Thoughts on transgender representation

I spent the weekend in London, at Pilar Alessandra’s masterclass on writing for television, put on by London Screenwriters Festival.

It was a fantastic class. I’ve listened to Pilar’s podcast for years, so I was really excited about the course, and I’ve managed to do a lot of significant work on the next script I want to write. I find her approach to story – of knowing the rules but not being constrained by them – refreshingly accessible; I write from character, and structure is something I struggle with, so the weekend has given me a strong backbone for my new story, and lots to think about.

The guest speaker on Saturday was John Yorke. There aren’t enough superlatives for his book, Into the Woods, which is a fascinating look at the how and why of stories, and the only screenwriting book I know that uses a Muppets song to illuminate storytelling theory.

muppets

One of the exercises Pilar got us to do invoked – involuntarily – my favourite subject, transgender representation.

To get a sense of some of the different ways you can develop episode ideas based on a series logline – pulling from theme or turning character relationships – Pilar set us a task to work on the longline for a series about a disgraced professor who is fired because of some sort of scandal and goes to work at a high school.

A good half a dozen people pitched premises where the ‘scandal’ was that the professor was trans – either a trans woman who’d left the college in disgrace, or a trans man who’d taken on someone else’s identity in order to escape their past, and a slew of trans identities in between – so many that Pilar joked, after the third or forth, that ‘transgender storylines have already become cliche!’

She was joking, but I don’t think she was wrong.

With trans issues so prominent in the media at the moment – and with trans people as main cast members in some of the most popular dramas on television – television is going to chase the trans issue as a ‘trend’. I imagine that – at story conferences up and down the country – every soap is figuring out who and how they can introduce a trans character, and I know there are a number of TV projects on their way with trans characters at their heart (and I am so, so excited about Boy Meets Girl coming to BBC 2 later this year).

As much as I want to see transgender people on television, part of me worries. I’ve seen – first hand – trans people have their lives pillaged for stories; friends who’s entire existence has been shrunk down to their trans identity – their ‘journey from man to woman’ – in 500 words and a before-and-after picture. I don’t think that’s fair.

Equally, I’ve seen trans representation done wrong on television; so frequently, trans people are the butt of the joke – the pull back and reveal – presented as perverts or deceivers; Rantasmo has a great video on trans representation in film, which presents some of the worst offenders.

Being trans is not a scandal.

Representation is always a journey, and we seem to be moving away from the trans deceiver, the hysterical trans woman (because it’s always a trans woman, but misogyny is a story for another day) sex worker killed off in the teaser. For anyone writing – or thinking about writing – trans characters, All About Trans is a really useful resource. They put together a great infographic, in the wake of Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out, that covers some of the basics of trans representation:

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I did a lecture earlier this year with student screenwriters at GCU on trans representation on film and television, and put together an article for Bang2Write on 11 notable trans characters and the 11 things experts want to see next in terms of trans representation.

And for an example of trans representation done well, check out Sense 8, a brilliant, bonkers Netflix epic from the Wachowskis.

jamie

Writing queer characters and telling queer stories is my passion – check out the first 10 pages of my Trans Comedy Award script.

If you want to chat about trans representation, please send me an email!

Dad Chat

I’m rewriting a script at the moment for Comedy Script Room.

My scripts rarely feature straight white guys because I’m super committed to diversity, and because I literally have no idea what they talk about.

I was chatting with my partner last night about how I’m struggling with some of the ‘Dad chat’ in the scenes between the Dad and son:

Callum: Well, what sort of stuff does your Dad talk about?

Michael: He doesn’t, really, he just does Simpsons bits in funny voices, bangs on pots with the end of a spoon, makes chicken noises – I don’t think my Dad is the right example.

So – what do straight white guys sound like? What does your Dad talk about?

First 10 Pages: Real Life Experience

In 2013, I was ‘highly commended’ for the Trans Comedy Award, an initiative put together in conjunction with BBC Writersroom in order to improve the representation of transgender people on TV.

When I saw the initiative advertised, I was over the moon; I’d just graduated from an MA in Writing for Television. I’d been working with the trans community for years, having set up Trans* Youth Glasgow, a youth project for transgender young people. I was passionate about seeing our stories, queer stories on TV.

This was my moment.

And I started writing the script I thought the judges would want to see.

It was about a trans woman – her age fluctuated, from her late teens to her mid-fifties – coming out and going out as a woman for the first time.

All of the cliches of trans representation were present and correct; there she is, on page one, looking in the mirror as she applies her make-up; on page two, she’s putting on her sparkly dress. By the end of the script, she’d copped off for the first time with someone who turned out to be a transphobe.

I’d put a lot of time and effort into writing something I wouldn’t – didn’t – want to watch, and something I wasn’t proud of.

