Just Being Me

Writer's Notes For Just Being Me

Well here's something new from me, writer's notes. I don't tend to do these as I doubt anyone cares to hear what a writer has to say on their own work and the writing process let alone the personal side to it.

So I'll start. My name is Reina Harriet Watt, I'm at this time 42 years old, I am an asexual trans woman and I've been in transition for over twelve and a half years and on estrogen HRT for over seven and a half years. I've been a writer since August 29th 1990 though it was a rough start and frankly there's not a lot to say there, I simply have a gift for writing and I've done my best to improve over the years.  I was never taught how to write in the way I do, I never attended a writer's school nor a creative writing class. I simply have a gift for it.

I also never make a penny from my work, being disabled means I'm not allowed to make an additional income to the meagre income I get from benefits. I share my work freely with zero financial recompense. So yes, if you've been reading my work for a while then it's all been completely free, I don't get anything from it. Hardly ever any feedback, no money, nothing.

I accepted myself in late 2008 when I was writing one of the many early drafts for my Beaumont series, I was working on some more of Reina's Beaumont's future past and as I was writing I could hear her very clearly in my mind telling me to stop lying to myself, to stop pretending to be the miserable wreck I was.

At the time I was deeply struggling, my depression was winning, my dysphoria was overwhelming me and I was on the verge of ending my life, I was dying. Reina Beaumont caused an epiphany to kick in hard exactly when it was needed, she saved my life.

I began my transition around mid 2009 after taking some time to be certain that it was the right path for me, after a psychologist labelled me as 'insane' for being trans I knew it was time to begin my transition. Sadly transphobia in the UK has always been rife, even when trans people began to get rights it didn't stop and recent years have shown how bad things are here when it comes to the severe transphobia that trans people in this country face every day. I'll get to that in a bit.

I was unable to get any badly needed medical support and care due to that judgement, my social transition was hard as my body is very degraded and damaged from years of the incorrect hormones that ruined my body as well as severe stress.

It wasn't easy but I pushed through. In 2013 I was finally approved to see a GIC –Gender Identity Consultant – and I made it very clear that I was sick and tired of being delayed like this, of being discriminated against, that I needed to take the next step. I was finally approved for estrogen HRT in late 2013, I began my HRT on April 19th 2014.

I took my first dose of HRT on the way back to the flat, I called my old place The Flat as it never felt like home, it was a dreary, draughty miserable little place that I deeply hated. I finally got to move out on March 11th 2020 following violent transphobic attacks in July 2019 that showed that my life was in serious danger from transphobic attitudes.

It took a week for my hormone levels to settle, that first week I was seriously Mega Bitch with a major league mood swing. Then they settled while I was attending a USS Menelaus role play, a Star Trek role play ship I was with for near a decade until the ship was sadly decommissioned near four years ago.
As the briefing was happening I felt something I had never felt before, something so beautiful. I could feel my soul, heart and mind all singing in literal harmony, my whole body was tingling with utter joy as the estrogen began to kick in and begin to work with my brain without the testosterone getting in the way.
I was finally truly alive after so long of feeling nothing but a numbness and a brain fog from the testosterone. I almost cried from the joy I was feeling but I had to hold back as I needed to focus on being Reina Beaumont for the role play.