It was a grey May day in Manchester when I pulled up outside Beth’s house. It had been more than ten years since we met on Tumblr, the microblogging site, as teenagers finding ourselves, but this was the first time we had met in person. I felt a little guilty that it was for a project rather than a social call. I sat in the car for a few minutes, just breathing. It was a new project, and I wanted it to go well.

It’s been a strange time to be alive as a queer nonbinary person. The Supreme Court judgment, amongst other stories, has recently brought back similar feelings to those I had in my late teens, when same-sex marriage was being hotly debated. (It wasn’t until I was twenty that it was finally legalised.) Since then, I have felt like things have slowly been getting better for queer people, and I expected that trend to continue.

But now, with so much vitriol being slung around about trans people, I had started to feel helpless once again. I worried for the future. I wanted to connect with the community and figure out what I could do. As a photographer, I wasn’t sure there was much I was able to help with, but I decided to try. I posted on Instagram that I wanted to photograph and interview trans, nonbinary and intersex people with a view to amplifying their voices and exploring queer identity and belonging. Beth immediately volunteered. I took a deep breath, and texted: I’m outside.

Almost immediately, Beth’s beaming face appeared at the door. Their warmth instantly eased my mind, and after a quick hello and a look around the room, we got started. To make sure I addressed Beth correctly, I asked them to describe their identity in their own words. “It’s difficult,” said Beth. “I think I would say I’m not a man and I’m not a woman. I exist outside that. Sometimes I feel kind of between the two, and sometimes I feel like not that at all. So agender maybe? But I would describe myself as nonbinary. The way I feel is I’m not male or female. I am neither, not both. I am nonbinary. I am trans.”

We started off the conversation by talking about books, which are close to Beth’s heart. “Pride and Prejudice is my favourite,” they said. “I have so many copies of Pride and Prejudice. And queer books! All of those books are queer.” Beth gestured to a cosy corner of their living room occupied by bookshelves. “I have my not-queer books upstairs.” They got up and browsed the shelves. “A lot of these I haven’t read yet, but I’m slowly getting through them! This is one of my favourite series, Gideon the Ninth. They make zero sense – they’re great. You’re reading it and you’re eighty per cent through the book and you’re like, I don’t know what this is but I’m having a good time.”

I pointed out all the little items and trinkets that also occupied the shelves, and Beth showed me a few. Holding a jar of rolled-up post-it notes, they said, “This is my little jar of all of the books I have to read. But then I’m too much of a mood reader, so I’ll pick out a book and then just not read it. I read something else.” They then showed me a tiny glass bee gifted by their ex-boyfriend (Beth assured me they’re still friends), a Tamagotchi that has ‘avenge my death’ printed on it, a Lego replica of the bookshelf corner, and a collection of bookmarks, many printed with the Queer Lit branding.

We moved onto the subject of identity. “I feel like being queer is a big part of me,” Beth said. “I realised that I was bi when I was like seven maybe, and we were on a holiday camp. And you know they do the entertainment in the evening? There was a woman singing Like a Prayer by Madonna. And she was like this middle-aged woman and I was like, I like you. I fancy you in the way that seven-year-olds fancy people. But I didn’t know what being bisexual was at that point.”

There was a pause. “Section 28 shouldn’t have affected me.” Beth said, Section 28 being the piece of legislation that made it illegal to talk positively about homosexuality in schools (among other places) between 1988 and 2003. “They repealed it before I went to secondary school, except I grew up in Kent and Kent County Council were like, we’re gonna keep this. So Kent County Council still implemented Section 28 until the Equalities Act in 2010.” I asked whether Beth had any memory of that. “It’s something I learnt later,” Beth responded. “But I do know that being queer wasn’t ever really talked about when you did PSHE or whatever at school.”

