GUS & LAITH
Cliff Joannou brings together two former Attitude cover stars to talk about trans rights, and violence in the community
Double trouble with the Olympic skier and trans model trail- blazers
Olympic skier turned actor Gus Kenworthy was passing through a London airport in the spring of 2016 when an issue of Attitude caught his eye. On the cover was model Laith Ashley, who had recently spoken out about his identity as a trans man. Just two months earlier, Gus had featured on the cover of the magazine himself, after coming out as gay in an interview with ESPN. “I thought: ‘ Oh this guy’s so hot’,” Gus tells me as we chat post- shoot on the eighth floor of a Downtown LA office block in the sweltering Californian heat. “I was honestly surprised that Laith was out. A lot of time, especially when you’re in the public eye and you’d think that in this day and age that more people would be out and open and accepting, a lot of folks are still in the closet.
“There’s fear that coming out might be detrimental to your career, so I was surprised that he was so out and vocal. I thought that was pretty cool.”
The pair struck up a friendship via social media, engaging in discussions on topics as varied as queer culture and issues around violence against trans people. When Gus’ role in the new season of American Horror Story: 1984 was announced, Attitude approached him for a follow- up cover shoot. Gus had one request: to use the opportunity to highlight an issue that’s becoming increasingly pervasive in society, namely the violence and prejudice that the trans community faces as it becomes increasingly visible.
It made perfect sense to finally bring Gus and Laith together for their respective second cover stories, this time in conversation on the importance of using their voice to help elevate those in the LGBTQ community who are often overlooked and too often left behind.
Cliff: As LGBTQ people, we all share common ground in our journey to finding a place in a heteronormative world.
Laith: The thing that’s so special about the LGBTQ community as a whole is that there is a commonality. We’ve all had a shared struggle, even though the struggles are unique to each person’s own experience and no two people’s are the same. Some people’s are much more traumatic than that of others, but we all still struggle with an identity crisis early in our life, and at some point feel shame and have to figure out how to move around that and figure out how to sort of manifest the most real, authentic version of yourself, then get to the point where you’re confident enough to showcase that. When you meet someone else in the community, whether a trans person, a lesbian, or a gay man, you have that common thread. I feel it bonds us immediately.
C: What issues would you say the LGBTQ community is facing now?
L: Our political climate can be really frightening. We need to remain aware of what is going on with our government and the policing that’s happening of trans women’s bodies, specifically black trans
“Black trans women are constantly being attacked” Laith
women, who are constantly being attacked or murdered. The rate is astonishing and it’s so sad that it continues to happen. As a trans masculine person, if I didn’t say that I was trans, I can kind of walk around and no one would necessarily know or bother me, but I have the privilege of being able to be out and feel safe in doing so. Because of that privilege, it’s my responsibility, or I take it upon myself to advocate on behalf of those who may not have a voice.
Gus: I feel the same way. People talk about how far we’ve come as a community with this year being the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, 50 years of New York Pride, and everyone talking about how we are finally where we need to be — saying that comes from a place of privilege. For me, as a cis gender, white, gay man, yeah it’s pretty great to be gay right now. It’s not too bad but we’re really only as safe and secure as every single part of our community because we are a community and the fact that black trans women are being murdered means that we are not where we need to be. It does not mean our community is safe, that we’ve gone to hell and back and now we’re all good. We are not in the clear yet and we still have a long way to go, and we can’t turn our backs on other people in our community.
L: Yeah, in terms of rights, in the US there are still many states that can discriminate against people for being LGBT, there isn’t equitable treatment among all people in the United States, or anywhere in the world for that matter, so the fight is going to continue. I want to be at the forefront of that battle.
G: When I first came out, I talked so much about my struggle as a gay man and about being in the closet, and how it was so difficult in sport and I’m not discrediting that. It was really difficult and there are so many people in similar situations in sports or small towns, or religious communities, where it’s scary to be themselves. But then I also think about the fact that I am, for lack of better way to say it, a goodlooking, cis gender, white, gay man. I have the easiest path to walk of anybody in this community and I think it’s about remembering and recognising that, then trying to figure out how to make it so the path is easier for people who are in more marginalised parts of the community. People with more disenfranchised voices, people who don’t feel safe leaving their house, who aren’t able to have a lot of the luxuries that I’m afforded. I’ve tried to do what I can whether it’s with the Aids/ LifeCycle or my work with The Trevor Project. With marriage equality, it felt as if it was a huge step forward in the US and in so many countries that are legalising it, but in something like 43 states it’s still legal to fire someone because they’re gay, to not offer them housing. That’s not equality. It’s bullshit.
