Frighten the Horses, a memoir by Oliver Radclyffe

Oliver Radclyffe is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance, social class and family history overlap. His work has appeared in The New York Times and Electric Literature. He currently lives on the Connecticut coast where he is raising his four children. He has two books: ADULT HUMAN MALE, a monograph, released by Unbound Edition Press in 2023, and FRIGHTEN THE HORSES, a memoir, forthcoming from Roxane Gay Books in 2024. 
 

Preorder Frighten the Horses: https://bookshop.org/p/books/frighten-the-horses/20490972?ean=9780802163158 

https://oliverradclyffe.substack.com/ 

https://www.oliverradclyffe.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/oliverradclyffe/ 

https://linktr.ee/OliverRadclyffe 

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Alex Iantaffi (00:02):
Hello and welcome to another episode of gender
stories. I know I'm always like,excited, delighted, delighted.
But what can I tell you? I havethe best guests, and today I am
thrilled to be interviewingOliver Radclyffe, who is part of
the new wave of transgenderwriters unafraid to address the
complex nuances of transition,examining the places where

(00:24):
gender identity, sexualorientation, feminist
allegiance, social class andfamily history overlap. His work
has appeared in The New YorkTimes and electric literature.
He currently lives on theConnecticut coast, where he's
raising his four children. Hehas two books. Well, two books
almost out by the time you readthis adult human male, a

(00:46):
brilliant monograph from unboundedition press, which came out
last year and frightened thehorses, a memoir forthcoming
from Roxanne Gay Books in onSeptember 17. So by the time you
listen to this episode, you caneither pre order or order the
book, and if it's half as goodas adult human male, I know it's

(01:06):
gonna be fantastic. So welcomeOliver, so wonderful to have you
here for gender stories. Thankyou for making the time.

Oliver Radclyffe (01:14):
I am so happy to be here. Lovely to see you.

Alex Iantaffi (01:18):
Yes. So, oh, I have so many questions for you.
I don't even know where to starthonestly, because as I was
reading, you know, the firstbook, adult human male, I was
like, yes, yes. I was like,highlighting, you know, and I
wanted to, like, talk aboutpretty much everything that's in
that book.

Oliver Radclyffe (01:37):
Yeah, it's a book about gender, for sure.
Let's face it, is, and it

Alex Iantaffi (01:41):
is a book about gender. And I love the way you
look at gender, you know, andthat's humans are my special
interests, or one of them, andgender is definitely part of
that. So why don't we start fromWhy did you write the book? I'm
always so interested in whywriters, you know, why we write
the books we write, basically,and so I'm very interested in
your motivation. First of

Oliver Radclyffe (02:02):
all, okay, well, it's, it's kind of a weird
story, I have to say, becausethe book that got published
first is actually the book thatwas written second, fascinating.
So I spent, I don't even want tosay publicly, how many years
writing a memoir that's comingout with Roxane Gay books in in

(02:23):
a couple of weeks or now, by thetime you're listening to this.
And when I while I was writingthat book, I wanted to write it
in a very experiential way. So Imy journey was from somebody who
was living in a completely sortof upper middle class, white,
cis hep bubble in England, and Ididn't have any understanding of

(02:48):
queerness at all. I mean, Ireally barely knew a single gay
person. And then I got married,had four children, and then I
went through the memoir coversthis 10 year period where I
first come out to my husband,and then to my friends and my
family, and I leave my marriageand I have a relationship with a
woman, and then, and then Istart coming to terms with my

(03:11):
trans identity, and I wanted towrite that in such a way that it
was really showing a cis hetaudience, what this experience
is like, because there seems tobe so much misunderstanding
about the processes we gothrough and the questions we ask

(03:32):
ourselves and how it actuallyfeels, not the transition
itself, because so many peoplehave written about transitions,
but what leads you There, thekind of chaos and the questions
and the doubt and the confusionand what is this, and who am I?
And how does this all fittogether? I really wanted people
to understand that this is whattrans people go through. We

(03:52):
don't just wake up one day andgo, Hey, I think I'ma die pop to
the endocrinologist to get myhormones. So that was my purpose
with the memoir, which obviouslyit took many years to write.
It's a 370, page book, you know,it's kind of a big project. But
what I didn't do with the memoirwas include anything that I

(04:16):
considered to be part of thepolitical conversation. I wanted
to keep it really personal, so Ididn't talk about any of the
conversations that are going onbecause I'm British and I live
in America, you know, I'm kindof hearing this transphobia
coming from these two differentplaces, you know, the gender
Christian feminists in Englandand then the Evangelicals and

(04:40):
the hard right over here. And Ireally wanted to speak. I really
wanted to be part of thatconversation. And so once I'd
finished the memoir and it wasoff out being submitted, towards
the end of writing the memoir, Ihad started documents that were
sort of UN. Them essays on mycomputer, of all these ideas

(05:03):
that I had that I wanted towrite about. And just as the
memo was being submitted, I gotcontacted by Patrick Davis, who
is the editor of unboundedition. And he said, I've read
an essay of yours in literature,literature I'd like to hear.
Have you got anything more? Whatare you working on? So we had a
two hour conversation. At theend of he was like, Okay, I want
you to write this. This is avery long story. I nearly at the

Alex Iantaffi (05:30):
what happens next?

Oliver Radclyffe (05:32):
Story in its own, isn't it? Exactly So what
happened next was, Patrickcommissioned me to write this
book. I wasn't sure that thememoir was even going to get
published, because the wholestory about how the memo got
published has got its ownseparate kind of narrative arc.
So I thought, well, that's fine.
I'll write this book of essays.

(05:54):
We'll get it published, and ifthe memoir doesn't get
published, I'll write a novel orwhatever. It's fine. And while
Patrick and I, while I waswriting, and Patrick and I were
editing the memoir, then gotbought by Roxanne Gay books. So
then we were like, Okay, we'vegot two books potentially coming
out at the same time. Luckily,Roxanne acquired it way before

(06:19):
she could actually publish,because she had, like, a backlog
of other books. And so we saidto Grove, look, if we can rush
out this adult human male, youknow, with at least a year's gap
between each book, are you happyfor us to do that? And they were
like, yeah. So Patrick and Iwere like, Okay, we've got three
months to get this book done.
But in a sense, that was kind offun, because it meant that I

(06:40):
really had to pour all thisstuff onto the page, and it's a
short book, and it's tight, andI had to just like, really get
it kind of tight and succinctand get all of my feelings about
this onto the page. And Ididn't, I think if I had had
longer, I might have started totie myself up in knots about it,
because I'm not I didn't doGender Studies at college. I'm

(07:04):
not a scholar, I'm not anacademic. I don't have a
background in this. These arereally just my ideas that have
come to me because of theconversation that's going on.
And I think if I'd had longer, Imight have been consumed by self
doubt. Yeah, you know, like, whoam I to enter into this

(07:26):
conversation that all of theseextraordinary people have been
having for such a long time

Alex Iantaffi (07:34):
that is such a great book. I'm so glad I've
asked that question, because,first of all, this is a great
story so and and you you couldgo for as long as you want. I
love long stories, and I thinkthat gender stories listeners
really appreciate the nuance ofthe conversations, right? But I
really relate to that feelingthat if you have longer like,
all those other feelings get inthe way, right? I remember with

(07:57):
gender trauma, it lives for somany years in my head, and that
my editor was like, Alex, timeto get this book out in the
world, right? Yeah, you know?
And then I was like, Okay. Andeven when I was writing, I was
like, Oh, am I to write thisbook? Am I Malene? Am I not in
my lane, you know? And so I canimagine that having such a tight
window of three months, it'sjust like, No, just get it done,

(08:19):
get it on the page. And I thinkthat's a gift in some way, like
I think it was, yeah, one of thethings I love about the book it
is that it's succinct. It doesweave the political scene with
the personal and with thepolitical and the scholarly in
this really beautiful and veryaccessible way. I think, you

(08:39):
know, yeah, and yet engagingwith really complex ideas at the
same time, right? Yeah, that issuch a I was like, This is so
skillful and wonderful,actually. So thank you. I'm even
more amazed that you wrote allof that in three months. If
anything,

Oliver Radclyffe (08:59):
you should have seen the state of my
office. It was, it was afrightening place in here for a
while.

