‘You know better than to look at my chest’: Trans actor Zoe Terakes on good manners

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Zoe Terakes. The actor, 23, is best known for their role in the TV series Wentworth. They star in the upcoming horror film Talk to Me and will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first transgender actor, in the TV series Ironheart.

BODIES

How has your body – and your attitude towards it – changed over time? Oh, that’s a big question for a trans person, but a good one! Everybody’s body fluctuates, but doesn’t necessarily change as drastically as that of a trans person – and I think that’s a beautiful thing. But it’s very frustrating when you don’t have the means.

Tell me more about that: the means, or lack thereof. Realising, “Oh, this is who I am” and staring down the barrel of what it takes to get there: how much time; how much money. It’s a pretty daunting thing. It’s the sacrifice you have to make in order to have a body that feels right. You sacrifice your safety.

In what kind of situations? Since top surgery, [I have] this deep sense of comfort and joy, but mainly peace. You’re like, “Oh, is this how everybody else wakes up?” Then there’s the flip side. I’ve started swimming laps, and the looks I get: it’s been really confronting. People – older people – feel they can look at you. Didn’t your mum teach you not to stare? You’re 60! You know better than to look at my chest, at what’s in my pants, and stare in a puzzled way. You feel like something in a zoo. On the one hand, the big masc wog in me wants to be like, “Let’s talk about it, let’s go!” On the other hand, I feel six years old when it happens. I feel shame and I feel tiny.

There’s a bigger moral panic and anxiety about trans bodies – especially young trans people and gender-affirming procedures. What would you say to people who don’t want to be transphobic, but also feel anxious? It’s so tough because everyone’s coming from a place of fear: I’m scared of them; they’re scared of me; we’re both scared.

How do you bridge that? I don’t know. I find it difficult to have those conversations because it’s my life. [Cisgender people] have the privilege of not having an emotional reaction because it’s not their life. Trust trans people when they’re telling you what they need.

You were recently painted for the Archibald Prize by artist Kim Leutwyler. When it was unveiled, you talked about “trans joy”. What is that? Euphoria, a sense of belonging and community. It’s hard to talk about right now. The world is so scary for trans people, scarier than it’s been in my living memory as a trans person. Trans joy is rare at the moment, but it is there. And when it’s there, it’s so good. Where I feel it is en masse. We’re powerful en masse.