Olly Alexander and Trans Voices co-founders, Ilã Kamalagharan and Coda Nicolaeff, on fighting fascism with queer and trans joy through Trans Mission.
“You can either be a sad sack in the corner and not join in, or you can get involved, because [trans people are] not going anywhere,” Ilã Kamalagharan, co-artist and co-founder of Trans Voices, defiantly tells Gay Times of Trans Mission. Taking place 11 March at OVO Arena Wembley, this five-hour extravaganza of music and trans solidarity responds to the increasingly hostile political climate for trans people, raising funds for the vital charities Good Law Project and Not a Phase.
Alongside Trans Voices, including Ilã’s co-founder Coda Nicolaeff, the event features Adam Lambert, Beth Ditto, Bimini, Christine and the Queens, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Sugababes, Wolf Alice, Olly Alexander, and more. The night also packs serious star power, with appearances from Ian McKellen, Jack Rooke, Juno Birch, Juno Dawson, Layton Williams, Mawaan Rizwan, Munroe Bergdorf, Nicola Coughlan, Russell Tovey, Shon Faye, Tia Kofi, Tiara Skye, Zack Polanski and others.
Olly Alexander, who teamed up with Ilã, Coda, and Mighty Hoopla to create Trans Mission, says the event was born out of a need to mobilise the queer community and its allies. “It’s about showing that cis people care about what’s happening to trans people,” he says. Yet beneath its urgency lies joy. “Partying is such a core part of queer culture,” explains Coda. “Those spaces have historically been where we’ve been allowed to be ourselves and exist freely.”
We sat down with Olly, Ilã, and Coda to talk Trans Mission — its origins, what fans can expect from the pop-packed spectacle, and whether this one-night wonder is destined to become a mainstay of trans culture.
Ilã: Excited! I saw something about some exciting happenings with pyrotechnics, all sorts of things that made me go, 'Ooh!'
Olly: I got told about one pyrotechnic...
Coda: There was a massive email that was sent that was like, 'Please let everyone know that there will be fire. We can't stop the fire. You will be notified where the fire is on stage. Don't go in it. Stay away.'
Olly: It began, from my point of view, as a conversation with Coda and Ilã. I had done a few bits with Trans Voices – they came out and sung with me at Mighty Hoopla. I can't remember when it was, maybe early last year, when we started talking about putting on some kind of fundraiser. It was quite a low-key thing, initially. I wanted to do something with Trans Voices and thought it would be a small event. After the Supreme Court ruling, we were constantly having conversations about a fundraiser we can do that will have some impact here [in the UK]. I know Glyn Fussell, the creator of Mighty Hoopla, really well, and he had been having similar conversations with Dani St. James from Not a Phase like, 'Is this an opportunity for us to galvanise the community?'
It all snowballed once I started talking to Glyn, who put us in touch with Dani and The Good Law Project. We all said, 'How big can we go here? Let's aim high – an event in a legacy venue with a bold statement of love and support for the trans community.' After the ruling, I helped put together an open letter with Coda and Ilã's help. We asked loads of people from the music industry to sign an open letter of support for the trans community and we got people like Dua Lipa and Charli XCX. So we had the roster already for [concert], and that's how it grew from my side.
Coda: Crazy. It's been interesting to be involved in the ideation of it from the start, and then seeing the way the Mighty Hoopla team and everyone on team Olly Alexander has been like, ‘Let us do the work as allies and organise this.’ We’ve felt included in the creative side of it all, and that’s been a really special relationship to have. And as Olly was saying, that open letter looks like the proto lineup of Trans Mission, doesn’t it? Seeing that enthusiasm from the start felt important. With the Supreme Court ruling, and the way it’s continued being fought in the courts — having wins on certain sides, losses on other sides — it’s been so heavy. You can really feel in the community how much it weighs on people, and it exhausts all of us. So the idea that so many allies have stepped up and said, ‘We can’t believe this is happening, it’s completely insane, let us do something and centre trans people in this conversation,’ is really special.
