Zoe Terakes is an actor and writer living and working on Gadigal land. They are a vocal advocate for trans rights within arts industries and on a global scale.

Zoe was most recently seen on screen in A24’s critically acclaimed film Talk to Me. Their other acting credits include Nine Perfect Strangers, Creamerie, Wentworth and Ellie & Abbie. They will soon appear in the Marvel Studios series Iron Heart. Zoe has also worked extensively across Australian stages, including the Belvoir, Melbourne Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre and The Old Fitz Theatre. They have received two Sydney Theatre awards, including the Best Newcomer Award, and were also nominated for a Helpmann Award.

Eros is Zoe’s debut literary work, inspired by their Cretan heritage. Full of sex, water and rage, this stunning collection reimagines five ancient Greek queer myths.

In this interview, I chatted to Zoe about queer mythologies, trans sex in storytelling, and their luscious new book, Eros.

Alex Creece: Hey Zoe! Thank you for meeting with me today. To start off, I wanted to ask: Was there a specific catalyst or event that inspired you to write this book? Have you always had an interest in mythologies?

Zoe Terakes: To the first part of that question, yes and no. It was actually Benjamin Law who picked up the phone and was like, “Hey, do you reckon you’ve got a book in you?” and I was like, “Is that sexual?” [laughs] And I thought he meant to write a book about myself and I was like, “Absolutely not.” But he told me to think about it. And I was like, “Oh fuck… well, I’m obsessed with Greek myths,” and then the idea just grew from there.

So, that’s how I started to practically dream it up. This was at the start of 2023, when crazy TERFism was rearing its head [in so-called Australia] in response to the UK. There was an increase in vocal anti-trans hatred. So, the book was very much informed by the world around me. With focusing on Greek myths, I also wanted to look to my own culture and find comfort and history in that.

AC: That lends itself nicely to my next question. I was really interested in your telling of Iphis’s story. It was so cool to learn that there’s this canonical trans story in the original mythology. It reminded me a lot of the way trans kids are so often under threat, targeted and have their rights ripped away. It feels very relevant to here and now.

With that in mind, what do you think ancient stories can tell us about the current sociopolitical climate?

ZT: Yeah, it’s a tricky one, hey. When I was writing the myths, I wasn’t necessarily comparing them to present-day struggles or political climates. But I also was, of course, imbuing them with some of my opinions on present-day issues and reflecting on where we are now in these stories. In the last story, for example, Hermaphroditus falls in love with a Palestinian man, Mahmoud, and feels a strong desire to be violent to Israeli soldiers to take revenge for his lover. So, there were moments where I could slip in some of my personal beliefs and feelings.

But of course, some of the opinions held by my characters are not my own and I find them deeply problematic. But, they’re accurate to the communities I’m talking about – for instance, the grudge that some Greeks and Turks bear for each other.

It’s like that great Nina Simone quote: “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.”

So, I think it’s been really cool being able to go back so far and find the present in the past, I guess, or find the past in the present. Y’know, ultimately, it’s like the phrase: a world without trans people has never existed and never will.

I feel like I’ve said this so much now that it’s lost its meaning, and I know a few other folks feel that way, too. But I guess I’m trying to re-imbue it with meaning in a very practical way, saying, “We were literally in ancient, ancient culture. Trans people were gods.”

The pendulum may swing this way, then that way, as it has done for all time. But I find comfort knowing that, somewhere way back, someone knew we were gods, and they will know again, and we can know that quietly, too.

AC: To inform my next question, I’ve got some stunning quotes from your book:

“Nature is enormous. Nature welcomes change, welcomes transformation. Nature loves sex. Nature doesn’t need to know who you were yesterday, or who you will be tomorrow. Nature understands that the survival and liberation of one must mean the survival and liberation of all.”

“Where I saw abnormality and, at my darkest, deformity, nature saw invention.”

Can you speak a bit about the relationship between transness and nature?

ZT: Yes, for sure! Thank you for liking my words, by the way. That’s really nice.

