In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee wrote: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
It’s an idea that encourages people to empathise with someone by learning what life is like from their perspective. And it’s an idea author and journalist Daniel Harding has taken and run with.
Letters to My Younger Queer Self follows on from Harding’s previous book, Gay Man Talking: All the Conversations We Never Had, and features an array of LGBTQ+ figures write and share letters to their young selves.
Often both emotional and funny, the letters offer readers the chance to learn about the queer experience from a number of different perspectives. Among those to contribute were journalist James Longman, Trans Pride Brighton organiser Sarah Savage, and DJ Bright Light Bright Light.
Speaking at the book’s launch on Tuesday (6 May), Harding said it was aimed at “anyone who is struggling with their identity or journey, people who don’t understand who they are right now, or feel alone”.
He went on to tell PinkNews: “This book is a representation of what this community is all about. How we stand together and show up. Each and every letter [is] a helpline to say you are OK, you are not alone and you can get through whatever challenge is ahead.
“I hope this book helps anyone [who] has ever felt like that little ‘strange’ kid, not understanding where they belong. It’s OK to be ‘strange’. It’s pretty awesome, actually. It’s a message to say, you absolutely f’ing belong.”
In the following exclusive extract from the book, published on Thursday (8 May), Labour MP Nadia Whittome’s letter gives an insight into some of her experiences prior to winning her Nottingham East seat and what inspired her to go into politics, as well as the current socio-political landscape.
I’ve mentioned already that you’ll become an MP. Weird, isn’t it? It’s certainly not what you imagined for yourself. Even though you’ll start following the news and having opinions – a lot of them – at a young age, for a long time you’ll see politics as something that’s done to you and your community by much older, white men in suits, talking from the TV screen about crackdowns, cutbacks and tough decisions.
Through joining your teachers on picket lines and helping to organise your first protest, you’ll learn that politics isn’t just what is done to you. It is also how you respond, all the things you can do to force them to listen.
You will be elected – firstly as the Labour candidate, then as the MP – against a backdrop of a pretty vicious (albeit tiny) local campaign against LGBTQIA+-inclusive relationships and sex education. In the years that follow, homophobia and, especially, transphobia in politics will get much, much worse.
Standing for office, you won’t expect LGBTQIA+ rights to become one of the main issues you’re associated with, but you will have to speak out. You’ll watch senior Tories crack jokes about what’s in trans people’s pants, while millions of people are forced to skip meals to pay their energy bills.
You’ll hear politicians spend more time worrying about children asking to change their name and pronouns than record-breaking numbers growing up in poverty. Many of the attack lines used against trans people will echo insults and tropes used against gay people in the decades before you were born. You’ll learn that progress isn’t linear and that our hard-won rights can never be taken for granted.
You’ve always been a private person. You’ve already learned to keep your pain inside, to put on a brave face and say you’re fine when you’re not. You don’t like gossip, don’t like people knowing more than they need to – your life is none of their business.
You’ll still be protective of your privacy in adulthood, which can be tricky when you’re a public figure. You’ll make the difficult decision to open up about having PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. It will feel uncomfortable, broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of people a struggle that only a handful of people in your life previously knew about. You’ll wish it wasn’t necessary but you’ll be glad that, in a small way, your honesty might be able to help people who are fighting similar battles.
Living with trauma can feel lonely, confusing, overwhelming – doubly so when you’re young and queer. Sometimes, lying awake at night, you’ll find yourself wondering if bad things have happened because you’re queer. But I promise it’s not.
You’ll see your identity weaponised. It will be hurtful and infuriating to see people who claim to care about survivors, portray as predatory the communities you’re part of. You’ll hear racists smear all people of colour as potential abusers, with no regard for Black and brown victims.
You’ll see the far right and transphobic “feminists” spread similar tropes about the LGBTQIA+ community, not recognising or not caring that this makes queer, trans and questioning kids even more vulnerable and less-able to ask for help.
That’s why it’s so important for support services to be loudly and proudly LGBTQIA+-inclusive. Like Imara: a Nottingham charity supporting young abuse survivors, which has Progress Pride flags visibly displayed from every window. Little gestures like this send a signal to queer and trans people that they can feel safe.
Unlike many MPs, you’ll grow up relying on state institutions. You’ll experience the impact of ever-growing NHS queues, school cuts and closure of local facilities. You’ll feel the consequences of benefit cuts and see the way in which the Department for Work and Pensions treats disabled people.
You’ll be failed by the police and social services, like they’ve failed many other women, people of colour, working-class people. You’ll learn that, without wealth and privilege, you’ll have to fight extra hard for the bare minimum, and demanding your basic rights will often feel like banging your head against the wall.
Then you’ll enter parliament, and everything will change overnight.
Letters to My Younger Queer Self is available now.
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