Alex Iantaffi (09:04):
I know that the state of my office is always
frightening, but people can seeit. I keep it off camera, so
that's something very wise. Ireally want to go back to the
first memoir, which is gonna,which is about to come out,
really. And like you said, Folkswho pre order it already have
it, but I want to stay withadult human male for a little

(09:25):
bit, if that's okay, becausethere are so many brilliant
things that you have in there,right? Even I was like writing
down quotes as I was readingreading it. And I love kind of
the introduction to it is youtalk about your mom writing
those letters. And I lived inthe UK for 15 years before
moving to the so called UnitedStates and and it was almost

(09:50):
like I could picture it, if thatmakes sense, right? I could
picture this, like your momwriting those letters, and then
this moment where, you know.
Know, she's asking for, like anopinion that your dad would buy
into it, which is really, youknow, and then you go into this
beautiful conversation about,how can there be like, this
neutral opinion when we'retalking about, like, our bodies,

(10:12):
our existence and all of that,how did it feel to kind of have
such a almost intimate, almostfelt like I was like, you know,
looking into through a window,into the that intimate moment of
kind your mom at the deskwriting the letters and, you
know, can be tricky sometimesfor us to write about our
families, yeah, as writers, astrans people. So I was curious.

(10:36):
It

Oliver Radclyffe (10:38):
was, it was really intentional that that
that was my opening chapter. Andthe reason I wanted to write
about my parents my openingchapter is because if my parents
can get this, then reallyanybody can. Because, I mean, my
parents couldn't be further fromthe queer community, both

(11:00):
emotionally and geographically,if they drive, they really
couldn't. And what, what hasbeen so amazing about my parents
is that they have proved thateven if there's stuff that they
don't understand, they can stillaccept and love yes across the
board. And really, they've beenlike that since day one. And

(11:21):
what I the reason I wanted toput them at the beginning of the
book was because I wanted towrite the book to people like
that to say it's okay if youdon't get a lot of this stuff.
It is complex and it is messyand it's new for a lot of
people, and I'm not here tochastise you for not

(11:47):
understanding, and I'm not hereto shame you for not knowing,
and I'm not here to beaggressive with you in any way
at all. I'm just here to say,Hey, this is what is going on.
This is what it looks like fromour perspective. You're getting
it all from the cis perspective,because the majority of the

(12:08):
journalists who are reportingabout our lives are cis, and
that filters what people areseeing and reading and
understanding. You know, thereare a few amazing cis
journalists, I will shout out toLydia Paul Green here, who you
know, just writes as if sheknows intimately what's going
on. But the cis, the cis public,does not get enough access yet

(12:38):
to trans writers, and it'ssomething that is slowly
beginning to change, but we needto be able to tell our stories
Absolutely.

Alex Iantaffi (12:49):
And then those stories also need to be
uplifted, right, but often byjournalists or mainstream media.
And unfortunately, they keepuplifting this more, I would
say, sensationalize also.
Versions of lifestyle, you know,and so even kind of gender
scholar, I say in air quotes,because I think it's

(13:10):
questionable some of the genderscholarship that some of those
others you know, are putting outthere, they are the ones who
tend to be really amplified andkeep kind of fueling the the
spire, right? Yeah. And I thinkwhat I liked about adult human
male is that you take some ofthose arguments really head on,

(13:30):
even just the title, right, likeeven taking this kind of phrase
that is often used by gendercritical folks, trans
exclusionary feminists, whateverword we want to use for people,
of like, you know, adult humanfemale and kind of

Oliver Radclyffe (13:53):
claiming, exactly Yes,

Alex Iantaffi (13:55):
exactly, yeah, I love that exactly.

Oliver Radclyffe (13:58):
And you know what I didn't do, thank God,
because Judith Butler has justdone it far better than I
possibly could, is go directlyat each of their arguments. And
if you read Judith Butler'sbook, she just tears them a new
one, in a way that was, I mean,I was like, there were times
when I was leaping up and downwith excitement reading this
book, because she does such agreat job. But what I wanted to

(14:21):
do with adult human male, ratherthan go, rather than counter
attack each argument, I wantedto show people how they were
being manipulated. Yes, exactly,you know, I wanted people to
understand that what you know,whether, whether it's a gender

(14:44):
critical feminist or anevangelical Christian or a bar
still conservative, you knowwhat they're doing is trying to
create fear, and when people endup in a fear mindset that. Takes
over, and that's entirely human.
If you believe there issomething to be afraid of that
becomes the predominant emotion,it's very difficult to get

(15:07):
through with logic. Yeah, andthat's the position that we're
in at the moment. That's whatwe're fighting at the moment is,
firstly, trying to stop thesepeople from stoking this fear
mindset. And secondly, trying toget past that, to say to people,
this is literally all invented,all of these fears. None of

(15:29):
these fears exist. None of them.
Literally, none of them.

Alex Iantaffi (15:34):
Oh, absolutely.
And it's so absurd. Some of thelike you said, it's just like
the absurdity of some of thosefears that get fueled, right?
And I love that you talk about.
You know, as far as I know, notrans people are trying to
eradicate women. You know,nobody. In fact, we're all
fighting the same fight forbodily autonomy and sovereignty

(15:54):
over our bodies and ourreproductive systems. And you
know what we do with our bodies.
It really is about autonomy. AndI love how you talk about being
the authors, you know, of ourown bodies and stories in many
ways, right, in the book aswell. And but it's hard because
people are so fearful, andthey're so flooded with this
things that speak to some oftheir core fears, right? That

(16:18):
it's done very hard to to havereasonable conversations. And in
the book, at one point you say,also nobody likes being asked to
see the authority, particularlyto a trans person, yeah. And
that I I was like, Yes, when Iread that sentence, right? Yeah.
Because in my own life, I seethat happen over and over, even

(16:40):
sometimes our allies, you know,or people who even care for
trans folks in terms of medicalproviders, are much more
comfortable with trans peoplebeing in the seat of almost
objects, right, objects of care,objects of study. But when we
become subjects, right? When webecome subjects, when we become

(17:01):
authors, when we become scholarsor experts, very uncomfortable
for folks who are like,

Oliver Radclyffe (17:10):
that's when the transphobia really starts to
rear its ugly head. And that'sthe, you know, that's the kind
of secondary transphobia, notthat you don't exist. You're
making it all up, or we want toeradicate you. But just yeah,
I'm kind of all fine withtransgender people, but I'm
also, like, really uncomfortablearound them, and in their kind

(17:34):
of internal hierarchy, the transperson just gets moved down

Alex Iantaffi (17:39):
exactly as long as you're a little bit less
human, you're

Oliver Radclyffe (17:43):
a little bit less human, and this is
particularly true of transwomen, much more so I think,
than trans men, just because ofmisogyny, absolutely. You know,
there is this sort of automaticmindset that this person must be
somehow a little bit deficient,yeah, because otherwise, why

(18:03):
would they do this and that? Andyet, some of the most brilliant
people writing today are transwomen. I mean, the most
brilliant minds, Andrea longitudand Gillian Branstetter. I mean,
these people have extraordinarybrains. It it's a, it's a tough

(18:24):
one to get through and and, ofcourse, the media is so
gatecapped, yeah, that trying toget, you know, I mean, thank
God. Andrew longshoo is gettinga platform, finally. Well
deserved platform, absolutely,

Alex Iantaffi (18:39):
but it is so much harder, exactly because nobody's
gonna see the authority or makespace and sometimes even kind of
the voice of our allies, so tospeak, kind of supersede the
trans, non binary, genderexpansive stories and that that
can be really challenging towitness over and over, you know,

(19:01):
again, and especially in thismoment of rising anti
transphobia on both sides of thepond, really, yeah, you know, I
Oh, I have so many thoughts thatjust catch one and go in one
direction rather than all thedifferent directions I want to
go into. And I also love whatyou say, even though you

(19:23):
mentioned Judy Butler, I thinkat one point in the book, you
say something about, you know,gender being just this very
complex thing that nobodyunderstands, or maybe Judy
Butler seems to but nobody canread Judith.

