Why did a Tory MP write a trans-activist musical?

There have been rumblings on X this week concerning Tory MP Katie Lam’s, er, ‘theatrical’ past. A resurfaced article from 2021 introduces her as the co-writer of a musical adaptation of The Danish Girl, a 2015 film starring Eddie Redmayne. The story follows Lili Elbe, one of the first people in the world to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.

Speaking to Pink News, Lam professed her commitment to ‘telling a joyful trans story. Lili… found a surgeon who believed and understood her, and was able to make her emotional reality a physical reality; and all a hundred years ago.’ Lili, she also notes, died during her final operation, which is not much of a ‘joyful’ outcome, though this seems not to have deterred Lam and her co-creators.

The musical was reportedly made possible by funds from the Cultural Recovery Fund, a UK government initiative to support ‘cultural spaces’ during Covid. According to the Pink News headline, the musical aimed to ‘right Eddie Redmayne’s wrongs’ by casting an actual transwoman in the role of Lili, unlike in the film. The historical accuracy ended there, however. Had the play gone ahead, the titular ‘Danish girl’ in Lam’s musical was due to be race-swapped and played by a black actor.

Certain sections of the internet have taken the musical as proof that Lam – now a darling of the right, even spoken of as a potential Tory leader – is far more wet and woke than she is letting on. She’s been accused of ‘playing right-wing’ and ‘jumping on the bandwagon’, much like fellow Tories Robert Jenrick and Liz Truss, who were once squishy liberals before rebranding as right-wing rent-a-gobs. With distrust of the Tory Party running so deep, this is perhaps understandable.

The real story here, however, is the collective mind loss the West experienced in the early 2020s. It was around this time that JK Rowling, author of the best-selling book series of all time, was receiving threats of rape and bodily harm for stating that men cannot become women. Comedy writer Graham Linehan had his West End show axed for exactly the same reason. Even the biggest names in the arts and entertainment were expected to bow down to The Message.

Indeed, the fact that a rising star of the Conservative Party was also swept up in the trans mania shows what a powerful hold this ideology once had. The Overton Window on trans may have widened considerably in recent years, but we should never forget just how narrow it once was – and how far we have come to restore sanity and common sense.

Georgina Mumford is an editorial assistant at spiked.