Latest news with #QueerVoices
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'I hated my gayness for a long time, that's why I needed to share my story'
Suzi Ruffell is a comedian, podcast host and writer who has released her first book 'Am I Having Fun Now? Anxiety, Applause and Life's Big Questions, Answered' She joins Yahoo's Queer Voices series to discuss her book, coming out and living with anxiety. The comedian is on a nationwide tour with The Juggle from Friday 6 June to 23 November. I think it's really important to share the journey of coming out in the book because it makes that part of who I am now. But also because I think that sometimes there are people that might suggest we've reached equality, that there's no further to go, that if LGBT people want more why do we still need Pride? And when people will say things like that, I think it's important to let those people in a little bit and talk about the fact that it can be really hard to come out. It was really hard for me to come out. It took me a long time to really accept that about myself. I really hated my gayness for a long time and felt enormous shame around it, and to be honest it wasn't until I was probably 30, maybe a little bit older, that I was really comfortable in my own skin. And I wanted to talk about it firstly because I wanted people to know the journey that happens for queer people, even if they have a loving family. I thought my family would find it an adjustment, which they did, but I always knew they would love me. But it was still hard, it was still hard for me and I think it can still be hard for people now coming out. I also wanted to share the difficulty in accepting myself because I wanted to show the reader the journey that I've had. As I say in the book, when I was first coming out I felt really unlovable. When I was working out my sexuality, when I was first attracted to women, I was firstly ashamed, secondly sort of disgusted with myself, which is really sad that I felt like that about something that is entirely natural to me. And so I wanted to talk about the fact that I don't feel like that anymore, the fact that I did fall in love and that I do now feel worthy of love. It was really important for me to be brutally honest about my experiences in the book, whether that be my experiences as a queer person or my experiences as a mum, or my experiences as someone that lives with anxiety. I really like stuff that's brutally honest. I like stuff that gets rid of the small talk and you get straight into it. It's also the kind of comedy that I've done for a long time, my comedy is really open. It's really honest and real — I don't really love that word as I think it means too many things, but you get what I mean — So I wanted to talk about anxiety and the mental health stuff. Now we're getting to publication, it feels a bit scarier but I do think that it's important to put it out there, and to be honest about how bad it has been in the past because I think people might often assume [things] if you do a job like this. There's that cliche of the comedian that's depressed, and I don't fall into that category at all — I actually don't know many comedians that do — but I think anxiety is more prevalent than you might realise. I wanted to talk about it, so I think people might be a little surprised that someone that stands on stage in front of thousands of people won't worry about that, but they'll worry about an awkward moment they had with someone six years ago, and we'll ruminate on it for a week. I wanted to talk about it because when I've been in really low places, whether that be because of specific anxiety issues or whether that be because of heartbreak or grief, what I've really sought is books. I love books and I've really looked for books that are honest, but also that make me laugh and that are hopeful. And that's really what I tried to create in writing this book, and I think I did. It was really cathartic writing this, I didn't realise how much I was going to enjoy writing it. I loved writing it. I didn't go to university, I never wrote dissertations or anything like that, so it was a real change in the rhythm of my day and the rhythm of how I write, because I wrote a lot of stand up on the stage. I'll have an idea there and then I'll talk about it and you know, some bits work and some bits won't, but that's partly in the stand up, and that's alright. So it was a really different thing to do. The length of the book means that you can talk for as long as you want to about the subject, there doesn't need to be a punchline. And so it ended up being enormously cathartic and really enjoyable to go back and revisit those moments, and to see them with adult eyes. I think I've processed quite a lot of stuff but I didn't realise I really needed to. I'm really excited to go out on tour. I feel very lucky that I get to do comedy. Comedy is great, I really love it and I'm really thrilled that I've got this audience that come and see me. They're so great and so lovely, and they're just a bunch of absolute legends that are bang up for it from the moment I walk on stage. I'm trying to be very positive in the lead up to the tour, I really like the show — that really helps. I'm really proud of it and I'm trying to be present with the anxiety around it and also witnessing the anxiety but not hanging too much on it — which is, I think, a good way to look at it. I'm really excited about getting on stage and performing because it's just full of new stories that I can't wait to share with people. The comedy that I do is storytelling and it all comes from truth, it's just really fun. It's a really great thing to do with your life, I love