I asked Beth about how they experienced school. “We were like the weirdo group. I wasn’t ever bullied bullied, but we were definitely like the outcasts.” I asked them to go on. “You know, when the popular kids all just like ignore you or say some snide comments or pick on you a little bit. Just acting the way that ‘you are strange’ and ‘why do you think you deserve my time or my energy’. We used to hang out in the locker room, which was kind of by choice but also because we didn’t want to go to our form rooms because all the people that didn’t like us were there. So, yeah, there was definitely a level of ‘you are weird because you are queer and also just weird generally’.”

I was curious to know if Beth knew they were trans at that point. “I didn’t know that I wasn’t a cis woman at that point. I’ve always been a tomboy, and thankfully, despite it being an all-girls school and strict uniform, we were allowed to wear trousers. I think I maybe tried wearing a skirt for a few weeks (once or twice in five years), but mostly I was in black trousers, and then black skinny jeans whenever I could get away with it into GCSEs and sixth form. It wasn’t really allowed. You had to get jeans that looked enough like trousers that the teachers wouldn’t notice. And then in sixth form we had to wear smart business wear. But then it’s like, how much can I get away with wearing jeans and a hoodie and a blazer over the top? And if they tell me to take off the hoodie, I can do that, but still be comfortable in jeans and a white shirt or whatever. Like what I’m wearing now.

“So yeah, I didn’t know at that point that I was not cis because I didn’t know what that was. Never heard the word, never really heard about trans people at all, and definitely never heard about nonbinary people. But we grew up on Tumblr, so then you’re faced with posts like, ‘here are forty identities I’ve never heard of and here are all the flags for them’. Yeah, so I heard more about trans people and gender and stuff on Tumblr when I was about sixteen, seventeen, maybe.”

I asked if Beth immediately identified with being trans and nonbinary. “No,” they answered simply. After a thoughtful pause, they continued, “I was with my partner at the time, and he was emotionally abusive and very controlling, so at any point I wanted to try and kind of explore anything …” They paused again. “I was still very tomboy. Skinny jeans and black shirts and long black leather coats. Slightly emo-y. If I ever wanted to experiment and wear skirts or dresses or different things to see how that felt, he would be like ‘The fuck do you think you’re doing? Who are you trying to impress? Why are you trying to be different? This is how I like you and therefore you must be like this.’ So it wasn’t until I went away, came up to Manchester for uni and moved in with Mum, broke up with him six months later that I was like, let’s explore this.”

I was interested in how Beth went about that exploration. “I bought my first binder and I didn’t love it,” they said. “I do have a binder now that’s a shorter one. The one I bought was a long one, and that was not comfortable at all. I think I still have it. But then I was exploring a more girly side of me as well and putting together little outfits and whatever. I have depression and uni was not an easy time, so I started doing an outfit of the day to take a picture and put it on Tumblr, because otherwise I would not get up and get out of bed that day. So I started doing that at the same sort of time as like exploring my identity and working out what I liked and what made me feel the most comfortable.”

It seemed that Tumblr had played a large part in Beth finding their identity. I wondered aloud about what their perspective on teenagers using social media might be given the positive influence it seemed to have on their life. “I think it varies depending on what social media you’re on and who you’re interacting with and what you put out there and things like that. There was so much negative stuff on Tumblr as well.” They went on to list things they’d been exposed to on social media: glorification of suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, pornography. “All that sort of shit was on Tumblr, but not as frequent on our side, the fandom side. So I think for me it was an overall positive, but there were definite negatives to it. I can see that I was definitely seeing and accessing stuff that I probably shouldn’t have been at the ages I was at.”

Beth took a second to think. “But then the internet was also the only place you could see and hear about stuff. Like we were saying, I’d never heard of nonbinary people, gender-fluid people or trans people really. I sort of knew maybe that trans people existed, but I had no idea of what that experience was like. So it was the only way you learnt about stuff. It wasn’t part of the school curriculum. Obviously it was much worse for the generations before us without the internet and the community that gave us as teenagers. Social media was the only place you got it. And for people like us who are under that trans umbrella who are nonbinary, there was so much not understanding yourself until you saw that and were like, oh that makes sense now.

