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and welcome to london college of communications value talks uh this series is dedicated to exploring race and gender and power and education uh lcc has invited guests from across the arts and education and sport and literature and culture and media to discuss challenge and develop ideas around values in 2020 my name is jesse mclaughlin and i'm here hosting or interviewing charlie hey jesse hey how are you doing i'm all right babe how are you yeah good good um so i thought we could start with something like really obvious and simple and i just wanted to ask you to say a little bit about yourself where you grew up and where you studied so like the beginning of your life oh sure okay so i am um london born and bred i am from labour grove originally which is like west london um grew up went to like um an all-boys school which was fun as you can imagine like a really rough one as well that was nice because that was like the prelude to ual so like i went from this like really like tough school where i was like really persecuted for being like a very visibly lgbt like the only one in the school sort of thing to then going to i go into csm for my foundation and actually i started i did like a little course at chelsea like a little pre-foundation like a little things like you know like underprivileged because they have like um what's that thing called i can't remember what it's called you know like um widening participation oh yeah i'd like that like i did a course like that at chelsea and then i got into csm for my foundation and no sorry yeah wait i kind of go okay this is so long i'm like what am i even saying okay yes i i got into csm for my foundation did an art and design foundation at csm and then i did my degree at um lcf um and yeah like it honestly was the best thing that could have happened to me because it was like a totally different world to like the seven years i spent at my all boys uh school being like really badly bullied for being like feminine and creative and all these things and like um just being embraced at ual i was like it was exactly what i needed like academically but also just like personally yeah so yeah like it's good and then since then like i've kind of um i set up in my for my final project um what i do now essentially and it's like coming i think next month is like the seven year anniversary which is crazy that like i also feel crazy i i graduated like well not graduate i did it seven years ago but like yeah for my final project um i set up a project called a campaign called now transphobia where i basically travel around the uk with a pop-up nail salon and a squad of trans nail techs and we offer the public free manicures for the chance down i have a chat of a trans person so that while people are getting their nails on they can ask us questions or we can just have a chat but the point is that um you're just going to like meet a trans person because most people have them um and then that's where misconceptions come from then the misconception uh transphobia is where like comes from the misconceptions you know like um so yes it's a way of like um breaking misconceptions and making allies but it's mad because like that was i was only like a little courseworky theoretical kind of project we just had to come up with an idea and i was like doing branding because i did for my bi did um art direction like creative direction uh so i was just like trying to like talk about how the charity like sector needs like a rebrand like the volunteer like um the third sector and um this was kind of like pre like charities and like the like third sector kind of taking over like social media and i remember all those like social media challenges it was kind of like back when like like seven years ago when it was a bit drier you know what i'm saying yeah my age was a little bit drier so i wanted to show like how you could do something fun like the medium of nails to get people like involved because if you sit at like a desk with like leaflets about transphobia no one listens but the minute you offer a free manicure there's like a queue out the door to like talk to a trans you know yeah yes that's what i do yeah yeah yeah yeah so going back a bit then uh that first like um like widening participation course you did at chelsea yeah did you feel like that was i mean that kind of thing um i think lots of universities didn't used to offer so much but more and more offer more and more do you think like it was uh like without that course would you still have been able to go and do your foundation or was that quite influential in itself i think it was influential just in terms of my confidence as well because i being like i'm the first person in my family to go to university it might i think i would have definitely gone to university but i probably would have aimed lower so i don't think i would have aimed for like a top especially in the arts like top university i probably would have been like i'll be realistic you probably can't get in there like i remember like even some teachers being like oh like no one gets into the into csm well like so i would have probably not applied and like i if you don't apply you don't get so and like just like having been on the course and like had teachers from the uni itself like encouraging us and being like what is the worst that can happen like you get rejected like but i think yeah for a lot of like um people from working class backgrounds like you're stunted by your own kind of it's from the conditions you're you're taught like you're conditioned to believe there is like a a certain amount you can do in a certain amount you can aspire to but um yeah i think like had i not had people like externally kind of like pushing me and saying you're really talented you need to try you need to just at least try you can do this like and yeah i i think it was pivotal and kind of building my confidence if if nothing more and also just like um show it like again kind of how i said about how when i left school and went to my foundation it was like pivotal in like my confidence and just like and in just in terms of my my mental health like because having been really badly bullied like i was like beaten down to the point where i just didn't have any like um joy in me anymore and also just didn't think that people like me could be happy like lgbt people like i just had never known i was the only lgbt person i knew and all i had ever known for being lgbt is being like bullied or whatever you want to call it like i didn't i didn't think that you could be like lgbt and be happy so like when i'd go to like this this short course this um what's it called like this kind of like pre-foundation course um i just saw like people in the canvases being like it was quite obvious that lgbt or early so they looked lt they looked queer i guess you could say and i was just like oh my god like there's people like me and they're happy like it was like i found my place and it was like really important for that yeah yeah i totally relate to that um i don't think i didn't go to art school and i think if i'd gone to art school i would have had an experience that more mirrors yours but i totally remember like uh going to like the open days for universities and seeing people on the campus who are like openly queer and again like uh maybe not in the same way as you but i like couldn't be openly queer in my school but people like guests anyway because it was so obvious so like you know just having these kind of constant little jabs like oh jessie the dyke um or jesse's got like you know too much body hair or whatever and uh and then like just glimpsing a space where people i mean i don't feel like they were like completely liberated but to me they looked completely liberated because they were walking around with like i don't know a little rainbow badge on or something and that being like it's so amazing to me and i think if i've been gone to art school that