JK Rowling - Part Two

You know that thing, when you have something you're in the middle of, and you keep promising yourself you'll come back to it and finish it off, because it's only been a few weeks? Well, this is exactly how I felt when I came back to the keyboard to write the the second part of my blog article about JK Rowling--except that it's been over a year since the first instalment!

Mind you, this span of time has allowed me to think a little more about some of the issues raised in the previous part of the article. I've also been collecting quotes and snippets from around the web to inform this discussion, and of course, it's clear that JK Rowling hasn't mellowed in her views.

Ironic: Robert Galbraith

Moving on from the last two articles, the next thing which I think is pertinent is the publication of Troubled Blood, the fifth in Rowling's series of crime novels. While the book was published in September 2020, early reviews noted that there was a scene where a serial killer approaches a victim wearing a wig and a woman's coat. The Telegraph reviewer Jake Kerridge couldn't resist commenting on this:

Kerridge: One wonders what critics of Rowling's stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.

The thing is, the "man in a dress" passage is one paragraph long, in a book of 900 pages. One can hardly call this the moral of the whole novel! Predictably, however, there was a storm of hatred about JK Rowling on Twitter and other social media platforms, from people who could not possibly have read the book, because it hadn't yet been published. Nick Cohen reviewed the novel in the Spectator:

Cohen: The 'evidence' that provoked the malice was so flimsy, even Twitter should have been embarrassed to publish it. (...) No honest person who takes the trouble to read it can see the novel as transphobic. But then honest people are hard to find in a culture war. The men and women pouring out their loathing of Rowling online could not have read the unreleased book: not that their ignorance bothered them in the slightest, as no mob on rampage in history has ever stopped to read a novel. 

Does anyone else find it terribly ironic that JK Rowling is so opposed to trans people, what she considers men pretending to be women, and yet she herself has adopted a male nom de plume, Robert Galbraith, in her crime writing? Agatha Christie never did that!

Where Rowling is wrong

In the previous article, I point out some points that Rowling has made which I believe genuinely have merit. I do have concerns about the role and status of women in our society. I do worry about some people weaponising trans rights in order to further their own toxic agenda. And I'm completely in support of free speech, and open debate.

There's one more point she makes, in Episode 4 of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling:

Rowling: People are terrified, terrified of speaking up. So I really was starting to feel this moral obligation. I knew what was coming, but I thought other people, there are people who probably, if I’m honest, probably could speak and don’t want to speak.

This point resonated with me, and my views after reading Galileo's Middle Finger: that hardly anyone is pursuing good science about trans people, because if they dare to reach a conclusion which the trans activists find unpalatable, they will be mercilessly hounded for it, as Michael Bailey was. Rowling is talking here about women who oppose trans rights, but I think her point is broader: that there are people who are fearful of speaking out because of the consequences of doing so.

Orwellian views: Rowling

But let's start to pull apart where JK Rowling is wrong, because realistically there is plenty. It boils down to this view (quoted from here):

Rowling: I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

So ultimately, Rowling is saying that if you have a penis, even if you are a trans woman, you are at least a potential threat to "natal" girls and women. And this Orwellian tweet, from December 2021, really doubles down on that view.

The thing is, though, this theory doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatever. If a predatory man really wants to get access to women, there's literally nothing to stop him putting on overalls and carrying a mop, and pretending to be the janitor. He's likely to meet far less resistance than if he puts on a wonky wig and a badly-fitting dress. And if he's really a predator, he's going to attack women in any place they may be vulnerable, such as coming out of the pub late at night.

Professor Judith Butler, a gender studies scholar, makes this point in The New Statesman:

Butler: The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise.

Other commentators have rightly pointed out the absurdity of checking people's genitals before they're allowed into a public bathroom. Another issue is that, in many parts of Europe, public swimming-pool changing rooms are not segregated by gender, and in Scandinavia it's normal to enter the sauna naked, for men and women, and has been for decades.

Get your stickers here!

In Ireland, it became the law in 2015 that you could legally change your gender simply by filling in a form: no medical testing or declaration from your doctor is required. How many attacks on women have there been in Ireland, since 2015, by transwomen? None--that I could find. There are a few transwomen in prison in Ireland, and there is one individual in Scotland who raped two women prior to transitioning and was convicted in 2023 (causing the government to halt plans to allow legal gender transition in a similar way to Ireland). (And how many women have been jailed for sexual assault during this time?)

What that means, in my view, is that Rowling is purporting to be concerned about women, but is using this concern to mask her prejudices. The data simply do not bear out her concerns.

So how do we handle all this?

So what are we to do? Those of us who love the stories of Harry Potter, who admire the literary achievements of JK Rowling, and her philanthropic work, but can't agree with her views on trans women? I admit, it's really hard! Is it possible to both like Harry Potter and disagree with JK Rowling?

I think there's a genuine disconnect between the message that JK Rowling seems to have put into her books--

Rowling: The amazing thing about the Wizarding World is, you walk through that wall in Diagon Alley. And while human nature remains the same--and that’s something that I was setting out to depict, human nature remains the same--if you can do magic, the ludicrous things that we discriminate about in the Muggle world really are utterly immaterial.

--and Rowling's deep-seated anti-trans views:

Rowling: I’m constantly told I don’t understand my own books. I’m constantly told that I have betrayed my own books. My position is that I am--absolutely I am--holding the positions that I took in Potter. My position is that this [trans] activist’s movement, in the form that it’s currently taking echoes the very thing that I was warning against in Harry Potter.

Again it must be really difficult for Rowling: she's created this beautiful thing, that so many people value so highly, and yet now she has a viewpoint which is at odds with it--or at least, with nearly everyone else's view of it-- and she's trying to double down to say that trans activism equates with the forces of evil in Harry Potter. How many trans children have read the books, and imagined what they would see if they looked into the magic Mirror of Erised?

What the Mirror of Erised shows

I would argue that, of course it's possible to enjoy Harry Potter while disagreeing with JK Rowling's views on trans people. I further argue that debates (especially ones on the internet) easily become too polarised: you're either fully in support of JK Rowling, or you are sending her death threats, no middle ground. The truth, of course, is that we're all capable of being more nuanced than that, and that is the central message of my article. Even Rowling herself is capable of nuance:

Rowling: I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

Is JK OK?