it. If you think of how comedy looks now to how the comedy landscape looked then, it was so male. It was very white, it was really hard to get even booked on line ups, I'm not talking about on TV shows. They would never be more than two women on a bill, and we were also sort of told not to talk about it. Well I don't know who we were told by, but it was a given that wouldn't talk about the injustice of it. And if you've got a job, you just sort of would feel lucky. The landscape was totally different. It was really usual to get misogynistic heckles, it was pretty usual to get homophobic heckles. I mean, I'm sure those people still exist but comedy has moved in such a way that now if you are a fan of comedy you will be able to find someone that is like you that does stand up. I think comedy really is for everyone, I think it's a great way to connect with people, to bring down barriers, to let people into the kind of person you are, to see people's humanity — I love comedy for that. And I think that for a long time, comedy felt like it was only talking to a certain type of person, and now I think you can see that comedy really is for everyone. I'm not saying that it's perfect, I still think it's a shame that we don't have any women that are hosting big TV shows. And I think that it's a shame that lots of the shows have men being the team captains, or whatever the show. But hopefully in ten years time, we won't be saying that. So it's definitely improved, massively improved, but I think there's still a bit of a way to go. In the book I talk at length, not so much length that it's a problem, but I talk about the fact that Kate Winslet was sort of… I'm not saying Kate Winslet made me gay, I'm just saying she opened my eyes to who I could be in the world or who I was in the world. And so Kate Winslet in Titanic will always hold a very special place in my heart. Also, looking back, Friends isn't perfect but Carol and Susan getting married, having a life, being parents to Ben with Ross, and Ross, in time, coming around to the idea that his wife left him for another woman was comforting. It's hard to say queer role models I had growing up because I wasn't sure that I had them, I bloody love Claire Balding. I'm lucky enough to have met her a few times now and I just think she's great, and she's always been unapologetically herself which I love, but I think I found my bigger role models later on, maybe when I was more confident in my own skin. I would say Wanda Sykes, who's an American stand up that is just phenomenal, is my favourite and I find her enormously inspiring, both as the person that she is in the world but then also the fact that she is really, really, really funny. She's just brilliant, she's an enormous role model and enormously inspiring, both as a queer person but as a stand up as well. I wish films like Pride existed when I was younger. I love that movie, it's such a good film, I love it, I've seen it lots of times. I love Hacks, there's a character that's bisexual — actually there's a number of characters that are queer in one way or another — but one of the leads is bisexual, and it's not a big deal, and I think that's really important as well. It's just part of her life, it's actually not an enormous part of the storytelling. Her relationships are, but her queerness isn't and I love that she just happens to be gay. I think that's what we need, just seeing more queer people existing and knowing that it's okay and it's not weird and it's not different. When I was a young person if I saw queer media of any kind it would be something about people being kicked out of home or their parents not loving them anymore, or it would be about the AIDS crisis and there would be very few things that would be about being a happy gay person. And so anything that exists where someone is living a normal life and has friends and has a network of people that they love and that are around them would have been a really great thing for me to see. I'm not a queer activist, but I do talk openly about being gay. I'm not someone that understands how you challenge policy other than signing letters and listening to people. I think the best way to tackle people's prejudices is to live, the best thing that you can do is to live happily. I know that might seem impossible, but living your authentic self means that you've won. People can shout, but a lot of the time people are just shouting into a bin because I do think the majority of people feel like that about anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community. I think most people think that people should be allowed to live their authentic lives and I like to think that most people are good, and the majority of people are kind. I think we're certainly living in a time now where it does feel like we're sort of swinging right and certainly with the sort of leap in support of people like Reform, I think, is really scary. But I'm sort of reticent to say people should always be speaking and always being visible, cause I think sometimes that's not safe, and if that's not safe no one should feel like they have to do that. I think engaging with people is the thing that can really help. I think lots of the people that were more homophobic say in the 90s were people that hadn't spent any time with gay people, they didn't know anyone that was gay. Now everyone knows gay people, I don't think people are scared of gay people. I think that certainly it's become less homophobic and I think that certainly in the media there's more TV and more music and more art and more theatre created with queer people in mind, with queer stories, that's a really powerful tool. It's a really powerful