Oliver Radclyffe (19:37):
That got a really good a lot of people
identified with that.

Alex Iantaffi (19:41):
I think that was pretty brilliant.

Oliver Radclyffe (19:44):
This latest book that she's done is not
academic, it's much moreaccessible. So, you know, I keep
sending it out everyone.
Everyone's like, Oh no, no, it'sJudith Butler. And I know I'm
saying that, no, but it's notJudith Butler, Judith Butler.
It's like, kind of accessibleJudith Butler. You guys. Got to
read as it's really important,their reputation precedes them

Alex Iantaffi (20:05):
exactly. I was like, Don't be scared. It's okay
this book, because exactly,don't be scared to read the same
sentence 15 times. I

Oliver Radclyffe (20:14):
promise to understand it. I know we've all
been there exactly.

Alex Iantaffi (20:18):
I mean, I don't know if I have even understood
after reading some sentences 15times, but yes, this latest book
much more accessible, but I lovethe point you make that it's
like, we demand too much fromgender, right? There is like,
you know, gender is just thesimple one word, but it can mean
so many things, right? Identity,social constructs, cultural

(20:39):
constructs, right? All thisexpectation, this taxonomy, that
we have put on many things, andwe could have chosen a different
nomenclature, a differentcategorization, right of for
humans, that we put this muchpressure on gender, and, yeah,
I'm curious about that. Justsome more thoughts about the

(21:02):
idea that we demand too muchfrom gender that we have

Oliver Radclyffe (21:05):
Well, the reason I think that we demand
too much from gender is becauseone of the things that prevented
me from understanding that I wastrans was that I understood
trans as your sex and yourgender are not aligned. So if

(21:26):
you're trapped, if you're trans,if I, if I, if I was assigned
female at birth and I'm trans,in order for me to justify
transitioning, I have to be ableto say that my gender is male,
is like categorically. Myunderstanding was that I had to
be able to say my my gender iscategorically 100% male. And I
know this, and that was not myexperience. My experience was

(21:49):
that my gender was kind ofeverything. So it absolutely
wasn't categorically female,because when I put myself into a
heterosexual marriage, I thoughtI was going to die very quickly.
But looking back over my wholelife, my gender is very fluid,

(22:12):
and it depends what it is, whatpart of my gender we're talking
about. It depends on thecircumstances. So, for example,
my role as a as a parent, ismuch more of a mother than a
father. My role in the in thehousehold is much more of a
father than a mother. And somepeople would say those are the

(22:35):
same things, but they're not,and both of these sides of me
are active within that sameenvironment all the time. So
what I had to figure out, whichis what I figured out during the
course of the of the memoir, isthat I didn't have to align my
sex with my gender. I had toalign my sex with my sex. Yeah,

(22:58):
so my body is male. And before Itransitioned, I would say my
body was meant to be male, andit got born wrong. And so now I
have to fix the stuff that'swrong and align it as closely
with the male body that it knowsit it is supposed to be, through
surgery, through hormones,through, you know, clothes,

(23:20):
haircuts, whatever I need to do.
And once I understood that, andthen I transitioned, I was like,
Okay, now everything makessense. Everything makes sense.
So when people ask me how Iidentify, obviously I code
switch depending on who I'mtalking to, but the truth is, I
identify as a gender irrelevanttranssexual, because I really do

(23:42):
think that my gender iscompletely irrelevant. I simply
behave how I want to behave, andI do what I want to do, and I
speak how I want to speak, and Iparent how I want to parent. And
I have relationships. All of myrelationships are slightly
different, depending on who theperson is. But my transsexuality
is real, because that istestament to the fact that in

(24:06):
order to feel whole, I had tochange my body.

Alex Iantaffi (24:14):
I resonate with so many of the things you said,
also on a t shirt that saysgender irrelevant transsexual
now,

Oliver Radclyffe (24:21):
yeah, exactly,

Alex Iantaffi (24:25):
please. Can somebody print like some gender
relevance transsexual? You knowthat gliff quote, and I love the
the simplicity and thecomplexity of everything you
just said, right? Because like,and there is so much simplicity
in how you talked about it,because it comes from that

(24:46):
authentic kind of livedexperience. And there's also so
much complexity, right? If wekind of break it down

Oliver Radclyffe (24:53):
and look, part of the complexity is that the
thing that I really struggled.
With was everybody around me wassaying gender is a social
construct, which I understood,and yet I still understood
myself as deeply trans, yes, andwhen I tried to be non binary,
you know, I figured, okay, well,if my gender is non binary, then

(25:13):
I should surely I will feelcomfortable presenting as non
binary. So I tried to be nonbinary by having top surgery
and, you know, changing the wayI dress, but not going on
hormones. And it just didn'twork for me. Yeah, my body kept
saying, no, no, you have to havea male body in order for any of
this to work, you've got to beas as male as you can be in

(25:37):
order for any of the other stuffto work, which doesn't make any
sense, unless you re frame thisparticular type of transness as
somebody trying to align theirsex with their sex. And
obviously I'm not beginning tosay that this is true of all

(25:58):
trans people, but there areobviously so many different ways
to be trans, and my particularway to be trans really doesn't
have anything to do with gender,

Alex Iantaffi (26:09):
exactly. And I love, you know, and even if it
had to do with gender, it's moreabout like, it's just, I love it
because my brain is likeexploding in 500 different
directions right now, right?
Because there is like that, whatMerlot T would call, that
embodied cognition, that way ofknowing that you can only know
when you're in your body, like Iknew, like I had a fair gas,

(26:30):
that I wanted top surgery. Buthonestly, it wasn't until I had
it that I knew this feels right.
Yeah, my body right? And I've, Ihave a complex relationship with
the hormones, but, you know,it's really interesting, because
even the lowest dose oftestosterone, my body is just
like, like a duck to water,right? It's like, I can be the

(26:53):
lowest dose, and I will still gothrough changes very quickly.
Wow, you know, which is reallyinteresting. And so my body
knows what it wants, right? Yes,yeah. Again, I did not have that
simpler narrative. Maybe, youknow, I was not a tomboy as a
kid because I have a very queermasculinity, which already kind

(27:13):
of confused matters in someways, right? Yeah, and I'm
attracted to masculinity,regardless of the person's
gender. Actually, it's more of,for me, like a role in energy or
something that's even hard todescribe, right? And so none of
this fits into, you know, thetraditional transsexual or
transgender narrative, let'scall it, right, which is why it

(27:36):
took me so long right to figureit out, even, and why I was so
fascinated by this idea ofgender, whatever gender is
right, and because there is thephysical experience, and then
there are all these roles,expectations, expression. But I
so relate, because the more Imasculinize my body, the more
comfortable I feel expressing myfemininity in airports, so to

(28:01):
speak, more like my queermasculinity, right? Because I
don't get misgendered as much,yes, and so, because people tend
to look out with certain things.
And so it is so simple and, yes,so complex, and I think that
people have a hard time gettingtheir head around it, because
we, you know, colonialism andwhite supremacy and Christian

(28:22):
supremacy have made gender sorigid, yes, right, where there
isn't that spaciousness. Or evenwhen you said Yeah, I was like,
Yeah, I'm very much more like afather in terms of being the
main breadwinner, you know,being the having certain role in
the household. But at the sametime, I was a gestational parent
for one of my kids, right? And Ihave that kind of emotional,