“So I think it’s important for kids to have nowadays still. Like on TikTok or whatever where they get introduced to people with different experiences. Especially with all the negative stuff in the news in terms of people being like ‘this shouldn’t be in schools’ and ‘your trans ideology is destroying our children’. No. If people aren’t trans, you’re not gonna make them trans. But if they are, their life is gonna be so much better and easier if they know what that is, know what it means and can understand who they are. So yes, I think social media has its place and there are definite negatives, but I think overall, if you are sensible with the way you interact with it, it’s a good place to be and find out more about yourself and other people with different lived experiences.”

We took a quick break from the interview at this point, and towards the end of that break Beth started playing with their hair, pushing it around and explaining that it’s normally a little shorter – they try to go eight weeks between haircuts and we were at week six. I asked whether hair is an important part of their identity.

“I think so, yeah, but mostly just in the way that it makes me feel comfy,” Beth replied. “I hate the feel of long hair around my ears and on my neck. And I think having short hair helps people see that you’re not a cis woman. Not that cis women have to have long flowing locks, but I think those are little indicators to other people that you’re queer. Like my socks with their tiny little rainbows. It’s like a hangover from it not being safe to tell people you were queer, like the hanky code or euphemisms like you’re a friend of Dorothy.”

I asked about non-queer people’s reactions to the signals. “I go to the pub quiz with my mum every week, and she’s the youngest person there by a good ten years apart from me. So all the other people there are in their seventies or eighties. They don’t understand this.” Beth gestured to themselves broadly. “I go with my hair freshly shaved, but they don’t see that as ‘this is because Beth is queer, this is a part of their identity’. I mean, they ‘she/her’ me constantly. I don’t bother fighting it. There are times where I will correct people, but there are people … I just don’t care enough. Like, you’re not going to understand this. I will challenge you if you make homophobic comments or transphobic comments, but I don’t owe you the work of educating you. My mum is not perfect at getting my pronouns right, but she tries. And within our little quiz team, she does make sure she refers to me with they/them pronouns. But apart from me and Mum and the landlady, it’s all men in their seventies and eighties and they don’t understand this. None of these things would be signals they would pick up on. So all of that is for me, and it’s for other queer people to see.”

“If people aren’t trans, you’re not gonna make them trans. But if they are, their life is gonna be so much better and easier if they know what that is, know what it means and can understand who they are.”

— Beth

Despite their differences, I got the impression that Beth was quite fond of their quiz team. I was curious as to whether Beth could be one of the first exposures the people at their pub had had to a queer person. “Almost certainly, yeah. My team is better. One them has a daughter who is queer and married to a woman and they have a kid together, so he definitely has more of an understanding of that. But the other people, half of them don’t even own a TV, let alone spend any time on the internet or with other people who aren’t old men in the pub or the betting shop. So they don’t have that exposure to understand anything. And if they have kids and grandkids, I don’t know if any of them are doing that work to educate them or if they’re just like ‘old man grandad just won’t understand’.”

The conversation moved on. We talked about how we can positively influence the world around us. “For a long time I was like, well I’ve explored my identity and I know and understand myself now and that’s all that matters. So I’d still use she/her pronouns because I didn’t care enough to change them. But then I was working at a school and I was like, these kids need … there should be representation. So then I started using Mx as my title – even though a lot of them still called me Miss – and they/them as my pronouns. A lot of them got it wrong and I would kind of just let it go. But then there were some trans students at the school. So I felt like I could kind of be there for them and be that representation. It was special to be able to create that space for them, because I didn’t have that.

“I’m also a Scout leader – or I was before my disability got too bad for me to carry on – and I tried to create that space there, too. I was open about my gender and my identity, and some of the kids that I’d known since they were six that had come up through the sections got to Scouts with me, and they started exploring their identities in ways they felt they couldn’t at school – or, for some of them, at home. I had three kids who changed their names and pronouns a couple of times in the four years they were in Scouts with me, and one of them, and another one’s parents, said they were really grateful I’d made that space for them to discover who they were. The other leaders didn’t really get it or understand why I was letting these kids keep changing how I referred to them, but it felt so special to me to be able to do that. In my experience, Scouts has always been full of outcasts, and being able to make them all feel normal for a couple of hours once a week was so important to me.”

