The Person Behind The Penguin

Five things you’re allowed to know about my identity and four things you’re not.

What constitutes your identity? If society is determined that we play identity politics then this is a question I feel compelled to ask. Who gets to define the parameters of who I am. What’s their agenda and why does it matter?

Here are five things I think I have defined as key to my identity. Reading this article means you’ll get to know more about the person behind the penguin. You’ll get a better picture of who I am without being able to identify me in any way at all.

And that’s the way it will stay for the foreseeable

I studied Psychology

Many of my pieces on Medium have a strong psychological slant to them and for good reason. When I was twelve I stole a book about reading body language from the school library. The book, still on a bookshelf at my parent’s house, is long overdue and the associated 10p per day fine is hundreds of pounds by now.

That book began my lifelong fascination with people and how they think.

I was the first person in my family to go to University and I transferred onto the course from English Literature because I didn’t like the look of the reading list. I specialised in Social and Developmental Psychology and soon after began working in social care.

At the weekends I was a drama teacher for children aged 6–18.

I now train newly qualified social workers on early years psychology and communication skills. I gave up teaching after my first play was published to afford more time for writing. Sometimes I regret it, sometimes I don’t. I have found other people’s children to be an excellent form of contraception.

Everything I learned about human psychology has been applicable in every aspect of my life to date. That includes writing on Medium

I don’t believe in marriage

I have a significant other penguin, but neither of us is monogamous. Sometimes we date other people, sometimes we don’t. Options are left open. I’ve seen far too many friends vanish into the black hole of monogamy to feel like it’s always a healthy choice.

We have different interests, different personalities and different approaches to life. There’s some overlap that means we’re compatible on a fundamental level but we don’t agree on everything. Our penguin relationship is eight years old and we’ve never been happier.

We’re never going to get married. I think marriage is used as a tool for oppressing women both historically and around the world today. I want no part of it. I understand that it has good qualities and my parents have been happily married for 40+ years. It’s just not for me. If it’s for you… that’s your business.

My partner and I recently moved in together but still have separate rooms and lots of our own space. Neither of us likes sharing a bed and I don’t think humans were designed to sleep in groups. Some people consider our lack of room sharing to be odd and presume that we’re not a happy couple. Those people have never tried sharing a bed with me.

I am quite the nocturnal gymnast — and not in a good way.

I went to an all-girls school and an all-boys school

My education was unusual because I attended two single-sex grammar schools, one for my secondary education and one for the sixth form. I did not change sex to do this — the latter school had a mixed sixth form.

I was in the minority sex. 5 of us in a school of 600.

From my bizarre education experience, I can tell you boys are far more emotional and insecure than girls given them credit for. Boys do tend to think in hierarchies and gangs and assign status and leaders very quickly. Bad feelings don’t last for more than a day or so and everyone automatically knows where they fit in the hierarchy.

It’s crushing for those at the bottom however they’ve ended up there.

Arguments between boys are often quick and sorted with fights and ridiculous posturing. A lot of what constitutes ‘fighting’ is actually two boys trying not to fight whilst maintaining the image they’d love to.

“Hold me back Gary! Hold me back!”

Girls tend to think about the world in floating allegiances and group stability. Arguments go on for months, involve everyone. Teenage girls make the machinations in Game of Thrones look like a Machiavelli starter kit.

Girls are far more adept at social psychology than boys and are far better at social engineering. They use exclusion, operant conditioning (likes) and gossip to maintain group integrity. Failing to calibrate within the changing whims of the group can be dangerous. Eating disorders and self-harm are far more prevalent and terrifying than most people realise.

I do not enjoy the company of groups of very masculine men, the group often halves its collective intelligence with every new man added. Nor do I enjoy the company of women still caught in the ‘teen allegiance’ phase. This often transfers into the adult workplace or community groups.

I prefer my friendships to be with individuals. My friendships are very much a 50/50 split gender-wise and I have a fair amount of LGBTQ+ friends relative to overall population.

In the interests of balance these gender judgments are generalisation and there are always exceptions to the rule. Like when my friend Claudine punched a girl square in the face for a muttered racist comment.

I’ve got a feeling the girl may actually have been called Karen… That was a good day.

I like American Football and ballet

My mixed childhood led to mixed interests. I watched wrestling for the storylines, I also played rugby and hockey for my schools and studied ballet. At a push I’d say that ballet is definitely harder and I’d tell any rugby player or NFL Player to don a leotard and tell me otherwise.

