FLUID DUDE: PULLING MYSELF UP BY MY BOWIE BOOTSTRAPS

So I’ve kinda been on a genderquest for a while, and I thought I’d take the time to dissect it post mortem style. I thought I’d save you the time and say that after all that hellfire and brimstone, I’m definitely a dude. Just a dude with some added fludity. Story of my life!

The chaos started in 6^th form. I had exam stress, I was bombarded by, and heavily invested in the gender culture war, and a friend had just come out to me as a trans woman. After an intense audio book about a melodramatic and relatable latino gay couple, the drama snapped my brain. Looking back now, I was looking for an easy fix, a way of saying a few words like my first coming out (as a queer ma) that’d wash away all the stress. Throw in a touch of mild outcast-iness and the fact I’ve never connected with rock hard masculinity, and you get a perfect storm, and what a storm it was.

Throughout the next six months I felt sick to my stomach. I remember writing down all the angst and the eels in my stomach. It was HELL. Throughout this time I would fight against it like an intrusive thought. I ran from it though sleeplessness, and travel, and even, after severe fear of judgement, explaining it to my parents. It was only after seeing a local therapist that felt some relief. He was a dusty man, gentle et with enough “get a grip” energy to shake me out of it. I still remember his office, filled with psychology books and golf memorabilia. His first attempt was CBT. He straight up told me to stop it, and then showed me a video about basic CBT. This wasn’t what fixed me. It was what he said at the end. “why don’t you experiment and find out!” He thought it was sexual confusion (I didn't explain it well.) But I’d never considered trying it before. I made a mock dress from a towel and tried my mums makeup. No reaction. Was I free? I felt unstable, but I could finally sleep. It’ll do. 

From that point on I dabbled as a student. A painted nail here, a bad smokey eye there. I was friends with the rock society so they didn't bat an eye. This all peaked when I found a set of white, wedge David bowie boot heels in a vintage shop in Liverpool and fell in love with them. I still love them. They were £14 plus the cost of stretching them, but I would have footbound in order to fit into them because they were so pretty. I adore them.

The beast returned quietly during January 2020. so having learned my lesson, I booked counseling with a body posi + student free counseling service. I also began hanging out with any AMAB non binary person that’d have me. This was both good, allowing me to meet, follow, and date a variety of new folk. But it also lead me to blindly hero worship people that may not have been the best for me. Some of them remained in my life, others not so much.

The pandemic forced me back to Wales, and potentially force me out of a very pointy situation, but with all this free time, a freshly minted obsession with the Boulet Brothers Dragula – a brilliant show that allows drag to be messy, monstrous, and murderous – and a romantic fantasy of making my own clothes … I was lead down a sewing rabbit hole.

It was half gender exploration, half desire to be a superhero without buying eccentric clothes I could potentially dislike. The lack of standards, rules, or gender gave me the freedom I needed. I am now the proud owner of capes, dressing gowns, cult robes, bad drag costumes, and atomic silver trousers. But it didn't make me happy. Well … it did for a while, and it certainly helped the identity crisis, but the more I sewed the more I realised I was trying to sew my way into being some kind of glamourous faux-superhero, and all the time I wasn’t them I was hating myself for it.

So, 9 months in, I put down my stitching needles, my mask making paper mache clay, and with it being early December and my having made this realisation, I collaged together my 6 months successful looks (both sewing and non-sewing) and sent that chapter on its way. With the imagery in front of me, and one collage I almost posted of sewing bloopers … it dawned on me! I’d finished this experiment. I had physical proof of what worked and what didn't. It was after a friend of mine (a Brazilian dude known for maintaining a les-c’est-faire androgyny that was almost biblical seeming) noticed my lack of enthusiasm in an androgynous genderfuck look of mine that it clicked.

Maybe I was just me. I felt lighter after that sentence. Just matt. A guy who envied (and will probably dip my toe into) bowie boots, blouses, and blazers alike. King of music festival fashion, sloppy drag hero, and finally free.  After a long chat with genderfluid drag king Frankie Cyanide, (among other of the queer eldersTM), that resembled the “THE WHOLE TIME!?!?!?!?” scene from Mrs Doubtfire, I felt lighter. At home now. My brain is clear, and ready to tackle the rest of my universe, one atomic bowie footstep at a time.

