Love Lives - Why we needed a transgender Alice in Wonderland, with Juno Dawson

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

This week, Olivia is joined by bestselling YA author Juno Dawson to discuss her latest book, Wonderland, which is a contemporary retelling of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland in which Alice is a 17-year-old trans girl.Juno explains why she wanted to retell this classic story through a transgender lens and how she hopes some of the issues explored in the book will help to educate young readers on sexuality and key LGBT+ issues, including sexual abuse, the difference between the female and male orgasm, and the fetishisation of trans women.The two also discuss how Juno came out after Germaine Greer said on Newsnight that trans women are "not real women" and the consequences of such instances of transphobia. Finally, they also talk about Dawson's podcast, So I Got To Thinking, which is an homage to Sex and the City.You can follow everything to do with the show on Instagram at @millennial_love.If you're a new listener please remember to subscribe and leave us a comment, preferably a nice one!If you enjoyed the show you can support us with a contribution here.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week, I am very excited to be joined by the award-winning author Juno Dawson. Juno is a renowned writer of young adult fiction. Her latest book, Wonderland, is a contemporary retelling of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, in which Alice is a transgender teenager. We discuss the impact of this on the show along with one of Juno's side projects, a podcast called So I Got to Thinking, which is based on questions raised by Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, which, as anyone who knows me will attest, is one of my favourite subjects.

Enjoy the show! Hi, Juno! Hello, how are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you? I'm okay, yes. I'm exhausted. I'm having what I refer to as lockdown insomnia, which is not the one but it's like since we've been in lockdown I've had like three really gnarly patches where my sleep has

just absolutely gone to shit I don't know if I'm allowed to swear I just did sorry you can swear that's so annoying I've been finding the same actually I don't know if it's like low level anxiety or maybe it's the heat because it's very hot in the UK at the moment. A little bit of everything, I think. And as well, sort of trying to juggle work stuff at a time when it's not easy to work. And I think one of my favorite things has been that assumption that, well, creatives, to use the millennial phrase, that we should be able to work as normal because well you know you can work from home so what what's the problem and I'm like well yeah but I haven't really seen my friends for three months um I'm not allowed to go see my family I'm not feeling in the most creative headspace and yet and yet apparently I'm supposed to be business as usual which is difficult yeah there's this whole chat isn't there about like oh now is the perfect time to you know write

that book write that book I say this I am actually writing a book at the moment and it's bloody hard work um right so can you start off by telling us a bit about how you're finding lockdown in general because I understand that you and your fiance you had to postpone your wedding didn't you when was that meant to happen that was meant to be next week so we were supposed to get married on June the 6th sorry I don't know when this is going out June 6 That was meant to be next week. So we were supposed to get married on June the 6th. Sorry, I don't know when this is going. June 6th was supposed to be our wedding, which strangely is now going to be the night

that I'm appearing on Pointless Celebrities. So, you know, everything happens for a reason because it means now I can stay home and watch myself on BBC One, which is potentially one of the biggest moments in my career. So that would have been really weird if that had happened on my wedding day. Like, would we have all stopped the wedding to watch Pointless? How would that have worked? It would certainly be a unique wedding. So have you

rearranged it for next year? We have. So we decided, I suppose I'm quite lucky in that my maid of honor, who is my best friend Kerry is wildly pessimistic and she said months ago she was like this horrible harbinger of doom and she was saying as early as like February and March like you might want to think about your wedding and we were kind of like what do you mean you know that's it's like six months away what could possibly happen you know this was when it was even still the virus was still very much happening in mostly China and then started to spread out from there and she was just like no this is gonna basically this is gonna spread and it's gonna take this year out and so pretty

early on in March I started sending out some emails saying look what's this what's the situation with this like if we need to cancel or postpone the wedding, where do we stand? And Max and I, my fiance, we said really early on, which is worse, like rebooking the wedding and moving it all into next year or waiting and seeing. And amazingly, we still know people who are planning to get married in July and August. And we just don't know. And they don't know if that are planning to get married in July and August and we just don't know and they don't know if that's going to be possible so the one thing that we've not had to deal with is uncertainty so we've rebooked for next March we've got the caterer booked the venue booked

