Int.: So we’ll start with where you where born and how you ended up being in Liverpool?

Sophie: I wasn’t born in the hospital, I was the third child and I was born at home in my Auntie Irene’s old bed, which was exciting, but I don’t remember it [laughs] but apparently it’s very good. You don’t get many home births. I was born at home in Cosby in South Leicestershire, in a village and I grew up there, quite rural. I grew up there until I was… 19 really, until I went off to University. It was quite a nice childhood, sort of just playing in the fields and rivers… well ‘The nook’, so yeah, on bikes, fishing for tadpoles, all that sort of stuff.

Int.: Nice.

Sophie: Yeah.

Int.: When did you realise that there was just something…different?

Sophie: Erm, I don’t remember there being any sort of big moment, necessarily. I just felt there was a general feeling of unease and otherness that I couldn’t really identify maybe until I got into my teens, and I opened up to more stuff and more people and more media. I started to pick out trans stories, trans people, bits in documentaries, little bits in films, things like that. But all the stuff I saw was very negative. I think that made me hide ‘it’, because I thought it was a bad thing at the time, obviously because everything I was seeing was negative. I’d seen quite a bit and the whole thought of being trans then just seemed very negative and quite miserable [laughs]. It was all pretty end of the line stuff, so I tried just to block it out as much as I could. I didn’t open up about it to anybody.

Int.: When did you accept it, and think you know what, screw everyone else?

Sophie: Well it took me a long time to accept it but, the first time I started being open about it, I was in a relationship when I was about 18/19, so I was seeing a girl then and, she was pretty open really, so I told her about it and she was.. cool with it, so that allowed me a bit of an outlet, to sort of express myself when we were together. It wasn’t really until my mid/late 20’s when I found myself on my own and able to have the space to deal with it and make sense of it that I then began to find my way, you know? Took a while. [laughs]

Int.: Cool, so, when did you get to Liverpool?

Sophie: I didn’t get to Liverpool until I was in my early 30’s, so that was 11 years ago now. 11 years ago last week, actually, anniversary of Liverpool. So I had an apartment in Derby, that’s where I studied, lived through there in my 20’s. Derby is not the most glamorous location in the world, but it’s very, very central, so at that point, I had been out socially quite a lot sort of like ‘female’ and I’d got a network of friends together and we went out to London a lot, Birmingham, places like that, so I guess all the regular trans clubs were it’s safe spaces. Although looking back at it now it wasn’t really that safe [laughs], I wouldn’t go there now, because of what people say. So I was in Derby and that meant friends sort of scattered because there were a lot of online friends  and everyone used to converge in Derby, so it became quite a social hub for me. So, that gave me the time then to start expressing myself the way I wanted to and I became more and more androgynous. Friends were going “Ooh you know, you probably are transsexual because you’re wearing jeans now”. There was always the joke about transsexuals wearing jeans and things like that, which was always quite funny like ‘trannys’, you know, like they don’t wear jeans, so you must be transsexual [laughs]. The language seems erm… really old school even though it was only 15 years ago [laughs]. Language has moved on so much. So I began to appear more and more feminine, and as that went on I became more and more uneasy with sort of like, male role and things like that, it just became really crippling for me, and I was in a relationship with Jess, at the time, and they were in Liverpool and it was long distance for a couple of years. It started off as a friendship but it got more and more serious and then, they said “Well, move to Liverpool with me”, so I moved to Liverpool 11 years ago and we’re still in the same place, same apartment, really happy. So that’s where it all started, when I moved to Liverpool, that was the day that I was, y’know … full time. I’d been living, sort of 50/50 for a couple of years up to then but as soon as I came to Liverpool, it was like, right just shed all of that, get rid of all that and then it’s just me now. I’ve never looked back really, since moving to Liverpool.

Int.: That’s cool.

Sophie: Yeah, it’s been good for me.

