Reading Queer: Talking Queer

For our final post, we're featuring Mr Anthony's introduction to the devised drama piece, Talking Queer, which is being staged this week.

For a black girl walking white streets, home may be the one destination where the minority becomes the majority; for a Muslim boy in a Christian community, his family may prove a fortress from an intolerant society; for a young woman exposed to misogyny, her family tree may provide women with whom she may seek solace.

All too frequently, a gay child will find that their front door bridges no such binary between the familiar and the strange, between recognition and alienation. This is because, historically, it has been the norm for gay children (raised by heterosexual parents who assume they have made a child in their image) to be denied the positive representation and open conversation they need in order to assure their mental health and happiness.

When your status as minority is not written on skin, it is doubly difficult to find others who speak your language and there is no guarantee of someone close by who is prepared to learn. Gay children should not have to work up the courage to ask for the key to a corridor otherwise kept locked, on the arrogant assumption it is no use to them (or worse, it is no good for them). Gay sexuality is not something you come to later in life or acquire through repeat exposure, like a taste for anchovies or the films of Bergman; puberty is universal, it happens young, and to silence its spectrum will always breed shame. I believe, as an educator, this is a conversation we are duty-bound to normalise.

This production marks the climax of a fortnight of events at St Paul’s School to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. We have been honoured by visits from the renowned human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Hollywood royalty Rupert Everett, plus lectures and concerts celebrating gay art and literature. Talking Queer is the result of over thirty interviews with Paulines, old Paulines, staff, parents and their respective families. I garnered over fifteen hours of footage and set about editing this into a coherent community narrative which placed the coming out process (in adolescence or otherwise) centre stage.

This is not a scientific survey and represents nothing but an arbitrary cross-section of this institution. However, the echoes that resonate between individuals and generations (interviewees ranged from sixteen to mid-sixties) demonstrate, I think, that truths are being told; I hope that the production acts as both history lesson and rallying cry for the next generation and I must thank all contributors for their time and honesty. I have not previously encountered a play whose text is entirely lip-synched (a technique borrowed from the gay subculture of drag) but I hope that the method brings intimacy and poignancy to these unsilenced stories and I congratulate the hard working cast who, in six weeks, have mastered the performance of the play's twenty-two characters.

Many thanks to Mr Anthony for contributing this post, and we hope you've enjoyed our 'Reading Queer' features over the last couple of weeks, as well as all the events in the Thinking Queer festival.  There's an LGBT booklist on our reading lists page here: if there are any books you think we should add to it, please do let us know.  You might also be interested in the Guardian's recent article on books that helped writers come out.  Have a great half term!