Monika: You co-founded the Justin Campaign, which fights homophobia in football and is named after Justin Fashanu, the world’s first openly gay professional footballer who tragically took his own life. How did you first become involved with this project?
Juliet: I was playing for the Brighton Bandits in the national Gay Football Supporters’ Network league. The ten-year anniversary of Justin’s death was approaching, and my teammate, Jason Hall, noticed that nobody seemed to be talking about it or the broader issue of homophobia in football. At first, it was just three of us. Another player, Paul Windsor, tended to handle the financial and practical aspects of the campaign, which tried to use art and entertainment to raise awareness. We also worked with a filmmaker, Ian McDonald.
Monika: How did the campaign evolve over time, especially after you began your transition?
Juliet: I often speak at events with Football v Homophobia, which grew out of the Campaign, but I left both the team and the campaign when I began my transition. The campaign then took a more conventional path, working on initiatives with organizations such as the Football Association. I wrote more about the first year of the Campaign.
Monika: As a passionate football fan, which club do you support, and how did you come to choose them?
Juliet: Norwich City. It was a nonsensical choice I made aged ten, they played nowhere near where I lived, and nobody else I knew supported them. But I’ve stuck with them through plenty of highs and lows, and now I have a season ticket. There’s nothing I love more than going to the games, even when we’re struggling.
Monika: Are you active in politics or involved in any lobbying campaigns?
Juliet: Not in LGB&T organizations, although I do a lot of work that I see as political, such as speaking at sixth form colleges and universities about transgender living, or participating in mainstream media discussions on the same topics. There are plenty of people working directly with politicians on issues like marriage equality and opposing the Conservatives’ attempts at online censorship, which will affect many young LGB&T people. But that’s a big commitment, and there are others far better suited to it than me.
Monika: Have you engaged in political activism outside of LGB&T issues?
Juliet: Yes, I was involved in some anti-fascist activism after the death of Lee Rigby in Woolwich and the subsequent rise of English Defence League marches. I briefly joined a couple of left-wing parties in my 20s but felt like Groucho Marx, not wanting to belong to anything that would have me as a member.
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Monika: Do you think transgender women can make a difference in politics?
Juliet: Transgender women can make as much of a difference as anyone else working within the parliamentary system, although it can bring a great deal of transphobic abuse. I’m a huge admirer of Vladimir Luxuria in Italy, who faced down members of the Mussolini family with such dignity and grace. I just love her style: fearless and tireless, with a fascinating background in film, cabaret, and theatre.
Monika: Could you share how important love is in your life right now?
Juliet: I’m not in love.
Monika: Are you interested in fashion? What kind of outfits do you usually wear? Do you have any favorite designers, colors, or current trends?
Juliet: I love fashion, but more in theory than in practice. My favorite styles are from the 1920s, the wildly impractical clothes worn by Alla Nazimova in her film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (which cost $350,000 in 1922), or those designed by Aleksandra Exter for Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924), a movie about a Soviet colony on the moon. I tend to spend my money on books, films, music, and football, and I absolutely detest shopping, especially for clothes, so my wardrobe tends toward the functional. Sadly.
Monika: Many transgender women write memoirs about their journeys. Have you ever considered writing a memoir yourself?
Monika: Many transgender women write memoirs about their journeys. Have you ever considered writing a memoir yourself?
Juliet: I’m doing it now! I’m writing a book for Verso based on the Transgender Journey series. But while the Guardian series focused very intensely on my gender, this will hopefully provide some broader insight into what it meant to go to school under a Conservative government and university under New Labour, among other things. I think I’m rather young to be writing my memoirs, but here we are.
Monika: Are you working on any new projects at the moment?
Juliet: After the memoir, I want to write a wider history of transgender people and politics in the United Kingdom, but I also have a couple of plays and scripts planned. There is a film I’d like to make, which has nothing to do with trans issues, but it’s very ambitious and I fear it won’t happen.
Monika: My pen friend Gina Grahame once wrote to me that we shouldn’t limit our potential because of how we were born or by what we see other transsexual and transgender people doing. Our dreams shouldn’t end on an operating table; that’s where they begin. Would you agree?
Juliet: They begin long before, but don’t end there, and don’t always lead to or from there. Nor should they.
Monika: Juliet, thank you so much for the interview!
END OF PART 2
All photos: courtesy of Juliet Jacques.
© 2014 - Monika Kowalska
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