Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be
Joanne Lockwood: interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around
Joanne Lockwood: the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a
Joanne Lockwood: better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the
Joanne Lockwood: future, then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on itunes, Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: all of the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a. Decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: eight with the title how the Term Queer Became Cool
Joanne Lockwood: Again. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by
Joanne Lockwood: Joseph Galliano. I met Joe following an introduction from a
Joanne Lockwood: mutual friend, Kate Bosnsworth, who was the CMO at
Joanne Lockwood: M&C Saachi. She thought we'd have loads to talk. About and we
Joseph Galliano: did, and I don't. Think we've stopped talking since. Joe is the co
Joanne Lockwood: founder and CEO of Queer Britain, a charity working to
Joanne Lockwood: establish the first national LGBTQ Plus museum.
Joanne Lockwood: But he's been a journalist, editor of the Gay Times,
Joanne Lockwood: a book editor, a third sector major donor
Joanne Lockwood: fundraiser, an ambassador manager and a senior corporate
Joanne Lockwood: network leader. Surprised? I guess I can't do anything else. And I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Joe to describe his. Superpower and he said,
Joseph Galliano: other people. So. Hello, Joe.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to the show. Hello. I'm
Joseph Galliano: exhausted hearing that. I think I need to have a lie down.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, we'll have plenty of time for that later, I'm sure.
Joanne Lockwood: So tell me, how did the term Queer become cool
Joanne Lockwood: again? It's funny, because we had quite a long
Joseph Galliano: discussion as an organisation about what we were going to call ourselves, which
Joseph Galliano: was that was always the hardest thing to
Joseph Galliano: do, really, in the early stages. And
Joseph Galliano: we really thought about what is it that young people in particular, how
Joseph Galliano: do they refer to themselves now, and
Joseph Galliano: what is also the most inclusive term under that big long
Joseph Galliano: acronym that rolls on and on?
Joseph Galliano: And Queer was the only moniker under
Joseph Galliano: that acronym that actually everybody can stand
Joseph Galliano: underneath. So for us, it was about being as inclusive as
Joseph Galliano: possible. But also, I
Joseph Galliano: think it's that last little bit of
Joseph Galliano: reclaiming, because it's still
Joseph Galliano: problematic for a lot of people
Joseph Galliano: yeah. Of a certain generation. I know many people that when they hear that
Joanne Lockwood: word, it sends shivers down their spine.
Joanne Lockwood: They've heard it so many times as a word of abuse
Joanne Lockwood: directed towards them. I guess it's
Joanne Lockwood: about time. It's definitely been a stick
Joseph Galliano: to beat people and it has
Joseph Galliano: been used for a long time, I think. Right back to
Joseph Galliano: Lord Queensbury, oscar Wilde
Joseph Galliano: Bosey's father, oscar Wilde's lover's
Joseph Galliano: father, who
Joseph Galliano: used queer in that pejorative sense.
Joseph Galliano: One of the things I thought was quite I certainly make absolutely no claim to
Joseph Galliano: having been key in
Joseph Galliano: disarming that word. But
Joseph Galliano: if you go back to the early ninety s and you look at an organisation
Joseph Galliano: like group like Queer Nation, which was a split off
Joseph Galliano: from the HIV AIDS
Joseph Galliano: activist group Act Up. And
Joseph Galliano: they obviously embraced the word queer
Joseph Galliano: as an act of radical defiance.
Joseph Galliano: Yeah, I think the the fact that. Most people
Joanne Lockwood: now use LGBTQ Plus, the queue obviously being
Joanne Lockwood: queer, it's gained acceptance and
Joanne Lockwood: it's belonging normal conversation. It's part of the acronym, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, for anyone who doesn't identify either
Joanne Lockwood: sexually or gender
Joanne Lockwood: hetero, CIS, normative, if you like. It's a term for anyone who wants
Joanne Lockwood: to be who is just themselves. It's
Joseph Galliano: that kind of sexual and gender nonconforming
Joseph Galliano: and I think there's a beautiful plasticity to
Joseph Galliano: it that it can
Joseph Galliano: be embraced to mean what you want it to mean
Joseph Galliano: and outside of kind
Joseph Galliano: of academic circles, I think that's what people do with it and
Joseph Galliano: that's what I find most exciting about it. Yeah. Personally
Joanne Lockwood: I'm quite comfortable describing myself as queer in
Joanne Lockwood: a queer community around queer people. I think if someone,
Joanne Lockwood: as you said, used it pejoratively or weaponized it against me, I'd find it
Joanne Lockwood: offensive but as an I am moniker
Joanne Lockwood: it works quite. Well for me and that's about control and self
Joseph Galliano: identification, isn't that? Yeah, completely.