C: Do you feel gay men need to step up more?
G: Absolutely. I feel “gay” and Gay Pride sort of become this umbrella term for everyone in the community, but when you think back to what happened at Stonewall and even before that in San Francisco, there were trans people at the forefront, trans people fighting for our liberation alongside gay men, and they didn’t get that credit, they didn’t get that recognition.
C: Do gay men still find it difficult to relate to those who don’t share their privilege?
G: I think it’s easy to forget. And it’s sometimes difficult to comprehend other people’s struggles. You think about your own struggle and if the people you are hanging out with are also people who are similar in the way they identify, and even though the community is this incredible, beautiful, melting pot of people, it can also be segregated in a way where gay people don’t hang out with lesbians and trans people. It just feels as if everyone gets separated a little bit, and it happens through different expressions of sexuality or race. I don’t think it’s even intentional a lot of the time, it just happens. But because of that, sometimes it takes someone actually thinking about it and realising they have to step up and look out for everyone else. I’m often put in positions where I could just as easily do my own thing and focus on me and not really worry. There hadn’t really been anyone who was out in any action sports and I think a big part of the reason that I came out was that I thought: “Fuck it, this is so selfish of me to stay in the closet. It shows that I’m ashamed. There are so many other kids in sports that would benefit from me stepping up.” When I came out, a lot of really wonderful things came to me. I feel like, for a while, I took and took and took, then after enough time you sort of realise, fuck I can’t go on doing that. At a certain point I have to be like, “Wow, why am I getting a lot of these things?” And I think it goes back to the fact that I am privileged, and I should be trying to do right by the rest of the community and recognise my place in that fucked- up social hierarchy.
C: What about you, Laith? What prejudices have you had to face during the past few years since you came out as trans?
L: When I started my medical transition and my physical body started to change, I noticed a lot of other things changing, too. The way people treated me, the way I
“Trans people fought for our rights and don’t get the credit” Gus
was respected more by people on a daily basis, depending where I was. If I was on my way to work and I was dressed in a button- up shirt and I looked like what can be perceived as a non- threatening person riding the subway, I wasn’t harassed, no one bothered me, I was respected, I could go to work no problem. Now, if I was wearing maybe shorts, a t- shirt, and a baseball cap, on my way to the gym, the police would start treating me differently and with more aggression than I was treated prior to my transition. That’s a little bit scary and it took some time for me to get used to navigating the world as a male person of colour. My brother told me that he would be harassed by the police a lot because of his complexion, and I was like, “Really?” Until it started happening to me. This is the reality of the world that we live in. I always feel I have to mention that because I can now see things from a different perspective.
C: One of the central things to gay, bi or queer male identity is sexual attraction. Do you feel attracted or fetishised by gay men?
L: It’s definitely changing as trans men gain more visibility and are coming out. For a long time, trans masculine folks have lived stealth lives for safety. Trans men tend to isolate themselves, and the only folks that would know that they’re trans are the people intimately involved with them. As people started becoming more open and people felt safer to come out, that’s when it started changing. Trans women have been fetishised for decades and I feel now that more trans men are visible, the same is happening. Since I am being transparent, I get tons of solicitations from gay men online. For our community, physicality is something that we have used for a long time to validate ourselves and I think that’s where it comes from. Our community can be hyper- sexual for many reasons, and the fetishising of trans men is definitely on the rise. But along with that is an increase of transamorous individuals coming out as well, which is a positive thing. At the end of the day, I think we all want love, validation and respect.
G: Not that I can speak on the trans experience at all, but I have a lot of trans female friends who tell me that they feel overly fetishised, to the point where it’s impossible to date. They feel that when they’re with someone, the only reason they’re with you is they’re over- sexualising you and like putting you in this specific box. Then I have friends who are trans women who’ll be dating someone but never get introduced to their friends because of the “shame and stigma” that surround it. I saw a video the other day of people harassing this cis gender man on the street who was with a trans woman, and it’s horrible, awful. He hanged himself shortly afterwards.
C: Why do you think trans women are targetted so often?
L: It has to do with the way the world views men and women in general. People view women as secondary to men, that is a horrible truth. If you were assigned male at birth or you have genitalia that is assigned to what people are going to ascribe solely as male, masculine or men, you’re going to be expected to be treated as such throughout your entire life. So, a lot of people look at trans women and although their presentation may be feminine and their identity is that of a woman, and they are women, in other people’s minds they’re still male, and are expected to behave the way they believe people assigned male at birth should behave.
C: Have you experienced violence?
