#dazzle's rambles

I can only pinpoint a few times in my life when I've felt truly uncomfortable doing things associated with my birth gender, and while those events are stark memories for me, they're nothing compared to the utter happiness I feel when I look at myself in the mirror and feel masculine.

I don't always know how to make me feel that good, and the moments are fleeting and rare, but those feelings let me know I'm trans bc cis girls don't normally feel giddy when their sister tells them that they look like a boy, even in girls clothes, and cis girls don't feel like that when they're wearing their brothers tracksuit bottoms and a baggy shirt.

There were a couple of teething problems with mum but she's using the correct pronouns and name pretty much immediately. All is good.

At first she struggled with understanding how to use neutral alternatives to gendered words, but she's quickly adapted. She's got the paperwork ready for legally changing my name (its 10 pages cos I'm a 16 and there's more hoops to jump through as a minor) and she's taken having a trans nb child so well.

That, and school let's you change your forename in the system, so it's on the register now, all the teachers use my chosen name and pronouns which is Amazing. I'm so glad I told college before the teachers got used to my deadname. I can't get the name changed on my sixth form ID card until I get it legally changed, but I should have it done before my mocks so my deadname won't be on any of my exams.

The support I've had from my friends, family and school, not to forget the countless online resources I used that helped me work out who I am, had just been so amazing and I couldn't have asked for a nicer reaction from everyone. It's been just less than a month since I came out to my friends and now I'm out to everyone and am in the process of legally changing my name.

We're told for our whole lives: these exams will govern how your whole life will play out- don't slack off now.

But the government is doing nothing to help. Some schools are desperately hoping the gov doesn't close them and making no plans at all, and others (like mine) are going into overdrive:

Our timetables are being collapsed so we can completely finish BTEC subjects in a week. We have to spend 10+ hours per day in school next week to finish what would have normally been done in over a month.

The printers have been non-stop printing home-working booklets for every subject. The costs in the reprographics department will be astronomical.

I was given 8 maths practise papers to complete (that's 12 hours worth of work to do).

All year 11s have been given a 32GB memory stick to store our coursework on to complete at home. I can't even imagine how much that cost.

And is our government doing anything to subsidise this? Of course not. Our budget has been gradually decreasing for years and the cost of preparing for something that might not even happen will definitely take a toll.

And even if that doesn't directly affect me, there's so much uncertainty. My stress levels are high right now. The combination over the lack of knowledge of what the government is going to do to schools and the possibility of some exams being cancelled completely (French speaking I'm looking at you) or being delayed terrifies me.

Last month I had hot flushes but now I keep suddenly getting freezing all of a sudden??

So many anxious souls hanging with baited breath only to be bitterly disappointed when, in true fashion, Boris said a lot without actually saying anything.

He talked for like 5 minutes to say that we might take drastic measures in the coming days.