(28:44):
like mother daughterrelationship, as well as being
more of like a dad at the sametime. Yeah, that can be hard to
explain to people or like, butthere is a role. And yeah,
people should fit into just onerole, yeah, because otherwise my
brain will explode, basically,and

Oliver Radclyffe (29:05):
that is, that is what it's come down to. It's
like, it's too much data. Mybrain can't take all of this and
I get it because it was too muchdata for my brain too. When I
was going through this, I waslike, I do not understand what
is going on here. The only thingapart, the only part of this
that I understand is my bodyneeds to be male, yes, and but

(29:28):
it was like I felt like I had tohave a clear theory of why, in
order to justify doing it, likeI can't do this, you know,
because there is so much fearabout you know, you're going to
make the wrong decision andirreversible changes and regret
and this kind of stuff and and,you know what you just said

(29:49):
about you didn't know that youyou didn't know how much you
wanted top surgery until afteryou had it. I mean, I think
every single trans person I'veever spoken to has said the same
thing, absolutely is that you.
You kind of know, but you can'treally know until it's done.
Then you're like, Oh, my God,thank God I was, you know, I was
right about that. And you know,when I meet people who are like,

(30:10):
I don't know, I don't know, do Iwant to? Do I want? Do I not
want to? And I'm like, Well,okay, how much of your time is
taken up thinking about this?
You know, give me a percentage,is it like above 50% of your
day, every single day, andthey're like, yeah, pretty much.
And I'm like, Yeah, you probablywant it. That's a lot of energy.
And people who don't, people whoaren't trans, do not spend that

(30:34):
much time thinking about whetherthey want to have top surgery or
have hormones. And that was whatfinally got me, because I had
top surgery first, a year beforeI started hormones, and that was
what finally pushed me intohormones, is that I was just
thinking about it all day, everygoddamn day. And finally I was

(30:55):
like, I think this is somethingI want to do, yeah. And then, of
course, after the first show. Ijust never looked back. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi (31:02):
and then it frees up so much kind of mental space,
so much creative energy, youknow, like, what Absolutely, and
I think that's something that Isay also to friends, but also
like clients. As a therapist allthe time, you it's okay not to
be 100% sure, yeah, most humansare rarely under presented or
about any decision, even likebecoming a parent or getting

(31:25):
married or jobs or career, youmake a good guess, and then you
kind of go for it, and hopefullyworks out. And I feel that's a
very human experience, yes, andI wonder if we would spend so
much if it would be so muchagony or so much anguish, if it
wasn't made to be such a bigdeal, right?

Oliver Radclyffe (31:45):
Yes, and if it wasn't weaponized against us,
you know, weaponized, and that'sthe danger is, not only do you
internalize that weaponization,that like you're going to make a
mistake and you're going toregret it, but also as a trans
or non binary person, I hear alot of people saying, What
happens if I do it? Yeah, andthen I kind of want to kind of

(32:09):
roll back a little bit. Am Iadding to the detransition
narrative? Am I betraying mycommunity? Am I reinforcing
their belief, which is crazy,because sometimes you kind of
have to, like, figure out whereyou're going to land. And
sometimes the pendulum of thegrandfather clock does swing a
little far, and then you have toswing back a little bit. That's
normal, and to make that intosuch or D transitioning, and you

(32:34):
regret and irreversible changesis, you know, it's, it's very
detrimental to the freedom thatis an inherent part of being
trans, absolutely.

Alex Iantaffi (32:48):
And I think, you know, you'll, I believe that you
also talk about, you know, inthe book, like being trans as a
gift, which I also reallyappreciate and agree with. And I
do feel that if people, if wedidn't feel that weight right?
And I've worked with a lot ofclients who really feel that
weight, I need to be a goodtrans person, so I need to be

(33:09):
sure. I need to have no doubt,right? When I make a decision,
am I you're asking yourself tonot be human? Yeah, it's okay.
It's okay to have doubts. It'sokay to have some ambivalence.
It's okay to even, you know,with top surgery, there is a
part of, there is some griefwhen your body changes, or some

(33:30):
vulnerability that gets in,right? It's like, all of a
sudden, I remember feeling likemy heart and my chest was
exposed to the world, you know,and like, I remember looking
down, I was like, What happenedto my stomach? Is it like,
weirdly inflated from, you know,my spouse, you've never seen it
before. Exactly, it was, like,so hard news to break to you.

(33:53):
Yeah, this is how your stomach.
You just couldn't see it sodirectly. And I was that took
me, like, a long time to getused and I had to kept, you
know, especially transitioningolder. You had to look at like,
cis men in their like 40s, andgo, This is how they look. This
is how I look. We kind of lookthe same, yeah. But, you know, I
had internalized so much kind ofbody fascism as well, as, you

(34:16):
know, because of the way I wasbrought up. And so it's just
this, almost all this, like Macto sort through, right, yeah?
And that's what I love about theyour book, is that you seem to
go straight to the heart,

Oliver Radclyffe (34:31):
like right muck straight into the pit of
muck, straight

Alex Iantaffi (34:36):
into the pit of muck. And there is, like, this
beautiful clarity in thecomplexity, yeah, and I thought
that was brilliant. How did youmanage that? Was it just like
you just went for it, or was itlike a conscious process? I'm
really curious about that. Um,

Unknown (34:53):
I think it's because these ideas had been kind of
swirling around my head for sucha long time while I was writing
the memoir. And. They really didwant somewhere to go, and they
couldn't go in the memoir,because they would have ruined
the story. The memoir is like,it reads like a novel. It's like
pure narrative. And putting anyof these kind of, there are tiny

(35:13):
bits of, kind of ideological,slightly, I mean, really, almost
nothing, to be honest, becauseit's just story, because the
story is kind of wild to behonest between you and me, and I
don't transition until right atthe end of the book, because the
book is about somebody who istrying really, really hard not
to transition, and everythingthat goes with that, and all of

(35:35):
the kind of processes I wenttrying not to do that, and when
and when and when and when we'respeaking five minutes ago about
the sense of freedom. Whateventually happened in the end
was when I finally let go ofeverything. It felt it felt like

(35:57):
I had jumped off a cliff or outof a plane. It was absolutely
terrifying. I felt like I waslike spinning in space because I
had nothing left to hold on to.
You know, everything about methat had once been true was now
known not long I was no longerheterosexual, I was no longer a
woman, I was no longer abiological mother, I was no
longer married, I was no longerin a relationship. I didn't even

(36:18):
live in my own country. I had,at that point, been pretty much
rejected by the environment inwhich I grew up, at least a lot
of my parents friends, if notthe younger ones. And so I was
like, there I have. We don'trealize how this is not
answering your originalquestion, by the way. I'm

(36:40):
totally going off on a task. Oh,way, we don't realize how much
of a scaffold around us societalexpectations are until we take
them away, because we all haveas part of our most of us have
as part of our internalidentity, something external in

(37:01):
society that aligns. So you'relike, Okay, I'm this, or I'm
this, or I'm this, you know,whether it's your job or your
relationship or where you live,or, you know, the hobby that you
do, and when you take all ofthat away and you're just kind
of left with no scaffolding, itcan be really frightening to
start with, until you start torealize how liberating it is.