would have just been like much much bigger actually because i think and you you look way better than me by a queer definitely like going from like somewhere like i was really badly bullied for especially like how i dressed and stuff but then going to csm whilst having like my picture taken by like students every day oh my god you're so fat and people and it encouraged me to be even more like lgbt like i was like i probably wore more makeup than then when i was like as a boy than i do now like as a trans woman it's like crazy i was wearing like crazy things every day like it's just mad it's so wet it's mad yeah but also you're attracted i mean i'm sure like if we had been in the same campus i would have maybe been too shy but been so attracted to you as another queer person like oh yeah like there's a space to do that whereas like in the school playground you're sort of shuffling around you can see there's other queer people well i i felt like i could see other queer people very few but a few but you couldn't ever admit to each other that that's what you could see in each other whereas finally in uni you get that that space yeah that's so true that's so so true i love the thought of you walking around csm with like cakes and cakes of makeup that's crazy insane but also it was really good for me in terms of my personal development and again i feel like this is what uni is so important for like i learned more about myself than i did about art direction but that's was worth the money for me but like i learned from being around because i had always i never used the word gay for myself growing up i had that word put on me like people from like seven years old were like are you gay you gay like and i just assumed i guess i am gay because i'm being told i'm gay like i'm a seven year olds aren't sexual so they're not thinking about having sex with men a gay man is someone who has sex with a man so like i wasn't thinking about having sex at seven but like i just like i was called it so much and people just assumed it because i was so feminine that like i just like i thought i was and i kind of clung to that because it's what like i was being bullied for and it's what i thought i was and um when i went to csm it was really important because i was finally around gay people and i realized i wasn't gay yeah finally i'm gonna find my people and i got to the people and i was like you're not my people i want my money back it's so important like if i hadn't have been around loads of gay people i wouldn't have realized as early on as i did that i was trans i don't think because it's only by being around people who aren't like you that you realize like that you're different you know what i'm saying like even though it was a good not like it's different to being old boys school where like i was around people who weren't like me but in a bad way like i was around people who aren't like me like gay guys but like um and it was a really positive and affirming experience because it just showed me i was like oh yeah i'm still i still i'm i haven't quite found my people like there's a difference between being like feminine and being female like and i just that's kind of that like my first introduction to ual was really important and just like like i said like learning about myself more than learning about art and stuff and just like being around other artistic people but also just queer people or like people yeah i don't know it just was really really pivotal in my life personal development for sure yeah yeah i totally relate to that i feel like i didn't meet queer people or queer people like me who had the language to uh call themselves queer and talk about their gender until i like way after uni actually and maybe that would have been yeah i feel like um i could only i only had the language of like being gay until i was maybe like i mean i'm 31 now so it's still like a while ago like maybe i was about 25 or something like and the last time i could identify with or maybe had like the way to speak about being like non-binary or not being a boy or not being a girl was when i was like five or something and i could say to my mom like oh i want to wear these clothes and that clothes but not like you know not be defined in my binary in some sort of binary gender but um so yeah i really really relate to that actually about like no still knowing that something wasn't quite there um finding like a group of lgbt or lgb people and feeling much more at home but still looking for some extra bit of language an extra bit of like way of expressing myself that wasn't didn't quite hit just yet that's exactly how i felt exactly okay so uh from there um could you say i know you mentioned a bit about um your final project and how it's kind of uh become what you do but could you say a bit more about what you do and what you have done and kind of your life since uni like your professional life um so i just kind of ran with my final project because i had got um a few little offers to make it like a so like i said my final project started as like a course work you know like we just have to like conceptualize an idea but you don't actually have to like make it a real thing make it a physical thing so um i had all like this really good idea that i developed um or i thought was a good idea anyway i got i got a two one let's just say now it is the best idea i think it's really good why did i get a two one i would have found what i got two one for that yeah i was like i did my dna i like did an event at the v and i was like why did i get a first but anyway i agree now looking back it was yeah my coursework wasn't great but um uh yeah i just kind of like because i got a big event like i booked the v a for my first event i was like getting then offers from other museums who had heard about it so like next week i was doing the science museum and the week after that just like and then i was on a roll and then i like realized oh there's some legs to this like i could actually like make this a real thing and i wasn't thinking about making it my job at that point i was just thinking like i was wasn't even getting paid at this point it was just about that activism for me it was just about because this was like if you think about it this was pre like laverne cox pre like janet mark pre caitlyn like this is like pre the massive conversational cultural shift we've had where like everything well not everything but there's so much talk about trans stuff now back in 2013 it was like people didn't even know what trans men like when i was doing male transphobia and people asking me questions the like often first question people would have is that oh so what is trans which is like fair enough like i'm not judging them because how are they gonna know if they're not exposed to it by the media but like it just wasn't talked about in the media at this point like that you couldn't really name like a famous trans person um so i was just doing it solely for the good of the good of humanity but i was just trying to do my bit for my community because i was just like getting so much abuse in my early transition that i was like something needs to change like we like it was my way of almost like um processing the trauma i was going through like i can't stop what's like how people are going to treat me but i can do my bit not even do my bit but i can just basically i can do something about it i can either like cry and stay home and be upset or i can try and like just like put some good out into the world to like combat the bad if that makes sense if not for the good of other trans people just for my own mental health just like i can like just so i can sleep at night essentially so like i was just doing it for that at the start and then after a while i remember someone saying like you are you're not getting paid for this and i was just like no like i'm just doing it just just to be like just for the good and they're like you should be getting paid like these museums have money so then