Ilã: Adding to that, these things are designed to shrink us and make us go away and stop fighting. Hatred can really spread like wildfire, but so can love. [The ruling has] been a galvanising thing. Speaking from my perspective, you have that feeling of, ‘Oh my god, is this a view that’s held by most people? Is this reflective of what people think? Am I going to be safe in these spaces from now on?’ Seeing that letter and realising people do care — and perhaps don’t necessarily know specifically what to do about it — and when you have such a flooding effect of so many things happening in the media all the time, terrible things happening in the world in a constant flood, you become numb and immune to it and disabled from actually taking action. This has helped provide a focus: ‘You can come and support by doing this.’ To see how that’s grown and unfolded, how many people have joined that fight and the scale of it, is crazy.
Olly: That was definitely one of the core ideas behind Trans Mission, especially in the initial phase — to show that cis people care about what's happening to trans people. We all need to get engaged in the fight because it affects all of us, rather than having just trans people do all the work for their community. A lot of cis people don't necessarily know how to show their support, so this was an easy way — buy a ticket, get on the lineup. Of course I'm really glad we have amazing trans talent as well, like Trans Voices and Bimini and Christine and the Queens, but also a lot of diverse cis talent, because it's about building a coalition.
Coda: We're becoming more aware that the fights we all face collide in such massive ways. You see it with how queer this lineup is — how many people can recognise that our fight, the trans fight at this moment, is so similar to the queer fight of yesteryear. It's so similar to the conversation that's ongoing in terms of immigrants, and the way people are coming together and building these coalitions. It has always been the way to fight authoritarianism and oppression, and I hope that Trans Mission can be another conversation starter for people — to be like, ‘This is really beautiful and inclusive and a cultural moment.’
Ilã: The quote that comes to mind is, “Queer joy is an act of resistance.” There’s something incredibly defiant about queer culture and the way that we celebrate ourselves, to find joy and connect with other humans. The whole mission behind fascism, a lot of the time, is to separate us and make us isolated. Actually, those collective experiences of joy give us energy, but it’s also such an incredible act of defiance.
Olly: I completely agree. Essentially we are fighting fascism. Transphobia is an arm of fascism, and fascism wants to control people. A person who is under control cannot feel joy. Even if it's just momentarily, that feeling of joy is connected to freedom, and that's so important if you're able to resist. Of course, we all deserve a bit of joy in our lives, but I think it's actually important in the fight against fascism because fascism doesn't want joyful people.
Coda: Also, partying is such a core part of queer culture. Historically, it has been those spaces where we've been allowed to be free and exist. So creating a space like Trans Mission feels really special — particularly, as Olly was saying before, in such a legacy venue. To be able to say, ‘We are going to bring this party here and create an environment of joy,’ and then, hopefully, get across the political messages and meaningful elements that naturally come alongside the partying we’re doing. It feels like a quintessential queer way to protest.
Ilã: We exist a lot in our heads in this current way of being in society, and things become very up here in terms of the very black-and-white debates and the internet — the terminally online existence that a lot of us are pulled into. That celebratory culture makes us feel again, more rooted. It’s a way to leave that at the door and root yourself back in what the feeling is. Human connection heals so much, doesn’t it?
Coda: Especially post-pandemic, trans people can exist online and work remotely, exist in your home and create a very safe space for yourself. But when you add to that the real intention of separating us and excluding us from public life… know that Trans Voices creates a physical space for trans people. People always come up to us after performances, after anything that we do, to say how needed and how special it’s been to have these moments together.
Olly: That's an interesting question. Music is just so powerful and speaks to everybody. It’s also been a space that's allowed some trans people to really flourish, from Sylvester to Anohni and SOPHIE. The arts, generally, have had a close partnership with trans people.
