Interview with Roz Kaveney

To speak with Roz Kaveney is to enter a world where intellect meets tenderness, where radical thought is laced with poetry, and where identity is never a limitation but a prism through which light refracts in surprising and beautiful ways. A Londoner with a fierce mind and a romantic heart, Roz has long stood at the crossroads of activism, literature, and cultural critique. Her life’s work is as expansive as it is intimate, spanning novels, poems, political campaigns, and the many quiet acts of community care that too often go unsung. Known as a founding member of Feminists Against Censorship, a former deputy chair of Liberty, and deputy editor of the magazine META, Roz helped shape the discourse around trans rights and feminist free speech in ways that continue to echo today. She is also a core member of the Midnight Rose collective and the author of Rhapsody of Blood, a lush and visionary fantasy series, and the piercing poetry collections Dialectic of the Flesh and What If What’s Imagined Were All True.

 

Yet Roz is more than her accolades. She is a woman who came to poetry in her sixties after years of silence, who navigated transition with honesty and defiance during some of the most difficult decades to do so, and who credits her strength to community, to love, and to the many unnamed trans people who made art out of survival. She resists the idea that being a trans artist comes with a duty to be exemplary, preferring instead a raw sincerity that honors complexity, contradiction, and truth. Roz is often described as “somewhat disliked by various silly people”, a phrase that might as well be a badge of courage. In her work and her words, she invites us to challenge lazy assumptions, to hold space for grief and joy alike, and to remember that the canon must not be discarded, but transformed. Her life is a mosaic of bravery, sharp wit, and deep care, and it is my great pleasure to share this conversation with her.

 

Monika: Roz Kaveney, it’s a true pleasure to speak with you today. You are a prolific British novelist, poet, critic, and transgender activist whose work spans decades and genres. From editing Reading the Vampire Slayer, to your richly layered fantasy series Rhapsody of Blood, and your searingly honest poetry in Dialectic of the Flesh, your voice has shaped both literary and activist landscapes. A founding member of Feminists Against Censorship, part of the Midnight Rose collective, and, as you once cheekily described yourself, “a Londoner, a sentimentalist, a radical, and somewhat disliked by various silly people”, Roz, welcome!

Roz: Hello Monika! That’s a rather dazzling introduction, thank you. It’s lovely to be here.

 

Poetry at Notts Pride (YouTube)

 

Monika: While preparing for this interview, I was struck by the sheer number of initiatives and projects you’ve been involved in, founding member of Feminists Against Censorship (FAC), former deputy chair of Liberty, deputy editor of the transgender-focused magazine META, and a core member of the Midnight Rose collective, to name just a few. How do you find the energy and time to take on so many roles?

Roz: Well, I didn’t do all of those things at the same time. I learned when I was quite young that I have limited energy and it’s all been a matter of prioritizing and forgiving myself when I need to walk away from something. For example, when I was elected to the Executive Committee of Liberty, I stepped down as Secretary of FAC, because there were plenty of other people capable of doing the work I had been doing.

When my health declined, I had some bad times with gall-bladder surgery, I resigned from Liberty to concentrate on my writing again, which is why there is considerable hiatus between the Midnight Rose period of my work and the work I’ve done over the last decade.
Monika: Feminists Against Censorship was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist scholars and activists, including yourself, who challenged the idea that censorship was inherently feminist. Looking back, how effective do you think the group has been in advancing its goals?

Roz: In terms of the agenda we originally set ourselves, very successful. Which is to say, we argued successfully, as feminists, against particular proposed legislation which large parts of the Labour Movement had accepted as crucial to promoting feminism. I have nothing but respect for the late Andrea Dworkin, but the likely consequences of the laws she proposed were the suppression of important sexual information and major works of art.

Monika: What kinds of arguments or strategies did you find most effective in pushing back against the pro-censorship stance within feminist circles?

Roz: We demanded that discussion of censorship and pornography be evidence-based and criticized the tendency of our pro-censorship sisters to be naive about the provenance of studies. There was, in the '90s, a tendency to be uncritical of studies which seemed to demonstrate particular levels of harm but which were based on bad methodology and were often scare tactics by the political Right. The conversation needed, and needs, to be had, but it needed to be a genuine dialogue between feminists.

Monika: In the 1970s, some feminist movements closely tied lesbianism and bisexuality to feminist identity, while others argued that sexual orientation was unrelated to broader feminist goals. How do you view the role of sexuality within feminism?

Roz: I’d say that what is, and ought to be, part of feminism is the acknowledgment that lesbianism and bisexuality exist, and that suppression of sexual freedom is a significant part of patriarchy. Clearly, the links between the politics of sexuality and, say, workplace rights are not immediate or obvious, yet one of the fundamental goals of feminist struggle has to be to increase the freedom of women to be themselves on their own terms, sexual exploration is both a part of that and a consequence of it. The mistake made by some seventies feminists was the idea that it was useful or desirable to regard lesbianism as intrinsic to being a good feminist.

Interview for WorldMerit* (YouTube)

Monika: You’ve spoken openly about coming out both as a lesbian and as a trans woman. Looking back, what did you find most challenging about navigating those identities?

Roz: When I was in my teens and twenties, I made a clear distinction between my romantic friendships with women and my sexual adventures with men, only regarding the latter as specifically related to my sexuality. This remained the case even after my one and only sexual relationship with a woman while still presenting as male, my best friend was in love with me and wanted to offer me an alternative to transition. Some years later, after my transition and my surgery, I found myself considerably less drawn to men, and they to me, and fell in love with a woman. The eighties were not a good time to be both trans and lesbian; there was a lot of prejudice around in lesbian circles. Nonetheless, I found true love and also got laid quite a lot while waiting for it to come along…

Monika: Were there any transgender role models you looked up to or who guided you during your transition?