PS thank god for other slightly fluid he/they guys for showing me that men can rock dresses, eyeshadow, heels and everything inbetween while still maintaining that quintessencial masculine spark

FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR THEIR OWN GENDERQUEST ADVICE:

• Justin Hubble https://justinhubbell.tumblr.com/search/not+a+race
• Contrapoints https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvM_pRfuFM
• Brendon dulap https://www.instagram.com/bren_dun/
• CALMZONE https://www.thecalmzone.net/
• bodi posi https://bpcnw.co.uk/
• https://www.instagram.com/westononsense/
• https://www.instagram.com/jayrezante/
• https://www.instagram.com/mooglershiny/ (WARNING NSFW)
• https://www.instagram.com/_el.rodriguez_/
• https://www.instagram.com/i._am._m/
• https://www.instagram.com/p/CHsVMCQnCJY/ (WARNING ALSO NSFW)

Lockdown Vignettes: lockdown sewing, smuggling chickens, and failed penpals

So as anyone whose read my blog has probably worked out, I like to go on adventures a lot over the year, and I really love meeting new people. This means that the lockdown has been hell for me. but I would like to write about a few little vignettes that occurred to me over the past couple of months.

Firstly I became really into sewing over the months due to the fact I still had leftover fabric from a different projects, my mother’s old sewing machine, and plenty of time. This lead to me contently hand stitching different bits of the fabric and pinning them into an assortment of items. Naturally this inevitably became an arms race of crafting trades between me and a redheaded friend of mine from a music festival. I made her pyramid shaped juggling balls and a plain white drawstring bag, and she in turn drew me, and made me a tie dye Tee shirt that is officially one of m

y favourite items of clothing.

I also ended up stitching an assortment of scrappy homemade clothes including a pair or terrible home sewn overalls that fell apart of second use, a pair of simple pyjama trousers, a medieval style blouse, and most important of all … THE DRESSING GOWN. To be honest it was more like two dressing gowns. The first was a trial run that was mismeasured, and the second was an old bedsheet in a regal blue colour that was given a fancy clockwork trim from tearing apart the first dressing gown for scraps. It definitely looks homemade, but it also makes me feel powerful when I wear it, and its super soft. Literally made out of bedsheets.

I also received a reply from a “penpal with a prisoner” system I applied for months ago. However, just as I wrote the letter I was planning to send to the prisoner, I decided to google him just to make sure it was a good idea. Surely they’d just be in for theft, or tax evasion, or something harmless. I typed in the name of the prison followed by the recipient of the letters. The first headline filled me with sheer dread. “Man labelled monster by the mother of the victims for horrific sex crime”. I have never penned an email so quickly, asking to be withdrawn from the project.

Finally My father has always loved chickens, and after years of not having them he’s finally gotten everything to a standard where he could have chickens. Today he asked if I wanted to accompany him, so I decided to tag along. After a queasy half hour of welsh hills and twisted valleys until we arrive to the chicken farm. Baring in mind that when we’d arrived I’d heard a young man’s voice on the phone, and two months of lockdown had made me wishful. I imagined an early to mid 20s man in check shirts and overalls, immaculate hair and a rugged, muscular farmer charm. needless to say when his middle aged mother in her oversized jumper presented the hens, and his greying father lugged the food pellets my heart sank a little bit.

But it was heading back that filled us with dread. The car gas indicator was blinking furiously and my father began to simmer in a low heat of panic. “I should have filled up beforehand. And if we get stopped we can’t claim to be doing essential travel because we have chickens in the back” he moaned. We looked at each other and there was a trickle of nervous laughs. We watched the satnav as the car stuttered forward, praying silently that the car didn’t stop dramatically before we were there. After two (2) closed false petrol stations, we arrived just in time and breathed a breathy sigh of relief. We made it, only just, dizzy, carsick, and with a tension you could cut with a spoon. The hens were alive, and all was well.

