Lose the label, it's the individual that counts - Liam Rudden

Society's need to label people has always struck me as divisive. To define someone purely by their sexuality, race, gender or even body shape is lazy. It has also become highly politicised.

Rocky Horror fancy dress at the Edinburgh Playhouse

As individuals we’re all the sum of our parts, which makes it pointless to define someone by a single trait or strand of their makeup. We are all so much more complex than a label.

This crossed my mind as I started to read Troubled Blood, the latest Cormoran Strike crime novel from JK Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith. Very good it is too. The furore that arose on social media, however, as word got out about one particular plot detail (I've not reached the 'spoiler' yet but will mention it later, so be warned) only served to reinforce my conviction about labels.

It reminded me of the ‘80s and ‘90s when I could be found DJing, doing cabaret and hosting fund-raisers as my alter-ego, The Bizarre Tim Leith. A time when anything went, it was an education in an eye-opening world peopled by wonderful individuals of every persuasion. Naturally, there were a few less savoury characters too, as in all walks of life. In my experience, karma deals with them in the end.

Taking our Rocky Horror cabaret around the UK I got used the seeing guys dressed as girls, well, Richard O'Brien's cult rock musical is about a Sweet Transvestite. Most were married and just indulging the exhibitionist side of their nature, either that or they really wanted to win the bottle 'sparkling crap' that was the fancy dress first prize - 99p a bottle, one winner told me later it had proved a great toilet cleaner, but I digress.

If you haven't guessed yet, JK Rowling was attacked for having a cross-dressing protagonist, hence this week’s theme.

One of the charities that asked me to DJ at fundraisers was the local branch of The Beaumont Society. Today, the society describes itself as 'the largest and longest established transgender support group in the UK... at the forefront of the transgender, transvestite, transexual and cross-dressing community since 1966.'

My first gig for them, in the mid-90s, was to raise money to send the children of a couple, one of whom was about to transition from male to female, to Disneyland while their parents dealt with the post-surgery period. The couple were remaining together.

These nights were joyous affairs when many in attendance, who were banished from mainstream bars, could relax and be themselves.

I quickly learned never to assume anything about who they were; there was the 23-year-old dad mid-way through transition and so proud of the effects his hormone treatment was having. Then there was the former naval officer, a grand-dad, who dressed up and headed out at the weekend while his wife visited her family. He wasn't gay, had no desire to transition or, as it was then known, have a sex change, he just enjoyed exploring his “feminine side” – his words. There were self-declared drag queens there to put on a show and one chap, still built like the rugby player he had once been, who would arrive devoid of make-up and wig, in trainers and a Laura Ashley dress. All were intelligent, engaging ordinary people, albeit with what some might call an extraordinary story. Personally, I have always believed that each and every one of us is extraordinary in some way.

I never have understood the desire to dress up and can’t relate to feelings of being trapped in the wrong body, but I would always defend the right of someone to be true to themselves.

Similarly, DJing in the old Port O' Leith bar back when every sailor to dock for the night made their way there for a pint and some female company, I met folk from all walks of life, judges, police officers, writers, drug dealers, actors and sex workers. Again, each was an individual and again, every time, karma caught up with those you might expect it to - failing that the long arm of the law did. Like the revelers at the Rocky Horror nights and the members of the Beaumont Society I met, I knew them all by their first names - the only label anyone needs.

In an ideal world, that would be the only label we’d require. That ideal world may yet be far off, but by simply accepting one and other as an individual, we can bring it about more quickly. Of course, that doesn't mean we have to like everybody we meet, just don't dislike them because of a label. Get to know them first and dislike them for a valid reason.

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