Oli London and the trickiness of being ‘trans-racial’

Not everyone will have heard of Oli London, a British social media influencer who made news for two reasons last week. The first was that London came out as plural. Which is to say that he came out as a non-binary person. Which is very 2020 and something so un-noteworthy that I’m sure you’ll agree it is hardly worth remarking upon. The other thing London did was more unusual. Which was that he came out as Korean.

You might guess from his name that Oli London is not Korean, but he has spent some time there (in the South rather than the North apparently) and enjoys the language and culture. So in his coming-out message London revealed some rather extreme plastic surgery to his face and announced that he wished to be known as Korean. ‘People might not get it, it’s a new concept, whatever,’ he said, demonstrating that whatever his proficiency at Korean, he retains that Millennial urge to mutilate the English tongue.

On the matter of coming out as Korean, the reception was not universally warm. But you might have sympathy for the crossroads at which this confused young man sits. The current era has arrived at an uncomfortable, indeed contradictory, settlement on such matters. It has decided that a man may become a woman or a woman may become a man with great ease. Indeed, saying it makes it so. To such an extent that last month when a man in LA allegedly identified as trans in order to get into the women’s changing room of a spa and wave his penis around at the women in the changing room, the only thing anyone was meant to say to the women who complained was: ‘What’s your problem, transphobe?’