i started getting paid and i was getting paid like nothing like i didn't know how much working-class people we just don't know like you know you have no one telling you like oh you should be charging this isla i understand myself massively but at the same time again it was still doing good so i was probably doing it for like another two years then just like kind of as a side hustle so i was working in art direction still i was doing like a fashion film and when i was assisting a director who's amazing catherine ferguson who was like a lecturer on my course and she would make like fashion films like selfridges and stuff so i was doing a lot of like that sort of thing and then um my just the activism stuff started taking off i feel like there was a real like cultural reset in terms of the conversation around trans people and then like i started getting booked to do like media stuff and the shoots and campaigns and then that's when i could like start like actually making a living from now transphobia so like um and it's great really because the more like when i started being able to make a living it meant that i could that's when i could start hiring other trans people to come and do nails with me to make it like a bigger thing because obviously i wouldn't expect anyone else to work for free but if i'm happy doing so so meant that like i finally had some money to like um and it also meant i could like kind of diversify the narrative so like when i do get trans people i always get trans people with different uh narratives to my own transitions to like a non-binary person or like a trans person of color or something to come with me so that the public are not just getting one kind of um walk of transness when they're like talking to us so it's been really yeah it's been um just like a really like slow steady kind of project projective is that a word project trajectory i'm too i'm too dyslexic to say that i know trajectory yeah whatever it's called like yeah it's been it's been very slow and steady but like slow and steady wins the race and like i'm still here still here seven years later but yeah so like i've been really lucky in that like it's given me a like i kind of started like using social media as like um to give myself a voice to like kind of because obviously when you're doing nails you can only like do one person's nails at a time maybe like 10 people in a day that's not that many people really but then i started using social media to kind of amplify the message that i could like talk to more people in the day and then because of my social media kind of um blowing up i started getting given like a voice in the real media like in mainstream media so i started doing like interviews and like news segments and stuff and then i started doing like campaigns and shoots and then i started like getting award and like just they just all took off and then i i brought my books i got book called to my transistors and like it's just about just like just like like the trajectory not projective whatever i said but like it's about just like oh now that lost you now like punishing us for not being able to say that word oh yeah yeah i'm going to make much of that now that's going to be like yeah it really is just about like taking that step to get to the next step and just like growing it and i think growing organically it's like um with any project so if anyone's watching this and like thinking about like taking their final project further or whatever or just whatever i just think it's yeah just important to like build organically right you know like if you blow up in the first i think if i blew up straight away i don't think i'd still be here so like seven years on it's a nice time to be blowing up so going back then because you like you give me so much so i want to i want to borrow it i want to go through the details no because it's so interesting and i think it's so like it's like genuinely so inspiring but that so you had this project from your final uh final project at university and the project to me seemed like i'm an introvert right so the project to me seems quite um exposing in many ways you know you're doing someone's nails it's a really really intimate space and you're allowing people to ask you questions and those questions as you kind of hinted on like uh in some context could be quite offensive but in this context of your project you're allowing for like naivety and like ignorance as long as it's like kind of well-meaning how did that feel at the very beginning i mean did you feel like uh you had enough support protection around you did you feel like you could hold your boundaries um or did it just feel like a really nice open conversation i mean what was no i definitely yeah what you were saying at first about it being a bit is i don't know because i'm actually a very introverted person to you you wouldn't be able to tell but like i'm i don't know what it is is that like i've cultivated this extrovertedness because i've kind of had to almost like um being like a trans woman like especially if you're like i'm a council state girl like you you there's no time for being quiet like if you have to stand up for yourself you have to stand up for yourself so that i've kind of i lost that introvertedness a while ago sometimes it gets sad why i kind of like feel like oh it's like i used to be so like nice and quiet and now i'm like some loud horrible trans girl i feel like it really set me up to be like um like perfect for this what i was doing like um and i that it was a conscious decision as well because when i like started thinking about activism and like developing that coursework project i was like kind of i kept saying to people like it's there's so many different ways of like getting involved with activism which is like very like common knowledge now but again like seven years ago i think people thought activism you just had to be outside with like a placard and stuff and you know like now it's like you can do so many different like there's just so many different ways and like just it's about asking yourself the skills or the kind of qualities you possess that can help further your cause so for me like it was being very like able to talk to strangers and able to hold my ground and able to like stand up for myself like if i had to and put myself out there because a lot of my trans friends are like i could never like i wouldn't want to sit across from a stranger like never mind like 30 strangers in a session sort of thing but i'm like i'm fine with that and it's about like i understood i had that in me like i'm good i can do nails and i'm like very talkative so like yeah that's kind of why i did it and i just i've never like i don't know like my mum said to me when i started doing activism she was like you know you're going to get so much like because you're putting your head above the parapet like especially with the media stuff that's when i forgot my first media thing she was like are you sure you want to do this because once you've done it you can't stop the the barrage is it barrage dyslexic moment again i don't know who knows i'm the wrong person to interview who cares people know what i mean it's art school i'm sure everyone listening is dyslexic as well but the point is it's like my mom was like you won't be able to stop it once it starts and like if you put your head out there like above the parapet you're going to get abused and i was like you know what mom like things cannot get worse than they are for me right now like i was getting so much abuse in my everyday life am i just like going to the shop going on the train going to like just every like all day every day i was getting people laughing at me staring at me so i'm trying to like come in my face and fight me like just constant like constant constant like not a single like well at least not a week went past but it really did feel like not a day went past at some point because i was so like not that there's anything wrong with being