“I’m still learning where the line is between visibility and self-preservation”
BY VIX LEYTON
I came out as queer formally, incredibly late to the party, at 37. I’d had a disquieting feeling I might be from my teens, but attending a strict Catholic school where “gay” existed only as a playground slur reserved for boys who didn’t adhere to the nineties code of masculinity, it didn’t seem like an option. So I quashed my complicated feelings for Sharleen-Spiteri-dressed-as-Elvis and pursued the privileges of heteronormative life until I couldn’t anymore. I had to come out.
What I didn’t predict was how many times I’d have to come out. Being a femme-presenting stand-up comedian meant I was destined to make up for lost time by coming out several times a week to a room full of strangers.
In terms of people close to me, not everyone was as surprised as I expected, which helped. My dad, who I blurted the news to in a train station car park when he asked if I’d been up to much, took a long pause and said, “When did you know?” Apparently, he’d suspected all along, but wasn’t sure when to bring it up. One might argue that any time before he walked me down the aisle towards a lovely man, at a party that cost £15,000 would have been appropriate. But, well, the past is a foreign country.
Coming out as a stand-up is different every time, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. When your presentation leads audiences to assume you’re straight, your sexuality becomes a constant “reveal.” Sometimes you get cheers. Often, you don’t.
As a female comic, you get used to men deciding you’re not funny before your toe hits the stage. But losing a second wave of people because of a single pronoun renders you unrelatable, or because they feel you tricked them, is exhausting. There are, to my eternal shame, boisterous rooms where I make an assessment and crawl back into the closet for one night only. Not just because it might be death onstage, but because it could be unsafe after. We work late, in towns we don’t know. The price is eternal vigilance. But it sits uncomfortably, to revert after years of repression.
Ironically, I’ve thought about how I could signal it more obviously, a dress dripping with carabiners, or draped in rainbow flags, but I can’t make peace with having to perform queerness after a lifetime of performing heterosexuality.
I don’t want to hide being gay. I just don’t always want it to be the opening act. It’s tricky, because when I do talk about it on stage – my life is often the subject of my jokes – the material does land. And maybe someone in the room walks away understanding queer life a little better from the snapshot. That’s powerful, and joyful, and fun, and I want other queer women to feel seen.
I love being queer. It’s just not the most interesting thing about me. I’m an assassin at pub quizzes, I can perform Suzy Izzard’s Dressed To Kill on command, and I can wangle a refund out of anyone. And some nights, I’d rather do five minutes on my mum’s civil war with her neighbours and not work twice as hard to win back a tough crowd I lost through no fault of my material.
I’m still learning where the line is between visibility and self-preservation. But every time I stay visible onstage, even when it’s risky, I hope it paves the way for others.
Catch Victoria Leyton on Comedy Arcade, a competitive storytelling panel show at the Gilded Balloon from 1-16 August.
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