tool to get people to see us. I think Russell T Davis did such a great job with It's a Sin. I'm sure people who watched it didn't have the best response to the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s, but watching that show they probably felt a lot more empathy and a lot more understanding. And so I think that telling stories is a really great way to change hearts and minds. It's also really important that it's storytelling for every kind of person. I think it's really important that lots of people from lots of demographics are heard — that it's not just white queer stories that get told. It's how we see each other's humanity, it's how we know that we're all not that different, regardless of what we look like, or who we go to bed with, if there's a God that we pray to. I think all of us feel the same things, all of us know what those different feelings feel like, whether that be devastation or joy, or hope, or despair. I think that being able to see those stories told through whatever media is a way of connecting with people that they don't really know or they don't really understand. My advice for queer youth would be don't come until you're ready. Don't feel like you need to leap out of the closet, there'll be loads of time to have all the fun and do all the things. I know sometimes it feels like it needs to get out, but make sure you do it when you know you have some people around you that can hold you up if that needs to happen. I would always say you don't need to be a particular type of queer person. For a while I thought: 'I don't fit with these people, I don't fit with those people'. I'm trying to be this kind of person and it was really hard to not feel like I've fitted in, but in time I really found my people. I found my best friends, I found the people that I adore that are like me, that understand my life. But it just took me a little while and if it takes you a while that's cool too. I would also say, and Dustin Lance Black said this to me when I interviewed him and I think he's just brilliant, he said that people's first reaction isn't always their best reaction and I thought that was so great because I think sometimes people don't react in the way that you want them to. That can be really disappointing, and in time they might realise that that's not the way that they really wanted to react either. But people are people, and sometimes people make mistakes, and giving people another chance, or allowing people to apologise, I think is really important. Certainly if someone doesn't quite understand, doesn't know about what a life like ours might look like, in time it's okay to forgive and give them another opportunity. I've always felt that's that's the people that we are in lots of ways because sometimes people don't react in ways you want them to, but if you let them in a little bit, if you let them know that there's not actually that much that's different, you allow them to change their mind. That's good too.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'It's important to tell queer stories and make people to feel like they're worthy'
Harry Trevaldwyn speaks with Yahoo's Queer Voices about his debut novel The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King, representation and more. He is an author and actor known for The Acolyte and My Lady Jane, and he will soon star in the How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake. The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King is out now in bookstores. When I was younger I didn't have that many of queer TV shows to turn to. I think what's so exciting about the TV, films and books now is that it feels so much more right on the top of culture. And that's maybe because that's what I'm looking for, but when I was growing up I didn't really have those things. I had love stories and I had stories that I'd love and be very invested in, but I would very much be a surveyor of those love stories so I would kind of be watching from the sidelines. And that's what I think is so exciting about representation in general, is that you have lots of different love stories in the spotlight. I think it allows people to feel like they are worthy of those big plotlines in their own life. That's what I try to do in my new book The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King, it is a story about a boy, Patch, who decides this is the year he's going to get a boyfriend but he doesn't care who it is. It's a story about the trials and tribulations, and the sort of disastrous situations that he puts himself through in the pursuit of love. Watch the full Queer Voices interview with Harry Trevaldwyn below To have my first book published is really a dream come true. It was something that I wanted to do but I didn't know what the story was gonna be, I didn't know who the characters would be, and then slowly they came together. I think I'm such a big fan of romance and of comedy, and the books that I read when I was growing up — YA books — meant so much to me and made me a reader. So I think that was always what I wanted to do, to maybe introduce someone new to the world of reading, or if they're already a big reader introduce them into a wonderful world anyway. My experience of being an author has felt honestly entirely chic, I've loved it so much. I should call myself an author more, but it still feels very pretentious to but I will start doing it, I promise. But it's been lovely, it's a tricky thing, I think, when you've spent so long on a story and in a world and then you do have to release of 'oh it's it's actually out of my hands, literally, and it's in other people's hands' and that's scarier. Because you really care