Int.: So, you mentioned that there were a few safe spaces that you went to… in Derby and trans clubs and stuff, where there any in particular in Liverpool or was it just everywhere because of allowing yourself to just be?

Sophie: Yeah, I’ve never been into the scene really because when I was first going out, it was nightclubs, like Way Out Club in London and there’s Nightingale’s in Birmingham, a club called Transmission, I think it was in Barbican in London or something, it popped up once a month or whatever in  a sports bar and there were all these other ugly little places [laughs] but it was always the nightclubs, late nights, it was alcohol and I wasn’t in a good place anyway so I was drinking quite a lot, I didn’t really like myself. I was really anxious about who I was and where I was going and everything else, so I was in quite a destructive place. So, those sort of places don’t really hold a lot of nostalgia or anything because I’m older now and I don’t really like nightclubs. I can’t think of anything worse than having to stay out till two in the morning [laughs] in a noisy room full of drunk people… sounds awful. It’s funny the way you change isn’t it. But at the time, it was really good because it just got it out of my system. I’ve been to a lot of the bars in Liverpool but I’ve never really identified strongly with any of them, some of them are nice, some of them are rubbish, it’s like anywhere really. So I’m more engaged with what we consider the queer community and the stuff that is going on now, which is more the social aspect and more activism and people just doing positive stuff rather than going out and getting drunk because I’m just not into it [laughs] but it was good- it served a purpose in a time in my life when I needed an outlet, I could wear some crazy outfits and just make an absolute fool out of myself erm which a lot of us did then [laughs] we’re all doing it, we’re all thinking ‘how messed up are we? One day we’ll settle down’ and we did.

Int.: Cool, so the queer scene in Liverpool, have you seen it change in the last 11 years… at all?

Sophie: Yeah, when I first came to Liverpool, there wasn’t a Pride, so there didn’t seem to be as much visibility. It’s always felt like it has had a small gay scene, I mean, when you compare it to Manchester which is obviously quite big isn’t it? So, it’s always felt small, but we’ve always lived near Stanley Street so we’ve always lived in what you’d consider the gay quarter. We’ve always lived in that area so we’ve always felt close to it even if we’re not going in the bars we see people coming and going so it’s always been nice to feel part of that and feel that you’re in what should be a safe space, but as I’ve got older and more assertive it’s like well obviously all spaces should be safe spaces, so focus on one area? So I feel like it’s changed a lot in that there’s a lot more organisations representing and doing positive things like the Museum of Liverpool which does amazing stuff and the Walker has done some exhibitions, so culturally its changed a lot yeah, in terms of visibility and the young people and all the people that are coming through that I knew when they were kids basically and now they’re doing great stuff so that is really brilliant to see that progression and how things change really quickly, like language, y’know, the words we used to use to identify ourselves were quite derogatory language but at the time it seemed alright and I guess it was to a point, but language evolves doesn’t it, and it’s so much better now people have got the words to describe who they are and how they feel and things like that. So yeah, Liverpool has become a much more visible, open, culturally interesting pot… the threads of LGBTQ weaving in all sorts of spaces, which is great, it’s really good.

Int.: You moved here 11 years ago, there wasn’t much of a scene, but was there a moment where you were like “Oh, ok, there’s something happening here.”?

Sophie: Erm, it probably would have been one of the Pride events, where you start seeing  the community coming together. Recent Prides there’s been trans specific spaces opening up, which has been good because you start to see how much of the community there actually is and obviously events like TDOR and…Trans Day of Visibility which have caught on in the last couple of years but just to see that swell of people and it’s like where are all these people coming from [laughs] all of a sudden. I think it’s just seeing numbers of people turning out for events and those events being recognised has been a big thing. I mean maybe it was about 5 or 6 years ago when I first started being heard and just being more confident in speaking up on things and chipping in and doing my bit, y’know? I always wanted to do something but didn’t really feel like I could do anything to help anybody else and once I sorted myself out and I was good, then I had that space to give something back, so, from that point for me I became more aware of what was going on and felt more comfortable in myself to put myself forward for things, which was good.