L: I haven’t personally experienced physical violence, but I have been disrespected and mis- gendered by people both within and outside our community. There was one situation about 18 months ago in West Hollywood where a guy was just really disrespectful. I was with a friend, waiting for an Uber and I looked over and noticed a group of three gay men talking and they kept whispering to each other, looking over at me. I just figured, “OK, they recognise who I am, whatever.” And one of the guys gets up and I notice him coming towards me and he says, “Oh, so those guys over there said that you’re a woman. Is that true?” I thought: “What did you say to me?” And he was like, “Oh, it is true. Yeah, that’s a woman.” I was enraged but I knew I couldn’t react. However, violence does happen and because there is, at times, a need to be viewed as hypermasculine, as male, and to be respected as a man, a lot of trans men tend to stay silent when they do experience violence from a partner, because it’s something that is expected to happen only to women. And if it does happen to a man, they “should be able to handle it”. That way of thinking is a product of toxic masculinity.
C: What do you think about the way gay men are so forward with each other around sex?
G: You have to take context into consideration. If you’re at a party and someone grabs your ass that’s different to someone doing it in the office. It’s flattering to have someone come up to you even if you’re not interested. But it’s
“Trans masculine folks have lived stealth lives for their safety”
Laith
all about the approach. Someone can come up and say something nice or flirty and if you’re not interested an exchange that’s cordial and polite can happen. But the assumption that someone wants to have their ass or dick grabbed when you’re walking by is gross and dated and not OK.
L: I think there is a double standard. If it happens to a woman anywhere, whether it’s the workplace, out and about, in a club, you don’t fucking do that. With a guy it’s almost like the way that men are less likely to talk about being raped. There is a certain stigma and you can be viewed as weak if you talk about it. I think that carries over into the community because it’s just expected to be part of the culture and also you’re expected to “man up” if someone grabs you, as if to say: “who cares, you’re a dude, it doesn’t matter”.
C: What obstacles have you faced in relationships?
L: Dating is tricky for anybody. It can be particularly difficult for trans people because of the things that we talked about: fetishising, or maybe it’s an experiment for someone, and the trans person falls in love, then they’re like, “I don’t need you, we can’t have babies.” Or we are simply not viewed as desirable partners. I don’t have a lot of dating experience and that’s because I’ve been transitioning for five years and there’s been a lot of self- discovery. I’ve only dated one person since my transition and she was also trans, a trans woman, and it was a tough relationship. I still love her, there’s still a lot of love, but I haven’t been able to really open myself up to dating anybody else because I’m afraid. I don’t want to be hurt. A lot of folks can relate to that, so I’m just going to focus on myself and my career.
C: Is it difficult to open up emotionally?
L: My ideas and insecurities about my physical body keep me from getting too close to other people because I’m not comfortable, so there’s still a lot of selfwork that needs to be done. I can easily open up emotionally though. After all, I am a Cancerian.
C: It’s similar to the issues other LGBTQ people face in getting past the shame, allowing themselves to be loved by another person and not just be treated as a sexual object.
L: Right.
C: That’s another thing that connects us all as a community, our sense of self- worth. We learn to bury our emotions for so long.
G: It’s the Velvet Rage. We have this shame inside, whether you’ve accepted the fact that you are gay. For the most part, lots of us haven’t completely resolved that shame and it manifests itself in insecurities and can make it difficult to date. So you could be seemingly on top of the world, on top of your shit, got everything together, out, proud, but there’s still residual shame. There are cobwebs from all those years that you endured basically hating yourself. That makes it difficult.
C: Do you relate to that yourself?
G: For sure. My first relationship was for almost five years and was completely in the closet. I never told anyone we were together while we were together. Towards the end, we started telling people and it was kind of when the relationship was already sort of too far gone and on the rocks. I still have so much love for that person, he’s wonderful and special, but it would have never worked out because where it started, when it started, where I was in my life, was never a point that was going to allow me to grow into a person who was able to love someone else because I didn’t truly love myself. I’ve just come out of another long relationship and I don’t even really want to totally get into it, but it’s sort of still that same thing. After a bunch of years together, realising that I’m not necessarily ready to truly love and value and appreciate someone else because I don’t know if I truly love, value and appreciate myself. I’m getting there, but it’s a work in progress.
L: It’s always going to be [ that way]. I think we all have trauma, especially folks in the LGBT community. We all want love, we all want happiness, we all want to be successful. But a lot of times we are ostracised from our own families and that’s the first place that we experience trauma or rejection — from the people we love the most and who are supposed to love us unconditionally: our parents, siblings and relatives. So we look outside of our immediate family for that love and validation and sometimes we don’t find it and it ends up being problematic.
