The Pioneering Trevor Project Is Just One Thread in the Ever-Searching Life of Celeste (formerly James) Lecesne
The creator of the seminal short film "Trevor" and the LGBTQ youth suicide prevention nonprofit on a life of show business, spiritual seeking and embracing gender fluidity in one's sixties.
Happy midsummer, Caftan readers! Hotter Than July was the name of Stevie Wonder’s 1980 album, but I’ve been feeling decidedly blah-er than July as I continue to recover from stomach surgery (it’s all too ick to go into, but by this point I’m basically over the worst and approaching baseline, sans permission to go back to the gym quite yet, which is driving me nuts). At least I’ve had the July 25 debut of my fifth novel, Speech Team, to look forward to. Here it is!
Might I be so bold as to ask you to consider ordering it on the link I posted just above the cover image? The link is for Bookshop, which sources new titles from independent bookstores, thus keeping them alive in the shadow of the 800-pound gorilla, Lady Amazon. And might I also importune you, if you do read and enjoy it, to post about it (if you do that sort of thing), leave some nice words on Goodreads (where thankfully it’s already accruing some nice words) or simply tell people about it? Literary fiction is a space heavily dominated by (mostly straight) women and I really need my gays to show up for a book that is very much about—among other things, like awkward high school reunions and sadistic former teachers—the gay life journey.
As are these Caftan interviews! Or at least I try to make them so. I love this month’s interview. Some of you, especially the New Yorkers among you, might be familiar with the name James Lecesne, who not only created the Oscar-winning 1995 short film “Trevor” about a little gay boy torn between his love of Diana Ross and the urge to kill himself in the face of homophobia… (here is the film in its entirety):
…but also the extraordinary nonprofit that grew out of it, The Trevor Project, which, starting in the late 1990s, almost singlehandedly put the issue of LGBTQ youth mental health and suicide prevention on the map and has probably saved countless young queer lives with its crucial 24-7 hotline.
Out of TPP, Lecesne then grew The Future Perfect Project, which works with young LGBTQ people nationwide to nurture and then provide platforms for their original stories.
Both are such remarkable organizations—please consider making a donation to them, as I have done, in part to thank Celeste for doing this Caftan interview.
Celeste? Yes, Celeste. A few years ago, James began using their true middle name (origin story to follow) as they embraced, in their sixties, their nonbinary self (that story to follow as well). If you’ve been nonplussed by exactly what it means to be nonbinary, as opposed to transgender, I think Celeste’s telling of what it has meant to them will make a lot of sense. (It certainly did for me. How many of us gay men have gone through life feeling not exactly that we were women but certainly that we were not adequately“men,” at least in the sense of what 20th century American society told us that meant?)
But Celeste also has a really fun story to tell about being an artist and a showperson in 1970s, 80s and 90s New York City—and, resonatingly for me, about not just plowing through life chasing fame, fortune and other forms of affirmation, but instead seeking life’s true meaning and purpose, through various spiritual pathways. I noticed a motif in our conversation, which is that Celeste is attuned to, and often finds, clues or signals from the universe as to what their next step should be, and those signals have guided their path the past many decades, as you ‘ll soon see.
As I’m sure you know, this is an extremely difficult time right now for many LGBTQ youth (especially those who are transgender and/or nonbinary) and their families in many states that are passing, or at least attempting to pass, cruel suppressions of not only their self-expression and efforts to find books and art in which they see themselves, but of their ability to seek healthcare to grow as their authentic selves. It really pisses me off. That’s why this was a particularly good time to talk to Celeste, not only because they are spearheading important work against those forces, but because they also see a more optimistic side of the story, as you’ll soon see.
Enjoy July’s Caftan chat! And please please please, if you’re a nonpaying subscriber but have consistently felt I’m doing something important—or at least entertaining—with these conversations, consider subscribing at $5/month. I’ve been building paying subscribers slowly but surely in the nearly two years since I started Caftan; the more it becomes part of my body of paid work, the more time I can devote to it. I would love to get to the point where I could afford to post a conversation weekly. And, need I say, if you already are a paying subscriber—I am deeply grateful.
All best to you until next month,
Tim
Tim: Celeste, I am so excited to do this Caftan with you! Can I start by asking where you live, and for you to describe it?
Celeste: I live in a fairy cottage at the edge of the woods in Kingston, New York. It's probably 350 square feet—wood ceilings, walls and floors.