Roz: I always had role models, the trans sex workers who took me in and looked after me when I was a teenager; the brilliant Rachel Pollack, from whom I learned that you could be trans and still have a career as a writer; my braver contemporaries like Adele Anderson, who were my support system during the transition, as I hope I was for theirs. Most of my trans role models aren’t especially famous, just men and women pursuing their dreams and being kind to those like them. That is what community is.

Monika: You stopped writing poetry in your twenties and didn’t return to it until your sixties. What led you to step away from it for so long?

Roz: A number of reasons, part of it was the fact that I didn’t think, in my twenties, that I was especially good. I was part of a circle of writers that included at least one major poet and several others who subsequently became famous, and I compared myself negatively with them. I was also going through a period of being in denial about my need to transition, and that essential dishonesty was not good for my writing; I had not found a language in which I could speak honestly about my life.

Monika: And what brought you back to poetry later in life?

Roz: What changed was that, in my late 50s, the deaths of a number of my friends brought me face to face with the need to find a language in which I could express grief; poetry became my preferred outlet, and I find, from time to time, that I can use it to look backwards, effectively, over my entire life and come to terms with my past. I ended up discovering that the discipline of very formal structures was a part of that, as was the acceptance that all poetry is, to some extent, a game, a dance of words, a brittle artifice through which we nonetheless find our way to truth.

The other reason for my obsession with form is that I regard it as terribly important to occupy a space within the Canon and force it to acknowledge all the things that it has traditionally omitted. Much postmodernism seeks to render the Canon irrelevant or even destroy it; I would much rather subvert it and force it to honor its claims of inclusion and justice.

The life of an activist.

Monika: You’ve written several acclaimed works exploring pop culture and literature, Reading the Vampire Slayer, From Alien to The Matrix, Teen Dreams, and Superheroes. Do you think there’s a developing space for what we might call "transgender literature"?

Roz: Not yet, applying a cold eye, and perceptions that come in part from my gender history, to the creations of mass culture is one step in that direction. Trans people who write and create are helping build a language.

Monika: In your view, what defines the experience of being a transgender writer, poet, or artist?

Roz: I don’t think we have an obligation to provide the community with poster children or idealized representations to aspire to, though I can see how a desire to do that might be a source of inspiration. Most trans people have had to be extraordinarily honest with themselves to pursue and get through transition, that’s a good starting point for art, which is why there is a slightly disproportionately high proportion of active artists, etc., in the trans community.

Monika: How would you assess the representation of transgender characters and stories in media so far, films, books, and journalism?

Roz: The vast majority of them have been, at best, attempts to understand trans people from a cis perspective or honor friends. That’s not an ignoble goal and some of the work is fine, while a lot of it is clueless and some of it deeply malicious and traducing. I would generally say “must try harder.”

Monika: How do you see the current state of transgender women’s rights and recognition in the UK?

Roz: Trans people, not just men and women but the genderqueer, non-gendered, and neutrois, are gaining recognition. It’s a slow process, a decade ago we got limited success on change of civil status, but we are still fighting prejudice. It would have been desirable for the Equal Marriage Act to reinstate ‘lost marriages’, ongoing pre-transition partnerships that had to end in divorce or annulment and then reinstate themselves as civil partnerships, and not to introduce the spousal veto on gender recognition certificates. We argued for the one and against the other and no one listened. Things have improved no end, but it is still two steps forward and one back, open transphobia is far less respectable than it used to be.
Monika: It’s been inspiring to watch more transgender women recognized on The Independent on Sunday Pink List of the most influential LGBT people in Britain. You've been climbing steadily: 85th in 2011, 65th in 2012, and 61st in 2013. What does that kind of recognition mean to you?

Roz: I stand on the shoulders of giants.

 

Launch for Rituals of Blood (YouTube)

 

Monika: Have you been involved in political activism? Do you participate in lobbying efforts? And do you believe transgender women can make an impact in politics?

Roz: I have been active in the past, Liberty is an across-the-board campaigning organization, and I was involved in making policy on the future of the security services and the balancing of civil liberties and human rights as central principles. These days I bitch from the sidelines, except when asked to participate in study groups, focus groups, and so on. Participating in politics, whether mainstream or protest, is something we should all do. Trans people have a lot to give.

Monika: What role does love play in your life, both personally and creatively?

Roz: It’s central, but I’m not going to talk about it directly because it’s a private thing. But then there is ‘love,’ which is central to my poetry, a cultural construct around which I work, and that has a role too.

Monika: Many trans women choose to write memoirs. Have you considered writing one yourself?

Roz: Yes, but my memoirs are only partly about being trans, much more about being part of quite an interesting generation at Oxford, about the club scene of the late seventies, about artists and writers I’ve known, about the struggle within the early '90s mainstream progressive politics against the manipulations of Blairite New Labour, and so on. I wrote a bunch of chapters some years ago and will doubtless write more at some point.

Monika: What creative projects are you currently working on?

Roz: I’m working on four things, the third and fourth volumes of the large-scale fantasy novel Rhapsody of Blood, revision of my unpublished 1987 novel about trans hustlers in Chicago Tiny Pieces of Skull, a critical study of a fantasy film, and a larger collection of my poetry than the two excellent selections published by Lawrence Schimel at Midsummer Night’s Press: Dialectic of the Flesh and What If What’s Imagined Were All True.

Monika: Roz, thank you so much for the conversation!

All the photos: courtesy of Roz Kaveney.

© 2014 - Monika Kowalska

  

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