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
Monday, July 28, 2014
Questions for a trans woman in Eastern Europe
People ask... People ask so many things.
I enjoy the sessions after the readings perhaps better because they are spontaneous and livelier and I'm getting feedback ina way that cannot be offered me by the readings themselves.
I chose to read my "Letter To An Unknown Soldier"
http://www.1418now.org.uk/letter/jo-clifford-2/
which brought up questions about pacifism and Hitler and Tony Blair and my "Dear Scotland"
http://www.thespace.org/artwork/view/dearscotlandpoetspub#.U9ZzYSjJ50g
and that brought up questions about Scottish nationalism and Slovakia and Moravian independence and I performed extracts from my "Gospel According To Jesus Queen of Heaven"
http://www.teatrodomundo.com/
And that always gave the audience the chance to ask what it seemed they always wanted to ask: to ask me about being trans.
Respectful questions, not the intrusive kind about the shape of my genitalia that I was perhaps a little nervous of, but genuine questions of the kind it's always a pleasure to answer.
And it makes me glad that in my perverse kind of way I only followed to a necessary minimum all the advice to walk like a woman and gesture like a woman and talk like a woman so that I would blend in and successfully disguise my trans status.
Because sometimes it seems to me that the most important work i do, besides what i communicate through writing, is what i communicate through just being present with audiences.
Present and unashamed....
How have things changed for queer people in your country?
...And I talk of the complete absence of support and information I suffered from as a child in the sixties. And how at that time it was absolutely impossible for me to even begin to imagine that one day i would be able to live openly and be respected as a trans woman.
And yet here I am. And also to be welcomed and feel safe in your country too.
This feels like a miracle to me...
How does being trans affect your writing?
...And i say that what has made it possible for people like myself to be here is a profound and radical change in human consciousness, in the most fundamental ideas of what gender means. And that this change, in the western world at least, is unprecedented.
And its obvious that some people are going to be frightened and upset by this and try to resist it.
(And how sad that so often the Christian Church has made itself the standard bearer for this resistance)
Writers and artists are still trying to catch up with this change. I remember seeing "The Crying Game" when I was in my forties. And that was the first time I saw a trans person being portrayed as a human being.
Instead of as a monster, a laughing stock, or a freak...
And that makes my ambition to create a repertoire of dramatic work about being trans a hard one. I have hardly begun...
And Putin?
Putin is a sad damaged man possessed by self hatred. The Putins of this world will disappear, I answer.
Because history is on our side.
I enjoy the sessions after the readings perhaps better because they are spontaneous and livelier and I'm getting feedback ina way that cannot be offered me by the readings themselves.
I chose to read my "Letter To An Unknown Soldier"
http://www.1418now.org.uk/letter/jo-clifford-2/
which brought up questions about pacifism and Hitler and Tony Blair and my "Dear Scotland"
http://www.thespace.org/artwork/view/dearscotlandpoetspub#.U9ZzYSjJ50g
and that brought up questions about Scottish nationalism and Slovakia and Moravian independence and I performed extracts from my "Gospel According To Jesus Queen of Heaven"
http://www.teatrodomundo.com/
And that always gave the audience the chance to ask what it seemed they always wanted to ask: to ask me about being trans.
Respectful questions, not the intrusive kind about the shape of my genitalia that I was perhaps a little nervous of, but genuine questions of the kind it's always a pleasure to answer.
And it makes me glad that in my perverse kind of way I only followed to a necessary minimum all the advice to walk like a woman and gesture like a woman and talk like a woman so that I would blend in and successfully disguise my trans status.
Because sometimes it seems to me that the most important work i do, besides what i communicate through writing, is what i communicate through just being present with audiences.
Present and unashamed....
How have things changed for queer people in your country?
...And I talk of the complete absence of support and information I suffered from as a child in the sixties. And how at that time it was absolutely impossible for me to even begin to imagine that one day i would be able to live openly and be respected as a trans woman.
And yet here I am. And also to be welcomed and feel safe in your country too.
This feels like a miracle to me...
How does being trans affect your writing?
...And i say that what has made it possible for people like myself to be here is a profound and radical change in human consciousness, in the most fundamental ideas of what gender means. And that this change, in the western world at least, is unprecedented.