It used to be a big chicken coop on the property of my dearest friend, V, formerly Eve Ensler [author of the smash 1996 stage show The Vagina Monologues]. It's a big parcel of land and I live across the field from her in this little fairy cottage.
Tim: Does it have, like, gingerbread eaves?
Celeste: It's not twee—more like gentleman fairy.
Tim: Oh, like rustic fairy?
Celeste: Yes. It's beautiful here. I've lived here since 2018 after living in the [New York] city for 40 years.
Tim: Wow. What has that transition been like?
Celeste: Mystical. Miraculous. Not a day has gone by that I've regretted it. I came to understand the natural world kind of late in life, around 2016. I came up here and had a revelatory experience. As a city person, I'd never thought of nature as more than backdrop, like, "When are we gonna get back [to the city]?" But I came up here and saw what it was and I had a really profound experience.
Tim: Dare I ask if that experience was mushroom-assisted?
Celeste: There were some plants involved. It was of the highest order. I was so blown away by the abundance and the beauty that was coming at me 100 miles an hour, and had such a sense of grief for all the years I'd not paid attention to nature, that I literally threw myself down on the ground and said, "Take me."
Tim: Like, to the earth?
Celeste: To the sky, earth, trees. Just, like, "Let's go." And the next day at noon, the lawyer who had been representing the rent-stabilized apartment I'd been living in in the Village for 30 years called and said, "You're not gonna believe this, but the landlord just called and offered you all a big chunk of money to leave." We'd been fighting the landlord, who was trying to evict us, and it didn't look like we were going to win.
Tim: Can I ask, was the money enough to—what? Live comfortably going forward?
Celeste: To make leaving completely worthwhile and celebratory. So V moved this building across the field for me, and we fixed it up and made it livable, which took about a year and a half, and three days after the builders were finished and I moved in, the city landlord called and made another offer with more money [because not all tenants accepted the initial offer]. It's rare in life that you make a prayer and the universe goes, "Okay, let's do this—you're serious."
Tim: That is pretty amazing. How is your life different than it was in the city?
Celeste: I live in a community up here. In NYC, you become so atomized. I still have friends in the city and did the whole time, many things to do and see, but I wasn't living in community with people. I was living in my apartment, sometimes with a lover or boyfriend and sometimes by myself.
Tim: But what do you mean by living more in community upstate than in the city, given that you had a lot of friends in the city?
Celeste: Day to day in the city, I didn't know what other people were doing. I was on my own hunt for success or notoriety or money and opportunity. Living in community is taking into consideration other people's lives, how our actions affect them and vice-versa. It's more closely knit.
Tim; What does that look like?
Celeste: I have dinner nearly every night with V. There's Paula across the street, Tony down the road. We are in each other's lives and homes. That feels more like a life to me than my life in NYC. I'm at a particular stage in my life. I've done a lot of things, am doing a lot of things still—but the orientation of what I want is different.
Tim: How so?
Celeste: I've always wanted the world to be a better place than it is. But I felt like I had to acquire some things before that—notoriety, money, position, power. All those things that people think are important when they're younger.
Tim: Do you feel like you acquired those things?
Celeste: No—because they really weren't my heart's desire.
Tim: But you certainly did acquire a certain measure of artistic success and recognition in NYC. I've known of you and your work for years. I vividly remember you playing Emory in the 1996 NYC revival of Boys in the Band.
Celeste: Yes, but in that world it's never enough. You have to keep going back for more. We actually now know the cost of that kind of greed. The world is in a state and we have to change our ways as a species. We're running the planet into the ground. And it's built on white supremacy and gender supremacy. We have to change this now. To me, it's exciting that we have an opportunity to make a change in the world. [You need to know this about me] to really understand my journey.
Tim: Can we get right into it then and talk about that journey? I'm really interested. These kind of life and inner journeys I try to make the heart of a Caftan interview.
Celeste: Ten years ago, I was 58 and decided I needed to change my life. I was unhappy. I'm a practicing Buddhist, and at that point, I'd been practicing for 20 years.
Tim: And exactly what was your inner tape?
Celeste: "This can't be it." That's how I felt. I had a story in my head that was not consistent with the facts, which was that I hadn't done well enough, had come up short and not fulfilled my potential. And I felt this way after 20 years of Buddhist practice! And I knew that the point of the practice was to be happy. I didn't like the story in my head.