Joseph Galliano: Where does the power reside in the use of a
Joseph Galliano: word? If you can take it and use it for yourself
Joseph Galliano: and you can use it affectionately, then you're holding
Joseph Galliano: that power and I think that it
Joseph Galliano: comes back to exactly like you say, though the intent,
Joseph Galliano: where is the violent? If there's violent intent, then actually you hear the violence
Joseph Galliano: rather than the word. Yeah, I suppose you could use any word with
Joanne Lockwood: violent intent and it would sound violent.
Joanne Lockwood: Flowers. Don't
Joseph Galliano: you dare hit me with those flowers.
Joanne Lockwood: With the right intent or the wrong intent, you can weaponize anything, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, by reclaiming the queer and identity that I'm proud
Joanne Lockwood: of, I own that and I take the power back. So I
Joanne Lockwood: completely understand that. And this is why also,
Joseph Galliano: particularly for some older people in particular
Joseph Galliano: who have had it used against them as a slur,
Joseph Galliano: it can be hard for people to kind of step outside, step away from that
Joseph Galliano: pain,
Joseph Galliano: which is tough. So
Joanne Lockwood: you had this crazy idea of
Joanne Lockwood: co founding the first LGBT
Joanne Lockwood: museum in the UK, or
Joanne Lockwood: fixed space LGBTQ Plus Museum.
Joanne Lockwood: There's been many roaming ones, hasn't there? But this is kind of the first one.
Joanne Lockwood: You're aiming to have a fixed permanent home? Yeah, I mean, there have been
Joseph Galliano: plenty of really good exhibitions and
Joseph Galliano: great community projects and so
Joseph Galliano: forth. This is the first, actually not
Joseph Galliano: the first attempt to get project like this up and
Joseph Galliano: running, but the first attempt for a while
Joseph Galliano: to establish a national bricks and mortar
Joseph Galliano: museum. We'll also always do
Joseph Galliano: pop ups around the country and so forth, but
Joseph Galliano: it feels like bricks and mortar is a really important thing in terms of the
Joseph Galliano: sort of symbolism of what does it mean? In terms of
Joseph Galliano: how do we show, as a country whose stories and artefacts we
Joseph Galliano: value and how can we own them for ourselves as
Joseph Galliano: well? So that was the why? That was the reason
Joanne Lockwood: that you felt it was important to create this sort of
Joanne Lockwood: snapshot, this storytelling,
Joanne Lockwood: capturing the lives and the moments of people
Joanne Lockwood: for future generations, queer and non queer people. Yeah. And
Joseph Galliano: actually, that's absolutely, really
Joseph Galliano: vital, is that we think of it as the
Joseph Galliano: LGBTQ plus museum for all, regardless of sexuality or
Joseph Galliano: gender identity. I keep coming back to it's. The image and I know we've
Joseph Galliano: talked about this before, but it's the image of young woman who's just come out
Joseph Galliano: to a mother and trying to create somewhere
Joseph Galliano: that they can both go to together so they can both come away feeling
Joseph Galliano: excited to be a part of this set of communities
Joseph Galliano: and understanding their own family a lot
Joseph Galliano: better and coming away just excited with the
Joseph Galliano: possibilities of the world and all it can offer.
Joanne Lockwood: So have you found it's been received by,
Joanne Lockwood: A, I suppose, the queer community, and B, by the non queer community? Have you
Joanne Lockwood: found there's a real kind of yeah, we need this,
Joanne Lockwood: or has it been a struggle? No, I've been
Joseph Galliano: pushing against it feels like I've been pushing against one open door after
Joseph Galliano: another. It feels like an idea whose time
Joseph Galliano: really has come.
Joseph Galliano: It's so funny, Joe, because I started off, in some
Joseph Galliano: ways, just sort of thinking, like, what's the most exciting thing I could do right
Joseph Galliano: now? And
Joseph Galliano: I knew emotionally what it meant to me. I
Joseph Galliano: know emotionally what it would have meant for me to see myself better
Joseph Galliano: reflected in the culture.
Joseph Galliano: I hadn't somehow made that leap as to how that would feel for other people.
