State lawmakers have made life scary for Florida’s trans community, and a production opening in downtown Tampa will stage an act of resistance this month.
‘I Am My Own Wife,’ playwright Doug Wright’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning one-person play opens at the Channel district’s
this weekend and runs through Feb. 25. The drama solely stars RP McLaughlin as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a real transgender woman who managed to survive Nazi Germany and subsequent communist regime. McLaughlin will also play all of the other more than 40 characters.
This production of a story about queer survival comes to our community at a time when the Sunshine State is steeped with anti-LGBT+ legislation.
[event-1] Since 1965’s anti-gay
state sanctioned, anti-gay propaganda which framed gay men as pedophiles—Florida’s legislative tolerance of its LGBT has been inconsistent at best. The legality of same-sex marriage, adoption and even Pride events has swung back and forth in state and local legislation. The DeSantis era marks a reinvigorated quest to annihilate queer life and community beginning with 2022’s HB1557 or the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill’ and continuing with more anti-trans bills in 2023.