Up a Road Slowly - Picking A Side, Part Two.

One year ago, I took screwed my courage to the sticking place and decided to make a phonecall. I'd been prevaricating for a while, but decided that it needed to be done.

Actually, I picked a bad time to call and - not wanting to cause worry them - I didn't make a big deal about it and said I'd call back later. Then, I scheduled one of my encyclopaedically long texts to be delivered to them both of my parents the next morning - the jist of which was, "Not in fact a girl. Pretty sure I'm non-binary. Probably gender fluid. Thought you should know."

Yes, I did include the links.

Thirteen days later, the entire internet knew. 

This is less to do with the fact my parents are terrible gossips, or demon bloggers with a penchant for outing their children than the fact that I am rash, impulsive, and the human version of the expression, "without further ado." Basically, I lost my temper on Twitter and what started out as a rant aimed at Germaine Greer turned into me shamefacedly saying more or less the same thing I'd told my parents less than a fortnight earlier.

In retrospect, this was a mistake.

As with stories about religious conversions, people like transition stories to be neat and finite. It is a genre of absolutes and binaries - male and female, pre-transition and post-transition - a genre of certainties. One says I always knew, I always felt. The end point is a clear, an obvious stopping point, the movement from one category to another - the pay off.

I don't wish to say that no trans people ever experienced gender and transition that way - I'm sure many have - however, that particular story has a certain cultural capital. It is the accepted narrative, the story that one is pressured to present if one wishes for support or medical transition, the one that flatters cisnormative and patriarchal ideas of gender. The more often this story is repeated, the more it becomes default, and the more that recently out trans people are expected to conform to it in order to be perceived as valid.

And the harder it becomes to recognise what is going on if you don't quite fit the model.

My journey to tranition is a mess. 

I couldn't say that this time last year. I had to be together, to be bullet proof in the face of saying something pretty major about my identity on a public platform. But how I felt then was just a brief moment of calm in the middle of a life-long muddle.

After all, I was pretty sure I wasn't a boy. I wanted to be one, sometimes. It would have been simpler. If I could just fool them in thinking I was one of them, then I could have lived with that - but I knew I'd be faking it.

And as to being a girl? Well, people kept telling me I was, so I supposed they must just be right. There was no repugnance there, per se, just a discomfort - the sense of jumper that was too tight around the cuffs, a skirt that kept riding up and tripping me, a label with a panic-edge scratch on the back of my neck. I had to trick them, too. Pretend I knew the rules when I didn't.

It took me a long time to work it out, an embarrasingly long time. I edged and shifted around the cracks of what I could do. My life - from the age of twelve to twenty one - was a long process of working out a kind of femininty I could inhabit without turning myself in to a quivering, self-hating wreck.

I assumed that this was me growing in to womanhood, that it was an Anne of Green Gables affair, that I would emerge from this tumultuous journey, ready to take up the mantle of adulthood, all the awkwardness grown out of me. That I would rebel, but keep my rebellion within certain limits. That I would thereby succeed. This is the cultural myth we give non-conforming AFAB children. We tell them that they will soften, the will learn, and will eventually prove themselves. We tell them that they will get there.

Instead, what I got was a series of costume changes, a womanhood that was entirely performative, that had no substance beneath its layers of ruffled lace or fragile silk. It was less an identity than a set of masks that dodged and evaded such absolute terms as "woman". I was a flower child, a Ren Fayre type, a tomboy, chic vampire, rocker, manic pixie, punk, goth, earth mother, pantomime boy, or riot grrrl.

And, of course, I cross-dressed quite a bit.

I was mildly notorious for all this - showing up massively over-dressed, like the whole world was my costume party. I was striking, unconventional and, frankly, weird. Then, just when you were wondering what I'd pull from the wardrobe next, I'd appear in standard gear - black t-shirt, a paint-spattered army surplus shirt, a pair of torn jeans and my hair over my face. Sorry - but I'm not a performing monkey.