With eight days to go before the end of the competition, I scrapped my original ideas and started working on something else.

I pulled my logline – a young transman starts his final year of school, socialising as a boy for the first time – out of thin air and started writing something that I was interested in.

Everything that’s in the script – the wee guy being ‘outed’ in assembly; being turned down for the school football team before he even tries out; using his trans status as a way to get served in a pub – is drawn from real life examples of the kids I’d worked with and supported to come out in school.

When I read it back, I realised there was a lot of my own stuff – about masculinity, about identity, about my relationships with my family – in there, too.

It’s one of the most personal things I’ve ever written, and one of the things I’m most proud of.

One of the drawbacks of writing scripts can be how long it takes to get a project off the ground; that you can write something and it can take years before it even gets in front of the right people, if it ever does.

Real Life Experience is the little script that could. It’s done the rounds a few times, and been ‘almost there’ almost every time it’s been submitted for something. Having had my work commended by Sophie Clarke-Jervoise, Kate Rowland and Jon Plowman – whose name comes up in the credits for all of my favourite British comedies – was already a huge achievement for me.

In the interest of putting stuff out there in order to get it in front of the right person – or people – here’s the first ten pages.

I’d love to find out what you think – give me a shout if you want to read the rest!

Postscript:

Last week, I attended the first screening of High Heels Aren’t Compulsory, a film made by Lock Up Your Daughters based on a script that had initially been submitted for the Trans Comedy Award. The film was incredible, and it was really inspiring to find out where it had come from – and where it was going. The Daughters are intending to submit it to film festivals over the summer, so I hope you get to see it soon!

Michael Lee Richardson: Annual General Review 2014

5 things I wrote

  • Monster, another half hour comedy pilot, that didn’t exist until someone asked for it, and then – it did
  • A decent chunk of Blackout, another hour long drama script that I’m hoping to start sending out in 2015
  • ‘Last Night’, a short story adapted from a script I wrote for my MA (which was, incidentally, adapted from a script I wrote to get onto my MA)
  • ‘Wendy’, a short story
  • A pitching document and episode breakdown for My Mad Family, an idea I’d originally pitched at a CBBC development lab

4 things I achieved

  • My comedy script Monster was shortlisted for the BAFTA Rocliffe New Comedy Forum
  • Won the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award after having been shortlisted for the past two years – third time’s a charm!
  • The Last Will and Testament of Alistair James McKay, a short play I wrote a while ago, was part of The Progressive Playwright at the Tron Theatre – the cast were amazing, and I got a lot out of seeing it up on it’s feet (and learned a lot about actually reading something over before you submit, because there were some clangers in there!)
  • My short story ‘Last Night’ was published in Hide It, an anthology of short stories for Young Adults

3 things I did (writing)

  • Helped secure some money to run a conference for early career TV writer’s in Scotland – watch this space, it’ll be on in May!
  • Got a bursary to take part in LOCO’s Kickstart Your Comedy Career programme, and met some super cool dudes in the process
  • Expanded my horizons by having my first prose short story published, and working on comic book scripts and sketches

2 things I did (life and other stuff)

1 thing I learned

I learned a lot of things about writing in 2014 – about how I write, about the shape of stories, and about writing for a living – but I think the most important lesson I’ve had has been to pace myself.

I’ve been ill for much of the back end of 2014 – turns out, I had hepatitis – and ended up in hospital for four days in December.

I think a lot of that had to do with taking on too much work, not saying ‘no’ often enough, and trying to prove that I’m superhuman.

I think a lot of my writing suffered in 2014 from being too rushed – from being (metaphorically) written on the bus ten minutes before I went in – and from me not having the time or the focus to make sure it was as good as it could be.

That’s not who I am, as a writer or a person – I’m dependable, I’m a finisher, I want to do the best job I can.

2015 is a bit of a flagpole year. It’s the year I turn 30, and I want it to be the year some of this writing stuff starts paying off. As part of my coaching last year, I said I wanted to be the bride, not the bridesmaid, before I turn 30. I’d said I wanted a sign that I was moving in the right direction – to stop being shortlisted and start winning the opportunities I was applying for – and I’ve already had that, so I definitely feel like the start of 2015 is a good place.

5 things I want to do in 2014

  • Finish Blackout, make a start on Station Road
  • Make something funny for the internet
  • Keep revisiting my scripts and stories to make sure they’re the best they can be at that moment
  • Do something live
  • Continue my concentrated effort to get an agent

Last Night

I have a (long) short story in Mardibooks’ young adult anthology, Hide It!

If you like: i) road trips, ii) non-threatening boys, iii) gay/straight bromances, iv) riding in shopping trolleys and/or v) the phrase ‘Moody Judy’, you’ll probably get something out of it.