about the characters and you feel quite protective of them, but it's been a really lovely experience for people finding Patch and finding Jean, and finding this world and being so positive about it — it has been has been very special. I've received some really wonderful messages on Instagram and also I've done a few in-person events now, and I think speaking to young people has been a very special part of releasing the book. Obviously it's crossover, so it's for YA readers but also it kind of spans quite a big age range, because I wrote what I would find funny and so it's really interesting the different things that different age groups have kind of picked out from it, and discussing all those different areas has been very rewarding. There's always room to improve, of course. I think I was nervous when I was writing the book, it really was a very special thing. When I wrote the book I was writing what I like finding and what I wanted to write thinking that there maybe wouldn't be a big response from the publishing industry, but I hoped that it'd find a home somewhere. I was kind of doing it, not really with that in mind, and thinking like 'oh, if it finds a home — great', but then when we sent out the book the response was really so overwhelmingly positive it made me so much more excited about the publishing world and where they're going to go with it. It's a silly gay comedy love story, and they were so excited about it. And I think anyone that treats silliness seriously, that's a very good thing in my mind. I also work as an actor, and to be part of the acting world as well as the writing world is really lovely, and I love being able to do both. That's always what I've dreamed to do, is to do acting and writing together, and I do think they inform each other quite a lot. It's been it's been a very lovely balance so far, which we'll see how it goes. In terms of shows I wish I had growing up, my gosh there are so many. Heartstopper comes to mind as a show that I wish I'd had. It's a Sin too, it was obviously talking about a very serious thing but there was also so much joy and so much community. I think Big Boys, which has just come out. There's so many beautiful, funny, joyful stories out there and that's been such a gift. I think that I wish I had all of that when I was growing up, it would have made me feel a lot braver. I think in terms of writing is Russell T Davies is such a great role model, he's done so much and really made it. He turns these crazy stories into a cultural phenomenon, and I think that's amazing and it's really paved the way for other other stories to be told. But there are so many people, I think anytime I go to a pride march or trans pride march, or any of these marches, you hear people talk so passionately about their experiences. We're so lucky that there are so many around. Dylan Mulvaney is also one, I've just received her new book Paper Doll and I'm very excited about that. I think she's doing so many things, I think the fact that people get her as a role model is so exciting because she's the funniest woman in the world. I definitely think queer creatives are given more room to share their stories, the breadth of those stories has massively expanded as well. And I think there's so much nuances to it to where it can be very funny or they can be problematic characters, and hopefully that's a trajectory that keeps on growing and keeps on expanding. That's something I explore in my book, I hope that people see Patch as someone who has such infectious confidence in who he is and he's not great a lot of the time, but he wears it well. And I hope that is something that people take away, that you can be entirely yourself, however loud, however flamboyant that is and still be worthy of love. Both those things can exist, you don't have to change yourself in order for it to fit. I've always been a rom-com person, I think that the romance of it is so important because I think so many people live without it, or lived in fear of it, or lived with shame of it, so I think comedy is such a release of shame, and to tell a story and make it funny can feel so liberating. So I think the more comedies there are, I think, the better. I say that and I'm also putting myself out there for casting for comedies, thanks so much. When it comes to trolls or those spouting bigotry, honestly ignore them. You're always gonna get people that don't like change and I think whenever I hear about those voices it honestly just fuels me to do more. And I think there was something really interesting said, I can't remember the exact phrasing of it, but someone said to be woke — which I think has somehow become this insult — means to care, as in it means that you care about things, what a brilliant thing to be! Honestly, I think, the more the better. It's protecting people that need protecting, why wouldn't you do that? My advice to young queer people in these trying times would be to find your people and hold onto them. I think it can feel really, really lonely sometimes and that's why I think it's important to have more things there are out there to show that you're not alone and there is so much community out there waiting for you. You just need to find it. The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King is out now.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'As a gay author I know how books can change queer lives, we need to keep investing in it'