I placed top of my class in my dance finals, though I should stress I am very much not a dancer. I write a mean essay about Martha Graham, can tell you all about knee anatomy, back in the day I was an excellent choreographer and this helped me stage numerous productions of Bugsy Malone with my class.

My favourite modern ballet is Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake which I advise everyone in the universe to watch. My favourite classical ballet is The Nutcracker and I’m a Tchaikovsky fan.

I moved away from English rugby towards American football — or ‘Giant Man Chess’ as I call it. Far more strategy and interesting to watch though I only tune in for the Super Bowl most years. In the absence of being a US citizen, I chose the Baltimore Ravens as my team.

Purple is my favourite colour and I’m a fan of Edgar Allen-Poe.

I live in the city now

I live in a very multicultural area of London. My neighbours are a large Jewish family with a vast number of daughters. I have yet to go round for Shabbat but my invite is pending approval for a post covid world. I pick wild flowers for the youngest daughter’s online pressed flower jewellery business.

After my evening walk I leave tupperware containers full of wild-flowers on their porch like an errant and obedient cat.

The local tailor is Afghani and has a picture of his wife with an AK-47 in his backroom. I know this because he showed me after giving me a coffee that kept me awake for a week solid. The quiet lady who smiles whilst hemming was a kick-ass member of the Mujahideen in the late 70s.

I’m determined to get more stories, but I’m running out of clothes that need alteration.

My Penguin-Partner is in a local choir whilst I am unable to sing with community groups. Aside from an inability to hold a tune, I get emotionally overwhelmed by close harmony singing. This has happened since childhood and is utterly inexplicable.

Nobody wants their choir racked with ornithological sobbing and facial leaking. Occasionally my Penguin Partner will test me by playing their guitar and getting me to sing along. We have made zero progress thus far.

Although I love the city I have to leave London at least once every two months to go back to the countryside. I miss trees and farmland and the acrid smell of muck spreading. I drink cider with blackcurrant cordial, the same drink as my Mum. My entire extended family lives within the same square five miles and don’t come to London often because they believe it’s very dangerous.

I moved to London a decade ago to pursue a career in writing. It’s going very well and I have zero regrets.

Four things you don’t get to know

This section of the article will be a lot shorter because I’ve got far less to say about it.

My race —this is purely indicative of how much melanin there is in my skin.

My age — this is indicative of how many times I’ve been around the Sun and been awarded a cake for my continued survival skills

My sex —my genitals should not concern you.

My sexuality —furthermore, what I choose to do with my genitals should not concern you.

What point are you making?

The point I’m making is that identity politics attempts to group people together by protected characteristics. These are often the least interesting facets of personality and give no real indication of who someone is.

These are the least interesting things about what constitutes a human being. It could indicate a certain life experience — but it might not. You can make judgments about people’s life experiences based on their protected characteristics, but those are subject to your own bias.

I have no idea what it’s like to not be me but I’m willing to find out. There are 7 billion people on the planet and each of them is an individual with their own life story that has informed who they are and who they will become.

Half the planet shares my sex. A significant percentage shares my race. I meet plenty of people my age and my penguin partner and I have the same sexuality. That’s good enough for me.

When we distil people down to simplistic narratives, we miss the finer points of what makes them think the way they do. Detractors of mine often attempt to elicit information about my protected characteristics — as though these are the sole contributors to my world view.

Of course, such things inform my world view but when focusing only on these things they miss the nuances of who I am. They’re inferring my sociological position from their interpretation of what they think my life has been.

If it matters to you whether I’m straight or LGBTQ+ or what colour skin I have you should ask yourself why. What more useful information does that give you? Does it help you make a judgment about what I think rather than engaging in conversation and asking me? Why does the world need to fit into such arbitrary groupings in the first place?

More importantly what motive do you have for such a grouping?

Identity politics is about group-think and the power dynamics of individual groups pitted against each other. I’m far more than the sum total of the tick boxes social justice needs me to be. I’m more complex than the simplistic narrative of oppressor and oppressed.

What good does it do for society to focus on the superficial characteristic differences rather than the deeper similarities? How does this help?

You still have no idea about my age, sex, race, or sexuality. I hope there’s something in my life which you feel you can relate to on an individual human level. You now know me far better than you did before you started reading… but the complex psychological mishmash of my life has likely left you baffled about which boxes to place me in.

I’d very much like it to stay that way.

This mountain of detail didn’t slake your thirst for information? Luckily there’s been a follow up.