We Have Always Been Here: Seeing Myself in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

“i c My Show” by Mike Callaghan

Act One: This Isn’t a Coming Out Story (Except When It Is)

When a queer person decides they want to come out, they are often warned by fellow queer friends that it isn’t just a one time thing; they will likely be coming out, in one way or another, for the rest of their life. Since I was roughly fourteen, I’ve lived somewhere between in and out of the closet, determining in each given situation whether it will be safer for me to stay closeted or if it would be alright to be myself. I’ve come out to various people in various ways more times than I can possibly count, and yet I know there are still many more times ahead of me that I will do the same.

A narrative often pushed is the idea that queer people don’t choose their sexuality or gender, and while mostly true, my being trans is an active choice I make every single day, however not in the ways one might think. While I don’t choose to be a man (I simply am one, no matter how many times I’ve tried painfully and desperately not to be) I choose to share that with most of the people I encounter, and live it as fully as I can each day. A trans person’s decision to tell you that information isn’t something to take lightly; it means they’ve determined they can trust you, that you are safe, and when safety isn’t something we come by often, it needs to be treated seriously.

Queer readings of Twelfth Night are hardly new, and it's easy to see why. From Sebastian and Antonio’s homoerotic relationship to Viola/Cesario’s gender fluidity and even Olivia’s love for Cesario, it’s hardly even possible to give this text a straight reading. That said, as I approach my first year of hormone replacement therapy and navigate the treacherous waters of coming out to the last few important people, this play hit me in a way I didn’t expect and often struggle to put into words. To know that people like me existed back then, to know that a man much like me is the main character of a play by one of the most famous writers in history, is a feeling not easily put into words. But, alas, I will try.

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Act Two: Transitioning - A Balancing Act

In the second scene of the play, after Viola’s ship crashes on Illyria, she realizes quickly that she will need some way of living in this new place and entertains the idea of joining Olivia, the noblewoman’s, court. However, upon learning that Olivia is not accepting anyone into her court, jumps quickly to the idea of disguising herself as a man to join the Duke’s court instead. The captain of the ship doesn’t appear to be a man she knows well, but she regards him as a similar sort to herself, and trusts him to help her with the disguise and keep her secret.

In this scene, Viola doesn’t act as if this decision is that strange, nor does she seem at all concerned that she’ll be caught (seeming instead incredibly confident about her ability to pass as male). Not only does this strike me as if it were something that she’s definitely considered before, it seems like it might even be something she’s done before. Cesario, to Viola, isn’t just a disguise, but perhaps another side of who they are (The fact that they already had a name picked out is telling in and of itself.)

Over the years of my very gradual transition, I’ve learned a few things:
One, as mentioned previously, coming out is an act of trust. However, more often than you would think, this trust appears in people you hardly know. The thing about queer people is that we all have this way of magnetizing towards each other, noticing small quirks or nuances that a cishet person may not pick up on. Myself and other queer friends of mine have often been more open with a queer person we’ve known for an hour than a straight family friend we’ve known our whole lives. Cesario’s trust in the ship captain in this scene isn’t just a desperate girl hoping for any chance at a life of freedom, but instead a desperate boy, recognizing queerness in this other person and hoping to his god that he can help him.

And he does. The captain, without question, helps Cesario.

Without the other trans people in my life, without the friendships and relationships of all kinds that I’ve had, I would not be where I am today. I’m not even sure I would be here today. Trans people who I’ve smiled at on the street have saved my life just as much as my trans partner, who is the reason I felt confident enough to start HRT.

Second, the decision to transition doesn’t come from nowhere, and oftentimes it’s something that a trans person has considered and debated many times over before finally doing it.

Cesario’s willingness to jump at the opportunity to transition, recognizing the freedom he now has (believing his brother to be dead), isn’t something that a cis woman would just up and do. Instead, it rings as a trans person finally having the chance to do what they want with their life, openly. To bring fantasy into reality.