Int.: Do you want to talk about the sort of things that you do now with the community and putting yourself forward?

Sophie: Erm, yeah, I do bits and pieces [laughs] I’ve been involved in quite a lot of stuff over the years.

Int.: What was the first thing that sort of kicked it off?

Sophie: So I had gender reassignment surgery in 2013 I think and a lot of energy and emotion and stuff went into getting there, to that stage. A lot of focus, a lot of things in terms of my fitness and my wellbeing and my mindset was all… the surgery itself is sort of neither here nor there but just the process of getting there and deciding that’s what I wanted, that’s who I am, this is where I’m going and this is who I’m going to be, took a long time for me to get there but once I’d done that then I felt y’know “Oh, I’m all good, this is great”, I was on an absolute high, I felt confident and I was buzzing and I wanted some sort of outlet, I was in my studio, I think it was later that year that Anne came in, so she runs an organisation called… I might get this wrong [laughs] purp- Purple Tie? It was Purple Tie and she encouraged women speakers and she was involved in the Diversity Role Models and, she came in to buy an April Ashley painting off me that I had done, which was great because it was quite a big painting and I got really happy [laughs] we just got chatting and my transness never came up and her queerness never came up but we were just chatting. She likes April Ashley so there was this whole dialogue going on and then she started telling me about Diversity Role Models and y’know, if I want to do Diversity Role Models. You speak for five minutes about yourself to the class and then you sit back down again and it sounded amazing. The thought of public speaking absolutely terrified me and the thought of going back into high school after twenty years absolutely terrified me as well because I didn’t like high school [laughs] and I was thinking “God, this is going to be a nightmare”, but it’s something I always felt like I need to do, and this could be a soft way to start speaking out about me and things, so I went to one of their socials and we had a few of drinks, there were a couple of speeches and vol-au-vents and everyone was really nice and I was thinking “Actually these people are great” and for a few years before I’d tried to put myself with people that I admired and respected or had qualities that I kind of wanted and you associate with those people because you want them to rub off on you and be influenced and just have good people in the room. They were great and they were a real mixture of people and I was thinking “I get on really well with these people”, and they just seemed to be of the same mind set so I started doing that, Diversity Role Models and I did that for probably a couple of years, I don’t know how many schools I would have done, maybe 20, I don’t know, possibly 20, but bits and pieces and Brook facilitated it and I got on really well with the guys at Brook and it was just a nice, little team. It was all voluntary but it was really good. It felt like I was making a direct difference to a class of kids, because I was thinking chances are there is one kid in this class who identifies as l trans or certainly ‘other’- whatever that is and it is like this is a good thing. So, off the back of that, that then helped me to get involved in other things and I don’t know if I saw a gap for something to be improved or to be a little bit better, I just wanted to use my skill set to lift it a bit, with a creative background. I don’t feel like I am but people say I’m quite good at project managing and things like that, I mean, it feels like I struggle to do that in my own life but with projects [laughs]. I’m quite good at keeping on top of things and people. So, I thought that anything that could bring in my skillset into those things would be good. So, I guess I started developing a network from the Diversity Role Models and have since gone on to work with different people from DRM in different ways. At the moment I am working on an archive for the library, which is the 4th July, the launch, 5 till 7, fourth floor. And myself and Dr Emma Vickers we’ve been putting together an archive of Trans Now in Liverpool, which is going to go alongside April Ashley archive. I know Emma from DRM and things, so there’s all these threads that go through. So, it still has resonance now, I’ve done other stuff, do you want me to just keep talking?

