with thousands of students over the years, but there are a few that will always have a special place in my memories. One in particular will always stand out as being one of the bravest I have have ever known.

At a previous school I used to teach lots of drama, despite music being my first subject. In one of my Year 7 classes (11 year-olds to anyone outside of the UK), there was a little girl. Shy, awkward and quiet, she found it difficult to connect with others and as the year progressed she withdrew more and more into herself. She started to frequently argue with others, got into fights and developed a hatred for the school. At the end of the year, she told me she was leaving to go to another school, stating that she couldn’t be herself and would feel more accepted somewhere else.

Nearly a year later, I went for an interview and as part of the process, I was required to teach a short lesson to a class whilst being observed by the Principal and Head of Faculty. When I walked into the classroom, I heard a squeak from the corner of the room. It was the same student who had left the year before, and she proceeded to repeatedly tell everyone how ‘awesome’ I was, to the point where the Principal had to ask her to be quiet. If I could have hugged her, I would have done – I got the job and I have always felt that her reaction played a small part in obtaining it. Gone was the awkward, shy character I had known – she had made friends, had become involved in music activities and appeared to be much more confident in herself.

Unfortunately, I soon realised after starting my new job that she wasn’t. She was clearly depressed and struggling. She hated any activities that involved her being ‘seen’ in any sort of way, and she refused to have her picture taken or be filmed during music events.

Eventually, she came out as being gay when she was about 13 years old. It wasn’t unexpected, although perhaps unusual for someone so young to be open about their sexuality, but her friends and the majority of the school community accepted it immediately. I was pleased for her, and hoped that her disclosure would make her feel a little more secure with herself. However, she appeared to continue to spiral downwards.

Everything became a little more clear the following year.

She wasn’t gay, she was transgender.

He was physically a female, but identified as being a male, trapped in a female body. He wasn’t looking for attention or to cause trouble – he was simply tired of his daily internal struggle and had made the decision to tell everyone who he really was.

While I’m not going to go into the personal details, I can tell you that it was a long and difficult journey for him. Thankfully, he was extremely lucky to have the support of those closest to him – his friends, both male and female, took the time to ask questions, listened, and once those questions were answered they carried on exactly as they had before, except referring to him as a ‘he’ and calling him by the masculine name that he identified with. I was proud of them. I am proud of him, and I have every faith that he will continue on his journey and live a productive, happy and confident life as the person he was meant to be.

Millions of others aren’t as lucky.

Despite huge strides being made in the understanding and acceptance of the LGBT community in recent years (although there is still a long way to go), being transgender is still widely misunderstood and many still confuse gender with sexuality, and even worse, believe that it is a form of mental disorder. The stigma surrounding being trans means that many struggle with accepting themselves and finding a place in their community. According to surveys conducted by the Williams Institute, 41% of trans or gender non-conforming people surveyed had attempted suicide, more than 25 times the rate of the general population.

It took Caitlyn Jenner 65 years to finally become who she is, and her decision to transition in a very public forum has received a hugely positive reception. Yesterday, she broke the record for the fastest number of followers on Twitter, gaining a million in just four hours on her new account. It has started conversations and explained misconceptions, highlighting the issues and taboos surrounding the trans community.

Above all, it has become an inspiring story of acceptance, and proof that living life as your true self is truly a life worth fighting for.

My biggest congratulations to you Caitlyn, and to all those who have had the courage to stand up and be who they were born to be.

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks and my Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

Want to find new and interesting blogs? Don’t forget to check out my sponsors in my sidebar!

Photo credits: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair

Sticks and Stones

Posted on March 18, 2015 by suzie81speaks

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Bullshit.

Sticks and stones may indeed break my bones, but words have the power to stay with me forever.

Somebody from my primary school (children aged 4-11 for those of you outside of the UK) must have been in a nostalgic mood recently as they had posted up a selection of class photographs on Facebook, taken about 23 years ago. They appeared on my wall because one of my friends was tagged in there, and they instantly brought back a ton of memories.

Looking at those photographs, I can probably remember about 40% of those names, but there, right in the centre of one of them, was a little boy with tight curly hair, a pasty complexion and thick rimmed glasses. For the purposes of anonymity, I’m going to call him X.

I read through the many comments that had been written underneath by people that I hadn’t seen or thought about in years.

However, one in particular stood out.

I forgot that we went to school with Napoleon Dynamite.

Someone else had written something below about feeling guilt, but laughed about it all the same. My heart sank. I remember him, I remember his name and I even remember a cruel nickname that we called him. This skinny little boy was quiet and shy, and was bullied mercilessly to the point where he left the school because of the abuse that he suffered from so many. While I never considered myself to be a mean girl (although I wasn’t perfect), I remember one incident that still makes my stomach churn a little, all these years later.

