An Audience with Buck

I felt a bit sick with nerves when I set off for Buck Angel’s meet and greet at Kudos yesterday. My plan was I would get there quite early so there would be less people there and I would get a better chance to talk to him. I didn’t realise that arriving within the first half hour would mean than me and my escort, Mr Wee Don Kerr, would be the only ones there and thus have an hour-long private audience!

I was scared I wouldn’t know what to say so I bought him a cigar as an ice breaker. I know sod all about cigars so had to ask advice from the shop man. Of course this meant I was sold one that, while not quite top of the range, certainly didn’t come cheaply, but Buck’s little eyes lit up when I presented it, so it was well worth the expense in the end.

After thank you hugs we all sat down and I said how I enjoyed Buck’s appearance on This Morning. When I heard he was appearing on mid-morning primetime with Fern Britten and Philip Scofield, I admit I had feared for the worst. But the interview was fantastic and it seems they are much cooler than I given them credit for. They both seemed generally interested in Buck’s story of growing up a girl then having enormous social problems during adolescence leading onto drug and alcohol problems in his early twenties.

In fact, this seemed like the only part of the show Philip Schofield perked up, he spent much of the first half looking like he was waiting for the reaper to take him, but when Buck came along he chatted happily and revealed an impressive knowledge of gender issues. Go Philip!

They were bold enough to talk frankly and about his genitalia. While Buck had been primed to be polite and talk about his “bottom”, Fern proved that she’s not one to choke on “penis” and was bandying the word around with gay abandon. He was even allowed to plug his live sex shows which he says would never, ever happen in America.

We were joined by a couple of Buck’s friends and the conversation led to the wider topic of gender, transgender, how boring and tame gay people are these days and how uptight they are about how they are represented in the media. Buck gets lots of hostility from people who chose to assume he is representing them, when he’s really not interested in representing anyone but himself.

I was asked how I knew Buck which gave me a prime opportunity to pull out some copies of Tranny Hag. I hadn’t had a chance to show Buck a copy and he was really interested, scanned through it from cover to cover, asked questions about my articles on Pete Burns and Peaches Christ and said he thought it was a great mag. He’s also offered to advertise in the next issue. Hurrah!

There were lots of photographs taken but I have to wait to get them from the photographer, so in the meantime I have to make do with the one above. Don’t we look lovely?