Manchester Concord 26th April 2012

• Posted by Jady Shaw May 3, 2012 #Manchester Concord  5,050 views
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  My first trip to the Manchester Concord was on the 25^th of April, and having visited Canal Street whilst attending Sparkle in 2008, and having a drink at a couple of bars when first arriving  in Manchester  the previous Saturday, I  was just expecting  another nightclub.

   

  I was fortunate to be a guest of Pauline Smith who is a moderator for Transtastic and although she had posted a link of the Manchester Concord at http://manchesterconcord.org.uk/mblog/maryblog1.htm which I had quickly looked over but was still pleasantly wrong about being just another club.

   

  I found it to be a very busy but friendly meeting point. Although the bar was very busy it was not the main feature, there were other events going on, one was NSHR Ltd selling, and also restyling wigs for a very reasonable price which I took advantage of, to cut a fringe on one of my wigs I had taken along, and has since become my favourite.

   

  Although being my first visit I found everyone very friendly and was made to feel very welcome. It is somewhere one would make friends very easily, unlike some clubs that I have been too which although I am a very confident person felt alienated, even having walked out of the first club that I ever went to dressed.

   

  I was living on my own and didn’t have too many friends at the time and like a lot of TG’s who start to dress wanted to go out and have some fun and meet other people like myself. I first started attempting to go out dressed in the early 1990’s living in South East London and although it was very exhilarating it was also very dangerous.

   

  I had just moved into a house and felt that from a distance of over 10 feet was very passible being a size 12 to 14 weighing 156 pounds with long fair hair and a nice bum.

  However one of the other occupants of the shared house living in the basement flat had seen me leave the house and chased after me.

   

  I took off my black high heels and legged it around the corner running in front of a car that pulled up to help, leaning over to the cars passenger door as if to open it then saw me up close in daylight and drove off, but fortunately was enough to deter the person chasing me.  He later confronted me in a hostile manner but not having caught me I denied it and shortly after moved.

   

  Other times I would drive to the west end of London and sit outside this particular club watching in those days what were termed as ‘Trannies’, wishing and thinking one day I want to go in.  

   

  If I hadn’t moved into a self-contained flat, where living in the flat opposite was a young woman who had known a young gay friend from her school days, and who was now working as a dancer in the London club called ‘Heaven’s Fruit Machine’ possibly I may never have plucked up the courage to go out and have the fun that I have had both in Manchester and in London since.

   

  Not everyone is lucky enough to come across a situation like mine and having searched know it can be costly using services such as Transformation and escorts to venture out for the first time.

   

  I did go to a society which met on the first Sunday of each month for tea and biscuits, where TG’s sat discussing their problems which most of us now accept as everyday living and enjoy instead of feeling guilty, knowing we are not perverts with something wrong with us but instead enjoying dressing and meeting others doing exactly the same thing.

    

  Being a member of a site such as Transtastic one can easily forget that outside of the safe environment we create for ourselves, is a world which can be very hostile. Recently there was something stating that they had found a way to ‘cure being gay’ as though it’s an illness.

   

  Fortunately with today’s technology the addition of the www gives us so much access to information you could only find in magazines often only in seedy sex shops after the gay and lesbian section.

   

  Many of the TG’s that I know are into sex weather with men or with other TG girls but not all are. Some just want to enjoy being in touch with the feminine side, dressing and meeting friends for a chat and a drink which is where I think Manchester scores over London.

   

  On one hand you have the Manchester Concord which seems to be a good meeting point for girls getting together for a night out before moving onto somewhere like Napoleons where I danced my tush off all night long.

   

  How I wish somewhere like Manchester Concord existed when I first started dressing and here’s a message to any wanna bee’s, get out and enjoy yourself, you will not find a safer more friendlier place to start than the Concord