Because every time a role or identity or performance began to chafe, I'd chuck it back in the cupboard and pull out another one. Yeah, I never felt like I belonged, that I was entirely convincing. There'd still be the days when I couldn't look at - let alone touch - my breasts or my stomach, the days when I'd look at my face and body and ache for something different, when I'd yank handfuls of my hair and shout about just hacking it all off, but hey. Time for another costume change.

You can survive like that. You can survive like that for a very long time.

Until you have children.

It's not just that getting pregnant makes your body do that horrible puberty thing where it changes without you asking it to, not just that your breasts swell up and you stomach bulges out and your skin gets spotty and your muscles melt away. It's not that, afterwards, you're tired all the time and can't be bothered with hair or make-up.

Actually, that (or most of it) was pretty good for me. I stopped giving a fuck. I stopped seeing myself so much through other people's eyes (Do I make a convincing woman? Were they fooled?) learned to rejoice in slobbishness and practicality. But the costume changes were harder.

No - I can't wear that, it has a fiddly side zip and I can't breast feed in it. Recycled silk tears if you wear a sling over it. Floaty layers of dragonfly colours snag on changing bags and push-chairs. Tight lacing means you can't bend down to hear what they're saying. Long skirts tangle in your legs when you go from standing and kneeling. Mirrors stitched in to clothes scratch little faces. Velvet does not appreciate having noses wiped on it. And the second there was clumsiness, mess, rips and shabbiness, I wasn't convincing any more. The mask was ripped away and underneath...?

No. Shrink. Find a niche where you can hide from it.

My in-use wardrobe became three pairs of jeans and an endless succession of black t-shirts, my social circle to the other mothers at parent and toddler groups. And there, I began to see just how very binary the world still was. I'd forced myself to look away from it, to see presentation as play, as dress up. But for the first time since my early teens, I was surrounded by women - real women - who apparently didn't feel like they were faking, who said things like, "we're all girls together" and actually seemed to mean it. People who believed gender was innate and meaningful.

Meanwhile, I was trying to be a gender neutral parent, trying to bring up the Sprogs with a wide range of interests and the knowledge that they could do and wear and be anything they wanted. I pushed (very gently) against the waves of pink that threatens to engulf AFAB children and put blue ever so slightly forward, hoping that this would counteract the inevitable wider socialiasation. More than that, I pressed for green, red, yellow, purple, orange. I read them books with a wide variety of protagonists who did gender non-conforming things. I bought them lots of animal toys, bricks, musical instruments, duplo - but very few cars and even fewer dolls.

And I had to face other parents saying things like, "That's right dear, pink for girls and blue for boys."* I had to hear every, "typical boy" and "daddy's little princess", had to nod vaguely at every "Well, you know what men are like. I think women are just more ____, you know?" When, in truth, I didn't know, and was obliquely offended by the implication.

I spent a lot of time getting angry on the Sprogs' behalf.

And, to preserve my sanity, I got on Twitter and made all sorts of interesting friends, and found myself involved in intersectional feminism - rather than the second wave variety on which I'd been raised. I discovered and read and educated myself. I learned about queer theory, trans rights. Things formented. I decided this was all very well, but I was too far along in my life to do anything like that any more. That this was great for the kids, but I was more use, more radical, as a Gender Non-Conforming woman.

My body returned to its usual shape. I found I could - occasionally - wear my nice clothes when the children were about, provided we weren't being too active. I stopped breastfeeding. The end of nappies was just visibile on the far horizon. I tried to grab with both hands the next bit of the journey, the bit which all the stories promised would come next - the unconventional but totally respectable adult womanhood.

 And I found my tenuous peace with my dangling mammary glands had come to an end. That I hated the weakness in my shoulders and my core. That I had an anxiety attack if I went out in a dress unless I'd spent an unconscionably long time getting my 'mask' in place. I tried to ignore it making a desperate bid for femme-ness, for my birthright - even as I acknowledge all that was rubbish. I was desperate for confirmation, compliments on how well I did this woman thing, but getting them sent me into a spiral of self-hatred.

I made a few stupid decisions.