so assuming assuming they don't their businesses don't go bust which of course they could because they've lost their busiest period of this year has completely gone and so actually the wedding industry it hasn't been talked about a lot in the news but actually the wedding industry is in huge trouble like photographers caterers djs bands wedding dress designers it's all it's all taken a massive bite out of their business it's a nightmare I think for anyone who works in events just in general to be honest isn't it because none of us know how long it's going to be until we're able to have large gatherings I suppose the people who you know who are having weddings in July and August I guess if those weddings are able to go ahead I highly doubt they'll be allowed that many people or because I mean we only had we were

due to have 80 guests which kind of counts as like a small wedding all things considered but to me and you know I was grumpy I was I was grumpy when we sort of had to make the decision but I sort of figured why are we doing this and for me because spoiler alert I'm not saving myself for marriage it's about being married to Max and having a marriage not a wedding an actual marriage and then also having an amazing day with my mates and if I can't have either of those things there's not really any point in doing it and to my mind I can't see the point in having a wedding if all my friends and family can't come. So I would rather wait 10 years

and if that meant that all my friends and family could come. So yeah, I mean, I'm praying for rain on June the 6th and nothing would make me happier than if it was shit weather. Oh, that would be so thrilling if you just woke up and said, oh, why would I want to get married on this day anyway? It's pissing it down with rain. And classic British weather, it probably will. Well, at the moment, the forecast keeps changing.

It could, because it looks like we're going to have glorious weather up until June the 6th. And it looks like June the 6th is the turning point. So it would be, nothing would make me happier than a rainy day. Because in June, had it rained, we would have been gutted. But next March, I guess we'll almost be kind of prepared it might well rain we understand that next March it could rain but we'll we'll make provision for that but in June I don't know if we would have right well I hope that your wedding is

able to go ahead in March and we are out of this horrible virus by then but obviously who knows um so but something that you have been uh allowed to release now and something that hasn't been delayed by covid is your wonderful new book wonderland and that comes out the day that we're recording this doesn't it that's right yeah we and we very nearly passed upon that as well there was a lot of sort of around the same time we had conversations about will do we move Wonderland as well and what stopped me in the end was more we don't really know what's going to happen and then that was the thing we were trying to second guess it as well and sort of saying well what if we moved it to August and we don't really know what's going to be happening in August either so we decided to just plow ahead. It's not ideal. You know, my publishers back then were very

confident that by May the 28th, bookshops would be open again. Of course they're not, but we are told they will probably be open in the next fortnight, which is great. But no, I mean, it's not ideal releasing a book to close to bookshops, but it's been really encouraging Waterstones, who've always supported my career right from my very first novel did a huge pre-order deal whereby i signed a thousand copies for waterstones and so people were able to pre-order through waterstones.com and get a signed copy of the book and it's been really encouraging today because normally on a release day i would take myself out to a local bookshop and kind of

see the book in the wild which is such a it's always even I think I think Wonderland is about my 16th title but it's still amazing to see them on a bookshelf in a waterstones or in foils or somewhere like that and obviously I've not been able to do that yeah it's a real shame I think that's it's a real struggle for a lot of people in the publishing industry at the moment again I mean obviously a lot of people are reading but it's just it's not quite the same as you know obviously going into a bookshop but can you um so Wonderland is sort of a contemporary retelling of Alice in Wonderland uh can you but there are there are lots of lots of major differences so can you start off by telling the listeners a bit about the book and what made you want to write it? It came about, first of all, I was in Melbourne touring my novel Clean two years ago.

And there was an amazing exhibit on ACCA, which is the something Center of Cultural Arts or something, Australian Center for Cultural Arts. arts or something australian center for cultural arts and um it was all about visual representations of alice and how she has looked from the original illustrations to photos of the real life alice ladell to the various disney versions and film versions and it struck me that everyone has this culturally agreed notion of who alice is what she looks like we even if you've never read the book you understand the queen of hearts and off with her head and all those sorts of things and so I thought well what if I was to sort of do a Juna Dawson remix of that because you're dealing with things which are very iconic and everybody kind of knows the plot as well I was like well what is it I bring to the table what what is it I do? And, and that was,

