4 days ago
'We'll still be trans even if politicians try to legislate us out of existence'
Juno Dawson is the bestselling author of the Her Majesty's Royal Coven series, non-fiction books This Book is Gay and What's The T?, and has written for the most recent series of Doctor Who.
The author joins Yahoo's Queer Voices to discuss her new novel Human Rites, rising intolerance toward the trans community, and how to make real change.
Human Rites is the final book in the HMRC series, and it is out now.
This is a challenging time to be a trans or non-binary person. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that things are getting better because actually they really do seem to be getting worse, and I do think there is a strange power in acknowledging that.
But I take a strange comfort in knowing that cisgender politicians can try to legislate us out of existence, but we will still be trans. There isn't a tidal wave on this planet that could stop me from being who I am, and the genie's out of the bottle. Everybody in the world knows what it is to be transgender, what it is to be non-binary, and you can't put the genie back in the box.
So let these people talk about it, and I think it's important that while they do that, we live our lives and we try to find joy locally in our communities, that we try to make the towns and cities and the villages that we live in as tolerant and inclusive and joyful as they can be. That's why we need Pride because, actually, these people do not want to see us flourish.
And so I think it's more important than ever for us to party and to celebrate, and to be ourselves loudly and colourfully and joyfully.
Ending the Her Majesty's Royal Coven trilogy with Human Rites
Her Majesty's Royal Coven first came out in 2022, and it was always my hope that it would provide a sanctuary for all kinds of readers, but especially queer readers. I always wanted this to be a very diverse group of witches and, in particular, my coven was metaphorical for women, all women, and introducing Theo, who is a young trans witch, to that coven and to see the way that the coven embraces her was what I needed as both a reader and as an author.
So the fact that since the first book came out, it really has reached so many LGBTQ+ people has meant the absolute world because this book has found its audience in a way that perhaps my previous novels hadn't.
I started writing this book in 2020. It was the height of lockdown, we all had nowhere to go and nothing to do, I really did think we were all gonna die. But it blew my mind that there were so many people in the UK, particularly in the press, who were really, really obsessed with trans women and particularly trans youth, and so I kind of took it upon myself with this novel to try and figure out why some people have a problem with trans people.
And so Theo is a young witch who arrives at this coven presenting as a young man but very, very quickly, the main character Niamh realises that she's a young trans woman, and while most of the witches welcomed her into the coven a witch called Helena has a real problem with Theo and doesn't think that she should be included in the coven.
Through the character of Helen, I was able to kind of work out that the only reason you would have a problem with all trans women was if you had something prejudice within your heart, and that was really, really freeing for me as a trans woman. So, actually, the character of Theo has really unlocked a lot of my confusion about how we find ourselves in this position as a nation.
We have now arrived at the final book in the trilogy, Human Rites, Part 3, and all the threads wrap up in this book. It's in two parts and in the first part we deal with all of the drama left over from book 2, I think I'm allowed to say now that Niamh, RIP, is back from the dead, Theo has brought her back at the end of book 2 and so the first half of the book deals with Niamh readjusting to being back in our world having come back from the beyond.
Part 2 is all-out war, action sequences, no spoilers, but all the witches go to war, and there's a lot of action in the second half of the book. I hope people really like it.
I'm really sad to leave the coven behind. I actually came up with the idea in 2018, so this represents about seven years of work, spending seven years in the company of these characters whom I've become incredibly fond of, and I know that readers have as well.
But for now, it's time to move on and write new characters in different worlds, but I so enjoyed spending time with this coven and, honestly, it's changed my life.
The importance of queer fiction and non-fiction
Some people might not know that This Book is Gay, a non-fiction book I wrote 10 years ago as a guide for young LGBTQ people, is presently the third most banned or challenged book in the United States. And I think that shows that there is still absolutely a need for books about being LGBTQ, because to some people, there is still something controversial about us.
There are young people all around the world getting this message that their identity, their feelings, is something that should be repressed, or hidden, or something to be ashamed of, and I don't think it is. I think there is always going to be a place for straight-talking fiction and nonfiction, especially because so much of what you read on the internet is contradictory and confusing and so full of vitriol.
So my message has always been to young LGBTQ people that I'm fine and you're gonna be fine, and you are the way you are and we were Born This Way as Lady Gaga once memorably said.
I wrote the Eurovision episode of Doctor Who that aired earlier this year. I have been a Doctor Who fan since I was a very small child. I used to write Doctor Who fan fiction — though we didn't call it that in the '90s — and it's a childhood dream come true. I woke up to an email from Russell T Davis, I think in early 2022, saying: 'Eurovision meets Die Hard, what do you think?' And I immediately was like, 'Oh my God, yes!'