Int.: Yes, yes                                                                                                     

Sophie: Yeah, you’re just sipping on your tea there like [laughs] and I just keep going. So, there was that and then Emma Vickers again, she was involved in Pride, she wanted me to be involved, she wanted a trans specific area at Pride and it was the year they had the Pride on the waterfront and it was a bit of a disaster because there were high winds and everything blew into the canal but we had a tent there and I think we called it the gender-bread house because the theme for Pride was fairy tales, so we’ll have the gender-bread house and we’ll make that a trans specific area. It was good and bad in various ways, it was very grassroots and it felt really good because it was just lots of people coming together and just chipping in. We had a little stage and microphone and various sort of stands and it had an energy to it which was good, and then off the back of that subsequent Pride events had a trans specific space although I guess because we talk more about queer spaces that’s sort of bled through the festival a lot more now because it did used to feel more, like, gay, y’know? Whereas now it doesn’t. So yeah that was good, erm… what else… so as I was in the process of building myself up to surgery and in that sort of mind cleansing state I was in, I was working on my physical self, so my fitness and things like that. I’d been a smoker and a drinker for years and I still like a drink [laughs] but I don’t smoke, so I quit smoking a few years before surgery and taking hormone therapy because I wanted to have good fitness, so I started running and I started doing exercise and off the back of the running I started doing 10ks, half marathons, doing a bit for local charities which is really, really good, like trans specific and DRM. Myself and my friend who is based in Birmingham, well she’s in London now but she was Birmingham at the time, we’re both into our fitness and we set up a little thing called ‘Trans Girls Can’ off the back of ‘This Girl Can’, because ‘This Girl Can’ had featured our stories on their website because they were doing different women’s voices, people inspired to get into fitness and we absolutely loved it, at one point Marks and Spencer’s was selling ‘This Girl Can’ t-shirts and we went out on the day they came out and got little pictures of us wearing them. So, we really, really loved it because it had done so much for us in terms of our mental health and positive body image and giving us the confidence running around outside in lycra, it gives you a little bit of a… “Don’t give a shit” kind of vibes [laughs] you just to take that on in your body. So yeah, we set up a little thing called… ‘Trans Girls Can’ to celebrate trans women that are doing different things and we got connected to all these women all over the world, doing all different sports, it was really interesting to see some of these sports I’ve never heard of and different things that people are doing and got this little network together, so that bobbed along for a little while so I’ve always been encouraging people into sports and fitness and I’m one of the leads at Dockside Runners which is the big run club in the city which goes out from Mann Island now, so I’ve been a running lead with them for three years as well so, it’s all come off the back of this really and it’s given me confidence. I never thought I’d be leading a run club, because I hated sports as a kid [laughs], I just hated it! I liked being out on my bike and things like that but if I was someone in my 20’s I would have been like “Whhaat?”, whereas now I’m like “Yeaaaaaah, come on guys”, lots of high 5-ing and whooping, you know, it’s brilliant. I’m that person [laughs].

Int.: That’s good [laughs]. So…aside from Pride events, and events put on, where do you feel, in Liverpool, the most sort of visible and accepted?

Sophie: What, specific places?

Int.: Yeah, so maybe… erm… I’m trying to think of an example…it doesn’t necessarily need to be Stanley Street. 

Sophie: Yeah, erm… I don’t really know because to be honest I don’t really question it a lot anymore, I think because of the area of town I live in, because I’m in the city centre a lot, I think there’s a safeness about being in the city centre and because I work freelance, I pretty much pick and choose my day where I want to go and where I want to be and who I want to work with, so I don’t find myself often in places that I feel uncomfortable in, you know, I don’t put myself into those situations, so I only really tend to go to places where I know I’m going to feel comfortable. So, I wouldn’t say there’s anywhere that I would go to that I would feel uncomfortable in, so most places I’m pretty alright in.

Int.: That’s good

Sophie: But that’s just me, I think that’s just where I’m at now …

Int.: I think it can be good though if… y’know… it’s not necessary that you’re even thinking about it because that’s a good thing, that’s where we should be in that you’re not having to think about these things.