Our primary school didn’t have a canteen, so we had to walk up to another building further up the road for our lunch, during which we were expected to hold hands in pairs. Nobody ever wanted to be near him, so he was forced to hold the hand of his sister, who was equally ostracised. I remember that they were walking in front of me once, and he turned around and looked at me.

“Eww, you’re kissing your sister,” I said to him, laughing with my friends and backing away so I wouldn’t have to walk near him. Even at that age, I knew what I had said was wrong, and I have no idea why I felt prompted to join in with everyone else. To my recollection that was the only thing I ever said to him during my entire school life with him. He didn’t say anything, he never said anything, he just turned around and carried on walking. I had no reason to dislike him – he never did anything to me at all, but I didn’t talk to him, I didn’t include him, I didn’t invite him to any of my parties. Almost nobody did – in my own little bubble he simply didn’t exist.

Karma came to bite me on the ass when I started high school. I was what my students would describe as a ‘boffin’ – I worked hard, was in the top sets for everything, played in the orchestra and band, was on the badminton team, and to my recollection received only one or two detentions throughout my five years at the school. Looking back, I was a bit of a know-it-all, I wasn’t considered to be as attractive and didn’t possess the same social skills as some of the more popular girls, but aside from getting involved in silly girly politics, I didn’t intentionally go out of my way to hurt anyone else and I had some friends.

One boy in particular despised me almost from the first moment he met me, and he and his cronies tortured me for almost the entirety of my teenage academic life. He learned how to flick spit with the end of his tongue and he would frequently spit in my hair when stood behind me in a line. If I did or said something in a lesson he would go out of his way to tell the teacher to try and get me into trouble. He would concoct lies, spread rumours, and tell the older girls that I had said things about them to try and get them to beat me up. On several occasions, it almost worked, and being surrounded by lots of students while an older girl threatened me, screamed at me and pulled my hair because she had been told I’d been mean to her sister by this boy still remains one of the most terrifying moments of my entire life. He and his friends used to take great delight by repeating my name over and over whenever I would walk into a room, or would call me fat or ugly. When my friend tried to stand up for me, they did it to her too. Unfortunately, I was in most of my lessons too, and so it went on all day, every day.

At one point my father, who was a governor at the school, intervened, and this made it far worse. The boy started to use him as a way of trying to wind me up. However, what he didn’t know was the way my very angry and violent father treated my sisters and I when we were growing up, which was something I didn’t tell anyone until years later, so I couldn’t tell my father any more after this for fear of what he would do, both to me and to him. My father expected me to ignore it and would get angry and lash out at me when I got upset. It wasn’t as easy as that.

Looking back, many of these incidents were silly and childish, and nowadays wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, but I’ve always felt that my teenage years, while successful, were lived in fear. I cared so much about what my peers thought and adapted my behaviour to try to be accepted, and then spent many hours hiding in the music room during breaks and lunch times to avoid contact with people. I even attempted to befriend some of them, to be told “don’t talk to her, she’ll grass you up if you say anything about her.” Worse still, my self-confidence was on the floor. I believed that I was ugly. I believed that nobody liked me. I used to feel physically nauseous whenever I walked into my form room every morning because I knew what was going to happen. I was so stressed that I suffered from nose bleeds. I pretended to be ill so I didn’t have to go to school. I was the ultimate victim, feeling sorry for myself and constantly repeating different instances in my head until I had made myself feel anxious and depressed. I didn’t help myself in the slightest, but I didn’t deserve what I got. My saving grace was the fact that I worked hard, I got good grades and was able to get away from them as soon as I possibly could – while others were all crying and hugging on the last day, I happily skipped down the school drive knowing that I was going to be attending a performing arts college and would never have to see them again.

I left school nearly seventeen years ago, and I’ve moved on – we all have – but I haven’t forgotten. Of the hundreds of people that I shared my lessons with, I am still very close to just one, and communicate regularly via Facebook with just two or three. I have a life that I am proud of, a supportive family, great friends and a wonderful bloke. While I don’t harbour any ill feelings towards them, I don’t wish to get in contact with any of those people I knew so many years ago ever again, and the photographs, and some of the comments written below them, served as a reminder as to why. I’m very sure they feel exactly the same way about me.

I take bullying extremely seriously as a teacher and am quite open in sharing my own experiences whenever I have had to deal with it. What I tell my students, and will continue to tell my students for as long as I am their teacher, is that the opinions of others don’t matter, especially those which have no connection to our lives and how we choose to live it. Some children are thoughtless and cruel and often they will continue to be just as awful in their adulthood. That’s their problem, not ours.

