Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: about the subject of inclusion, belonging and
Joanne Lockwood: generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: To join me in the future, then, please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You
Joanne Lockwood: can catch up with all of the previous shows on itunes, Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab
Joanne Lockwood: a decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: it's Episode 85 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: Mirrors and Doorways, and I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Nonir Amicitia.
Joanne Lockwood: Nonir describes themselves as
Joanne Lockwood: the bottom half of a trench coat double act, and I can't wait
Joanne Lockwood: to find out what that means. When I asked Nonir to describe their
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, they said juggling. They are
Joanne Lockwood: able to keep a ridiculous number of balls in the air.
Joanne Lockwood: I have it on good authority that's more than ten, so definitely
Joanne Lockwood: a ridiculous amount. Hello, Nonia.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to the show. Joanne, thank you so much for having
Nonir Amicitia: me today. Absolute pleasure. And you've intrigued
Joanne Lockwood: me and I really can't wait to find out some of the
Joanne Lockwood: well, what is the tunic of double act? So I can't wait to find out
Joanne Lockwood: about that. So, mirrors and doorways. What's that
Joanne Lockwood: about? Yeah, as part of the
Nonir Amicitia: trench coat double act, I co write
Nonir Amicitia: under the author name, O E Tierman,
Nonir Amicitia: and we write a book series that is
Nonir Amicitia: a hopeful queer dystopian.
Nonir Amicitia: And one of our goals with this series is
Nonir Amicitia: Mirrors, to show people who
Nonir Amicitia: aren't generally represented in fiction
Nonir Amicitia: that they can exist in fun,
Nonir Amicitia: interesting fiction stories that
Nonir Amicitia: don't centre around a marginalised identity
Nonir Amicitia: as their main plot point.
Nonir Amicitia: Because as queer, mentally ill people, we don't
Nonir Amicitia: see ourselves in fiction a lot, in stories that
Nonir Amicitia: aren't coming out stories or,
Nonir Amicitia: oh, my gosh, overcoming depression stories or
Nonir Amicitia: things of that nature. So we really wanted to provide
Nonir Amicitia: that mirror for marginalised folks
Nonir Amicitia: to
Nonir Amicitia: see themselves in their communities, in new and different lights.
Nonir Amicitia: And along those lines is the doorways of we wanted to
Nonir Amicitia: open the door to conversation and open the
Nonir Amicitia: door to non marginalised people, to see what
Nonir Amicitia: it's like to live with a marginalised identity,
Nonir Amicitia: and also to open those doors to conversations of,
Nonir Amicitia: how can we make the world a better place? And doing all
Nonir Amicitia: of that through fiction and through
Nonir Amicitia: discussions like these.
Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. Because as a queer person
Joanne Lockwood: myself, there's a lot of queer joy and
Joanne Lockwood: we get associated with queer negativity rather than
Joanne Lockwood: euphoria and empowerment we feel as well, don't
Joanne Lockwood: we? Yeah,
Nonir Amicitia: I have been kind of following queer
Nonir Amicitia: publishing for quite a while and we're
Nonir Amicitia: starting to get away from coming out stories and
Nonir Amicitia: tragic stories, but there's still this overwhelming number
Nonir Amicitia: of when queer people are
Nonir Amicitia: represented in books. It's a book about their
Nonir Amicitia: queerness and not about them
Nonir Amicitia: being a person experiencing
Nonir Amicitia: things, and their queerness is just part of that.
Nonir Amicitia: And so we wanted to write
Nonir Amicitia: stories where that was the case where Aiden, our
Nonir Amicitia: main character, is a gay trans man
Nonir Amicitia: inspired by some of my own experiences.
Nonir Amicitia: And
Nonir Amicitia: that's a very important part of his identity. And part of the story
Nonir Amicitia: does revolve around him transitioning and
Nonir Amicitia: dealing with people who
Nonir Amicitia: don't respect him, et cetera. But that's not the main
Nonir Amicitia: storyline. The main storyline is he's
Nonir Amicitia: leading this group of misfits to try and bring
Nonir Amicitia: democracy back to a corporate owned America.
Nonir Amicitia: And it was really important to both
Nonir Amicitia: Olivia, my co writer, and I, that
Nonir Amicitia: we present these people as real people
Nonir Amicitia: and they're going on adventures
Nonir Amicitia: and they're finding love and they're making found family. And
Nonir Amicitia: the fact that they're queer or have various
Nonir Amicitia: neurodivergencies is an important part of who they
Nonir Amicitia: are, but it's not the entirety of who they are.
Joanne Lockwood: I've seen that. I've observed that in the media. When I
Joanne Lockwood: talk about the media, I mean films, TV,
Joanne Lockwood: netflix. I think I was watching Alice
Joanne Lockwood: in don't know if you've seen
Joanne Lockwood: that. It's a bit kind of was it Korean kind of
Joanne Lockwood: Death games for a better way of describing it. And one of the characters
Joanne Lockwood: in that
Joanne Lockwood: just so happened to be a queer trans
Joanne Lockwood: woman, but you didn't realise that until
Joanne Lockwood: she needed to tell you that. But it wasn't her
Joanne Lockwood: reason for existing. It added an extra
Joanne Lockwood: dimension and depth to her character as a by
Joanne Lockwood: the way. And I thought, wow, of course you
Joanne Lockwood: are. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be? It was amazing.
Joanne Lockwood: My wife and I just finished watching a short series on
Joanne Lockwood: Netflix called Glamorous. It's all about the beauty
Joanne Lockwood: industry. And one of the characters there, Marco, yes, it is centred around
Joanne Lockwood: queerness because all the main characters are queer in a beauty
Joanne Lockwood: industry. So being queer is part of that
Joanne Lockwood: culture. But in the last 30 seconds
Joanne Lockwood: of episode ten, the main character, Marco,
Joanne Lockwood: you see him or her outside
Joanne Lockwood: of a clinic with transgender services under the
Joanne Lockwood: title, and that was signified the
Joanne Lockwood: journey this person went on as a femme,
Joanne Lockwood: identifying, if you like, queer man, to going through
Joanne Lockwood: that journey of discovery, to say, I've now understand who I am.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm trans, and I want to do something about this. And my wife and
Joanne Lockwood: I were in tears at this point here, because this
Joanne Lockwood: evolution of character where trans became this wonderful
Joanne Lockwood: evolution of this character. And we thought, wow, that is so powerful.
Joanne Lockwood: And you look back at the episode and you think, of course they are. Of
Joanne Lockwood: course they are. But they didn't realise. They didn't dimit it themselves. I think
Joanne Lockwood: what you're saying there about someone's transiness, someone's queerness,
Joanne Lockwood: it enriches their character rather than being the whole purpose of their character. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think we've seen that too much. You look at
Joanne Lockwood: Niverne Cox and her disclosure documentary
Joanne Lockwood: on Netflix around how queer people, trans people, have been
Joanne Lockwood: portrayed in the media for years. We're always the butt of the joke, we're always
Joanne Lockwood: the exception, we're always the baddie, always
Joanne Lockwood: the person, corrupting men, or whatever it may be, however you
Joanne Lockwood: describe it. And I think what you're saying there is it's extremely important for the
Joanne Lockwood: evolution of queer culture to be see as
Joanne Lockwood: a person first, and their queerness is just part of their identity.
