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New Weekly Article!! 🏳️⚧️💕✨
Happy last day of Pride Month, Beatle People! Today, we have a fantastic article written by @monkberryfields about the British trans icon April Ashley, and her association with The Beatles. The article provides an introspective look into her life as well as analyzing how the band interacted with her. Give it a read to end Pride Month off strong!! Check out the link below to read 😁
The Story of April Ashley and The Beatles
tracked down the important bits about Peter & Omar in April Ashley's memoirs bc I am nosey and at the peak of my hyperfixation
LGBTQ+ relationships in the Beatles Inner Circle
I think this is going to be a deeply unpopular opinion amongst the newer Beatle and Beatlegirl fans, but hear me out. Because it is important.
While I’m all for shipping a RL couple (supportive) or fictional people (they don’t exist and can’t get hurt)… it makes me uncomfortable when real, living people are crammed into a relationship against their will by a crowd of people almost demanding en masse that they change their sexuality.
These are real people. They should get a say in how they are portrayed. About who they love. Making them gay when they identify as straight is just as bad as the other way around.
It feels too much like the harassment Alma Cogan, Dusty Springfield, David Jacobs and Brian Epstein endured in the sixties. Being forced into fictional couples by the press, being frightened of getting hated or arrested because of who they loved. Not being accepted as themselves. Not having their real relationships accepted and honoured.
Alma was straight but traumatised by an early life experience which made the press both demand she reveal a straight lover and invented lesbian ones for her. It further damaged her having to go through that. She fell for the married John but was named as Brian Epstein’s lover in the press.
The Beatles watched their loved ones go through this in the 60s. It may even have contributed to the early deaths of both Brian Epstein and David Jacobs. So they may find having their own lives toyed with in this way a little sick.
So while it all seems wildly cool and modern to the shippers now to declare all the straight/bi Beatles and their crowd as something else, just know that it may actually be very backward and deeply damaging.
You will all do as you wish of course. But don’t pretend it isn’t harmful. These whimsies used to be a one off stray fantasy or fanfiction, now there seems to be a movement backing them. And it is a bit creepy how forcefully it is spoken about in a crowd.
There are amazing RL gay, bi, lesbian, queer and trans people amongst the Beatles inner circle. Maybe go read up on them. Understand their struggles. Honour them first.
April Ashley - a trans woman from Liverpool who trained at the Cherry Marshall modelling school just like Pattie Boyd.
Dusty Springfield - a lesbian who had to hide her sexuality most of her life who was constantly harassed about who her boyfriends were and had love affairs with men invented constantly by the press. It made her feel even more pressure to be straight when she was already suffering from her religious beliefs, upbringing and how the truth could affect her career.
Brian Epstein - being gay was illegal in the UK when he was alive. He feared arrest and physical attacks from the men he fancied. Having to seek clandestine clubs and meeting places brought him into contact with gangsters and almost lost him the Beatles, his freedom and his safety. His hidden life may have contributed to his death.
David Jacobs - the solicitor who supported Jenny Boyd in court and lent his home to Ringo and Maureen for their honeymoon also had to hide his gay lifestyle. It is believed that he ended things due to threats that his secret would come out. It is also suspected that his life was taken by gangsters who got to know him in the underground gay scene.
John Lennon is the only Beatle to be seriously considered as bisexual. He was rumoured to have had an affair with Brian Epstein, but his more likely relationship was with Stuart Sutcliffe whose own sister considered them lovers. Back then these relationships were illegal but not something the other Beatles had any hang ups about. There was an amazing LGBTQ+ scene in Hamburg in the early 60s and in London by the mid to late 60s. All of the band saw their LGBTQ+ loved ones struggling and suffering under prejudice and prosecution but didn’t have any prejudices against it themselves. Considering how experimental they got in Hamburg and on tour, it makes it highly unlikely that any of them besides John were bisexual.
To force their friendships into something else that wasn’t there can be harmful to fans both straight and gay who don’t know how to show love in their platonic male friendships. Let’s not make men stop hugging each other and saying they love each other for fear someone will turn their friendship into more than it is again. We were doing so well supporting men of all sexualities in having open, caring friendships.
