Kae Tempest says trans people are ‘obsessed over by people void of humanity’

Poet and playwright said ‘I don’t understand how my body, our bodies, became a territory for war’

Kae Tempest has opened up about their decision to come out as non-binary in the summer of 2020.

Speaking at length for the first time about the subject, the hip-hop poet and playwright – formerly known as Kate Tempest – said that “coming out has been huge”.

In August 2020, in a Twitter post, Tempest announced their name is now Kae and explained that, going forward, they would be using they/them pronouns.

“I have tried,” they wrote at the time, “to be what I thought others wanted me to be so as not to risk rejection. This hiding from myself has led to all kinds of difficulties in my life. And this is a first step towards knowing and respecting myself better.”

In a new interview with The Guardian, Tempest said coming out was a “beautiful but difficult thing to do publicly”, adding: “It’s hard enough to say: ‘Hey look, I’m trans or non-binary,’ to loved ones. And I have this twin life beyond my friends and family.”

They said: “It’s difficult talking to you because I know how this goes. What’ll happen next. Trans people are used in these weird ways to express people’s deep fears about other things; obsessed over by people void of humanity…

“I don’t understand how my body, our bodies, became a territory for war. These bodies we’ve spent lifetimes living in.”

Tempest continued: “I don’t want to say the wrong thing for my people.

“When trans issues are spoken about in the press, it’s often not trans people doing the speaking. So in this rare moment there’s a trans person talking about trans things, I don’t want to f*** up or waste the opportunity.”

Tempest talked about how, until they hit puberty, they “lived as a boy”. They said: “People around me would say, ‘You’re a tomboy, you’ll grow out of it.’ I internalised that, and hoped I would… Puberty was disorientating. It brought a lot of pain to me.”

Tempest’s fourth solo album, The Line Is a Curve, will be released on 8 April.

They were named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society and their albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. They also won the Ted Hughes Award for their play Brand New Ancients in 2013.