Queer Britain (2017) s01e06 Episode Script

You know, when I started making this documentary and I heard the word queer, I had an absolutely allergic reaction to the word.
It brought me right back to the school playground, where bullies used to use it over and over to cause me humiliation and to hurt me.
And I guess even today I still have a degree of queer fear.
But what does it really mean to be queer in Britain and are we having a queer revolution? To me, there is a bit of a homophobic connotation behind the word queer.
It's not very nice, I think.
- Shut up, you queer! - I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I've personally had the word used against me numerous times.
It's nice to be able to own it now.
Queer.
That's a good word.
Queer is a very good word.
Queer to me is power.
- Yeah.
- Queer means power because we have taken this word that was derogatory and hateful and now it means, like, love, community "Oh, yeah, I'm queer.
You wish you were.
" I'm on my way to meet some performers who are bringing queer centre stage at the now iconic Sink The Pink club night.
I have wanted to go to Sink The Pink for the longest time.
Tonight, the rule book goes out the window.
We're all going to be a little bit queer.
Do you know what's incredible about that? All of those people on that stage were once the loser kid in school.
The weird kid that was outcast, and now look at them all together.
We're now cool.
I wanted to find out more about how this club and its performers have embraced queer.
I like to say that I'm queer gender fluid.
Like, if it's on a spectrum, with men on this side and women on this side, and then there's everything in between, I'm just kind of running back and forth.
All day long.
Every day.
What does queer mean to you? I think of queer as the entire umbrella of people that don't fall into the everyday hetero man and woman ideals.
- Sure.
- Queer can also be the dorks and weirdos that got made fun of.
A lot of the time that was because you were gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans, but it also could have just been because you were the weird kid.
You were weird and you liked things that other kids didn't like.
It's not a membership scheme.
- Some get in and some don't get in.
It's like - No.
Anyone that feels queer is queer.
Anyone that can have solidarity and support the rest of the queer community, is a fellow queer.
It's just blown my mind.
It's blown my mind.
This is like an adult playground.
There's even a dog over there dressed up! It feels like my first Pride all over again, when I was 17 years old and dressing up to go out and experience my community for the first time.
If there's a queer revolution happening in Britain, then what's it all about? Trans queer writer Shon agreed to meet me to explain the movement.
When I first saw the Q at the end of LGBT, I'll be honest with you, I was a bit, not repulsed, but I was taken aback by it.
I thought, "What is that doing there and who give you permission to put it there?" I didn't understand it and I didn't want to understand it, because for me it was just about being dragged back, kicking and screaming to the playground, where those boys were above me calling me that thing.
Queer is about reclaiming something that maybe the mainstream gay rights movement left behind as gay rights became more mainstream, you have gay marriage, which obviously is about importing a very heterosexual idea.
Queer has picked up people that feel left behind by that in some way.
I think queer as well is about maybe being a bit more ambiguous about gender.
It's something that younger people are identifying with more and more.
Do you think anyone, then, - can be a little bit queer? - Yeah.
16-24-year-olds, I think a survey was done that half of them say they're not entirely straight.
What do you think has led these kids to identify with queer more and more as time goes on? I think it's just because inherently there is the idea that actually sexuality is a spectrum.
So, I mean, I encountered this in my own life as well, so, like, the type of men that would be attracted to me are not necessarily gay.
A lot of straight-identified men are attracted to trans women.
Queer actually admits everyone has a bit of spectrum, and actually, bodies and gender aren't as integral to your mind-set as people think they are.
For the older generation who don't quite get it, if you had to put it in a short definition for them to understand, a bite-sized chunk, what would you say? It would be a stand-alone question mark.
It's inherently questioning.
So Q, sometimes people in LGBTQ, they will say the Q stands for queer or questioning, and actually, I think the two words are linked, because it's actually saying, "Maybe you're not so sure about this.
" Queer, if you were going to sum it up, it would be, "I don't know the answer, but why are you asking the question?" When you're trans, it's not that you want a different body.
You just want your body to look the way that you feel inside.
It makes you question your entire identity, so to be able to transition, and feel more at home in your identity is just the most liberating thing you can do.
I identify as queer.