William Hussey speaks to Yahoo UK for Queer Voices about his new book The Boy I Love, lessons from history, and the future of LGBTQ+ stories in publishing. He is the author of LGBTQ+ YA novels like The Outrage and Hideous Beauty as well as crime novels like the Detective Jericho series. The Boy I Love is a YA historical romance novel about the love story between two soldiers who are on the frontlines during the First World War Being an author I know that sharing queer stories is really important, especially for young people. My primary audience is young adults and we forget, I think, that the UK is not all like, say, London or Manchester or Brighton. Cosmopolitan areas where they might have resources or feel in that community a little bit more able to express themselves and be open, 98% of the country is not like that. There's increasing homophobia, transphobia. So the way that you can help young queer people is to depict people like them in fiction, so that they feel represented and seen. And if you're seen as a real human being with value and integrity then it can really change queer lives. I really believe that representation in books and films and all kinds of art forms is needed. That's the privilege of being an author, telling these kind of stories. I go into schools all around the country and I have that interaction with LGBTQ clubs in schools —which was obviously something I never had when I was at school— and kids come up to me and say they felt they found themselves reflected in the books, in the struggles of the characters and their experiences, and that then they've been able to come out to friends and family because of it. Watch William Hussey's Queer Voices interview below Knowing that has happened through them feeling safe through the representation that they've seen in my books has been a real privilege and a real honour. Writing is quite a lonely profession, essentially you're just stuck in your office, and so unless someone tells you that your books are having some kind of impact in that way you don't necessarily know. The publishing industry is night and day compared to when I was young. I mean, my first children's book was 2010 and I think it was in that when a kind of real revolution happened. I did have a queer-coded character in my first children's book, I'm not sure that got pushback but I wouldn't have felt confident putting a very openly gay character in and then thinking, 'oh, it's going to be fine with being available commercially.' I really think the turning point was with Becky Albertalli and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, or Love, Simon as it became for the film. It kind of opened the floodgates, and I don't think she's given enough credit at all because that book was a bit of a revolution. And then from about 2014, 2015, you saw a real opening of the gates and publishers taking that need for representation really responsibly across the board, whether it's sexuality or gender or race. We need more diverse representation, there's always more to do. I think some publishers, not all, are starting to shy away a bit from trans representation for example, because they're like, 'oh, we've got a limited amount of time and bandwidth to deal with pushback' and all the hate that they're going to get. I mean, just look at what's happening in America with book banning. Publishing is still predominantly a commercial enterprise so if you're going to publish books and then you basically have got no chance of getting them into libraries and schools are not going to take them then that is going to impact commercial decisions. So I think it's time for publishing to be really brave by planting their flag and saying: 'no, we're not going to be intimidated by this, and we're going to stand up for these stories.' My new book The Boy I Love tells the love story between two soldiers, Stephen and Danny, who are on the frontlines before the Battle of the Somme. What I really wanted to do in the book was retell these stories of real queer soldiers who fought in the First World War authentically. It involved a lot of research so going to archives, museums, reading letters from the time. Unlike in the Second World War —where there is a lot more content in the letters where gay soldiers were able to express themselves a bit more freely than in the First World War— the language that they used in letters was a lot more coded. They were coded because the penalties if they were found out was court martial, social disgrace, imprisonment, two years hard labour. So you really had to read between the lines of those letters, to get the stories of love between servicemen at that particular time, and so there was that burden of history, I felt a real responsibility to try and recreate these stories and to present them for a modern audience. I wanted to do something in tribute to those men who fought courageously and lived courageously. To come up with a story where there were young gay soldiers and to almost write a story in tribute to the love stories at the front line in the First World War. The Outrage, meanwhile, is my dystopian LGBTQ+ book set 30 years from now in a Britain that's been taken over by a Far Right political party. I think my only mistake with that book was to set it 30 years from now because it feels like it's becoming increasingly relevant with increasing homophobia, transphobia, and with people with very powerful platforms online targeting some of the most victimised and marginalised people — even within the LGBTQ community. It was really written as a warning to the future, it actually came about because I was at London Pride in 2019 and had my Stonewall Inn T-shirt on and there was a group of young gay men there who asked me, 'oh, what is Stonewall?' They didn't know it, or its importance in LGBTQ+ history and the gay liberation movement it created. I always feel that if you don't know your history you're doomed to repeat it, so