My own personal choice to start HRT was much the same. While risky, as I wasn’t out to my family, it was something that I knew I’d needed for a long time. Having just come out of an incredibly painful phase in which I tried harder than ever to repress my gender identity, to present in a way I felt was acceptable by my family and by society, I was on the brink of a serious mental breakdown. I’d never been in so much pain in my entire life, never felt so unlike myself. My partner sat me down and told me, relatively upfront, that not starting HRT could kill me. She was right, of course, and I’ve never felt more comfortable in my body since.

The choice to transition isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, as much as hyper-capitalist pride parades would want you to believe. Rather, it comes with many risks and many things to grapple with.

One such thing is internalized transphobia and misogyny. Having been raised a girl, I’ve been the subject of many misogynistic comments or cultural ideologies. I’ve been told that I need to be put in my place, excluded from activities because they are “for boys.” I’ve been told that my body hair is unclean, been forced to take birth control pills at an incredibly young age to “manage my period” despite the fact that I was far too young to be expected to have a regular menstrual cycle to begin with. Although I grew up in the “girls can do anything boys can do” era, I was led to believe quite the opposite.

Simultaneously, I’ve grown up in a society which upholds the cishet binary as the only true way to live. I barely knew trans people existed before I hit puberty and became incredibly uncomfortable in my body. Once I learned about transness, I was hit from both the cishet world and the queer community with ideas about the “right” and “wrong” ways of being trans. I’ve spent years trying to figure out what version of myself is the most acceptable at any given moment, knowing ultimately that, unless I were to detransition and completely hide, there is no acceptable version of me (and to force a trans person to detransition is to kill them. It is a purely violent act).

Throughout Twelfth Night, Cesario is shown dealing with both internalized transphobia and misogyny, two things that, in practice, overlap so heavily they are hardly indistinguishable. When he realizes that Olivia has fallen in love with him, he calls his disguise a “wickedness” and his womanhood a “frailty.” (2.2.28-32). He blames himself, both his sex and his gender presentation, for the love triangle he’s found himself in, rather than realizing that neither his gender nor his sex are failings—the only failings are on the part of the society in which he lives. His paralyzing anxiety is thus as a direct result of his internalized feelings, and ultimately clouds his ability to truly accept himself or the situation he’s in.

And the situation he’s in? A beautiful woman ready to drop to her knees for him and hopelessly in love with a hot older man. I’ve met queers in worse situations far more giddy than him.

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Act Three: Royal Daddies - Cesario’s Queer Fascination with Orsino

If gays have any follies, it’s our tendancy to fall hopelessly in love with the one person we just can’t have—our straight best friends. While I personally have never done this (my best friend has always been more of a sister to me than anything and also isn’t straight), I couldn’t count the number of queer people I know who have on both hands. There’s a reason it’s such a common stereotype; sometimes these things are just true.

Queer people, perhaps because we are led to believe by cishet society that we are flawed and unloveable, often fall hard and fast in love with the first people to show us any sign of affection—this is something I have dealt with. When you don’t fit the typical expectations of cishet people and when compatible queer partners are hard to come by purely because there’s so few of us at any given time, it’s incredibly easy to lower your standards and fall head over heels for someone who probably doesn’t deserve the time or energy it takes to woo them. Surprisingly enough, queer relationships, like straight ones, aren’t always perfect (who would’ve guessed it?).

All that said, there was a queerness so strikingly obvious to me in Cesario’s love (or infatuation) with the Duke, Orsino. At the conclusion of their very first scene together, in which Orsino mostly talks business and drops a compliment to Cesario here and there, Cesario proclaims that he desperately wishes to be his wife (1.4.45-46). All it took for Cesario to fall was a little bit of charisma from an older man in a position of authority, and really, who hasn’t been there?

What is especially interesting to me about Cesario’s interest in Orsino throughout the play is that it is hardly ever portrayed as a weakness of his “womanhood” (in the way that Olivia’s love for Ceasario is specifically said to be because of women’s weak hearts). The only scene that alludes to Cesario’s feelings for Orsino being due to his sex happens when he tells Orsino a false story about his “sister” who fell in love with a man but kept it to herself, rather than proclaiming it outward like men do (2.5.122-127).