I actually think JK Rowling is hurting. She was once the powerless victim of an abusive husband. Now she has become enormously powerful and influential in her own right. She's used her status to make a point, no doubt well-meaning, in defence of women, and it has blown up in her face, resulting in painful backlashes, not just from the radical trans activists on the internet, but from her beloved fans, the actors who were in her movies, and other writers. It must be very difficult to face up to that hatred, when you were only trying to help, and it must really hurt.

Now, of course, she's dug herself in. She can't back out now. And why should she (she may ask herself)? She's JK Rowling! She's far bigger and more important than these losers on the internet! And by engaging with the haters, and by digging herself in deeper, she has got herself into a position she cannot possibly win, and cannot get out of. And people who are hurting lash out, and say hurtful things, which is what she's doing. I envy her enormous success in the literary world, but I do not envy the position she is in. You cannot fight hatred with hatred.

Is there a way to fix this? The most obvious way would be for JK Rowling to back down, to recant some of her views. From everything I've read (and it's been a lot) about this topic, I do not believe she can, or will. In her most recent article, published only a few days ago in the Independent, she says that loved ones "begged" her to keep her views on trans women to herself. It's likely they predicted exactly the shit-storm that she now finds herself in.

The next-best way would be for JK Rowling to do two things: first, stop making statements about trans women completely (let things settle down), and second, stop engaging with social media platforms. Rowling is wealthy and privileged enough that she can absolutely afford to isolate herself completely from social media, and surround herself with people who love her. I think, for her own emotional health, that's what she should do. That daily barrage of internet hatred is just too corrosive; the trolls too hungry to not be fed.

But I think she won't do either of those things. She has come to see herself as a champion of oppressed women, a defender of voiceless and downtrodden victims. As long as she casts herself in this role, she won't step back without feeling she's abandoning her needy followers, however imaginary their number may be.

Trans students at Hogwarts?

Not quite real: Sirona Ryan

The immersive computer game Hogwarts Legacy, released in 2023, features the Harry Potter franchise's first openly transgender character, Sirona Ryan, voiced by trans actress Rebecca Root. Apparently this character was introduced without any input from JK Rowling, though it's not clear if she actually objected. I was disappointed that the reviews were affected (according to the Wikipedia article) by perceptions of JK Rowling's views, even though she plainly had basically nothing to do with the creation of the video game.

Sirona Ryan isn't a student at Hogwarts (we haven't come that far) but a character that the player can encounter in the game.

There are so many ironies here. JK Rowling was once poor, powerless and unhappy. Now she is wealthy, powerful--and still unhappy. She wrote a series of books about inclusion and acceptance and discovering your true self--and then goes on to upset many of her fans by denying that acceptance to trans women. A trans character has been put into a Harry Potter game without her involvement. She protests about people she considers men posing as women, yet has adopted a male pseudonym for her crime writing.

But the final irony comes from Rowling herself, in Episode 2 of The Witch Trials, where she talks about certainty (my italics for emphasis):

Rowling: There’s a huge appeal--and I try to show this in the Potter books--to black and white thinking. It’s the easiest place to be, and in many ways is the safest place to be. If you take an all-or-nothing position on anything, you will definitely find comrades. You will easily find a community, I’ve sworn allegiance to this one simple idea.

What I tried to show in the Potter books--and what I feel very strongly myself--we should mistrust ourselves most when we are certain. And we should question ourselves most when we receive a rush of adrenaline by doing or saying something. Many people mistake that rush of adrenaline for the voice of conscience. “I’ve got a rush from saying that, I’m right.”

In my worldview, conscience speaks in a very small and inconvenient voice, and it’s normally saying to you “think again, look more deeply, consider this.”

I wonder if JK Rowling could take a look in the mirror, and reflect on those words. No magic would be required.

While writing this, I've come across quite a lot more of JK's statements on trans people, and I'm certain they're going to be cropping up in future posts!

JK Rowling - Part One

The controversy around J.K. Rowling and her comments about the trans community is continuing to rumble on. There are passionate people on both sides, and the issue is not going away. The Independent writes that "The situation has now become a toxic brew of prejudice, misinformation and tragedy. How has it come to this?" It's finally time for me to take a proper look at the whole business. And, as I've often discovered when writing about a complex subject, there just isn't room in one article to put it all in, so I've decided to split this one into two parts.

The background

First, it's well worthwhile starting at the beginning. J.K. Rowling was (basically) a penniless single mother when she wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The book and its many sequels have gone on to be stratospherically successful, making her the most popular author ever. Along with this success, there have been several very positive externalities. Her books became popular with children, which encouraged them to read--many kids (including sadly, one of mine) will only read stuff on a screen, not on a page. Along with this welcome boost in literacy, the translations of the books into other languages (you can even get the first one in Latin) has improved linguistic skill too.

Joanne Rowling, the artist known as JK

Second, the popularity of Harry Potter affected the publishing industry too. The manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was rejected by twelve publishers (I bet they're all sorry!), before being picked up by Bloomsbury, who were, at the time, a very small publishing company. The success of Harry Potter has made Bloomsbury one of the largest publishing companies in the world. And many other authors, such as Philip Pullman, have experienced a welcome boost in their reading figures, as the newly-invigorated reading public started looking for other books while they were waiting for the next Harry Potter book. It's no exaggeration to say that Harry Potter has changed the face of publishing.

Third, adults have got in on the books too. They even started to print Harry Potter books with more "adult" covers, so that adults reading them in public places wouldn't be embarrassed by being seen reading what was ostensibly a children's book. I have devoured all seven of the Harry Potter books, and loved reading every page, and plainly I'm not alone.

Fourth, while Rowling has earned a huge fortune, she has also given away literally millions, to all sorts of charities and good causes. So her career as a philanthropist is not to be sneezed at either. And she's more than a little bit gorgeous, if I may say so. And I know two people who have interacted with her for a decent period of time and said she was thoroughly lovely in person.