G: I know so many people who have friends whose parents are so accepting and loving, but I also have lots of friends who have no relationship with their family any more because coming out severed that relationship for religious reasons or whatever. And when you think about that same thing happening to someone who’s not yet equipped to take on the world, it’s scary to be coming to terms with your sexuality, coming to terms with yourself, trying to find your place in the world, then suddenly being cut out of your family and everything you’ve ever known. The homeless [ rate among] the LGBTQ population is mindboggling, and the suicide rate of LGBTQ
“The homeless rate of the LGBTQ population is mind- boggling” Gus
folks is so much higher than their straight counterparts. Especially for trans people, it’s staggeringly higher. For me, it’s about trying to figure out how to help.
C: How have you grown since your previous Attitude cover when you had just come out?
L: I was so young and insecure. I wanted to be this perfect idea of what masculinity and being a man was and that was all I could think about. When we shot that, I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to cancel the shoot because I felt that my body wasn’t there yet. I got through it and it ended up being one of my favourite shoots ever. In terms of personal growth, I am a lot more secure in myself and my skin. Obviously, there are still a lot of things that I’m working through. There weren’t a lot of images of trans masculine people, if any really, prior to my coming out. There were a couple of other guys who had a following on YouTube who I admired but, in terms of mainstream media, not many.
C: You’ve said before that sometimes you want to remove the trans label from your identity.
L: I didn’t mean I wanted to actually remove the label. I am a trans man. It just felt as if it was kind of a scapegoat, or something used for click bait. It made me feel cheap — as if being trans was the reason why I was getting attention, not because of my talent, not because of what I had to say, or the work I had done in the community, but solely because I was trans and was a gimmick. What I meant by “removing the trans label” is maybe making it secondary to my job title, not part of it. I never wanted to remove it because it’s definitely necessary, especially now, for me to make a difference in our community and shed light on trans masculine people who I think have very little visibility.
C: Has anything you’ve experienced left you really unhappy?
L: There was a time I didn’t want to live. I was so unhappy and unsure of myself. My mom is Pentecostal Christian. I know she had an idea of what she wanted her daughter to be and I wasn’t any of that. I’ve always wanted to make my parents proud so I just felt that no matter what I accomplished in school or through sport or whatever, it was never going to be enough because who I was at my core wasn’t pleasing to them or to God. I was like: “Why am I here? I don’t want to be here any more. I don’t want to be an abomination, I just want to die.”
C: Did you ever harm yourself?
L: I had a lot of thoughts but I never actually hurt myself. I would just wish that I would go to bed and not wake up. But I’m so happy not to be in that space any more. It’s so liberating to just be me, and my parents eventually came round and they are very supportive. They brag to their friends about my accomplishments, which is pretty cool, and the love has always been there. It’s the fear that people are going to judge your child, or ostracise you for supporting a kid who’s queer. There are a lot of layers, I am a person of colour, Latino, there’s the idea of a family name that we need to uphold, so I felt that pressure. But I think that everything is OK now.
C: What kind of stereotyping do you both experience?
L: I’m expected to always be this tough guy bro because I’m trans and because my gender expression is pretty masculine, and I think people are surprised when I queen out at a club. Because I’m just like whatever, I’m having fun and I’m dancing. If I go out with my queer or gay friends, I’m twirling around and feeling really free. When I go to straight bars with straight friends, I do feel the pressure to be more butch because I don’t want to be clocked by the straight guys and feel unsafe. So a bit of that does happen.
G: I don’t really see myself either way. I certainly can see how I present pretty masculine. I don’t know, I feel I’m just me. I kind of hate the masculine/ feminine thing. I feel I’m both of those things and everything and everyone has parts of all of it. I’m very compassionate, very sensitive, very caring and emotional and romantic and a lot of things that don’t necessarily get attributed to being masculine.
C: What does gender mean to you?
L: You mentioned that even in the gay community there is this division between what’s viewed as masculine and feminine and overall that has to do with the way that we view femininity and women in general. It’s why trans women, and feminine gay men, experience violence. It’s because the world views women and femininity as secondary and weak. Until there’s real gender equality, there will be that imbalance between what is masculine and feminine. Even though we are kind of trying to break that and just describe what we see.
G: It has to do with expressions. We perform our gender every day whether you identify as a man or a woman or anywhere in between, and it’s usually based on what we were taught, what society tells us is one or the other in the gender binary. We attribute masculine to male, and feminine to female but I think any gender can have both the attributes. That’s the most beautiful thing.
“I didn’t want to be an abomination. I just wanted to die” Laith