These are things that queer youth think about all the time, that trans people think about. Although I’m not sure if Cal is trans specifically; I know that Cal’s nonbinary, but that wasn’t specified.
That’s also an important element, because there are a lot of nonbinary people who are still grappling with that understanding of what nonbinary means to them, and what gender means to them. And that doesn’t necessarily always equate to transness, especially amongst people who are searching for an indigenous understanding of their gender, people who are gender anarchists, who don’t necessarily want to engage with the concept of gender as a Western binary, or as something that tells you what to do, or who you are.
There are many different ways that nonbinary identity unfolds. And I think the fact that there’s the breathing room for Cal to just be a teenager who’s trying to figure it out, or that it’s still nebulous to them — I think that’s really beautiful.
Absolutely. In season three, Moordale is under tyrannical rule by a new head teacher named Hope, and we see how different characters push back against her. Cal is a frequent target for not wearing the “correct” uniform, and has legitimate grievances, like being forced into binary sex-ed and not having a comfortable place to change. But they are hesitant to speak out directly. Why?
I think Cal probably didn’t want the onus of a totalitarian regime on their fucking shoulders. They’re just a teenager. They’re scared, they’re a stoner. They didn’t want to be carrying everybody and educating everybody, because they probably have a lot to learn themselves. I think it’s probably fear, insecurity, feeling shut down. Cal experiences so much transphobia throughout the show, especially through Hope, that it probably made them feel like a little bit fearful, as any child would if they were in a situation where an adult were putting them in harm’s way, both physically — like them being pushed to that room by Hope — and emotionally.
Cal does confront Hope, suggesting that she’s pitting them against another nonbinary student. Cal asks her, “Is there too much power in multiple otherness for you?” How would you describe what Cal means by that?
I think there’s power in numbers and in community-oriented resistance. I don’t think Cal thinks about it in that same organizing-brain way that I’m thinking. But Cal’s probably like, “Oh, you’re intimidated by us? Why are you so scared of two small trans kids who are trying to express themselves? What exactly is it that you’re fearing?” And I think what Hope may be fearing is loss of power and strength, that people will galvanize against her when in reality, people are just trying to exist as they are, and not be questioned for their lived reality.
Cal also suggests that Hope is pitting Layla, as a “good” non-binary person, against Cal as a “bad” one. Is that an argument about respectability?
Dichotomies are definitely used to create in-groups and out-groups, for who is allowed to have access to certain spaces and who’s shut out because of what their presence might do to deteriorate the power structures within those spaces. Layla, who’s played by my friend Robyn Holdaway, a wonderful nonbinary person who I love, comes from a place of deep pain and introversion as a result of all of the issues they’ve dealt with either at home or through school and the new rules that Hope has set in place.
And Cal comes from a place of unfurling. They burst through the scene like, “I don’t care what you say. I’m going to be myself. I may even have anxieties about being myself or expressing myself, but I literally cannot exist without doing this, and it’ll harm me if I don’t. So I’m not going to.” Like, “I’m not going to lessen my existence.”
When Cal and Jackson start to grow closer, it’s Jackson who seems to lose his footing. Cal tells him at one point, I think “your cis-het brain just exploded a little bit.” We’re used to seeing queer characters on screen struggling with their identity, but Cal seems uniquely self-possessed. How do you see that reflected in their relationship with Jackson?
