T-Boy on Grindr

T-Boy is a trans teenager looking for intimate relationships with other gay men on the sex app Grindr. It doesn't take long for T-Boy to realise that his dates don't view his body as "masculine" – a view that contradicts his own perception of himself. T-Boy sets out on a queer hero's journey: he develops strategies for navigating the subcultural codes of the gay-cis community. In his first solo piece, Joao d'Orey combines an autofictional narrative with music and dance. Most recently performed at the Maxim Gorki Theatre, the story now finds a new stage at the Berliner Ensemble. In the directorial debut by actor Malaya Stern Takeda, T-Boy asks himself whether pure desire can exist beyond gender and sexual identity, while at the same time confronting the harsh realities of the stigmatisation that trans bodies experience in a sociopolitical and medical context.