Don’t paint my 2020 Pride Month in rainbow colours
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Compared to recent years, 2020 Pride Month is going to be very different. We are in the midst of a pandemic which is affecting Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people disproportionately. This week, we are also at a tipping point in the state and federal-led brutalities against the Black communities both in the US and other western countries. This is no ordinary Pride Month. For me, as an ally of Black communities and as a queer woman of colour, June 2020 will not be the celebration it usually is. This is the time for an urgent call to action to honour the intersections of LGBTQIA+ identities with other marginalised identities; particularly race.
From the perspective of a university-based STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering & Mathematics) professional, involved in promoting EDI (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) in higher education, Pride Month is generally a happy and an upbeat time of the year for me. There has never been a better time in the western world than now to be out as gay, bi, pan, asexual, intersex, trans, nonbinary, gender diverse or any other queer identity. I usually spend this time promoting the visibility of LGBTQIA+ colleagues and learning from their experiences and contributions to STEM. Highlighting exclusionary practices in our faculties and departments, normalising queer expression and fighting misinformation are high on my agenda. During Pride Month last year, I was fortunate to work with my colleagues in TIGERinSTEMM to build support (1897 signatures) to fight off a misinformation campaign led by a small group of so-called ‘gender critical’, principally university-based academics. Pride Month is a time that fills me with pride to be out, to spring to positive action and to be seen for who I am.
This year, I am among many others around the world who are in lockdown to help kerb the spread of COVID19, as it decimates our communities, particularly those at the very margins. In the US, 23% of the pandemic-related deaths were of Black people. This is a staggeringly high proportion, considering that only 13% of the US population identify as Black. The statistics are arguably worse for the UK’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community which make up 13% of the overall population. Of the 200+ health care workers who have died of COVID19 while working in the frontline, 60% are BAME. We have watched in horror, the crimes committed against key workers who are Black, like Belly Mujinga, who contracted and died of the disease after being denied a protective mask whilst doing her job and subsequently being spat-on by a man who claimed to carry the infection. Police closed the case just few weeks later; no charges made.
In a ferocity similar to the pandemic, we have seen the uprising against the state-led brutalities against Black communities, following the deaths of George Floyd at the hands of (or rather, under the boots of) four White police officers. This and related incidents have sparked widespread protests and riots, not just in Minnesota where it began, but also other US states and in many western countries. So whilst the Pride Rainbows are exploding on our TV and computer screens for Pride Month, another question emerges: In the year 2020, do Black lives yet matter?
As Pride Month 2020 rolled on, it became very clear that this Pride Month was going to be different. The Human Rights Campaign, along with 100+ other LGBTQIA+ organisations added their names to an open letter to unite and combat racial violence. Many organisations and societies promoting LGBTQIA+ visibility in STEM fields correctly recognised that silence is complicity. They were quick to tweet messages of solidarity on Saturday morning. However, it was the things that I didn’t see and the general inaction of some which unsettled me the most. If you are an organisation, a university EDI panel, or a local community who usually champions Equality for marginalised groups like LGBTQIA+, or a queer group of professionals, but want to acknowledge that Black (or BAME) lives do matter, here is my five-point list of how to do better.
- Messages of solidarity must be unreserved
Whilst you may, as individuals or organisations, rush to Twitter to write heartfelt messages of solidarity, you must own that message. One key ingredient of messages of solidarity is timing. This means that the ideal time to show allyship to Black communities, is no later than when they are calling for it. If you need the approval of your university’s social media manager, ideally reached inside their office hours of Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm, you may miss your window. If a message condemning overt racism needs to be preceded by an emergency meeting within the executive committee, you really need to re-examine the core EDI values which the organisation stands for. If there is vocalised conflict of opinions or objections within the organisation, you need to consider adopting a code of conduct that reflects the basic principles of Equality.
For many EDI organisations and individuals, tweeting out messages of solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter last weekend was a first. Perhaps it is because, historically, it was seen as a broader political issue outside of the scope of LGBTQIA+ visibility in your discipline or professional field. I want to remind you that promoting LGBTQIA+ identities is also political. Pride Month is political.
2. Add some colour(s) to the leadership of your organisation
It is no secret that LGBTQIA+ organisations and events across the UK lately have faced pushback on the lack of other types of diversity within their leadership groups and speaker line-ups. This is also very true for many university faculties and departments in the UK. Frameworks like the Race Equality Charter (REC) are there to help; they strengthen the advice offered by LGBTQIA+ organisations like Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence. The REC clearly outlines five basic principles for ensuring racial inclusion within higher education; yet, less than half of the UK’s universities and colleges have thus far signed up to the REC. One of the key areas examined by the REC is that an institution has evidence of supporting different racial identities in their leadership structures — recognising that the experiences of Black communities are often very different from, for example, those of Asian or other backgrounds. In this sense, the term and the categorisation of BAME is useful, but only to a point.
If you find yourself in a leadership team which lacks people of colour holding the LGBTQIA+ banner, this month is an opportune moment to call for an early annual general meeting. If there is no clear governance structure in your society or club, take the next four weeks to actively find and invite Black, Asian and colleagues of other minority ethnicities to come and share the leadership positions. Open the door to people who have the lived-experiences as queer-intersectional-Black identities to your organisation and then listen to them.
What is in it for you or your organisation or group? It should come as no surprise that by having this racial and intersectional diversity in your leadership, you will inspire a broader membership and a stronger participation in your events. The broader the diversity is, the better; the further your message will travel. Your organisation will be able to hold a more nuanced and relevant conversations on the EDI landscape that you represent.