I noticed a figure of a Harry Potter character among Beth’s things. A leftover from all the things they’d got rid of, Beth said. I asked how they felt now that something that had been so influential in their life has become representative of something that is so opposed to everything they believe in. “I think I’d kind of moved enough away from fandom that it was less of a blow. But it’s a huge part of your childhood and growing up, and it feels like you’ve lost that, because I can’t bring myself to interact with it at all. I can’t love it in the way that I did. So yeah, it feels like a loss. I hate that I have to dislike other people as well. If I’m on a dating app and someone has their Hogwarts house in their bio, I feel like I can’t get on with them as a person now because we don’t have the same values. It isn’t something you ever thought was going to polarise people, but it does. If I see somebody saying they love Harry Potter, I’m swiping left. There’s been enough hatred and violence from JK Rowling that I can’t give you the benefit of the doubt anymore. It’s in the media enough that you can’t claim ignorance in the way you could have done two or three years ago. So yeah, definitely a loss.”

We started getting ready to leave Beth’s house for the queer bookshop we were to visit that afternoon. I complimented Beth’s outfit. “Thanks. Actually I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that I’m in the Suffragette colours, which have been co-opted to be anti-trans. But I used to work at the Pankhurst Museum, so I feel like I deserve to wear these colours and not care about the fucking TERFs on Twitter with their three little hearts in purple, green and white. Like, no, it’s white for purity, purple for dignity and green for hope. These colours represent the fight for equality and women’s rights. I won’t let them be stolen by transphobes who are pushing the rights of every woman backwards by trying to exclude trans women, and in doing so say that women can only be defined by their reproductive organs – something feminists spent most of the twentieth century fighting against.”

I was shocked. I knew that feminist history has more than its fair share of transphobic moments, but I didn’t know that modern-day anti-trans ‘feminists’ had managed to take such ownership of Suffragette symbolism. “Yeah, they use the Suffragette colours,” said Beth. “I’m not on Twitter anymore – I’ve moved to Bluesky. Back on Twitter you’d get all the TERFs and they’d have either a profile picture with Suffragette colours in it or their name would have green, white and purple hearts in it. So yeah, it’s now very much a ‘gender critical’ dog whistle.”

As someone who doesn’t identify within the gender binary and someone who is critical of gender as a concept, I always find that term hard to swallow, and I said so. “I’m gender critical in the sensible way of being critical of gender – questioning your own and thinking about what gender means to you and your place in society,” said Beth. “Policing other people’s genders is what they mean by it.”

It was decided that Beth would drive – with their blue badge it would be easier to park. On the journey to the bookshop, we talked about Beth’s struggles with long covid and disability, and how their family had been a huge support to them. Beth said they don’t have a lot of friends, and I related to that. I wondered if there was a link between being queer and feeling isolated.

“Yeah, I think so,” Beth agreed. “I think it’s harder to relate to straight people. It just feels easier to be more yourself with people who have more of an intrinsic understanding of what that’s like. I’ve maybe gone through some of the same things as you and face some of the same judgements and hardships you have. And that’s not saying I wouldn’t and can’t be friends with straight people. I just feel like queer people tend to gravitate towards each other because of that shared experience.”

“There were some trans students at the school. So I felt like I could kind of be there for them and be that representation. It was special to be able to create that space for them, because I didn’t have that.”