(37:25):
And I think the thing that hasbrought me most joy about
transitioning apart from thefact that every single morning
when I look in the bathroommirror, I see somebody that
makes sense to me is the factthat I feel like I can I don't
belong anywhere, so now I can goeverywhere. Yeah, I don't belong

(37:46):
to any. I mean, the transcommunity is just so what is the
trans community? I don't know.
It's just a bunch of transpeople, but it's so wild and
diverse and, yes, you know,indescribable and uncontainable,
that it doesn't really kind ofmake sense as a community, apart
from fighting together against,you know, people who are trying

(38:06):
to take away our rights. But youknow, now I can, I can be
friends with men. I can befriends with women. I the way I
present makes no sense toanybody. I look like a gay man,
but I'm not attracted to men,but I I'm clearly not
heterosexual. I mean, for God'ssake, don't call me straight,
because that's the weirdestthing in the world. I you know,

(38:27):
nothing about me makes sense. Soeverything feels right, because
I don't have to conform toanything anymore. I don't have
to compromise my identity in anyway. And you know, it's one of
the reasons why I'm not inrelationship at the moment,
because moment, because I, atthe moment, I'm taking such
pleasure from that, and I knowthat the minute I enter a

(38:49):
relationship, I will have tocompromise a little bit. And at
the moment, it's like I havewaited for years to be 100%
myself. And I just want to kindof wallow in this for a while.
Oh,

Alex Iantaffi (39:07):
absolutely. And, and, you know, as you were
talking, I was like, oh yes,this, there's just so much
beauty in the unraveling, eventhough it's painful at the time,
at least it was for me, like, Irelated a lot to the like, you
need to let go of the lot ofthings, yeah. And also to the

(39:27):
confusion that people are like,sir, I mean, ma'am, when I
opened my mouth, I mean, and I'mlike, it's all good. You know,
that's why I was, like, genderirrelevant, transsexual, yeah, I
feel that that is like threewords that explain everything.
I'm like, Yes, I'm for thatbecause, you know, and then
people have to get to know you,right? And it's like, where in

(39:49):
on what other human level do weconnect? Yes, if we take those
boxes, yes, right? What, whatshared interests or experiences
we might have, and they expand.
Positiveness of that. And thatis beautiful. Yeah, there's

Unknown (40:04):
a, there's a fascinating Jordan Peterson clip
where he, you know, he's doinghis typical thing, and he's
like, staring into the camera,going, you know, if you don't
have a gender, how can I connectwith you? How do I know you? How
can I speak to you? And I'mlike, wow, poor Jordan. Yes,
poor guy that's really rough,that he just needs to have his

(40:24):
hand held to that degree inorder to be able to connect with
another human being. It's kindof like, wow, that's really eye
opening. And

Alex Iantaffi (40:36):
I think he speaks to like that kind of toxic
cisgenderism, toxic masculinity,that tells us like we are going
to be safe and we're going toknow how to connect if people
are in this two boxes of maleand female and it's a lie,
right? Or we're going to be safeif we put people in those two
boxes and it's a lie. First ofall, any fan person knows that

(40:58):
no sign on a bathroom door hasever stopped any man assaulting
anybody you know. And we knowthat intimate partners are the
highest risk in terms ofviolence, and not any person,
which is like absurd. But I dofeel like the sadness in a way,

(41:20):
especially for cis white men,where it's like, this is the
only way I know how to relate tothe world, yeah. And I think
that a lot of times it is thisfear that the world will explode
and they will not understand itanymore. And in a way, we are
proof of that as trans people,because we're like, yeah,

Unknown (41:37):
and we do, we do shift the ground under their feet. You
know, we can't. We can't pretendthat we don't know, you know we
do say, look, it's you just doyour You mind your own business
and let us mind ours. But thereality is, is that we are
shifting how society works

Alex Iantaffi (41:56):
absolutely and the reality is that we are a
threat to like more dogmatic,colonial kind of fascist ways of
governing bodies or nations,right? Because we will not be
governed by those categories,right? And so we're proof that,
like, look, you can actually bewho you are. I remember going to

(42:18):
my oldest kiddo school when shewas still in elementary school,
and the kid was like, Are you aboy? And I was like, No, are you
a girl? And I was like, No. Andit was like, you gotta pick one.
I was like, Oh, actually, a Don,nobody has to pick one. Isn't
that great? And you could seethat it must have been like, six
or seven. This little boy wasjust like, the wheels were

(42:41):
turned right, like, oh, and itdoesn't matter what people's
identity is, right? And I'm surethat some people would feel
threatened hearing of an adultsaying something like that to a
child, but I think it's sobeautiful that we can be
expansive, right? We can beourselves and and why would we
want to put children who arejust such amazing, fascinating

(43:05):
little beings that are cominginto their own, like into this
tight boxes, rather than listento them and in relation to them
as they grow and kind of makesense of themselves? You know
what I mean? It's just like, ina way, we we are a threat to our
society. Is, but, I think, but

Unknown (43:24):
we're, yeah, I mean, 100% the point is, is we are.
We're a threat to the powersystems that run society, at the
moment, exactly a threat to thelittle kids, because little kids
can open up their minds andheartbeats. The little kid was
like, this is fascinating. Thisis wild, exactly. It's like my
little next door neighbor when Imoved into this house, and their

(43:46):
kid came running over into ourgarden, and I write about this
in the Mun one, and jumped ontothe trampoline with my daughters
and and she was, I don't know,she was, like, five at the time,
four maybe. And she just said,my mum says, Your mum's a man.
And my daughter said, Yes, heis. And the little girl was
like, oh, okay, and that was it.
I mean, it's like, that's thateasy. And this is the thing is

(44:08):
that, you know, we, as liberals,I would can't speak to the hard
right, but as liberals, we want,we want the next generations to
have more and to have better andto have wider and to have
greater freedoms and autonomy.

(44:33):
And this is part of that, butthat, you know, obviously, that
does destabilize these peoplewho think that they're in power
at the moment, absolutely, thestatus

Alex Iantaffi (44:43):
quo, exactly, exactly. And I love that, that
example, because I, yeah, Iresonate. I've seen it again
again with kids, like they getit. It's like, oh, okay, this is
what your pronouns are. This iswho you are. It's not, it's not
a big deal. I. My oldest takingone of their friends to look at
the the belly cast that I hadmade when I was pregnant with

(45:06):
her. And she was like, See, Itold you that my mom is a he had
used to have breasts, right?
Here's the proof, right? Andwe're like, oh, cool, you know?
And it was like, so, you know,because it's like, kids are just
trying to make sense of the

Unknown (45:25):
world with kids, is that, yeah, everything in the
world is weird to a kid,exactly. I mean, a tree is weird
to a kid, a raccoon is weird toa kid. I mean, everything is
like, and what kids do is theylook at the adults around them
and go, is this kind of part ofour world? And if the adults go,
yeah, the kids like, oh, okay,is that? The fact that they're
seeing a raccoon out in thebackyard doesn't mean they want

(45:47):
to be a raccoon. They're justlike, Okay, that's a raccoon.
And it's the same with the Transand Queer people around them.
It's like, all of those peopleare trans and queer. So that's
something that you get to chooseto be. If that is something that
resonates with you, and if itdoesn't, then it doesn't it's
fine, this whole idea thatsomehow kids are being trans or
the social I mean, it's just allsuch nonsense. Really is pure,

(46:11):
pure, distilled transphobia. Oh,

Alex Iantaffi (46:14):
it really is. And it's so ridiculous. If anything,
knowing all the options makes akid much clearer, yeah, about
who they are. It's like, both ofmy kids have been surrounded
like by trans, non binarygender, expensive people their
own lives. They're very clearabout their gender, actually, in
a much easier way, because it'slike, oh, yes, you know, yeah.