Nonir Amicitia: It is. I mean, I'm a little biassed because
Nonir Amicitia: I'm a fiction writer, obviously, but I
Nonir Amicitia: firmly believe that change begins in
Nonir Amicitia: media. And whether that's
Nonir Amicitia: storytelling or movies or video games
Nonir Amicitia: or music, whatever media you
Nonir Amicitia: prefer, the more representation and the
Nonir Amicitia: more openness that we can provide
Nonir Amicitia: in our media, the easier it
Nonir Amicitia: is to affect real change in real life.
Nonir Amicitia: Because A, you've empowered the people who
Nonir Amicitia: need to see themselves, and
Nonir Amicitia: B, you've given
Nonir Amicitia: the other people things to think about, of,
Nonir Amicitia: oh, hey, maybe that trans lady I saw on the street
Nonir Amicitia: isn't there just to corrupt men like the media has portrayed.
Nonir Amicitia: Maybe she's just living her life like a normal human
Nonir Amicitia: being and maybe she deserves rights like everybody
Nonir Amicitia: else. I
Nonir Amicitia: know. Mind blowing, right?
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah. We even had a trans Barbie, didn't we? And
Joanne Lockwood: the trans Barbie was not transitions were not centred on it
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't even marked upon.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it was only if you had a bit of a trans radar sort of
Joanne Lockwood: tuned in, you go, yeah, wow, fair play. You
Joanne Lockwood: snuck her in there without making a big deal of it. Absolutely amazing. Thank you.
Nonir Amicitia: The Barbie movie did a lot of yeah, a
Nonir Amicitia: plus movie, not going to lie, but,
Nonir Amicitia: yeah, just showing marginalised people existing
Nonir Amicitia: in media is so incredibly important and
Nonir Amicitia: I feel like it gets, I don't want to say ignored,
Nonir Amicitia: but kind of
Nonir Amicitia: downplayed a lot. And
Nonir Amicitia: I know that traditional publishing is still kind of trying to find
Nonir Amicitia: its place with that because there's a
Nonir Amicitia: lot of pushback of if we have
Nonir Amicitia: diverse characters, especially as a protagonist,
Nonir Amicitia: then we're going to turn off this other
Nonir Amicitia: group of people who, for some
Nonir Amicitia: reason, don't want to read about people other than themselves.
Nonir Amicitia: Which I could go on a rant about
Nonir Amicitia: how stupid that is for quite some time,
Nonir Amicitia: but, yeah,
Nonir Amicitia: my train of thought just completely derailed. Sorry. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: well, the media that the movies, that kind
Joanne Lockwood: of entertainment media, they've created these stereotypes over the
Joanne Lockwood: years about to define what good is and what bad is
Joanne Lockwood: and what sinister is. And I always use James
Joanne Lockwood: Bond as a franchise. It
Joanne Lockwood: portrays the white guy, the British white guy,
Joanne Lockwood: as the hero. Perfectly formed, fit,
Joanne Lockwood: attractive, all these kind of things. And the baddie often
Joanne Lockwood: has a foreign accent or a non British accent, often has
Joanne Lockwood: a disability, a facial disfigurement or something strange about them,
Joanne Lockwood: exploding eye or big golfing teeth or something.
Joanne Lockwood: So we're trying to demonise people based on their physical
Joanne Lockwood: characteristics. And queer people, outside of some Marvel
Joanne Lockwood: and some other forward thinking franchises, have
Joanne Lockwood: always tended to be portrayed as the outliers, as the
Joanne Lockwood: people who are not the good guys. And I think we got to start
Joanne Lockwood: showing queer people in their own space for queer
Joanne Lockwood: people exemplifying that we're
Joanne Lockwood: just heroes as well. We are heroes. Yeah. And
Nonir Amicitia: we deserve to be heroes. I think everybody deserves to be a hero of
Nonir Amicitia: their own story, regardless of
Nonir Amicitia: identity or attraction or disability
Nonir Amicitia: status or race or religion or anything.
Nonir Amicitia: Everybody deserves the dignity of being the hero of their own
Nonir Amicitia: story. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Definitely.
Joanne Lockwood: For sure. It's the old adage, isn't it? You can't be what you can't see.
Joanne Lockwood: So if you don't see the representation, we're going to talk a bit in a
Joanne Lockwood: minute about mental health dysphoria, presumably
Joanne Lockwood: feeling lost, feeling unseen, those sort of things. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: really, really important to amplify and to show people
Joanne Lockwood: an aspiration a possibility, a
Joanne Lockwood: belief that they can succeed, isn't it? It is. And
Nonir Amicitia: just acknowledging
Nonir Amicitia: that people exist in all shapes and sizes and
Nonir Amicitia: differences. Because,
Nonir Amicitia: again, the media tends towards very specific
Nonir Amicitia: storytelling tropes and very specific
Nonir Amicitia: coding for villains. Oftentimes it's
Nonir Amicitia: queer coding and Jewish coding. And as a queer
Nonir Amicitia: person of Jewish descent, I'm just like, why? I mean,
Nonir Amicitia: don't get me wrong, being a villain can be empowering
Nonir Amicitia: in certain circumstances, but
Nonir Amicitia: when that's all you see,
Nonir Amicitia: it's really hard not to internalise that message of,
Nonir Amicitia: well, society is always going to see me as a bad guy, so what's the
Nonir Amicitia: point? And I
Nonir Amicitia: hope that our books as OE Tierman can provide at
Nonir Amicitia: least a slightly different well, not slightly, a
Nonir Amicitia: radically different point of view of,
Nonir Amicitia: no, you're okay, you're fine, because
Nonir Amicitia: our main group of characters are incredibly diverse
Nonir Amicitia: between physical ability and mental
Nonir Amicitia: illnesses and gender identities and
Nonir Amicitia: racial identities, ethnic identities.
Nonir Amicitia: We have so many different types of characters,
Nonir Amicitia: all in this organisation of the good
Nonir Amicitia: guys.
Joanne Lockwood: What sort of genre do you write about, you say is fiction?
Joanne Lockwood: Is it modern Romance? Sci-fi.
Nonir Amicitia: Well, this particular series is a
Nonir Amicitia: hopeful queer dystopian. It's, see,
Nonir Amicitia: 100 and 5200 years ish in the future
Nonir Amicitia: and America has been taken over by seven corporations
Nonir Amicitia: that now run everything.
Nonir Amicitia: I often have to joke that we didn't intend this to
Nonir Amicitia: be prophetic because we
Nonir Amicitia: started writing in like 2015,
Nonir Amicitia: 2016. As a response to Google
Joanne Lockwood: Musk and his cohorts
Joanne Lockwood: Oracle Allison. Yeah, we now
Joanne Lockwood: have some pretty powerful organisations running
Joanne Lockwood: the world, almost. Yeah.
Nonir Amicitia: So we have to joke that we
Nonir Amicitia: promise we didn't write this expecting this to happen.