I came out as lesbian, then a year later, I discovered that I was trans.
I went to a private doctor, and I was prescribed testosterone.
Chest surgery cost me ã5,000.
Please donate to a trans man in need.
And this is me, holding up a sign, saying free my nipples.
I sold things, such as badges, wristbands.
This is for trans boys.
And fizzy jizz.
These are my scars.
They should fade, and become much less noticeable.
I'm really proud of my scars, though.
I love my scars.
Having the surgery has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I 100% feel more myself know.
Sex education for transgender people is limited, if not non-existent.
But one person who's talking queer sex is Nate, who makes online videos about a subject that most of us shy away from.
Today I'm going to be talking about masturbation for trans guys.
It is a little bit noisy.
SQUISHING When did you decide to set up this YouTube channel of yours? In the springtime, so I wanted to make it before I started hormones, so that I had more of a full documentary of my transition.
When you look back at videos, are you like, "Whoa!" Yeah, I recently did a recap, like a six-month recap, and, yeah, like, the physical changes shocked me, actually.
I've had some quite significant muscle gain.
Particularly in my shoulders and my arms and my back.
So these are all the comparison things, month by month, apart from five months.
- T is testosterone? - Yeah.
- What a difference! - So, like, surgery definitely made a difference.
I do a video where I explain how for trans men, once you start taking hormones, actually, the clitoris will grow.
- Wow.
- But that information isn't really very widespread.
In fact, there are trans men who didn't even realise that that would happen before they started going on hormones.
Well, that would be a bit of a shock, wouldn't it? Looking down and all of a sudden, hello! A lot of the times it's the first change, so, yeah.
The first change? It will grow up to about an inch, an inch and a half.
When we were having a look at your channel there I saw one of the videos was about trans masturbation.
Mm-hm.
There was a period just before I started T, where I was just really struggling with this, and I didn't know what to do with myself and it just made me feel really shit.
If you're trans, and your anatomy doesn't match up with your gender in your head, it can actually be something - that's quite triggering for gender dysphoria.
- OK.
We often adjust our language, so for instance, I would never refer to my anatomy as a clitoris.
And trans men have quite varied terms.
What do you call yours? - Junk.
- Junk? - Yeah.
- Yeah? Dick.
How do you masturbate, do you mind me asking? There are things you can do to make it easier for you, in terms of dysphoria.
So sometimes I use products.
I used toys and things which can help me to make it feel more like a phallus.
Oh, my goodness! - Textured penis sleeves? - Mm-hm.
Seven pack.
- Seven pack.
- Does that mean you get seven wanks? It means one for every day of the week.
Variation.
How do you masturbate with this? How does that improve the process for you? Well, having taken hormones, the clitoris, or what I would call my junk, has grown.
So, let's say that that's my junk, and then you just pop it over the top.
- OK, just like this.
- Yeah.
Sorry, is that weird? - You've made me blush really bad.
- I'm sorry.
Now I've got an egg Well, on the inside, it's ribbed.
Oh, hello! And a cock ring.
- Pop it on.
- And then tighten it? Yeah.
It will make it feel, and look, more like a penis, which is what I'm trying to achieve.
So this, and then this, - and you're off to pleasure town.
- Mm-hm.
- Happy town.
- Fantastic.
When you began masturbating in this new way, did it make you feel more comfortable with your new body, - and your new identity? - Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
So this goes inside here, the pants are a bit better, because if you have the whole harness kit it feels a bit feminine.
Ah, feminine.
- This is quite blokey, I have to say.
- There you go.
So this is a packer, and this is just something that I would wear day to day, in my pants.
Kind of like a prosthesis.
- Does it make you feel more whole? - Yeah, it does.
It's a really strange thing, and I don't know if you weren't trans whether it would really make sense, but for me, it does feel validating, - just in a really strange way.
- It makes sense to me.
If you go for even a medium, it's that much longer.
- You're kidding? - And I've had a friend who said that it was so long that if he sort of packed it down, it reached round and touched the rim of his arsehole! So he couldn't wear it any more, and he had to get a small one.
What I like about it is how realistic it is.
Like, it's got a similar sort of movement.
The balls are, you know, they're kind of heavy.