Joseph Galliano: Quite often I've been talking to people about what we're doing,
Joseph Galliano: actually, strangely, in business meetings or
Joseph Galliano: with community activists,
Joseph Galliano: and you suddenly realise that they're talking to you, but there's
Joseph Galliano: a tear in it, they've kind of welled up. And
Joseph Galliano: I think the first few times that happened,
Joseph Galliano: that was a real signal for me, that it was like, okay,
Joseph Galliano: this is really important, this is something to be
Joseph Galliano: carried with a great sense of responsibility. And
Joseph Galliano: I feel very privileged to be able
Joseph Galliano: to do everything in my power to hold
Joseph Galliano: that and make that happen.
Joanne Lockwood: So I suppose in the same way that a church is not
Joanne Lockwood: the building, it's the people. The Cream museum, effectively, is the community,
Joanne Lockwood: the people coming together, the memories it holds that you treasure
Joanne Lockwood: beyond just the bricks and mortar. Yes. Although I see the bricks
Joseph Galliano: and mortar being a very strong signal,
Joseph Galliano: and that's kind of
Joseph Galliano: creating the what would the
Joseph Galliano: right word be? The crucible for the beacon to be sitting
Joseph Galliano: in, so that that can be then seen around the world
Joseph Galliano: and so that people can see the value in these stories.
Joseph Galliano: And understand why this is important, that this is important.
Joanne Lockwood: Some sort of North Star shining light that everyone could focus on.
Joanne Lockwood: One of the things that I became, I suppose, aware of when I first
Joanne Lockwood: met you, we started talking about this. It was just a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: over a coffee in a cafe, effectively, I
Joanne Lockwood: think. Then I came to some of the launch events and I met some of
Joanne Lockwood: the other people who are involved with the project. And I think you hear so
Joanne Lockwood: much from the community, or wherever the community is. The
Joanne Lockwood: population of people who are queer about negativity,
Joanne Lockwood: around business, around
Joanne Lockwood: Pinkwashing, around the government,
Joanne Lockwood: MPs, parliament, civil service, not representing or not
Joanne Lockwood: considering queer people. But what I was struck by was
Joanne Lockwood: the depth and breadth of people involved with the project, who are
Joanne Lockwood: sponsoring it, who are promoting it, who are happy to stand shoulder to
Joanne Lockwood: shoulder with the museum from that
Joanne Lockwood: launch at Dover House. Number of people there and the Demershire Club, the
Joanne Lockwood: one there. There was such a number of diverse people
Joanne Lockwood: from all over. Okay, maybe the privileged side of
Joanne Lockwood: London, maybe. To be fair, we started off with
Joseph Galliano: very much a focus on developing a donor community.
Joseph Galliano: In those early days,
Joseph Galliano: there was definitely privilege in those rooms.
Joseph Galliano: You need that to get things going. But I felt it's being wielded for the
Joanne Lockwood: benefit of the community. It wasn't privileged for privilege sake. It's privileged using its
Joanne Lockwood: privilege for amplification and to
Joanne Lockwood: establish this and be a part of it and be proud. And
Joanne Lockwood: to be proud. I mean, there's many people who are not
Joanne Lockwood: proud to be openly queer. But in those rooms there were people who
Joanne Lockwood: were prepared to be openly queer. And back the project.
Joseph Galliano: And what is wonderful is the amount of times those people, they
Joseph Galliano: say, how can I help? And that
Joseph Galliano: some of the most powerful four words you can hear, aren't they?
Joseph Galliano: Really? Yeah. Because that was a real powerful amount, I think. Last year there was
Joanne Lockwood: that event that Coots organised in 440 Strand, wasn't there?
Joanne Lockwood: Where they had the massive rainbow stripes on the
Joanne Lockwood: outside of their main office, their flagship, global
Joanne Lockwood: flagship office in London. I can't
Joseph Galliano: tell you how much that made me both sort of
Joseph Galliano: proud and give a wry
Joseph Galliano: smile. The fact that Coots
Joseph Galliano: had taken such a bold move to
Joseph Galliano: know it's a private bank, that's kind of pretty
Joseph Galliano: conservative type of organisation, one would think the
Joseph Galliano: Queen's Bank. And we've slapped the word queer on the front
Joseph Galliano: of it in one of the most high profile locations in the
Joseph Galliano: country. And you can talk about Pinkwashing. And I don't think
Joseph Galliano: in that particular instance that was a demonstration of Pinkwashing in the slightest.