Nonir Amicitia: But the series follows
Nonir Amicitia: this group of outcasts and this found family that are
Nonir Amicitia: fighting to bring democracy and general human decency
Nonir Amicitia: back and fighting to make the world a better
Nonir Amicitia: place. See, I'm curious now in this
Joanne Lockwood: dystopian future, tell me this is true, that straight
Joanne Lockwood: people have to start coming out now. Is this really good. If
Joanne Lockwood: this dystopian future, if straight people had to come out and
Joanne Lockwood: people had to come out.
Nonir Amicitia: We didn't want to get too far away from reality.
Nonir Amicitia: So depending on
Nonir Amicitia: which corporation area you're
Nonir Amicitia: in, kind of depends on the moral or
Nonir Amicitia: not. Depends on creates the morals and
Nonir Amicitia: social attitudes. So some
Nonir Amicitia: corporations don't care at all and some
Nonir Amicitia: are very CIS, het,
Nonir Amicitia: normative enforcing prescriptive. Yeah.
Nonir Amicitia: Because we did want to express the reality that queer
Nonir Amicitia: people are currently living.
Nonir Amicitia: We just didn't want it to be the hopeless
Nonir Amicitia: version of that, if that makes sense.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Is it as bad as you see in the
Joanne Lockwood: media from the UK side, looking in at the
Joanne Lockwood: US? Is queer rights, queer oppression, trans
Joanne Lockwood: rights? I mean, we see many states winding back protection
Joanne Lockwood: even, obviously, Roe versus Wade, abortion
Joanne Lockwood: rights, but don't say gay. Is it really that
Joanne Lockwood: mean as a. Queer versus where you're at in the States?
Nonir Amicitia: But, yeah, it's honestly
Nonir Amicitia: freaking terrifying if I think about it too much.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Sorry
Joanne Lockwood: for the listeners. We have our cameras on, so I can see your expression. So
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I can see that was a real intake of
Joanne Lockwood: breath there. Okay, gather your thoughts. One of those
Nonir Amicitia: things that I both have to be aware of
Nonir Amicitia: because I'm in the community and all of my friends are,
Nonir Amicitia: but also have to ignore for my own mental
Nonir Amicitia: health. And it's a really weird
Nonir Amicitia: line to walk. Yeah, we see a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: it emerging in the UK. We're seeing
Joanne Lockwood: a real anti trans rhetoric, a transcritical,
Joanne Lockwood: trans hostile movement developing. It's a minority
Joanne Lockwood: with a loud voice, well funded, well organised, with the ear
Joanne Lockwood: of politicians. And it's worrying that
Joanne Lockwood: trans people, mainly trans people, mainly trans women,
Joanne Lockwood: are being used as political pawns, as footballs, as
Joanne Lockwood: wedge issues to gain votes. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's frightening and that you watch
Joanne Lockwood: or read Handmaid's Tale and you suddenly realise
Joanne Lockwood: that yes, all of a sudden, you could wake up in the morning and someone
Joanne Lockwood: can suddenly nullify your existence, your rights, your
Joanne Lockwood: marriage, your property ownership. And you think you see it.
Joanne Lockwood: As you talk about your dystopian view of the
Joanne Lockwood: world when one of your
Joanne Lockwood: previous presidents was in place, you suddenly believe that The
Joanne Lockwood: Handmaid's Tale could be a reality. And if this person is reelected,
Joanne Lockwood: it could still be a reality, couldn't it? Even if he's not,
Nonir Amicitia: it could still be a reality, just based on
Nonir Amicitia: the way that the conservative American
Nonir Amicitia: contingent thinks.
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah. So basically, with the books, we
Nonir Amicitia: took all of our own personal fear as
Nonir Amicitia: queer folks who were born
Nonir Amicitia: female or assigned female at birth.
Nonir Amicitia: We took all of that fear and put it into the books and said,
Nonir Amicitia: okay, this is where we're at. How
Nonir Amicitia: can we make ourselves feel better? How can we change this
Nonir Amicitia: fictional world to be better and less
Nonir Amicitia: terrifying for people who are outside of the quote unquote
Nonir Amicitia: norm? And then
Nonir Amicitia: maybe if we put it in fiction, we can kind of
Nonir Amicitia: help nudge the real world in that direction as
Nonir Amicitia: well, is kind of the hope,
Nonir Amicitia: because, yeah, the world we're living in is
Nonir Amicitia: terrifying if you are not a straight,
Nonir Amicitia: cisgender white guy with quite a bit
Nonir Amicitia: of money. Yeah. For my own
Joanne Lockwood: mental health here. I think one of the problems I find is that and I
Joanne Lockwood: don't want to use the word or the phrase trans community, meaning that we
Joanne Lockwood: are organised into some sort of power structure,
Joanne Lockwood: the trans communities, if you like, are agreement people trying to get over their
Joanne Lockwood: lives or the grave communities. We
Joanne Lockwood: are sometimes our own worst enemy. We reshare
Joanne Lockwood: and amplify hate sometimes by going, have you seen this? Have you seen
Joanne Lockwood: that? I go onto Facebook, I see more anti trans rhetoric from
Joanne Lockwood: trans people sharing the antitrans rhetoric than I do if I
Joanne Lockwood: just turned on the news. And I think sometimes we've got to be careful around
Joanne Lockwood: our own mental health, that we get a bit obsessed
Joanne Lockwood: with the danger and we keep wanting to be like mere cancer
Joanne Lockwood: danger, danger, danger, danger, and tell everybody about it. It's that weird line
Nonir Amicitia: of we have to be aware and so we want to make sure that
Nonir Amicitia: everyone we know and love is aware, but
Nonir Amicitia: also we can't just keep focusing on the
Nonir Amicitia: danger and the terror because that's not good
Nonir Amicitia: for any of us. And the queer community.
Nonir Amicitia: Communities in general have
Nonir Amicitia: generally higher incidences of depression
Nonir Amicitia: and anxiety and varying other mental
Nonir Amicitia: illnesses, disorders, nerd emergencies
Nonir Amicitia: and just flooding
Nonir Amicitia: social media and our discussions with oh, my God, did you
Nonir Amicitia: hear? So and so is now on the anti gay train. And this is what
Nonir Amicitia: they said and this is what we have to rally against.
Nonir Amicitia: I understand where it comes from. We're trying to protect each other, but it
Nonir Amicitia: doesn't serve us. It just kind of keeps us stuck
Nonir Amicitia: in that reactive terror loop
Nonir Amicitia: and I'm not really sure how to get out of it,
Nonir Amicitia: but I think that we need to work on as a
Nonir Amicitia: whole, and actually, this isn't just queer folk,
Nonir Amicitia: but as a whole, marginalised communities. We need to
Nonir Amicitia: work on finding that balance between keeping each other
Nonir Amicitia: informed and safe and also celebrating each
Nonir Amicitia: other and celebrating the
Nonir Amicitia: fact that we exist and our lives
Nonir Amicitia: are all sorts of varied and beautiful,
Nonir Amicitia: even when it's hard.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. My kind of take on it, I suppose, is
Joanne Lockwood: I just sing my own song, play my own tune, to quote
Joanne Lockwood: that song, which I think Paloma Faith did a version.