(46:36):
Like, Oh, I see all theseoptions, right? You know. And
same with the queerness is like,coming out, then it's not a big
deal, because it's just like,oh, this is the buffet of
options. Yeah, I think thislabels might describe me, you
know, and I can pick them up andput them down, because I don't
have to be my labels. I'm just ahuman, just like it, you know,

(46:57):
in this fenceless I love thatyou talk about fences. In the
fenceless society, right? Youknow, as an abolitionist, the
heart was always hated,geopolitical, social borders,
yeah? That really spoke to myheart. I was like, yes, a
fenceless society in every wayis the

Unknown (47:16):
dream. Yeah. And that partly happened because when I
first started transitioning. Iwas dating somebody who, who
was, I mean, I don't think shewould have called herself a
lesbian separatist, but that'sessentially what she was at the
time. She she, you know, shereally wanted to separate, yeah,
the women from the men. And if Iwas transitioning, I was moving
out of one camp and intoanother, yeah. And I'm like,

(47:40):
yeah, no, I'm just No, Iabsolutely refute that narrative
on all levels. None of that ismy experience, and it's such a

Alex Iantaffi (47:53):
narrative of separation, you know, I remember
even I was brought up a secondwave feminist. I used to teach
women studies, and I used toidentify as a dyke, specifically
politically and yet, theseparatism I could never get my
head around, because I'm like,it's such a rigid facts, and it

(48:13):
doesn't make sense to me, evenbefore I expanded, you know, my
ideas of gender, thankfully,because It was agonizing to try
and deal with the my identity.
And I was like, it's justinternalized misogyny. I'm just
not loving myself, right? Andthen I'm like, No, it's not. But

Unknown (48:29):
it's just

Alex Iantaffi (48:31):
such a rigid fence that separates us from our
humanity to some degree, andI've seen that suffering the
some of the more separatist, youknow, separatist lesbian udana
fallen in love with man, orseparatist lesbians or Diana to
come to terms with, like a transidentity, right? That's not easy
if you've built your worldaround this rigid fans, yeah,

(48:53):
this heartbreak. And

Unknown (48:55):
also, I mean, I think that what I struggled with a lot
at that time, because I was kindof questioning everything. Was
one of the hardest things, Ithink, that I've had to deal
with in my transition is therecognition that by
transitioning from female tomale, I have kind of moved

(49:17):
myself down the hierarchicalladder because I'm trans, but
I've also moved myself up thehierarchical ladder because I'm
male, and it's very difficult toreconcile that in some people's
brains, it's very difficult toreconcile the fact that I had to
transition because it wasn't achoice. And with that transition

(49:39):
comes privileges that I didn'thave before, that the people who
are the gender that I wasassigned at birth do not have,
and yet, I will fight with everyfiber of my body for bodily
autonomy and rights foreverybody. You know. I just

(49:59):
saying, okay. Say, Well, I'mfine, Jack, you know, so do you?
I don't need to worry about youanymore. It's like, this is my
whole life now. Is is fightingfor the right for people to be
able to do and be exactly whoand what they want to do and be.
But it is, it is it is hard forsome people to get over that

(50:25):
slight resentment of the factthat, yeah, I do. I mean, I pass
as a cis man, and that comeswith immense privilege. There's
just no question about it. Itcomes with and, you know,
sometimes I'm like, am I sohappy now because I
transitioned, or am I so happynow, because I'm kind of getting
all this male privilege that Iwasn't getting before. And my

(50:45):
trans femme friends, they havethe opposite experience,
absolutely. And when I say tothem, oh my I remember having
one conversation, which I regretin retrospect, after I had
transitioned, and I had a friendwho hadn't, and she was scared,
and she was did it, and I waslike, No, I promise you, once
you transition, it's all gonnafeel amazing, and I hadn't

(51:08):
factored in the amount oftransphobia that she was then
going to be subjected to. Andthat was very eye opening to
witness her go through that.
Yeah, was very eye opening. Oh,

Alex Iantaffi (51:22):
absolutely, because there is kind of the the
loss of social status. Yeah,I've supported a lot of folks
through that. It's, it's very,very real, right? And

Unknown (51:32):
it's not just the loss of the social status. It's also
that they become just, you know,fundamentally more vulnerable.
Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Alex Iantaffi (51:41):
I mean, and that that comes with a vulnerability,
it comes with a level ofdehumanizing, right? It comes
with, like, come it's, it's veryimpactful, yeah, absolutely.
It's not just the, when I sayloss of social status, there is
so much imbued in there, right?
Because, in a way, it's like,you know, and especially trans
trans women of color, right? Ithink and and often I find that

(52:02):
with trans femme folks of color,there's already an understanding
of the system of power,privilege and oppression. But
with some of my white transfeminine Yeah, folks is like, of
course, like, right? It's like,it's that, again, that embodied
experience of what does it, youknow, to be treated in kind of
trans misogynistic ways ormisogynistic ways? It's, it's

(52:25):
really impactful. And being inthat liminal space that's, it's
fascinating, because honestly,people like read me in all sorts
of ways, and then to see how youget treated. And the
intersection also withdisability, like when I use
mobility aids, getting treatedagain differently, and even in
terms of gender, I getmisgendered way more if I'm

(52:47):
using like a rollerator versuslike a cane, it's Wow. It's just
fascinating.

Unknown (52:55):
It really is fascinating, isn't it? It's just
like our guys, I'm the sameperson underneath. I mean, you
know, I've had people who, youknow, not even acquaintances,
just people who I come across inin my normal life, who just
treat me differently becausethey don't know that I'm the
same person that I was before.
Yes, so my car mechanic, forexample, you know, does not know
because I transitioned duringthe pandemic. They just didn't

(53:17):
kind of register that thisperson who had this car before
and was a woman is the sameperson as this car who has now
and as a man. And, you know,it's, it's just, it's crazy to,
you know, we all know that maleprivilege exists, but there's
nothing like transitioning toget, like, a really direct
experience of that, absolutely,

Alex Iantaffi (53:40):
to really have that kind of embodied experience
like with that, and I love thatyou even question whether like
is transition even the rightword right in some ways, because
it's like, I don't know like, ormaybe I was thinking, is
transition even the right wordwhen I was reading your book,
yeah,

Unknown (53:56):
I mean, I've written, I've written more about that
recently, because, you know, forme, it felt like alignment. It
didn't feel like transition,because I didn't transition from
female to male, because I wasnever female in the first place.
So I just aligned my male bodywith what a male body is
supposed to look like. So, and Ithink, you know, we use the term

(54:16):
transition because it wascreated by a CIS, head white
doctor, and that's what theysaw. What they saw was somebody
who was a woman and then became,in fact, in his case, it was
somebody who was a man andbecame a woman, and that they
transitioned across this, thissort of gender bridge, as it
were. But that's just really nothow it feels for most of us.

(54:39):
Absolutely. You know, even backas far as we can remember, trans
people have saying, have beensaying, No, I just I there was
something wrong with my body, soI just aligned my body with what
it was meant to look like. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi (54:52):
and I love the idea of alignment, because
whether people are going throughphysical changes to align or
social change. In terms ofpronouns, names, everybody
close, it's, it's sick. We, weall want to feel more coherent,
more aligned, more who we are,right? And that's all it is. And
isn't that such a humanexperience it is? And

Unknown (55:16):
this is what we've been this is what feminists been
talking about forever. When wetalk about, you know, I was
reading a thing about, you know,the sort of metrosexual men from
the where was the early 2000s orwhatever, when metrosexuality
came in. And, you know what,what we've been talking about
forever is like, you know,let's, let's loosen the
parameters that are so tightlyplaced around then as well. You

(55:40):
know that men, you know they'renot allowed to cry, they're not
showing emotion, they're allowedall these ridiculous rules that
they have. It's so restricting,and it's so unfair and it's so
deeply damaging for them. And sowhen, when you know, if we
could, if everybody could,embrace the idea of alignment
and take gender out of it, thenwhat you don't end up with is

(56:03):
this kind of gray, flat, boring,genderless society. What you end
up with is the opposite, whereeverybody can be whatever they
want to be at any time for anyreason, and then just change
their mind and just do somethingelse, this complete freedom to
for everybody. And that doesn'tmake everybody trans. It doesn't

(56:27):
mean everybody needs to go it,just if everybody, all I want
for everybody in the world isfor everybody to have access to
everything. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi (56:38):
it makes everybody free. Yeah, that's
why, you know, I often talkabout, like, I don't want an
androgynous society. I mean,androgyny is awesome and hot
and, you know,

Unknown (56:47):
but nobody's being the kind of trans fascist that
people we think exactly gotta beandrogynous, exactly.

