Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Queen Jesus and the Daily Mail
I knew the man from the Daily Mail getting in touch with me would cause trouble.
It's always a dilemma: do you talk to such people, knowing whatever you say they will try to use against you, or do you not?
I can't stop myself from reaching out to people, it seems, because I spoke to him.
I enjoyed our talk. He seemed a very pleasant and intelligent person. Not that that meant anything...
And sure enough on Sunday the article came out, under the headline: "Unholy Row Over Church's Play Which Portrays Jesus As A Transgender Woman".
There was, of course, no row. The kind people of St Chrysostom's church in Manchester were friendly and hospitable and I performed my play there. The performances were sold out, and the audiences enjoyed them.
The row was manufactured by a fundamentalist blogger based in Australia who alerted the Mail On Sunday to the performance in the hope it would cause controversy.
And the Mail On Sunday obliged. What was remarkable about it was that it referred me respectfully, using the correct pronouns.
This marked a change from the first coverage in 2009 when I was called things like "Sex Swap Playwright" and consistently referred to as "he".
The other remarkable thing was that the paper was a lone voice. No other tabloid joined the "outrage".
And the article's author had clearly had difficulty setting up the "fury". He found only one Christian traditionalist who was willing to be named.
That individual attacked me for referring to God as "mum" on the grounds that Jesus in the Bible always refers to God as "father".
Which he actually doesn't. Jesus didn't speak the English of the King James Bible. The word he used was the Aramaic word "Abba", which is not altogether gender specific, and which can more accurately translated as "loving parent".
What the journalist predictably omitted, obviously, was everything I said about the Gospels in no way ever supporting anti-trans or anti-gay prejudice. That, on the contrary, in his words and his actions Jesus always reached out to the marginalised and the victims of prejudice.
It's such a source of sadness to me that everywhere throughout the world the opponents to ending discrimination against us should always do so in the name of Christianity.
As Queen Jesus says in the play: "I never said beware of the homosexual or the transgendered or the queer... I said beware the self righteous and the hypocrite. Beware those who judge others and think themselves virtuous. Those who condemn others and imagine themselves good".
And she also says: "Bless those who persecute you, for hatred is the only thing they have. And it doesn't amount to much. And they will lose it in the end.
For whatever they say and whatever they do they cannot stop the change that is coming.
And one day we will all be free."
.
Labels: Christianity, Daily Mail, Queen Jesus, trans
Friday, November 01, 2013
Maw Broon, Queen Jesus, Glasgay! and me
When I got to the Glasgow Tron last night to see The Maw Broon Monologues I found myself half expecting the street to be filled withe same crowd of angry protesters that were there when the first version of the show opened in Glasgay! 2009.
I had joked then they were protesting about the disrespect shown to The Broons: but actually they were protesting about me.
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In their hatred of transwomen they had jumped to the conclusion that a transwoman like myself could only be portraying Jesus in a spirit of mockery and disrespect.
And so hundreds of them turned out with their Virgin and their placards on which they had written inspiring christian messages like this:
GOD SAYS MY SON IS NOT A PERVERT
& when asked why they were getting so angry about a show they had not seen and about which they knew nothing they said “You don’t need to go near a sewer to know that it stinks”
& I can boast of having done my bit for christian unity in that devout catholics and evangelical baptists dropped their intensely christian dislike of one another to unite in piously christian hatred of me.
On the Friday of that week, the catholic archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, put out a statement to the effect that it was “hard to think of a greater affront to the Christian faith” than my show.
My show about which he knew nothing; and about which he spoke in terms that it now becomes clear would have been far more applicable to senior members of the catholic church than it ever was to me.
The cast of the Broons show, and especially Terry Neason, were supportive and lovely. But their show started half an hour before mine, and so they would have to leave me, and I would sit on my own in my dressing room and listen to the cheers and the laughter and the applause that greeted them.
None of which helped me much, somehow, as I tried to cope with my nerves and the knowledge of the immense hatred which I had somehow managed to inspire.
I felt lonely and afraid and wished I could write something as clever and as good-hearted as the Broons show was then and in its new incarnation is again.
Instead of struggling to write trans theatre, which had hardly been attempted before and probably, as far as I could tell, would never be attempted again.
Yet when I look back at my GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN which was the fruit of so many years of internal struggle against self-hatred and shame and which, when she eventually came to light, aroused so much hatred and opposition... when I look back I think maybe it is this play of which I am the proudest.
Proud enough to have written a book, which I know I one day will find the means to publish, proud enough to keep on performing it and which, if I could find the right help, I might even be happy enough to go on performing for the rest of my days.
Labels: Christianity, Glasgay!, Jesus Queen of Heaven, trans theatre, transphobia, Tron Theatre
Sunday, August 18, 2013
A new age
I am clearing out my house. It is like a journey into a chaotic past.
In the chaos at the heart of the chests under my window sill I found this:
It is so beautiful I wanted to share it.
It’s my eldest daughter Rebecca in costume for the Masque of Rosslynn which was staged in the chapel there every year in the late eighties.
The photographer had picked her up and sat her on the altar and she is looking so solemn because for her the altar was an incredibly holy place and she didn’t think she should be sitting on it.
The dear love is grown up now, and with a child of her own.
She came round yesterday to help me, and gave her permission for the picture to be shown and...
Looking at it again has stirred up so many memories.
We lived in a cottage just down the road from the chapel for about 6 years. Just at the edge of the Roslin woods.
We used to go there to church most Sundays, because the chapel was so beautiful.
It was little known in those days. There was something intensely sacred about it.
The children even went to Sunday school. I was even on the church committee.
In those days I had told no-one about being trans, except my dear partner years before.
The secret gnawed at me. I was afraid that if I disclosed people would hate and despise me; my children would be bullied at school; and that we would all suffer.
I kept silent. My career prospered. But I was not a whole person.
I went to church again this morning.
Today was special because I said a prayer that I had written and, alongside Fiona Bennett, the minister, I spoke some of the beautiful words that are used to consecrate the bread and the wine.
I could not be more accepted there.
I cannot put in words how much this means to me. I can only record the journey.
Bear witness to it. Give thanks for it.
My daughter’s young son is almost a year old. In that miraculous transition from baby to toddler.
He looks around him with utter wonder.
As I still do. At the dark clouds passing across the blue sky.
At this world so full of fear and darkness.
And yet I know that my journey is not an isolated one. Something has happened in the collective consciousness to enable it to occur.
We don’t know what it is. We don’t understand.
But it is happening. Happening everywhere. Something new is being born.
Labels: Christianity, New Age
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