I tried very hard to be normal for my children.

And one night, sick and furious and reeling from a tough year, I sat in the bath cut of all my long, red hair with nail scissors. It felt incredible. Men hated it.

I hit Google, trying to work out what was wrong with me, why I couldn't pull it off any more. Why people were seeing through me, recongising me for a confused kid playing dress-up rather than the confident woman I wanted to portray. I wondered why the fury I felt at every "it's a girl thing" felt less like an attack on the Sprogs, and more like a knife under my own skin. I wondered why, when I kicked off about it, I raged not about essentialism or sexism, but the gender binary.

In retrospect, I am astonished at how slow I was.

My partner listened to my rants and my angsting. My searches changed from things likes, "male identified woman" and "am I a man or a woman" to "diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria" and, finally, "how do I tell if I'm gender queer?"

It took months of emotional upset and yet more angst. If you see my blog posts from this period, I use strange (and probably inappropriate) circumlocutions to talk about bodies and gender - things which still interest me a lot. I'm letting them stand because they show a point on my journey, to remind everyone that no-one is born knowing everything.

My partner assured me that - whatever I did, whatever I decided - he would still love me. With him, all labels were temporary, open to change and flux as I tried to work it out. I started lifting weights and looked in to taking up a martial art. I looked at the cost of binders, built up shoes. Sometimes, I stole his clothes. Then I realised that I'd always done that.

Once, mid-freak-out, I called my sister and she talked me down and gave me love and reassurance. After a time - a very long time - I had something approaching a label (gender fluid) and a sense that it probably applied to me. I had a list of websites and resources, and a binder on order from eBay. I was seeing my parents at Christmas. I didn't want to hide - not from them. I also definitely did not want to come out on Christmas dinner after far too much wine and my usual absence of tact. ("So, I'm BI!" - yes, thank you for the memory.)

I did not have pronouns. I did not have a plan or a referel to a GIC. I had no real opinion on hormones or top surgery (second question my mum asked). I had no idea how this was going to affect my life, my relationships, my self. I'd not even really squared it with my faith. All I actually had was a starting point, a label, a subject heading.

I've spent the year trying to work out what to write underneath that. 

Slowly, tenuously.

But after outing myself on Twitter - then following it up with a blog post which is even more popular than my one about Alan Garner -  I have done a lot of that in public. More than I'm comfortable with.

Currently, I am in the unenviable position that most people in my daily life perceive me as cis female, but that my gender identity is one of the first things that comes up when you google my name. I still have no idea how to correct someone who misgenders me - and I remain by turns rubbish and embarrasingly blasé about coming out.

But I'm getting there. I'm on my feet and I'm fighting it. You all help - lovely people. If I'm ever awkward about it, it's because I've put myself in this place, not because you aren't wonderful.

If you want to know how I'm getting on: 

I have pronouns now (they/their/them), and a noun (I am an enby.) I've started using the label non-binary trans. I still don't know how I feel about the medical aspects of transition, but have switched Ms for Mx, and am lobbying for the use of Myr as an alternative to Sir or Ma'am.

More importantly: in my small, old-fashioned town, I get a lot of funny looks and the occasional slur yelled from passing cars. Then again, I was goth for most of my adolescence so that's nothing new. I'm more concerned that - now I present as fairly masculine - my partner and I will get hassle for being a same sex couple, and that serves to drive home how much privilege I've had in my life thus far. Also, I'm exhauseted by the balance of being 'authentic' and remaining safe when it comes to things like changing rooms and public toilets - where there often isn't a gender-neutral option.

However, I get less bog-standard street harrasment (WIN) and while people do try to figure me out, they do it more through intense and disconcerting stares than intrusive questions. I've also noticed a slightly increased tendency for my Martial Arts teachers to use my name rather than call me Ma'am, and for unfamiliar shop keepers to avoid honorifics all together.

 Oh, and disapproving matrons give me 'the look' a lot. For the first time in my life, I am not cowed. You are not seeing through me - you are seeing me.

