A New oestrogeneration: Interview with June Bellebono
When I say I am working to push the trans agenda at Onyx, June laughs knowingly. We are meeting for the first time virtually but their easy smile and gentle disposition over Zoom make it feel like I am catching up with an old friend. The Burmese-Italian 28-year-old juggles multiple personas, it seems: a curator and producer for a fashion gallery by day, a freelance journalist on the side, and a co-producer of a trans healthcare fund. The creation of oestrogeneration by the active mind of a person who refuses to sit still quickly becomes apparent.
“It all happened really quickly,” she says. “One week, the Guardian published this really transphobic article. Then the day after, actually on the same day, [they] published an article [about Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue] that was really trans-friendly and inclusive. The BBC did something very similar, and it made me really mad, the fact that I, we had to rely on these publications which are transphobic to make our voices heard.” Her drive to create this platform (which specifically focuses on trans feminine and trans women voices) came from the recognition of a particular violence trans women face in the media. “Whenever we’re commissioned or asked to write, it’s always a defensive mechanism, like out of defending our identities, trans identity.”
Why do you feel like now is the most important time for this platform, I ask her, and her reply is simple: “I saw this quote - ‘visibility without safety is violence’ - and it really rang true. Our voices may be platformed more and things like that, but no degree of safety has been put in place for us in these institutions.” They summarise, “I think I really just wanted us to own our own narrative.”
When I ask them about avenues for change, they share that they feel “there’s two movements that need to go in conjunction.” The first is autonomy, “having spaces and owning our voices and things like that, things like oestrogeneration and Onyx.” The second is oppositional, one which tries to “go into these institutions and into the mainstream and challenge it.” June hopes out loud that at some point in history, the former focus will become the dominant one; I fervently concur. We agree that the fact that the most basic amenities are inaccessible to so many right now is the current focus, though.
“Right now, the situation’s precarious.” We want housing for all, financial stability for all, medical freedom for all. But her dreams are “so much bigger”: “we’re going to have a transfeminine country.” Hearing the conviction with which she speaks, it seems a foregone conclusion. “I feel like trans feminine people have a really beautiful way to care for each other… The thing I love about being trans femme is the fact that we are aware that like, misogyny is very real, and yet we decide to take that on, to live so authentically. And I think that’s a level of sacrifice of safety for our own joy. That’s actually incredible.” Their smile is wistful. “But I don’t think anyone sees it like that.” She seems unsure of whether she is making sense, but I reassure them, and it is clear June speaks how she thinks: with a passionate clarity and an expansive imagination which is refreshingly optimistic.
“Autonomy right now is the key word that I think will lead to our liberation.” In the UK, trans people are facing medical opposition to transition and affirming healthcare more than ever, “and the fact that we’re deprived of [autonomy] by the government is awful.” Cis people have access to their gender affirming treatments, “but no other group is expected to wait five years on a waiting list for some medical treatment… How can you wait five years to see a doctor?” Our suicides should not come as a shock when this is the baseline of care, if that word is even applicable here.
I pose the question, acknowledging the contentiousness of the term but ask them anyway: “What does trans allyship look like to you in the UK?”
“It goes back to the visibility question. I feel like a lot of people feel like trans allyship looks like giving us more visibility or more representation.” These are useless limits, she states. “Trans allyship looks like providing for our safety and… being really aware of the fact that we live in a transphobic society that doesn’t keep us safe. And that’s not because we don’t have a trans girl on Love Island,” I laugh, “or because of whatever. It’s because society and the system is actively trying to kill us.Allyship looks like really fighting to change a system.” Again, this is twofold, and calls back to June’s earlier diagnosis. In the immediacy, “donating to GoFundMes”, and in the longer-term, “fighting for our rights and liberation in very meaningful ways.”
A lot of the trans woman in my life are sex workers as well. And you never see them being uplifted... people applaud my work, and it feels great and cute to be appreciated. But it’s also just like because it’s palatable work, because I’m a writer or organise events.
She Who Shall Not Be Named naturally emerges into our discussion on effective trans support. “I feel like people don’t take it seriously… We don't understand the depths of transphobia in the UK, and the fact that this writer icon that is venerated by so many people can [be] transphobic and get away with it, that is wild to me.”
I chime in with the same sentiment, sharing my own frustration with how “people who claim to be radical or trans allies” tweet and talk about the Wizard Boy franchise so much. “I don’t think people have fully understood the threat that JK Rowling and her empire poses to trans safety and people and their lives.” The nostalgia excuse employed by long-time fans feels weak in the face of what she has unleashed and how “she’s empowered a bunch of high-profile TERFs to come forward,” in turn triggering a wave of “transphobic sentiment more publicly and violently. Most disturbingly is the fact that she actively funds anti-trans hate groups and lobbies.” Since the interview, a law passed in Texas to criminalise trans children’s existence which made anybody supporting their transitioning or their access to live-saving healthcare a crime, including their parents: the bill’s writers directly quoted the Tavistock vs. Bell case from the UK, the overturning of which JK Rowling was vocally supportive of. “People don’t see how just buying merch or going to Harry Potter World is not like an innocuous, disconnected thing; it’s quite actively doing something really horrific.”