Ilã: It's something of a mystery, and that's why it's so powerful. It’s got that otherness to it that we can’t really explain, and we spend so much time trying to explain things. It really sets us alight and brings joy and movement to us. Dance doesn’t exist without music — or is it music doesn’t exist without dance? I don’t know. Those things are inter-tangled as well. So much of who we are and everything that happens in our lives has this soundtrack to it, and how we move through the world, literally, physically, is shaped by music. It also takes us away from being so in our heads and purely stuck in that thinking place — nothing wrong with thinking, obviously, it’s kind of a good idea to think, and I wish some people would think more! I sort of feel if we were all more in our bodies, and more connected with ourselves and each other through things like music, then the world would be a better place. Also, through representation — if you think about the big trailblazers of the ’80s who weren’t able to be out at the beginning of their careers, like Freddie Mercury, George Michael and Elton John, they really blew the door open for a lot of other people. I suppose if you really love a song, you want to make peace with the creator of the song as well and think, ‘Oh, maybe they’re not so bad. Maybe those gays aren’t so bad because they write really good music and I like dancing!’
Coda: You can enter a state of flow while you’re listening, and you create new connections between your neurons in your brain, which allows you to consider new ideas, thoughts and creativity to flow. There’s something so precious about creating an environment where we can listen to trans stories, trans themes. In terms of the trans narratives that we’ve seen, we are so silenced as a community — we are being spoken about, spoken to, but infrequently spoken with, especially by people in positions of power. So to be able to put on a night like this… I think it’s a five-hour night of speeches and music and artists who are there for us and part of our community. It’s a way to stake our claim within the landscape and the dialogue that’s being led about us.
Ilã: Off that, there are many ways in which trans people get painted in the media — a particular look and way of being, political persuasion. In reality, there are as many ways to be trans as there are trans people. Just as there are as many ways to be human as there are humans in the world. That is so important to remember because sometimes people, in the absence of good representation, will extrapolate and make assumptions about a set of people. It’s easy for people with ill intent to rally against a group of people and paint them a certain way. Being trans is just one aspect of someone’s identity — it’s not a defining feature — we’re all extremely different from each other and unique in our own ways.
Ilã: Are you asking us to spill the tea? That's outrageous!
[Silence.]
Ilã: Well, there will be a really gorgeous version of a very well-known Olly song — a never-heard-before version, really, of that track… right?
Olly: Yep!
Ilã: So there's that. That will be the first time that happens in the world. A world premiere, if you will! Also, we can say this because she said it already, we're doing 'Hide and Seek' by Imogen Heap with Imogen Heap herself! Completely acapella, with just our voices...
Coda: Twenty singers.
Ilã: With twenty singers, so that will be... not as people usually hear it.
Coda: There will be eight voice parts, but we have 20 immaculate singers that we are so proud to platform. It's incredible. And we have also developed an original song for this.
Ilã: An anthem, a rallying call, I suppose. It's going to be something that hopefully gets us all together and will be very symbolic of the whole thing, I think.
Coda: And pyrotechnics.
Ilã: And pyrotechnics! Fire!
Olly: We would love to take it further than just one night. Working with Glyn Fussell, one thing I know about him is that he loves to go bigger. The bigger, the better. He’s so ambitious. It could be done yearly, stateside, in different places around the world. We’ll just see how it goes. We’ve been so encouraged, especially at a time when brands are not supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community anymore and it’s harder to gather those resources. But they’re out there, and what we’ve demonstrated with Trans Mission is that people want to support and see great artists. So I have high hopes that it will continue in some form.
Coda: I don’t know if like Trans Mission would’ve been possible 15, 20 years ago. We’ve had this incredible wave of increased visibility for the last 10, 15 years, and now, as Olly says, the brands are drying up — partnerships and interest are drying up — but awareness has increased. So what do we do with that, and how do we take it forward? Trans Mission is an example of something for us and by us. There’s clearly a desire and interest in it, so how can we create our own platforms, and how can we partner with organisations and venues that really care and believe? We know those allies exist now, and they are much more vocal than they could’ve been 15, 20 years ago. So it feels like, could this be the next chapter of what existing as a queer person within public life, within the entertainment industry, might look like? It’s an era of more proactive engagement and organising.
Ilã: We all deserve to be more hopeful about the future. I would be as bold to say that it feels like we could see this as a tipping point — a way of showing that we’re still gonna show up and party. Showing that, and showing the potential within that in all meanings of the word, hopefully makes people think twice. You can either be a sad sack in the corner and not join in, or you can get involved, because we’re not going anywhere.