I also have one for weeing.
Essentially, this is just a luxury she wee.
It was made by a trans man, because he recognised that there weren't that many products out there, there weren't that many good products, because they weren't being made by people who are trans.
Same thing with the masturbation products.
They're not made by or for people who are trans.
So you have to improvise constantly.
- Yeah.
- With things that aren't made for you.
Exactly, and that's why I made the videos.
It was meant to be educational for people.
My eyes have been opened! - I'm sure they have.
- They really, really have! It's unbelievable the things that people have come up with to just make it that bit easier.
But why do we need an umbrella term? - Oh, my Lord have mercy.
- Oh I've never seen all of that extra-terrestrial stuff.
It looks like an award.
LGBTTQQIAAP? OK, do you want me to try Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender One of the Ts is transgender.
I'm guessing the other T I didn't know there were two Ts.
- Transsexual? - Transexual.
Q One of the Qs has got to be queer, right? Um Questioning? - Questioning? - Is that a thing? Yeah, apparently.
- I, why is I there? - I don't know what the I is? Indifferent? Intersex.
Intersex, asexual - Agender? - Agender? - Is that right? - Or - Ally! - Ally! I don't know the P.
- Pansexual.
- Dammit, I'm pan! Pansexual, there we go.
- There's a lot to remember.
- Were we right? Yeah, that confuses me.
I imagine someone who doesn't identify as any of them might be somewhat confused by what that all means.
I've come to Norwich to sit in on a group discussion to hear all about what it's like to be gender non-binary in this society that, for the most part, doesn't even know what that means.
We're all assigned a gender at birth, based on our genitalia.
The gender binary classifies all people as one of two genders, male or female.
But if gender has a spectrum, then non-binary describes anyone who doesn't identify exclusively as one or the other.
- Hi, are you KatyJon? - Yeah, hi.
Nice to meet you.
I'm Riyadh, - how you doing? - Brilliant, thank you.
So this is where it's all going down tonight? Yeah, hopefully.
So how do you identify? This day of the week It's a continual life history, really.
I've identified as every letter of LGBTIQ, and A and P, - and several others besides.
- All of them? - Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- At some point.
Yeah.
I've finally arrived at happiness, - and that is utterly brilliant.
- When did that happen? Well, over the last couple of years.
I had an op this year.
I'd waited, kind of, eight years for that.
Do you mind me asking which op you decided to go for? Labiaplasty.
Instead of having a new vagina created, they basically take all the existing material that's there, and they create an external appearance of the vagina, but, basically, below the clitoris I have no sexually functional working parts, which pleases me, because it's just something I hated.
I hated sex.
I tried a lot of it just in case, with men and women, just to see which, if anything, I was.
Again, I worked my way through the labels, thinking that sexuality might be the answer.
In the end, I found that gender was more of the answer.
What a life you have lived! So tell me about the group.
What's going to go on tonight? Well, we've got a group of about 50 or 60 people in the Norwich area, who explicitly identify as non-binary, that we've met.
A number of them have been asking over the last year, "Can we actually have a face to face meet up?" So this is the first opportunity for some of those people to meet.
It's going to be a very special night.
- This is a safe space for them, isn't it? - That's actually quite significant.
By actually listening to each other, we'll realise how much diversity and variety there is in a group of people who identify as non-binary.
Yeah, like, what sort of age range are we thinking they'll be tonight? What's the highest, lowest? 16, to me.
Oh, right, OK.
Do you mind me asking what you are? I identify as 28 But currently, I'm 49.
That is so funny.
So, yeah, if you'd just like to give us as a name, gender identity, pronoun, and an age, if you want to.
I'm Anna.
I identify as non-binary, but I'm kind of using it more umbrella, because words are hard.
I'm Charlotte.
I'm gender queer, 22 years old, and my pronouns are they and them.
I'm Harry.
I'm a non-binary, trans masculine person.
I'm Liz.
I use, kind of, non-binary, but sometimes gender queer, or gender fluid feels more representative.
Again, I use bisexual to describe my sexuality.
I'm Sarah.
I'm intersex, and identify my gender as non-binary.
And any pronouns are fine.
