Rebel, Rebel
by Leslie Tate
Photo by Tim Mossholder for Pexels
Let’s talk about public toilets, starting with motorway rest stops. Why them? Because they’re busy, and divided by gender. And let’s remember, as I walk into the men’s, I’m wearing a dress. Of course, I feel in danger. Men take you on. I’ve been told several times, “You’re in the wrong place luv.” I remember a man insisting, even though I was shaking my head, that I should use the other door. And when a friend went in with me, he told me afterwards about the filthy looks that came my way.
I avoid men’s eyes. I don’t want to give any pumped-up male the excuse he’s looking for. Especially as people can see that I’m tall and straight-bodied with big hands and a large face – and although my grey hair has volume, my voice is male and I don’t wear makeup. Being non-binary, I take it for granted that my gender is mixed, but I use the men’s because I’m anatomically male. I’m no danger to anyone, but whichever toilet I choose I could be in trouble.
When I go into the men’s I head for a cubicle. I’m telling myself not to rush, but my pulse is up and my hands are tingling. I keep my head high and imagine facing off aggressors, but really I want it over with as fast as possible. I was bullied at school so my main defence is spotting body language and preparing to run or locking myself in a cubicle. In my mind’s eye I can see blood on the tiles.
I remember being inside a cubicle in a Welsh toilet. The area was full of flushing noises, piped music and whirring hand driers. I’d finished on the toilet and was watching the space beneath the door, hoping I could escape during a quiet period. But there was no let-up and in the end I simply had to walk out. As I took my place at the washbasins, I realised I was surrounded by football supporters. They were quietly pumped up and ready for action. Fortunately, their random footie talk kept them busy, so I quickly splashed my hands, shaking them dry as I left. Emerging was like walking free from a juvenile detention centre.
Toilets vary. I’ve been in them alone and a man enters, sees me, and walks straight out. When he comes back, I tell him it’s the right place. The look I get is usually a combination of puzzlement, surprise and relief. In other toilets, all cubicles except one are out of action and I have to queue up wondering if someone is going to take a swing at me. And in some toilets the layout forces me to stand shoulder to shoulder at washstands or hand driers, bringing back memories of being knocked to the floor in the school changing rooms.
When I first came out in women’s clothes, I avoided all public toilets. If I was going on a journey, I’d either drink nothing, risking dehydration, or hold on ‘til I was desperate, increasing the pressure when I went. Not only did that generate anxiety, but it became stressful as age weakened my physical control. So now I drink a little and risk having to go. I’ve not been assaulted yet and probably won’t see it coming if it happens. In any case, most men mind their own business. But, of course, it’s absurd that, of all places, at the age of 73, I’m not safe in a toilet.
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From the start, my secret habit put me at risk. There was no knowing what might happen if I was caught. It also implied some sort of guilt. So for much of the time I wasn’t really there. It was as if I was a spy behind enemy lines. Every so often I’d be taken over by my other self, beginning in childhood when I sneaked my mother’s underwear into my bedroom. Wearing tights in bed was softly electric. It was hot and cold all over, and exciting. I felt enchantingly girlie and looked-after. I could hear the words of Living Doll running through my head.
Decades later, when I began to dress in front of family, the limit was the front door. Even then, if my children’s friends came round, I wore trousers. I avoided windows and quick-changed before answering callers. My real life was under wraps; I needed the house as refuge.
When I started going out at night, one of my first visits was to an Islington pub on a TV night. In those days, terms such as ‘TV’ and ‘passing’ were coded signals, but I didn’t use them. I wasn’t going to be labelled and disliked secrecy, although I parked close by so I could sneak into the pub unseen. Following instructions, I climbed a narrow flight of stairs with a voice in my head telling me to turn back – and when I found my group, I felt like an intruder. The room was full of girlie-girls. They were squeezed into tight skirts and heels and went by flowery female names, while I was wearing a long Kaftan-style robe with low-heeled shoes.
When asked, I introduced myself as ‘Les’. Looking back, I realise that was my male marker. It distanced me from being ultra-fem and placed me outside the group. Later, when someone advised me to ‘go the full way’, I distanced further. I didn’t want surgery or hormones and felt like an isolate. In truth, I had too many red lines. I hadn’t come for the chitchat or to exchange tips on nail varnish and I didn’t want to be drawn into something clandestine. So, when one young, heavily made-up TV bought me a drink and started propositioning me, I left.
