Harry Nicholas told us she had wanted to know ‘what spaces I could take up’, when she really meant ‘what single sex male spaces I could cosplay in’ …
The blurby bit
Babes! We’re celebrating the launch of A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar and we’d love for you to join us!
Expect unapologetic queer performances, raucous laugher and Big Queer Energy with performances from Harry Nicholas, Shivani Dave as Dishi Sumac and Adam Zmith. Followed by an in-depth Q+A with Ryan Butcher (Head of News at PinkNews).
Books will be available to buy and sign on the evening.
Doors: 6.30pm. First performance: 7.15pm.
About the performers
Harry Nicholas (he/him) is an author and campaigner. He has contributed to publications in The Guardian, BBC Newsbeat, Metro, Huffington Post and BBC3’s viral video ‘things not to say to a trans person‘. A Trans Man Walks into A Gay Bar is his first book.
Shivani Dave (they/ them) is a journalist and broadcaster, specializing in LGBTQ+ news, culture, and history. They have made the multi-award-winning podcast, The Log Books – sharing untold stories of Britain’s Queer History, and Black and Gay, Back in the Day – bringing to life a photo archive of Black LGBTQIA+ history from the 1970s to 2000. In drag they perform as Dishi Sumac, the only Tory you would want to see in his pants.
Adam Zmith (he/him) is a writer and podcast producer. His book Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures (Repeater Books, 2021) won the Polari First Book Prize and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. He is the writer and producer of the BBC podcast series The Film We Can’t See, and co-producer of The Log Books podcast. He’s always working on a novel, and is writing more non-fiction books including one about foot fetishes.
From Eventbrite
The book
Written by ‘Harry’ Nicholas, the book is exactly what the title suggests it to be, a woman’s experience of cos-playing as gay in the world of the sauna and Grindr. As per the usual, a roll call of trans activists provide the endorsements. There’s an overwrought endorsement from fellow heterosexual trans activist Fox Fisher, damning with faint praise from Christine Burns, but Daniel Harding, author of the book Gay Man Talking, gives it a thumbs-up. Nicholas also writes for Pink News and is just 26 years old (according to her Twitter bio).
The audience
Mostly the audience was made up of trans-identified females, many of whom passed and, of course, Nicholas’s friends and family with a notable trans activist or three, here and there. Three (presumably gay) men were sat at a table together. I got the impression they were there out of morbid ally curiosity, and, despite clapping in all the right places, one could not take his face out of a rictus of bemusement, whilst another held a poker face to rival mine.
The opening speech
Nicholas told us that she had chosen the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, booking it a year in advance, because it was a very special place to her, being her ‘first gay boy night out’. It was also the place Freddie Mercury was fabled to have bought Princess Diana (both died well before Nicholas was knee high to a grasshopper) and the place Lily Savage made his name (ditto). It was a place she could go on a pilgrimage to find her true self and have a night of ‘gay debauchery’. Mum and dad were also sat dutifully in the audience to listen about to their once lesbian daughter talk about her desire to be a gay slag. The two acts had been invited along to celebrate ‘queer masculinities’. The break would be a chance to buy the book and to ‘have a fag and a cigarette outside’ (bad-dum-tish).
Also in the audience was the man (who, as far I can tell, really is a man) she is due to marry. Liam Beattie previously worked as a policy officer for the Terence Higgins Trust and is now Public Affairs Adviser at Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Trustee at Sex Education Forum (who have form for putting out incredibly dodgy materials – see here and here for examples). Interestingly there has been a distinct uptick in magazine pieces featuring trans people/issues at the RCN since Beattie’s appointment in April 2022 – see here.