it sort of started out as a bit of a thought experiment. But then as soon as I started spending time with the characters, I, it was just, it's just a blast because, you know, I knew where the story was going to go kind of. So she has to, she falls in love with a girl called Bunny. And then she gets this mysterious invite to a festival called wonderland and then she goes to wonderland and meets a pair of youtubers called the tweedle twins and the whole thing is run by this girl called

paisley hart who's the queen of hearts and and so there was it was just each with each chapter i was just having more and more fun um yeah it was an absolute blast it kind of wrote itself and I think that's when you know you're onto a winner when it's it's just not work it never felt like work and crucially also Alice Alice is obviously trans and she's what she's 17 in the book in your version which is which is really really revolutionary especially in YA fiction I mean it shouldn't be obviously but I think it's so wonderful to the one of the best things about Wonderland is that the characters kind of span myriad sexual identities and genders and preferences and that is like I said it is really rare to see that in YA fiction so why do you think reading a story like that will have such an impact on a young adult and

you know would that as you if you had read that as a young adult do you think that would have impact impacted your own gender dysphoria and sort of I don't know how would that have affected you reading a book like that when you were young I mean it would have been a huge difference um I always think when it comes to writing about minority characters, you know, you are either in a minority yourself or you live with people who are. We all share one planet. And so I think whether you are a trans reader or not,

I think it's good to put yourself in someone else's shoes and sort of try. And that's why I think it's really great that you kind of already know who she is she's still alice in wonderland but this version of her is trans and there's been a million versions of alice you know there's been a hello kitty alice in wonderland there's been so many so it's not a big stretch towards oh i know who she is but also she's trans so that you already have a starting point with her um so i'm not the first author to do um trans characters in ya there was a great book about five years ago

called the art of being normal by lisa williamson and lisa worked at a gender clinic for teenagers so lisa is not trans but she had lots of frontline experience working with trans youth which is why that novel feels really truthful um but I suppose what I was trying to do with my Alice was you know she is 17 in the novel but she started her transition at secondary school so she's she's kind of over it and that's somewhere I guess where I'm at as well in my life which is a bit of what else I think the media is very hung up on this idea that being trans is a bit of a makeover but of course once you go through the whole coming out process you have your whole life to lead and I think that's where Alice is she's kind of she's been through the thorniest parts

of her transition and now she's like well I suppose she's ready to step out into the world and sort of see what else is out there but for me on a personal level you know I grew up in the 90s um during section 28 so my teachers and school librarians were legally not allowed to give me a book like Wonderland yeah Yeah, that is so that is so mad. I mean, obviously, the sex education syllabus is completely archaic as it is, I think it's only as of this September in England, when LGBT education is actually being brought on to the syllabus. I like only now only this year. It's completely bonkers. Would you mind just explaining what section 28 is to the listeners? Of of course it was a piece of legislation brought

in by margaret thatcher in 1988 and actually it was inspired by a book about gay dads and the daily the daily yeah it was called jenny lives with eric and martin and it was a kid's book like a picture book about a little girl with two dads and the daily mail got hold of it and there was just like this moral panic basically and so she brought in a piece of legislation that forbid local authorities from promoting homosexuality as an assumed family situation and so what that meant was and because it was such a vague piece of legislation teachers and librarians and youth workers were very very scared to say anything in case they lost their jobs basically and so that meant a generation well my generation so now we're looking at kind of queer people in their 30s really were just a bit fucked because we

weren't allowed to kind of we weren't allowed to get any help when we were at school and it blurs my mind now when I go into schools as an author, that, you know, there's always like a little pride group. They call it the rainbow group or the unicorn group. And there's a million different words for it. But I'm always so shocked to see groups of our LGBT kids just hanging out in the library, talking about being queer. And I'm just just like this is revolutionary kind of because it was forbidden when I was at school so any crumb of a trans character when I was a teenager could have changed my life but it's really depressing but there just weren't any I think the first time

