February was very much a month with two halves. For the first couple of weeks I was in Alsace with The Dames at a Cabaret residency- Les Dominicaines, and for the next two I was back in Berlin scrambling through all of the things I had put on the side during the residency. Alsace was a dream! What a pleasure and a privilege to have two weeks with my sister, working on music, developing our craft, and dreaming of future projects. We were staying in a little flat which was next door to the former abbey where we would rehearse and perform. The space was beautiful, brick walls hundreds of years old. Architecture designed with acoustics and ceremony in mind. We were developing a show for Valentine’s day and wrote two original songs about love. The first one, a walz inspired by the cabaret shows we experienced in Les Dominicaines, was a light hearted reflection of the expectations and consequent heartbreak of falling in love. The second was a ballad, dedicated to the beautiful trans femmes with whom I have had the pleasure to share my heart, and the complex relationships which encompass trans sisterhood, family, friendships, partnerships. We had some piano lessons and music theory lessons, finally getting to understand what we have been doing for the last 4 years, and receiving invaluable perspective and advice from the creative director there. Every night we would cook dinner and then watch True Blood with hot chocolate and a whole pack of cookies. Living the dream, what a blessing. 

Back in Berlin it was full steam ahead developing a new party with many of the people with whom we made LBC. The dissolution of this party was a tragedy yet we are trying to see it also as an opportunity. Who is afraid of a transition? It’s a very normal and natural part of existence. We roll with the punches, thrive under pressure, and return resilient. Speaking of transitions, we had a meet up with The Bricks and it was revealed that theres another trans-femme punk band in Brighton who started at a similar time to us called BRICK, so it looks like we will change the name of our band. I’ve been juggling Dames, Bricks, Parties, and festivals, together with trying to take care of my health, mental and physical, how novel. Im trying this whole concept of a weekend out, and so far it’s been great. It’s allowed me much more time for the menial tasks of maintenance, of the body, home, relationships, which easily fall to the wayside when bouncing from gig to gig. It makes me feel like a grown up which I have mixed feelings about. I have now officially one month left of my twenties, I’m 30 on the 31 March. I feel like in my mind I have been in my 30s already for a while, but im starting to feel it in my body. Thankfully I’m not drinking, I couldn’t handle a hangover anymore. 

It’s been a month of political upheavals and lots of intense and eyeopening conversations. It really feels like the matrix is rupturing. Yesterday I woke up to the news that the Green Party won an MP in the north of England for the first time, on a platform which supports wealth tax, trans rights, migrant rights, and to stop arming the genocide in Palestine. It feels like the biggest thing to happen in British politics in my lifetime. Like finally people are out of the mainstream media and political establishment which drip feeds division and hatred and intolerance in order to maintain profit margins for wealthy donors. People have officially had enough. They are sick of lies, of corruptions, and of blatant war crimes being excused and supported. It makes me feel proud to be a northerner. As Hannah Spencer said in her victory speech- we stick up for each other. It’s as simple as that. What a star, I have hope for the future. 

I really hope that this wave of hope and solidarity keeps momentum. I had a really worrying moment listening to a podcast from Novara Media, a leftie progressive media outlet powered by peoples donations not billionaires. It’s normally pretty good but they had an interview with a guy who was spouting loads of transphobic shit. Like it’s ok to interview people who have different views, if anything it’s good to know the way other people are thinking about the topics. But no conversations about us without us man! Sex workers taught us that. The podcast was two cis people talking about trans rights and the conversation was laaaame. His argument was that there are certain limitations to choice, that we can choose how to dress and how to sit, but that we don’t get to choose what gender we are born with. He admitted that he is a feminine man and yet he had to deal with the fact that he is a man and make do with that. Which to be honest, I think many trans people would agree with, we don’t get to choose what gender we are born with- and trans people were not born cis! We admit the gender we are born with and make steps to self actualise just like how cis people do… Comparing his experiences to those of trans people is like a white person talking on behalf of people of colour because they have a tan. It’s just a different an incomparable life experience and to conflate it is devoid of empathy, intersectionality, and solidarity. He said people should be free to choose their name and gender presentation but be drew the line at medicalisation and surgeries. But in the same way that we don’t get to choose the predispositions in which we are born, he doesn’t get to choose that we live in a world in which these options are available. And guess what? Gender affirming care was rarely developed with trans people in mind- the technologies were often developed to help cis people! He doesn’t get to choose that now trans people can access that care to also affirm their gender presentation. 

In the UK now they are further restricting access to puberty blockers for trans children. Their argument is that it can make them infertile and that they might regret it one day. What a load of bullshit! They are prioritising imaginary future children that may or may not exist one day over real life children who literally already exist, and know what they want and how to get it. Imagining that fertility is the be all and end all of human existence is frankly offensive. Like, adopt! It’s not that deep. It feels so reductive, old fashioned, and confused in its priorities. Because thats not really what it’s about. They want to make a world in which Trans people are not allowed rights in society because they cannot fit in the system, but also that the technologies which could allow them to fit in the system should also not be available, so in the end they just dont want trans people to exist. The end game is a fascist extermination. But what they dont realise is that even if they were to destroy all trans people, the next generation wild still contain more trans people. Because, as this bullshit man argued in the first place, you dont get to choose your gender. And many people are born intersex, trans, homosexual, queer, whether they like it or not. Get into it or get over it. Fuck. 

I’m frankly tired of these bullshit arguments from assholes that sound like they thought about if for five minutes and then made their minds up about it. Trans people are the experts on trans people, we are the ones who spent a lot of time thinking about it, have a lot at stake in it, and therefore should be the reference point for decisions being made. That just feels obvious. It’s so hard for these bigots to acknowledge that there are some topics in which they are not the expert, and that the best thing they can do is listen and empathise. When will we acknowledge the vital role of empathy in politics? In the Dames valentines show in Alscace we spoke all about love. And after a show stopping performance from my sister Mona I had a moment to talk about empathy. It feels like on valentines day we are so preoccupied with privatised love amongst partners, family, and friends that we rarely make space to think about this public form of love which is empathy. Empathy allows us to love beyond our immediate vicinity, allows us to love people we never even met but with whom we can connect through our shared humanity. It encourages us to stick up for each other. Empathy allows us to connect with other creatures with whom we cannot directly communicate but with whom we can reach common understanding because we are all alive, and are all therefore striving for life. It allows us to feel love for the planet, for the beauty it beholds, and to feel loved by the planet in return for it holds us and nourishes us. 

I think that my job has a lot to do with empathy. My role as a performer allows me to be a vessel for the empathy of the spectators. It’s like a microcosm of the scope of emotion in which people are invited to practice empathy. As I sing with Eve I go through so many different emotions, and im not pretending, the music genuinely makes me feel a certain way, and I channel this emotion and allow it to erupt through my voice into the room. It’s a rehearsal room for practicing empathy. And the gag is that the empathy is felt with a trans person, who people may not have met before, may not have shared this special form of love connection. To be honest this was never the intention, but it is something that we are realising as we reflect on the Dames and on the way it makes us and the crowd feel. I often feel exhausted after a performance because I have literally been through so much in a short space of time. It’s gonna be nice to keep working with this with more intention and forethought. 

Im looking forward to the final month of my twenties. It feels like there is a lot to celebrate, to discover, to be thankful for, and to act upon. And that is what I intend to do.