Aye, I ken your bewilderment. You’ve heard me on the radio programmes, the podcasts and other media with a completely flat, Valley Girl meets Walter Cronkite type of accent. If you hailed from Canada or the American west coast, you’d say I had no accent. And yet nowadays, even in my writing, I have a lovely Scottish lilt.
Have I had a stroke? Sprung a multiple personality disorder? Been infested with the spirit of a long-lost Hebrides born pirate? None of the above. It’s an affectation. Some of the less tolerant might call it fake. Ah, they can hang their bahookies out the window on a cold July night.
So, I have an affectation. Why? Because I need to communicate verbally, and in text somehow, and I absolutely can’t stomach the idea of being seen as Canadian! I am so embarrassed by my citizenship I can only go on by faking that I am not Canadian. Scotland is in my ancestry, and it has a culture and identity that isn’t some horrible contrivance of marketing, manipulation and optics. And let’s face it, if you need an accent, an identity by how you speak, you cannae go far wrong with Scots.
You could say I was born into the wrong nationality. This is wrong! I am not Canadian. Or I wish more than anything I wasn’t. I am nationality dysphoric! This is unfair.
I demand to be taken as I truly am, a full blown, kilt wearing, caber tossing, whisky drinking, vegan-haggis eating Scot!
Aye, I am a trans-Scot and I need to be taken that way. I demand to pee in Glasgow alleyway, to wear a kilt, to play bagpipes and not be laughed at – or shot. I am a Scot in Canadian nationality. I demand a UK passport, to reflect my true and only nationality. I am trans-national and I will not be denied my true and only nationality!
Okay, now you ken the affectation. Get a grip and live with it baby. I am a Scot, let me in!