A glimpse of queer paradise

(Thank you, Eve)

So I’m sitting in the garden of a radical bookshop with 2 beautiful queer people talking about being queer in the world.

Talking about belonging in the world. About reclaiming the world as a safe space for every body.

And I’m thinking: this is about belonging. This is about reclaiming.

At this moment it is actually happening.

And that is why I feel I’m being offered a glimpse of paradise.

And thank you Lighthouse books. Thank you Edinburgh Book Festival Fringe.

Thank you for making the space in which this can happen…

And I can’t remember a thing I said. But I do remember feeling safe and happy when i said it…

So now I’m thinking about the journey there.

“I’m thinking of where it all began:

This all began when I was a child — when I looked in the mirror and saw a boy and didn’t really know who he was.

And that made me so afraid.

I was very young then. Maybe four or five.

But old enough to know I could tell no-one.

Old enough to know it was too dangerous to say.

It’s not true what they tell you, that children don’t know their own minds.

I knew. I just couldn’t give it a name.”

And this is me in my EVE. And I could begin to describe it then.

But I couldn’t, or maybe didn’t want, to describe all the years of agony that followed.

All the years of trying not to look in mirrors and not have my photograph taken.

The years of knowing I was hiding deep inside me something deeply horrible and shameful.

Something that everyone would deeply and profoundly hate and despise me for if I knew.

Just as I can only begin to describe now all the years of slow patient struggle from the darkness of shame to the light of joy.

And the milestones on the way:

the time Susie gave me LSD and I looked in the mirror and saw a beautiful woman and saw she was me…

the incredible love my partner Susie and my daughters Bex and Katie gave me and which taught me bit bu bit to love myself…

the women who expressed themselves through me in my plays and left bits of their pride and the strength of their identities behind…

the time I was with a dear dear trans friend and looked at myself in the mirror wig and makeup and a dress and thought: yes, that’s me.

and: yes, I like you…

the time I was speaking in a conference in the Gateway theatre and said:

I’m not a Scottish playwright and I’m not an English playwright. I’m a European playwright.

and:

I’m not a male playwright and I’m not a female playwright. I’m a trans playwright.

(that was 2004 and that felt so right and I wondered why it hadn’t really occurred to me before)

the time I first did THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN and there were hundreds of thousands of people on the street and on the internet who all hated me and my childhood nightmare and come true….

They did know who I was. And they did hate me.

And I was OK…

…and the time I collapsed on stage while performing the play in Belo Horizonte in Brazil and finding myself in intensive care.

6 of us really close together in a tiny ward, no possibility of privacy…

tied to the bed by monitors and tubes…

… and what was I going to pee into?

Was it going to be a little duck (the Brazilian word for bottle)

or

was it going to be a little friend (the Brazilian word for bedpan)?

And trying both and feeling a little concerned about what people might feel or think.

Opting for the little duck…

And admitted as a woman and being overwhelmed by everyone’s kindness and friendliness and respect.

And here I am now in this beautiful garden with these beautiful people

Thinking of Eve’s garden:

“There is a story in a book that we’ve all heard

About Eve who is the mother of us all.

She lives in a garden and one day we’ll all be there

We'll all be there in love and joy and we won't know shame.”

And saying:

“Here I am. A woman with breasts, no testicles, and a tiny penis. And just as there was no word for me back in 1954 there is no English word for me now in 2022 but it doesn’t matter because I know one day there will be.”

And remembering the words of my GOD’S NEW FROCK:

“Hello

Hello ladies, hello gentlemen. Hello men, hello women,

Hello those of you who are not ladies and are not gentlemen,

And not men and not women

but like me

maybe something in between  or maybe something that’s a bit of both or something

or somebody

that has never been thought of or imagined yet

Somebody or something this evening may even bring into being.

Welcome.

Welcome to this precious time, this precious hour we’re going to spend together.

This hour that has never happened quite like this before

and will never happen quite like this again.”

And so welcome, dear readers. Welcome dear friends.

Welcome to this world that has changed for ever…

My companions in the garden:

Paula Akban (top) @paulaakpan

Jess Brough @Jessica_Brough

photo credit: Jaime Prada @jaimeprada

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eve-9781786822697/