The Cass Report VII
Issue #7 - Summer Solstice - 21st June 2026
hello again!!!
that's right babey we're BACK with cass report number SEVEN holy moly the hits just keep on coming. a while back i was thinking to myself just how much amazing stuff i have to put in this one, and now i've actually sat down to write it i seem to have forgotten most of those things, oh crumbs. so i'm going to be reading back through my last few months of journalling to work out what the hell has happened since march (don't worry, i'm not doing an entry for every day again)
Bron and Mag MEET! (i'm there too)
will cass survive?
yum
i died
most important image of the day: my new phone background
bron sees hot pot for the first time
my brain short circuited at least three times. we did all end up in a bathtub together (the hope and ruin pub has one as a seat) and i was in the middle and i definitely did actually die and go to heaven (which was much more boring than the bathtub so i came back)
transition
back in December 2025, probably around the 15th, a friend gave me a little package with a bunch of needles and a vial of estrogen. DIY HRT actually seems like a pretty good idea, but unfortunately I'm not that rock and roll and was too nervous to ever use it. getting it, though, literally having the means to do it, did spur me into actually sorting my shit out so that I could spend a lot of money to get hormones privately (because getting it on the NHS is probably actually impossible at this point). so I got a start on that in January, and six months later, I'm... still not on hormones.
so what the fuck has been going on for six months?
well first of all there were all the forms to sort out. that took me longer than it probably should have, just because I'm forgetful with that sort of thing. then I had to organise a (very expensive) private psychology assessment to diagnose me with gender dysphoria or give me a certificate of gender incongruence or whatever woke term they're calling it today, so there were another few weeks waiting for that. and then I had to get blood tests, which meant organising things with my GP, and then I had to have a video call with the hormone clinic where they asked me all the same questions the psychologist did, and then I wanted to try and organise getting some sperms frozen so that if me and my partners all completely change our minds on having kids I could do that in a few years time, and also I needed them to send a full medical summary to the hormone clinic. all of this has been a total complete slog where the GP receptionists just keep deffering to online services that I have to fill out instead of them actually doing even a single thing other than printing my blood forms on printers they can barely get to work.
completely seperately to all this, I also randomly have some stomach problems like 1 or 2 months ago yadda yadda yadda a whole other round of blood tests that come back telling me I'm fine, except that my B12 is like super super low (even though I'm a terrible and fake vegan who eats dairy shit and very occasionally egg shit all the time), so now I'm having more blood tests and B12 booster jabs. at one point the GP receptionists, bless them, even sent a prescription of my B12 jabs to my pharmacy for literally no reason because they provide them for me for free at the GP. hang on a fucking minute, you're telling me it was fucking fine to just stick myself with needles this whole entire time?!?
anyway, so the call about the sperm clinic referral never came through, and I was only doing it because it would have been free, so fuck it. I'm not wasting more time chasing that around when I could just actually finally finish with the whole thing and get the damn hormones.
so, six months in, I don't have hormones but I do have IBS. what is my advice to 90% of my readers who are also trans? if you are on the fence about hormones, start working on that shit now. I've been very keen on the idea for a long time, but now that I'm six months down the pipeline and still don't have my hands on them I'm practically frothing at the mouth. I've even thought, fuck it, I should just do the DIY stuff I have, but that would be a grand waste of money and I'm still a little scared of it. if you want any advice HMU and I'll tell you exactly how you can spend six months chasing various wild geese. (for real though - as frustrated as I am now, i do think this was sort of an essential way of doing things for me. DIY was too scary, because I'd still want all the blood tests and stuff, but even just the idea of approaching the GP for the blood tests whilst not doing things the "proper" way had me stressing hard. Now that I've spent so long fussing around with all this stuff, all of it seems easy. so i don't regret doing it the way i have! but boy do i wish it was quicker)
SO! the next cass report, if some unforseen disaster does not occur, will bring news that I'm finally actually on hormones! my name change on the other hand... well I sent in deed poll forms six months ago...
learning make up
who even needs hormones anyway?
my pfp EVERYWHERE now
great graffiti in fuel cardiff
trans protest
wenchmaxxing at the barnet ren fair
bron taught me how to do makeup based on this one twitter trans woman whose makeup i always love. so now i know how to do exactly one makeup look. i took a good photo and immediately made it my profile picture everywhere like that lizzo meme
leo ended years ago RELEASED!
everyone's favourite femboy romance audio drama is now OUT to be heard by YOUR EARS!