— Beth

We talked a little about the crossover between neurodivergent and disabled people and queer people, and the conversation moved to politics and the recent Supreme Court ruling. “It’s so difficult to hear and think and worry about, but I am aware that although I am trans, I’m relatively privileged in the way that I’m seen by society. I just don’t exist as a trans person in the same way as trans women who aren’t passing or are judged more harshly. I can go out in public and be seen as a cis woman. I can go into bathrooms relatively unchallenged. Very appropriately, the only place I’ve ever been challenged in a bathroom was when I was at the Conservative Party conference in 2017 for work. I think it’s different being a trans woman than it is being nonbinary or a trans man because we’re not as directly impacted by it. I’m not the type of person these people are targeting and making their little culture war talking point. Yes, they do mean trans people in general, but the majority of the general public when they think of trans people think of trans women. We do face hatred and discrimination, but a lot of the politicians and people spewing hate forget that trans men and nonbinary people exist, as was shown in several interviews after the Supreme Court ruling.”

I pointed out that from some angles Beth could pass as a cis man, and I asked if single-sex spaces like bathrooms could become an issue for them. “People will kind of give you a little look in the bathroom. I haven’t had anybody challenge me since 2017, and I have no problem generally being mistaken as a man – that’s not an issue for me. I’m like, oh thanks! But generally speaking, at the moment it’s more the looks people give you. It’s a covert sort of thing. I’m more worried that something’s going to happen than I was before, and it’s never been one hundred per cent safe to be a trans person in public, but it’s worse now after the Supreme Court case. I try not to think about it, but it is there in the back of your head every time you go into a bathroom in public nowadays. It isn’t something that’s new, challenging people in bathrooms. I just think there’s going to be more people being the gender police now that they feel emboldened, and they feel like they can and they should. Like it’s their duty to get trans people out of women’s spaces as a way of protecting women. It hasn’t happened to me yet. I imagine it’s only a matter of time.”

With that, we arrived at the bookshop. It was my first time visiting Queer Lit, or Social Refuge, in Manchester, but I’m certain it won’t be my last. Just inside is a charming coffee shop, and we decided to treat ourselves. As we took our seats, Beth introduced me to the owner of the shop and chatted to him with a familiarity that surprised me, although I couldn’t explain why. It was clear that Beth was a regular here. We talked over some of the café’s cake and drinks (my chocolate and pistachio frappé was positively delightful).

The conversation about bathrooms continued. “Trans people are no more of a danger to people than anyone else. These are not the things women are worried about, or that women should be worried about. Most women are far more in danger from their husbands than they are from a random trans woman just trying to go to the toilet. I just want the government to talk to trans people, to understand that we are a tiny percentage of the population that don’t have any impact on anybody else the majority of the time, and that we just want to live our own lives. Just let me go to the toilet please.”

We’d talked a lot about the worries trans people have just going out in public today, so I was curious as to how they manage to stay hopeful in times like this. “I don’t pay attention to the news very much,” Beth answered. “I stopped paying much attention during covid, and fourteen years of Tory government was enough to make anybody stop paying attention to the news. Because the anti-trans stuff you see in the news is not the thoughts or consensus of the majority of people. Most people, most of the general public, don’t think about or care about trans people. We’re just other people living our lives and it has no impact on their lives. The media turns us into far more of a big deal and issue than we actually are. I don’t go on Twitter anymore – it’s a Nazi cesspool now. I just avoid conversations that are going to negatively impact me, and maybe I am burying my head in the sand a bit, but also most of the news doesn’t matter to me. The Telegraph putting out another story about a horrible trans person doesn’t individually have an impact on me, so I don’t need to read that, I don’t need to be having that in my head.”

“I just want the government to talk to trans people, to understand that we are a tiny percentage of the population that don’t have any impact on anybody else the majority of the time, and that we just want to live our own lives.”

— Beth

The subject of Tories had come up a few times during the afternoon. I wanted to know how Beth felt about the Labour government now they are in power. “Fourteen years of Tory rule makes you hopeful that maybe, if Labour are in power, things will be different and better, and they have not been. Kier Starmer made a whole thing about Brianna Ghey’s murder and commiserating with her mother, and then introduced transphobic policies. And Wes Streeting introduced the puberty blocker ban for trans kids. And all of this bullshit that a socialist party should be against. Labour has not been socialist for many years. My main problem with Labour is that they have no backbone. They’ll just lie down and do things to try to entice Reform voters who are never going to vote Labour, and in doing so alienate all of the Labour supporters.”