When I took these trips out, I felt alive. At the same time, like an actor, I was hiding behind my part. At a self-catering holiday home, I walked the lanes at night wearing a long white dress with a hood. When cars came towards me, I shrank inside the hood and held my breath. I’d cloaked myself in strangeness and mystery, like a ghost. Fortunately, nobody stopped to ask if I wanted a lift. If they had, I’d have been struck dumb, like Harpo.
For years I planned my outings as POW escapes. I’d scout the route beforehand then, on the night, I’d go without glasses, carrying my ‘other-self’ in a bag. Sometimes, as extra insurance, I’d ‘underdress’ – male outwards, female underneath – using car back seats or toilet cubicles as my changing rooms. Wherever I was, I had an escape route ready, a backdoor exit or at least an excuse involving appearing on stage or raising money for charity. I knew there were stories of men like me jumping from windows or locking themselves in cupboards to avoid being found out. I’d seen female impersonators and gay male activists dressed to provoke and I’d listened to Lola and read about glam types and ‘dowdy’ transvestites who copied their mothers, but the way they all presented wasn’t for me. Looking back now, I see that they were presented – in my mind and by society – as departures from the norm. The idea that I was different was tinged with denial.
So how did it change? I began to tell people and for a long time that was enough. I dressed at home and sneaked out at night undercover, went to plays like M Butterfly dressed as a man, and played both sides of the gender game. I was and I wasn’t. Everything about me was reversible. I couldn’t be measured or pinned down and I lived in a world of mirrors where nothing was as it seemed.
And when telling people wasn’t enough, I began to write, at first for myself in hermetic poems then in prose with Jungian references, developing into third-person narratives about epicene adolescents and the woman within. I read as well, discovering two-spirit cultures, third-sex stories, Kathoeys and Hijras. It helped. But as long as I kept it private, the words were sketchy and unfinished, and although they told my story, the person they referred to wasn’t really me. If I was in the picture, it had been turned towards the wall.
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So why did it take 50 years for me to come out? The answer is what comedians call ‘point of view’.
For a long time, my fallback position was simple. Living in the binary world, I was male. Inside I was different, but that wasn’t me. The man I played didn’t feel gendered. He had his CV – teacher, manager, father, rich man (middle income, in fact) – and behind that, his politics and poetry. As doer and fixer, he was who he was. At the same time there were other selves, for example the cross-dresser who I treated as a split-off personality, and the show girl in the mirror who I thought I’d grown out of.
Calling yourself male makes things simple. It’s the default setting. Like white or straight, it’s not mentioned – and that makes it invisible. So as a manager I didn’t stop to think, just got on with it. I was my own self-styled hero who took on impossible odds and could work non-stop for hours.
There’s something unwieldy about being a man’s man. The standard image is Ken, the Barbie playmate. Ken is stiff and muscly, but behind the mask he’s a fantasy creature. I was the same. Right from the start my boy-fitness was connected to crazy dreams where I’d fly over walls and stilt-walk between buildings. In the physical world, of course, boys were required to run and jump and shout and kick balls in people’s faces. So I struggled to cut a figure, couldn’t pull it off, and found my real self in impossible dreams.
In my mind’s eye I’m still there with Plastic Man and X-Woman. My adventures included surprise transformation, invisibility, and strange connections. I could appear on-screen taking giant strides into battle. As The Crazy Ghost I exited the back of camera in a rage, chewing up my enemies. As Kali I decapitated them and hung them upside down from the moon.
Sometimes I ask myself if I put on women’s clothes to hide the macho underneath. Am I a wolf in sheep’s clothing or just a man in a dress?
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I’m looking in the mirror asking myself, “Who’s that?” It’s a snap reaction, but it comes from a deeper place. As I look, I sense how some people must feel when they first meet me. Doubtful, perhaps, but curious, wanting to ask questions, though unsure where to begin, or shocked, maybe, and a little threatened. For some it’s so unexpected they need a second take; for others it’s a deliberate provocation. Of course, they say to themselves, it’s absurd, A MAN IN A DRESS??? A tall man at that, in floral leggings with no hips or breasts and no attempt at makeup or any kind of depilation.
