Lesley Storm
Age 71-7228 Apr 2025
Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom)
Not reported
Lesley was a published poet who helped people with addiction issues on a voluntary basis.
I just found out a friend of mine died on Monday [28 Apr 2025]. She was the first one to befriend me when I came out. She took me to a good cafe, and other safe spaces for trans people. I saw her the day before she died, she was walking down the road and I was on the bus. I waved but wasn't sure if she saw me."
Remembering Lesley Storm
Lesley Storm legally changed her name in August 2010 and had gender confirmation surgery in January 2014 in Brighton. She began performing poetry in 2015 and became quickly known to many in Edinburgh’s writing and publishing community, becoming a regular at the monthly The Heretics meeting.
This revived poetry and song collective, started in 1970 by Dolina MacLennan, Liz Lochhead, Robert Garioch, John Herdman, Sorley MacLean, and others, proved an incredibly welcoming launching ground for Lesley as a writer. Her work was always powerful, personal, and as well as occasionally commenting specifically on life as a trans woman, most of Lesley’s poetry concerned the most human of emotions of all — love, loss, grief, joy. All of these emotions Lesley mastered as a writer and presented memorably in her poetry.
From this huge burst of creativity Lesley produced a strong first and only collection, It’s About Time, published in 2021, which although she and her publisher were not aware at the time, was likely the first full collection of poetry by a transgender person in Scotland.
Lesley was incredibly supportive to many writers, and despite life long depression was usually hilarious company, caustic, critical, gentle as well as understanding, particularly of those in any way marginalised. She thought Brexit was Bollocks and that Boris was the anti-Christ. She wrote poetry constantly and collected poetry books, and has left a mountain of unpublished work.
Lesley died peacefully at home on 28th April 2025. We believe Lesley’s birth date was 1951 – 1953.
Lesley's Instagram profile is https://www.instagram.com/leithlesley/. In her own words:
"I’m a woman. I support them. I’m bisexual. I support them. I’m a feminist. I support them. I endure regular abuse for being trans. I support them. I am called a “poof” by the unenlightened. I support them. My name is Lesley, and I'm a woman - that is to say that I am human, just like you, and you like me."
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/05/remembering-lesley-storm/
https://leamingtonbooks.com/books/poetry/its-about-time