I understood that disappointment, and I asked Beth whether there is any political party that is doing the right thing at the moment. “The Greens,” said Beth. “I haven’t paid loads of attention to their current policies, but when there were protests after the Supreme Court ruling, there was one of the Green Party MPs that was speaking at that protest in her constituency. So they’re absolutely showing up for and supporting us, and I’m sure if I looked into their policies, they might not be everything that I would like, but they’ll be better than any of the others. They’re not in a position to do anything about it. They’re not in power and they probably won’t be in power. But hopefully if more MPs from other parties stand up for us, it will influence the people who are in power.”

We finished our drinks and cakes and decided to browse the shelves for something to add to our to-be-read lists. Beth seemed to make a point to choose books that are written by authors of different races, sexualities and genders. I asked whether that was something they recommended to everyone. “You see different things when you read books written by people whose life experiences are different to yours.” Beth explained. “If you read a queer book written by a queer author, you will get something from that you wouldn’t get reading a straight book by a straight author or even a queer book by a straight author – there are a lot of those. You see a lot of gay male books written by straight women. I’m not saying women can’t write about gay men, but you should also make it a point to read ‘own voices’ I think is the literary term. To read books about people written by those people, because they will have a different perspective. They will have lived a life that informs the way the book is written and it’s important to have that diversity in your reading. If you’re not doing the work to read diversely, then you’re not getting those diverse voices.

“You walk into Waterstones and look at the shelves and the display tables, the choices of the books you’re seeing are made by the publishers as to what books they’re putting money and effort into promoting, and they’re decisions made by the people who own and run the bookstores. The majority of those will be straight white people, men as the majority, especially in the publishing industry. Books by men sell better. Would Harry Potter have done as well if it was Joanne Rowling and not JK? It likely wouldn’t. That’s why I come to the queer bookshop. Because I know every book in here is going to be representative of people who are not the norm.

“Sad queer media has a place, but too much of it is sad queer media. Let’s have some queer joy, please.”

— Beth

“People should consume queer media because it’s good media, but also because it gives you more of an understanding of people and have more empathy for people’s experiences. It allows you to potentially question yourself. There are so many people who realise they’re queer later in life, especially people who grew up with Section 28, and who grew up when being gay was illegal. We’re not far enough away from 1967 when it was decriminalised in England and Wales, and it wasn’t until the eighties that Scotland and Northern Ireland followed suit. It doesn’t have to change your life, but it might give you a better understanding of yourself and the people in your life – your children or grandchildren or friends or colleagues.

“If you like reading books, read some queer books. They’re great books. If you’re not a reader, seek out other queer media. There are films, there are TV shows, there are games. Don’t just watch a film where all the gay people die and it’s sad, which is so much of queer media. Sad queer media has a place, but too much of it is sad queer media. Let’s have some queer joy, please.”

There was a lovely selection of flags and other trinkets available to purchase, and I chose an enamel pin in the trans flag colours and the shape of an axolotl. Having made our purchases, we headed back to the car. With Beth’s insights into the importance of queer media in my head, I wanted to know what meaningful representation meant to them.

“People who know what the fuck they’re talking about,” said Beth. “The trans community is so diverse. Everyone’s experience of being trans – how much they transition, whether they undergo any sort of medical transition, if they’re nonbinary, how they identify under that umbrella – there’s so much diversity that you have to be careful you’re not speaking for everybody as if everyone’s experiences are the same. That’s true for any queer identity, but I feel even more so for trans people. It’s so different for each person. Attempting to represent the entire community is difficult and I don’t think you should be doing it unless you make it clear that not everyone’s experiences are the same. Also not just white people. Nearly twenty per cent of the UK isn’t white, so the people attempting to be representative of the trans or queer community should not just be white people.”