Looked at that way I’m on my own, keeping up appearances. But behind the mask I’m divided. There’s a persistent inner voice that claims I’m kidding myself – or worse, accuses me of fraud. And to prove the point I hear myself calling blokes ‘mate’ or joshing or punching out words, like they do. It’s a default setting. I do it to connect, but at the same time it feels quite natural. So while half of me is watching and listening, my other half is in performance mode. I’m one of the boys.
Afterwards, I question who I am. Where am I on the spectrum, I wonder, and is gender forever fixed, or is it performative? Certainly, there’s a scripted feel about it, something so practised it becomes second nature. And once it’s automatic, we don’t have to ask questions. The world is – and always has been – either/or. It’s as simple as that.
Or at least, that’s one way of looking at it. The opposite is less defined; more open-ended – a quiet blending of me with ‘the other’. It’s how I find myself, in present tense, both floaty and real. And as I walk down the street there’s nothing hidden or to be afraid of. I’m fully alive.
Sometimes I feel the binary is a trick to keep us permanently pumped-up and preoccupied. Being sexy raises the bar: it’s glam and intoxicating and attention-getting, and it seems to offer a kind of magic shield. But like all drugs, when its power wears off the only answer is to up the ante – and the more extreme it gets, the less it satisfies. In the end, it becomes a yawn.
I return to my mirror image. I’m a child again, wishing I was beautiful. I’m smiling. I want people to love me.
There’s a doubt at the heart of being genderqueer. It’s a part of what we all experience, but the questions go deeper. There’s a kind of urgency about it, so it can’t be ignored. I recognised this when I went to a meeting with other non-binary people. Everyone had their own preferred ID, often multiple, mixing trans with queer or non-binary, plus a range of pronouns – he, she, they, or simply a first name. But what I also realised was that everyone had their inner demon, like me, asking those questions. It’s that part of us that won’t lie down. I call it my mirror-man – lots of men, in fact, ganging up and speaking out of turn, casting shade on who we really are.
The task is to re-educate them.
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I recently read Two-Spirit People, a collection of essays about ‘Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality and Spirituality’. My aim was to investigate how other societies have viewed people like me. It was a dryly academic collection of essays but well researched, featuring several papers written by indigenous people. The book describes the diverse, multi-gender patterns accepted among the N. American tribes, who based their societies on a different idea of what it is to be human.
Two-Spirit People begins by exploring the label Berdache, a term used by Western anthropologists for so-called passive homosexuals who wore women’s clothes. In fact their clothes, though differentiated, were less binary than in the West, and their roles more varied. Personal identity in N. America sprang from what you did plus your spirit life, not from biology. It was common for women to take hunting roles because of gender imbalance in tribes and Two-Spirit people were sometimes regarded as doctors, poets and mystics. That changed during the twentieth century under the influence of Western thinking, so ‘gender-bending’ was seen as tainted by many indigenous groups and its existence denied in interviews. But before that there were records of people switching gender and developing intermediate genders (with a male to female bias that may reflect the researchers’ POV or a society that takes more note of men than women). Also, there were same-sex pairings that were regarded as heterosexual. The key was usually a person’s spirit identity. If two men or two women were together but one had an opposite-gendered soul then they were regarded as ‘straight’. Having said that, the different tribes’ cross-gender and multi-gender behaviour, which so shocked the missionaries, took many different forms. The label Two-Spirit was adopted as closer to the Native American model, rather than a Western LGBTQ+ perspective. In several personal stories N. American indigenous people described a wish to re-connect with their tribal roots after going through a gay liberation phase.
So what did I take away from the book? Firstly, I realised that that the term Two-Spirit has to be understood in context. It’s wrong to appropriate it, but it does suggest that cross-gender behaviour was OK in the past. Secondly, the book hints that even before colonial thinking set in, there were times Two-Spirit people faced discrimination from their peers – while, paradoxically, being treated as mouthpieces for the gods. It’s an ambivalence that drives contemporary fears of gender fluidity. Thirdly, these stories are a reminder that our Western materialistic and reductive ideas of human-ness are a narrowing of life.
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“What are you, man or woman...?”
It was Friday lunchtime and I was with a group outside Barclays speaking to people about fossil fuels. We’d been inside, acted a die-in, filled the pavement with bodies and placards and been taped off by the police. It looked like a crime scene. Now we were preparing for part two of our protest.