“People don’t understand how scary TERFs are, how violent the threat is in their existence. I need people to take it seriously,” June echoes.
How can necessary support extend beyond this? “Trans women are women” is a very basic statement, I offer, that so-called trans allies feel does more than it actually does. “The main thing is the idea of having to naturalise trans women into ‘woman’ as a category to make them legitimate”.
“Or valid,” June adds.
“There’s this very hyper-deified idea of what trans women look like and should be.” The way that people respond or react to visible trans women online “often puts them in more danger” as they’re being placed on high pedestals and almost become “not human. You have to be unclockable, you have to be passing or cis-assumed, and once you’re there, now we can call you a queen and a goddess and now you deserve our attention and love.” But there is no material support to survive, no safety offered, just empty adulation.
“A lot of the trans woman in my life are sex workers as well. And you never see them being uplifted.” They reflect on their own reception, saying it feels great “the way people applaud my work, and it feels great and cute to be appreciated. But it’s also just like because it’s palatable work, because I’m a writer or organise events.
“Trans femininity and sex work have historically always gone hand in hand, and I think people are prepared to uplift the trans women who aren’t sex workers, who may be actresses or businesswomen, or shit like that, not the ones who do sex work, which has been for decades our only option. The statement ‘trans women are women’ to me doesn’t do our experience justice. In fact to me, we’re so much more than women. And also, like what is a woman? Let’s start with that.” That discourse interests her far more than any ideal of being naturalised into ‘woman’.
I invoke the running joke of how when you meet cis people, you say “I’m non-binary.” When you meet trans people, you opt for something like “I am a floating purple Croc in the sea of life.”
“Trans woman as a category is so broad, but that term is the only thing that cis people are going to understand. So many people who identity as trans women in my life don’t mean in the way that non-trans people mean women or cis women, it’s in a specific way to them. Trying to fit all of that into ‘woman’ is so reductive.”
“It’s boring,” they conclude. “Trans liberation to me is also tied with abolitionist politics and abolitionist ideas.” Of course it starts with the police and prison, “but it also goes to gender”, the idea of male and female, man and woman, “and that needs to be abolished too.” I mention the use of terms like ‘AMAB/AFAB, femme/masc, dom/sub, top/bottom’ and how in some discourses they are simply placeholders for the ‘man/woman’ binary. “It shows a lack of imagination.” This won’t lead to our liberation. Of course, we need to be able to hold space for the nuances of different experiences while honouring our identities, but she clarifies, “I hope we get to a point where these words might not even be used, because they no longer apply to us.”
This is what foregrounds ostrogeneration, the uniqueness of trans femme experiences that needed to be highlighted and amplified. “I don’t define who’s a trans woman or trans feminine,” and even though the logo contains a syringe, this is a call to the transfeminine experience of taking oestrogen and HRT rather than trans medicalism. They contain the complexities of their histories, and also the simplicities of everyday life.
What does this look like? Daily life looks like accepting the narrative that “we’re deserving of love” which seems a basic statement, June admits, “but sometimes it’s just not out there.”
“I’ve never met an older trans woman who’s in a happy public relationship. I met one but then it didn’t work out. I think that now we’re getting more visibility… the very basic statement of we’re deserving of love needs to be showcased.”
There is too much credence given to the cis men in these discourses who choose to date trans women. “I can see it when, if I’m out in the streets with a guy, I can see that he feels insecure about the fact that we’re getting stared at.” Trans women hidden in bedrooms or desired shamefully and secretly through porn furthers the idea of disposability: “that’s a really dangerous narrative. I think that’s why on the flip side, things like t4t love and t4t relationships are so powerful, because it’s like actually, we don’t need cis people to love us, we don’t need cis people to desire us, because we’re aware that we are sexy and gorgeous, and amazing lovers.” Without relying on people who can never even truly grasp the complexities of our existences and realities, “we provide beautiful romance and care for each other.” T4T love, June illustrates, is something not only exciting but also powerful to see.
As we draw to the end of the interview, I invite her to share in a practice I picked up from therapy whenever we discuss particularly heavy topics. My therapist asks me, ‘How are you going to transition from this space?’ I don’t ask June the same question, but I ask them what they do and will do “to protect yourself, keep yourself safe, guard your mind and your heart?”
She reflects on what keeps her grounded and brings her joy. “I’m alive because of the people around me… After a bunch of years having straight friendships and pretending to be a straight person, I feel every day so blessed and lucky to be part of the queer and trans community because the way that we care for each other, the way that we love each other is unmatched and revolutionary.” The resolve and bare emotion in her voice brings us both to the edge of tears. June says she is tearing up and I return that I’ve also been on the edge of tears since we started talking. We both laugh. “Realistically, I can’t have a conversation without sharing some trauma because it’s just like my life, it’s our lives. But also the way that we have learned to put humour in it just to survive - it’s really special. The way that we can speak about shit that we’re going through, which can be quite dark but still walk out feeling uplifted. Yeah, it’s special.”
“Being surrounded by queer and trans people: I think that’s what brings me the most joy in the world.”
