I HAD HEARD RUMOURS OF CAMBRIDGE’S SECRET s societies — of Sunday morning symposiums devoted to sex and scrambled eggs — each tale too outrageous to be true. But it is not the promise of illicit affairs driving students and academics underground. It is a love of C.S. Lewis.
My discovery and subsequent involvement in these societies had been something of an accident. A Canadian psychologist and all-round troublemaker once said that one should, “Tell the truth. See what happens.”
Within weeks of committing to this experiment, I had been thrown out of every student theatre society in Cambridge for refusing to state my pronouns. “Your presence in the room makes people feel unsafe,” was the judgement handed down to me. Being competent and committed to directing stood for nothing: I had transgressed against the exclusionary commandments of inclusivity.
Tossed into social isolation and career ruination, I began to attend lectures