30 things I'm glad I discovered, and 10 things I'm curious about - (20 M)

Things I'm glad I discovered

1. Dark blue nail polish
2. Pink/red hair dye streaks in my fringe
3. Golden eyeshadow (when rosie does it)
4. Lucifer the show
5. The wicked and divine (comic series)
6. My leather jacket
7. My denim jacket
8. Charity shop clothes in my size
9. Lush fun - yes the playdoh stuff
10. Dragula
11. Hostel travel
12. Music festivals
13. Black and white hair pomade
14. Ear cuffs
15. Pound coin ring pendants and asos jewellery
16. Calvin Klein aftershave
17. DIY dressing gowns
18. Primary coloured clothing
19. Atomic blonde
20. Buffy
21. Dorian Electra
22. Indie wrestling / Effy Gibbes
23. Caramel hot chocolate
24. Beard painting with facepaint
25. My dad wrote a porno
26. Bioshock
27. Contrapoints
28. My white bowie heels
29. Not wearing the Bowie heels to anywhere with dancing
30. The rock soc



things i'm Curious about:
1. Lush glowsticks as eyeshadow
2. Leggings
3. Dark blue lipstick
4. New Aftershaves
5. Sewing
6. Colourful tattoos
7. Very Mild genderqueerness (demi boy?)
8. New crafting fields
9. Learning to actually do eyeshadow without looking like a clown
10. Moving to a new city

the valentines day night i spent with a gay porn star

So a friend of mine from the radical fairy party and I had been messaging back and forth since the party, mostly as friends hearing about him and his boyfriends adventures. Until one day, out of the blue I get a message saying “hey, I’m hosting a party in stoke as my alter ego “ripper moff.” As almosot all of my stories go, I was intrigued. 

So the weekend stumbled around and I rock up in Stoke, headphones in and staring down at google maps like it would save my life. When I arrived into central Stoke it reminded me of a town in a zombie film. Shutters and gaggles of strangers. A zombie hipster horror film. I squirmed around for a while, getting increasingly aware that the bar I was being summoned to was the other side of the town. Not open yet.

I get in and having smoked the place out, receive a message saying come to the hotel. I tag along and halfway through, find a glittery red figure in a Mary Poppins hat, a cruella devile coat, and a thickly coated crimson glitterbeard. I shouted over something charming. “oh hello darLING” they grinned with open arms. Their boyfriend trailing behind with a leaning tower of bags. I thought the boyfriend was supposed to stay in Scotland. I tag along and they scurry me into the nightclubs “back passage” with a few cheap jokes.

I’m introduced gradually to a gaggle of transdudes and NBs with an assortment of tattoos and slightly genderfucky clothing. I tried to smile and mingle, helping out behind the scenes (read: hovering awkwardly and saying the wrong thing, why do I keep having the scooby doo “their right behind me” moment?) until the Scottish boyfriends says to me with a grin and an accent. “hey, the games are beginning in a few minutes, you should volunteer” he smirked. “we’ll see” I replied with a tilt of the head. “oh heads up, we might be having our friend Max over, he’s a Frenchman in the adult industry” he half warned half advertised.

We watched the first song. Ripper in giant red boots lipsyncing to "popular" from the wicked musical, glitterbearding the owner of the venue and dressing them in sparkly spandex. I mingled with the crowd, and tried to make friends. There was a moment when I nipped to the loo, hearing a notable french accent from the sink as a skinny guy with a pair of oversized glasses washed his hands and mumbled to himself. After I returned to the dancefloor I was joined by the scottsman and the burlesque act.

 “so the games begin when our friend comes” I get told.  “wait, skinny guy? French? I think he’s already here” I admitted. At this point I wasn’t aware of who the blind date was. All i knew is my name was on the list.

So I got called to the stage alongside a larger, slimy dude in his 30s, and a pink/purple haired gentleman who lacked the gift of conversation. The host grinned “So these fine folks are here to compete for the evening affections of a French porn star, they will be asked 3 questions and rated on their answers.” The penny dropped. The penny totally dropped. The penny practically death-dropped.

The slimey guy was asked the first question “so as a Frenchman … I love food but I personally cannot cook. What would you cook for me?” he was asked. I froze. Think. Think think think.