What matters is that we don’t allow ourselves to be the victim and, more importantly, allow those opinions to dictate what we do, who we are and how we act. What matters is that we can go through life being successful and happy, as kind and as generous as possible and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of each day and know that we have done our best. What matters is that we like what we see in our reflection. Karma will often take care of the rest.

To X, and anyone else I treated unfairly along the way, I’m sorry. I hope he doesn’t read those comments and that, wherever he is and whatever he is doing, he’s happy.

What about you guys? Have you experienced bullying at any point in your life?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Be The Honey Badger!

Posted on January 19, 2015 by suzie81speaks

The Honey Badger is a badass. Despite it’s size, it will willingly challenge, kill and eat animals that could be considered to be at the top of the food chain. A popular Internet meme and a YouTube video highlighted the concept that the ‘Honey Badger don’t care’ – it knows what it wants, seemingly has no fear and it will go for it. While the poor grammar in the meme drives me insane, I love the sentiment.

Last year, That EJ over at the Whimsical Eclecticist discussed the concept of adopting the Honey Badger ‘don’t care’ approach to life and after reading it I was so inspired I had to resist the urge to run outside and yell “I AM THE HONEY BADGER” as loud as I could. While the fabulous post was written a while ago, I still feel that it is just as relevant to my current situation and the students that I work with.

It made me think about the importance that we put on the opinions of those around us and how we allow these to affect our confidence, self-esteem and even influence the decisions that we make about our lives.

EJ made an extremely good point:

‘Decision isn’t being based on want, or even need. It’s being based solely on fear. On ‘what ifs’. On possible negative repercussions.’

As a teacher it always amazes me how many of the teenagers that I work with who are obsessed with what others think and will change themselves for fear of not being accepted. Everything that they do and/or say is for the purpose of being viewed positively by everyone else – their look, hair, shoes, bags and phrases have to be a certain type or style in order to gain acceptance from their peers. What I have discovered over the years is that the students will put an awful lot of pressure on themselves to fit in and this results in a huge lack of confidence amongst them. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard students as young as eleven years old proclaim that they are fat, stupid or ugly and some are so paranoid about their appearance that they won’t wear headphones that are attached to keyboards (I’m a music teacher) in case their hair gets messed up. Certain students almost refuse to participate in performance based activities (that I know they actually enjoy) for fear of being laughed at. A badly-worded comment from a peer will result in tears, arguments and Facebook backlash for months and I’ve heard older girls recall something negative that was said to them several years ago as a reason why they dislike somebody.

It bothers me that they are missing out on experiences of life because of fear.

I was bullied mercilessly at school. I was clever, I worked hard and was a high achiever. A classmate made the decision that he absolutely hated me, almost from the first day, and over five years he took it upon himself to make my life miserable. He learned how to flick spit with the end of his tongue and so would spit on me every time I walked past. He told lies about me, made up ridiculous rumours, tried to get older girls to beat me up and he and his followers would tell me daily that I was ugly and wouldn’t get anywhere in life. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he absolutely destroyed my confidence – I would go home and cry, I’d fake illness in order to be allowed to stay away from school and I lived for the weekends so I wouldn’t have to feel afraid of walking up the school drive.

I left school in 1998 and I haven’t spoken to (or really thought about him) since. His comments have made absolutely no difference to the way I live my life, I am proud of everything that I have achieved and in my adult years I care less and less about the opinions of others. It isn’t that I ‘don’t care,’ it’s more a case of I prefer to value the opinion I have of myself. I’m not perfect and I make mistakes all the time, but ultimately I know I’m a good person (or at least I try to be). More importantly, I can look at myself in the mirror at the end of each day, I like what I see and know that I’ve done the best I can. If somebody doesn’t like me, it’s their loss.

This is why we should take the Honey Badger approach to life. This is the attitude that I am trying to encourage my students to adopt. I don’t want to see them to living half-fulfilled lives – I want them to be able to have the confidence to accept themselves for who they are and take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way. And in the future, when they are faced with fear or doubt about something I want them to ask themselves… ‘What would the Honey Badger do?’