that's why I wrote The Outrage. That was a warning against complacency, and unfortunately in the couple of years since the book's been published I think it's probably just become more and more relevant. It's important to know our history, like Section 28 — the law in England, Scotland and Wales that meant local authorities, schools and teachers couldn't discuss or promote homosexuality. When I go into schools and I speak about Section 28 the jaws just drop, when you're speaking to 12, 13 year olds they can't believe it. They can't believe that teachers and librarians were putting their jobs and their futures at risk just by mentioning the existence of gay people. It's always crazy to me, that censorship under Section 28 came around the height of the AIDS pandemic when, as we all know, information is the best way to keep yourself safe. So when we have sex education at schools under Section 28 it was all about straight sex. Yes, they spoke about condoms, but it was always in terms of pregnancy, not about sexually transmitted infections or anything like that. I believe there's blood on the hands of that government. The only way they really interacted with the AIDS pandemic was with those tombstone commercials. Section 28 was one of the most pernicious, vile laws. It's responsible for the unnecessary death of thousands of people, and it just shows you the dire consequences of ignorance. Unfortunately I grew up in the period of the early 90s, where Section 28 was still in force so there weren't TV shows depicting gay characters, it was just prior to Queer as Folk and we were either depicted in sitcoms as clowns to be laughed at, or in dramas as victims or sinister serial killers. It was a little bit later on when I fell in love with the works of Oscar Wilde. But all of these people seemed very remote, they either lived in a different country or they had existed years ago, and especially in Wilde's case that was almost like a warning story. Don't be too 'out' or see what society does to you. We didn't have rounded depictions of ourselves in culture. I had an English teacher called Mrs Breeds at school who defied Section 28, as I was just leaving class one day she handed me a copy of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and she said to me, 'I think this book will really speak to you.' It's only later that I realised that she was putting her job on the line by giving me that book, so that was the first book, the first piece of art, where I felt that I could see myself and hopefully in my future reflected. But other than that it was a real desert of representation in the time when I grew up. Representation is so fantastic now across all kinds of media. You can go from like Heartstopper on the more joyful end of the spectrum, and then you've got wonderful books like Simon James Green's Boy Like Me which is set during the era of Section 28, and everything in between. We've had incredible trailblazers in the LGBTQ+ community, people like Russell T Davis, obviously. In my late teens his show Queer as Folk was key for me, I would sneak downstairs and watch it with the volume turned really low so that no one knew. But there are many trailblazers now and I just feel that there are many challenges for young queer people. I think it's getting worse culturally, the bullying, the targeting, the political targeting of queer lives. But there still wonderful, brave trailblazers who are still out there fighting the good fight. In terms of publishing LGBTQ+ representation is just going to keep progressing and we're going to see more stories. I think there are certain things that are underrepresented, say trans characters. bisexual characters, asexual characters, aromantic characters — stuff like that. So there's lots more still to do. My fear is that with everything that's happening in America alerts to a kind of cultural conservatism in this country, a kind of stepping back. My fear is that, and hopefully I'm wrong, people will start to see it as —I hate to say it— more hassle than it's worth when you can publish say a romantasy book or a middle-aged fantasy book and you know you're not going to get any of these issues. It's not going to take up the very limited, valuable time that publishers have and the investment. Just putting books on shelves costs publishers a huge amount of money, every book is a gamble and with the margins narrowing they could say, 'well, we've got this brilliant gay book, but we've also got this really brilliant fantasy book. Which one are we going to invest in?' Brilliant publishers like Anderson Press are always going to stick up for that kind of stuff, but it makes me worry about what choices other publishers will make. I, in a weird way, feel like I was quite privileged to have grown up when I did, even though my childhood was under Section 28 it felt like in the post-mid '90s that everything was improving. We didn't have our rights but we were getting them, then we got them and everyone was cool, you know? Everyone was like, 'oh, you're gay. That's great.' No one was bothered and then it has swung back again. In terms of tackling bigotry and hate online, I'm not always good at this but what I'm increasingly learning is you fight them with positivity by keeping telling the stories — otherwise you just ignore them. Because you can shout and scream back at them all you want on social media, it's not going to change their mind. I think the only thing you can do is keep representing people, actors, films, books, stories, activists, whoever it is, can do that. Just keep going out so that people see you as a human being. The Boy I Love by William Hussey is out now.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'We need to see queer creatives making decisions to show we're here'