“I totally fancy yooooooooooouuuuuuuu” garbled the drunken first guy. I was next and I smiled nervously. “I would cook you pancakes … because it won’t be the only thing getting flipped” I stuttered. Pretending to be more confident than I was. The purple guy froze like a rabbit in headlights. “well. I would cook you bangers and mash because I'd bang your mash” he replied. I winced gutterally from my soul at such a terrible line.

“Question Two, as a porn star I’ve seen it all! What would your USP be in the bedroom?” I was chosen first. I didn’t have time to think of a funny answer. “You wouldn’t have to impress me, and also I’d let you have snack breaks” I winced. Fully aware that wasn’t the peak answer to that question.

“Question three, I’m travelling to Vegas soon, if you were my date where would you take me” the Frenchman asked. I can’t remember the other answers. I suggested “the festival circuit. So you can watch someone else perform for a change” I gulped. The host made the audience cheer us, and the draw fell down to me vs the purple guy.

Purple guy won and I was given a kiss on the cheek, “it’s a shame, you’re cute too” he confessed in passing, me getting lost in the eye contact and the politeness for a solid ten seconds. Him and purple guy vanished upstairs for his drinks, and I carried on, thinking that was my entire connection with Mr Max Angel. I scurried around chatting and mingling, and getting told how handsome I was by a passing drag queen. I reacted a knee jerk “thank you” that thinking back was totally in my retail voice.

Hours later I found the scotsman and his friends in a gaggle. I joined them drunkenly and mingled. Joking and complimenting the assortment of monochrome tattoos in my area. Max and the purple guy were both called to the stage for a parlour game involving an oversized bedsheet. 

The purple guy didn’t turn up and max stood there alone. 

I was quick to pick up the slack! I hopped on stage and stood in the bedsheets. Ripper strode the stage and gestured to me and max, next to a pair of the Scotsman’s friends. “the aim of the game is to swap clothing. You will get more points based on who wears more of the partners clothes. You don’t have to swap anything and we wont judge you for that, but you get two countdown timers, or one minute.” They explained.

Now I had auditioned for naked attraction. Nudity doesn’t weird me out. However it REALLY didn’t weird out Max. this was his bread and butter. The first of the two timers went and I flung off my clothes like a mad man, scrapeing up white skinny jeans half my size and a suffocating black tee shirt. The zip wouldn’t go up. These jeans weren’t designed for me. the second timer finished and the bedsheet dropped. My genitals hidden by strategically held underwear from the entire crowd.

In the flurry to switch back I accidentally kneed max in the forehead. Apologising profusely as I bent down to grab my jeans from the dark, very aware that I was now at face level with Max’s quite sizable genitals. It wasn’t arousal. It was a deep awareness that I could lose an eye. When the timer stopped I managed only just to zip up my jeans. I was still topless. Max however, revelled in the nudity. The boss, whom I’d accidentally insulted earlier than night bought be a cider as a thank you for being a good sport and I wandered away. So pink guy was a coward.

I managed to find a topless Max slumped at the end of the night, focussing on his phone. I joined him and the seat and got talking idlely. Partly out of desperate curiosity, partly out of the charm. he compared notes about the people in the photos and footage of his twitter, his day-to-day stable job in computers, and how he got ghosted by the purple guy without him even saying goodbye. A new friend, I smiled. We headed to the hotel, and I discovered he was staying in the same building.

The next morning we shared an uber and a coffee. It was a small gesture, but I was gradually becoming smitten. *his job is literally to make people fancy him* I reminded myself sharply. But the cheek kiss goodbye and the lilting French accent was too much for me, I melted and hoped I’d see him again. Maybe sometime.

a weekend with love dragon 2, in Manchester the dragon trains you

After a night in a hellish 1930s hostel I got back to the venue with minimal faff. It was going well. I made it to the cafe and met the mish mash of young and old. Grateful Phoenix at the bar with a smile. The first one I met was pax, a vaguely dude shaped Scotsman, who was either 14 or not as loved by puberty as I was expecting. It was warm. Wholesome almost.

We entered the "sexy vampire room" and sat in a circle, learning sensation via rope against skin. The black hemp rope was much softer than the other one. It tickled, not entirely a distraction but enough to make me escape some of the background noise in my brain. There was some questionable knot lessons (that I failed) and then a hushed cheese toastie break. During this break I met a mistress in a shiny necklace who seemed to embody a much more mumish energy to the kind I was expecting. Her name was mistress Susie and she was much more civilised than I expected.