Joseph Galliano: I think that was done
Joseph Galliano: well within that sector. A bit of bravery, actually.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it was. I worked for Coops in the in
Joanne Lockwood: the whole place at 440
Joanne Lockwood: Strand was so controlled about who could be seen
Joanne Lockwood: on the on the banking floor, which entrance you could come into,
Joanne Lockwood: which escalator what you were allowed to wear as an
Joanne Lockwood: employee. They still have the frock coats. Have frock
Joanne Lockwood: coats and they used to have that massive revolving tree
Joanne Lockwood: in the foyer right on the ground floor, which used to rotate once every
Joanne Lockwood: 24 hours really slowly. I didn't know that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you wouldn't notice because it rotated so slowly because
Joanne Lockwood: obviously they wanted the tree to grow upwards, not twist and things into the
Joanne Lockwood: sunlight, so they had to rotate it. Fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: And a massive koi carp pond in the middle. It was like
Joanne Lockwood: still there. I found it clear
Joanne Lockwood: that night there were what, 100, 200 people in the
Joanne Lockwood: foyer there in a reception
Joanne Lockwood: celebrating pride. Celebrating coots's
Joanne Lockwood: celebration of pride with queer Britain dead centre. I thought that
Joanne Lockwood: was. You know we've done other things with them
Joseph Galliano: as well. They've been sort of happy to introduce us to
Joseph Galliano: some of their clients. They've been happy to
Joseph Galliano: hosted us for a donor dinner and
Joseph Galliano: actually just some of the staff there
Joseph Galliano: are there at the end of the phone when you need to talk things
Joseph Galliano: through. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So we're now in June, aren't we? So this 2 June
Joanne Lockwood: 2020 is it June? I've lost track.
Joseph Galliano: I actually googled the day the other day.
Joseph Galliano: What day is it today? It's funny, my wife and
Joanne Lockwood: I had this routine when she was being furloughed. We
Joanne Lockwood: lost track of days so we got in the habit of wake up in the
Joanne Lockwood: morning shouting out the day of the week it was so we both remember what
Joanne Lockwood: day of the week. And religiously we always do pinch punch
Joanne Lockwood: the first of the month when we wake up in the morning. It's kind of
Joanne Lockwood: like a commando assault on each other. The first one to get in wins. It's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of like we've had for years and
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes it can get quite over the top. I wouldn't say violent, but
Joanne Lockwood: certainly it gets a bit risky with people looping each other and
Joanne Lockwood: I've got this app on my phone and I just realised that my lockdown effectively
Joanne Lockwood: starts on the 13 March and that's eleven weeks ago and it's
Joanne Lockwood: like, where's that time going?
Joseph Galliano: It's funny. How are you coping with it all? How are you? I've
Joanne Lockwood: worked from home on and off for quite a while and in the last
Joanne Lockwood: couple of years quite a bit. But I'd always intersperse working from
Joanne Lockwood: home or working remotely with trips to London, clients
Joanne Lockwood: delivering, travelling the world. So this is the first
Joanne Lockwood: time I've been consciously at home so
Joanne Lockwood: much and occasionally I go a bit stir crazy. I need to get
Joanne Lockwood: out. I realise that I haven't really been out much for four or
Joanne Lockwood: five days and even then it's just to put the bins out or have a
Joanne Lockwood: quick look outside. So we're starting to make the most of the
Joanne Lockwood: weekends now. It's socially acceptable to
Joanne Lockwood: be out more, to social distance more and to sort of
Joanne Lockwood: put some deck chairs in a local park. So, yeah, I'm capping. Okay.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got plenty to keep me busy. This podcast, for one, and
Joanne Lockwood: having conversations with people on Zoom. Yeah, I'm doing all right. How
Joanne Lockwood: about yourself? Yeah,
Joseph Galliano: I'm lucky enough to
Joseph Galliano: be living in a sort of fairly rural part
Joseph Galliano: of North Essex.
Joseph Galliano: We have shops just down the road. Local shops just down the road.
Joseph Galliano: My husband's a gardener, so the garden's lovely.
Joseph Galliano: I think it would be churlish
Joseph Galliano: to say that I haven't been enjoying some aspects of that. I'm certainly not missing
Joseph Galliano: commuting. I was travelling about 4 hours a day,
Joseph Galliano: so I'm not missing that at all. But it does make me
Joseph Galliano: think, what would this be like for the single parent living on the 17th
Joseph Galliano: floor
Joseph Galliano: who doesn't have those luxuries? Must be tough.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's not easy in those situations. We're in a first
Joanne Lockwood: floor, two bed flat with one living room, so, yeah, we can
Joanne Lockwood: get on top of each other and we don't see a lot of the outside.