Joanne Lockwood: I keep amplifying who I am. I think if I was
Joanne Lockwood: to engage in those negative conversations, there's
Joanne Lockwood: no, no, nothing happens. You talk about being a person with a
Joanne Lockwood: Jewish history and background. What's going on in the Middle East is
Joanne Lockwood: completely abhorrent to everybody, but it doesn't help to get into a discussion
Joanne Lockwood: about who's right or wrong. I don't want to care if you've got anti trans
Joanne Lockwood: viewpoints or you want to debate the supremacy
Joanne Lockwood: of sex and biology over identity. I don't care if
Joanne Lockwood: you want to have that conversation, I'm just going to keep doing what I want
Joanne Lockwood: to do. I can be the best me, have the best conversations about me,
Joanne Lockwood: exemplify what I can do as a person. And then if you
Joanne Lockwood: want to go and do that in your little space, that's fine. I don't need
Joanne Lockwood: to engage with you. And I think the more I attenuate
Joanne Lockwood: and turn the volume down on this other stuff makes my life easier
Joanne Lockwood: and makes my life more hassle free,
Joanne Lockwood: that's a privilege. I can do that. I'm quite robust.
Joanne Lockwood: I have good support network around me. But what we're saying before we went
Joanne Lockwood: online and live was that you mentioned just now
Joanne Lockwood: about mental health concerns around people in the
Joanne Lockwood: queer community, whether it's dysphoria, whether
Joanne Lockwood: it's the feeling of being under, attacked,
Joanne Lockwood: erased, marginalised even further. So
Joanne Lockwood: how can we, or you, through your media, through
Joanne Lockwood: your books, through your writing, how can we create spaces
Joanne Lockwood: for people to know they're loved for one of the better way of putting
Joanne Lockwood: it? At risk of sounding like
Nonir Amicitia: a broken record? Representation helps a lot,
Nonir Amicitia: especially when we're talking about mental
Nonir Amicitia: illness and neurodivergency. There is still
Nonir Amicitia: such an incredible stigma around it,
Nonir Amicitia: around asking for help, around
Nonir Amicitia: having a diagnosis of anything
Nonir Amicitia: and showing characters
Nonir Amicitia: struggling with anxiety and depression and dysphoria.
Nonir Amicitia: And I feel like we have
Nonir Amicitia: more that I'm just not remembering, but showing that
Nonir Amicitia: and showing that they're still human, they're still
Nonir Amicitia: okay. Again, it's not the entirety of their
Nonir Amicitia: identity and it's okay that
Nonir Amicitia: they ask for help and there are people around them who
Nonir Amicitia: love them and who care for them and will help them through
Nonir Amicitia: a depressive episode or an anxiety attack.
Nonir Amicitia: And in my own life,
Nonir Amicitia: being in the writing community has actually been
Nonir Amicitia: incredibly helpful for that, because writers also tend
Nonir Amicitia: to be neurodivergent in various ways.
Nonir Amicitia: And that's one of the ways that Olivia and I really connected,
Nonir Amicitia: both as friends and co writers, because we both have struggles
Nonir Amicitia: with anxiety and depression and I
Nonir Amicitia: have dysphoria and she has
Nonir Amicitia: other biological and mental
Nonir Amicitia: illnesses, my illnesses, issues that make her
Nonir Amicitia: anxiety really bad.
Nonir Amicitia: And so just kind of bonding of
Nonir Amicitia: society thinks we're broken, but we're not.
Nonir Amicitia: And discussing that and
Nonir Amicitia: creating those safe spaces both for us as
Nonir Amicitia: individuals and for our readers, I
Nonir Amicitia: think that that's kind of where we need to
Nonir Amicitia: start. And I think when we're talking about
Nonir Amicitia: acceptance of mental health issues, we're still
Nonir Amicitia: just starting. Partially because psychology
Nonir Amicitia: itself is a relatively young field, all things considered,
Nonir Amicitia: and partially because a lot of it
Nonir Amicitia: is still influenced by Nazism and
Nonir Amicitia: various other bigotry, bigoted thoughts
Nonir Amicitia: that a lot of people don't recognise
Nonir Amicitia: are so ingrained in the studies.
Nonir Amicitia: So just starting
Nonir Amicitia: with representation
Nonir Amicitia: and acceptance and saying, hey, we exist and we're
Nonir Amicitia: not all going to turn out to be serial killers.
Joanne Lockwood: We know the stats. There are more CIS serial
Joanne Lockwood: killers than there'll ever be. Queer serial killers.
Nonir Amicitia: Like
Nonir Amicitia: most neurodivergent people,
Nonir Amicitia: like queer people. We just want to survive, we just want to get by.
Nonir Amicitia: Most of the time, like in America when we're talking about mass
Nonir Amicitia: shootings and things, they're cishit white guys
Nonir Amicitia: generally who have no history of mental illness,
Nonir Amicitia: but the media will almost always spin it
Nonir Amicitia: somehow to point to mental illness
Nonir Amicitia: because of that stigma. Well, they need
Joanne Lockwood: to they need to label them as divergent in
Joanne Lockwood: some way. Otherwise if they're a normal person, how can a normal person be
Joanne Lockwood: rationalised to do this? Heinous acts so they have to assign a label to
Joanne Lockwood: them to take them out of the normal box, say, well look, they weren't
Joanne Lockwood: normal, it's okay. Normal people are okay. This person has a mental health.
Joanne Lockwood: This person has a history of this he's neurodivergent,
Joanne Lockwood: wherever it may be, dramatically. Harms the
Nonir Amicitia: neurodivergent community
Nonir Amicitia: and also sweeps under the rug that quote
Nonir Amicitia: unquote normal people are just as
Nonir Amicitia: messed up as anybody else.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think as queer people ourselves,
Joanne Lockwood: once you've kind of owned that
Joanne Lockwood: label, that identity, it's very easy to
Joanne Lockwood: own other things about yourself. I don't need to
Joanne Lockwood: hide my I don't know, I wouldn't
Joanne Lockwood: class myself as neurodivergent but I have obsessive
Joanne Lockwood: behaviours around certain things and I have heavy disinterest in other things
Joanne Lockwood: so I can be very polarised. Doesn't make me neurodivergent
Joanne Lockwood: necessarily, just makes me try to understand. But I can now admit to myself about
Joanne Lockwood: a whole load of things that maybe I tried to mask or cover
Joanne Lockwood: in my old life, if you want to call it that way. Now I just
Joanne Lockwood: go it's almost like this channel
Joanne Lockwood: is supposed to be safe for children and not explicit but the fuck, it switch
Joanne Lockwood: hits, doesn't it? And sometimes you just go, it doesn't matter, it doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: matter. I don't need to hold that baggage in
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. Yeah, I think once you realise
Nonir Amicitia: that some part of you is marginalised,
Nonir Amicitia: the other marginalised parts of you are just like, hey, I'm
Nonir Amicitia: here too. And at some point
Nonir Amicitia: it's just like, well, society already hates
Nonir Amicitia: me for that thing, so I might as well embrace this other thing.