I remembered a thing that was mentioned in passing last night, about the sessions being £100 per go. A "tribute". Maybe a side hustle for mum, I thought, aware that no one could clock me passing for either butch or domineering.

Of course after hearing all the horror stories I began to wonder if I was in too deep ... before really springy couple arrived. Mid 30s, not particularly kinky looking. "Its a second date" one of them admitted with a giggle. Bold move, I thought. But to their credit, their presence defused all the tension in the room. made me feel safe.

So the playfight session began, and I was paired for a warm up with Phoenix. Getting close enough to smell his aftershave in what was essentially competitive cuddling ... to start. It eventually escalated, each person having a different flavour, a different style. Some were goofy, some had a machismo rivalry, and some were borderline flirty. It was fascinating seeing peoples entire dynamics explained in a 10 minute scrap, people who'd never met before. I found out later that day, that Pheonix wasn't wearing aftershave. apparently my dry spell was much longer than i remembered.

So I completed that day, eating cheese toasties and listening to an 80s music mix with a dominatrix, a cutesy semi-hetronormative couple, a trans guy who looks about 14, his genderqueer master, and a completely zen German with a daft moustache!

that night i was walked to canal street and released. having been point blanc referred to as "ayyyyyyyyyyy Cardiff boy!" by a random stranger. it took me a solid 30 seconds to work out the welsh badge i was wearing. head above the waves, a mental health charity found near Cardiff. I never got to confirm that theory. she vanished before i could. i browsed the pubs before heading home, a box of chicken and chips in my arms, cradled like a child. i called it a night!

Day 3 crawled up. I didn't think I would come back, but they convinced me. So I went back to the dungeon. At this point I don't even associate it with its primary purpose, its just a gothy house to me now. There's an almost familial vibe with the main 5. Dragon as the cool older brother, Susie as the mum, and Phoenix as the dad.

This time around for the rope stuff, I was partnered with love dragon. This was doubly intense, partly because he chose to be topless and because he smelt palpably of pheromones and gruff manliness. I was then paired with Susie, and intimidated by her legacy, I began to second guess myself. My 3rd partner, Pax the trans guy, almost fell face first in a trance state. So all in all a success?

I also heard dragon, a tall German man with the voice of a hippie and the body of an otter in a kink bar, awkwardly stutter talking about the cleavage of an attendee. Starting off with "I'm super SUPER gay ... but I found it really interesting doing this task with a female bodied person with such cleavage" he stuttered, still graceful in awkwardness. His unusual combination of fascination and fear making Susie blush right into a fuscia colour scheme that matched the walls.

In the break between the events we chatted, and Pax was walked to the station. "I'm fed up of people who keep asking me questions about the event without reading the thingy" Phoenix ranted at me. I thinned my lip awkwardly, hadn't I done that? was this a weird critique? "I wouldn't say this in front of customers ... but you've been here all weekend so your part of the family now" he uttered bluntly... so I've been adopted by a German hippie, a dominatrix, a transgender puppy, and an awkward drama kid grown up. What is my life?

but joking aside i was strangely honoured. how did i feel comfortable skipping to nudity and wrestling with these people, hell to be considered part of their group. so much closer than i would be with my housemates or anyone else, yet only having met on the Friday, in a dark lane by an industrial estate.

a weekend with Love Dragon, the first day

How did I end up here? Huddled by the wall of a strange yet warm pub on the sketchier side of Manchester. waiting for a German bondage expert to introduce me to a ton of hippies known as "the radical faeries," in what was promised not to be a sexual activity despite taking place in a literal Rihanna music video style dungeon.

It all started after Dragula, when I discovered my life in the suburbs wasn't exciting enough, and required some queering up. I've met rad faeries in the past, strange people with unusual clothing, glitter, and funny names like Dandelion Chalice. I didn't think much of it beyond the novelty. I would have never been able to guess that half a year later I'd be in a pub in Manchester in late January, meeting them for a hippie training thing.