What about you guys? Do you adopt the Honey Badger approach to life?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn, Is Just To Love… Yourself

Posted on January 13, 2015 by suzie81speaks

115

I love being a woman. In particular, I love the process involved when getting ready for a night out and can often spend hours excitedly deciding on what to wear, carefully applying my make up, straightening or curling my hair, adding accessories, choosing shoes that look beautiful (and will undoubtedly make me lose the feeling in my feet and give me back ache after about half an hour). I do this solely for myself – I like to leave house before meeting my friends or with The Bloke feeling good about myself and my appearance. Those nights are special, a break from the daily grind of normal life and I think that occasionally it’s an uplifting experience to spend a little bit of time pampering myself after working hard all week and I don’t think that there is anything wrong with this. However, most of the time I dress very similarly to the teenage boys that I teach every day – spending the majority of my time outside of work in sweats, hoodies and jammies with my hair tied back and no make up. I make no apologies for this – I have a stressful job and seem to spend a large amount of my time feeling tired and anxious and I take comfort every evening changing out of my suits and putting on something cosy. When I meet friends for a quick drink in the pub or go to the cinema with The Bloke, this is how I usually present myself, sometimes swapping my sweats for a pair of jeans.

When watching television last night, it occurred to me how many advertisements appeared in a very short space of time that were designed to ‘help’ women address the things that are deemed to be wrong with their bodies – dull, lifeless skin, bags and dark circles under the eyes, tired eyes, small eyelashes, thin lips, limp hair, frizzy hair, dry hair, hairy legs, hairy faces and endless workout videos designed to assist us in weight loss or the development of abs and curves.

It made me look at myself and think about all of the the things on my own body that were highlighted in those adverts and that I am insecure about. After gaining 60lbs in the last five years I don’t have a flat stomach (sporting more of a keg than a six pack), I have a large bottom and thighs, I have my father’s large chin, a pointy nose, my skin is oily in some parts and dry in others… I could go on forever. I took the opportunity to ask some of my female friends what they would change about themselves if they could, and the results were extensive:

Eyes too small
Small eyelashes
No waist – flat shape
Flat bottom
Bottom too big
Too skinny
Fat
Hair too thick
Hair too thin
Boobs too small
Boobs too big
Too tall
Too short
Acne
Skin too pale

It’s no wonder that last year the beauty industry in the UK employed more than one million people and was worth £17 billion. However, it isn’t wrong to want to make the best of ourselves. It isn’t wrong to want to spend time making ourselves look and feel good. It isn’t wrong to go to the gym, wear make up, dress in a certain style and regularly visit the hairdressers, as long as this is what makes you happy and helps you maintain a positive lifestyle. Nevertheless, I am always concerned when women (and indeed, men) are doing this for the benefit of others and stop liking themselves and their bodies when they do not match the so-called beauty ‘ideals.’.

Why do we feel that we aren’t good enough the way that we are? Who creates the rules that tell us how our bodies should look?

We could blame the beauty industry. We could blame the magazines, the media, the fashion designers. We could blame the film industry, the actresses, the models. However, I think that, as women, the only people that we can blame for our insecurities are ourselves. Instead of celebrating who we are and how we are made, we allow others to dictate what the ideal of ‘beautiful’ is.

In the spirit of maintaining a positive outlook for 2015, I took the opportunity to look at my body and highlight all the things that I am grateful for:

1. The ‘Barnes’ hips. All of the women – my mother, my two sisters and I – on my mother’s side of the family have large, childbearing hips that we inherited from my grandmother, whose maiden name was Barnes. While one of my sisters has desperately tried to get rid of hers over the years by going to the gym six times a week, she has now accepted that the Barnes hips is part of her genetic make up and a link to her ancestry, and I’m proud that we all share the same shape – it’s probably the only thing that we all have in common.

2. My eyes. I have inherited my mother’s blue eyes and they are usually the thing that is commented on the most when meeting new people.

3. My slightly curved fourth toe. While some may balk at this and suggest getting it straightened, this is another feature that I have inherited from my mother and her father and over the years I have become quite fond of it.

4. Strong legs. After years of participating in sporting teams as a teenager, my legs have always maintained their strength with small definition in my lower calves, even when I have put on weight.

5. My shoulders. I swam for years and consequently have wide shoulders that look good in halter-neck tops.

6. My ears. They aren’t too big or too small for the shape of my face, and I occasionally like to wear drop earings to accentuate them.

7. My hands. I have always been told that I have perfect piano players hands with long, thin fingers, and even though my nails could use a bit of work (it’s impossible to maintain manicures when working as a teacher) I like the way that they look when I wear simple, silver rings.

Remember, the greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love… yourself.

For the New Year, I am issuing you with a challenge. Instead of thinking about all of the things that make you unhappy about yourselves, I would like to to focus on something that you like about your body, and post it in the comments below.

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Image Credit 1: bobchoat.com

Image Credit 2: beauteousliving13.wordpress.com