Sandi Toksvig, the Danish-British comedian, broadcaster and activist, is getting ready to put on a Christmas show, heading back to the same stage in which she did some of her first lesbian comedy material. It’s put her in the mood for looking back, and in a new interview, she recalled her own coming out and how it relates to the current struggle for trans rights.
This Wednesday, Toksvig will perform her Christmas show, Sandi Claus is Coming to Town, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Gay Men’s Chorus, where she will sing familiar holiday carols with the help of the audience. The show takes place at London’s Royal Albert Hall, a venue that holds particular significance for her.
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“It feels like a full-circle moment because the Royal Albert Hall is where I did my first out performance and spoke about being a lesbian on stage,” Toksvig told PinkNews in a new interview.
Although she can reminisce about it now, her public coming out in 1994 was a harrowing experience. “Death threats came immediately, we had to go into hiding,” Toksvig recalled. “It was genuinely the most terrifying time of my life.”
But the bigots would never be able to keep her down. “Despite the fact that everybody said my career was over, here I still am,” Toksvig said. “We’ve got no money, and we’re putting on this huge show but it’s my present to the LGBTQ+ community and all its allies.”
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Even as Toksvig has made it through to the other side, she can’t help but see echoes of past bigotry in the current demonization of the trans community. She recalled how everyone was saying back then that “lesbians were going to destroy society as we know it.” The rhetoric against trans people now sounds uncannily similar.
But Toksvig for one does not plan to just allow history to repeat itself. “I won’t stand by and let that happen,” she said. “I will stand up each time and say no. Clearly, if you’re anti-trans, it’s because you don’t have any trans friends. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to look yourself in the [mirror] as you say these terrible things.”
Even as things go from bad to worse for trans rights in the UK, Toksvig is determined to fight. But she also wants to be a source of comfort for the community. “Please know I understand and I’m here,” she said. “I don’t know for what, for a cuddle? I’m here to be the grandma lesbian who goes, ‘Let’s just keep going’.”
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