After waiting half an hour more than expected and having to pretend I'd been stood up for the sake of the pushy bar owner, I met them. Two amab people, a bearded figure with a soft German lilt, and a person with chaotic white hair and a glitter scarf. They called themselves Love Dragon (the German) and Grateful Phoenix (the blonde.) Arguable the polar opposite of the sorts of people I'd be expecting using the venue.


The first room emulated a fun bar that lead into a rich wine red upstairs, filled with bedrooms. Each starting off normal until I found the top room, a red and black chamber with chains and medieval imagery and the kind of restraints required for an exorcism. As far as first times go, I was getting mixed signals.The walrus-y man, the German, took charge. The soft accent being this paper thin veil between me and the overwhelming feeling of "this is how I die" that flooded me. He sat on the central bed and spoke, securing eye contact.

We started off with a trust exercise, me in a ridiculous black vest technicolor legging combo. We joined hands and the two people on the outside had to guide the middle person while keeping their eyes closed. I held their hands. Soft hands. How can their hands be so soft? And walked, waiting to feel the energy and guessing at my destination.

After that occurred we were debriefed and I was asked whether I wanted to start off as the massager or the massaged, and whether I had training. I chose massager. I could imitate, the mountain of pure German that stood before me, and so the grateful Phoenix stripped off and lay still.

We vibed well, the German and I. maintaining eye contact and brushing coconut oil across the strangers body. I shifted in my leggings, in order to hide any physical reactions to the stranger arse naked on a bed in front of me. I felt it then, all the vague poetry the team had spouted at me, the eye contact making me feel like the hesitation before a kiss. It was somehow both incredibly homoerotic and yet entirely wholesome. My affections seeming to magnetise more to the partner masseuse than the body in front of me. "How do you not fall in love with everyone you massage with?" I attempted to ask. Dragon smirked back at me calmly "what makes you think that's a bad thing?" Counter-riddled the dragon.

Sooner or later it was my turn. I wasn't phased by nudity, so I stripped off following suit with the Phoenix and lay there cadavourously. (Is that a real word? I like it regardless!). Soon I was lost for a moment, in a limbo between the present and my thoughts. It wasn't as sexy an experience as I imagined it to be, I felt like a hedonistic Greek emperor getting serviced by his team. My little joke about "accidentally joining the cult of Dionysus" suddenly becoming increasingly relevant. At one point the hands joined forced into some kind of across the body massage rumba.

Finally love dragon took his turn, stripping off rapidly and laying there. For the second time that day I had to remind myself that although the butt can and should be handled. Everything has to be done professionally and not in an uncomfortable way. This time the magic didn't stick tho, Phoenix and I often missed the frequencies required for a silent joint meditation. "Don't focus on the experience for me, I'm a forest I don't care. The important thing is your exploring the forest in tune together" he prescribed. I tried to read the braille of the body, but there was no spark this time and I suspect Phoenix felt that too.

I left in a bizarre state. Deeply turned on yet somehow deeply turned off at the same time.

a tale of dragula, genderfucks, and suprisingly friendly kinksters

Over Christmas my fascination piqued. There was a free TV show I’d see drifting around online a bit. Drag acts dressing as terrifying monsters and other things that go bump in the night. I binged the entire 3 seasons in one sitting over the course of a week, loving all the campy over the top, almost buffy-ish aesthetic choices. There was a tongue in cheek to it, especially given the henchmen of the hosts. The boulet brothers, statuesque drag queens, always had a topless brooding figure behind them, and an scrappy Asian man in his underwear for any practical needs (ie to play a zombie victim within a sketch.)

Prior to this, my opinions on drag were very hot and cold. I used to pride myself in disliking all that superficial stuff and the hot pink bitchy aesthetic, but slowly, via meeting drag acts that were actually talented and much more practical, with comedy being the focus of UK queens, unlike their American counterparts. My opinion dripped like a sand timer until I disagreed with my past self. That seems to be a reoccurring theme of university.

Anyway cut to a week ago. I hurdle my wedges into a backpack and take to the train station, squealing metal rushing me to Manchester, old smokey’s slightly more punk rock sister. Naturally I go to Affleck’s palace to kill some time, exploring the spicier options. Everything from fur coats to healing crystals (which I’m sure have a very mixed success rate, but everyone needs a placebo.)

