When you’re sighted, there is so much to see. I know this sounds obvious when it’s written like this, but for many people it’s just something they take for granted. Words are everywhere. Photos are everywhere. They can see animals they’ve never interacted with by looking at pictures in books or watching shows about them…
Category: Thoughts
Finding my Way Through the Years
I started to write this blog eleven years ago, when I was coming to the end of a tumultuous first year in a mainstream sixth form, after spending the first five years of secondary school at a blind school. I had recently turned seventeen and was filled with insecurities. I had high hopes for my…
What Does it Mean to Forge a Body? Autonomy through Disability Cures and Gender Transition
I’ve always resisted the idea of a cure for my blindness. I’ve been asked about it plenty of times, shrugging off the possibility with an “it won’t happen for ages,” or “I’m just not interested,” when asked about it in person. My writing has delved even further into my feelings. How it makes me anxious,…
Isla
It’s been three and a half weeks, and I’m still not sure I have the words in me to write this post. On the 21st of December 2021, my retired guide dog was put to sleep after being diagnosed with cancer. She was only ill for a very short time, but the tumour was very…
Coming Out and Feeling Lost
I haven’t written much about being trans, really. Partly because it feels so personal in a way that blindness does not, so I’m not really sure what I want people to know and what I want to keep to myself. But also because coming out has inherently involved other people. Each time I come out,…
Something about Grief
It’s been six weeks. I’m counting. Of course I’m counting. When will I stop counting? Will it turn to months, and then years? Will I eventually move through another week without realising it’s gone? It’s like I’m supposed to have recovered by now. People want me to go out and be normal. And I am….
Ugly Grief
I miss my mum. Of course I do. Writing those words feels stupid and wholly inadequate because it’s obvious that I miss her and shouldn’t I have something more profound to say? But here we are. I miss her and it hurts and grief is not pretty. I just want to be able to call…
Good Intentions may have Unintended Consequences: My Response to the Letter Signed by Legal Academics in Support of Kathleen Stock
In recent weeks there has been a tension running through certain pockets of academia. It’s hard to say if this can be felt on campus, as I haven’t been there, but certainly online it is very noticeable. Some will portray it as a conflict between the rights of academics and the rights of students, others…
Remembering my Mum
My mum passed away last night from cancer at the age of 68. Writing those words doesn’t feel real, as much as I know that they are. I want people to understand the person she was, as if somehow, the more people who know about her, the longer she will be with me. Although both…
Each Last Moment
You never remember your lasts. Perhaps you tell yourself that you will. Surely you will remember your last conversation with a person, last shared meal, last joke, or song you shared or book you read together. But will you? I thought I would. How could I not? My mother is dying. She knows this. I…