Beauty, gender and sexuality

This morning was a glorious morning. The fog, here and there, the orange sun, sheep sat in the fields, cockerels singing good morning, even the motorway to my husband’s work was a great journey, little hillocks appearing here and there out of the sea of fog, fog clearing up, trees donning the festive colours. October is one beautiful month indeed.

As we turned to corner to go into my husband’s office area, there was someone standing at the bus stop. Two long black braids, standing almost defiantly, just there, at the bus stop. My husband couldn’t help a “boy? girl?” I was baffled I must admit so I just said “lovely”. I will say she, because that’s the vibe I got, but she could have easily been a he. I felt she was both, very very clearly. But what she definitely was, and I said it out loud, was “lovely”.

She wasn’t just boy/girl. Her powerful black thick hair suggested the kind of hair black people have. Her features, though extremely gentle (sort of Halle Berry-type), were in quite a large round face. Her skin was very white, but she definitely had black features, somehow. Her body was glorious. She was just wearing jeans (discreet flares) over her long legs and a short jacket, you’d think seventies’ disco clubbing the night before? But no, I got the feeling it was all too discreet for disco and it was her daytime attire (I hope so anyway, had I her body even at my age I would most certainly want to dress like that). I had a feeling she was only just going to school, or work, perhaps? She stood tall but her legs and hands were crossed. In defiance but also fearful. I can imagine, there must still be idiots who would shout stuff at you on the street.

In truth, it wasn’t obvious to me what to call her: him, her. She was one of those people who could really do with an in-between pronoun (what’s taking so long, why don’t we have one already?). She reminded me in a flash of that beautiful, intense character in Imajica, one of my favourite (dark) fantasy books, by Clive Barker, which I intended to re-read soon. I loved her/him, and I loved that the author clearly loved her/him too, and I very recently found out that Clive Barker’s favourite of his own books is precisely Imajica.

Anyhow. I hope before I go I will live in a world where sexuality and gender are better known and just part of the every day normal and it is not, and never will it ever again be, an issue. All that person was, standing at the bus stop, in all her contradictions, was lovely. I hope she/he has a brilliant and reassuring day in Sheffield today.