The question – or statement – came from a young overweight spectator-man standing at the front of the crowd. He was staring at me with a dirty grin. I could picture him ogling girls and winding up kids at school.
Behind me, two demonstrators, one male, one female, were kneeling in front of a large black-and-white sign. They were getting ready.
My answer popped out without thinking. “Neither.”
Part of me had always considered myself male, softened by the non-binary label, but to be neither took it further. I’d become myself, a resister picked out by my difference. I could hear in my mind the words of Where the Streets Have No Name.
It had happened before. I’d been called a lady – sarcastically, aimed from behind – whistled and shouted at, and once, kerb-crawled while shopping. Being catcalled was no surprise and the man in the van was a Bluto-type, but it took some getting used to. It was a lesson in what women had to put up with.
“Wha’ the fuck,” my spectator-man said.
In my head, I completed his phrase with …are you?
A thin woman in a red top stepped up to the kneeling demonstrators. She was holding a bottle of thick, dark liquid.
“Climate breakdown,” I called. “This bank funds it.”
I stared at the man. With his bristly chin and leery expression, he was acting a part. I could see him in later life, leaning on a bar and swearing at women on TV.
“Crazy,” he said, screwing one finger into his temple.
Behind me, the woman had raised her bottle to head height. As the spectator-man glared, my thoughts flashed back to a bully at school. It was all about swagger and overstated gesture. There was nothing underneath.
“FF bank,” the woman called, anointing the protestor’s head.
As the liquid oozed across flesh, the spectator-man laughed. “Weird,” he shouted, waving one arm. “Weirdo man. Weirdo people.” Choosing his moment, he began to walk away.
“No. Beautiful,” I said, as the liquid spread like gravy. “But also… not beautiful,” I called as it hardened to a crust. “Neither, really,” I added. “Just human and wanting to live.” In my mind I heard the phrase That’s why I’m here.
His question had been answered.
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Sue, my wife, calls me her ‘beautiful boy’. When she says that I feel warm and cared-for. It takes me back to the words of With a Song in My Heart. I’m the child at the front of the family photo. I have an ice cream in my hand and I’m smiling. The softness of my features makes some adults ask me if I’m a girl. Although I answer ‘no’, secretly it makes me happy to be asked. I like the idea of being in between. It’s unusual I know, but I’m telling myself a story where I go to the ball in a gown and slippers. When I switch to playing The Handsome Prince I’m actually a girl, acting the part. In the books I’m reading, I’m a tomboy, riding a bike and climbing trees, and when I get home I put on a dress. At school I sit with the girls and learn cat’s cradle. Dressed as a girl, nobody can see me or touch me or call out nasty names.
Later in my teens, I’m reading Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, Youth collected in one volume. I’ve chosen it because I’m trying to understand how boys become men. I try to go about my own business, act ‘adult’, and not show weakness. I’m learning how to give nothing away. Even then, secretly, I want to be admired. There are words I’d like to use such as ‘beautiful’ and ‘lovely’. In my mind I can hear Maria singing I Feel Pretty. She’s looking in the mirror and seeing me.
For a long time my beautiful boy stayed in hiding. I kept myself busy, making things happen. The aim was to impress. If I could stay calm and solid and remain on top while doing the business, then I’d be safe and no one could touch me. That way, I’d be a man and my real self wouldn’t show. But for anyone looking closely, I wasn’t what I seemed. Like Gulliver, I had a thousand tiny threads tying me down. My heart wasn’t in it.
I come back to how it started. I see myself as the high-voiced child singing to family, switching to a girl in secret, pouting. Now, I’m the boy with wings reading Ode to a Nightingale. And now I’m inside the pre-pubescent girl with smooth skin and false breasts. I’m tingling all over as I walk out at night in a dress. Later, I’m the man who switches gender in the middle of Chopin. Who understudies Bowie and smiles listening to Rebel, Rebel. It’s about changes, switches, renewals, transformations.
Because I’m still Sue’s beautiful boy.
He/she/Leslie Tate studied writing with UEA and is the non-binary author of three novels that explore generational change, love, gender, the child within and climate breakdown. Leslie interviews creative and community-active people weekly on radio & website and works with other Extinction Rebellion rebels to manage and host stage shows.