I saw a trans person on tv was probably Hayley in Coronation Street. God it's just it's just it just blows my mind that it's taken this long for for that to kind of be addressed because there's also going back to sex education thing there's a lot of subjects that you address in the book as well that wouldn't be on the syllabus or people just aren't talked about for example just something as basic as the female orgasm you know when you're taught about sex as a child it is purely about reproduction it's purely like this is something you do to either get pregnant or to please a man there's no discussion of female pleasure whatsoever and that obviously has a massive impact and again in the book you talk a lot about female orgasms and

you also talk about date rape and you talk about the fetishization of trans women there are all of these issues kind of at play was there anything if if there's kind of one message that you want young readers to take away from this book or one just one lesson what would it be well I think it's it's very timely because obviously we're writing this in the middle of what is being called Comegate on Twitter, which is the Dominic Cummings saga is playing out politically. And it's interesting when you think about when I was writing this book about, so I started it nearly two years ago, it was in the run up to a general election. nearly two years ago, it was in the run-up to a general election. And, you know, I don't write in a vacuum. I was very influenced by what I was seeing as this rising wave of socialism and how young people in particular were being very inspired by the sort of the Corbyn movement and

this real possibility that there was an opportunity for change and that there was this there was a glimmer of hope that we could possibly shake up the system after many many years of having very centrist politics and so really if this is as much as she's my trans Alice she's also my little socialist Alice and really what she discovers by the end of this book and it's very timely is that there's one rule for the rich and one rule for the poor. And at the end of the novel, I don't want to go into any spoilers, but the experiences she has at Wonderland

fundamentally change her and she recognizes a disgusting injustice. And I figured, you know, in the original, in the Disney cartoon, I was like, well, who is this girl, Alice? And she doesn't really have any stake the original in the Disney cartoon I was like well who is this girl Alice and she she doesn't really have any stake in that story you know she doesn't have a reason to go after the knave of hearts or the white rabbit but she does it because it's right because she is seeking

justice and so I think Alice is the ultimate social justice warrior and that's really I think what I want young people, in particular when they're reading this book, to recognise that an individual can make a difference. And by the end of this novel, Alice is ready to bring down the system. Were there any subjects that you were kind of hesitant about exploring in the book or any particular kind of narrative threads that you were a bit cautious of? No, but then I've always been a sledgehammer and my mouth has always got me into trouble.

And already the fact that she's a 17 year old trans girl who has sex has already caused Mumsnet to melt down. Oh yeah, that was a fun day. Luckily I was in the middle of recording the audiobook, so I couldn't really deal with that. But yeah, some of the users on Mumsnet, which is very, very transphobic, some of the users on there were up in arms about, you know, is this paedophilia? And, you know, oh my God, this is really perverted. And I was like, why? She's 17. and I was like why she's 17 the age of consent is 16 and there is I think a very distinct line and it should be very obvious to the readers in the book that Alice has sex which is consensual and there is a point where she is almost nearly sexually assaulted and I think that should be very very clear to the reader. and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

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So you came out the day after Jermaine Greer said on Newsnight that trans women are not real women, isn't it? I did. Yeah. So that's, I mean, Jermaine Greer is obviously Jermaine Greer, but, you know, how do you think we can combat that level of transphobia and, you know, to someone listening to this and, you know, whether they're trans or not, but if they hear someone make a comment like that, how do you respond? What's the right way to, to combat that and to educate that person without seeming patronizing and just you know just to bring them into the real world and actually help them understand it's difficult because i've come to realize that that it's a huge emotional labor and often it falls on two trans people themselves to have to have this double role as like educator or like guidance counselor or something so I think

when cis people do that for us it frees up trans people to get on with their lives so any help is much appreciated even if it's just shutting it down I think it you know it's it's really really simple things like not misgendering people obviously not referring to Caitlyn Jenner under her previous name however much Netflix wants to put old episodes of the Kardashians I've lost that about I don't get it um and things as well like never ever using the t-word which is never complimentary let's be clear about that. And for a lot of trans women, it's the last word they hear before they die. And so that's the very most introductory point. I think that that's supporting your trans people 101.