obviously trans but i was so like obviously trans that like people are just so mean to people who look obviously trans like i look it was so hard anyway so like um i like i had a lot of experience of dealing with the public and like understanding like how to like hold my ground if i had to so i wasn't scared and like also the settings that these are in as well as like i would specifically like i wouldn't just like pop up outside of a tesco i'd pop up like in the vna so like the people in the vienna generally are like not going to be i mean i think i could take them in a fight basically like i'm like not scared of someone who goes to the vna like yeah but then i've started since then like um doing like that kind of more like public face and stuff like i do like tons of universities i've done lcc like three times but like i've done like a lot of universities and festivals and all these sort of things and um and still i feel like i'm very sure of myself and i'm i'm not afraid of like putting someone in their place if they're gonna try and put me in my place i think yeah i also wanted to get to zoom back a little bit to the to the money thing because i think um i mean i come from a middle class background my parents uh owned the fact we grew up in and i went to like a comprehensive not a private school thank gosh but like i have a different relationship to money than you maybe do um and i feel like so i also work or worked in museums i used to work in a big museum that we booked you for actually once yes yes you remember queering now yeah yeah exactly yeah i love that one yeah that i think that was great actually i mean i had a lot of colleagues helping me and a lot of queer colleagues so it was really really good but it makes me so so mad to hear that one you weren't paid at all at the beginning and then two you were paid like jack basically i think that's a huge problem with um those kind of venues in general and maybe like in your experience like even more than that like uh venues run by majority middle class and upper class people who completely take the piss with money and paying artists because they have this different relationship with money that means that money like i don't know is this unspoken thing it doesn't like you need to travel around in the same way and when i was working i really really um i include my colleagues in this too like we really really try to like overturn that culture and be very like one honest and upfront with money but also like put money at the center of the conversation i just wonder whether that kind of thing do you feel has changed a bit or do you still feel like class is so so present and money is like so so uh taking the piss with when you get that yeah yeah i think that the last point is exactly that i think rather than it changing you change so like now i've become very very good at like charging what i'm worth and like even charging more than i'm worth even like my friends are like i like i think you just like you just yeah you just it's something you learn like some people are lucky that they learn at young when their parents they can see their parents being really good with money and their parents like kind of giving them advice but i had no one to like tell me that like what i was doing was worth any money or what i was doing when i was getting paid was worth more money and then i spoke to like i remember like going on a date once with a guy who was like in advertising so obviously he was like he understood big money like because advertising's huge money and he was like you should be charging him four times what you're doing and even more and that was like in like the first two years but then even like um recently like i remember like a year ago or maybe like two years ago so quite recent um because i most of my jobs are like public speaking like that's where most my income comes from and like again who has someone who in their life especially a working-class person no one i don't know public speakers like no one is telling me how much i should charge so again i started to understand i've done so much for so little um with public speaking but like um i had um someone tell me who was like not even as big as me no offense that's not being beheaded but like someone who like is in the same sort of field but like with a way less of a like a media profile and instagram kind of me social media profile and like had been doing activism for way less long and was getting paid like double what i was getting paid like and i was like what am i doing i'm so stupid but i just you just don't know what to charge like so i just had no clue but like you just once you learn it i think it's really important just to like keep the door open for other people like you um or other people it's not just a classroom but just basically just like making sure like we are like you said more transparent about money like it's such a british thing to like be quiet and hush-hush about money but it helps no one like at the end of the day like so now me and my friends who are all kind of even people who aren't doing activism but people i know we're just i'm so open about money whereas i will tell you that to the penny what i got and then you know now what you can charge that brand or you can charge that institution like it's really important to just make sure you're leaving the door open for the people coming behind you so that they're not um getting paid like 50 pound for a talk like i was i mean like it's yeah i think that's really important yeah yeah yeah yeah because i also like uh i mean i had a different relationship to money but i also wasn't when i was in a position of like booking artists i was like this is fair and sustainable and like not taking the piss um so i looked to like some resources on the web like uh there's this artist union that do like a kind of pay sheet um which they say like okay there's this is kind of a reasonable amount to charge uh like someone if you have like five years experience and you're doing a half day workshop or talk or something blah blah so i use that kind of thing when i'm like really in doubt and now like a few years old i feel a lot more like confident with what's like what's reasonable what's acceptable what's like fair but i wonder if you have like a kind of you know for people watching this and wanting to go into kind of similar uh like ways of working like ways of earning money do you have like a rule of like okay if it's a museum i charge maybe like i don't know two-thirds of what i charge like a commercial company if it's a massive brand i charge for like how do you do the calculations in your head or how do you value things nowadays um it's quite hard to like um give advice to someone who's starting off because when you're starting off though i do think it's really important to get paid i think you also kind of have to do your dues you can't be coming in charging what's someone who's been in the game for seven years or four even three years you can't be like expecting the set well you can expect the same but you're probably yeah it's like there's a reason you've got to do your jews and you've got to do a few shitty gigs to like have be able to say i do i do public speaking i do activism and you can start getting paid but like i think for me at that point so some advice to anyone who's that in that point now it's about kind of just testing the waters and kind of usually you can like get like the the brand or the institution you're talking to will kind of um offer you something and you can see after you've been given a few offers like after maybe like two three events like what the kind of going rate is or what or what they're thinking and you can haggle so like basically to have like kind of um oh okay this is kind of like the set the set rate and then you can like talk to other people like i think i i don't know like i'm the sort of person if someone was like ask me for some advice i tell them like i'd be very straight up like i said so maybe like