For the first and possibly last time in my life, I bought a copy of Rooi Rose (for any non South African readers, it’s an Afrikaans women’s magazine and although it’s come a long way since apartheid days, it’s still one of those magazines that one thinks of as safely mainstream i.e. hardly relevant to me, as part of the LGBTQI spectrum).  I bought it for the story about Robert Hamblin, the artist formerly known as Adele Hamblin; photographer extraordinaire.

Robert’s physical transition from female to male has been documented with joyful publicity, all over the place and cyberspace too.  He’s been on TV, radio, been interviewed in De Kat - and so it goes on.  In his own career, he’s never been far from the limelight either, enjoying top jobs and exhibitions at places like JAG.  He’s also been forthright and eloquent online, on both queer and transgender forums.  If you have a look at his own art, you’ll find plenty of examples of his exploration and conclusions too.

Despite the general mutters in various quarters of the old school gay camp (pun intended), biphobia and transphobia is untenably unacceptable in any circle and circumstances, but perhaps especially so within the queer community.  Some gay people want “queer” to simply refer to those of us who are pureblood same-sex types (Harry Potter reference intended), whereas what it is for, is to act as an umbrella term for anyone who doesn’t fall into the hetero “norm” and who, most likely, needs protection from the phobic majority.  Some people think that trans people have no place on “our” spectrum, because after all, trans people are sometimes (gasp!) heterosexual.  Heterophobia, as fun as it might be from time to time, is actually as untenably unacceptable as all the other phobias.

LGBTQI - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex - which is the one of the currently available acronyms I like the most, puts Robert Hamblin right there in my community and I am very proud to have him there.  As a transgendered man, with a history of attempted heterosexuality and many years’ experience on planet Lesbian, definitely counts as Queer to me, in addition to Transgender - just because he’s ... you know ... extraordinary.  As a man married to a woman, there’s no reason why society shouldn’t accept his qualifications as Heterosexual too. 

Dividing society into smaller and smaller ghettoes is not only destructively divisive and elitist, it’s foolish too.  What our fight for human rights is supposed to be about, after all, is being human.  We don’t need to secede and form smaller clubs for same-sex sexualities, we need to expand the acronym yet further and carry on categorising everything until everything is simply an item on a list and not a freakish separatist phenomenon. 

LGBTQIH!  I would like to arrogantly, publicly and formally welcome heterosexuals to my postmodern, label-schizoid community.  Instead of assuming that heterosexuals are in some kind of army waiting to kill me, I am going to assume that they are just a different sort of human - yet another example of diversity.

I would also like to thank Mr Hamblin for having the guts to put his transition on show (he cannot be accused of publicity-mongering, he had a highly successful career and profile prior to his Robertification) which, by default, challenges everybody’s perceptions of gender, sexuality and humanity.

As a butch dyke, I have about as much in common with Robert as I ever had with any other good looking man i.e. similar taste in stylish clothes and image consciousness.  I am not a man, there’s a lot I don’t understand, but I do understand very well what it is like to be shunned sometimes, treated like shit at others and also, mainly, what it’s like when most of the world wishes you would just sit down, shut up and fit in.  I have huge respect for him for not doing so.

At the end of the proverbial day, all Robert Hamblin is, is a human being, trying to be the best he can be.  It’s what all of us aspire to.  It is also heroic in many ways, to be brave enough to defy convention and stand up to be counted.  It gives terrified teenagers someone to respect and understand, it gives all of us the example, the possibility that not only heterosexuals and queer people pretending to be heterosexual are able to succeed within current society.  He has yet another wonderful thing we all want - happiness.  I’m not suggesting we nominate him for sainthood, what I am saying is that we should be very proud of him.  We also owe him a debt of gratitude for joining South Africa’s miniscule core of out LGBTQI(+H) public figures.  The more community members we have in the public domain, the better our chances of acceptance and the stronger our hopes for a day when revealing one’s gender or sexuality holds no more terrors than telling people your favourite colour.

On behalf of the newly inaugurated LGBTQIH (open for more membership, vowels and consonants today) all I really want to say to Robert is, thank you!