Joanne Lockwood: There's not a lot out there apart from a road. So, yeah, we do need
Joanne Lockwood: to get out of it. But, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of people out
Joanne Lockwood: there who are either living alone, who've been very isolated, or, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, a single parent, or even worse, in some respects,
Joanne Lockwood: a different problem, where there's multiple generations living in the same household,
Joanne Lockwood: all trying to compete for space, internet, computers,
Joanne Lockwood: tabletops, which can be equally stressful.
Joseph Galliano: Yeah, I think it can throw people together
Joseph Galliano: into
Joseph Galliano: emotional soups that they might not
Joseph Galliano: have either wanted to find themselves in or they may
Joseph Galliano: have had other way, other releases for and actually, as
Joseph Galliano: well for some queer people. Particularly
Joseph Galliano: tough times
Joseph Galliano: if you're stuck in a hostile environment, if you're stuck in an environment
Joseph Galliano: where you can't be yourself and there's no
Joseph Galliano: way of actually going out to the places where you can be yourself.
Joseph Galliano: If you're in the closet.
Joseph Galliano: Yeah, it must be must be very tough for I think there
Joseph Galliano: are particular challenges, I think,
Joseph Galliano: for many LGBTQ plus people.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we're starting by saying that the Pride Month is cancelled. So this
Joanne Lockwood: was obviously a global celebration month for
Joanne Lockwood: people that all the marches, all the Pride
Joanne Lockwood: events have now been virtualized. It's hard to
Joanne Lockwood: imagine some of them taking place over Zoom
Joanne Lockwood: until Eurovision. I
Joanne Lockwood: really had an amazing night watching the
Joanne Lockwood: Eurovision Revisited, the online version,
Joanne Lockwood: the way that the production company still put an event on
Joanne Lockwood: in a different way. And I thought it was fantastic. I thought
Joanne Lockwood: they missed a trip, though. They could have still done the voting. They could have
Joanne Lockwood: played all the songs and still had the voting. We could have all joined
Joanne Lockwood: in still. I didn't see it. And I sometimes wonder if
Joseph Galliano: I'm not gay enough.
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't realise there was a sighting scale. I didn't realise you could be a
Joanne Lockwood: bit gay. Yeah, very definitely.
Joanne Lockwood: You're right. It's impacting on people and just the fact that they can't get
Joanne Lockwood: out, they can't meet people, they can't be themselves.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm hyper aware of the impact on people who maybe have
Joanne Lockwood: a gender identity, the trans or non
Joanne Lockwood: binary, where they live in a family environment or with people who
Joanne Lockwood: they're not open with, they're not out. And that could be a
Joanne Lockwood: real challenge. There's no way they can
Joanne Lockwood: sort of get any respite in that situation. Maybe, unless they're
Joanne Lockwood: zooming, even though that's difficult. I
Joanne Lockwood: know some trans people who are out at work
Joanne Lockwood: but not out or not fully out at home, or that
Joanne Lockwood: they're not out with their kids, or they're living in a
Joanne Lockwood: marriage where it's not acceptable to be themselves.
Joanne Lockwood: So work is their respite, and now they have to do zoom
Joanne Lockwood: calls in. An environment where
Joseph Galliano: they don't want to. Go back to their birth gender for a
Joanne Lockwood: zoom call for work, but then. They can't fully express themselves when they're. In
Joanne Lockwood: a household with other people. So it's a real dilemma for certain
Joanne Lockwood: people. Yeah, it must be. I think this also goes to
Joseph Galliano: show why the
Joseph Galliano: workplace for many people is such an
Joseph Galliano: important place.
Joseph Galliano: And I shy away from
Joseph Galliano: this kind of use of the word authentic, which kind of it does,
Joseph Galliano: I think gets I think gets perhaps overused in a
Joseph Galliano: corporate setting. But that said,
Joseph Galliano: where cultures within companies can be
Joseph Galliano: made to be
Joseph Galliano: inclusion. And I'm not talking about diversity in the sense
Joseph Galliano: of headcounts and making sure that we've
Joseph Galliano: tick got one of them. Tick got one of them. I'm talking
Joseph Galliano: about how do you make the workplace somewhere that actually
Joseph Galliano: you can feel celebrated in and accepted in
Joseph Galliano: and that you can bring your best professional self to work in
Joseph Galliano: without worrying about too much of that other baggage.
Joseph Galliano: And there's not enough companies that are like that.
Joseph Galliano: Are we getting better? Obviously still a long way to go,
Joanne Lockwood: but is it better than it was? Certainly, I
Joseph Galliano: would say obviously I don't want to speak for trans. I certainly can't speak for
Joseph Galliano: trans people. Certainly as a certainly
Joseph Galliano: as a gay man seems better to me.
