“The Presence that Absence Makes”

Throughout her writing and interviews, Jackie Kay has made explicit reference to the significance of secrets and secrecy in her work. Despite secrecy being an enduring aspect of Kay’s oeuvre, how her work represents secrets and secrecy has not received sustained critical attention. In the context of how secrets and secrecy appear in Kay’s poetry, short stories, and interviews, this chapter invites consideration of ‘the secret’ as an aesthetic in her debut novel Trumpet (1998). I argue that secrets and secrecy inform a strategy of hesitation in Trumpet . Repeatedly, Kay’s novel anticipates and courts prejudicial readings of transgender people by suggesting a salacious and scandalous secret about transgender identity is about to be revealed. Each time, the revealing detail that the narrative discloses is quotidian in nature. This revelation of commonplace details expresses the humanity of Kay’s characters, rather than fulfilling the dehumanising expectation that frames them. This strategy of hesitation, wherein prejudice is repeatedly courted and thwarted, serves to humanise transgender people through secrets and secrecy, which function as a source of searching hesitance in Trumpet rather than a pillar of prejudice.