There’s no shame in queer joy

There’s something about celebrating one’s queerness that threatens a multitude of people; I’d even say that it poses a kind of existential dilemma for them. As someone quite public and open about this part of me, I’ve been at the receiving end of hostility a great number of times — particularly when I have been at my most jubilant.

I recently published a short, light-hearted article for The Guardian about how I incorporate the confidence I derive from doing drag shows into my everyday life. This includes shouting, “It’s Glamrou, motha-fuckas!” before stressful work meetings, and sometimes wearing the assaccentuating leather stage thong that makes me feel particularly powerful.

It didn’t take long for the now wellorganised army of British transphobes to jump on the article online. Once again, my Twitter mentions were a shitshow of accusations: “narcissist”, “fetishist”, “groomer”, “misogynist”, “freak” — the usual barrage of hate-fuelled drivel. Why a joke by a drag queen about wearing a thong could inspire such outrage is beyond me — especially when the world is quite literally burning — but it is part of a broader reactionary movement that positions genderqueer people as profoundly threatening.

I think part of the hate directed at us is because of our unashamed articulation of joy. Lots of people resign themselves to certain confines and constructs in life — some, of course, don’t have a choice in this matter — but I sense in those who attack my drag euphoria a harboured resentment: ‘Fuck you for having the fun that I’m not.’

The reason I think this is, well… because my mother once said those very words to me. After years of hellish fights, emotional abuse and long periods of not seeing each other, we finally decided to have it out. When I asked why my drag provoked such an extreme reaction from her, she said many things — but the one that stuck out to me the most was: “I hate being a woman. It’s so hard. And you, my son, decides to dress up as one?! Even though you get to be born a man? That really pisses me off.”

What I heard from her was a painful confession. Femininity for her had been a lifelong burden, especially as a Muslim woman raised in Iraq; what she saw in my exaltation of femininity was a kind of liberty denied of her. It made me empathise with her position deeply; it wasn’t coming from hate, but from trauma. And it helped me forgive a great deal of what happened in my childhood.

What my mother continues to ignore, however, is that my queer freedom has also come at a huge cost — with it has come years of societal violence, familial exclusion, mental health issues, you name it. Not dissimilar to the way in which Pride month only celebrates the glossy, palatable elements of LGBTQ+ culture, my mother can only see my expressed freedom for its surface value — even only as a direct ‘fuck you’ to her.

And this is the feeling I get from the movement against genderqueer expression — an inability to see that we too are traumatised by the confines of gender, and that we are also trying to find our own way through it. Masculinity for me was a violent pressure that led to all kinds of hurt growing up; it is only in embodying my femme self that I feel any kind of freedom or happiness.

I long for a world where our queerness can be accepted as a symbol of hope to all, as something to galvanise, rather than to punish. Rather than recycle past suffering onto the next person, I hope we can get to a place where we praise each other with our joy instead.

“My Twitter mentions were a shitshow of accusations: ‘narcissist’, ‘fetishist’, ‘groomer’, ‘misogynist’, ‘freak’ — the usual hate-filled drivel”