Joseph Galliano: But if we're talking about where
Joseph Galliano: a white, middle class gay man sits on
Joseph Galliano: that privilege ladder
Joseph Galliano: within the sets of communities, then it's possible that
Joseph Galliano: I'm not getting the best view for other
Joseph Galliano: people. I suppose my
Joanne Lockwood: experience is variable, it's
Joanne Lockwood: situational. There are pockets of
Joanne Lockwood: issues, but there are large swathes of places that
Joanne Lockwood: are fully accepting. I spend most of my time in the world
Joanne Lockwood: being embraced for who I am. It could well be that I've
Joanne Lockwood: got my blinkers on and my hearing aid turned down,
Joanne Lockwood: so I don't hear the negativity, but
Joanne Lockwood: I don't experience much of an issue these days. But then again, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: white, I'm relatively privileged, and
Joanne Lockwood: I live in a world that is quite comfortable. So, yeah, maybe I'm not the
Joanne Lockwood: best judge. Yeah. And it comes back to it's funny, I always sort of
Joseph Galliano: think about the William Gibson quote,
Joseph Galliano: which is the future's here. It's just not very evenly
Joseph Galliano: distributed,
Joseph Galliano: and I think that's true.
Joseph Galliano: Obviously, the experience of somebody who is
Joseph Galliano: black and trans or sort of
Joseph Galliano: genderqueer in some other way
Joseph Galliano: is going to be very different than for somebody who
Joseph Galliano: looks like me. And it's also going to be different if
Joseph Galliano: in the sort of company that you're working, are you working in a big corporate
Joseph Galliano: that's got policies kind of
Joseph Galliano: within an inch of their lives? Or are you talking about people who are working
Joseph Galliano: in SMEs that are maybe
Joseph Galliano: led by one entrepreneur who
Joseph Galliano: may have opinions that haven't been filtered through an
Joseph Galliano: HR department?
Joanne Lockwood: That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Shooting from the hip. Exactly.
Joseph Galliano: Yes, quite. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: The unfiltered politicians speak, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: From over the water. Yeah, really.
Joanne Lockwood: But that's true. I think you're right. I think
Joanne Lockwood: companies who are multinationals,
Joanne Lockwood: big corporates, tend to have great policies, great HR
Joanne Lockwood: teams, great inclusion strategies, employee
Joanne Lockwood: networks, staff groups that cover all different
Joanne Lockwood: intersections of diversity. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I think in the small business community, they either get it or they don't. There's
Joanne Lockwood: a real challenge there. It's often hand to mouth watching
Joanne Lockwood: the bottom line. They're probably
Joanne Lockwood: quite sexist still, let alone
Joanne Lockwood: homophobic or transphobic or biphobic.
Joseph Galliano: Yeah. They're still struggling with the basics around gender. Well,
Joseph Galliano: let's face it, most of us have had a crap boss at some point
Joseph Galliano: that creates
Joseph Galliano: toxic environments. And that's a
Joseph Galliano: very tough, very tough place to be if you're just trying
Joseph Galliano: you're going to work to keep the wolf from the door, food on the table
Joseph Galliano: and a roof over your head and
Joseph Galliano: not necessarily going to work. Going to work to change the world.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you're right. I think the
Joseph Galliano: world is moving slowly, though. The world is moving slowly, but it's moving.
Joanne Lockwood: I think that each generation passes, each year passes. We're making progress.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe not enough progress for a lot of people, but we are making I don't
Joanne Lockwood: think we're going backwards yet, so let's see where we
Joanne Lockwood: come. It's funny, though, because
Joseph Galliano: the way I kind of often think about this is that
Joseph Galliano: when I think about when I was a teenager and
Joseph Galliano: in theory, could have been arrested for holding somebody's hands
Joseph Galliano: in public, another man's hands in public if
Joseph Galliano: somebody had complained and had reported that as it could have been reported as
Joseph Galliano: a breach of the peace. Let alone the fact that when
Joseph Galliano: I was 17 and I was living with my first boyfriend who was
Joseph Galliano: 19 no. Who was 20. Sorry,
Joseph Galliano: wasn't 19. I was 19, he was
Joseph Galliano: 23. And at that time, he could have spent seven
Joseph Galliano: years in prison for the relationship that we
Joseph Galliano: had forward
Joseph Galliano: fast to however many years it
Joseph Galliano: is. And, you know, the the idea that I
Joseph Galliano: can I can be married and live
Joseph Galliano: very comfortably in a rural village without
Joseph Galliano: anybody seemingly batting an eyelid is
Joseph Galliano: great. The trouble is that
Joseph Galliano: when things move quickly, they can also unravel
Joseph Galliano: quickly as well.
