In our new LGBTQ+ London series, we talk to the leading figures in our vibrant queer scene. The first in the series, artist Travis Alabanza talks about their show Burgerz, the treatment of transgender bodies and how people express gender.
Travis Alabanza had a burger thrown at them in broad daylight on a busy Waterloo Bridge.
For trans performance artist and poet Alabanza, who is gender non-conforming and uses the pronouns ‘them’ and ‘they’, harassment has become commonplace, but this incident in 2016 was the catalyst in making a change.
“The burger hitting me was like a wake-up call to say, this really isn't ok and it’s not ok that gender non-conforming people have gotten used to this kind of violence,” says Alabanza.
With their combination of politically charged theatre and poetry, Alabanza is moving to the forefront of London’s queer arts scene. Much of their work centres on their experiences and those of other gender non-conforming people, detailing the harassment they endure and how others react to it.
Alabanza’s response was to make a show, Burgerz, which opens at Hackney Showroom on October 23.
Using live theatre and poetry, one-person show Burgerz looks at how trans and gender non-conforming people move through the world and interact with others, questioning the responsibility that people have to each other: “Why did no one do anything? A burger was thrown by a human at another human and no one did anything – so what’s up with that?” asks Alabanza.
In the course of the show, the audience aren’t permitted to sit back and consume. Alabanza makes sure that each person is as much a part of the process as the performer. By creating an atmosphere of surveillance, Burgerz asks who is used to being stared at and who isn’t, extending the conversation beyond a matter of trans and non-trans.
“It’s dangerous to say that only trans people experience harassment. Obviously we know that misogyny means that loads of different types of bodies are experiencing this, but we can look around the room and see it’s all about conforming and what happens when you don’t.”
Alabanza wants to combat an assumption that trans people are the only ones who perform their gender, or act in a masculine or feminine way, examining the “changes we make before we go outside – whoever we are – in order to feel safer, or the changes we make to fit into people’s ideas of how we should act and be.
“We look at trans people as creating caricatures of masculinity or femininity and I think that’s a really dangerous way of looking at it because so many of us are trying to figure out our gender. I think trans people are just being honest that they’re figuring it out.”
Alabanza began working on Burgerz a year and a half ago, performing an early draft at the Hackney Showroom in March 2017. They say that the increased volume of discussion around trans issues made them change nearly all the show’s content apart from “the name and the idea”.
“The last time I did Burgerz, I hadn’t had a national press campaign against me,” Alabanza says. In November last year, they made the papers after a Topshop in Manchester refused to let them try on dresses unless they went to a Topman changing room.
The incident prompted a vocal response. In a column in the Times, declining to use the them/they pronouns – something LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall define as a "harmful example of transphobia" – Janice Turner wrote that Topshop “wouldn’t allow him to try on clothes in the women’s fitting area”, adding that, by announcing a gender neutral changing room policy, Topshop were “just permitting men – any man – to walk into a flimsily curtained space”.
Alabanza says that “the heat was on last year”, but now the proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act is intensifying the conversation.
The GRA, introduced in 2004, gives people the right to legally change their gender. The government saw a need for reform when trans people expressed how difficult the process could be, writing on Gov.uk that many “found the current process too bureaucratic, expensive and intrusive”. A public consultation is now open until October 19, during which the government are gathering feedback on how things can be improved. But while the advancement of trans rights can only be a positive thing, the nature of the debate accompanying it has potentially harmful consequences.
“Lots of trans people are talking about how the media is directly affecting their mental health. It feels like it’s at a pinnacle moment. It’s meant I’ve become a lot more unapologetic and a lot more urgent in the work because I’m seeing how this hasn’t improved in the last year – it’s got worse.”
In response to the increased media and social media coverage, Alabanza has found that taking a step back from engaging personally in the online conversation has been the only way to protect themself.
“It’s really helped me. At first I felt guilty about switching off but actually it means I’ve got more time for my friends, more time to celebrate trans people around me. I wasn’t seeing any of this media debate getting any softer so I thought I needed to step out for a while – and learn how to make a burger!
“I’m so aware that the show is coming out at a time when trans is being spoken about from all angles, constantly in the news, constantly being debated.
“If you want the debate, come to my show. See what I’ve got to say.”
Burgerz runs at Hackney Showroom from October 23-November 3, hackneyshowroom.com
