Some thoughts on diversity at Pride festivals.<\/p>\n
This was actually written between 20 & 25 March 2013 – i.e. a while before I started working on Notts Pride 2013<\/a>. Other stuff happened and, as with the other recent article<\/a>, I never got around to posting it at the time.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tActually, re-reading it now, I’m quite struck by how much the perspective I’m describing here informed my approach to the Pride 2013 stuff.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tOK, so rewind to March 2013…\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHow to make Pride entertainments more reflective of the variety of people in the audience?\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIt’s not always as simple as “pick from a load of obvious candidates queueing up to perform”. People more disadvantaged\/oppressed in the world in general are less likely to have built a career as performers, and less likely to be “out” everywhere.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tI suspect the people most likely to be actively approaching Pride committees saying “d’you want us to perform?” are the ones already working the commercial (white male) gay scene: typically boy bands, divas and drag queens, often via their managers and agents.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tA kind of demographic pre-filtering also skews the Pride volunteers, including the ones volunteering to organise the ents. See my previous post, on the skewed demographics of LGBT volunteering<\/a>.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tThese kinds of cultural forces shape the “easy path” to scheduling a Pride stage<\/strong>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tOf course it’s not that anyone can’t<\/em> book people from a demographic different from theirs. But often, whom we remember seeing play somewhere (including at Pride in previous years) influences the field from which the choices get made.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSo, for instance, when I try to think of when I’ve ever seen a Black woman on stage at Pride, I first remember[ed] a singer with a powerful voice, fronting commercial dance music (possibly straight herself) – who could have been applauded for the same performance at a gay nightclub. I doubt that the Committee consciously chose to stick with one particular familiar genre… and I’m very<\/em> sure she wasn’t the only Black woman who could<\/em> have been invited to contribute. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were circumstances which made that booking an “easy choice”.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tI remember one year at Nottingham Pride – maybe 1998? anyway up at the Castle – Sam Fox<\/a> was singing on the main stage. The music was high-energy pop, well within conventional gay-male-scene tradition.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tFunnily enough, I gather Sam’s now in a long-term relationship with a woman. But this was before she was out. She wasn’t booked as a famous bi or lesbian singer;1<\/a><\/b><\/sup> she was booked as a pop singer, famous originally for her showing-the-breasts modelling career. (She was the top “Page 3” model of her time.)\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThat made her a controversial choice in terms of feminist politics, and I remember some grumbling – and amazement! – at the organisers’ apparent obliviousness to all that.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe message the Committee seemed to be sending was “blokes picked the ents this year<\/strong>“.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tFor bigger, wealthier Prides, it’s common to add in a women’s stage, ensuring there will be<\/em> some performers identifying as lesbian (and maybe even bi).\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThat typically means there’s a separate booking process parallel to the booking of the main stage. And in a similar pattern, the drift is towards currently-able-bodied white people, not specially old or specially young, culturally rooted in “the women’s scene”. By default you get a lot of white lesbian singer\/songwriters, with a smattering of white lesbian comedians. It’s a different norm<\/strong> from the white male gay scene, but it still drifts towards a norm.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe other tricky thing about solving the problem by adding more stages is that it can come over like “main stage, favourites from the gay scene; other stages for the Less Important Stuff”.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tBut some organisers do put in the work to stretch Pride into more diverse directions than the default would lead to.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tLeicester Pride springs to mind: one year on the main stage they had the Dhol Enforcement Agency<\/a>, “original innovators of live punjabi folk music<\/span>”. I don’t suppose all of the D-E-A identify as LGB or T; maybe not any of them. But to me it felt really good to see that affirmation of: yes, it’s not only gay white male culture<\/strong> that’s being affirmed here. I especially liked that they were up on the main stage.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tLast year’s Nottingham Pride [i.e. 2012] had a trans*2<\/a><\/b><\/sup> tent, run by the local trans* group<\/a>. The Pride Committee supported that enterprise by providing the tent and PA and some money – championed (I think mainly) by Angela who was then the Chair of Pride.