I think I only fully discovered my dependence on nature when this rise in TERFism and fascism really kicked into gear in a way that was noticeable to me, as somebody who’s operating in a place of privilege, living where I live and being a settler on the lands that I live on.

But yeah, around the start of 2023, I’d gotten back from America and shit was just different. I felt so much more self-aware and afraid. Since then, the relationship I’ve found with nature has been so transformative and personal and alive.

In a time where trans people are asked so many questions – “Why are you the way you are? Who are you really? What surgeries have you had?” – we’re constantly having to prove and justify our intentions and identities. In nature, none of those questions are asked of us.

Nature depends on transness – we see it in mycology, fungi, plant life, fish and hyenas. Transness has been a survival technique of the natural world since the beginning of time. So why would it be any different for human life?

Where the human world is expressing a desire for trans people to be disappeared, there’s lot of comfort to be found in something that is so vast and ultimately the most powerful thing. The fact that nature not only accepts transness but depends on it, welcomes it, and sees invention within it, is very calming when the rest of the world gets loud and scary.

AC: Thanks heaps. I really like that. The other day I was reading about the parrotfish, which can change its ovaries into testes and vice versa. I enjoy that a lot, because it’s a reminder that like, we’re made of the same stuff – nature knows we’re all just lumps and bumps and glands.

ZT: Yeah, exactly! And like, barramundi are all born male, and the big ones are female. They’re like, “Yes, of course women should be the biggest.”

AC: Speaking of nature, I also wanted to chat a bit about the connection that queer people find in things that are deemed monstrous or abject. In the context of mythology, there’s a lot of tales about creatures and transformation. Now, I haven’t done a survey or anything, but I feel like there’s an overlap between queer people, interest in mythology, and interest in animals, ‘monsters’ and cryptids. Do you think there’s something to this, or am I being a nutbag?

ZT: I absolutely think there’s something to this! I’m so curious about the number of kids who were really into mythology who grew up to be queer or trans. I reckon that Venn diagram must be like [gestures two overlapping circles].

As a kid, I was fascinated by Greek and Egyptian myths because they’re so dark. There was something fucked up and sexy about it. But as a kid, you’re just like, Whoa, what is this? I think so many queers are invested in these mythologies.

Before having language to describe who you are, there’s something that resonates in queer kids about, like, a man turning into an eagle, or a god who’s half crocodile and half fucking hippo! There’s something seductive about that world. And as kids, we’re given fairy tales, so of course little queer gremlin kids are going to be super drawn to the demigods of mythology.

AC: Yeah! It’s captivating as hell. It’s like, Oooh, who’s that little freak?!

ZT: Exactly! There are so many freaky, captivating monsters in Greek mythology. And in a world that is quick to smack monstrous labels on queer and trans people, of course we recognise ourselves in these figures. And it’s like a reclamation, right? It’s like, Okay, if you’re going to call me a monster, I’d quite like to be this ancient Greek sea monster the size of a tower and has 73 heads and 18 tentacles. 

AC: Thank you for that! I’m glad I wasn’t just spewing mad shit. Well, I was, but it was also accurate. I wanted to ask you about your time in Crete while writing this book – what was that like for you?

ZT: It was so moving. As I talk about in the preface, Crete is quite a specific place. Its location makes it quite a culturally rich place. The Minoans and ancient Cretans traded with Egypt, Syria and Palestine, so there’s Arab influences and food in this Greek island.

Before Crete, I’d been in Athens, waiting to have that experience of like, These are my people, but it hadn’t happened yet. And then I got off the plane in Crete and outside the airport was a little scarab beetle scuttling along. And I was like, Yeah, this is it.

I was in Crete with all my cousins, and we went to my family’s village. It was really magical. I felt quite emotional being there.

The architecture in Crete is much less European [than mainland Greece]. The colours are darker – reds, blues, terracottas, browns – and the art is different. Crete is a part of so many other places, and it’s reflected in our DNA, in the art, in the food. It’s a real melting pot.