Rowling and Gender

Rowling's first (publicised) encounter with gender was the name on the cover of her books. Bloomsbury decided that her books would be most popular among boys, and it was felt that they would be less likely to read a book if they thought it was written by a woman. Therefore, she was asked to put her initials on instead, to conceal her gender. Unfortunately, Rowling has no legal middle initial, so she chose the initial K from her paternal grandmother Kathleen, and the name J.K. Rowling was born.

...and stand well back.

But the big problem began on June 6th, 2020, when Rowling read an article on Devex which spoke about "people who menstruate", and took to Twitter with her response.

She's clearly using (clumsy) humour to drive home her point. This tweet was the blue touchpaper which led to the massive explosion of anger from (it seems) almost every quarter; not least many of her loyal fans, who had found great resonance in the story of Harry Potter, a lonely, unloved outcast boy who finds his true identity and place in the world. At that point, Rowling doubled down, again in a series of tweets:

Rowling: If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women—i.e., to male violence—‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences—is a nonsense.

I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.

Putting it in a nutshell: Rubin

I'm interested by the statement "I know and love trans people". This statement sounds a bit like the vague "some of my best friends" statement that people make when they are unsuccessfully trying to pretend they're not prejudiced against another group of people.

Since then many prominent people, including many actors from the Harry Potter films, and several large fan groups, have made statements either in opposition to Rowling's position, or in support of trans people. These are people who owe their own success and fame (and wealth) to Rowling's work, so for them to come out so publicly in opposition to her views is not trivial.

I don't need to spell out all the ructions blow by blow. There's a lot of detail on the Wikipedia page, and also excellent summary articles on Glamour.com and The Scotsman which go into much more depth.

"I don't believe it's hateful to say so"

While all this was unfolding, I wasn't too troubled. I admit, as a fan of both her stories and the woman herself, I was disappointed to hear her make these statements, but I wasn't angry or hurt. It's worth picking them apart a little. First, what she was saying was clinging to the old idea that biological sex denotes gender and that this situation is immutable. Some of the tweets she received, as quoted in The Scotsman, point out that there are plenty of women who don't menstruate.

Tweeter: I, a 37 year old woman with a uterus, have not menstruated in a decade. Women are not defined by their periods.

Not a joke: death threats

But, she isn't directly attacking anyone. It's worth re-reading her statement above, that she recognises that trans women are vulnerable to male violence, and that she supports their right to live in any way which feels "authentic and comfortable"--except she goes on to then say "but I'm female; you're not the same as me".

"I don't believe it's hateful to say so". Actually, I don't either. I think she's expressing an opinion. I think that opinion is wrong (and surely this blog has plenty of material to back up why I think that!), but the opinion is hers to express, and I believe she should be free to do so.

Of course, I don't know what was going through Rowling's mind when she met that backlash. I genuinely think she meant well. I think she probably has had sympathy for trans women. I think she meant to support women like herself, who have been the victim of male violence (and she has). I think she has been surprised, and probably hurt, by what has happened. People have showered her with hate messages; made death threats; burned her books (!). But when you're hurting, and you're one of the wealthiest, and most influential people in the world, then it must be really difficult not to hit back--and this is where she started digging in, and making things worse. She wrote this essay on her website, and it's worth a read.

Rowling: Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF. (...)

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

Here she goes again, using clumsy ridicule to put down her opponents. Of course nobody is suggesting that people are like clownfish--but it's clear she's unwilling to consider that her position may be wrong, or at least that she shouldn't use biology to attempt to back it up. Otherwise, her essay is articulate (of course!) and reasoned.

Where Rowling is right

I need to say that, from my perspective, some of what Rowling says is right (which is to say, that I think it is right!). I just want to unpick some of that just now.

Got a point: Rowling

First, I do have concerns about the position of women in our society. I see, for example, that hospitals have renamed their facilities from things like Labour Ward to things like Birthing Suite; the former term emphasising the medicalisation of an unpleasant experience; the latter term being more positive and welcoming. Departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology have been renamed things like Women's Health, again to stress the positive aspects of what they are trying to do: to promote the health of women. This isn't just a trivial rebranding: it's the outward manifestation of hard-won gains in the status of women over the decades. It's partly a recognition that pregnancy isn't a disease, which needs to be treated in hospitals, but a natural (and positive!) state for women to be in.

But now, with the rise of transmen becoming pregnant (this is definitely a future subject for this blog), we're having to change our language. In my hospital, we're now talking about "pregnant people" rather than "pregnant women", so that we don't inadvertently exclude those who are pregnant but identify as men. We're doing this to include a tiny percentage of our patient population, but I do worry that we may be making these concessions to the few, at the expense of the many; robbing them of our overt recognition of their status as women. If we want to include everyone, that needs to come without a cost to existing groups.

Second, I do worry about how some people (including some trans people) are weaponising what should be a welcome progression toward a more open and inclusive society, in order to further their own toxic agendas. There are examples here on this blog.

I definitely think the response to anything which is vaguely transphobic is pounced upon, and it is widely circulated on social media, in order to stir up hatred. A core group of hardliners seemingly just waits to find something--anything!--to hit out at. I have absolutely encountered this personally. Whenever I dare to disagree with a trans person on social media or Quora, on any topic, their knee-jerk response is to call me transphobic--when in fact the complete opposite is the case. It makes it very difficult to actually have a dialogue, because people see any statement which is not wholly supportive of their position as an out-and-out attack.

Misinterpreting: Wiens

One personal example comes from Quora. The question was How do you feel about the rise of pre-teen children coming out as transgender? and my answer begins "Surprisingly uncomfortable, even as a trans person myself. Why? Because the right research hasn't been done. It hasn't even been done in adults." This statement was pounced upon by a Quoran called Tamara Wiens, who called me "infuriating" and "deeply transphobic". Eventually, however, she gave up. The upper part of this screenshot is Tamara's words, although you can read the whole conversation if you're a Quora member. (Be warned; like all social media, Quora is pretty addictive!).

I'm using this example for several reasons; first, as an illustration of how a mild statement ("uncomfortable") can be misinterpreted as hatred or transphobia by someone who is looking for an argument. Second, to highlight my own view that we do need to be pretty careful about how we treat transgender children. This is something that JK Rowling has expressed concerns about. Third, because it actually remained a conversation, rather than degenerating into a slanging match (I don't participate in those). Some people become very offensive, or block me completely.