Joanne Lockwood: My lived experience is when I announced to the
Joanne Lockwood: world my transiness and told my mum and other
Joanne Lockwood: people it was kind of if I
Joanne Lockwood: could share that secret that I've held at me for 40 52 years of my
Joanne Lockwood: life at the time, I can share it. I don't need to have a secret
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. There's nothing more scary. I mean, you try and blackmail
Joanne Lockwood: me. What have you got on me that I'm worried
Joanne Lockwood: about? I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's important. One thing you mentioned earlier was
Joanne Lockwood: society sees us as broken in some way, whether we're neurodivergent
Joanne Lockwood: queer. And the issue with that is that I
Joanne Lockwood: internalise that. We internalise that.
Joanne Lockwood: We're told we're broken therefore we are, therefore we believe. And
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes that's the root cause of a lot of dysphoria.
Joanne Lockwood: You must conform to a social construct. You must conform to the norms of
Joanne Lockwood: society. You don't look track or woman enough, you don't
Joanne Lockwood: look man enough. And WTF what does nonbinary
Joanne Lockwood: enough mean, exactly?
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, you look absolutely fabulous and nonbinary
Joanne Lockwood: enough to me on the camera.
Nonir Amicitia: That's one of the struggles that I have, too. It's just like,
Nonir Amicitia: to a quote unquote normal assist
Nonir Amicitia: person, I come across as very feminine presenting
Nonir Amicitia: because I haven't done any sort of
Nonir Amicitia: active masculinization. Also side
Nonir Amicitia: note, the fact that we associate non binary
Nonir Amicitia: with masculine appearance is really dumb.
Nonir Amicitia: But there's still that masculine as default.
Nonir Amicitia: Ergo, trying to get
Nonir Amicitia: more looking masculine ish
Nonir Amicitia: means you're trying to be more central. It doesn't
Nonir Amicitia: make sense. Yes, androgyny
Joanne Lockwood: is inherently more masculine, isn't it? It is, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Small bum, no breasts, very straight looking,
Joanne Lockwood: cropped hair, whatever. It's a very masculine.
Nonir Amicitia: Generally super thin.
Nonir Amicitia: If you just Google androgynous or
Nonir Amicitia: something along those lines, you'll come up with a bunch of really skinny,
Nonir Amicitia: really white people. And
Nonir Amicitia: as someone who is not very skinny and has
Nonir Amicitia: a large chest, people don't look at me and
Nonir Amicitia: think, oh, you can be Androgynous. But
Nonir Amicitia: I am non binary. I don't identify with being
Nonir Amicitia: male or female. Some days I'm more one, sometimes
Nonir Amicitia: I'm more another. And there's not a
Nonir Amicitia: good way to present that in current
Nonir Amicitia: society, because literally everything is
Nonir Amicitia: gendered in a really stupid way.
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah. We're even telling bits of porcelain that
Joanne Lockwood: their toilets are gendered in some way. It's just a toilet.
Joanne Lockwood: Who's assigned the agenda? And, like,
Nonir Amicitia: clothing? I've started wearing, quote
Nonir Amicitia: unquote, men's jeans, because they're so much easier to fit,
Nonir Amicitia: because women's fashion is
Nonir Amicitia: so insanely ridiculous.
Nonir Amicitia: But again, they're just clothes, there's no need to label
Nonir Amicitia: them. You just want the pockets, don't you? That's what it is. You want deep
Joanne Lockwood: pockets. They don't want to have to try
Nonir Amicitia: on 20 different pairs of jeans that are supposedly the same size to
Nonir Amicitia: find one that fits. The one thing I like about women's
Joanne Lockwood: jeans is the Lycra and the stretch.
Joanne Lockwood: I know men's jeans can have Lycra and stretch as well, but I tend to
Joanne Lockwood: find that they fit a little bit better. But, yeah, I know what you mean.
Joanne Lockwood: It's definitely the pockets. That's fine, we could switch
Joanne Lockwood: jeans, but it's definitely the pockets. I miss pockets. I do miss
Joanne Lockwood: pockets. Again, women's fashion. WTF
Nonir Amicitia: why not? I often wear dresses.
Joanne Lockwood: I got one on today that has pockets in it. I'm out at a function
Joanne Lockwood: or something and I put my hand in my pocket and pull out a tissue
Joanne Lockwood: or something and everyone around me goes, oh, you got pockets in your dress. Oh,
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. Everyone got pockets in it.
Joanne Lockwood: I just want someone to put my lippy and my tissues. I don't want
Nonir Amicitia: to have to carry a bag. I stuff
Joanne Lockwood: everything in my bra. That's the other problem. You got your mobile phone in there,
Joanne Lockwood: you got your room key without having. A big chest, is that I've
Nonir Amicitia: got built in pocket.
Nonir Amicitia: But, yeah, I don't know. The way that
Nonir Amicitia: society just genders things in general makes no sense to
Nonir Amicitia: me and it never has. Even before I recognised
Nonir Amicitia: that I was non binary, and non binary was
Nonir Amicitia: even a thing I could be even as a kid.
Nonir Amicitia: I was a very sheltered kid and I
Nonir Amicitia: wasn't even exposed to the concept of queerness until high
Nonir Amicitia: school, until I was in my teens.
Nonir Amicitia: But even as a kid, I knew I didn't fit in as a girl or
Nonir Amicitia: a boy. I was a very tomboy girl or a very girly
Nonir Amicitia: boy, and
Nonir Amicitia: I didn't have words to express that. And I think that that's
Nonir Amicitia: a really important part of where we're at as a society now,
Nonir Amicitia: is we're starting to have words.
Nonir Amicitia: And I think it's important that we allow kids access to
Nonir Amicitia: those words and those concepts,
Nonir Amicitia: because not to
Nonir Amicitia: sound overdramatic, but it could literally save their lives
Nonir Amicitia: to be able to say, I'm not the only one who feels this way. There's
Nonir Amicitia: a whole term for people who feel this way.
Nonir Amicitia: And that's one of the things that really irritates
Nonir Amicitia: me about the whole we can't expose
Nonir Amicitia: kids to trans people or to queer people
Nonir Amicitia: rhetoric. Again. We're all just trying
Nonir Amicitia: to live our lives. We're not trying to, quote, unquote,
Nonir Amicitia: convert anybody or anything.
Nonir Amicitia: We're just trying to tell kids that,
Nonir Amicitia: hey, we exist and maybe you're one of us and maybe
Nonir Amicitia: you're not. But
Nonir Amicitia: if they grow up knowing that we exist, they're more likely to
Nonir Amicitia: respect us and to respect our communities and to be more open
Nonir Amicitia: minded. Or it is
Joanne Lockwood: an old thought, or see a role model
Joanne Lockwood: and see themselves represented in somebody and realise what's going
Joanne Lockwood: on in their head isn't broken. They are not
Joanne Lockwood: broken, they are real, they are valid.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's what straight people are worried about because they're
Joanne Lockwood: probably internalising their own feelings.
Joanne Lockwood: That's generalisation. But, yeah, there are many people out there that are repressing their
Joanne Lockwood: own thoughts and sexuality and identity.