ask some people who are doing similar things to what you're doing of what they charge now but what they charged when they were like kind of your level um and then yeah like just like i don't know like me and my friends just like like having a really good like kind of open conversation around like how our rates have changed over time like slightly my friends who like were friends like three years ago like would like talk about rates and now our rates are totally different now so like just like making sure that you're keeping your friends and like in the conversation and like um like once you like i keep saying like i'm so so uneducated but that i don't know it's just um just i don't know like once you um know like once you get i don't i don't say that once you get a booking somewhere you kind of like know oh i can charge this sort of thing yeah so like you kind of learn that at the going rate for like i don't know like a a talk or an instagram post or like an event at a museum it's all pretty it's pretty standard like i'd say like everything's on there and then yeah you just kind of grow from there and then like once you like i think it's really important as well about understanding that it's not just a like a day rate you're being paid for like uh or not even a day right but like i had someone recently be like well we only need you for like an hour so zoom for an hour so like what would you charge us for an hour of your time i'm like well it's not just an hour of my time it's all my expertise over seven not even more than seven years because i've been like i was studying before seven years but like it's all your expertise your education the money that went into your education the money that went into like you know just it's all of this it's all the the accolades or the awards my book it's from all my magazine and newspaper articles it's like it's there's so much more than just like an hour of my time because they try and downplay so just understand your worth in that like you're more than just like your time you are your expertise and your lived experience and your trauma and like just understand what you're worth and like sometimes just go crazy like yeah shoot out a really like a number that to you i don't know what's that rule they'd say like charles what you charged and put like 10 percent on top of 25. i don't know what it was there's like rule like that where you like chuck a bit of extra on top and just because they will probably try and bring you down anyway whatever you go in with so like just like oversell yourself slightly and then you'll be pleasantly surprised when you can like yeah get what you deserve yeah great i think yeah i think that's really great advice and for me it feels like what you're saying is uh over time you develop like a belly instinct that i guess is related to your confidence but also related to like how much uh work you accumulate and like uh how well you refine like your offer or what you do and slowly that comes into play but yeah basically never undersell yourself always yeah but even at the very beginning of your career you still have your lived experience you still have the skills that got you like them talking to you for a booking in the first place and like recognize that and recognize when you're moving up a level when you're like okay i've been doing this for a year now or two years now like maybe it's time to like readjust mine exactly exactly yeah yeah um great i think that's yeah i really wanted to talk about that because i feel like it does not get talked enough it doesn't it's such a british thing to not talk about money and it helps no one like the money's there yeah there's not like it's not like there's like a pie of like once all the money's gone it's gone no they have there's like endless money like they had there's money there's loads of money exactly and it's such such a middle-class thing i think for people to like give this impression that there's this pie and only so much that can go around it's always it's always um so the next thing i wanted to ask you so i like i did my ba in english literature oh amazing and i always like i'm really really big fan of books and fiction and poetry and i just wanted to ask you about like language because i guess it's also related to how like you professionalize yourself as a well as as as a i don't know what you what language or words you use to describe yourself i mean do you use the word artist or author or writer or activist or nail technician or performer like what words do you use when you're describing what you do and how important is that to you oh god that's a good question um i don't know i feel like we're in this generation of like what's that word i'm forgetting all my worst day like hyphen hyphen right you know like we're all like this slash slash yeah like we just like have a million slashes after our like name because like but it's like how we like i don't know it's this new world we live and we're like you you can be like you have to be like a a jack of all trades because it's kind of like yeah you just kind of need to be um so i guess i am the main like slash is an activist i i've always called myself an activist it's a bit like a a murky like some people really don't like it some people do like it um i feel like what i'm doing is activism like it's maybe a different kind of activism um but i've i think it's activism um and then author since i've had my book out and then like what else like i guess like i know it's a really weird i don't even know like do i like call myself i think calling yourself an influencer is so tacky but if it wasn't for social media i wouldn't have been i would be homeless and hungry right now i'm not even kidding you i'm like totally self-employed and all my jobs are like public speaking mostly and and now transphobia events that's all physical intimate events they all got cancelled i have had nothing but social media to feed myself with for the last eight months now whatever it is um so i guess i do some influencer stuff i do a little bit of modeling but like again i don't i don't know how i feel about the word model because i'm not like i'm more like i don't know how to say like i don't know it's really weird yes i don't i don't know what i am i'm just like a hyphen yeah yeah it's like a big hyphen right queen i don't know what i am yeah yeah so it doesn't feel uh like if i refer to you as a writer or if i refer to you as an author those kind of things don't feel as precious to you you can call me whatever you want as long as you're paying me baby like i have like the skills for the bills like if you want to like if you need a writer i'll be a writer if you need a dancer i'll youtube a dance routine i'll learn how to do that dance i would like to learn honey this is what i'm saying you need to be able to adapt shift and that's what yeah yeah like yeah very much about like just yeah doing whatever i'm doing like tv at the moment which is interesting it's a lot harder than i thought it would be but like um i've got a doc coming out um i don't actually know it because it was supposed to come out during corona and then it never because we never filmed but like now we're supposed to be coming out next month but i don't think next month is very soon yeah yes i don't know when it's coming out but keep your eyes out for it's um it'll be on bbc and it's about trans like healthcare mostly about trans teenagers but like it's about trans kind of how we're being fulfilled by the system yay fun yeah um and is that a one time thing or a series it's a what it's like a like a long i think it's like an hour-long sort of thing like an in-depth kind of uh some traveling right like today today after this i'm going to go up to liverpool to meet a young trans person and talk to them it's a lot about like self-medicating because we're not we're having to wait like five years for an appointment at the gic and stuff like just to discuss transitioning not even to like take any hormones or have