Mai the force be with you: Interview with Elaine Mai

An out lesbian since her college days, Elaine Mai came to musical prominence in 2012 when she supplied Le Galaxie’s ‘Love System’ with its delicious vocal.

The penner of a fine tune herself, the Dubliner’s new single, ‘EDC’, is as shiny and shimmering a slice of pop as you’re likely to hear all year. Just as excitingly, all the proceeds during February from iTunes downloads of it are going to Marriage Equality who within 24 hours of RTÉ going public with details of their €85,000 payout were banking €10,000 themselves in public donations.

“At first I was pretty shocked and thought, ‘RTÉ really ought to have fought their corner’ but then we mightn’t have got Panti’s speech which has been positively received all over the world – it's been translated into 15 languages – and made homophobia the number one most talked about issue here,” Mai reasons. “He went for the really human aspect, which made people who perhaps hadn’t engaged with the issue before think, ‘I wouldn’t want that to happen to my son/daughter, brother/sister, friend.’

“There have been entire radio andTV shows devoted to it, which wasn’t the case when I was at school and apprehensive about coming out. There was nobody in Ireland, especially as a lesbian, that I could particularly relate to. That changed eight or nine years ago when I went to NUI Galway, which had a very active gay society. It’s still not easy being a teenager and telling your family and friends that you’re gay, but attitudes over the past decade have changed for the better. There are more people you can identify with and organisations like Marriage Equality and lgbtNOISE actively out there campaigning.”

Mai was among the estimated 2,500 people who congregated outside the Gaiety Theatre – perfect choice of location! – in protest at David Quinn, Breda O’Brien and John Waters getting their loot.

“What really stuck with me was one of the lgbtNOISE gents talking about homophobia in schools and saying, ‘It’s going to have to come from the top down with parents telling their kids why this sort of bullying is unacceptable. It’s an issue for straight people as well as gay ones.’”

Whilst against anybody being outed against their will, Mai thinks it’s incumbent on gay people to stand up and be counted.

“Nobody has to be a spokesperson; you don’t have to do anything other than be who you are and live your life,” she asserts. “Visibility – like walking down the street holding hands – is the thing that has made it become so much more normalised. Instead of that guarded and almost apologetic thing of going, ‘My partner’, say, ‘My girlfriend’ or ‘My boyfriend.’ Just being open helps a lot.”

Those sentiments were echoed last week when 26-year-old actress Ellen Page came out at a Las Vegas conference for gay teens.

“I’m tired of hiding and I’m tired of lying by omission,” she said. “I’m here today because I’m gay and because maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. I feel a personal obligation and social responsibility.”

Concludes Mai: “What's hopefully going to tip things in our favour is the empathy that Rory has drawn out of people with his Saturday Night Show appearance and subsequent YouTube speech. To me, gay marriage is a right not a debate, but the fact is there’s a referendum that needs winning and we’ve made major strides these past few weeks.”