Nonir Amicitia: A lot of that is internalised from society and people
Nonir Amicitia: don't really realise how much
Nonir Amicitia: we internalise from those external sources, from the media,
Nonir Amicitia: from our parents, from our education,
Nonir Amicitia: and how dangerous
Nonir Amicitia: and debilitating that can be to
Nonir Amicitia: everybody, whether or not you are marginalised.
Nonir Amicitia: The fact that CIS, het white people are so
Nonir Amicitia: afraid of the queer community
Nonir Amicitia: partially because of all of those internalised
Nonir Amicitia: fears of if I'm queer,
Nonir Amicitia: what happens if I'm queer? What happens if
Nonir Amicitia: I'm not who I think I am? And to
Nonir Amicitia: that I say, well, then jump on the train with us, friends,
Nonir Amicitia: because we all went through that at some point and we're all
Nonir Amicitia: still here. But there are some people out there that just
Joanne Lockwood: like or love or feel the need to police people back
Joanne Lockwood: into their. Lane or back into their box. You see it with
Joanne Lockwood: driving a car. You get certain people who insist that you drive your
Joanne Lockwood: car the way they want to have their car driven, and they'll try and police
Joanne Lockwood: you or point out to you or shout at you at a traffic light or
Joanne Lockwood: something like that. There are people who have this real adherence to rules.
Joanne Lockwood: That's a neurodiversity or personality trait. But people want to put you
Joanne Lockwood: back in their box, and if you don't fit in their box, they get really
Joanne Lockwood: freaked out by and I think that happens a lot of time, I think
Joanne Lockwood: when you come out as queer with a I'm going to say the
Joanne Lockwood: word again, a fuck it attitude to the world. I don't need to live by
Joanne Lockwood: your BS anymore. It frightens people because how do
Joanne Lockwood: they put you in their box again? You're being
Joanne Lockwood: too anarchic for them. And
Nonir Amicitia: if they see other people doing that, I feel like there's
Nonir Amicitia: generally a piece of them that's going, well, why am I not
Nonir Amicitia: doing that? Why am I still stuck in this box?
Nonir Amicitia: And there's that resentment of they're living their
Nonir Amicitia: lives authentically. Why am I not living my life
Nonir Amicitia: authentically?
Nonir Amicitia: And society doesn't make it easy for anyone to live
Nonir Amicitia: authentically, regardless of identity or
Nonir Amicitia: anything, because it's all very
Nonir Amicitia: conformist for everybody.
Nonir Amicitia: And I don't think that
Nonir Amicitia: people who aren't marginalised realise how
Nonir Amicitia: much harming
Nonir Amicitia: marginalised communities also harms them, if that makes
Nonir Amicitia: sense. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's repressing people, which means you're only
Joanne Lockwood: one step away from being repressed yourself for something.
Joanne Lockwood: It's policing you into your lane, into your box.
Joanne Lockwood: If you've got poor mental health, you've got financial difficulties, you've got
Joanne Lockwood: relationship difficulties, it means that you don't feel
Joanne Lockwood: open to talk about that and share that, which we were talking about before we
Joanne Lockwood: jump on air about suicide, about mental health,
Joanne Lockwood: around feeling alone and not able
Joanne Lockwood: to share that. I think what we end up doing is policing people in such
Joanne Lockwood: a way that nobody's prepared to open up
Joanne Lockwood: and talk. Yeah. Which is a problem for
Nonir Amicitia: everybody, because everybody has periods where you're
Nonir Amicitia: depressed, everybody has times when you're
Nonir Amicitia: struggling financially or you just need someone to say, hey, it's
Nonir Amicitia: okay, I see you. I don't care who you are. Everybody
Nonir Amicitia: has those moments and
Nonir Amicitia: not acknowledging that or
Nonir Amicitia: making that seem like a weakness
Nonir Amicitia: or brokenness or an otherwise bad
Nonir Amicitia: thing harms everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're the bottom half of a
Joanne Lockwood: trench coat double act, and
Joanne Lockwood: both yourself the bottom half and the top half.
Joanne Lockwood: Olivia, you're both awesome jugglers. So
Joanne Lockwood: how did you manage to learn how to
Joanne Lockwood: juggle? Well, two balls, three balls to start with, but how did
Joanne Lockwood: you get the ridiculous number? Was that just constant Practise or did you go to
Joanne Lockwood: a club or something? How did you learn to juggle?
Nonir Amicitia: Well, it's more metaphorical juggling.
Nonir Amicitia: It's juggling projects and
Nonir Amicitia: businesses and all of those things.
Nonir Amicitia: And so, yeah, a
Nonir Amicitia: lot of it is just practise, and a lot of it is
Nonir Amicitia: passion. I'm passionate about all of these things,
Nonir Amicitia: so I'm going to do all of them at the same time.
Joanne Lockwood: So there was me thinking it was actual balls in the
Joanne Lockwood: air. Not going to lie, I wish I could double
Nonir Amicitia: like three for 30 seconds.
Joanne Lockwood: Back in the early 90s, that
Joanne Lockwood: sounds like a lifetime ago for many people. In fact, it was. My daughter's only
Joanne Lockwood: 31, so back in the early 90s, she was about two or three.
Joanne Lockwood: I used to work late in projects. I was in It at the time,
Joanne Lockwood: and my manager at the time was a member of the Magic
Joanne Lockwood: Circle. I don't know if you have the Magic Circle in the States Magicians Club.
Joanne Lockwood: Basically. And he used to
Joanne Lockwood: have some juggling balls in his desk, and he used to sit there in the
Joanne Lockwood: evenings while we're waiting for servers to reboot and things like this.
Joanne Lockwood: He always got his balls out and juggled around, and he taught me how to
Joanne Lockwood: juggle. And I could do three balls for about
Joanne Lockwood: 30 or 40 seconds. I think the golden
Joanne Lockwood: rule is it's not about the throwing it's all around the catching. So
Joanne Lockwood: as long as you can catch it, you can throw it wherever you like, as
Joanne Lockwood: long as it's about the catching and the rhythm. And so I got three
Joanne Lockwood: quite successfully, and I've still got some juggling beanbags
Joanne Lockwood: in my desk because I keep her in a go. But I've lost the
Joanne Lockwood: technique. I think I need to have a weekend of getting
Joanne Lockwood: back into I got the theory, I just need to practise. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: those skills, everything theory, but. Putting
Nonir Amicitia: the theory into practise, whole other ballgame.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, lots of desire. I hyper focus on
Joanne Lockwood: things. If I can hyper focus on learn to juggle one
Joanne Lockwood: weekend, I won't stop until I could do four balls. I will be
Joanne Lockwood: there. When I was 15, I think again, I was
Joanne Lockwood: 15 in the late 70s, probably.