But I think it is better to be positive and proactive. So it's way, way better to support trans people or trans groups like mermaids or gendered intelligence than it is to get into endless mumsnet or Twitter debates with people who have really, really made up their minds. And I realized maybe a year, two years ago that I can't keep having the same conversation. And so actually, I've decided to kind of just focus on my work and I think Wonderland says everything I want it to say you know so I'm

not going to go on Twitter and get into these endless endless debates with people like Germaine Greer although she is she is just one of many but um because I think those people they're sort of spoiling for these debates and it's true also of climate change deniers it's true of 5g conspiracy theorists a big part of what they want is the argument yeah they're just looking for an opportunity to get their voice heard aren't they it almost doesn't even matter like about actually the the kind of integrity of the debate they don't care they just want to shout into a void louder and louder the very most practical thing you could do right now at this point of time for trans people is write a letter to liz truss um liz truss

is the new women in equalities minister and there are rumblings from within her office that potentially she perhaps doesn't quite understand the current legislation around trans people. Some of the things she's said have been very misleading. And she's mentioned this, oh, you know, single sex spaces for women and girls, which, of course, trans people,, well trans women are fully entitled to use facilities because in the eyes of the law we're women. And so it's concerning that she doesn't seem to recognise almost her own laws around trans people because under the Equalities Act 2010,

trans women are legally able to use changing rooms, toilets. And it's, but even the conversations around that are very very very scary because of course you know transphobic groups seem hell-bent on limiting the existence of trans people particularly trans women because for example I mean as it, I've been through the GRA, so it wouldn't directly affect me. I am legally a woman on my passport, birth certificate. The fact I was born trans is eradicated from public view, kind of. So I would be fine. But I think what she needs to do is she needs to make the process of legally registering yourself as trans easier I think is the important thing and

that's why we needed reform of the gender recognition act in the first place but there it's a little bit worrying that some of the things she said seemed to him that she doesn't really understand the legalities of being trans and of course that's hugely concerning yeah that's incredibly concerning that's also why though it's important that you have you have that scene in the book where you talk about the toilet and and you know alice is kind of she gets criticized for going into a girl's toilet doesn't she and it's just you know i think it's it's really difficult for um it shouldn't be difficult but for someone who maybe isn't that aware of trans issues for a cisgender person to read that i think it will have a huge impact because imagine being doing something as simple

as going to the toilet and being made to feel humiliated and being made to feel like you don't belong there. It's like a basic human right. It's just, it's just horrific. That's why I think your book will just, is so, so important. And not just for young adults,

for, you know, people of all ages. Yeah. And I mean, you know, trans people, we've always been here. You know, it's kind of, it's, you know, there is evidence always been here you know it's kind of it's you know there is evidence dating back to the ancient greeks you know it's so interesting and i think you know something that i think any listener to this should be aware of is that sort of suspicion of the media you know i was in a meeting yesterday with a tv producer a guy in his 50s, like super East London guy who's worked in TV for years, he went, what's up with the Sunday Times and trans people?

And even he recognised that the Sunday Times seems to have a vendetta against trans people. And so I think it really pays to be critical and inquisitive about the things we're told in the media as well. But, you know, I understand that I have a weird privilege in that I'm one of very, very few trans told in the media as well but you know I understand that I have a weird privilege in that I'm one of very very few trans people in the UK who has been given this kind of a platform most trans people are really silent this is a conversation that's happening about us but not with us and that's incredibly frustrating. In addition to your writing you also host the excellent podcast So I Got to Thinking

so can you please tell me a little bit about why you started that and why you wanted to take a closer look at Sex and the City which is one of my all-time favorite shows but it's also you know there's a lot to discuss about it so anyway tell me why did you want to start it? Well it's funny because I had ACAST the lovely people a cast had reached out to me years ago and when if I'm being honest I didn't strictly know what a podcast was I was like what is this podcast and they wanted to kind of do something almost alongside my memoir the gender games and they kind of wanted to do like being trans with Juno Dawson and I was just like oh I just can't have this conversation

again. Like I've done it in a book and I'm doing it in a TV show. I can't stop. So I was like, no, no, thank you. And then my friend Dylan, who I adore, and the second I met Dylan, I knew, which was in the VIP area at Brighton Pride about four years ago, I was kind of like, oh, we're going to be really good friends. You know, when you just know you're going to be really good friends with someone. And then he said, oh my God, you know, we should do a Sex and the City podcast.