The reading
The book starts from the point of Nicholas’s break up with her long term girlfriend, who Nicholas dated well before identifying as the opposite sex, and had been with for several years. She had identified as a lesbian at first. After starting testosterone she had a growing attraction to men and post break-up she had the ‘realisation’ she had never had a ‘boyhood’ and was now a ‘single gay man’. Therefore the world of dating, dating apps and alt twitter accounts (cue knowing laughing from some) were a new world to her. ‘Queer spaces’ has long time been a phrase trotted out by LGBT activists, mainly to bemoan the demise of them, and Nicholas told us she had wanted to know ‘what spaces I could take up’, when she really meant ‘what single sex male spaces I could cosplay in’. She spoke of her nervousness of going into male spaces and thus the reading was about her first night out as a ‘gay trans man’, which happened to be at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
It was my first night out at the RVT as a gay boy and I successfully pulled the hottest boy in there. […] He turned to look at me, his eyes catching and holding onto mine. I felt my body and face blush. I held my gaze back at him, I swallowed and held onto the red pillar next to me like a life raft. […] I told him I was trans on the dance floor, just before I’d asked whether he wanted to come back to mine. “I’m a trans man,” I said, surprised at how confident and matter of fact I sounded. […] “That’s cool,” he said, “I know you already from Twitter.” […] When is the right time? Before you kiss? Post make-out? Feels a bit too vague. In the cab? That feels too dangerous. […] Just before sex? I didn’t want to get myself in too much of a vulnerable position, as I was hoping to save that til later.
Harry Nicholas reading from her book
Thus, Nicholas’s first night out as a ‘gay man’ involved snogging and ‘coming out’ to a man who knew fine well she was female.
The reading rounded off with Nicholas complaining about ‘cis privilege’ and, what all gay men naturally worry about: ‘Had he been with someone with a pussy before?’ She watched him rest in the cab whilst lights from the traffic flashed outside. Nice filmic touch there. Any resemblances to Twilight or being adolescent are entirely coincidental.
The incredible queer acts
Adam Zmith
Zmith identifies as a tank top bum boy. Just joking, I have no idea how Smith-with-a-Z identifies, but tank top bum boy is probably a good match as any. Stiffly coming onto the stage in too tight a see-through vest and jockstrap, turgid penis on alert (well, sort of), Zmith talked through a poem what he wrote about poppers (i.e. really dreary prose) exhorting the virtues of the popper as a recreational drug. Zmith has won plaudits for his book on poppers, yet in the long few minutes we listened to him drone on, he failed to mention the principal function of poppers as an anal relaxant, nor that they are a poor man’s recreational drug, given the high lasts about a nanosecond if you’re lucky. He claimed that poppers had been around since 1844 and expressed sadness and confusion brands carried testosterone-fuelled names like Rock Hard, Iron and Fist. Given that poppers, like all inhalants, cause permanent brain cell damage, perhaps Zmith can be excused? In act of daring at the end, Zmith and Nicholas sniffed a popper together.
Dishi Sumac aka Shivani Dave
Dishi Sumac (geddit) mimed to a Rishi Sumak speech, which was some cutting edge comedy act, believe me. The finale predictably involved her getting her non-baps out. Groundbreaking.
The interview
The interviewer
Ryan John Butcher, head of news at Pink News (I know, the jokes are effortless here), was on hand to interview Nicholas. I imagine that Pink News has some financial vested interest in the book as Butcher interviewed Nicholas showing very little interest in her as a person, nor her ‘extraordinary’ story.
Butcher recently deleted his Twitter account after pushback when he defended the trans-identified male rapist Isla Bryson being ‘deadnamed’ as Adam Graham. So although Butcher’s demeanour during the interview couldn’t quite pass muster as a true ally to Nicholas, we can be certain that he is a true ally to the cause nevertheless. Though of course he is, working at Pink News.
Butcher began by lamely joking that he was contractually obliged to say that the book was on sale at the venue, failing to spot that was entirely appropriate for a book launch.
Why did you write the book?
Gap in the market. Loads of books about what it means to be gay and trans joy, but so far no one had broached the complexity of being trans and gay, like going online and buying a jockstrap when you don’t have a willy, and the pressure she found herself under not having a certain body, i.e. a willy.
Memoir is a difficult medium, having to balance truth and create a piece of interesting writing, how did you manage that?
Truth is subjective, Nicholas told us. For example, her parents have their own truth, as do the people in the audience who she had slept with. Her editor had been really helpful in terms of making it legally watertight, which included changing names and places (if you want some idea of how new Nicholas was to the form). Butcher suggested her parents deserved a round of applause and the audience duly obliged. Nicholas paid tribute to them, explaining they were from a small village.
