LADY PHYLL CO-FOUNDER OF UK BLACK PRIDE

WJC: Who is Lady Phyll? Lady Phyll: I’m a queer Black African warrior woman. Mother. Lover. Friend. Sister. I am a woman of layers and complexity. I’m an activist by blood and by choice. I am an example of joy, persistence and tenderness.

WJC: How would you describe what UK Black Pride is? LP: It’s Europe’s largest celebration for LGBTQIA+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern descent. We produce an annual celebration during Pride Month, as well as a variety of activities throughout the year in and around the UK, which also promote and advocate for the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual health and wellbeing of the communities we represent. UK Black Pride is a safe space to celebrate diverse sexualities, gender identities, cultures, gender expressions and backgrounds and we foster, represent and celebrate Black LGBTQIA+ and QTIPOC culture through education, the arts, cultural events and advocacy.

Importantly, UK Black Pride promotes unity and co-operation among LGBTQIA+ people of diasporic communities in the UK, as well as their friends and families. In the words of Audre Lorde, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.”

WJC: What’s the greatest and heaviest threat to the progression of LGBTQIA+ rights in 2021? LP: It would be a mistake to look at LGBTQIA+ rights in 2021 as separate from every other year. Everything the LGBTQIA+ community is facing, including a rise in hate crime, includingtheongoingtransphobiathatruns rampant in this country, is a result of a thin and exclusionary approach to LGBTQIA+ rights in this country more broadly. If we don’t tackle institutional racism, if we don’t educate people properly, if we don’t allow trans people thehealthcareandautonomytheydeserve, if we don’t fight against a healthcare system that continues to disregard Black life, no one will enjoy the freedoms that are allegedly so foundational to this country.

Whenthemarriage-equalitymovement was happening, nothing was being done to tackle homelessness or racism or transphobia. And so it is perhaps our approach to LGBTQIA+ rights that is the threat. Our politics has to be one that is intersectional, thataccountsforthemanywaysoppression is meted out to so many in this country. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there is no liberation for any of us without liberation for all of us.

TAKING BACK CONTROL