LGBTQ+ History Month 2022

In many ways I am out for my colleagues. There are a few where my bi/pan sexuality has emerged as part of general conversation, others will see my office contains several LGBTQ+ flags, that I commonly wear an LGBTQ+ or pansexual pin badge, sport rainbow or bi striped shoelaces, and I regular participate in LGBTQ+ events. However, there may still be some that see me more as an ally than a member of the LGBTQ+ community. To be fair, there are other factors, including my hatred of labels, that play some part in that as well.

An awareness that my sexuality was a political issue, i.e., one that required me to publicly articulate a dissenting voice, began in the 1980’s. As a mid-teen I had both ‘boyfriends’ and ‘girlfriends’, and whilst I felt my discussion of the former was potentially taboo in certain contexts, it had not felt substantial enough to be a political concern. For me the low-level activism I was then involved in, as part of CND marches and the Amnesty International letter writing campaign I engaged with, were political - who I wanted to snog was something else.

There was a mix of factors that ignited my activism. Going to university was a big part of that, as was my growing musical tastes. As well as punk and goth/dark wave music I was also drawn to industrial music; all of which seemed to be about a self-declared otherness. It was through these cultural moments that my politics really started to take shape. Then, as now, the queer scene had a rich and varied cultural expression. Being ‘outrageous’ and somewhat flamboyant, was an expectation.

My interest in writing emerged from working with others to produce a hand-made publication, collecting our graphics and short stories. which we circulated amongst ourselves, and any others we could inflict it on (unauthorised access to a uni photocopier permitting – they weren’t everywhere, then). It was also whilst I was at university that I started to lose friends to AIDS. Along with others in the city’s LGBTQ+ community, that, and the dual impact of a Chief Constable whose reported views of queer culture were, to say the very least, controversial, and Section 28, brought my engagement with the creative forms of dissent closer to the centre of how I saw myself and my place in the world. I began to articulate my politics increasingly through performance, more specifically through site specific work and use of street theatre.

The art of protest is central to LGBTQ+ activism and that creativity is an outpouring of a wealth of personal stories. This LGBTQ+ history month let us, as a community, celebrate those stories.