What's great about being gay is that you can celebrate all types of sexualities, because we understand that being queer means you might also be gender nonconforming or bi or whatever.
It's my view that gender is culturally formed, but it's also a domain of agency or freedom and that it is most important to resist the violence that is imposed by ideal gender norms, especially against those who are gender different, who are nonconforming in their gender presentation.
The 1990s were also when a bunch of the soft-shoe language for race, gender, and class became paramount. Because before that I wasn't thinking about systems or food insecurity or whatever. I was just thinking about not getting picked on for being black and not being hungry.
I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay. But when I found the right story, I saw it as an opportunity to write about being a teenager and being gay. Most people, whether you're gay or straight or whatever, have experienced that relationship where one person is much more interested than the other.
I really don't care about what anyone says unless they are also gender-nonconforming. Then I really listen. I love the solidarity felt between us gender failures.
Early on, I got some criticism from other gay writers and queer theorists for being too 'assimilationist,' probably because my characters are outsiders, even in the gay world.
For them [LGBT group], language has to say exactly what it means. "Why aren't you proud of being gay?" they wanted to know. "Why are you so dark? Why are you so morbid? Why are you so sad? Don't you realize, we're all okay? Let's celebrate that fact." But that is not what writers do. We don't celebrate being "okay." If you want to be okay, take an aspirin.
We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.
Being queer you're supposed to adore figure skating. It's a sport, not an art. I love the costumes and hate the music and of course I worship Johnny Weir because so does he. Also he's real. It's a full gay thing and it always has been.
I'm really lucky because my sister is a real activist soul and also hyper-intellectualized in this way that's really allowed me to wrap my mind around some of the bigger intellectual concepts and really understand the language around identity in the gender nonconforming community.
I think I should be described as 'bi' - not bisexual, because I'm not - I'm gay - but 'binational' because I retain British nationality, and I add to it being Australian, which is like having your cake and eating it.
Regarding gay and music, I don't actually think my music is particularly gay at all, because my music doesn't have sex with men. My music does not have a gender, I don't see it as being gay.
I'd say my relation to being a woman is, I mean being a woman is whatever you want because the concept of gender is not really real, you know? And so for me it's about being comfortable in myself. It's about allowing myself to express who I am in any way that I want to, whether that be through my clothing, the way I present myself to the world, whether that be through like my gender identity and my pronouns. It's just really about allowing yourself to really be expressive and creative.
We had the fun of being outlaws. But there's a whole generation now coming up with new gender identities. For this generation of kids who don't think that being gay is anything special, they might be more interesting than any of us.
I prefer men who are queer. Not gay men, but queer men - guys with an open mind. Bisexual men, because they're able to understand the different elements of the body without judging that I don't conform to a certain ideal.
You think you're in a place where you're all 'I'm thrilled to be gay, I have no issues about being gay anymore, I don't feel shame about being gay,' but you actually do. You're just not fully aware of it. I think I still felt scared about people knowing. I felt awkward around gay people; I felt guilty for not being myself.
My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.