No, I probably wouldn't have chosen to do it this way. What's more, I worry that sometimes I go on about this whole gender thing too much - we're here for the vampires and the folk songs, right? But if my being out and loud about it helping anyone else struggling with this, then, honestly, it's worth it.

Besides, we all know that genies don't go back in to bottles.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Yes. This happened.

Review: The Hunger Games

As always when reviewing YA, I feel I should state that not being the intended audience puts something of a dampener on my relationship with it. Worse, I can no longer claim to be au fait and can therefore no longer assess it in context of its peers.

My gods, is it possible to sound more pompous?

Well, anyway, I really quite enjoyed The Hunger Games. Roaringly compulsive, I read the entire trilogy over three days. Collins' world is sharp, frank and horrifying - although yes, it pales in comparison to other speculative and real-world settings - as a preteen it would have led to the kind of horrified captivation that would have kept me from sleeping. Collins presents - through Katniss and Peeta - a frank idealism that is both powerless and inflammatory against the corruption of the world they inhabit.

However, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay are not equal. Neither sequal has the claustrophobic intensity of the orignal novel - by comparison, Catching Fire is directionless and perfunctory, whereas Mockingjay rushes along a adventurous thriller of a plot that overshadows what should have been the emotional heart of the novel. Yet I get the impression that the books were intended to be distinct in mood, genre and pacing. They almost need to be vert different books, to attempt very different things. Whether they succeed or not is moot - as a cynical reader, I was unconvinced. As a teenager, more open-hearted and engaged, I may have felt differently.
 
The greatest strength of the novels, though, was neither their plot nor their emotional intensity. What holds them together is the character of Katniss, whose stark, occasionally abrasive character convinces entirely. Collins unashamedly presents Katniss as a child warped by the dreadful circumstances of her youth.

At once sharply worldly and desperately naive, she is a survivor whose faults are redeemed by her commitment to a better world. Even more refreshingly, Katniss' emotions amd relationships are transient and adolescent - their intensity informed by the horrific circumstances in which they develop, rather than some high ideal of being 'more real' than those of her peers. More still, Katniss mimics and manipulates her own feelings in order to survive, an experience I remember keenly (although under less deadly conditions) from my own adolescence. Katniss' kisses move neither heaven nor earth. Instead, she acknowledges that they feel nice, and she would maybe like to have another. You know, when her life isn't in direct danger.

From what I know of relationships formed against a backdrop of war and uncertainty (not so very far in this country's past, if we're honest), it is this very lack of sparkle and that let's us know what is happening is 100% real. Without spoilers, the ending satisfied, too, refusing to tidy away the bodies or the trauma of the narrative. What we are left with is not some ride into the sunset but survivors clinging to one another, hoping, one day, to heal.

So, on balance, not flawless, but The Hunger Games series provides a clever and engaging exploration of how circumstance shapes us, of how we are always responsible for our actions, but perhaps not the way those are used. An enjoyable read, and some pretty awesome YA.

What I've been reading: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, To Kill a Mockingbird, Preacher: Until the End of the World

I finished Gone With the Wind this week. My review is that the last chapter had my hands involuntarily clenching into fists so often that my knuckles started to ache. Let's be done with it.

So, now I've finally driven an iron stake through the heart of that dreadful book (not literally - I what do you take me for?) I've been free to follow my own projects and catch up with some real reading. Yay!

And, you know, it's felt like the Gods of Literature have been rewarding my for my perseverance. I have just read three books (three!) which demanded that desperate, breathless haste, three books that demanded I surrender those so-called necessities of sleep, food and personal hygiene, three books that were pretty damned close to flawless. I honestly don't think I've had a streak this good before. Kind of frightened of breaking it.

So, these books:

These 'Penguin Modern Classics' covers are bit boring.

I have been meaning to read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle for years. It's one of those books you hear whispers about, the sort of book that's mentioned in interviews by writers that you love, or tucked into book reviews as a standard against which someone fails or succeeds. Bookshops tend not to carry it, um and arr about it being in print. If you try to get a copy from the library you'll discover that there's only one in the county, and they'll take three months sending it to you.

