Bobby

Bobby 

“I was born in Walsall near Birmingham in 1998 and I moved to London in 2016 to come to drama school. I always loved London. My nan used to bring me down here to watch theatre shows. We would go and see Phantom of The Opera, Les Misérables, and Mary Poppins. Nan loved theatre so she passed that onto me. And we would come down and it would be amazing. But that was always the West End, so I had this very touristic view of London. When I got older and went to college and studied musical theatre, we would visit as a group of friends. We would get the train from Birmingham for £15 for the day and see a matinee. We knew London was where we wanted to be.”

“I arrived to study musical theatre at Trinity in Greenwich and discovered this whole other side of London. I had no idea about East London at that point and I did not know there was a vibe here. The only gay club I had been to was Heaven and we would queue up for hours because that was all we knew. I was working in theatre and was told I should go for the leading man. Because I was a musical theatre kid, I had my hair short and went to the gym every day and was told I could do the leading man. I did that as a routine, which I absolutely hated because I was queer, and I was nonbinary, and I was gender fluid, and I was an artist. But I did not know all that yet, so I was boxing myself in, going to auditions and doing well in that world. I did my first panto and then lockdown hit, so I moved back up to Birmingham. For that year looked at myself in the mirror. We had nothing to do except think about the people around us and our futures and what we were doing. Especially people from London. We had a chance to stop and think about this machine we are in and whether it serves us.”

“After lockdown I decided I was done with being this person I thought I was supposed to be. Life was not working for me. I wanted to start again and create new friends and new everything. Back in London after lockdown I googled queer nights out and up came ‘Dalston Superstore’ and I thought ‘What is this place is’? I went to a night called transitions led by two punk trans women. After queuing for ages, I got in eventually and it was amazing. It was like walking into a whole new life with the backdrop of that tune ‘my chemical romance’. I had no idea this world was possible and from then on, I went every week. Dalston Superstore is everything. It’s like our mecca. Superstore is the home and the anchor for anyone and especially me. It’s endearing and it feels like an anything space rather than just a club. Although it is renowned as a club and they have a top and glorious new space underneath, it’s just more than a nightclub. They have a club night called transvisions, exhibitions, and a film night called transmissions. I have meetings there; I’ve done rehearsals there. They have a female DJ vinyl collective and meet-up’s – it feels in motion and happening. The answer is always yes! You are welcome and it is a hub.”

“The whole reason I got into go-go dancing was because I attended week in week out and my outfits started to change, and my gender expression started to change. I go there in tracksuits, sneak through the club, go in the toilets, change into my short skirt and vest and then come out again. So many girls would do that. Get changed in the club. One night I got asked to dance on the bar for free drink tokens, so I did it and after that I have been asked to dance ever since. I never saw myself using my musical theatre degree to dance in clubs.” 

“Now I get to go to all these fabulous clubs and places and people pay me to dance in a thong and a bra. That’s how I met you at ‘Super Square’ Superstores 15-year anniversary party in Gillett Square. I had never been in that square before. Even though it is next door to Superstore they feel worlds apart, like no man’s land. That’s one me being young. I only came to Dalston a few years ago and have a naivety about the history. But also queer people, especially trans and gender non-conforming people you dip in and you dip out. It’s difficult to stick around until the morning, difficult to make connections with locals. You turn up for the club night, then you get the Uber and you go home. There isn’t that ‘oh let’s go and sit in the square and have a fag and chill out because there is that slight threat of something going wrong. We are still beaten and killed for being who we are and that never leaves you.”

“However, the event in Gillett Square was amazing and so cool to see the stall owners dancing with us. I got some funny looks, but I don’t mind funny looks because I know that I’m a provocateur, I know what I wear makes people look twice and that’s good. I like that. It’s when people act on that feeling, that’s the wrongness. And that’s all it was. There were a couple of looks but that may have been because people had not seen anything like me. Seeing it makes you realise that people come in all shapes and sizes and that’s great and it was great and I did not feel threatened at all. I didn’t feel unsafe, and I didn’t feel the security presence. Obviously, I was dancing, so we had security on us. But walking through the square, I felt so free. I felt so nervous in the run up to it. But Superstore’s party in Gillett Square was great. Nothing went wrong and it was perfect. They were supporting their own community. I don’t want to sound cheesy saying it but Superstore is a place for people that don’t have a place in London. It’s very homely and everyone gets to know you instantly. Superstore has been a godsend for me. A family. When you go in there are all kinds for people there. There are loads of different nights for all. They run a night called Queer Bruk which is an Afro-Caribbean night. They run Fem Fresh which is a dyke lesbian fem night. Superstore will prioritise those people for that night. It doesn’t fee performative; it feels like they want the right people in. The loss of a lot the big gay venues has pushed Superstore to the front and there is a lot of expectation on Superstore. Queer venues are dying out. These venues they exist on great locations, high streets and key locations in communities that are ripe for gentrification. Queer people exist where marginalised communities exist, as queer people see themselves in that struggle. So venues exist in those places and those places are targets for government and council pressure. I think it’s tragic because these venues are for people like me. They are a second home.”

“That is the best thing about Superstore, that this does not exist in those walls. You get to go to this place where it’s almost like an idyllic society where straight women, heterosexual women, heterosexual men, gay men, queer men, non-binary people all exist in the same space and accept each other which is how it should be. It’s the nicest thing ever and that’s why I love it so much. That’s why when you come out of those four walls and you walk up Dalston Kingsland and you get shouted at, you know ‘tranny’ and ‘faggot’ out of the cars and stuff. That’s when you must travel in a tracksuit or wear a big coat in the middle of summer. If I dressed how I wanted to dress someone would step out of a car and bludgeon me. I don’t know if they would, but I have that fear. But even in gay spaces, queer people are not embraced. Whereas in Dalston, queer people are embraced. We are not performing monkeys where people come up and grope you and drag you and make patronising comments. I always feel like saying ‘this is who I am, I am not pretending to be anything, and I am not performing. I’m just coming out for a night out’. People can see queer and trans people like a threat, like an infection. They think that you can catch gay or trans. However, I feel very safe in Dalston, away from that.” 

“I am an artist and producer. I have just finished a play called Metamorphoses which is a Greek tragedy through a trans lens. It’s hard to get funding for trans art. It still has not been decided by the government whether trans people are allowed in this country. So the press are not supportive of queer and trans people. It’s the next culture war. If you look at history. We have already been through bathroom bans before and segregation and its does not last because you can’t tell people who they are and where they belong in society. All that humans want is equality. The government are trying to cause a divide by saying that gay people are important but trans people aren’t real and it’s causing inside fighting. The government need to stop trying to condense humans down into their anatomy and biology. It’s so oppressive. If you can’t be placed in patriarchy, you can’t exist. Science needs to recognise that we are humans who have multitudes. We are the universe. Queer is the expansive term. It just means others. Not queer as in gay but queer as in fuck you. So I come to Dalston to be who I am and I just know I can do that here.”