Why did you start the book from the moment of discovering your new identity?
Nicholas started with the break up with her girlfriend, who she was with for five years, as she had gone through her whole transition with her and had never known her masculinity in any other context. She wanted to do a different type of trans memoir and start after transition.
How did you tackle writing about trans identity when you’re writing at such a difficult time?
Well, it was very difficult, Nicholas reflected. All the online and physical abuse is just too much. She wanted to write a book which would help all gay trans men before realising that everyone is an individual and therefore could only speak her own truth. She didn’t want to compare writing a book to those who had gone before her, who had ‘made immense sacrifices for queerness’. As she researched, she had found gay and trans people who had been buried in history. Nicholas dropped in some other loaded language gems, like ‘trans people have always existed’ and ‘I visited the archives’ but failed to mention a single example. She claimed to have been researching the issues since she was 13 and owned an iPhone. When she started researching (aka Googling) she had been traumatised by the term ‘gender identity disorder’. This had made her feel like she was a ‘disordered’ person.
You’re now part of that experience of being a gay male and trans.
Yes, said Nicholas, eagerly, and went onto to talk about the ‘trans fag tipping point’, which turned out just to be a puff piece about her own book in Pink News and not an actual cultural phenomenon. Though to be fair, one the three finalists of a bear competition in the Netherlands is a trans-identified female called Bappie, so maybe it is, who knows?
Nicholas continued that ‘trans people are so hot’ and that lots of people were going to want to have sex with you (that was for the latent TIFs in the audience, of which there were a few). The Pink News piece boasts that regular men want to sleep with trans-identified females, suggesting that The T-Boys Club was a place this happened, but on their Instagram I could only see photos of women sporting bilateral mastectomies.
Why was it important for you to hold the book launch here?
Butcher asked the question that Nicholas had already addressed in her opening speech. Nicholas came out with some guff about being able to feel the history seeping from the brickwork, which made her feel closer to her history, heritage and her gayness, in terms of being able to take up space. It didn’t feel like ‘gay trans men’ were always able to access gay male spaces but the Tavern was one space which was unapologetically inclusive. When she was growing up she had been impressed by the people who had performed here, like Travis Alabanza (snort) and all the cool people who were coming there now. Butcher suggested a cheer for the Tavern. More moronic applause.
You write about swimming, the Men’s Pond and ‘hydroeroticism’. Why do you think there is an intrinsic link between being queer and water?
Nicholas congratulated herself on having coined the term ‘hydroeroticism’, so I googled it. Not only did several fairly old academic references pop up, (one from John Hopkins University being ‘hydro-eroticism signifies two interventions: first, how aqueous locations become sites of queer community and punishment …’), but also a plethora of hard core porn videos and references, mainly about shower heads. All entirely predictable.
Nicholas innocently told us that swimming was important to her, as her parents took her and her brother to swimming classes as a child and that her body had felt really natural in the water (completely unique experience, eh?). Post-transition she realised that it was even more important because ‘changing rooms are gendered’ and that meant putting your body on show. This was very tricky but when she looked at it through a gay lens she realised that David Hockney had used it a lot in his art and of course there is the Men’s Pond. Thus swimming and water are queer. Also, queer and gay people all connect with this idea when they are younger of the swimming pool being an acceptable place to look and to be looked at by other people (unless you’re from a deeply religious conservative background, which I guess she isn’t).
Speaking of water, is it time to talk about about gay saunas?
‘Yeah, it is,’ said Nicholas, like a veteran. The first time she visited one was when she had been returning home from a night out at the Tavern, so about 3am in the morning, and had gotten the wrong bus home, accidentally-on-purpose it sounded like. Saunas were safe warm spaces, yet could only be accessed by men. This was unfair because there were a lot of women who face all kinds of dangers getting home, yet they had no sauna they could go to.