The third point I want to make is that I'm absolutely in support of free speech. In this, Rowling and I are completely aligned:

Rowling: The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

She's referring, of course, not just to banning her books before the gender furore, but because her books were banned in some parts of the US because some people believed that children's stories about magic being cool are un-Christian. I wish I were making this up.

Alamogordo, New Mexico, 2001

That's why, of course, I'm arguing that JK Rowling should be free to make her points. They are hers to make. She does not deserve hatred; she does not deserve death threats. And in the magnificent words of Henry Jones, Sr: "Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books, instead of burning them".

This article is already quite long enough, and there's lots more to talk about! The interesting (recent) development is that Rowling has teamed up with podcaster Megan Phelps-Roper, to produce an extended interview to put her points across: The Witch-Trials of JK Rowling. I've already listened to the first episode (there are seven). I must say I thought the podcast would be an extended, fawning hagiography of Rowling; after all, she's not going to grant a lengthy audience with someone who is really going to challenge her, or to present her in a bad light.

The Guardian has it absolutely right:

Guardian: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is a strange podcast. Rowling’s careful, crisp mind contrasts with host Megan Phelps-Roper’s mushy Christian desire to be as kind and evenhanded as possible. That’s not to say that the podcast isn’t interesting – it is – just that it’s uneven and reeeally streeetched out. It needs a far tougher editor.

But my full thoughts on all of that will need to wait for next time. Click here for the next thrilling instalment!

Transgender Actors

Here's a question. You want to make a film where a transgender character is the lead. Do you need to cast a transgender actor or actress in the role?

Victor Polster in Girl (2018)

For mainstream cinema at least, the choice is easy: you pick a cisgender actor or actress and cast them. That has been true over many years, from Felicity Huffman in Transamerica to Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto, to Terence Stamp in Priscilla, right up to Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl and most recently Victor Polster in Girl.

For some trans people, this is definitely a problem. The film Girl, which I haven't yet seen, has stirred up quite a lot of protest, in particular because there seems to be a lot of depiction of genitalia. Several questions about transgender actors have been debated on Quora, and some of the answers and comments are very interesting. All of the quotes come from Quora and are unchanged from the original authors' text, though they are not all in response to the same question.

The first comment people make is that there are plenty of trans actors out there now.

Elliott Mason: There are hundreds of working trans actors, of all stripes and appearances. If none of them are considered "bankable" it's because productions won't cast them to play cis, but won't let them play trans either.

Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl (2015)

This is a very fair point: if you are a trans actor, then you might find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place: no trans roles-- and no cis ones either!

The next point is that it’s not acceptable to have black or Asian parts played by white actors in makeup—and for the same reason we should have trans actors playing trans characters.

Joanne C Wittstock: There was a time when women were not allowed on stage. Then a time when no suitable black actors were available and the roles went to whites. For decades there were apparently no Asians with theatrical skills. The frontier is slowly moving. To a large extent trans people are the visible minority of this moment.

I completely take this point. One of the things which spoils what would otherwise be one of my favourite ever movies, Breakfast at Tiffany's, is the dreadful "comic relief" turn of Mickey Rooney in yellowface as Mr. Yunioshi. And one of the best of the classic Doctor Who stories, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, features John Bennet in the role of the villainous Li H'Sen Chang. This time, it's not played for laughs, but the show still manages to throw in some dreadful Chinese stereotypes. The few actual Asian actors in the production are relegated to non-speaking parts.

Another common theme is the failure of Hollywood to recognise the legitimacy of trans people themselves; instead making them out to be a pretence.

Helena Almagest: The persistent practice of Hollywood to have cis men portray trans women and cis women trans men promotes the misconception that transgender is merely a disguise, and that trans women are merely men dressing up, and trans men, women dressing up. A misconception that gets us killed. (her emphasis).

A trans woman should be portrayed by a woman. It needn’t even be a trans woman (although suitable trans actresses are out there and desperately seeking jobs), it could also be a cis woman. Just not a man.

Likewise, a trans man should be portrayed by a man, trans or cis.

Tara Nitka: Hollywood has made me quite skeptical about the ability of cis people to write and portray trans characters, but that might only be true of Hollywood.

But ultimately, casting cis men and boys to play trans women and girls sends the message that we’re men pretending to be women. If you can’t cast a trans girl, at least cast a girl.

Felicity Huffman in Transamerica

From the (short) list of famous movies at the start of this article, only Transamerica would meet with approval here, with Felicity Huffman cast as a transwoman.

Sara Clarke: When we cast a cis person to play a trans person, we’re at the mercy of that person (and their most likely cis director and writer) to tell us what trans people look and act like, how they feel about things, what choices they would make, etc. Considering how ignorant most cis people are of the trans experience, that’s not doing anybody any favors: either other cis people learning about trans issues through the lens of other cis people who may or may not know what they’re talking about, or other trans people who want to see authentic versions of their lives represented in the media.

These are powerful points. The criticism is that the films don't depict trans people, or how they feel, but only what cisgender people think trans people are like, and how they feel. I definitely share this point of view: several times during The Danish Girl, I found myself thinking that elements of the plot didn't strike me as real.

Chrystal Andros: My issue is what is called agency. With women it used to be (and still is in some aspects) that men define what is good for them. They cannot speak for themselves, so they have to have someone else speaking for them.

In the same way in Hollywood, managers and focus groups define what is good for the audience and define their selection of actors.

With trans-actors and trans-actresses they fit into a certain category - they are becoming more mainstream, but they are considered like women from 1950s who go out and become professionals - the freaks of today.

Three of the films I have mentioned have received very positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, Priscilla has a 96% approval rating; Girl has achieved 84% and Transamerica has 76%.  Meanwhile, The Danish Girl managed only 67% and Breakfast on Pluto achieved 57%. So the filmmakers are doing something right (if not exactly breaking box-office records with any of them). But of course, if these are films made by cisgender film-makers, pitched for a (predominantly) cisgender audience, I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean they please transgender people.

Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto

But not everyone agrees with the sentiments above. Some commentators reported that, as long as the actor does a decent job, it shouldn't matter whether they are cisgender or transgender.

Mark Grinstein-Camacho: Actors play different characters all the time. It is their job. You can find actors who play straight people, gay people, billionaires, emperors of the galaxy, penniless street urchins, genius computer programmers, or zombies hungry for human flesh.

Studying for those roles and preparing for them is a big part of an actor’s work. Maybe it means watching Hitler’s speeches, or spending a day at a boot camp, or attending a conference. Maybe it means learning to play the violin for a year. Maybe it means watching other movies. Maybe it means interviewing people who were there. Any good actor can do this.

Karissa Cook: One point that most people seem to miss with these questions is that an actor acts. That is what they do.

Would it be a good thing for more transgender actors to get cast? Absolutely! Should we get bent out of shape about who is portraying trans characters? Not unless they are doing a poor job.

Look folks. If you want only trans actors to have trans roles then you aren't really looking for actors, you are looking for representatives.

Actors play a part. Their job is to make us believe that they really are the characters they portray. Stop worrying about who is playing the role, just pay attention to how well or poorly they did.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing

This is also a point I have some sympathy with, although my own point of view comes from a different angle. Film-making is driven by economics. Film-makers make films because they want people to pay money to see them. Along the way, they may inspire, entertain, or inform--they may even achieve art--but those are very secondary considerations.

In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays cryptanalyst Alan Turing (who happens to be one of my heroes). Turing was gay, but Cumberbatch isn’t; nonetheless Cumberbatch gives an extraordinary performance.

People have criticised the considerable liberties with historical events which the director took. But the director Morten Tyldrum has said that the film was really about using the medium of film to give the audience a flavour of what Turing was really like (rather than to just make a historical documentary). In this, I think he succeeds. The role of the tortured genius has been done dozens of times, but Cumberbatch manages to bring a nuanced performance which includes the awkwardness, the vulnerability and the arrogance of the character, without ever feeling forced or unnatural. Though we sympathise deeply with Cumberbatch's portrayal of Turing, he doesn't make the character necessarily likeable.

By casting a star like Cumberbatch in the role of Alan Turing, I believe people will watch the film who otherwise wouldn’t. And I believe that, unless they have hearts of stone, they will come away feeling sympathy for Turing and how he was treated, perhaps in a way they haven’t sympathised with gay people before. Other recent films which show gay men in a very positive light are Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent

I think that we are in this place right now. I believe it’s more important for the public to see us, and to sympathise with and accept us, (even using the medium of fiction and the artifice of film) than it is for trans actors to be cast in those roles. Some cisgender actors have also done a wonderful job, such as Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent.

I hope that the day will come when trans actors are just actors. We are not there yet. Meanwhile, cisgender actors playing transgender parts is fine by me. What I want, right now, is awareness and exposure, and for people to view us with sympathy rather than scorn or discomfort. I think overall that we should be pleased that films with a transgender theme are being made and released. While they may not be perfect, I think that the casting of cisgender actors in transgender parts is doing more good than harm.

Top of the Pops

I've got quite a numerical mind, and I am always interested in my statistics. I check my hit counter most days, and I enjoy watching what happens as the posts rise and fall in popularity.

Best chart show ever: TOTP

Sometimes a post from a while ago will experience a curious surge in popularity over a few days. Sometimes my blog will appear to suddenly become popular in a new country (Hello, Ukraine!). Why does this happen? I have no idea, but it's fascinating to watch.

What's very interesting to me is that I seem to have no ability to predict in advance which posts will be the most successful or popular. There are certainly some surprises in the Top 10, posts which are much more popular than I ever expected them to be.

Conversely, some of my favourite posts (in a personal sense) don't seem to have done all that well, and again I wonder why this is: am I completely missing my intended audience? While the blog is all about me, the hit counter is all about you, the reader, and shows me where your interests lie.

If this were a glittering award ceremony, I would be announcing the winners from a golden envelope, in no particular order. However, it isn't, and I am not. Instead, I here are my top 10 blog posts by number of hits (as I write, the total hit counter is 373,416).

(1) Jan Hamilton. The winner, with 10,047 hits. No real surprises here: the former soldier turned reporter has attracted considerable public interest over the last few years, and appears again at number 10 in this countdown.

(2) Jaye Davidson. A close second with 9,635. Again, not a surprise. The ephemeral Jaye Davidson sprang to celebrity in The Crying Game in 1992, playing a beautiful transwoman. After a brief appearance in Stargate, in 1994, he retired completely from acting. Ever since, or so it seems, everyone has been asking: what happened to Jaye Davidson?

(3) Female Bodybuilding comes third with 9,051. This is my first real surprise. I can't really account for why this article has been so popular. I suppose the subject matter must be especially compelling.

(4) Women who Crossdress comes next with 6,008 hits. A fair way behind the top 3, this is another surprise to me. Again, I suppose the subject matter must be interesting. While (1), (2) and (3) are quite close numerically, so are the next four entries.

(5) Leah True, with 5,774. This one doesn't surprise me. Like Jaye Davidson, Leah is beautiful, fascinating, and gone from public gaze. A lot of people looking, and I guess they end up here. I've tried to contact Leah and never managed it.

(6) Men With Long Nails, with 5,457. Again a surprise. Why should this subject be so compelling?

(7) Emma Ballantyne, with 5,423 hits. Scottish Emma has the famous YouTube channel, starrynowhere, which has over a million hits. She also allowed herself to be interviewed by me here, though this post (curiously) has only had 3,288 hits.

(8) Helen Boyd Interview, with 4,741. Helen Boyd needs no introduction at all to anyone even remotely trans. Here she answers my questions. Although she is so famous, she has her own very successful and popular website, which means people don't need to come here to find out her latest.

(9) Gender Variants on Facebook brings in 4,021 hits. This topic was very popular a couple of years ago-- though I notice that they still haven't introduced gender variants in my country. Come on, Facebook! Get with the program!

(10) Abigail Austen has rushed into the top 10, despite being one of my more recent posts. Not a surprise, since her latest documentary, and book launch, have brought her once more into the public eye.