*please note that LEYA is not a femboy romance
Amelia "videofungus" Myfriend has released her new audiological epic Leo Ended Years Ago. obviously you should listen to it because of my lead performance but also because it's expertly written and produced, movingly performed (even by actors other than myself) AND transgender. GO LISTEN NOW!!!!! I'm serious. Stop reading this and go listen to that. But then get back to this after.
art by johanesviii
wales!!!
i travelled to wales for bron's college end of year show, lord of the flies. i'd love to gush about how good their performance was, but they had failed to inform anyone they'd invited that their character died immediately and spent the entire show at the back of the stage, occasionally jumping around like a monkey. they did, however, sing a haunting, ghost-choir rendition of Black Sabbath's Changes, which was the highlight of the whole play. classic lord of the flies!
wales wales wales... we also met up with out friends DONYA and JOHN for a day at the beach and local nature reserve Porthkerry which was loads of fun! aaand a trans protest after everyone got banned from using the bathroom (the best chant was "let us piss, let us piss!). we also hung out with RHYS a lot, hi rhys!!!!
other stuff
here at the cass report we're always trying to find pioneering ways to fit in information in a condensed way AND make the whole thing completely unreadable on mobile. here's my newest effort at fitting in more little extras.
mag took me to the barbican which i'd somehow never been to before! we got real cheap street food and ate it up on the terrace
some time in this trip we went to see the perfectly faux-y2k band after, too!!
nasa sent some people around the moon on artemis 2 which was cool. but no landing! artemis 3 is just orbital tests but hopefully on artemis 4... anyway, aren't the pictures pretty? really cool to have been able to look at the moon and know there are people out that far!
saw akira at the cinema with raphi. holyyyy shiiiiiit. absolute visual spectacle. PEAK! locked in for two hours straight. the way the buildings tower up and up and up... amazing.
i took a month long weed break and had 30 days of insane vivid dreams which i included in my journalling. don't worry i won't make you read about them. had a few smokes recently but back off it again now, and crazy dreams are back
saw big thief and laraaji with amy. great set! the jammy red moon at the end was just perfect, and such a treat to hear change live
got bored of second draft and started sharing the first of the gods of belhime if you want to read and critique a short ai dystopia book!
Skeleton of the Season
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait
stop! be stoic! we're getting serious!
when I visited Edinburgh in March, Ed took me to the National Galleries of Scotland's Modern One. There was a lot of fantastic art there, but the stand out piece was this, one of Robert Mapplethorpe's self portraits. At this time, Mapplethorpe was dying from an AIDs related illness. The capturing, competing gazes from the two disembodied heads, his own face slightly out of focus, his hand reaching into focus, into the future, but grasping death...
Also in the Modern One, was Sarah Lucas' Self Portrait with Skull.
We passed through a graveyard that day, and I had the thought that I might find good character names there. I called one of the Gods of Belhime characters "Douglas Murray", not realising that name is already taken by a real life right wing pundit. So I look at the first grave I see and what name do I find?
Album of the Season
i've been listening to a lot of boards of canada both ahead of and after the release of their new album Inferno. and inferno is pretty great too (although it took some time to grow on me)! I especially like Naraka, and I've been hearing The Word Becomes Flesh a lot because it plays on the credits for Backrooms. great to hear it on the big loud cinema speakers!
a few years ago I picked up this CD "Remember Shakti" because I know John McLaughlin from his Mahavishnu Orchestra stuff. Remember Shakti is a set of live performances of like, traditional indian/jazz music. i love it. i've been listening to Mukti a lot, a brisk 63 minutes, a really good performance to tune out and meditate to.
I also finally got round to listening to Babe Rainbow's "Slipper imp and shakaerator" from last year. good fun chill pop-psychedelic spring summer vibes, especially Aquarium Cowgirl.
hmm, i could have sworn this section normally has more bakerloo line moquette...
oh yeah, that's right.
STOP THE PRESSES! last minute bullshit
I made this image to be used in every cass report going forward. i *knew* i would forget what font i used - clarendon - so saved it as "sponsorclarendon". great. well then I realised it should really say "album of the season 2026 is actually caroline polachek's desire i want to turn into you".
well thank god i saved the font name, right?
except when I go to type in clarendon, it clearly isn't the same font?
so i go online and put it in a font detector to save me having to search through them all in exactly the way I didn't want to.
and the online detector tells me it's "cristoforo", which it clearly is.
except that I don't have cristoforo. in fact, it costs £7.56! so how the FUCK have I typed in it?
i suppose i get what i deserve, since i stole the bakerloo line moquette pattern from an etsy seller
anyway after some searching it turns out i have another font that is absolutely identical to cristoforo so what fucking ever why did i save it as clarendon GAH. anyway i couldn't be bothered to change the file name so i wrote this whole thing to remind myself it's Deneane. thanks.