3. Learn from the resilience of the Black, minority and indigenous ethnicities
Having greater intersectionality will also bring resilience to your environment or LGBTQIA+ group. The experiences of growing up queer as a child of colour is often very different from White, western cultures. So many of the non-White community in western countries are immigrants or first-generation children of recent migrants; they have often experienced additional pressures to conform to western values and standards which reinforce hetero- and cis-normativity. Pride groups in Europe and North America could learn so much from Polynesian communities which have historically embraced trans, nonbinary and queer identities. They have generational memory of what it is like to even hold the idea of queerness (e.g. “Takatapui”, a word in Te reo Māori which seems to have been erased in early colonial years and more recently reclaimed to the more inclusive meaning of ‘queer’) as a part of their inherited culture.
The Black and minority ethnic community also has the generational memory of some of the colonial atrocities that are making a comeback against the trans community today. The idea of excluding trans, nonbinary and gender diverse people from safe spaces and gendered bathrooms has its roots firmly in the race-based segregation in public spaces and restrooms throughout much of the 20th century. Given that so much of the emerging anti-trans movement inherits its funding and leadership from ‘groups’ pushing for Euro-ethnic supremacy, this strategy of misinformation should hardly be surprising to the queer community. In my personal experience, EDI groups valuing race intersectionality have extra resilience and unity when it comes to tackling such recycled hate. EDI groups rich in intersectionality tend to also have greater cohesion, a broader following and more modern organisational cultures, in my observation. They uphold values like transparency, authenticity and representation better than others.
4. Whilst you celebrate your Pride, remember to mourn the pains of others
We loosely say that we ‘celebrate’ Pride. In reality it is a recollection of wave after wave of adversity that the LGBTQIA+ community has overcome through the decades. From the Stonewall riots to Section 28, Pride events rejoice the victories over those inflection points of queer rights in the 20th century. They are our victories — some led by Black intersectional queer people and sometimes-forgotten Black trans women like Marsha P. Johnson. Nobody can take these victories away from us. This is why we big up the Pride events with a big day out and amplify celebrations with everything painted in bright rainbow colours. It is also a peaceful protest against crimes which continue to be committed against LGBTQIA+ people around the globe. It is a month of remembrance of the thousands of trans people who lose their lives to hate each year.
This Pride Month though, I mourn the fact that a large number of those people are trans people of colour. Tony McDade was a Black trans man who was shot dead in an incident involving Tallahassee Police Department, Florida just a few days ago. This Pride Month, we must remember them above the victories that have brought us here. So, the next time you say “Happy Pride Month!! 🌈🤎🖤💙💚💛🧡❤️🌈😜😎🤠” to your queer friends or colleagues, make sure to spare a silent prayer to those Black lives, because they matter.
5. Demonstrate your allyship (this is not always about you)
I admire you if you have Tweeted out threads of solidarity explaining #BlackLivesMatter over the past week. Every drop that you add to the tsunami of conversation that is taking place helps to raise awareness of the horrible realities faced by the Black communities. If you are an ally, it is important that these messages and threads amplify the voice of those with the lived experience above yours. For many who don’t have that lived experience, including me, the past week has been a painful learning experience about race and racism.
There are however different ways of demonstrating our allyship to Black and BAME queer communities. As we do in the year 2020, it is ok to think out loud on social media about our expanding horizons and the errors of our past ways — but please do so with humility. Perhaps a slightly less obtuse way to demonstrate allyship is to work towards updating power structures within your EDI organisation or workplace. It is likely that they currently implicitly disadvantage, or at least discourage, queer people of colour.
These power structures often limit the number of Black or ethnic minorities from the higher echelons of STEM. For example, there are only 140 Black professors (< 1% of all professors) in the UK universities. From my search last year, I drew the sad conclusion that there are presently no queer individuals of colour in the professorial band in STEM disciplines in the UK. The barriers placed before deserving BAME academics, such as funding bottlenecks and gatekeeping tend to compound with prejudices against ‘queerness’. If you can influence more transparency, checks and balances (a process known as: ‘Decolonizing’) to help queer Black and other non-White colleagues progress in their studies or careers in an equitable manner, that is allyship too. In the same vein, silence is complicity.
This Pride Month:
Be kind and be aware. The protests around the globe are growing and it is an evolving situation. GIVE WAY from your Pride Month activities to the new developments in #BlackLivesMatter. This means being prepared to adapt your Pride Month activities to pay respect to one of the biggest human rights movements in our generation. If you are not sure, reach out to colleagues and friends in the Black community. BOYCOTT Pride Month events or activities which do not seem to consider the plights of Black and other non-White queer communities. As I said above, this should not be difficult if you have racial and intersectional diversity within your group or organisation. Also, brace yourself. June 2020 will get much worse for the Black communities and their allies before it can ever have a chance of getting better.
Dedicated to all our Black-intersectional queer siblings who have faced racially-charged violence in the past year.
This blog post is my opinion. I leave here a note of heartfelt thanks to those of my Black colleagues who have offered me their precious time and feedback on this blog post.
Izzy Jayasinghe is a transgender woman of Sri Lankan (Asian) origin. She was born in Colombo and grew up during the communist insurrection and the civil war, and observed first-hand the anti-Tamil regimes since the 1980s. Izzy is a UK-based scientist developing new types of high-end microscopy, a member of TIGERinSTEMM, co-lead of LGBTQ+ STEM and an elected member of the Women in Physics Group in the Institute of Physics, UK. Views expressed above do not necessarily reflect the policies and values of these organisations or groups.