Cherrelle Skeete speaks to Yahoo UK for Queer Voices, sharing her story, representation, and reflecting on her new play Alterations. She is an actor, writer and co-founder of Blacktress UK known for Hanna, Black Cake, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and for voicing Orisa in Overwatch. Alterations is in production now at the National Theatre, and it is running until 5 April. I think we're seeing more representation in front of the camera but I think we need to see queer creatives in the room, with commissioners and the people who are getting to decide how things are being made so we can get platforms to be able to make more work. The more we can see reflections of a variety of people, of different parts of society, the better it is. What we're here to do is to tell stories about people, and we need all people involved to be able to effectively do that. People seeing some of my plays or some of the characters that I'm playing that are both visibly queer and out and proud or questioning, I think, is really important. It's important to add to that canon of work of previous people who have represented queer roles, or who are queer themselves, because otherwise we can look back on this time and we can believe that we weren't here, and that we didn't make a contribution, and we have impacted the huge positive parts of our culture and society. In terms of art, culture, food, music, we are everywhere. How we take care of children, how we take care of ourselves, we are everywhere. And as it becomes more hostile we have to remember that and affirm ourselves, and I think through characters, through story, it can be affirming. To be part of this production of Alterations, it feels really ancestral. I've been using the words past, present, and future, every existence is happening all at once with this production because it feels like we're getting to honour Michael [Abbensetts], the writer, this Guyanese writer who's a really important part of Black British playwriting in this country. But also to be Darlene, the one female character in the play, we've been able to have a fresh look at her with the additional material that we've created with Trish [Cooke, writer] and Lynette [Linton, director] and I feel really honoured. So it feels like I'm working with and conjuring and channelling the spirits of my grandma, my grandmothers actually, my aunties, women that I've probably felt in my waters but never met. And I hope that they, specifically the older generation, feel represented and seen through Darlene. The theatre is a safe space for queer people because it's about community. I feel like theatre is a space where we can imagine, it's a vision-building space. I suppose the big difference as a performer that you have within screen and theatre is you have time, so over that period of time you are cultivating a village, your theatre family. There is no hiding in theatre and I think that's the beauty of it, the hope is that people can be themselves and that's what I love about about theatre — the hope is that we're creating more spaces where people can be themselves and feel safe. In the musical Fun Home I played Joan. There's this song [in it] Ring of Keys and in that song the main character sees this butch lesbian walk in with a ring of keys. They're just walking in with their dungarees but this little girl sees, somehow, a version of herself in this person, and it's so beautifully encapsulated. Jeanine Tesori, who wrote this song came and explained the song to us and we all broke down and cried because there is something so powerful about a child seeing themselves, affirming themselves in the world and saying 'I exist, I am here and I am important and I contribute'. When there is so much signalling in the world that says the opposite that is what story can do, that is what all mediums of storytelling —whether through video games, film, TV, theatre, music— can do, it is affirming us. I run Blacktress UK with my lovely partner Shiloh Coke, and in terms of it being a space — it was inspired by Audre Lorde, and she speaks a lot about community being a force of liberation and I feel like whenever you bring people together intentionally, specifically those that have been on the fringes like Black women or AFAB [assigned female at birth] people, you give the resources and and space and time and it always moves to a place of healing. That was the first point of call to people who felt isolated, to bring them together, and to have dialogues and specifically intergenerational dialogues, people who are coming into the industry for the first time and those that have been in the industry for many years but maybe haven't been seen or recognised. In terms of queer people, we've got intergenerational dialogues happening amongst AFAB women who been in our sphere for many years. And there's the younger generation teaching the older generation and the older generation teaching the younger generation, and being able to have those dialogues and conversations, especially through acting as well, is really important. Some of my queer models, I have to shout out Lady Phyll, who is one of the founders of UK Black Pride. That is a national holiday in our home, we are there every year and just seeing the work that she does with her charity Kaleidoscope globally, going to visit so many different countries advocating on behalf of queer people, being able to just be visible, is incredible. And even just learning about how UK Black Pride started, literally a group of Black lesbians going to the beach and having a party and now it is one of the biggest