Worth it. Oh, it is worth it.

Will you judge me if I say it's charming? Even if I assure you I'm not gushing or being sentimental? This book is like a spell, one that weaves itself about you, much as the narrator Merricat rings her house with protective amulets.

Yes, Merricat. At first, I didn't trust her, viewed her with the same aggressive curiosity, the same unease, that she gets from the villagers. As the novel unfurled (and it does unfurl, like something natural, like a leaf,) as it became clear that Merricat is not the kind of person one can trust, I began to do so. Caught in her hostile, lonely, beautiful world, captured by her strange, angry magics, I was captivated by her, began to like her, love her, trust her. Oh, Merricat may be a villain, but she is more faithful, more consistent than any of the other characters in the book. We see their grotesquenesses through her eyes. Her life of rejection, of isolation, of otherness we recognise; we know her intense wild joy from the shadow-versions of it that we have lived.

Or that was how I felt about it, anyway.

It is a book about food, how the way it is portioned out, created, corrupted, denied, the way it is analogous with love. It is a mythic book, one where the ineffectual, childlike rituals of our narrator slowly become a potent magic, one with a power to shape the world, to bind Merricat herself- the true 'terrible one' at the heart of the novel. I could write about this for hours. I should probably stop now.

On to another book about rural American life, another bood with a precocious, tomboyish narrator, another book I had been planning to read for a while. Although, I suspect the comparisons should stop here because the novel is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

I'd always been a bit dubious about reading this. You need to understand that, in my mother's view, Atticus Finch was basically the perfect man. When it came down to it, Atticus Finch played be Gregory Peck was the equivalent of... I don't know... probably Henry Tilney played by Paul McGann. From the comparison, you can probably guess that my mother and I have values regarding these things.

Well, I shouldn't have waited so long. The book is as good as the hype, better maybe. I could scarcely go two pages without finding a sentence, a paragraph, an exchange, that I wanted to read aloud to whatever long suffering person was in the room with me.

As to Atticus Finch? No, I would not leave home for Atticus Finch. I can understand why someone would, though. His attitudes to gender and race are not modern, but are about as progressive as is possible for the time the novel is set. He also shows a remarkably accurate (albeit slightly paternalist) understanding of the very modern concept of privilege. A wonderful, beautiful, powerful book. I'd recommend it to anyone, but particularly as an antidote to the poison that was Gone With the Wind.

Last, but by no means least, we reach Preacher: Until the End of the World. Whereas this week's other books are tender, melancholy and poetic, while they focus on isolation, outsider statues, the effects of hatred and human compassion, Preacher is gleefully, viciously aggressive. While its main theme is a careful, moral exploration of religion and power, if it has an overall message, that message is that violence solves things. I won't pretend it isn't dark and nasty, that it doesn't splash itself across our minds with glorious, visceral impact. That is kinda the point.

Okay, it is not the book to read if you are triggered by... well, anything. It is bloodthirsty,it is vicious, it gives you a world that will kick you when you are down, one that will only back off it you kick back harder than you can imagine. In terms of the series, it's far better than the first instalment. I adored this book, but it's one of those when, on the brink of recommending it, I realise that it would not be everyone's cup of tea.

Steve Dillon's art is, of course, wonderful. There is a power and clarity to his lines that suits Garth Ennis' script perfectly. There are very few comic book artists who draw faces so expressively. There are even fewer who can make someone being shot in the head look so beautiful. Ennis' work - which didn't entirely convince me in Gone to Texas - is far stronger here, working with a wit, confidence and subtlety which drew me in from the very start.

I had real trouble finding an image that was neither too horrific, or too spoilerific. Still, lovely stuff.