And I was wary because I was like, is it going to take up a lot of time? But then I sort of was sleeping on it and I sort of thought, okay, I don't just want to rewatch the episodes and just talk shit about the episodes, although that would have been fun. I wondered if there was like a modern feminist angle to take on that series, because it's feminist credentials have always been challenged, even in the 90s. You know, people like, is this, you know know is this the rise of feminism or the decline of feminism kind of and it's perhaps nitpicky to go to a show that's 22 years old and kind of test

its woke credentials but it's kind of funny as well I mean and we could have done that I guess with Friends or with Buffy but um Sex and the City was something that Dylan and I both really really loved and we knew the show inside out as well so it just well we said last year we were like let's live let's give it a go and let's see how it works and I was never expecting to enjoy it as much as we have done and even if no one is listening I suspect Dylan and I will just carry on we'll just keep on going. Well I hope you do because it's a really interesting show to discuss today because like you said, you know, there's this constant debate about what it did for feminism and whether it was actually helpful or unhelpful because it was a progressive show. I think in a lot of ways, you know, you look at a character like Samantha, I think she did a lot for championing women who

embrace their sexuality and are kind of unashamed about all these taboos that are attached to women having sex but then it was also very much of its time you have a look at you know the kind of stock gay best friend characters people like stanford and anthony who kind of play up these stereotypes there's also there's a flippant remark about bisexuality from Carrie I think she says uh it's a layover on the way to gay town so we're coming we're coming up to that one so it's interesting we've got a really good guest started well assuming we're allowed guests by that point like let's see so I wanted to ask like you know from your perspective what is it about Sex and

the City that you think still resonates today and what do you think the positive messages from the show are? I think it created a safe space for women to talk about sex I think you know when we look at some of the shows of its era so let's compare it directly like for like with Ally McBeal or Desperate Housewives, which were around the same time. I don't think those shows are as well remembered because I don't think they created a culture shift in a way that Sex and the City did, which is Sex and the City made it aspirational

to spend time with your girlfriends talking about sex. And I think that obviously women talked about sex before that. But what was interesting is it was a show that was largely steered by gay men. And I think possibly the AIDS crisis necessitated conversations about sex in the gay community. You had to talk about sex. And I think, but then I always think the rules for queer people are slightly different anyway. So they kind of transposed some of the rules for gay people into four straight women or straight-ish. Samantha had a girlfriend for three episodes. And I think that was the change.

And I think so when I'm out with my girlfriends drinking insanely expensive cocktails and talking about sex that's partly because that was normalized by sex in the city so I think that is the gift it gave to the world yeah that's a really good point actually isn't it and I think you know it's there's so many interesting archetypes in that show I think particularly with the men um as well if you look at you know like Mr Big he was kind of the classic fuck boy isn't he and and there's this kind of perennial debate between Big versus Aiden so Big is the fuck boy because you know he treats Carrie like crap and but you know he's he's very wealthy and he's like this classic alpha male type. He's a bit older than Carrie.

He kind of, yeah, he treats her like crap. His strings are long, can't commit, can't articulate his emotions. Then you've got Aidan, who is incredibly kind, adores Carrie, would never do anything to hurt her, but is also portrayed as just a bit boring. And I think it's because of that that you know people say now they're like oh you know he's just he's a bit too he's a bit too nice for me I'm not sure I think and this is something that I've been figuring out with this rewatch putting a very critical eye on it it's a lot to do with I think maturity and I think it's not so much that Aiden is boring it's that he's very immature and he wants Carrie and he wants her now and he doesn't understand what the problem is whereas Carrie and I think Sarah Jessica Parker has spoken about this

is it was her turn to be Mr Big and her turn to not be ready and then that enables Carrie to understand why Big wasn't ready which in turn is how they can then get together at the end because finally Carrie understands what it felt like to be Mr Big to have that pressure kind of bearing down on her because she applied pressure to Big and in turn Aidan applies pressure to Carrie so whether whether they meant for that to be the arc I don't know but that's what that's how I read the story so in a different time perhaps Carrie and Aidan would have ended up together but at that time Carrie wasn't ready that's so interesting do you think do you think

that looking at those two men and I just mean those two kind of stock characters do you think people should go for do you think people should go for the Aiden or the big in general in general life terms I think and it was just time we just recorded one last night I think you should always go for the one where it's not painful. And we were talking about the difference between overcoming obstacles or things being difficult, because sometimes love can be difficult, but I'm not sure it should ever be painful. And I think that's when Big and Carrie got together, when it stopped being painful and when it just started being fun and comfortable.