Joanne Lockwood: That's a while ago, isn't it? And I learned to do the Rubik's Cube, and
Joanne Lockwood: I wouldn't stop until I could do the cube in less than a minute. In
Joanne Lockwood: those days, that was quite a good thing. I know people do it now with
Joanne Lockwood: five or 6 seconds and I really can't figure out how they do that. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, 55 seconds was my record on the Rubik's Cube. And I really hyper focused
Joanne Lockwood: on this, obsessed with it. I bought all these books and I could learn
Joanne Lockwood: strings of letters, because I used to use U and D
Joanne Lockwood: and R and L in combinations of those to mean up or down on top
Joanne Lockwood: of this. So I could memorise 30 or 40 letters
Joanne Lockwood: sequences, and I'd be able to flick those in and I'd be able to adapt
Joanne Lockwood: and pull out that combination almost like instant. Now I look at it and
Joanne Lockwood: go, I can't remember a phone number these days. I
Joanne Lockwood: can't remember a two factor authentication when it comes up
Joanne Lockwood: with six digits. And I've got a key into Facebook. I can't remember that number
Joanne Lockwood: without looking at old age or
Joanne Lockwood: trauma. Say again?
Nonir Amicitia: Trauma. Trauma, yeah. There
Nonir Amicitia: have been several studies about trauma, even
Nonir Amicitia: small traumas, affecting members, and
Nonir Amicitia: we as a world have gone through quite a few traumas lately, with
Nonir Amicitia: the pandemic and everything.
Nonir Amicitia: So, as a society, no one
Nonir Amicitia: I have talked to recently has a good memory anymore.
Joanne Lockwood: I put it down to the smartphone evolution. I don't need to know
Joanne Lockwood: anyone's phone number anymore. In the past, I would know
Joanne Lockwood: 1520 people's phone number, and in the early days of mobile
Joanne Lockwood: phones, I knew their home number, their mobile number and their office number for
Joanne Lockwood: about 20 people. Now
Joanne Lockwood: I know my wife's number, I know my number, I don't know my daughter's number,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know my son's. Number, my sister's number. Just hit the
Joanne Lockwood: button. Yeah. I don't calculate things. I didn't do mental arithmetic
Joanne Lockwood: anymore and I've even stopped googling things. I asked Chat
Joanne Lockwood: GPT or being AI now, I want it spoon fed
Joanne Lockwood: to me. I don't even bother looking at search results. Sometimes I just say,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm wondering about this. I've even used Chat GPT
Joanne Lockwood: image techniques now, and I took a picture of some food and
Joanne Lockwood: said, Describe that for me and give me a recipe. There it was.
Joanne Lockwood: So you can go to restaurants now and get the recipe for food.
Joanne Lockwood: Wonderful. Well, the
Joanne Lockwood: ones I've used have been pretty good because we went pumpkin picking the other week
Joanne Lockwood: and we got some spaghetti squashes, the white ones,
Joanne Lockwood: and it was a broccoli
Joanne Lockwood: feta and cheddar grated
Joanne Lockwood: cheddar. You scoop out the squash, you mix it all
Joanne Lockwood: together and you put it down. Then you put the oven, you grill it and
Joanne Lockwood: bake it, and I put it in front of it, in front of me, and
Joanne Lockwood: I took a photograph and said to Chat GPT, image, please describe
Joanne Lockwood: this. And he got it perfect. He got the recipe, you got the description,
Joanne Lockwood: you got everything spot on just for a photo. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: like, yes, it's scary accurate. If you haven't tried it I know
Joanne Lockwood: we're completely off topic here. If you haven't tried it, try a bit
Joanne Lockwood: of Chat GPT four image. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I was in a seminar the other week and someone put a slide up
Joanne Lockwood: with some useful information on it. I took a picture of it, fed the slides
Joanne Lockwood: into Chat GPT and said, can you just summarise that and give me some
Joanne Lockwood: details? Produced a little Google Sheet table with all the
Joanne Lockwood: information on this slide with some takeaways on it. It's like,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, it's so easy now to use technology,
Joanne Lockwood: which I'm not saying it's dumbing us down, it's making
Joanne Lockwood: us differently intelligent, I guess, is probably a way of describing it.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think I put that down to why my memory is not good because
Joanne Lockwood: my brain knows it doesn't need to remember anymore. So it doesn't bother.
Joanne Lockwood: It does other things with that bit of brain power.
Joanne Lockwood: Not sure what those things are, but it must be doing different things.
Nonir Amicitia: I've unlearned podcasts and talking to people about making the world
Nonir Amicitia: a better place.
Joanne Lockwood: That's what it is. That's definitely what it is. So technology has
Nonir Amicitia: automatically made the world a better place because it's allowed you the brain power to
Nonir Amicitia: do this? It has, yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: what I will do, I'll share my secret with the listeners here
Joanne Lockwood: is I will feed the transcript of this through AI and it will generate show
Joanne Lockwood: notes, it will generate everything else. So I haven't even got to sit here for
Joanne Lockwood: 4 hours now rewriting show notes and producing summaries of the episode
Joanne Lockwood: because products out there will do it for me in a better than I ever
Joanne Lockwood: can. And it allows me to just tweak it and adjust it to
Joanne Lockwood: have my tone of voice and I can turn it around in an hour
Joanne Lockwood: what used to take me a half a day. So yeah, productivity
Joanne Lockwood: from my perspective as a solopreneur, if you like. It's
Joanne Lockwood: amazing. Yeah, absolutely fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Completely off topic, but hey, why not?
Joanne Lockwood: I often wonder to myself, let me sort of segue into
Joanne Lockwood: this. People ask me how difficult it was, it coming
Joanne Lockwood: out and I always say the hardest person to come out to was myself.
Joanne Lockwood: Rationalising who I am, what I am, how I am.
Joanne Lockwood: How did you find that process of discovery? Because you said from an early
Joanne Lockwood: age you didn't fit into the boxes. You didn't know if you're, as I
Joanne Lockwood: say, a femme man or a booked woman or a
Joanne Lockwood: feminine woman. Where do you fit on that? So how did you kind of
Joanne Lockwood: evolve that sense of self?
Nonir Amicitia: I feel like it's kind of a constant process
Nonir Amicitia: because I'm always finding new things about myself
Nonir Amicitia: just based on being in a situation that I haven't experienced
Nonir Amicitia: before or talking to someone new.
Nonir Amicitia: But I think in general, a lot of it was
Nonir Amicitia: honestly reading fan fiction
Nonir Amicitia: because that's how I got exposed to a lot of new ideas and
Nonir Amicitia: identities and things that I hadn't
Nonir Amicitia: been exposed to as a kid. And
Nonir Amicitia: going back to all my earlier discussions about the importance of
Nonir Amicitia: seeing ourselves in media,
Nonir Amicitia: it really gave me terminology
Nonir Amicitia: and things to think about
Nonir Amicitia: between, I think, reading fan fiction and being in theatre and
Nonir Amicitia: being able to kind of try on these personas
Nonir Amicitia: and try on okay, today I'm
Nonir Amicitia: playing a male role.
Nonir Amicitia: What does it feel like to embody that on the stage
Nonir Amicitia: and being able to take that off the stage and think about it and
Nonir Amicitia: think about that process and how it feels in my body and how
Nonir Amicitia: it felt in my brain, for lack of a better term.
