Introducing our London Correspondent!

 AN INTRODUCTION FROM LONDON CORRESPONDENT

Hey readers, I’m here to inaugurate a new segment on Max’s trans/cendental Arsenal blog - London Correspondent! Needless to say, I am currently corresponding from London. I have been in the UK for approximately 3 hours and I’m right now taking the tube from Heathrow to my place of residence. I am passing by the Arsenal station, and it is getting me excited despite my lack of sleep! I’ll be living here in London until the summer and I thought it would be pretty fun or at the very least funny to record my experiences following Arsenal from their actual home. Hence, London Correspondent! Maybe come next season I’ll correspond from elsewhere.

But there’s more about me! I’m Kat, Max’s anchor partner. My pronouns are they/she but with an occasional, intimate he thrown into the mix. I’m generally speaking a nonbinary woman who’s used both the labels bisexual and lesbian throughout the years, though lately I’ve been leaning towards the latter! I’m also disabled, and my chronic illnesses - most iconically of them all being ADHD, I think - will definitely inform how I write here. Before Max and Arsenal, I’d really never cared about team sports. It’s been extremely interesting to see, and feel, myself opening up to this world! And it’s extremely beautiful knowing that it’s Max’s world where queerness and connection and playfulness are truly around every corner. It’s almost like learning a new language, or falling in love. Actually, it’s definitely falling in love. 

I thought I’d share a couple stories about my own Arsenal journey, or gender journey, or gender-informed Arsenal-informed queer shenanigans?

Now here we are!! I’m watching the NDL in Spurs territory in LITERALLY… 8 DAYS? and I’m so pumped! I’m nervous, certainly - as Max pointed out in previous points, will I be able to celebrate as I do want when Martinelli “inevitably scores a hat trick” (López, 2021)? Personally, I’m ready to square up and pick a fight if anyone gives me a hard time, especially cis men! I’m of course going to be sharing all about the experience here, and especially how it feels from a marginalised position in many ways (an Arsenal fan in the Spurs stadium, a demigender goblin in a cis-het world). 

It’s time for me to get off the tube! Till next time, folks!