Alex Iantaffi (56:54):
I just want a liberated world where everybody
you know can wear whatever theywant and whatever clothes they
want, put makeup or not if theywant to, and it's not a big
deal, and express

Unknown (57:05):
their emotions the way they want, and choose their
roles within their families theway they want and have
relationships the way they want,in an all effect. Why do we set
such rules upon ourselves? Andwe know why. Because of
Christian ways, patriarchy, it'sthe point. It was trying to
govern us. It was policing, wastrying to govern the society so
we understand. It's just thattrying to get people to

(57:28):
understand we don't have to dothis anymore. Exactly. We
really, genuinely do not need topolice our society this way
anymore. Yeah. But people are soconditioned into this type of
society, it's really hard to getpeople to wake up from that.

Alex Iantaffi (57:44):
It's just so kind of, so in it's in the air we
breathe. I often say it's in theair we breathe, it comes into
our lungs, becomes part of weare. And it's a real hard
process. I'm learning that,yeah, you know, if we have kind
of, if we are part of a culturethat is kind of lost, that Yeah,

(58:05):
and

Unknown (58:06):
it is. And this is why, this is why I kind of go, I
mean, apart from the people whoare obviously sort of violently
transphobic, this is why I tendto go easy on cis people who are
having a hard time with this.
Because, you know, I am trans,and I had a hard time with it,
absolutely, yeah. And so if thisis who I am, and I had a hard
time deconditioning myself,imagine, if you didn't have that

(58:27):
incentive, you know, imagine ifyou know it's the same, it's the
same, it's the sameconversations that we're having
around, we were having aroundanti racism, you know, back in,
well, in 2020 confined to 2020but you know, those
conversations about anti racismwas like, you know, guys, you
really have to understand whatis going on here, and it it
takes a while to, like, go, Oh,okay. But if you're black,

(58:49):
that's urgent. That's like,necessary and important. You
learn that stuff early and fastand quickly, because you have to
to survive. But for the peoplewho can just calmly go around
their lives just ignoring it,yeah, it's that protection of
privilege. It's the protectionof privilege, exactly. And so,
you know, I get it, it'slearning about gender and you

(59:13):
know what, in air quotes. AndI'm doing very obvious air
quotes here, everybody callsgender ideology. You know, for
people who don't have a vestedinterest in that conversation,
or for people who, as you say,are going to lose their
privilege and power if thatconversation becomes too
prevalent, yeah, you know, it'strickier.

Alex Iantaffi (59:37):
It is. And you know, I've even seen trans folk
sometimes be afraid of, like,too much, right? Is it gone too
far, right? And I'm like, Whatare we afraid of?

Unknown (59:47):
Yeah, exactly No. You know,

Alex Iantaffi (59:49):
what are we afraid of? It's like, we don't
need to reproduce the samesystem, yeah?

Unknown (59:53):
And that's like saying, Okay, we don't want to have a
fence in here, but we'll put afence out there. The point is,
we want no fences. So we reallydo at this point have to go all
out, yeah, and that's I ambehind that 100% is just like we
just have to go all out at thispace, because now is the time
exactly.

Alex Iantaffi (01:00:12):
We could be much freer, and we could really and I
think that helps us see also howall of those things are
interconnected. You know, evenwe just had the Olympics and
this constant scrutiny of blackfemale athletes, right? It's
just another reflection of thecisgenderism. And so our our
struggles are allinterconnected, whether it's

(01:00:34):
racial justice, gender justice,reproductive justice, yes,
right? Immigration justice, likeall the struggles are not
separate. They're not reallyconnected. They really are,
yeah, oh, I could have thisconversation for like, the next
three hours, but I want to berespectful of your time. And I
realized that we got in so muchinto adults because I was so

(01:00:56):
excited to be talking with youabout it that we've hardly
talked about frighten thehorses, which is the memoir that
is coming out, yes, this monthin September. So maybe if you do
have a few more minutes, I wouldlove to hear the story about
your first book, which is aboutto come out now, to come out now
came about because you said, oh,there's a story there too. So if

(01:01:19):
you have the time, I would loveto hear it. If not, I'll just
have to have you back some othertime. But well,

Unknown (01:01:24):
I mean, the story is really that the day after I came
out to my therapist as alesbian, which I kind of knew I
wasn't, but was trying to be, atthat point, I was married, I had
four children. I was living herein the Connecticut suburbs. I
was living the life of a verywealthy heterosexual housewife,

(01:01:45):
and I was utterly miserable, andhad been for many years, well
for decades. And when I when Imoved to America, I reconnected
with an old friend of mine whowas living in New York and had
been living in New York for 10years or so, and she was, like,
deeply submerged in the kind ofcounterculture, punk performance
art music scene. And when I cameover here and met up with her, I

(01:02:11):
it was like the scales fell frommy eyes. It's like there's a
different way to live. And Ididn't know this because I was,
I was brought up in such asheltered environment, and so
after nearly having a breakdown,trying to contain all this stuff
about myself because I was so Iwas heavily in denial, and

(01:02:31):
trying to stay I wanted to stayin denial, because I didn't want
to blow up this life that I had.
I finally came out to mytherapist, and then that started
this 10 year journey fromtelling my husband that I was a
lesbian to finally transitioningand I wrote while it was
happening. I journaledobsessively, and then started to

(01:02:53):
think I'd always wanted to be awriter. I didn't think that that
was something that I could be. Ihad no idea how that was a thing
that even happened. It just itseemed like completely
improbable to this the personthat I was. But as I was writing
more in my journal to startwith, I started writing in the

(01:03:17):
third person because I was soafraid. Of what was happening
that I think I felt that if Icould sort of write it, almost
as if it was a story, I couldremove myself from it for a bit.
So this memoir started to form.
And, you know, it took me 10years from the day I started
writing it to the day it gotacquired by Roxane Gay was 10

(01:03:38):
years because I was teachingmyself to write, yeah, because I
didn't, I didn't have an MFA. Ididn't, you know, I had no
formal education. My creativewriting education had finished
when I was 16, because there'sno creative writing in your
junior or seniors at school inEngland. So it's a very, very,
very long process, and at manypoints during that process, I

(01:04:00):
really didn't think this thingwas ever going to get published,
but that kind of almost stoppedbeing my aim by the end, my aim
was I need to have written thebook that says exactly what
happened, that is that is reallydeeply truthful about What
happened, and that includes notjust the journey, but everything

(01:04:23):
that I went through andeverything that I was
responsible for, and all of myshame and all my weakness and
the bad decisions that I made,and, you know, all the kind of
humanity of it and the confusionand the chaos and the fact that
other people were damaged. Butbecause in English, everything
is written with a sense ofhumor, because that's what the

(01:04:45):
English do. It's like, you know,if something's really tough,
let's just kind of make a bit ofa joke about it. So it's very
much written in that style,where there's kind of wit and
humor, but there's some fairlydark stuff going on there as
well. Yeah. Yeah, so. And justas I was about to start
submitting it, Roxanne Gayannounced that she was starting

(01:05:07):
this imprint, and she said inher announcement, I'm probably
not going to be interested insad white people marriages. And
I'm like,

Alex Iantaffi (01:05:17):
you're like, great.

Unknown (01:05:18):
I'm like, great. Okay, that's kind of the whole first
part of the book. But okay,maybe I get a pass because I'm
queer and trans and thank God Idid. Thank God. I mean, this is
the, like, the first time beingtrans had actually worked in my
favor. Because previously, whenI was looking for an agent,
agents were turning me downbecause it's like, oh no, we've
already got a queer or trans,right? Yeah, we've got one of

(01:05:42):
those. I'm like, oh, sorry thatshe hates the game here. So,
yeah, this was the first, Ithink. I mean, I don't know
whether that's why she boughtit. Obviously, I've never asked
her, but yeah, so, andobviously, being published by
Roxane. I

Alex Iantaffi (01:05:58):
mean, what an honor. I mean, I'm pushing out.
It goes, it's brilliant, right?

