Pity Olivia Colman. She didn’t want it to become the headline that she sometimes thinks of herself as a gay man – but clearly forgot how neurotic and demagogic much of the British press becomes if you say anything mildly provocative about sexuality and gender.
Here’s what happened. In an interview last week with the American LGBTQ+ publication Them, when asked about her penchant for taking roles in films featuring LGBTQ+ characters (say, The Favourite or Heartstopper), the actor said that she feels that she has a foot in various camps. “Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I’ve always felt sort of nonbinary … I’ve never felt massively feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man. And he goes, ‘Yeah, I get that.’”
Now, you could easily park this in the category of “vacuous things celebrities say when attempting to get you to watch their film” (in this case, Jimpa, in which Colman plays the mother of a non-binary teenager). Or in another, even more obnoxious category: “things wealthy white celebrities with cushty lives say to make themselves sound a little more interesting”. Britain’s rightwing media has been unforgiving. The Telegraph asked if she is “the most insufferable Left-wing celebrity in Britain” while, for UnHerd, Colman is “a handmaiden in the contemporary rebirth of anti-woman logic” and has committed “a drive-by erasure of the homosexual male experience”.
But honestly, what is the big deal? As a gay man, I read Colman’s comments and felt something more like relief. Truth be told, as one of three boys, I have sometimes referred to myself as “my mother’s only daughter”, and I’ve never thought to count myself out when my predominantly female friends refer to us as “the girls” on a night out. I’ve been invited to many a “galentines”.
I know that I am a man – just like, I’m sure, Colman knows that she is a woman. But the truth is that many, if not all of us, experience moments of disorientation around gender or think about how ridiculous the whole system of categorising identities is. You may find Colman’s comments confusing and incoherent, but how confusing is it that our behaviours, identities and very beings are expected to be neatly and continually divided based on our private parts and what we do with them?
As for “a drive-by erasure of the homosexual male experience” – what tosh. I am fine if heterosexual women sometimes feel that they have a foot in gay male identity. I am a Madonna fanatic (a very gay thing of me to be) and often find myself nodding in agreement when listening to her 2000 hit What It Feels Like for a Girl, which she wrote while trying to conceal her pregnancy from the media. I will never know the experience of pregnancy or of being a woman, but whenever I listen I do find myself thinking: “yes, world, do you know what it feels like for a girl???” What is so wrong with that?
Likewise, Colman or any other heterosexual woman might find themselves participating in, or relating to, aspects of gay male culture that they feel an affinity with. And clearly anyone can tap into aspects of gay culture. The brilliant theorist of gender David Halperin, in his book How to Be Gay, carefully argues that while stereotypes of gay male behaviour might be offensive, they are clearly based in reality. He goes on to say that gayness is more than just who you have sex with, it is also “something you do”. This “means that you don’t have to be homosexual in order to do it”. It’s an idea that would make so many people furiously protective, but I am keen on an expansive view of identity that isn’t simply reduced to core biological functions and urges.
This might all seem like a storm in a teacup – throwaway comments getting sucked through social media and thrown into the culture war meat-grinder in Britain. But however seriously Colman meant her comments, they have an important effect – making us all think about the ways in which gender shows up in our lives as a silly, messy and contradictory prism for understanding ourselves. We should be able to talk about reconciling experiences of campness, butchness, femininity and masculinity – we should be able to express the feeling that we’re something other than what we’ve been categorised as. So, Colman, ignore the cynics: remember that, just like your husband, many of us heard your words and thought: yeah, I get it.
Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian
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