any surgery and how it's like talked about the opposite in the media how it's like it's made out like you go to your gp and then next week you're on hormones it's like so it's basically just like unpacking again kind of like what i did now transphobia is about like breaking down misconceptions and making allies so please god it will help change some like narratives and stuff and get people talking i can't believe it won't i feel like what you've done with nail transphobia has been so like influential and i mean obviously i'm talking more about a uk context but i'm sure you know more about what it's done beyond the uk but i feel like in the uk it's completely like uh as you say it also started so early it started so early in this entire conversation so i feel like building on that boost i mean tv is such a great medium right because everyone watches tv so i feel like it will be fantastic i can't wait and maybe that kind of plays into my next question because i wanted to talk about how like how you grew up and what you studied and uh where you grew up all of those things like how they play into what your work looks like now and how and what choices you make now in your work yeah they still influence when you can still feel those kind of early experiences and what you do because this thing of like um that you just talked about about like breaking down stereotypes or like uh re-educating perhaps or re-opening up a conversation through like intimacy and through like conversations and through like um i don't know just talking to people one-on-one trusting people with that um seems running thread totally and i think it kind of links to what i said about when you're getting paid for something understand that you're getting paid for like the wealth of your experience that you're bringing to some things and like you can't separate like who you are where you grew up what you studied like you just it's part of you it's intrinsically part of you and like i yeah and it's part of your worth and um yeah i definitely can see like my upbringing what i study like you said all these things i can definitely recognize in my work today and how it's like shaped my work like for example one of the main things like i feel like is apparent about me maybe compared to other activists is how i talk and i think it's really important to um for my in my eyes like what with what i do is like keeping my kind of working class like um i don't know just the way i talk i don't like even when i'm on stage to like a thousand people i'm not gonna start talking posh like i'm gonna and i think that's the charm in what i do in that that's what like often like if you're i've noticed i've always felt with activism sometimes it can be a bit a little bit too academic or be using words that kind of exclude people because they just don't understand like certain like terminology especially with things like trans trans issues and like gender stuff um and i think for me it's really important to like keep it accessible and like talk in a way that like people like from where i'm from all over the uk are gonna understand like people like not being left out the conversation who i probably need to be included most maybe because i don't know maybe they're the people who like i said who need to hear it most i don't know so like for me like i see part of that and what i do today like my working class roots and then i see like in terms of what i studied even like i see like you know i said about being like a jack of all trades i think it's really important to like understand like so when i'm doing like tv stuff i like because i've worked behind the camera before like i understand things i don't know like because i don't know like for example like i sell merch which is like a way of making money like i can design the merch myself i don't have to like hate someone uh when it came to doing my book like i could design the cover like the covers they were offering were horrible yeah it looked like a gp post it looked like a poster for like a gp style chlamydia or something for like are you 16 to 25 do you think you have it it was so bad and like or like a bbc bite size it looked like so bad it was horrible so like because of my like background in like creative stuff i could do that myself or like i don't know like when i i don't know like i started doing like patreon so i can like edit my own youtube videos and because i like did film like you know like it's just about yeah it's like it's just like you use all the skills you you accumulate over time to just remember that when you're um kind of like charging places like that you are um a whole package and this also is another thing i really wanted to ask you about actually like i wanted to know about what your taste is i mean like in a pure kind of aesthetic sense because also a lot of stuff you do as you say is very linked to like aesthetics right i mean nails are an aesthetically beautiful thing to get done um i feel like art direction must have i actually don't know very little about art direction but i i guess i guess we're like your taste like what you what you like what turns you on is like very part of your work can you talk a little bit about like what what you like i think that's the main thing that i learned from my degree like we a lot of us finish the degree and we're like people always ask like so what is our direction and we're like i don't really know today it's like no one really knows what it is even once you've done the degree but like what i think i learnt most from it is just like um developing and kind of like um refining my taste and like my understanding of taste if nothing else like just like i have a really good like i've got a million i'm really good at references like i can like that i think that's kind of what an art director really should be it's like someone who can like you say a word and you think of like 10 like and i can just like run with like 10 different ideas sort of thing and like um it's been really key for me and just like establishing myself as like um a voice like that that i i i specialize in branding like i was saying that my project came out branding and it's like i think the power of like understanding your brand is so important when you want to like um kind of establish yourself from your competition so like i understood that there was an uh a niche in the market for like a trans girl like me who was like working class spoke in a working-class way like was like kind of a bit more likable like a bit more like girl next door like council state girl next door like that kind of vibe like i don't know like i just it's really important to just like understand like like where there's like a niche and like i think that's what my uh what i learned on art direction kind of helped me to do and just like understanding like i didn't know just like that i just knew like that you know transphober would be sick and it is sick and it's because i like it's because of my degree i think that helped me just to like understand like how to build it and stuff like make it like bring in the nails because it could have just been like i could have just been like a public speaker but i wanted to do something with like like bringing in the nails is so random i was like why did you think and i didn't even know how i thought of nails to be quite honest yeah but like it was a happy accident and it's like i think that just like is yeah seen anything like that so i think yeah just i think that's kind of what i learned from my course is just like um having really good references which sounds like a really weird pointless skill but it's really useful i don't know yeah yeah no i i can really really see that and i think um just to kind of zoom forward again to your book um maybe you could tell us a little bit about the book actually before we talk about it uh because we've got three three years now since it's been published so you you can talk about like um it'd be great if you talked about like how it came