Cretan art, in particular, blew me away. It’s also so different to the mainland Greek art. They do big fresco murals that are unbelievable. In the Palace of Knossos, there were artworks of water bearers with dark brown skin and black hair. Their genders were ambiguous – having both feminine and masculine attributes. There’s like, an ethnicness, a transness and a mythology in that island that is specific and unique. And I feel very honoured to have that lineage.

AC: That’s such a special experience. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Back to your book, I really like its explicitness of sexuality in your storytelling. Many of the stories brought fucking to the forefront. Can you tell me about the choice to make many of the stories hot?

ZT: Yes! Well, to be honest, it didn’t really feel like a choice! In hindsight, there’s a lot of sex in the stories, but I don’t think I realised it until after the fact. In an interview, Christos Tsiolkas once spoke about how there’s a tendency for Anglo writers to have a disconnect from the body. And that really resonates for me, I guess.

With white or Anglo writers, particularly here, there’s this Englishness that can result in an intellectual or detached approach to sex. Obviously, these are generalisations, but for me as a wog, bodily stuff is just a part of everything for me. Like, food and sex and love. It’s all ways of communicating and feeling. The body is always at the forefront. I’m always writing from the body.

Sex is also part of how my characters make sense to me, and how their relationships to each other make sense to me. How they fuck says something about their shame, their love or the state of the world. Sex can be so indicative of something much larger. And so, yeah, I think it wasn’t even necessarily a conscious thing. I was just like, of course, this is going to be how these people relate to each other.

AC: Yeah, it’s your instinctive way of writing. I really like that.

ZT: As well, with transness in media, people are so afraid of trans sex that we just don’t get to see it enough. Again, it wasn’t a conscious choice at the time – like, of course the sex in the book is trans sex, because all the sex I have is trans sex. I wanted the trans sex to be explicit because it should be. It’s hot as hell, I’m not afraid of it, and no one else should be either, y’know?

AC: Love it. Your writing style, in leading with the body, gives the reader so much juicy sensory detail and an embodied experience of your characters. It’s great stuff.

On to an industry-ish question: How does your acting inform your writing and vice versa? What different modes of storytelling are unlocked by these two art forms?

ZT: I fucking hate talking about acting, it makes me feel like such a wanker, but okay, let’s go! Having an acting background definitely helps with writing character because, particularly with theatre, I can usually locate the character in my body. Like, I can go, Oh, I feel this character in my chest, or I feel this character in my hands. With good jobs, that is. On bad jobs, you just say the words!

I find that writing characters, I’ve been able to do the same thing. Like, I’m just going, Okay where does this character sit? I really try to embody them and find their voice. And sometimes it takes a while.

I’m writing something at the moment and it’s taking me ages to find the right voice; it’s not always clear. But I definitely think acting helps me drop into the spirit of a character more easily. Sometimes I even chat aloud to myself to work out how a character would literally sound. I probably look odd doing that.

AC: As an editor, I actually recommend that people read their work aloud to identify issues with clarity and flow! So that’s actually legit, not wacky at all!

As a final question: can you tell us about your new zine, Good Trans Sexual?

ZT: Yes! I’d love to! A while back, I was reading about a guide from a few decades back called the Good Tranny Guide, which was a community resource that shared safe places for trans people to go out, doctors you could go to, what to say to the doctor, stuff like that. I thought that was awesome, and that it’d be so cool to have a super lo-fi platform for transsexuals to have a wacky, sexy space to occupy together.

Most of the people that have bought the zine are trans, and it feels like an underhand way of connecting with each other and saying things we wouldn’t necessarily blast on social media.

I started a low dose of testosterone a few months ago, and I was just looking for stuff to read about it. There wasn’t much out there for people who aren’t binary trans guys, and even then, there’s not much. I would’ve loved to get a little magazine in the mail that talked about where you got hair first, how it affected your sex drive, and those little intimate details written by us for us.

Everyone is so different, and the more people talking about this stuff, the better. So, I wanted to create that sort of space and make information accessible in a way that centres personal lived experiences.

Eros by Zoe Terakes is on sale now through Hachette Australia (RRP $29.99).