Writing is better with nice nails

When I look at this top 10, I can see two clear patterns. First, celebrities (Abigail, Jaye, Leah, Emma). Between them these four are responsible for a lot of internet traffic; no surprises at all that some of it should find its way here (though my article about Caitlyn Jenner has scored only 408 hits). The second group seems to be articles about the boundary (the sometimes uncomfortable boundary) between male and female: female bodybuilders, female crossdressers, men with long nails. In this theme, I've also written about women with beards, and men in skirts. My article about That Whole Bathroom Thing, another ongoing issue, can be found here.

While we wait for the applause to die down and the speeches to finish, I would like to point your attention to some of my posts from the archives, which I think are deserving of a little more attention than they received at the time. These are in temporal order, starting with the oldest. These are some of my favourite posts. Why not take a look, and maybe even leave a comment?

(1) Lyn Tornabene and the Red Queen was one of my better early posts. Written back in 2012, it has gathered in only 574 hits. In it, I discuss the theme of pretending to be something other than your natural self, and how this relates to my own feelings about crossdressing.

(2) The More Things Change... was also one of my favourite posts from 2012, and has managed only 480 hits. It discusses one of history's most famous crossdressers, Lord Cornbury.

(3) Subfuscation! has scored only 427 hits. It's a whimsical discussion of the clothing restrictions facing students at Oxford University.

(4) My article about Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura has managed only 738 hits, despite featuring Morimura's homages to Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe.

(5) My article about Alex Reid, a transvestite cage fighter who married a topless model, managed only 861 hits. Are you seriously telling me you don't want to read that one?

The final very interesting hit count is the About Me page, which has scored 9,471 hits, making this page the third most popular overall on the blog. That's very satisfying for me personally. I am always delighted when people email me to say they came across the blog and found it interesting or thought-provoking.

So please keep coming, keep reading, and tell your friends!

Caitlyn Jenner

No doubt anyone in the world with access to a television has become aware of Caitlyn Jenner (whether they like it or not).

Born William Bruce Jenner in 1949, and known as Bruce Jenner for many years, Jenner (now 65) is probably the most famous openly transsexual person in the world. Jenner was an Olympic athlete, winning the gold medal at the Men's Decathlon in Montreal. Earlier this year, Jenner publicly came out as a transwoman, changed her name to Caitlyn and underwent a highly publicised transition (although there had been some signs for a long time). I dare say she will figure prominently in the reality TV schedules for some years to come. (And, no doubt, the wearisome jokes and mockery will continue for a while longer).

Trying to be Bruce

But you already know all this. Why am I troubling to write about it?

Lately I've spent quite a lot of time reading and writing on Quora. It's a wonderful website for people like me, who are curious about all sorts of things, and have an opinion (and occasionally some pertinent knowledge) about all sorts of things. (You can find my Quora content here). Although I have added links to Quora content throughout this article, I am not sure if you will be able to access them all without registering to the website.

Someone posted this question:

What is the appropriate name and pronoun to use when talking about things that Caitlyn Jenner did in the past, while she was known as Bruce and thought to be a man? 

That really got me thinking. Who won that gold medal?

From one point of view, it's pragmatic to say that the winner of the medal was Bruce Jenner. The competition was the Men's Decathlon. Therefore the correct pronoun to use is "he"; he won the medal. On the other hand, Jenner herself says she struggled with gender dysphoria her whole life, even when competing and winning that medal. And now the person who won the medal is Caitlyn Jenner, and takes female pronouns. Therefore she won the medal.

Call me Caitlyn

There was a reasonable amount of discussion in the responses to the question. As one might expect, some people felt quite strongly about the matter.

Tessa Norris writes:

The correct way to refer to a transitioned trans woman is to refer to her with her current name and pronouns, and to abandon her old name and pronouns.

Tamara Wiens writes:

Referring to a trans person by their "dead name" is usually taken to be very offensive. Personally, it's bothersome in an ill-defined way - when anyone says it, it makes my skin crawl, and I want to be ill, so it's fortunate that it is happening less and less all the time.

Katie Anne Holton writes:

My preference is that no one use my former name, ever.

Whatever I did under another name, I did it. Katie was born in 1963. Katie married in 1990 and divorced in 2006. Katie fathered two beautiful children.

In the same sense, Caitlin Jenner was an Olympic athlete. She won a gold medal in the decathlon. She got married. She fathered children.

I disagree with Tessa Norris. There isn't, as yet, a "correct way". There is only a society struggling to agree on a way to get a linguistic handle on what is, for many people, a comparatively new phenomenon. I accept there are ways that some people would prefer over other ways, but that isn't the same thing as a "correct way".

I must say I had never heard of the term dead name or deadname before this discussion, and it struck me as a term laden with powerful connotations. It reminded me of the notion that in mediaeval times, a "funeral" service would be held for novice nuns and monks on entering their religious community, to symbolise their "death" to society; that the person who had previously lived was now gone. I don't really know how often this actually happened, but it seems terribly barbaric.

More from Vanity Fair

I can understand Katie Anne Holton's perspective. Nonetheless, it makes me a bit uncomfortable. When Bruce Jenner competed in the Olympics, everyone thought he was a man. He presented externally as a man (regardless of his inner feelings). All the documentation at the time used male pronouns. (In fact, even in the recent Bruce Jenner Interview With Diane Sawyer, Bruce agreed to be called Bruce and asked for masculine pronouns to be used even though transition was already underway).

Then there came a change, which was initiated by Bruce himself. He has asserted a new identity and changed his name. I think that we should now respect Caitlyn's new name and identity, but for me this doesn't apply retrospectively.

One's innate preferences and choices do not, in my opinion, compel the rest of society to rewrite the past. (And by preferences, I don't mean that gender is a preference, but I do consider that how people act and present is a preference and a choice. I think that Bruce was choosing at that time to try to be Bruce, even though that was difficult and painful).

I tried to take the discussion further, but the fact that I somewhat disagreed was met with some hostility at first:

Tessa Norris: You have the "right" to refer to my past against my express wishes in any way you choose. But only in the sense that you have the free speech right to call me a "tranny faggot" if you want.