about but also how you feel about it like three years on yeah it's a really weird one actually because i'm i can't believe how long it's been i definitely should have done another one since but you know when you're just not in like a good headspace and it's really hard to like turn out like such like a intense kind of labor of love like i don't know i just know the right headspace but um yeah i'm proud of it uh it's basically now uh sorry to my transistors is a collection of about 100 letters from 12 blazing trans women offering advice to well at intent originally it was meant to be offering advice to people like girls well because it's more for like feminine trans feminine people for i'm okay let me start again listen this is a mess okay so let me start again so to my transistors is a collection of about 100 letters from troubles and trans women kind of sharing their stories and kind of what they wish they could tell themselves like going looking like to their younger trans selves like um after having gone through their journey and it's about also just like how they not only made it through transition but made it to the top because they're like like trailblazers in their field so it's like politicians and scientists and like sports people and celebrities and um it's supposed to be like kind of like a it's a few things so like for me at first it was about just like a book of like sisterhood like trans sisterhood so that like people who are transitioning can like read it and kind of learn from the mistakes of the girls who went before them because when you transition you don't know most people don't know anywhere i didn't for like two years no another trans person in the same way like people just don't know trans people like so like who have you got to like tell you babe this is like don't make the mistakes that i did sort of thing like this is how you do this this is how you do this um but it's also just a way of like kind of like um capturing documenting our history i guess you could say like it's because all the um letters come with like a bio that i've written about the the woman and i think that's really important because mainstream doesn't really care about preserving the kind of culture like the legacy of the cultures of marginalized communities and i think it's really important that like we preserve them ourselves because no one else is going to so like i wanted to like make sure that because there's a lot of women in there who are like like laverne cox and like carmen carrera and janet mochan in there maybe even book two but like the point is is that i wanted it to be like people who you won't have heard of maybe like some people who are um a bit more like yeah just like less like i don't know like just the people who might have like when when they die which sounds really depressing might have like history might just forget about because like i said mainstream doesn't care to keep our histories alive and actually it's really interesting because one of the women in there did actually die during editing which is really sad but so she was like 80 i think 83 or something and um she was like the first ever like trans woman on like prime time tv in like america in like the 60s and she wasn't even like out so it's not like she wasn't even out on tv as a trans woman but she was just like just it's just mad her story is amazing but i feel like people just don't know her name because she's not talked about because like i said just mainstream just doesn't care to keep like our legacies alive so i just feel really proud that like for example her story and her legacy is in the book and like the next generation of trans people are gonna keep that like that legacy alive so that's what it was for me as was like helping girls today but also helping to helping like our community like helping girls in the future like helping to keep that alive like the the sisterhood and the legacy um yeah like as a queer person i'm not a trans woman but as a queer person i feel so so grateful that you've done that you've documented that archive that that's there for me for my like uh family from like you know any family that will like continue beyond me like i feel completely completely like uh overwhelmed actually that that exists because as you say like it's so inaccessible and i feel like i grew up with all of those stories so inaccessible to me and now slowly over time things like uh your book and um like uh the museum of transgender doing brighton and like like small but very very very significant uh moments where i feel like okay things are being written down or they're being preserved or they're being protected or they're being valued you know and that me is a huge huge like tidal change from how it felt to be a little quick it's you know in the 90s um but i was by the way yeah so obviously thank you thank you it's just such an amazing thing and i think um also i'm really really like interested in this connection between the nails transphobia project and the book because both of me signal like deep deep intimacy and that's another thing that as you say queer people of my experience then it sounds like yours too miss in the very beginning of our lives you know we intimacy with other queer people feels so like distant feel so far away feels so impossible and i feel like in one very kind of like uh immediate and personal way you built it with nail transphobia and then in a second more public but still maintaining that like deep intimacy you built it with the book and i wonder if you make the connection between the two projects like i have no i'm getting now i'm gonna steal that that's good yeah yeah in some ways they are the same project you know they are a one-to-one experience um if if you were to do my nails or i would do your nails now i feel like we would have a conversation that is just ours like yeah you know because as you say it's this one-on-one thing there's no one else involved like even when we put you in the tape you know there was like the whole of tate britain was teaming with people and we had your nail station and the conversation between you and that person was just the two of you yeah and it was so so nice to have that like deep into me into intimacy in the middle of this like huge like people everywhere festival i felt like that was so significant to the event um such an important part of it and then i feel like with the letters is exactly the same thing i mean i feel like there's this tradition of uh women like throughout history writing letters to each other as a way of like uh communicating our like um hours like feminine people i don't really identify as a woman woman cis woman um i don't know like communicating outside of patriarchy outside of like a male gaze outside of like violence that comes from like cis or heteronormative narratives and i feel like this medium of the letter is very very significant um yeah i do yeah i i hear what you're saying that's such a nice i'd never thought of it like that if i'm honest i could just be like yes that's exactly why yes honestly that's such a poetic way of looking at it um i can't even i can't really even remember why i decided like i think it's yeah i can't i'm never gonna blag it and be like yeah that like i did it because i can't even i can't even remember it's really weird that actually like um what i will say what i can't remember also my memory is awful um but you kind of came up with the idea for the book i didn't have a name for it but i came out the idea for my book on in the coursework that i did for now transphobia so i didn't know that it would take the shape of like to my transistors i didn't know it would be like letters from trans women or whatever but like i knew that i like wanted a book to do with like a book about trans sisterhood sort of thing and i wanted it to like have like letters in it i just always was really drawn to like letters i actually really wanted it to be like hand written letters i'd love to do like a coffee table book