£20 pounds of drinks and roaming left and I end up in the queue for dragula’s show. Ironically not in canal street, but quite fittingly in a bar called rebellion. 

I queue up and get in conversation with a 16 year old girl in a drawn on moustache, chatting there for an hour about everything from our favourite act to how relieved I am to have escaped the education system. Slowly the queue starts becoming more bizarre, split 50/50 between people in painfully normal clothing, and people in a carnival of glitterbeards, wigs, unusual face paint and clothing only just made suitable despite its more sexual connotations.

Another one I found myself magnetised to was a blonde figure, 5”4, glitterbearded and dressed in a way that almost resembled a Rockstar from the mid 2000s, some mash up of Gerard Way, P!nk , and a new romantic from the 80s. I learned that this figure was called Felix Cited, and after sighing at tragedy of that pun, met their spouse, a perfectly ordinary looking dude in a denim jacket. They seemed as baffled as I was.

We enter the party, me having made friends with a handful of strangers, and of course I followed my curiousity. I cant resist. I start with the creature in the sundress, roughly 5”10 with flowing hair, a shaggy beard, and a face of make up. They had an ethereal energy, drifty yet certain about things. Like something that would help you in a forest at night, some forest sprite. I sort myself out, going to the bathroom and exploring the bar area. There were 8 foot Amazonian women and 5 foot cowboys in a strenciled on moustache. They seemed to surround me, kinksters, genderfucks, and Halloween costume enthusiasts spilling from all angles. I felt safe, yet completely out of my depth. I found a series of vaguely trustworthy looking people and asked for advice. “stay out of spitting distance of the stage” offered one of the amazonians and her harnessed companion.

I switched shoes, rare to be a man in heels and still not the most attention getting person in the room, but half the room was in some variation of genderfuck so me in my wedges wouldn’t even register on the radar.

The show began and two figures, ballpark renditions of womanhood in white contact lenses emerged, speaking crisply to the crowd. To my surprise they brought Ian, the plucky assistant, in his harness and jockstrap. They announced a series of music renditions, the most haunting being Evah Destruction in full mad clown makeup, scuttling to a song called “the laughing track” by crooger, at roughly 5 miles her hour. Mimeing deranged laughter and casting a victimising daggered finger as she chuckled at the audience. At some point there was silly string. I now understood the warning. God help what the audience would be covered in by the end of the show.

Another act I particularly liked involved Victoria Elizabeth Black, dressed like a Victorian morgue worker. She dissected a plastic and paper mache corpse, taking out organs as props and at one point riding against it to a rock song. I slowly discovered that this collection of plastic and paint was about to get more action than I was within this evening.

At the break I met more of the audience, asking about the figure beside me. he wore netting, features sharpened with make up to look bloodied and emphasised, and a crown with a hand crawling from it. A drag king inspired by Landon Cider’s victory … I assumed.  “wow how did you get the chest so realistic?” I asked, my sceptical eye cast over it to find evidence it was a prop. I was told later that I was dealing with an authentic male person, and that those pecs through the netting were in fact real. A flush of mild embarrassment took over me, explaining away my behaviour with the truth to receive pragmatism and a “well I was going for that look” kind of response that made my close inspection seen considerably less creepy than without the context.

By the end of the night I was intoxicated by the audience. Everyone seemed to have so much richer a story to them that night. One notable creature was a 6 foot man covered in latex clothing. Despite his costume, his face seemed trustworthy. I spoke to him for a while before being introduced to his lovely wife, and their friend. “are those … real?” I enquired, seeing a chest that defied all laws of physics. She smiled at me sincerely, “nope, inflatable. Touch them!” she offered eagerly. I jabbed at what was essentially a set of balloons, before she began to market her crafting skills to me. “I love to work with latex” she responded.

I got my photos, and left. I was restless. I wanted to party, to meet more unusual specimens … but I thought I had a 9AM the day after. I withdrew from the party and hoddled to the train station. I was gutted to discover the 9AM I was on a quest to get to, had been cancelled. My brain weighed up the lost potential against the success of the party. I added “go back to Manchester” back on my bucket list, and sighed.