Then came an answer by Elliott Mason, which I think was extremely pertinent:

How would you refer to the sports accomplishments of Muhammad Ali before he changed his name? It's an interesting parallel case to think about, because at the time his change was just as shocking and just as much of a media circus as Ms. Jenner's name change is now.

Also, very many female Olympians have married and changed their last names after their athletic careers are over. I don't think I've ever seen anyone make a big deal about using their maiden name to refer to their accomplishments in their former athletic career. One mention near the top, at most, and the rest of the article in their current name.

It certainly seems right to compare Muhammad Ali and Caitlyn Jenner, although Ali's name change came before much of his sporting success. I am not aware of any situation where Ali would be referred to by the name Cassius Clay, except in articles which say something like "Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay)".

What could they make me look like?

Elliott goes on:

Would you apply the same rule in the same way for people who changed their name for any other reason? When referring to childhood accomplishments of, for example, movie stars who use a screen name (Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Queen Latifah, and Judy Garland come to mind), do you insist on always pointing out their old name and saying that they changed it?

If you do not, then the only reason for a difference in how you treat them and Ms. Jenner is that you have some issue about her name change that you don't have about theirs, and you should think about that.

My response to this is much easier. All those names are stage names. A stage name is deliberately chosen for its attractive or unique qualities. A stage name is something one adopts for a stage persona, not a personal identity.

Do Olympic stars have their names engraved on their gold medals? I don't know. But suppose they do. Will Caitlyn Jenner have hers changed? I think probably not. To me it would seem as ridiculous as Laurence Tureau having his junior school Bronze Swimming Certificate changed to the name of Mr. T.

But I guess my final point is this. I can only comment from my own perspective. I don't consider myself to be a woman. I prefer to be treated as one when I am presenting as fem, but I regard this as a privilege which I need to merit, not a right.

Right now, I am not sure about what the future holds. Maybe I will transition at some point (say Jenner's age) and maybe not. Suppose I do, I would be quite happy to acknowledge my former identity; in fact, I quite like it (my current identity), which might be one reason why I don't feel I need to transition.

I don't see, if you could compare me to Jenner at an equivalent age, that there would be much difference between us. I have tried to suppress my feminine side; I have struggled (and still am) to find some balance.

And yet, I don't consider myself to be a woman, though I certainly don't consider myself to be an "ordinary" man either. I can understand how trans people might feel uncomfortable about their previous lives, but nonetheless those lives existed, objectively, sometimes for decades.

I would argue that one should respect an individual's choice of name and gender presentation. To me this is a facet of basic human understanding, tolerance and compassion. On the other hand, I don't think it's OK for an individual to insist that the past be rewritten just because its existence makes them uncomfortable.

As always, this is an ongoing discussion, to which your contributions would be welcomed.

Pete Burns

I've been deliberating over writing a post about Pete Burns for quite a while now. You may know him as the front man of Dead or Alive, and, somewhere along the line, you are sure to have heard their one hit, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record). If you have lived in Britain, you may also know him as an outspoken and sometimes controversial individual, known for his dramatic cosmetic surgery, and for struggling to re-establish his former celebrity on shows such as Celebrity Wife Swap and Celebrity Big Brother.

Pete Burns died in October 2016 of what was reported as a "massive heart attack". He was 57. Although I wrote this article in 2014, I have edited it into the past tense.

Androgynous: Burns in the 80's

What fascinated me about Burns is his deliberate changing of appearance. In the 1980's he was only one of half a dozen popular music artists who used deliberate androgyny as a theme for their appearance. But since then he went further and further down the path of cosmetic surgery, until he was unrecognisable from his former self. This article seeks to explore that a little.

One of the things I like about Graham Norton is that he is fearless in tackling any subject, but he disarms his subjects into revealing things by being funny and quirky and camp. One of the funniest things I have ever seen on TV is Norton's interview with will.i.am sitting beside Miriam Margolyes. Norton just sets the two of them up, and like a master conductor, sits back and lets them strike perfect comic sparks off one another. You can see it all here on YouTube.

Norton's interview with Burns took place sometime before 2006, although I can't quite establish the exact date. Here, Norton broaches the subject of Burns' cosmetic surgery:

Norton: Have you finished?
Burns: Oh no, no.
Norton: What next?
Burns: It depends on the boredom factor. It's very difficult for people to understand something like this, but in the 80's when I became a pop star, I saw myself on the front of so many magazines, on TV all the time, and I got really bored of looking at the same face, and I am sure most people do get bored of looking at the same thing. That's why women bleach their hair, that's why women buy makeup, that's why men grow a beard, that's why they shave the beard off. I just got really bored. And when I'm bored with things, I alter them.
Norton: So there's no attempt on your part-- it's not about masculine, feminine. You're not trying to become a woman in any way.
Burns: I think if I was going to try and become a woman, I know enough about women to be a darn sight better woman than this. I could be a very good woman because I know all the trickery and everything they do to build that image. I have absolutely no intention of being-- in fact, I have an absolutely ginormous knob. I would never dream of getting rid of that. It's Venus with a penis.

Supernatural beauty?

And that seems to be true from a certain perspective. Burns never adopted a fem name. He did not take hormones (and I think we would reasonably know if he had, since he revealed everything else about his appearance and personal life). No breasts, no feminisation of his voice, and by his own admission, no sex reassignment surgery.

And yet, his appearance was all woman: long hair, huge glossy lips, long sparkly nails, outrageous dresses and high heels. And it was this curious dichotomy which prompted me to write this blog post. At the time of the Graham Norton interview, Burns had been married to his wife, Lynne Corlett, for over 25 years, and gave every indication of being still happy; he even recommended to Norton (who is gay) that he should try marriage.

Then, in 2006, Burns separated from his wife, and began a relationship with male partner Michael Simpson. In in interview with talk show hosts Richard and Judy, he announced their engagement. (Wikipedia says they underwent a civil partnership later that year, split, and later reunited. Simpson and Corlett released a joint statement after Burns' death, implying at least that he remained on good terms with both).