Unashamedly violent, this book is not without tenderness, not, indeed, without a guiding morality. The scenes between Jesse and Tulip are painful in their sweetness, the balancing of moral relativity and moral absolute careful. There is some questionable content, sure - some jokes made that perhaps would not be made today, that perhaps should not have been made then. Some assumptions that aspects of the plot imply gave me pause. I can see this book being problematic, if not outright hurtful. But it is pervaded by a sense of joyous and perverse irresponsibility, a glee in showing the nightmares of the conservative mind that I personally did not find it offensive. Even if I did, I might forgive it: moving, harrowing, and wonderfully crafted, it also manages to be great fun, and that's better than you're going to get nine times out of ten.

Approach with caution,  but if it's your kind of thing? Hell, let's tall about books.

The Hero's Journey: What's really going on in the Labyrinth (part 2)

So, supernatural entities have been invoked and provoked, and our heroine is off on a dream quest to restore her baby brother to his rightful home.

And, speaking in generalities, Labyrinth is a dream quest in the fine old style. Inhabitants must be befriended, puzzles solved, fears overcome. What's more - as so many have pointed out - Sarah's journey takes place through an echo of her childhood room, through the country of her unconscious mind. The baby's cry becomes a call to her, and she journeys towards it and – the makers of the film would have us believe – responsibility.

But the implications of what is happening here are much more subtle, more interesting that that. We are not simply dealing with a dream landscape, we are dealing with the territory of childhood turned against its rightful ruler. A dark force is in Sarah's imagination, controlling it, manipulating her through it, and at every turn, Sarah forces it back, with courage, with kindness, with ingenuity.

This should really be a picture of the party at the end.

Still, so far, so Hero's Journey. It brings her right to the centre of the Labyrinth, where she faces her shadow and speaks those immortal words, “You have no power over me.” The malevolent force is banished, and she can return, as she does, to the real world. 

But to leave it there would be to forget the magical puppet party where the heroes and villains get together to throw confetti and be friendly. I'd always been bothered by that, felt it was a cop out. Felt that she somehow got both worlds, that she turned down magic, but still got to play with it. Then I thought about it properly, thought about what it means: she's safe getting down with the Fire Gang, Ludo can party with his ex-tormenters. What it means is that this isn't hostile country any more, that she isn't dealing with enemies. What that means is that Sarah's imagination is hers to control. That she is the queen of all this, like she always should have been. She's in charge now - not that rat who calls himself Jareth.

Come on, that's a brilliant prize. And she deserves it.

Still, if this were all it were, then the makers of the film would be right. A coming of age story, a powerful one, a beautiful one, but nothing particularly special. A girl grows up and overcomes the dark side of her imagination. Yes, she takes control, and by implication, learns to be less selfish, accepts her role as a surrogate mother. But I said this story was special, and two things make it so: the first is Bowie's performance as Jareth (more of that later), the second is a sequence that occurs just before the final confrontation.

Forget about the baby: What's really going on in the Labyrinth.

Reading G.K Chesterton's frankly biazarre introduction of The Man who Was Thursday, I came to the realisation that I'm not much of one for slavish deference to an authorial purpose in any story-form.

It's all very well for Chesterton to insist that his work is not an allegory when the text states, with all the subtlety of a bill-hook to the throat, that it is. Likewise, Mr Lewis can declaim to the heavens that his work is purely allegorical and nothing else, but... well, we'll let the text bear its own witness to that¹. A text is an artefact which is mediated by many viewpoints. Of course the author's conscious intention, their decision of where to focus, what to show, guides the narrative and the reader along its path, but...

None of us exist in a vacuum. Culture, tradition, unconscious thoughts, will shape a story as much as a writer's intention. And when a narrative artefact – like a folk-song, like a screenplay - is passed through many, many hands which shape, change affect before it even reaches its audience, then, oh, then, we can get something really special.

So, a little while back, the brilliant i09 published a link to a rather ingenuous piece of back-engineering  which tried to lay to rest the sheer WTF the viewer is left with after watching that absolutely superb film, Labyrinth.

Now, before we go any further I should probably come clean about my credentials as one of those women. You know the ones, the kind who owe their sexual awakening to staring rapt at David Bowie prancing about in eye-liner, a fright wig and eyewateringly tight tights. So when I talk about Labyrinth, I have a tendency to.... um....

oooh....