My name is Riyadh, I'm a gay cis-gender male, and I use the pronouns he and him.
And I am really, really excited to be here, because I feel like my education in non-binary issues and queer culture is at a very junior level.
Do you think some people, they don't want to be educated, and they sort of like repel it? And they turn you away? I think some people will be scared of it.
And, kind of, like, uncomfortable.
But I think there's going to be an element of, "What's that got to do with me?" Sometimes that is ignorance in itself, but that's also the nature of the beast of what it means to be human.
If I said, you have the privilege of being able to use the bathroom without being worried someone's going to attack you I'm not saying it's your fault that I'm afraid to use the bathroom.
I'm saying something you haven't thought about, that I have to think about everyday is that using the bathroom can be flipping terrifying.
I've been confronted, and told, "Oh, you're in the wrong toilet.
" Or, - "Why are you in here? Get out.
" - How did that make you feel, though? It made me feel a bit intimidated, I suppose.
But at this point, I've been experiencing that sort of thing for so many years that it just, sort of It brushes off quite easily.
I find it interesting, how much even us, as a group of non-binary people, we get down to discuss the big things about non-binary and we spend half the time talking about toilets.
Because it just ends up being the obsession of society as well.
Tonight's discussion was such an eye-opener.
There just seems to be a real lack of understanding when it comes to gender.
For some people, it doesn't come down to something as simple as whether they're male, female, or for that reason, even trans.
But it's small meetings like that that are educating people like me, and making others who are in a minority like gender non-binary feel that they have somewhere to go, that they have friends, and that they're not on their own.
Queer just sort of sums it all up, and you don't have to keep adding more letters to the ever-growing acronym.
It's a massive umbrella of different identities that people would identify as.
So, like, it goes from trans-male, all the way down to non-binary.
I feel like it's probably the one word that describes me the best.
It's just everyone, really.
I'd never thought of gender beyond the standard male, female binary before, but this whole spectrum of identities exist.
At the non-binary discussion group, I was introduced to an altogether new label, and I'm intrigued to learn more.
When I was younger, I always felt this sense of being outside of either the boys, or the girls.
When I was about 13, that's when it really clicked with me, that there was something different about me, and that I wasn't like the girls in my class.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror, and just thinking, "There's something different here.
There's something not right.
And I don't know what that is.
" Intersex means that somebody is not completely male, or not completely female in terms of chromosomes, hormones, or in terms of genitals.
I identify myself as non-binary now, and I don't feel male, I don't feel female, sometimes I feel somewhere in the middle.
- Hey, Sarah.
- Hiya.
- Nice to meet you again.
- Nice to see you again.
- Can I come in? - Of course, come in.
It's freezing out there.
Cheers, thank you.
I think, for me, I didn't really ever think of anything beyond male, female, trans, until very recently, when I started to realise, you know, what queer meant, and what non-binary meant.
And even though I understood that people identified as it, I didn't actually respect it until I started to meet non-binary people.
- Do you get that a lot? - I think sometimes people do, because, like you said, they never think about the gender spectrum.
They've never got any reason to question it themselves.
So when they meet somebody who falls elsewhere on the gender spectrum they just go, "OK, I've never thought about this before," and perhaps dismissed people like that.
When did you find out you were intersex? I found out I was intersex when I was 19 years old.
I have XY chromosomes, which is what you'd normally expect a biological male to have.
Internally, I've never had a uterus or ovaries, but instead, I did have internal testes that were undescended.
- And you have a vagina? - Yes, I do.
So, naturally, at birth, the doctors and your parents are going to say, "It's a girl! Congratulations!" And there was no reason to question it.
After you got the news, what was the reaction that you had inside, - what was going through your head? - Partly shock, but partly a bit of relief, because it gave me an answer to why my body hadn't developed the same as what other people at school did.
What was the difference in puberty? For me, the main difference was that when people were supposed to be developing in the breast area, and developing body hair and things like that, that just didn't happen to the same level for me.
And also, the big thing was never having periods.
So you're always taught, right from being in primary school that girls have periods when they get to a certain age.
And that never happened.
Cute child, weren't you? Cute, cute, cute! If you say so.
I'd say you were a little demon, though.