Sophie: That’s it, I always thought, like, with the running and the run club you feel very visible in that, putting yourself out there and we have a lot of runners, so we have up to 100 runners on a Tuesday, y’know we’ve had 120, this week and I always think that, I’m obviously a very visible trans person doing that but then months later people are like “Oh, I didn’t know you were trans” it’s like “Oh right”, surely it’s obvious?! To me it’s obvious, you’ve been running with me, is it not? But I don’t know.

Int.: I suppose, when it is you though, like because I always think “Am I not obviously a lesbian?” [laughs] it’s just obvious isn’t it?

Sophie: Yeah, is it not? But then I know quite a lot of people and I recognise a lot of people around town all the time, and obviously everyone is very different but then there’s not a part of me that when I see people I put them into a box automatically, I just go “Oh hello, what’s your name again? Alright, how are you doing?” and I think some people do, obviously, because they never go out the house and never see anybody different from themselves. I think some times you get tourists in the city and they are like gawping at everyone because they’re just going “Uhhh, uhh, uhh” because I don’t know- which part of the world they might come from but clearly they aren’t used to being around different people, which seems strange. Yeah, I don’t know, I guess if I’m out with trans friends or something I’ll be more mindful, my partner is trans so I think when we go out together, then I’m much more mindful because then I’m being protective. So, I’m not bothered about myself but then I’m bothered about them. Then I’m much more aware of it, I think and I become a lot more aware of what people say, what’s going on and I feel like I’m the one that’s very aware of that, but when it’s just me, honestly, I don’t really give a shit because I’m old enough and miserable enough, do you know what I mean? Now, I mean 10 years ago it would have made me crumble but now I don’t feel the need to apologise for taking up space anymore, but obviously I’ve come from a place where I did feel like that for years and I think that’s why I don’t give a shit anymore, [laughs] because it’s taken me so long. I’m not going to let anyone bring me down now, it’s not happening [laughs]. 

Int.: That’s good.

Sophie: Yeah because there are idiots out there. We know this and there’s some horrible people out there, and it’s like, if you let them do it to you then they will do it to somebody else but if you can shut these people down, if it’s safe and if you are able to do it, then I think you should, because the next person that comes along they will just be twats to them it just goes on and on and on and you need someone to just go “No!” [laughs]

Int.: Exactly. So, how would you like to see Liverpool change in the future? Do you think it needs to change? Or do you think we’re on the right path?

Sophie: I always come from a place of positivity, I don’t know what it’s like outside of the city really, I’m so in a bubble. I think that this city and the city centre is doing well, is going the right way in terms of tourism and students, there’s more and more people coming in all the time, which is really good, really exciting. It feels really cosmopolitan, there’s lots of great organisations, there seems to be a lot more support for younger people, which is amazing, hopefully those younger people go forward and they’ll do amazing things and it all just builds up and up and up, doesn’t it. Hopefully all that will keep going, really. Liverpool has always felt like a very can-do kind of place, and the people are what makes it. Its got a big heart and it’s not a city that likes bullies, is it? So, I think… it’s pretty accepting, I guess, as cities go, it’s probably up there, isn’t it? Other cities I’ve lived in, I’d certainly say it was up there, [laughs]. So that’s all really positive, isn’t it? I don’t know what it’s like when you get out of town like, North Liverpool, more deprived areas, is it better? I don’t know, you’d like to think it would be. I like to think that there’s more inclusion in terms of education and that things will get better because ultimately, it’s education, isn’t it, but you’ve got to educate the parents. [laughs] Kids generally are like “Oh yeah, alright”, but it’s the parents, it’s the families, it’s the culture. There’s always a worry with me that things can turn back so easily. I was talking with a friend yesterday and she’s young, and I was just talking about how recent things were, and she’s going “Oh that was ages ago, wasn’t it?” and I’m going “Well, gender recognition was only 15 years ago or something.” In your lifetime it seems like quite a long time ago but it’s actually quite short and it can easily just drop back again in another 15 years- if we’re not on our guard, so, there’s a bit of me that worries that things can regress but I think that things come in waves anyway, I think there’s always a kickback. You progress so far and there’s always that little kickback, there’s always that little group that tries to knock it back and it moves forward again, so I think if there’s enough of us to stay positive and keep doing what we’re doing it will be ok, but I think Liverpool’s doing alright.