Unknown (01:06:03):
I mean, oh my god, the editing process was so easy. I
mean, she got exactly what I wastrying to say. She knew exactly
what we needed more, or she knewexactly what we had to cut out.
I mean, it was like, oh my god,I'm in the hands of an expert
here. So the, I mean, she, she,she 100% got what I was trying

(01:06:25):
to do with this book. And shejust, you know, moved to up that
extra level in the editingprocess. It was amazing. Was
really fun. That's

Alex Iantaffi (01:06:32):
amazing. I'm so happy for you and and I come, I
so understand when you would,like, there's just, like, this
Highlander syndrome. We alreadyhave a trans person. I'm like,
that doesn't work like thatexactly.

Unknown (01:06:47):
There's not just one of us. You know,

Alex Iantaffi (01:06:49):
No, exactly.
That's one of the reasons why Ilove publishing my nonfiction
with Jessica Kingsley, becausethey have so many translators.
Actually, they're reallycultivated like a whole stable
of trans and minor, genderexpansive, trans authors. And it
feels, it doesn't feel likethat, tokenizing that experience
so much of in academia. So I'mso happy that you are such a

(01:07:10):
great experience with the withthe book that just about to kind
of come out into the world,

Unknown (01:07:17):
is just about to come out into the world. It's got
some great pre pub reviews, andyou know, it was on the best
recommended for fall with Oprahdaily and with People magazine.
So, you know, it's just soexciting to start getting
feedback from it, because, youknow, when you're when you're
someone like me, I just beenwriting into the void for the
last 10 years with no idea whatanybody's going to think about

(01:07:39):
this book. And you know, my betareaders, or all my friends. So
while I trust them to give megood feedback, they're also
going to be saying, Yeah, youknow, they're cheerleaders as
well. So there's a little bit oflike, Yeah, I kind of know you
like it, but you're in it, soyou probably like it because
you're in it, you know. So it'sreally, it's really fun,
kidding. Absolutely feedbackfrom people who have to owe me

(01:08:04):
nothing. Yeah,

Alex Iantaffi (01:08:05):
it's so satisfying. You know,
absolutely, I completelyunderstand that feeling of like,
oh, I don't know how this isgoing to land. And then when
absolute strangers say nicethings about my non fiction
books, I'm always like, that'samazing. Like, this person I
don't know has gotten all ofthis out of these things I've
written in that relation of meand my computer, you know? So it

(01:08:28):
is a beautiful moment. Well,like I said, I you know, I can't
wait for gender storieslisteners to read both of your
books, actually, both of yourbrilliant books. And I could
keep having this conversation,but I will be respectful, and so
I'll ask you the question that Ialways ask at the end of my
interviews, which is, is thereanything we haven't talked about

(01:08:49):
that you were hoping we wouldtouch on or talk about?

Unknown (01:08:53):
That's I did not know you're gonna ask that question.
So sorry.

Alex Iantaffi (01:08:59):
Before recording by like time you need no,

Unknown (01:09:02):
it's just like, I feel like we've covered so much in
this conversation, you know, Ifeel like we, you know, we kind
of went there, yeah, I honestly,I don't think there is, I think,
I think all I would like to sayis, if you want To read my more
kind of academic thoughts aboutgender, pick up human adult,

(01:09:24):
human male. But if you just wanta crazy story, pick up
frightened horses because thestory is kind of crazy.

Alex Iantaffi (01:09:35):
Well, we live, in any way, in a very, you know,
crazy world, or in that contextof Mad pride, right? It's a
world that doesn't make sense.
And so how could our stories notbe that way? But, you know, you
could also read both, becausethey're both. I'm just saying, I
mean, they

Unknown (01:09:53):
kind of go well together, let's say a little bit
like a main course. You know,exactly, exactly, you know, I.
Would say that adult human maleis the main course and frighten
the horses is the dessert. Yeah,I

Alex Iantaffi (01:10:06):
love it. So they came out in the right order in
some ways,

Unknown (01:10:10):
before dessert. There you go. There you go.

Alex Iantaffi (01:10:14):
And you know, given that, like I took you by
surprise with that question,maybe let's just stand on how
are you finding joy or comfortin this days of rising
transphobia on both sides of thepond? What gives you joy
nowadays? If, no matter howsmall it is,

Unknown (01:10:36):
I think what gives me joy is, honestly, it's the
writing, it's, it's, it'sfinally having the confidence to
know that I have finallydeveloped the skills to say what
I want to say, and and that I'mthat I that I'm not going to run

(01:10:57):
out of things to say, becausethere was That kind of strange
writer's feeling of like, okay,I'm sort of, I've got these
ideas of these essays, but onceI write them, what happens if
that's it? Well, I've got thismemoir, what happens if I write
it and then that's it? But I'm,you know, I've already started
on a novel, which I'm veryexcited about, and the ideas for
the essays just never stopcoming. And having spent 10

(01:11:20):
years like conducting my ownpersonal MFA in gender studies
and reading every single book Ican get my hands on, and reading
all the novels, teaching myselfabout structure and style and
all the rest of it, you know, Ihave a lot more confidence now
my writing, which is a reallynice place to be in, because, to
start with, I was like, I don't,you know. I know I love writing.

(01:11:43):
I know I have a kind of a vagueinnate talent, but how does one
develop the skill, and how farcan one develop that skill? You
know, what is going to be myceiling? And now I'm feeling
like, Oh, I think my ceilingmight just keep moving up, and
I'm hoping that just each bookwill be just slightly better
than the last. Yeah, that's, Ithink that's what brings me joy.

Alex Iantaffi (01:12:05):
That's beautiful.
I love it. Thank you for sharingthat. Yeah, I don't have an MFA
either. You know, in I've got myPhD in what used to be women's
studies, actually, not evengender studies. But I know that
feeling of like, is anybodygoing to get this, and is
anybody going to read this? Andjust the joy that comes and but
then we do it, because sometimesit's just that joy in that, in

(01:12:27):
the writing process,

Unknown (01:12:31):
in the writing process, exactly. I mean, just getting a
sentence, right? Yes. So it's solittle. But you know, there are
some sentences that are tricky,and I could work on them for a
while, and then suddenly I getit right. And I was like, that's
exactly what I wanted to say. Iknow that sentence has nailed
it. I know it's saying what Iwant to say. I know it's
communicating exactly what I'mfeeling. And that is a really,

(01:12:54):
really great experience. That'svery that's the mindfulness of
writing

Alex Iantaffi (01:12:59):
so beautiful. And if people wanna, of course,
people can order your books atany independent bookstore. But
if people wanna, kind of followyou and find out more about your
writing, do you have, like, awebsite or social media?

Unknown (01:13:12):
I do so. My website is just my name, Oliver
radcliffe.com I also have a substack called brevis scriptor. So
if you look up Oliver Radcliffe,hopefully it will take you to
brevis script or and I haveInstagram, which is the only
social media that I do. I thinkit posts on Facebook, but I do
not understand how I once openedup Facebook recently, oh my god,

(01:13:35):
this is terrifying. I justclosed it down again. I do not
understand what's going on withthat site. So yeah, I'm the end.
I'm I'm an Instagram person,fantastic.

Alex Iantaffi (01:13:44):
So we'll make sure that all those links and
all those handles are in theabsolute description. Dear
listeners or viewers, if you'rewatching this on YouTube and
Oliver, thank you so much forthis. Just I feel nourished by
this conversation, and I feel sograteful and and thank you for
sharing the joy of your writingwith the gender stories

(01:14:06):
listeners and viewers. So

Oliver Radclyffe (01:14:09):
much for having me this has been an
absolute delight

Alex Iantaffi (01:14:13):
dear gender stories, listeners or viewers,
if you're watching on YouTube,I'm so grateful for each and
every one of you, and I hopethat you find that beautiful
freedom, no matter what yourgender identity is, and until
next time you.