The thing is, Cesario is proclaiming his love outwardly in this scene, and doing it incredibly dramatically. And while to a modern audience, this drama may read as an expression of femininity—a way of confirming that he is, in fact, a woman—in the context of the play, it doesn’t read that way at all. Orsino, as the Duke, is the male character expected to be the most typical representation of masculinity that we are shown, and he is incredibly emotional and dramatic throughout the entire play. Outward and flamboyant expressions of one’s feelings, especially romantic ones, are the expected way to present masculinity in the social culture of the story, and that’s exactly what Cesario does here. A scene which can easily come across as reaffirming Cesario’s sex as the truth is played in a way which ultimately reaffirms his gender as a man. Cesario, undeniably, has a big gay crush on Orsino.

But the drama doesn’t end there. As Cesario’s feelings for Orsino come to a boiling point, so too does Olivia’s dislike of Orsino. As she, for the final time, very directly rejects Orsino’s advances, Orsino becomes angry and demands he and Cesario leave, vowing to “sacrifice the lamb that I do love” (5.1.133) and Cesario, in his poor, gay desperation, says nothing would make him happier than to die at his hand. And well, what’s more queer than an unconventional love confession that sends the dominoes falling?

As Cesario is outed by the sudden appearance of his twin brother and Orsino puts together the pieces about Cesario’s claims that he loves an older woman who happens to be just like him, the play only manages to get queerer. In the end, Orsino never stops calling Cesario by his name, and in fact implies that Cesario should continue to live as a man, only presenting otherwise in public and when necessary, "Cesario, come, / For so you shall be while you are a man. / But when in other habits you are seen, / Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen" (5.1.408-411). While the word “queen” back in Early Modern England likely didn’t have the same queer connotation that it has today, its use is still incredibly telling. Orsino is a Duke; any theoretical wife he may have wouldn’t ever be a queen, she’d be a Duchess. The word queen hints at a sense of performance, a game of dress up. Orsino, without realizing, managed to fall in love with a man, but knows he can’t do that, not openly, anyway. And so long as Cesario is willing, and it seems he is, they can manage to have it both ways. It won’t be easy, and they will both likely hurt, but it is the compromise they must make to be as happy as they can be together.

The reality of queer relationships is this: we often must hide, disguise ourselves as good friends, lifelong companions, “roommates.” And when you’re trans and in a relationship with another trans person, as I have been several times, it complicates things. When I go out with my girlfriend, we are often mistaken as a gay male couple, though at times we are mistaken as a lesbian couple. The times we are (somewhat) correctly identified as a straight couple is when both of us are being misgendered. And sometimes, that’s for the best. It hurts, but we know that the fact that we aren’t passing in that moment is probably the safest thing for us. We wouldn’t change our relationship for the world, but sometimes you have to chew off your own leg to get out of the trap.

All that to say, Orsino loves a man—he knows this, Cesario knows this, even Olivia knows this. But what they all also know is that Orsino can’t love a man, and while it may seem problematic to a modern audience for Orsino to request that Cesario present as a woman in certain situations going forward, it’s not that unrealistic of a situation, even today, and it’s not something that Cesario would be realistically opposed to.

Queer love is something I have been blessed to experience. Loving and being loved by another trans person is unique and complicated and so deeply fulfilling in a way I don’t think a relationship with a cis person ever could be for me. My partner, knowing what it is like to be trans in this world, understands the intricacies of my experience better than anyone ever could. We don’t have to educate each other on what’s appropriate or not appropriate to say to a trans person, we don’t have to lecture on transphobia or the ridiculousness of the gender binary. We can simply be, mutually understanding when we need to make sacrifices for our safety, as painful as it will always be.

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Act Four: If Shakespeare Got It, Why Don’t We?

I first read Twelfth Night for a college Shakespeare course and one of the most fascinating parts about that was how apparent it was that people simply can’t see queerness unless it is specifically called out and labeled. The ambiguity of this story often left people stumbling over pronouns and names, feeling clearly satisfied when the story comes to its ultimate “straight” conclusion.