Int.: Yeah, me too.

Sophie: The kids are alright [laughs]

Int.: So, do you find that there’s - sorry I’m going back to negatives again…

Sophie: Yeah, of course. I love the negatives.

Int.: Do you think there’s any problems with the community at the minute? Like, the LGBT community in general or otherwise? Do you think there’s anything the community can change within themselves?

Sophie: Erm, I don’t know…

Int.: It’s alright if you don’t want to answer or if you don’t think so.

Sophie: I don’t know…erm, historically I’ve always found the gay scene to be very poorly educated on trans and non-binary and the levels of transphobia and things like that, on the scene. But that’s going back and I couldn’t comment on what it’s like now because I’m not on the scene, so I don’t really know but that always surprised me, that it would come from a place that you would expect to be safe and to think that there’s transphobic comments going on is not cool. But like I said, I wouldn’t know what that was like now. 

Int.: That’s fair enough. How do you feel about the development of the LGBTQIA+ identities and everything, I don’t want to say new terms because these identities have always existed but we’re finding better ways to describe ourselves…

Sophie: Yeah, it’s just language isn’t it, it’s like feminism, in the fifties and sixties, these words appear and it’s just like “That is the word!”. When I talk to my mother in law about it and she talks about the first wave of feminism, the second wave and things like that. She talks about her frustrations of growing up, and expectations put on her because she was female, and she was just going “But why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” and there was no language for her to express how she felt until the riots of the day came in and all these new terms appeared and it’s like “Now we have the language. This is the thing that I’m feeling!” and it’s the same isn’t it, with any minority I guess, it takes a while to get organised and for people to go “Yes, yes, that’s how I identify, that’s the word!” and then you start realising lots of people like you and it just goes up and up and up. So, I think it’s really positive, more better for me really. You want new ways to express how you feel, if there’s a word, [pause] we’ve all got hundreds of words to fit how we identify and who we are, so what’s wrong about having more of them? It’s good. 

Int.: Yeah, definitely. How do you think public perception of queer icons and LGBT people in general has changed?

Sophie: Erm, it’s got a lot more positive…in what timespan are we talking here?

Int.: So, in… we’ll say the last 10 years.

Sophie: The last 10 years, well its, it’s changed a lot really… there’s certainly more. There’s more variants of identities on telly - media is always trying to reach out for people who are different, so there always seems to be more representative I guess. Things like television and films, it’s all a lot more positive but in print media it seems to be, at the moment, more negative. There was a bit of an up swell, but I think that’s mainly because print media is bloody miserable anyway, because everyone who owns newspapers is just arseholes, aren’t they, and you’d like to think that people who are making televisions shows and entertainment shows are generally a little bit more creative, bit more open, I don’t know. [pause] Yeah, I think it’s better, I think younger people have grown up with queer icons through school, things like Ru Paul, its been on for years, so a whole generation has grown up with that, so they see the fabulous in that. Young women aspire to be like their drag queen heroes and things like that. So certain shows have certainly made a difference. I did do some stuff with All About Trans, where we went into various media and spoke to the producers and the actors, directors, things like that, one on one with trans people, do you know anything about All About Trans?