Joseph Galliano: And one of the political reasons, with
Joseph Galliano: a little p that I felt it was so important to
Joseph Galliano: drive this museum project forward is to help
Joseph Galliano: lock down those gains. It's like, what could be my part in helping
Joseph Galliano: lock down those gains and make sure that we are kind
Joseph Galliano: of properly positioned as
Joseph Galliano: ourselves, embraced in the heart of the
Joseph Galliano: mainstream, without having to make those compromises about
Joseph Galliano: who we are. And that's what I'd
Joseph Galliano: really like to see. I
Joanne Lockwood: agree. I think that's where we got to. Try and move society
Joanne Lockwood: forward. We've got to try, as you say, capitalise on
Joanne Lockwood: the progress we've made, make sure that we can't go backwards because it only
Joanne Lockwood: takes a different government, a different political
Joanne Lockwood: bent, different priorities. I think we've seen that with the
Joanne Lockwood: frustration around the trans, the gender reform,
Joanne Lockwood: the GRA Gender Recognition Act consultation to put out. It was a
Joanne Lockwood: priority for Theresa May's government. We had number of
Joanne Lockwood: equalities ministers championing it, speaking for it, the
Joanne Lockwood: Labour leader spoke for it and now it's being kicked into the
Joanne Lockwood: long grass. And whether I'll
Joanne Lockwood: ever come back again, who
Joanne Lockwood: knows whether it's going to be something that will never happen, might
Joanne Lockwood: happen, it's really
Joanne Lockwood: difficult to say. And of course, for many non binary people
Joanne Lockwood: and trans people who are not
Joanne Lockwood: going through what was traditionally a medicalized process, they feel
Joanne Lockwood: very vulnerable that they're not going to get acceptance there's.
Joanne Lockwood: There's gatekeeping, there's talk about rolling
Joanne Lockwood: back access for child services in terms
Joanne Lockwood: of young people's, trans access to the gender
Joanne Lockwood: identity services. So that's all quite worrying
Joanne Lockwood: and it's giving oxygen
Joanne Lockwood: to radical groups who
Joanne Lockwood: are very small in number but very loud,
Joanne Lockwood: and they have the ear of quite a few
Joanne Lockwood: editors in big tabloids and broad sheets.
Joseph Galliano: Sorry. No, sorry, go after you. You
Joanne Lockwood: see a lot of Sunday papers from
Joanne Lockwood: printing kind of the negative trans stories about people
Joanne Lockwood: detransitioning, about medical issues, about people who
Joanne Lockwood: about one child who sued their school for allowing gender neutral
Joanne Lockwood: toilets. And these things hit the national
Joanne Lockwood: papers, they get promoted. And I spoke with
Joanne Lockwood: the deputy social affairs editor for one of those papers recently and he
Joanne Lockwood: was telling me that they get hit with dozens or so stories every
Joanne Lockwood: week from these vocal groups, all these negative
Joanne Lockwood: stories. And I said, well, why can't you print something that I want to talk
Joanne Lockwood: about? And he said, well, tell me a story that's interesting but
Joanne Lockwood: getting on me in life, being happy,
Joanne Lockwood: being a functional member society isn't interesting. It's only interesting
Joanne Lockwood: if something creates a reaction. So
Joanne Lockwood: I have to do something that was against my nature to be interesting.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas all the all other people seem to be doing is finding people who have
Joanne Lockwood: had a bad experience and amplifying that. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: the thousands and thousands of people who don't have a bad experience suddenly have no
Joanne Lockwood: voice and the only voices you're hearing are the people with problems. And
Joseph Galliano: isn't that true as well, where I'm totally true. When you talk
Joseph Galliano: about actually people don't want to be
Joseph Galliano: the subject of debate. They just sort of want to get on with their
Joseph Galliano: lives. And I think a lot of the
Joseph Galliano: rhetoric around trans people now
Joseph Galliano: in the media actually
Joseph Galliano: very strongly echo how gay men were being talked about sort
Joseph Galliano: of 30 years ago.