And so I always think that's because I think a character like Big, a man like Big can be very exciting, but I think it can be very, very painful as well. And I think, you know, I've seen girlfriends spend many, many years in relationships which are ultimately just going to hurt them. And I don't think I would ever encourage that. Go for the man who isn't going to hurt them and I don't think I would ever encourage that go for the man who isn't going to hurt you finally do you think there's a female equivalent to those two archetypes I'm quite sure there is I think I think we all have that in us to be

withholding and we all have it in us to be overbearing I think I've done both um and I think that's where real life gets more complicated than television because in real life we are all both Aiden and big and I know the answer is a bit of a cop-out but I think you know from a personally speak for yourself from a personal experience I met a really wonderful man not long after I started my transition in 2015. And he was really keen. And I was just like, what? I don't get it because I had so much to do. I was doing so much work on myself that there was no way I could commit to a relationship. And, you know, in that situation, I was big, you know, I was, I was being really elusive and I didn't treat him fairly at all. And I should have just said right from the get go, I cannot commit to anything.

Whereas, you know, there've been other times in my life where, you know, I've fallen for people and I've desperately wanted it to work. And I've put real pressure on guys to kind of, you know, try and make something happen. And they've been elusive. Yeah, I think you're right. Actually, it kind of depends at what stage in life you're at and what kind of relationship you're ready for. Because I think a lot of the time we don't actually, we're not conscious of that ourselves at the time. It's only in retrospect where we can look back and think, oh yeah yeah I acted like a big because I just wasn't ready for a relationship I wonder if I think

sometimes I think the best line of dialogue from Sex and the City from the whole run is the conversation about um cabs putting on their lights about how sort of men sort of can drive around for years without their light on and then the light goes on and you've got that you've got that five minute slot to get with him because then that's it he's off the menu kind of and but I think that's also true of women as well I think you know for all of my 20s because I was still figuring myself out I was driving around London kind of you know with my light on when it would have probably been far more sensible to turn it off and actually spend that time focusing on myself. That's really good advice, which actually brings us perfectly now to our lessons in love segment. So this is the part of the show where I ask each guest to share something that they've learned from their own relationship experiences and talk a bit

about how it shaped their understanding of love moving forward. So Juno, what is your lesson in love that you have to share? Okay, my lesson in love is it should feel easy. That's the piece of advice I would give to myself when I was 18. I would go back and say, all that waiting for guys to reply and worrying about what are they thinking trying to read between the lines of text messages and stuff like what does it all mean no if it's right you won't need to do that because actually in in the relationships and I think I've had three that really really worked and it was like falling off a log you know i don't think and i think if you're putting

yourself through these trials to make it work it's meant to be fun love is meant to be fun that's a really interesting point because again i think that's not a narrative that we see perpetuated in popular culture whatsoever in fact i think it's often the opposite yeah and this is something i've written about quite a lot because look at normal people. You know, that book and that TV series, which has been, you know, hyped everywhere. It's about a toxic relationship. And yet it's kind of portrayed in the way

that this is a relationship that you're supposed to want because their love is so meaningful because it's on and off and because it's because it's got all these hardships and they've had to overcome so many things it's like oh yes they're really meant to be together but then if you actually break it down you know it's so dysfunctional what they have they they cheat on each other when they're with other partners they they let each other down they don't communicate with one another properly so it's kind of pegged as this great love story and it's like actually no shouldn't be that hard should it i mean this is going all you know going back to twilight and wuthering heights and you

know any of these unfortunately these great romances are often quite toxic but unfortunately real love doesn't make for very good television. It has to be said, having come from a writer's room this morning where we're planning a new TV show about modern love, kind of not modern love the TV show, a show about modern love. And yeah, unfortunately, to tell good stories, unfortunately, sometimes you do need to put obstacles in the way. I think normal people, it rings true, but I certainly don to put obstacles in the way. I think normal people,

it rings true, but I certainly don't think it's aspirational. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you're a new listener to this show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast, or anywhere else. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. Keep up to date with everything to do with Millennial Love on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon. Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing.

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