Hi, I'm Jordan Raskopoulos from the Axis Of Awesome and I'm going Back to School with
Student Edge.
So, what were you like as a student?
In high school?
Yes.
Well, I happened to be the only girl at a boys high school, so I went to an all boys school.
Which was kind of, I liked it, I mean, but yeah I'm just going to get right to it. I dealt
with gender dysphoria in a environment surrounded by boys so I shut down, but you know I
got very involved in like rugby and stuff like that, but I dug high school more or less,
I was smart enough to get by without doing too much study.
Well when you say you got into rugby, was that something that you did have a passion for or was
it more of a kind of coping mechanism to kind of blend in?
I think it was a bit of both.
I definitely enjoyed it and you know I did rugby up until I was 22, I got an injury doing
Macbeth, which kind of ended my rugby career, but you know in the last year started doing,
not the last year, the last couple of months started doing roller derby.
So which is kind of very similar skills.
Sure.
But I think part of it was in terms of you know trying to fit in as a boy and trying
to kind of deal with these feelings in a way which wasn't really helpful for me, but in
a way that you know to be more masculine and to try fit in doing masculine stuff and you
know the way I behaved and the kind of activities I pursued definitely kind of reflected that.
Well puberty is already like a nightmare.
I know, I'm going through it again right now.
But going through gender dysphoria at an age and a time when maybe you don't have the words
for it and you don't even know what that experience is and how to tell other people, I mean what
are, what were the coping mechanisms for you?
I mean yeah, you're exactly right, I had the feelings, but had no words for it, had no way to describe
it, had no one to talk to about it and what I saw in the media about trans or what little
I saw was often destructive and you know it was things like Jerry Springer or movies like
Ace Ventura, you know so being trans or gender diverse, the media representation was "it's
destructive, it's a joke, it's something to be disgusted by" and so these kind of feelings that I
had, the only way that I knew how to deal with them, was to be ashamed of them and so
I repressed them I became ashamed and yeah.
It's only when I hit 32 that I actually went "actually, no, I am trans and I need to deal
with this," that I sort of unpacked what I'd been through as a teenager and kind of realised
that how much damage hiding it did at that time.
It's kind of heatening that as a culture you know when we look back on Jerry Springer and
Ace Ventura we do cringe about how we treated trans issues at the time, but then you think
of, say, the Safe Schools program which has recently been gutted.
Yeah.
How do you feel about young people in similar situations to you today, do you feel like
they are in a better place or are there not enough avenues for them to turn?
Look I think it's a better place, it's not the best place though, like specifically for
trans kids, like I think the story of trans acceptance is kind of maybe ten years behind
gay and lesbian acceptance, so we're still seeing jokes in films you know, that have
a trans angle, I think there was something in Deadpool or whatever it was, just you know
there was a muscular female character and you know it's just a quip, like they
called them "he" and just when I see stuff like that it just breaks my heart a bit.
So we are still not at the point where those jokes aren't okay for kind of mainstream stuff,
but you know you look back to stuff in the 80s and 90s and those people would use the
word fag in groups like that.
If you look at Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure which is a great film, like one of my favourite
films as a kids, about time traveling high school students who kind of learn history
by kidnapping people from history, but they just called each other fag a bunch and it's
kind of just really off the cuff and it's just kind of the way people behave, but it's
totally not okay and the bad thing is it does mar what is a really nice film and I think
we are going to look about in 10 years time and kind of all these transphobic jokes and
clips that weren't pointed, weren't hateful but were ignorant and I think we're gonna
regret it, I hope so, I hope it gets better.
Speaking of jokes, you are a comedian and musician; now the talents of comedians and
musicians aren't necessarily catered to in a classroom. What was that like when you have
these passions for comedy, but I mean did you have an outlet?
Yeah I mean I was fortunate to go to school that had a good drama program and did theater
sports, so that was kind of yeah, in theater sports for me and I mean and doing drama theater
sports was a way to kind of meet girls as well and you know, I was doing that from the
things like I want to meet girls because I'm attracted to girls, but also I kind of
want to be one and it's nice to be around them, so you know we would pair up with girl
schools and do plays and stuff, but doing theater sports and comedy and improvisation at high school
and then when doing it through university that was kind of, yeah that was my in with
comedy so even though you don't think that high school university necessarily is about
teaching students to be comedians, I never would have gotten the path, had I not stuck
with study, you know if I hadn't pursued, if i hadn't had the opportunities with the
extracurricular activities at school and university I never would have found the people that I
work with or the skills, you know. I also did my homework too, more or less.
Yeah but it's true all crafts need, you need to hone them.
Totally, totally and you just need to find those environments where you can do it, if
your school doesn't necessarily provide that or encourage that, its about seeking out the
opportunities and finding friends and people you can collaborate and people you can learn
from.
So you saw comedy and perhaps acting and music as an actual career? Like did you even at
that young age and I mean sometimes it's hard to know what that career will be.
Totally, I think it was a wish, I didn't think it was necessarily viable. I mean it's a hard
career to get into and a lot of people try and don't succeed or a lot of people do it
whilst doing real jobs, so I remember being at high school hoping that I could be an actor
or a performer in some way, never thinking it was possible until it happened you know
and so you know I still persisted you know I was ready to do a teaching degree and go
teach and stuff and then kind of all the comedy stuff took off and degree didn't happen.
So now I'm 34 and I'm like oh boy I hope this comedy stuff keeps going, because I have no
skills.
Just wrapping up, I want to ask you looking back on those teenage years which obviously
may not have been the easiest, do you have regrets about that time or do you wish there
were just more opportunities for you to sort of help find yourself?
Yeah look, I wish there was something like Safe Schools when I was around I wish there
was someone that I could have spoken to.
I don't think I could have you know, if I put myself back in that environment knowing
what I know now as much as it would have helped me to come out, I don't know if my parents would
have excepted me; I don't know how that environment would have taken me. I don't know how it would
it would have been in the 90s to come out as trans. What I do wish I had done, is that
part of being dysphoric and part of fighting it, meant I was a bully to people I think
growing up and I wish that I hadn't done that. I wish that I hadn't you know internalised
my own transphobia, basically; become transphobic. Because I was fighting myself and that manifested
in being a bully to other people which I need to own and I need to apologise for and speak
about, because I think it's common; it's common for people who feel different to try and fight
it and fight it by being cruel to other people and that's a bad thing.
Well what's your advice for kids out there who may be going through gender dysphoria
or may be transphobic?
It's alright to talk to someone about it, you know.
Speak to the school counselor or something like that. You can trust people with your feelings
and you're not alone. I think one of the things with trans people is when people talk about
this transgender community, that community doesn't include
the people who are the cause of it. You know and when I delt with my dysphoria I was a
community of one, I didn't have a language to describe it, I didn't have anyone to talk
to; I just had the feelings and it was very lonely and there are people who have
those feelings too.
So if you feel that way - whether you want to call yourself trans or not, if you feel that
you might be different or you feel you might be queer or you might be gender diverse, there
are other people who are like that and by talking and opening up you can find other
people's stories and that for me was the biggest help and it only happened a few years ago,
but finding people who have the same experiences as me growing up, the same anxiety the same
feelings was such a relief, you know to realse that I wasn't by myself.
Glad to hear it, Jordan thanks so much.
Thank you.
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