Community News OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar: Ms Sugar Swan asks what the LGBTQIA community means to her This month’s Gscene theme is community and having lived, worked and volunteered within the local queer community for the last 17 years I have very mixed feelings about the community and what it means to me. By Ms Sugar Swan • 5 min read
Features & Longread FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – A year in her life This year has been one of the toughest of my life, and I’m no stranger to tough years. December marks the first year of being without the best and most consistent person I’ve been lucky enough to have had in my life, having lost them after 17 years together. Next month also marks the 20th anniversar By Ms Sugar Swan • 4 min read
Features & Longread FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – HIV & Me I’ve been HIV+ for the majority of my adult life. I was diagnosed in my early 20s shortly after the death of my mother. I didn’t take her death very well and ran away to Europe for three months where I undertook some risky sexual practice as I was in a dark depression. Most traumatically I was gang By Ms Sugar Swan • 6 min read
Features & Longread FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – I love men, what can I do? asks Sugar Swan As Eartha Kitt sang during the disco revival of her career in the 1984 title track, ‘I love men, what can I do? I love men, they’re no good for you’. Never have song lyrics felt more relatable right now. Pre-transition I was never the ‘gay man’ that I was often perceived as and regular readers of th By Ms Sugar Swan • 5 min read
Features & Longread OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – My Pride experience Last month I wrote about my Pride experiences over the last 20 years and how I never quite felt like I fitted in. I was always troubled with poor trans representation. I surmised by hoping that trans folk, and the less represented minorities of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, would be better respected and re By Ms Sugar Swan • 8 min read
Features & Longread OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – my memories of past Prides My first experience of a Pride event was back in 1997, some 20 years ago. A fresh-faced 16-year-old kid, who knew she was trans but only in her wildest dreams did she think she could transition, made her way to Clapham Common for Pride London. I was absolutely terrified as I made my way there with m By Ms Sugar Swan • 4 min read
Features & Longread OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – ‘You need to be more ladylike’ Those 6 words. Those 6 words that I have heard over and over again in many different guises since I began transition feed into a cis narrative in which I neither belong, nor wish to. The OED defines ‘lady’ as ‘a polite or formal way of referring to a woman’. Well, I am a woman, so therefore, I am a By Ms Sugar Swan • 4 min read
Community News OPINION: Transitioning with Sugar – A scary walk down memory lane The Brighton Sauna was always a mainstay in my life. When I moved to Brighton at 20, some 15 years ago, bars were open until 12, clubs until 2 and no night was complete without “finishing off”, take that as you will, in the sauna. By Ms Sugar Swan • 6 min read
Features & Longread FEATURE: Sugar’s Big Hair Trip Part 1 Latvia, a country neighbouring Russia, regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1992 and decriminalised homosexuality soon after. However, general social opinion has not moved on much since then. In 2005, Riga, the capital city held its first pride but unfortunately counter protesters greatly By Besi • 4 min read
Features & Longread FEATURE: Transitioning with Sugar – Sugar’s Big Hair Trip – Part 1 Latvia, a country neighbouring Russia, regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1992 and decriminalised homosexuality soon after, however, general social opinion has not moved on much since then. In 2005, Riga, the capital city, held its first Pride but unfortunately counter protesters greatly By Ms Sugar Swan • 4 min read