Int.: I think I’d seen a little bit about it.                                                                                   

Sophie: Yes, so they’re an organisation, they were set up by On Road media and I think they got Paris Lees involved early on, how long ago would that have been? Six years ago maybe? So, it was around the time I started doing DRM and things like that and they were doing interactions with the media and stuff, so they would get five, well it depends on the interaction, but they would get five trans people and they would get five journalists from the newspaper and they would put them all in a room together, put them one to one and say “Just introduce yourself”. You basically get to know each other as people and then you might discuss some different topics like trans in media and experiences from both sides and the idea would be that you’d have a buddy, so that writer would then go away and next time they write a story about a trans person, they go “I don’t know what I’m talking about, this could be awful!” rather than just send it, I’ll send it over to Paris or Sophie or whoever their contact is and then that person can come back to them honestly and sort of say “Actually, that’s bollocks, you need to change all those words, why are you even writing this in the first place?”. So, there were all sorts of style guides about trans stories and how you write about trans people, pronouns and all that stuff, that came out of it. We had interactions with the BBC a couple of times, Hollyoaks a couple of times, consulted on their stories and things that came out of that were things like when you’ve got a trans character in a storyline trying to get past a lot of the tropes, so making it about changing and surgery and this type of stuff, trying to get away from that a little bit, but one of the main things was if you’re going to have a trans character then cast a trans actor. I think Hollyoaks at the time had the Blessing Chambers story that was coming in and first thing we were all in a room and there’s like 10 trans people and the actress was in the room and we were all just thinking “Is she Trans?”, it’s like, we were all thinking it but we felt a little bit awkward saying it out loud because she’s in the room, she’s just got this acting job, but obviously during the conversations and the writers and the casting directors going “Oh yeah, that would make sense, wouldn’t it”. It’s like they never really thought about it, they thought it’s better having a cis woman playing a trans woman because it’s almost like… I don’t know what they were thinking. After that they developed a little pool of trans actors and that became more of a thing, we saw more trans people on screen, things like Pose, which was on not so long ago, it had a big trans cast. So we’re seeing a lot more actual trans people on television and media and that has definitely come about in the last five years, I think. That is a very recent thing, but it seems like trans people are all over film and TV now, which is great they’re representing, it’s really, really good. It’s not there yet but it’s certainly a lot of unknown talent coming through, that’s good.

Int.: Yeah. 

Sophie: Thanks. 

Int.: So… [laughs]

Sophie: Is it this what you wanted? Is it going well?

Int.: Yeah [laughs] it is going well, yeah.

Sophie: Is it? Okay, Good.

Int.: So, if you had, like, one message to your younger self…

Sophie: Oh god.

Int.: …what would it be?

Sophie: Oh, what would it be? A younger me? Oh no…I would want them to know that it is going to be ok. I’d want them to know that how I was feeling was perfectly normal and perfectly fine and I’d want them to know that my family… cared about me and, wouldn’t be upset. They’ve supported me because I didn’t think they would. And that I would go on to live happy… to find success, I don’t know, successful in that I’d have happiness. Life and things are possible. Just to know that I’m not wrong, basically.

Int.: Yeah, and also do you have a message to the younger queer community now?

Sophie: The younger queer community now are excellent, and I like them all [laughs]. Erm, I think that the young queer community are fantastic. From what I can see the support they give to each other is incredible and that needs to continue and you need to not ask permission to do stuff, so if you’re annoyed about something, upset about something and you wanna speak out then you should be able to do that and again, don’t let people tell you that you’re wrong to feel the way you feel about things and about yourself. Just do your thing, and know that teenage years are really hard, they’re hard anyway, they’re hard for everybody, but just know that that period of your life is going to move on, if you’re in a situation you’re not happy with you’re going to get older, you’re going to move out of that situation, you’re going to move on, you’re going to see different people, move around different people, there’s going to be a lot of positive people in your life and people are going to look out for you. Yeah, just keep pushing on forward… probably? Is that alright?

Int.: Yeah, that’s perfect.

Sophie: I’ll just do that [makes gesture]

Int.: Perfect.

Sophie: I’m doing a thumbs up at the microphone! [laughs]

Int.: Amazing, I’ll make sure to transcribe that.