And its obvious that some people are going to be frightened and upset by this and try to resist it.
(And how sad that so often the Christian Church has made itself the standard bearer for this resistance)
Writers and artists are still trying to catch up with this change. I remember seeing "The Crying Game" when I was in my forties. And that was the first time I saw a trans person being portrayed as a human being.
Instead of as a monster, a laughing stock, or a freak...
And that makes my ambition to create a repertoire of dramatic work about being trans a hard one. I have hardly begun...
And Putin?
Putin is a sad damaged man possessed by self hatred. The Putins of this world will disappear, I answer.
Because history is on our side.
Labels: Catholicism, Eastern Europe, trans
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Overcoming emotional abuse
“Children should be seen and not heard”.
So often I heard this appalling nonsense as a child. And
“Want doesn’t get”.
The general belief seemed to be then, and sadly so often is now, that to listen to children and respect their wishes would somehow “spoil’ them.
I certainly wasn’t spoilt. I was damaged instead.
I’ve been reflecting on this a lot the past week as I’ve been working with Chris Goode
(http://chrisgoodeandcompany.co.uk/) on developing a new theatre piece on what it means to be trans*.
My experience as a child seems to be the best place to start; it’s certainly no use looking for any kind of tradition because there isn’t one.
One of the things the week has forcibly reminded me is that it wasn’t until i was in my forties (1992, to be precise) that “The Crying Game” was released that I saw a dramatic portrayal of a trans person as a sympathetic human being and not as a monster or a grotesque.
For the very first time...
It reminded me once again that up till middle age, quite apart from the universally hostile prejudice, I’d had to somehow form myself in the almost total absence of good and accurate information.
No wonder it was hard.
I got haunted last week by an old school photograph. Wiseman’s House, Clifton College, maybe 1966.
It was a vile institution in those days. Bullying was built into the brickwork. By then I knew I wanted to be a girl; knew, too, that if that was revealed my life would quickly be made unbearable.
My mother was dead. I was estranged from my father. My brothers were ten years older. There was no help available. No help of any kind. I felt completely alone.
In the past I’ve always focussed on the suffering in the picture. The emaciation (I would never eat); the bent shoulders; the air of unbearable tension and strain.
Chris helped me see this differently. “You’re the only one”, he said, “the only one who knows where they’re going and knows how to be in this world”.
And it’s true. “See how you’re looking at the camera”, he said. “Look at the incredible intensity of your gaze”.
And I did. And it’s as if I saw myself for the very first time.
And saw myself as more than a victim of extreme bullying and emotional abuse: but as a survivor.
And more than a survivor. As a young transwoman lacking even the words to describe herself (words like ‘transgender’ were not then in current use) who knew that in order to survive I had to go deep underground.
A brave young transwoman who couldn’t even conceive the freedoms she would come to enjoy but who could wish for one thing, with every fibre of her being: to become a writer.
I was afraid of telling anyone that wish. And at that time, my instincts and desire to be a performer had been silenced.
That’s why it took me twenty years to find my way back into the theatre and find my voice as a writer; and, to begin to find myself as a performer, another twenty years after that.
And here I am.
I couldn’t have wished for a better week. As anyone who’s seen his work will know, Chris Goode is one of the bravest and best theatre makers around. A totally wonderful collaborator. A real joy to work with.
And all this happening while back home in Edinburgh, my monologue was one of those being performed as part of the acclaimed NTS “Dear Scotland...” project in the National Portrait gallery. And while other performance slots were falling into place - at Rally & Broad (Counting House 23rd May), the Sunday Assembly (Summerhall 25th May) and Jo Caulfield’s Speakeasy (Scottish Storytelling Centre 10th June). And an amazing creative team is falling into place around me to revive “Jesus Queen Of Heaven” at ArtSpace@St. Marks during the Fringe.
So I look back at my young self in that dark suffering place and feel so very proud.
“You made it happen”, I tell her, “You made it happen with the intensity of your wish”.
To their credit, the National Theatre of Scotland funded our first week’s exploration.
Let’s hope we get the chance to continue.
As dear Jesus says: “Ask, and it shall be given you”.
And I’m certainly asking.
And I know that if it’s the right thing wanting often gets.
Labels: oppressive schooling, public schools, recovery, survivor, trans, writing as a tool for survival
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