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tAnd then the trans* stage itself was extraordinary in its diversity: the most varied lineup I’ve ever seen at a Pride, in terms of race, abledness, age, size, varied genders, and varied types of performance. Not to say it could never be improved upon :-)\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tBecause I was somewhat involved behind the scenes,3<\/a><\/b><\/sup> I know that that took a conscious effort of recruitment<\/strong>. The default “drift to whiteness” was countered by actively inviting cool performers from varied ethnic\/cultural backgrounds. Likewise, we found we were easily able to list some interested women performers, both trans* & cis, and a few non-binary people sprang instantly to mind too… and so the group made an effort to encourage trans men to come forward and contribute something.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tWhy is that kind of positive discrimination a good thing? (according to me :-) )\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIn terms of supporting and developing people’s talent, I’ve never forgotten this quote, from Anthony Everitt4<\/a><\/b><\/sup> in the Guardian in 1994:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tAppoint more women to senior management positions? Present more plays by women writers? Decisions are made on merit, arts managers told me: it can’t be helped if the talent isn’t there.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tBut of course the talent is there, often an invisible seed unless watered by investment.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n\t\t\t… the investment in Pride terms being not necessarily financial, but in giving people a space and a chance and maybe even some gentle encouragement.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTo my mind, Pride festivals have an even more important criterion in their ents choices than how they can support (potential) performers’ development: it’s about the experience of the people in the audience.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIsn’t Pride partly about presenting and seeing<\/em> ourselves, historically\/culturally stigmatised people, in a positive light? If it is, then we all<\/em> deserve to see ourselves reflected<\/strong> in the people chosen to be up on stage. Not just the G of LGBT and the entertainers they prefer, and not just the L and the G with a tiny or invisible b or t, and not just the currently-abled thin white people between 20 and “old”.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTrue, we can’t all be reflected in every single detail of our lives without everyone individually going up on stage – because everyone’s unique. But if anything, the more<\/em> discriminated-against facets of our lives are more<\/em> important to affirm and celebrate. In that respect, it doesn’t even make sense to have a stage dominated by the people already given most social acceptance.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIn an article about 2012’s Nottingham Pride trans* tent<\/a>, Kat<\/a> talks about another aspect of diversity, namely the awareness of each other’s needs and realities:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe LGBTQA community is a huge, diverse community and it’s really important to acknowledge and welcome that diversity. When that diversity is not embraced, it’s not simply an issue of our experiences not being given a voice, as isolating and unwelcoming as that is. A lack of trans* awareness contributed to some really upsetting incidents [in 2011]<\/span> and the Pride organising committee were keen to avoid that happening this year [2012]<\/span>.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n\t\t\tOf course, there’s a lot more to that learning than seeing someone on stage. But who’s on stage is part<\/em> of the picture. It’s saying: there isn’t one right way to be LGBT<\/strong>. It’s saying: we all count<\/strong>.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tOr not as the case may be.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHere’s a longer quote from that same article of Kat’s,5<\/a><\/sup> because it puts into vivid words the whole picture of what I’m talking about:\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tThere was something magical about being in a tent and being able to listen and watch people who articulated some of my fears and anxieties and desires. There were trans* people speaking and singing and playing about trans* experiences, and cis performers adapting and selecting their work to speak to us. Not us trying to eke out a trans* interpretation of a song or a poem, but them finding the points where we could understand each other. It was people exploring gender and all that came with it; negotiating the NHS, the harsh realities of genital surgery, the misery and joy we find in our bodies.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhen we started planning our tent, we were determined to bring a radical queer feminist perspective to Pride – something that we treasured in our communities but which we rarely found represented at Pride. In this tent we were able to do something special, and create a space that was visible and proud and joyful and intersectional and defiant.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n\t\t\tThat’s what Pride can be, when we put in the work to make it that way.\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 1<\/a>. Sam Fox<\/strong>: I don’t know whether she’s ever claimed either “bi” or “lesbian” as a label. Wikipedia quotes her saying in 2003 “People say I’m gay… I don’t know what I am. All I know is that I’m in love with Myra”.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/a>The question I was pondering<\/h2>\n
<\/a>The easy path<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Sam Fox singing at Pride<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Multiple stages, similar patterns<\/h2>\n
<\/a>What can be done<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Positive discrimination<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>Reflections<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Nurturing mutual awareness<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>The magic of it<\/h2>\n
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