So ship all you like but please be kind… and you really might enjoy learning about the real experiences I have given as just a few examples to start you off. You don’t have to invent these things around The Beatles, they were open minded, free thinking souls whose friends could trust them.
Sensible thoughts on this are welcomed. But let’s stick to love and respect. None of us are fictional either.
For anyone who comes across this (and has hbo max), I’d love to recommend you watch the documentaries Pee-Wee As Himself and Enigma, because I am sitting with some really interesting feelings about these stories and how they relate to each other!
Pee-Wee As Himself is about Paul Reubens and his decision to completely closet himself and commit entirely to the persona of Pee-Wee Herman. It’s a wonderfully told story, and the love and empathy I felt for him has really stuck with me since I watched it.
Paul is at times openly distrustful and hostile toward the director of the doc, and at first I thought this was a joke or a bit he was doing, but you come to find out it was real. As you learn about the aftermath of his previous arrest and the smear campaign that came with it, you realize he has real trauma over his public narrative. And so I was left with this feeling like, of course that’s why he’s so protective of his story.
Then I watched Enigma tonight, which is about April Ashley, Amanda Lear, and other trans women who performed at Le Carrousel in Paris during the 1950s–1960s. It’s an excellent and moving piece of queer history, with beautiful archival photos and videos. I won’t give a full synopsis, the important bit for this post is that April Ashley was publicly outed in the ’60s and then lived openly as trans, but it cost her the modeling career she had just begun and she faced incredible hardship until late in her life. Amanda Lear has been hounded by the press over her identity from her start, but always denied being trans, and had a successful career as a model and musician.
The director in Enigma is adamant about asking Amanda if she is trans or not, and really leans into her, trying to get her to own this identity. Amanda denies it all, and often tells obvious lies about her life and past.
The similarities between Paul and Amanda have really gotten to me, and it’s why I’m making this post. They both had to face such incredible public scrutiny and pressure to define and own their sexuality/gender. Both had to fiercely protect their personas and hide their private lives their entire careers. I’m grateful for both of these stories, and they have left me with such love for their subjects. I’m left with all these thoughts and questions over the role of both the directors and the audience in these films. The relationship between April, Amanda, and Paul’s stories is really striking.
So anyway, if you stopped to read this, I’d love for you to check out these films because I find them both to be very important narratives about the queer experience and our history, particularly around the topic of closeting!
It's always so interesting to me when two people each claim to have turned the other down
Paul talking about April Ashley:
Among the regulars at the Ad Lib was the famous sex-change April Ashley. PAUL: She used to ask me, did I want to go and feed the ducks? She was very nice, she was definitely a sort of woman, but we all knew from the newspapers that she was a man. I'd sit and talk to her, and I guess people could tell that it wasn't worth pulling me. I think you've got to give off scents, and respond correctly to certain things, whereas with me it was just flirting. She used to flirt and I'd be flirted with, quite happily. But when it got to 'Do you want to come and feed the ducks in St James's Park?' I'd say, 'No, I'll give that a miss.'
Many Years From Now
(seriously Miles "famous sex-change"?!?!)
April Ashley talking about Paul:
She said Salvador Dali and Elvis Presley made advances towards her while she worked at Le Carrousel and that she met Paul McCartney at Club dell’Aretusa, in London. He was apparently very interested but she decided to go home instead, leaving him behind and jumping in a taxi. “I could have slept with all the Beatles,” she went on to famously claim.
Pink News 2024
(makes me wonder if she did sleep with one or more)
Trans History! - April Ashley
While Transgender Awareness Month may be coming to a close, these historic icons live on! April Ashley is another shining example of trans resilience and beauty! Despite her rocky up-bringing and being outed in the press as a trans woman, Ashley continued to thrive amongst high society as a model and socialite.
I love reading about trans and gnc people who lived their lives fully and as themselves, I hope sharing their stories gives hope to the trans youth of today that you belong, you deserve a full and happy life, you deserve the world 💖 Trans kids deserve to grow up.
Image & text description in ALT
Beautiful documentary follows iconic entertainers / artists April Ashley + Amanda Lear as trans women in the 1950's 🏳️⚧️❤️🔥 ENIGMA