Er... sorry.

Where was I?

Right!

Anyway, that article is followed in the comments by a bunch of (weighs word choices) sticklers who insist that we already knew what Labyrinth was about, that any good geek would, at some point, would have plugged into google 'wait – what the hell. What was actually happening there?' and come up with a nice neat little explanation².

If you want that explanation, here you go: Labyrinth is a partial adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There. It's about how Sarah has to get over her resentment of her little step-brother and start treating him properly. The breakdown of the film plot is:

1. Sarah's actress mother abandons her to live a life of romance with a beautiful actor who bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain Mr Bowie.
2. Devastated by this abandonment, she retreats into a fantasy world, idolising her absent mother, romanticising her affair. In the meantime, she gets involved with drama at school, being cast in a play called 'The Labyrinth' where a beautiful princess has to rescue her step-brother from the realm of the Goblin King. While doing this, she develops a crush on her drama teacher who also has a striking likeness to a particular famous musician actor with the most amazing eyes....
   

   

   .......

3.  .... sorry. You lost me again.
4. The Goblin King – who actually exists and is in love with Sarah – wants this child for some specific reason that is VITALLY IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT, goddammit!³
5. Sarah is rehearsing the play in the park and having trouble remembering the last line.
6. Dragged away from rehearsals AGAIN, Sarah fights with her stepmother, is left to babysit. Discovering one of her toys has been nicked and the baby will not stop crying, she imitates the play and summons the Goblin King to take her brother away..
7. Enter David Bowie in a big cloak and much glitter. Terms of a mystical contest are struck.
8. Sarah navigates the Labyrinth, befriends the Goblins and, despite dangers, trickery and discouragement, ***spoilers*** rescues the baby using the lines from the play that she had trouble remembering. Before she does so the Goblin King confesses his love and offers her an eternity of magic.

9. 

   Who would not want this child?

   She arrives back home, gives the baby the toy he stole earlier, packs away her Princess music box and takes down the press clippings of her mother from around the mirror. This, it is clear, is all behind her now.
10. However, Sarah is not quite ready to leave behind all the 'good' bits of her imagination. All the goodies and baddies from the Labyrinth, minus the Goblin King, have a big party in Sarah's room.
11. Baby Toby is safe.... however, the Goblin King will return to seize this baby that he wants SO MUCH.

Now, this makes a lovely, neat little morality tale. It's all about, oh, growing up, taking responsibility and not bargaining away your younger siblings to morally dubious supernatural entities just because they've been borrowing your teddy bears. As an explanation, however, it falls short, mostly because almost none of it's in the fucking film in the first place. It's all very well for Chesterton to exclaim, “I called it The Man who was Thursday: A NIGHTMARE! It's not supposed to be taken as anything more than that!” because, well, credit where it's due, that is actually the bloody title, but to try and control the interpretation of a film based upon stuff that isn't actually in the film? Oh, go and read some Barthes.

What makes this worse is that Labyrinth, against the film maker's best intentions, against their stated desire to tell a certain story in a certain way, Labyrinth, I tell you, persisted in being one of those white-hot, cultural-narrative, finger-on-the-pulse, don't-step-too-close-or-it-will-burn-you, vital bloody stories of which we do not have enough. Labyrinth is a story about a young woman discovering her sexuality but – again, again, oh be still my beating heart – from the inside. We see it through the young woman's flesh, the young woman's eyes. We feel the male gaze, the judging, older female gaze which tells us what we should be - “Go back to your room and play with your toys,” “You should be having dates at your age”, and we feel it scald our as-yet-untouched-skin.

And, of course, again, it is white, cis, middle class, heteronormative femininity. It isn't for everyone, it isn't inclusive, but damn it, when even the most privileged of women have to make do a scant handful of stories that show us as we actually are, they they too precious, too fucking scarce not to be celebrated. So, let's get this clear Labyrinth is a woman's story, and as one woman to anyone who's listening: Toby is the King of all McGuffins.