What was it like in school? The main things that I remember were being called a pervert or dyke, or just being told I was trying to get attention for myself by lying.
I felt very ostracised and alone.
I wasn't out to my parents until I was 19, so I didn't dare tell my teachers in case, what if they told my parents? What if It just made people bully me more, because I'd told a teacher about it? I just put up with it.
It's so mad to hear a story so similar to mine.
I went through so many years of bullying in primary and secondary school, and kept it all in because of the same reasons.
Terrified that it would get home, and that, you know, my big dark secret would be revealed.
When the doctor told you, you know, the ins and outs of what it meant to be intersex, that meant that you couldn't have kids.
When I got to be about 21 20, 21, I actually started to get quite depressed about the fact that I couldn't have children.
And my brain started going through all these scenarios where, you know, "I really want children, I can't have children.
"Do I adopt kids and have a family that way, or what?" That did depress me quite a lot, because I didn't have the option there.
I had to take quite a lot of time off university, and I went through a period of self-harming.
And that was to do with not being able to have kids, but that was also compounded by pressures of university, and other pressures throughout my life, and also I was still working through a lot of things to do with gender identity.
That didn't help.
And that was probably my darkest time.
When you were self-harming, what was the motivation? What were the thoughts that were going through your head as you were doing it? The main thing I remember is that because I used to cut myself, when I cut myself it felt like I was relieving some of the pressure that was in my brain, essentially.
Like a balloon ready to pop? Yeah, something like that.
It was like, you've got a pressure cooker that's getting ready to explode, but if you release some of the pressure, then you're not as much of a risk.
So I'd cut myself, and it would feel a bit better.
And also, I think my sense of self-worth had really taken a beating.
And so that was another motivation behind the self harm.
It was some sort of coping mechanism that I was using.
You felt worthless.
Why? Because I was different.
And although I'm very proud to be who I am, sometimes being so different and so isolated can be a very difficult place to be.
Hearing Sarah's story really got to me, because although it's extremely sad, she's not the only one.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of young people like her who are going through the exact same battle, and who are forced to a point of self-harm and potentially suicide, not because of who they are, not because of how they feel about themselves, because of how society makes them feel.
Because they are a little bit different.
And I know it's dramatic to say that her label of non-binary and intersex saved her life, but I think it was one of the factors that made her feel more comfortable in who she is, and to validate who she is.
It's crazy what the power of words can be.
- - Wait until you see what I have in this bag of tricks! It's going to blow your mind.
I guess, like, if I was going to a normal, like, a mainstream gay club, this is pretty much what I would wear.
But getting the ability to just go a bit crazy tonight, it's really, really exciting me, and knowing that there's no judgment, no fear, and, you know, the camper the better! Do you want a little hint? Hm-hm-hm! What do you think? I love it.
For a rookie, I think I've done kind of well.
All those years of sitting on Mum's bed watching her do herself up paid off.
Thanks, Mum.
Glyn, Aimee, did you guys found Sink The Pink? We just started it as a reaction to what we didn't have, and what we needed.
We really wanted to create To celebrate individuals, and being as ridiculous and silly as possible.
Did you realise how much of an influence it was going to have on the community with regard to openness, freedom, and this queer movement? I don't think we could have ever imagined that we would be so much at the front of the, kind of, crest of the wave.
- No, you can't plan this.
- All of a sudden, we've got this voice now.
I always say we're the broken biscuits in the box.
We're all the kids that didn't really fit in anywhere, and the power in that is coming together and it being magical and united.
People often say that when they come to Sink The Pink, it feels quite scary, but then when they get in it's like losing their virginity, within the second time, they're like, "Yeah, baby! Ride it!" What an absolutely incredible night.
You know, being in there and dancing and being free and looking and acting exactly how you want to, surrounded by other people who are doing the same thing.
It's just an incredible feeling.
When I started this project, I didn't realise how little I knew about the struggles people in our community face.
But in the search for identity, validation and acceptance, we find ourselves surrounded by amazing people with incredible stories.
I think, as a community, we need to come together, and realise that the LGB can support the T and the Q, and everything else.
And maybe this Q is a neat umbrella term that leaves no-one out.
We're all accepted.