of like actually like scanned in like beautiful like handwritten like messy hand writing letters i think that'd be nicer yeah but um that wasn't the best that is two that is that's probably like book ten babe when i get when i'm at the beyonce of the trans community i can actually afford it because that's expensive expensive yeah hopefully in the future yeah i just think there's something so so beautiful i mean i also love reading essays like i say i like reading in general like poetry like fiction i love short stories i love essays but i think there's something so uh i don't know so also every day about the letter you know like how you're talking about um how to communicate with people and not bog it down with like language that's inaccessible you know if i was to for example like talk to uh my relatives who are in liverpool um on my mom's side about my transness or like talk to my grandparents on my dad's side who aren't around here but about like gender or all of those kind of things it would be the letter that i would choose you know i wouldn't write an essay and like point them in it would it would be a letter to them because it would be something that they could comprehend and understand and like connect with me through so i think it's just it was such a it's such a simple idea but i just i think it's really so beautiful what's the what's the life of it i mean the book um um does it still come up in your daily work oh yeah um i mean they said like a very niche book like it was never going to be like a bestseller obviously because i'm like appealing to like one percent of the population so like it's like a tiny tiny tiny not even one percent because that's trans people like trans women make up even less than that like probably like 0.5 percent i don't know 0.6 percent so it's like never going to be a bestseller it was never about that for me it was just about the preserving our legacy and just like helping the next generation of even though i'm i guess i'm not necessarily not part of that next generation but just the people coming behind me because like it was hard like my early transition was so hard and i just didn't want it i just if i slight way like make it a little bit easier for someone i know that having if i had that book when i started my transition it would be like the the best thing because i just would have learned so much of like just of like it just would have helped it would just would have helped to just have that kind of big sister figure to be like babe throw it out like don't do this do this like sort of thing like on like mental stuff as well as physical stuff like it would have helped me a lot and i think that's really important if anyone uh watching this thinking about ever doing a book just like think about making the book that like you wish you had like now or like growing up or whatever like just like if you needed it like someone else will have needed it and like i get loads of like messages and emails and dms from like trans people especially obviously trans women mostly saying just like your book helped me so much like i've had i've like cried reading them sometimes because they'll be so emotional like people being like i was i tried to kill myself and like i'm in like a sight like they were in like a psych war this one person they like living like middle america where it's just like not okay to be like lgbt and they were like i'm like finally like because i knew i was trans i was like trying to kill myself and now i've finally accepted myself and i think it's because like i've seen in your book that there's like a sisterhood like there's like even if i'm gonna be rejected by my family like i have a family like and i think that's that means more to me than like book sales like i make nothing on this book but like that is worth ten times more than any money i could make so yeah that's that's what it's all about yeah there's actually an amazing quote which is almost like word for word what you just said from tony morrison uh so she's like um love her erica yeah she's amazing um anyone who doesn't know her you should read everything she's ever written she was um an american author and she uh actually was an editor until she was in her late 30s she didn't write her first book until she was in her late 30s and so she spent her career like editing all these books and then there's this amazing quote she says somewhere in an interview i think where she was like i just hadn't read the book that i wanted to read and then i realized i had to write it yes and then she came up with the bluest eye which is like such such an amazing novel yeah so yeah i totally yeah i think what you say is completely um completely completely true we need to like if it doesn't exist we need to create it because if you say there will be people if we needed it there will be people who need it such a good point so last question because i've kept you for over an hour now i see um what's next i mean um you talked a little bit about the documentary yeah so the documentary is probably the thing i'm most excited about um i wish i had a name for it but like there's like you know you get like working names and it's absolute it's so bad i'm not even gonna say it because i'm like you are not putting this name on the door but um i just i hope the documentary will just help in like i said just changing the kind of narrative a bit or not just changing it but just like helping people to understand that the narrative they're being sold is absolutely like it's so wrong and just like the the stark reality of the situation is like just how bad it is and how things need to change like we're like it's just me yeah i just really really really hope that it just like doesn't just obviously it's not going to change the world or change even the uk kind of system of healthcare but just that it just does something just like open a few minds about it start a few conversations and just like i think just like generally like and this is what i think this whole kind of talk kind of the motif that's run through is that it's just about like doing your bit to help the cause that you're fighting for you know like so just like i hope this does another little bit for it and then like it's about if we all do our we can't change the world on our own but if we all did our little bit to change the world the world would change and i'm saying like if we all did something so it's about just like doing my bit and i just like hope that everyone watching like um especially in this kind of current cultural uh climate that we're living in i think it's just so important that we are just all really doing our bit um so yeah i've got the dot coming out hopefully that'll be out soon um on bbc it's on bbc3 also on bbc one and then i'm trying to think what else i should do another book i just need to like try and be a bit more sane before i do like i feel like i've just been like having a really like bad time mentally and then it's the seventh birthday of nail transphobia next month so like that's really exciting and i mean like corona is kind of a big block to that but like i'll try and do something so like yeah if people want to like find me on instagram i'll probably be doing something to do it i don't know maybe some like match or like like a a series or igtv series i don't know so i'll do something for you please do so much i would love so much please yeah i'll send you some messages i think that sounds amazing i can't wait for documentary thank you and i also can't wait for the merch but thank you so much this has been great i really like i was so excited when ned said i could speak to you for a little time so i think um thank you so much thank you so much you're a babe thank you so much uh have a safe trip to liverpool i love that city it's nice i love that city after london liverpool is the one i agree i agree i love it give the mersey a kiss for me absolutely it was time to talk to you baby nice to talk to you thank you so much see you later you