Romeo is a young romantic queer much like I was at age 16, completely unsure of how to explain how I felt until I found the word “queer” and found other queers to be queer with. Romeo is an out and confident lesbian and I love playing the naiveté of her youth along with that confidence in her sexuality: at her age, I was one of the only queer people in my community and I definitely would not have “wooed” a person quite like Romeo does with Juliet.
I can’t speak generally, but there’s something to be said in a young teenager having the courage to woo, to have crushes and to flirt even if it’s with a Death Cab for Cutie song. I grew up only seeing that in a heterosexual context.
The closest I got to that kind of courage was when a boy in high school asked why I didn’t ever make out with anybody and he mockingly said, “What are you gay?” only to have me blurt out “yeah, probably.”
With Romeo, I get to own that pride and youth, that sloppy sappy love and that beautiful teenage gayness.
It’s hard writing about my gender and I think that it’s okay for me to say that I’m just not completely ready to give that part of myself to my art form. I don’t even feel okay giving that part of myself to most of society. I was lucky enough to have a loving supportive partner who embraced calling me a boy and friends that pulled the whole “yeah we already kind of knew Jules” in a way that felt like I could take my own time figuring things out.
I love being able to say, “Wow, this is so foreign to me. Is this how cisgender people live?” It’s the same way that big shot Hollywood actors who are cis get asked how they could have ever possibly done the work to play a trans character (here’s a clue: don’t do it, give the role to a trans person, are you even auditioning trans people to play cis characters?).
Actress Scarlett Johansson attends ‘Under The Skin’ Premiere during the 70th Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2013 in Venice, Italy.
I am proud that this production has hired queer actors to play queer roles, an issue much debated recently, most notably with Scarlett Johansson removing herself from the film Rub & Tug where she would have played a transman.
I am non-binary, but I am often perceived as a girl and I am white and both of those things make me exponentially safer in the outside world: being misgendered, often, protects me. It’s not just a question of kids having people to look up to, but representation can literally save lives.