Nicholas was very afraid that first time, being naked save for a towel. Well actually, she had pants on too, because she was so terrified. Nevertheless she was dead chuffed being let in and luxuriated in the feeling of being able to access her queer heritage. There was an orgy going on just next to her but she was more comfortable watching a news channel on one of the screens instead. She knew other people who had felt they had to do the same ‘because, yeah, it’s vile,’ she let slip. She then stressed that not all saunas were trans inclusive and that a trans policy may just be lip service. Nicholas worries every time she goes to one, but ‘for some reason there is a pull for me to be in those spaces’ because ‘queer history’.
She claimed that ‘cis gay men’ she had spoken to were also afraid of these spaces. She was now part of a Whatsapp group of trans-identified females who visit gay saunas, describing it as ‘really sweet’, proving that while women are talking about it, men just do it.
Gay men are experiencing problems with their spaces as well but what is so brilliant about your book is that you speak about the negative experiences of being a gay man. Why was it important for you to focus on the less glamorous side of gay life?
Matthew Todd speaks about this really well in his book Straight Jacket, that there was a cycle of drugs, despair and sex and that this was a cycle of behaviour, said Nicholas. (Todd is the editor of Attitude, the gay lifestyle magazine.) Nicholas admitted that she had put herself in a lot of danger, having slept around a lot – a new person every couple of days prior to the pandemic. Basically she wanted entry to the group by acting out the behaviour she thought she ought to have. Nicholas said she was able to cut this cycle of behaviour, as described by Todd, because the lockdown meant she couldn’t go out anymore. Both points seem to suggest that her default setting is compliance.
There were far more similarities than differences between being trans, queer and gay, she claimed, but didn’t name them.
There’s a lot in the book for cis people too.
Yes, Nicholas agreed, there was a bit in the book about going into a pharmacist and asking for the morning after pill. Which, of course, is a completely universal experience for the alphabet bag, isn’t it? ‘The pharmacist was like you are a man, you cannot get pregnant,’ Nicholas said, clearly chuffed she had been refused.
You have obviously experienced a lot of intersectionality in your queer spaces.
‘My lesbian to gay man timeline,’ Nicholas corrected with a line she had clearly said many times before, to whoops and applause from the audience and a customary snigger from me. Any normal sane person would want to spend time unpacking this a bit, but no, Butcher ploughed ahead with the question.
What entices you to queer spaces now, whether that be here or cruising?
Nicholas now feels comfortable in spaces as a fully transitioned ‘trans man’ but recognises that she had a girlhood and feels she understands how patriarchy and misogyny operate in gay spaces. Prior to testosterone she would get pushed out the way at the bar in a gay space but after testosterone that changed.
When she started testosterone she would walk down the street and count who would move out of her way. It was always ‘the girls’ who would move out her way, neatly revealing that she had been prepared to move out the way of the oncoming men. However, she did correctly ascertain that this spoke to women making space for men and that this made her feel uncomfortable. She believes she has a unique perspective on how male privilege operates and that she hoped other trans-identified females would seek to put out a more positive type of masculinity (presumably not the kind which trolls innocent women going about their daily business?). Stilted applause followed, almost as if the room was acknowledging the cognitive dissonance on display.
What do you hope people take away from the book?
Nicholas said that putting out the book in ‘this climate’ was ‘crazy and scary’ and that she had a lot of support behind the scenes. From what, she didn’t say. There were two main things she wanted people to know, one was that ‘trans people were hot’ and that people would want to have sex with you, and two was that ‘they could love and be loved’. People had said that to her when she had announced her intention to transition, and although she recognised it had been said with the best of intentions, it had hurt and she wanted to dispel that.
They closed the interview then. It wasn’t possible to ask questions but Nicholas said she was happy to be approached separately at the bookstand.
Final thought
Male spaces, like gay saunas, where men seek anonymous sex with multiple other men, aren’t for women to enter, and frankly it is a little bit sad they are, despite being scared about what might happen. Even a preliminary perusal of the main London sauna websites was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. Harry Nicholas appears to have written a book how jolly all this is, likely to be lapped up by younger women thinking they too can become ‘gay men’. Let’s hope nothing goes wrong.
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