And that has been the queer experience for centuries: our stories are laid bare, clear as day, but so long as no explicit labels are made, we can be brushed under the rug, ignored. My partner showed me Hitchcock’s Rope recently, and I was astounded at the fact that audiences back in the day couldn’t see how blatantly queer it was. To me, and to all other queer people watching the film both back in 1948 and today, can see it, plain as day. The dinner sequence is at times like watching a playback of interactions I’ve had with my friends in 2024. The point being: I’m not for assimilation, in fact I think it’s the worst thing for our community. Movies like Rope and plays like Twelfth Night are exactly the kinds of media I think we need, not as a way to seem like we are just like straight people, but to be genuinely and wholeheartedly accepted as a distinct way of being. Queerness goes beyond who one chooses to share a bed with; it impacts every facet of who we are and how we navigate the world. We deserve stories where we are simply queer, for the sake of being queer, not for the purposes of lecture or to make straight people feel inclusive, but for the sheer purpose of existing.

And if Shakespeare in 1602 and Oscar Wilde in 1890 and Alfred Hitchcock in 1949 and John Waters in 1972 and Alice Oseman in 2016 could understand that, then I don’t think anyone has an excuse not to.

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Act Five: Silence = Death

As of writing this, just two days ago, Donald Trump was sworn in for the second time. On day one, as promised, he gave an executive order declaring that the U.S. will recognize only two genders: male and female. While, for the time being, this executive order, among many others he signed, has no legal bearing, the fear among my friends and community are palpable. This man and his followers care not for the law, nor for the constitution, nor for the lives of diverse people across the nation. We cannot rely on the hopes that someone in office will protect us. We must instead protect each other. Community, now more than ever, is of the utmost importance.

My biggest fear is giving in to the temptation to hide away. As it becomes progressively more dangerous to be openly trans, I understand very deeply the desire to go back into the closet, and for all of those who may choose to do so, I want to give you the highest praise. You might just be stronger than the rest of us, and I truly hope that you can still be yourself, even to just one other person. But if we all hide, if we don’t stand up and fight against transphobia, I’m afraid we may just be giving transphobes what they want.

In October, Turning Point USA held an event on my college campus for what they call “Real Women’s Day.” I was horrified and deeply livid that something like this was being allowed to happen. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever been as viscerally angry as I was when I saw them standing there at their promotional table in the weeks leading up to the event. In a fit of rage, I made dozens of posters calling out the people involved but more importantly, supporting trans people and trans lives, and I put them up all over the school the night before the event.

In the morning, most of them had been torn down. One of them was directly replaced by Turning Point’s table and their own vile posters.

I was devastated and furious. I felt hopeless, like nothing I could ever do would be enough, like I’d never really make an impact. But I heard word that the QSA was holding a protest that evening at the same time as the event, and there was no question about whether or not I would be there.

And what amazed me, outside of the sheer number of other queer people and allies who showed up, was the fact that other people had seen these posters. I overheard conversations from people who had been happy to see them up, who reported the people vandalizing them and tearing them down.

We outnumbered the people at the Turning Point event by at least three times.

As I walked to class in the morning, the poster which Turning Point had replaced with their own had been duct taped back up, up high and out of reach of most people. In bold blue and pink text, slightly torn and very wrinkled, my poster, which I had been so devastated to see gone, read: TRANS PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE AND WILL ALWAYS BE HERE. YOU CANNOT ERASE US.

About the author

Simon Kelley is a trans activist and poet. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor's in English and spends his free time reading, writing, and contemplating the universe. His poetry can be found in an upcoming issue of Zaum Magazine in the spring.

About the artist

Mike Callaghan’s work focuses on fragmentation, rearrangement and reinterpretation — considering the intimate cycles of self-preservation and mortality — in a moment when frameworks of relationships are at once prominently visible and exhaustively hidden.

His work has appeared in exhibitions including at Griffin Museum of Photography, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Soho Photo Gallery, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Gallery 44, Propeller Gallery, John Aird Gallery, Elysium Gallery and PhotoIreland.

Also, his photographs have appeared in a number of publications, including ZYZZYVA, Der Greif, Barzakh, Otoliths, Rhino Poetry, Streetcake Magazine, Critica, and The Shanghai Literary Review.

Mike earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.