It's been such a privilege and a pleasure to work underneath Russell, going back and forward to Cardiff to the Bradwell studios, to see the whole process come together. I've been adapting my books and working on original scripts for a few years now, but to join something as huge as Doctor Who that's a massive global brand, it's on Disney+ now, to see something of that magnitude come together and to work with an incredible director like Ben Williams, and actors Ncuti Gatwa and Verada Sethu, it has truly been just the most brilliant experience.
I kept waiting for it to get difficult, or for it to stop being fun, and it really didn't. I don't know what happens next when you've achieved your childhood dream. I don't really know how you follow that!
Queer favourites
As a child of the 90s, we were slightly starved of LGBTQ representation, but it was also a time of emerging representation. For me, the obvious one is Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her relationship with Tara was really foundational. Jack on Dawson's Creek crying as he read his coming out poem, that's gonna stay with us. And, of course, things like Will and Grace and Will Young on Pop Idol, Nadia Almada on Big Brother.
It was a really interesting time; it felt like being part of something. But I think where we're at now, we have greater diversity of characters, and the internet has meant that none of us are the only gay in the village anymore, we're all one global community.
And, for me, the internet really changed my understanding of myself because what I didn't have was any trans role models, and without the internet, I wouldn't have found people like Andreja Pejić, Laverne Cox, Paris Lees, Munroe Bergdorf. It was those people who enabled me to realise who I was and see myself in those people.
So that's why we we do need representation through the arts, but I also think it's really important to hear queer voices.
The chaotic trans representation I probably needed to see growing up was Jules from Euphoria, so wonderful played by Hunter Schaefer. Because she's a mess and she's really flawed, and I think that would have brought me comfort as a teenager. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had been born 20 years later, I would have transitioned as a child, because I would have had that information at my fingertips, so I would have been Jules, kind of.
Because I grew up in the '90s, there weren't really any out trans women really for me to identify with. However, there were lots of kind of queer-coded characters that I really loved as a child. The obvious one that comes to me immediately is Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns as Catwoman. There was something about her transformation from mild-mannered Selina Kyle into this kind of deadly vixen Cat Woman who takes revenge on the man who killed her, the man who oppressed her; there was something really empowering about that.
And there was something about those kinds of characters who transformed, whether it was Shera or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was something about that transformation that somehow really spoke to me as a young closeted trans person. So it was more, for me, about finding empowering female role models as much as it was about finding queer female role models.
Looking to the future
There's always backlash towards the LGBTQ+ community, I think, and that has always been the way for queer progress. We take a step forward, and we get knocked back. And there's always respectability politics around it, like 'Oh my gosh, you're protesting wrong, or you're the wrong kind of queer, you're the wrong kind of gay. You're too sexual, you're too trans, you're not trans enough.' There's always this sort of gnarliness around progress.
But I think, for me, having really considered leaving the UK when things have been particularly hostile towards the trans community I sort of looked at places like New Zealand, which have sort of slid backwards a little bit in terms of their politics, and I've realised that politics is a game that politicians play and the barometer slides backwards and forwards.
Right now, it's sliding worryingly backward, and I think we have to call it what it is: we are seeing the rise of fascism in various places around the world, and we shouldn't be shy about saying that. But I think the response to that is to stop worrying about things on a macro level and think about your local community, and that's why I think grassroots local Prides are increasingly important, because actually, we don't live on the same global stage as politicians.
We live in our towns, we live in our villages, and we live in our cities, so what can we do on a really small local level to make sure that people have access to housing? Have access to healthcare, have access to food, what can we do to help people out of poverty? And I think that's the way forward, let's make sure that our local schools are the best possible schools that they can be. If I have to leave one message to trans youth, it's that you will outlive Donald Trump.
The future of queer storytelling is interesting. The important thing for me, the phrase that has stayed with me that my friend told me, was to leave down the ladder and so it's really important for me to leave down the ladder. I've just read the most amazing fantasy novel by young trans writer called Petra Lord called Queen of Faces, for example.
It's really weird because I have dealt with —and I'm not gonna name any names— some trans creators who want to be the only one. It's a bit like the Iron Throne; only one person can sit on the Iron Throne. Whereas I'm like, no, we need more because as I get older, I feel like my audience grows up with me.
So we need new queer talent always coming in so that the generation below me and below that generation has a voice as well. It's just about leaving the ladder down and continuing investment in queer art. I mean that as well. I'm not just being polite.