I asked more specifically about representation in the media. “I think we are trending in the correct direction,” Beth said, “in terms of seeing some more trans people in the media. As much as I don’t necessarily like Caitlin Jenner as a person, her coming out and existing in the world means that a lot of people gained slightly more understanding about trans people. That sort of representation is so important. But there’s not enough yet in mainstream media for it to be seen as normal. When it is included, you get an uproar. There was a show on CBeebies a couple of months ago where they’d used the singular they to refer to a character, like, ‘This is Raccoon and their family.’ And I think CBeebies even said that the raccoon wasn’t a nonbinary character and that they had just used the pronoun neutrally, but there were people that were saying ‘you’re indoctrinating my children’ and ‘children shouldn’t be exposed to this sort of thing’. But if it was more normal, then those children won’t grow up to think that using the singular they is indoctrinating their children.

“Elliot Page coming out made some people realise that trans mascs exist, you never see that talked about. And Sam Smith is nonbinary. Sometimes I listen to the radio and they play Sam Smith’s music, and it’s nice to hear the DJs using they/them pronouns. I wouldn’t say it’s any sort of inspiration or support for me personally – it’s all too late – but there probably are people who did get that from them coming out.”

It seemed like other people feeling comforted and validated was important to Beth, particularly young people, so I asked about what their hopes are for younger people growing up today. “My hope for kids is that we don’t go backwards like we’ve already started going backwards. We need to stop before we go any further. Trans people have always existed and they will always exist, and all you’re doing in targeting kids with policies like the puberty blocker one, like Section 28 – if they decided to introduce something like that around ‘gender ideology’, as they call it, or trans people, because I wouldn’t be surprised if in six months’ time there is a law like that – it’s not going to stop kids from being trans.

“It’s just going to mean they don’t realise they are, or they don’t get to fully express themselves, or they kill themselves before they get there. Because they feel different and they’re not allowed to talk about it or they don’t understand what they’re feeling because they’ve never heard of a nonbinary person, they’ve never heard of trans people or seen them in a positive light. There should be representation for kids of people in all aspects of life: disabled people, people of different races, people from different countries, people who are queer, who are trans. It’s an important part of child development to be introduced to people or see representation from people in all walks of life. It’s important for cis kids as well.

“Leave queer people alone. Allow queer people to have joy, to be happy. Leave us alone so we can be happy.”

— Beth

“I don’t want trans people to be a talking point forever. There should be full acceptance that people exist and not everyone is the same. If you look at something like racism and go back two hundred years … obviously there still is racism today, but nowhere near to the same extent, and that’s where I want to be with trans people and intersex people and nonbinary people. That people grow up with an understanding that you can change your gender and you can choose what that gender means to you. We’ve come so far as a society in so many things, and I just want to get to that point with trans people. I want people to have some empathy for their fellow human beings. I will never understand why people want to be hateful. What is the point in that? Just let people live their lives.”

And what about their hopes for the world at large? “I want kids to not grow up in poverty. I want everyone to have a place to live and enough food to eat and heating. I want people to stop killing people. I understand why wars happen but I’m a pacifist. We need to stop supporting genocide. I would like every human to just be allowed to live and have the right to live and have enough resources to live. As somebody who studied history, war doesn't fix shit. It just makes everything worse and kills a whole load of people,” Beth said. “War is a thing because military companies make a lot of money. Like the American military industry, the weapons, the arms industry. It's a huge money maker. And so America goes around inciting wars because they can get a load of money from it. Fuck capitalism.

“And leave queer people alone. Allow queer people to have joy, to be happy. Leave us alone so we can be happy.”

And all of a sudden, we were back at Beth’s house, and it was time for me to leave. We hugged goodbye and promised to meet up again soon, probably for more cake and drinks at Queer Lit. On my way home, I thought about everything Beth had said, and it left me feeling hopeful that if queer children growing up today can have role models like Beth, maybe the future won’t be so bad after all.

Queer Joy, Please is the first in what will be a series of photo essays and interviews that aim to explore the subject of queer identity and belonging.