Black Prides in the world so I have to shout out Lady Phyll who is a queen. I'm going to say Munroe Bergdorf, who is an incredible model, activist and just how they use their platform and their voice is just so inspiring. Ted Brown, one of our elders who was there from the beginning in terms of Pride in the UK, he organised the first Gay Pride Rally in 1972 where there was a mass kiss-in which showed just incredible bravery and deep compassion for oneself to just be who you are. Another queer icon that we should all know about is Pearl Alcock, she was part of the Windrush generation who created spaces for LGBTQ+ people and had parties in a shop that she owned. I think that's really important part of the Windrush generation that we don't get to hear about because they were queer and here too. She used to host queer parties in Brixton out of a shop that she bought for herself, but it was like 'we're here'. I'm telling the story of the Windrush generation in Alterations, but the queer ones as well they were there. The ones that came over from the Caribbean and for them to have spaces for them to be. themselves and powerful spaces for queer people, especially gay men, in the 1960s, 1970s, I just think that is so radical. In terms of music there were people who didn't necessarily say they were queer but it was the signalling for me, so I have to shout out Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes from TLC because I was a big TLC fan, I grew up on them. Seeing these women in these baggy clothes who say 'ain't too proud to beg', talking about sexual politics, about love and friendship, was just beautiful and they were just so in your face fun — you wanted to be friends with them. And I'm a massive Janet Jackson fan, I am an original honorary fan, Missy Elliott as well. These were incredible artists, because I grew up on MTV and I was a music video kid so I watched their music videos and watched what they wore, how they moved, how they did their makeup, how they did their hair, how they were just cool — I was very inspired by these incredible people. A big film for me was The Colour Purple, that was amazing. Seeing two Black women loving on each other in that way that was just really empowering. Also seeing themselves as being beautiful and seeing beauty in each other, I think that's really important too — especially when we look at what the beauty standard have been. To see beauty in blackness it was delicious. And also Set It Off, Ursula and Cleo were a hot couple. Who doesn't love an all female heist? That was like the film, and seeing how she spent her money on lingerie for her girlfriend come on. Those are the two big representations, and then of course The L Word as well. That was big, and then obviously from that Generation Q and Orange is the New Black. I loved Master of None, which had Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie who were just incredible. That whole storyline between the two of them was beautiful. Also, the Keema Greg storyline in The Wire and her being this incredible detective who is building a life with her wife — I think that storyline is really, really important, seeing this really incredible working Black lesbian, who is also trying to manage married life, and she's kind of failing at it, I think that that's really important because we're messy and complex. Pose, I'll go back to Pose because it's foundational, I know these are very American centric shows but what I would love to see more is a British representation. Seeing more of those carried over and more investment into Black British, and brown, storylines within the UK. I would love to see more of that. I think for those struggling with negativity towards the LGBTQ+ community I'd say: you have to go to where love flows. My hope is that, if you struggle to find that love within yourself, you can be in spaces where you can be reminded that you're loved, and that's all different types of love — platonic love with your friendships, community, love with people that don't necessarily know you on a personal level but you can be in a space and just feel that high vibration. There are spaces for you, even more so now it's important to be in those spaces and to have dialogues with people. I'm from Birmingham, we talk to people on the street, we keep it moving. It has to be love in action, not just a noun, it's a doing word. It's love in action because of the challenges that we're up against. Being intentional with where we're going, with the words that we speak, because the thing is you can't change someone else's behaviour, you can only change your behaviour. So when there are those things outside that are negative. it's like you have to double down on the love even more. If there's one negative thing that's out there you best find five loving things, whether that's a poem, listening to a song, contacting someone that you love — be in a space where you can experience love. That's work, but the hope is that it's this nourishing thing, and we can nourish each other. The biggest lie they have us believe in is that we don't need each other, we do. Community is everything, it's how we nourish ourselves, especially when we feel drained we have to be able to feed each other. The future of queer storytelling is broad, it's expansive. It's continuous. It is the foundation of our society, we ain't going nowhere, period. We're not going anywhere. I think for those of us that are storytellers, whatever it is that you're doing, continue doing it and share your work. If you're a bedroom poet, share your poetry. A spoken word artist? Go to open mic, go and just be yourself in spaces. Share your work, especially within the world of art.