Judy: You had a perfectly normal heterosexual marriage for a long time, very happily in love, now you're with Michael, with whom you're very much in love--
Burns: That's, I guess, my first homosexual relationship, and we only have sex at home. So there you go. (Richard and Judy laugh) And I'm not bisexual because I don't pay for it.
Richard: So how long have you two been together now?
Burns: We've been together in former lives. I lost him a lifetime ago and I've been looking for him ever since.
Judy: That's how it came across in Big Brother, you missed him very much.
Burns: I don't care how anyone else felt in there. This is a different thing. He's a physical part of me. (...) We're just in love.

Overcooked?

Burns is making jokes: Home-osexual, Buy-sexual. I didn't get either of those on my first run through. Later in the interview, Richard goes on to talk about Burns' appearance:

Richard: How does it make you feel if I tell you that quite a few, 100% heterosexual guys in our office of varying ages, find your physical appearance very attractive? They describe you as sexy.
Burns: You know, the first time I've ever seen myself objectively was when I left the Big Brother house, when they showed [me] on the eviction screen, so I'd never seen myself, this is just the way it needed to be, so I don't need to look at it very often.
Richard: And what do you think? What do you think of the way you look?
Burns: What do I think? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I behold myself, and I'm exactly what I've always needed to be.
Richard: But the fact that heterosexual men find you attractive?
Burns: They always have. Gay men don't. But it's been since a child that heterosexual men have found me attractive. It's usually, unfortunately, and it's not a misogynistic statement, but most of the hatred that I've encountered on the street and in nightclubs has been from girls. And you know, I love girls. But I couldn't eat a whole one. (...) We live in an age of supernatural beauty, where nothing that we see is real. Even the young girls in pop videos, they've all been tweaked and nipped. It's mandatory now.

I found this interesting: "I'm exactly what I've always needed to be". Not wanted to be. Not felt like being. But needed to be. It's plain that Burns was driven to do this. Perhaps driven in the same way some of us are driven to express femininity? Perhaps not. But driven by what? Was he driven towards something, to become something? Or was he driven away from something? And in either case, what might that something be? I cannot possibly tell, and I wonder if even Burns was aware of it on a conscious level.

HolyMoly.com writes this of Burns in its most recent interview of him in 2012:

HolyMoly: Interviewing Pete Burns is difficult. Not because the Dead Or Alive frontman and Big Brother’s Bit On The Side star isn’t at all times charming, engaging and forthcoming. He really is. But because he clearly subscribes to the Quentin Crisp philosophy of interviews: say what you have come to say. So here’s Pete Burns answering almost none of our questions but being incredibly fascinating and entertaining all the same. Enjoy.

I think there is a leeeetle bit of manipulation here.

This observation is absolutely spot-on. In all the interviews I have seen with Burns (in research for this post), he had done exactly that. That makes it very difficult for me to try to interpret Burns' motivations and true character.

First, Pete Burns was a very quirky and interesting individual. He was indisputably talented, confident and forthright, occasionally abrasive. However, he seemed to be a deeply fractured individual. As a man who spent a lot of money and time cultivating a female appearance, he is undoubtedly fair game for this blog.

On the one hand, Burns craved the oxygen of celebrity. He needed it for his income, but in addition he was willing, almost desperate, to put himself in front of any sort of camera, and there was a period where he seemed to be on every single celebrity reality TV show imaginable, including one where he selects his new Personal Assistant. On the other hand, he seemed to loathe celebrity and its emptiness and falsehood. This from HolyMoly:

Burns: It’s like now. My partner, my husband of nine years, he has a 16-year-old daughter and I get to hear what’s current in passing, through his daughter. And you know what, I wouldn’t fucking know one of Girls Aloud if they came up and spat in my face, but I know if I hear their records that it’s Girls Aloud. I have no interest in celebrity culture; I’ve never suffered from media sickness. It’s not me being rude, I genuinely don’t know who most people are.

Second, he seemed to be desperately in search of beauty. I agree with Graham Norton's assessment, that for Burns, it wasn't about seeking femininity. But for most of us, beauty equates with femininity: we are deluged with images of female beauty, and far fewer of male beauty. If you want adornments (nails, shoes, jewels, cosmetics) then you go for female beauty, and Burns seemed to have gone for all those things in abundance.

Burns: seriously?

For Burns, that search for beauty involved a lot of surgery, and he achieved a period where he really did look beautiful (and there is a reasonable argument about which point along the line was the peak). His comments above (about emerging from the Big Brother house) suggest that he had never really seen his own appearance until he saw himself on television, like catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror. This remark seems, at best, hopelessly disingenuous; at worst, complete nonsense. Burns was obsessed with his appearance for all of his public life. He knew exactly how he looked, right down to the smallest eyelash, and he was completely unwilling to reveal his feelings about that to the rest of us.

Wherever he was at his most beautiful, he didn't stop there, and went further and further down the route of cosmetic surgery, until he looked hopelessly grotesque. Although he described it as getting "bored" with his face, I suspect that he was using surgery as a means to fix something deeper down; the fact that he pursued more and more surgery tells me that surgery was not the answer to what Burns was looking for; that wasn't where the problem lay. And where, I wonder, do you find a doctor who says "Sure, Pete! No problem. I can do even more surgery on you."?

Oh Pete, you poor thing.

When I think of other people who have taken cosmetic surgery beyond the attractive and into the grotesque, I think of Michael Jackson, and Jocelyn Wildenstein. What they (and Burns) seemed to have in common is deep insecurities, which they seemed to think could be fixed by surgery. I wondered if he would eventually reach a point where he looked in the mirror and thought: Aargh! What have I done? But this last picture of him suggests not.

Ironically, he was reported as saying "I hope God doesn't recognise me when I get to heaven".

So what I saw in Pete Burns was a man of deep inner conflicts: he wanted to remain a man, but look like a woman. He wanted to look beautiful, but he had so much surgery he looked awful. He was married to a woman, then married to a man. He wanted to be famous and adored, but he hated the culture of celebrity and professed no interest in it. And he came across as being bold and confident and abrasive, but I think this was a façade behind which hid someone who was lonely, profoundly insecure, and desperate to be loved.

Of course, this is only my personal view, and alternative viewpoints are always welcome!