The story is based on a short film script I wrote a couple of years ago. It was only the second screenplay I’d ever written, recycling character’s I’d created for my first, and telling their story, two years on. I entered it into Channel 4’s Coming Up, and got some really nice feedback, which spurred me on to write another.

You can read the first couple of pages of ‘Last Night’ on the Amazon page – clicky clicky – but here’s the first bit of it, to whet your whistle:

Last Night

Ross stepped out onto the wet pavement, the heavy doors of the nightclub closing behind him, shutting in the music and the lights before they escaped.

The wind whipped around his shoulders and crept up the inside of his thin shirt before he’d had a chance to zip up his jacket.

A group of skinny boys stood on the pavement nearby, waiting for a taxi, chatting quietly with each other.

‘Light?’ Ross interrupted. He motioned lighting a fag with his thumb and grinned.

The skinny boys patted down their pockets – chests and bums – and offered him three lighters.

Ross smiled, a toothy, boyband smile, and knew he was irresistible.

He picked one, a clean-shaven indie boy with long hair and dimples, lit his fag.

‘Good night?’ asked the boy. Ross nodded and handed back the lighter.

This was how it went between boys, Ross had realised. The pausing and the waiting, the awkward, stunted conversation as each waited for the other to make a move.

He liked it.

Tiny Screenplays: Pizza

INT. MICHAEL’S FLAT, GLASGOW

MICHAEL – 20s, yes really, in jogging bottoms and a stained t-shirt – opens the door from inside his flat.

A pizza DELIVERY GUY – 20s, handsome, the kind of guy that used to beat Michael up at school – stands in the doorway. He hands over a blue carrier bag, a pizza box.

DELIVERY GUY: (Mumbling) Enjoy your meal.

MICHAEL: Thanks, you too!

Tales of the City

As part of my work with LGBT Youth Scotland, I introduced Armistead Maupin in front of a crowd of 350 at a reading in Edinburgh on Thursday. I think it’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken in front of, and I’d made into a Big Giant Deal because Tales of the City meant so much to me as kid (and as a grown up kid), that I really didn’t want to mess it up.

I didn’t. The people from Waterstones were lovely and supportive, and Armistead and his husband were lovely – a genuinely nice, warm pair – and I got some nice feedback afterwards.

Really thankful for my job and all the cool stuff I’ve gotten to do this month!

Here’s the speech I gave:

February is LGBT History Month here in Scotland, a cultural event which Waterstone’s in Edinburgh have always been hugely supportive of, and I’m delighted that they’ve asked me here tonight to introduce this evening’s guest.

LGBT Youth Scotland have managed and promoted LGBT History Month since 2005, when it was established to mark the repeal of Section 28, the law which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools in England, Scotland and Wales.

LGBT History Month is an opportunity for us to celebrate the lives and achievements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, and highlight the contribution they have made to society.

LGBT History Month is a chance for us to tell our stories, and celebrate our often hidden histories.

To that end, History Month and literature have always been a neat fit.

It’s an honour to have Armistead Maupin in Scotland this month to celebrate with us – a genuine pioneer of LGBT literature, Armistead Maupin began his career as a reporter in South Carolina, before moving to San Francisco in 1971.

In 1976 he launched his groundbreaking Tales of the City serial in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since then, he has gone on to write eleven novels, including nine books in the Tales of the City series, the most recent of which, The Days of Anna Madrigal, he’ll be reading from tonight.

The cultural impact of Tales of the City can’t be underestimated.

It has gone to be adapted into a hugely successful television series starring Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney, and a musical featuring songs by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters.

A lot of people I know have a Tales of the City moment.

My own came in a library in Northumberland. As a 16 year old growing up on a council estate in England, my life was a million miles away from San Francisco and 28 Barbary Lane, but Armistead Maupin’s characters offered me a lifeline.

Unlike a lot of the LGBT literature I’d read – and there wasn’t much of it, in a time before discreet Amazon purchases – Tales of the City wasn’t just about going out or coming out.

These were real characters, with real lives, living in a real city: Mary Ann Singleton, the blond Cleveland refugee, a secretary seduced by San Francisco.

Gay everyman Michael Tolliver, a romance-addicted boy-next-door.

And my favourite, the soft-spoken, joint-smoking, kaftan-wearing Anna Madrigal, watching the comings and goings of San Francisco with ‘Wedgewood blue eyes’, everyone’s fantasy grandmother.

When I found out that the last book in the series would delve into Mrs Madrigal’s own hidden history, I was over the moon – as she makes her arrangements to leave like a lady, Mrs Madrigal would finally let go of some of the cards she’d kept so close to her chest all these years.

Of course, I’m sad that this will be the last book – although I’ve heard that one before – but it’s a fitting end to a hugely influential series that has inspired generations of LGBT writing.

Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between, he invented San Francisco – Mr Armistead Maupin.