Nonir Amicitia: Really kind of gave me that context and that ability to say, you
Nonir Amicitia: know what, I don't think I fit on either end of the spectrum.
Nonir Amicitia: I fit somewhere in the middle.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that's quite powerful, isn't it? You're trying
Joanne Lockwood: on an outfit and you realise it doesn't quite fit.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a bit tight here or a bit tight there, or restrictive. And you think,
Joanne Lockwood: Actually, no, that's not me. And then you put this one on and go, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: that's good. That feels good, doesn't it? You know, don't you?
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah. I went through probably six or seven
Nonir Amicitia: different names before I found Nonir
Nonir Amicitia: and that felt right. Like my poor
Nonir Amicitia: friends. I don't know what name
Nonir Amicitia: you're using today, I'm so sorry.
Joanne Lockwood: Does it have a history? Does that name mean something? Is it from
Joanne Lockwood: anywhere? Or is it something you just kind of made
Joanne Lockwood: up? It's inspired by
Nonir Amicitia: the Icelandic and Norse mythology.
Nonir Amicitia: I like to say it means strength, because Amicidia means friendship in
Nonir Amicitia: Latin. So my name then
Nonir Amicitia: means strong friendship or strong friend,
Nonir Amicitia: because that's an important part of who I am,
Nonir Amicitia: being there for my friends, building that community.
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah.
Nonir Amicitia: It's okay to make up your own name.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've got a good story about how I got my name.
Joanne Lockwood: I basically pinched it off of my first crush
Joanne Lockwood: at school at 13. Not only did
Joanne Lockwood: I nick her first name, I nicked her surname as well, because I didn't like
Joanne Lockwood: my surname, so I stole both of her names. Which is quite ironic for
Joanne Lockwood: my wife, knowing that I'm named after my first crush. But
Joanne Lockwood: that's a whole nother story. But, yeah, we name our cats, we
Joanne Lockwood: name our boats, we name our dogs. But how do we get to
Joanne Lockwood: name ourselves? What name will we choose? And again, that's
Joanne Lockwood: a huge decision that people don't
Joanne Lockwood: realise because, again, you have to try it on. You have to see if it
Joanne Lockwood: fits. You have to imagine it being said out loud. And will I
Joanne Lockwood: respond to that? It's a huge pressure, isn't it? Yeah.
Nonir Amicitia: And being able to find a safe community and a safe group of friends to
Nonir Amicitia: help you try on new names and new
Nonir Amicitia: facades and new
Nonir Amicitia: pronouns, new connected ways to dress.
Nonir Amicitia: Just having that safe space to experiment
Nonir Amicitia: is incredibly invaluable.
Joanne Lockwood: So what you're trying to say there is escape the judgement of the BS
Joanne Lockwood: of social construct. That's what we're doing.
Joanne Lockwood: We have to find a safe space where societal pressure
Joanne Lockwood: and judgement is not allowed in. That's what we're doing.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's the sad thing, isn't it? We're being
Joanne Lockwood: repressed indirectly, often not
Joanne Lockwood: directly, but indirectly by societal norms.
Nonir Amicitia: Yeah, it gets really weird and wonky if you
Nonir Amicitia: think about it too far. It does.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, we've been going an hour. I can't believe that already. We
Joanne Lockwood: were chatting away for 20 minutes before that. Nonir, it's been
Joanne Lockwood: it's been fantastic. I really love talking to you and I wish we could carry
Joanne Lockwood: on all day. And if we lived a bit closer, rather than 4000 miles
Joanne Lockwood: apart, whatever it is, I'm sure we'd pop her out of a Starbucks for a
Joanne Lockwood: coffee sometime or hang out more. Well, I mean, someday
Nonir Amicitia: we'll have to get Olivia on, so I'm sure we'll chat with
Nonir Amicitia: you again. Yes, that'd be great. I'd love to have you both on
Joanne Lockwood: the show at once and be my first double act, if you like. And I
Joanne Lockwood: get to see both halves of the trench coat, the top hand, bottom,
Joanne Lockwood: and maybe we'll explore that more for those who can't
Joanne Lockwood: imagine. Imagine two children, one standing on the other person's shoulders
Joanne Lockwood: for the trench coat and trying to sneak into the cinema. Pretend they're
Joanne Lockwood: 18. That's the image we want you to have there. So
Joanne Lockwood: not it. How do we get hold of you? What's your website, what's your books
Joanne Lockwood: called? What's your publication? Yeah. The books are called the
Nonir Amicitia: Aces High Jokers Wild series. You can find
Nonir Amicitia: the books, all our social media and how to get in touch with us on
Nonir Amicitia: the website, which is O E Tearmann.
Nonir Amicitia: T-E-A-R-M-A-N-N dot com
Joanne Lockwood: Thanks for those of you who want to hunt you down in other ways. So
Joanne Lockwood: Nonir is nonir and amacitya. How
Nonir Amicitia: do we spell that for the
Nonir Amicitia: A-M-I-C-I-T-I-A.
Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. You can also find my
Nonir Amicitia: own solo published books, which are all queer,
Nonir Amicitia: queer fantasy, romance, mostly short stories
Nonir Amicitia: under E S Argentum,
Nonir Amicitia: A-R-G-E-N-T-U-M. Because
Nonir Amicitia: again, I have too many names.
Nonir Amicitia: But yeah, worst case scenario, find us on OE Tearmann,
Nonir Amicitia: send us a note and say, hey, I'm interested in talking to Nonir or
Nonir Amicitia: finding their books and we can shoot you
Nonir Amicitia: the links. I'll make sure all of that's on your
Joanne Lockwood: profile on the hosting platform for this podcast. If anyone wants to look you
Joanne Lockwood: up. Just follow the links through to your profile and they'll all be
Joanne Lockwood: there. I'll make sure they're all tagged and put that so
Joanne Lockwood: thank you so much. I can't believe that Bites flow so quickly and I
Joanne Lockwood: really appreciate you joining me today, it's been a fabulous
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. It has. Hopefully having me.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, pleasure. And for you, the
Joanne Lockwood: listeners, I thank you for tuning in
Joanne Lockwood: and staying to the end. I really appreciate that.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure you'll all agree there's much to take inspiration from that,
Joanne Lockwood: especially if you're in or out of the Cure
Joanne Lockwood: community, struggling to be heard, struggling with your own
Joanne Lockwood: identity, struggling with your own poor mental health or whatever it may be, or
Joanne Lockwood: just want someone to be able to listen to you. So there's a lot in
Joanne Lockwood: there. Please do subscribe I value
Joanne Lockwood: your subscriptions to keep updated on future episodes of
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your
Joanne Lockwood: friends and tell your colleagues and please share the links. I
Joanne Lockwood: have a number of other exciting and passionate guests
Joanne Lockwood: lined up over the next few weeks and months. I'm sure you'll be equally as
Joanne Lockwood: inspired by them as well. Of course, if you're listening in and like to be
Joanne Lockwood: a guest yourself or have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve,
Joanne Lockwood: if you think we can, then please send those to myself,
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: And finally, my name is Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood, and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast
Joanne Lockwood: for you today. Catch you next time.
Joanne Lockwood: Bye.