Joseph Galliano: It's quite interesting and
Joseph Galliano: salutary to see how history
Joseph Galliano: you can read history to make sense of what's happening
Joseph Galliano: now. And actually, if you look at how,
Joseph Galliano: say, gay men and lesbians
Joseph Galliano: were spoken about all that time ago,
Joseph Galliano: what are the similarities and the correlations between that and
Joseph Galliano: the way that trans people are talked about now in those
Joseph Galliano: settings, similar. Messages
Joanne Lockwood: disbelieving is real. We can fix
Joanne Lockwood: you. You don't have to do this. You're just a
Joanne Lockwood: phase. You don't know your own mind. Or that's not
Joanne Lockwood: normal. The biology
Joanne Lockwood: the world wasn't designed for people to be anything other than men
Joanne Lockwood: being men and women being women. And a marriage is a relationship
Joanne Lockwood: between two people of different sex or genders. And
Joanne Lockwood: we're hearing the same stuff again. And it's to say that
Joanne Lockwood: people don't know their own mind, they don't have this lived experience,
Joanne Lockwood: and then demonising people as being predatory when
Joanne Lockwood: there's such a minority of cases where a
Joanne Lockwood: predatory person uses the
Joanne Lockwood: fact to say they're trans, to be
Joanne Lockwood: predatory. It's such a rare occurrence.
Joanne Lockwood: Why add the stigma?
Joseph Galliano: Is it even a rare occurrence? I mean, this is the thing, isn't it?
Joseph Galliano: Isn't it, that when those stories tend to be looked at,
Joseph Galliano: they're unsupported anecdotal
Joseph Galliano: stories that have been really used to just sort of whisk up
Joseph Galliano: some fear. They've been quite often
Joseph Galliano: put out by somebody from the Christian
Joseph Galliano: right. And I do mean that in a very you know, when I talk about
Joseph Galliano: the Christian right there I mean that in a very specific way.
Joseph Galliano: I talk about those people who would use the Bible
Joseph Galliano: to deny basic human
Joseph Galliano: rights. And it's also that kind of
Joseph Galliano: isn't it just a bit boring? And like, how long can you describe people
Joseph Galliano: using terms around the shock of the new?
Joseph Galliano: How often can you have headlines about this
Joseph Galliano: outrageous new trans
Joseph Galliano: trend? Just it's
Joseph Galliano: such nonsense. And you can't say that same
Joseph Galliano: thing again and again and again, and it be true.
Joanne Lockwood: But we see well meaning schools,
Joanne Lockwood: well meaning government, local government all trying to do what they think is the
Joanne Lockwood: right thing. Suddenly facing lawsuits,
Joanne Lockwood: facing people who are anti
Joanne Lockwood: trans for whatever reason, trying to unpick the
Joanne Lockwood: Equality Act and reword it to suit their own objectives
Joanne Lockwood: and basically just make stuff up around it.
Joanne Lockwood: And then, because everyone's so risk adverse, they think
Joanne Lockwood: that the status quo is the
Joanne Lockwood: default option, rather than saying, well, actually the status. Quo is no longer a
Joanne Lockwood: default option. Trans people have had change. They've had access
Joanne Lockwood: to services, they've had access to live, and now they're finding
Joanne Lockwood: those protections roll back because everyone's too. Scared, it's going too quickly.
Joseph Galliano: And aren't trans people just about?
Joseph Galliano: Excuse me,
Joseph Galliano: that's my mother.
Joanne Lockwood: She can join in. That's my mother on the phone.
Joseph Galliano: I've just lost her.
Joanne Lockwood: Hi, mom. Hello, Mum.
Joseph Galliano: You're on a podcast at the moment.
Joseph Galliano: I'm being interviewed for a pod. We're having a conversation for a podcast at the
Joseph Galliano: moment. That's my
Joanne Lockwood: mum. Say hello to Joe.
Joseph Galliano: Hello. Hi, Mum.
Joseph Galliano: Call you later. Bye bye. Well, that's
Joanne Lockwood: the new norm, isn't it? We have to bring our whole family to work at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment. Right. That has stopped my
Joseph Galliano: voice memo, so I'm going to start that again. Right. Okay, where were
Joseph Galliano: we? I think we're just talking about the rights
Joanne Lockwood: of certainly trans people being kind of
Joanne Lockwood: questioned and erased in some respect by people who
Joanne Lockwood: are risk adverse and the loud vocal kind of,
Joanne Lockwood: as you describe them, the Christian. Right. Well, I wonder
Joseph Galliano: as well, because
Joseph Galliano: part of the culture wars, where a few years ago, where you had the defence
Joseph Galliano: of the Marriage Act in the States, that
Joseph Galliano: was defining marriages between
Joseph Galliano: one man. And one woman.
Joseph Galliano: In a way that became a proxy for a different sort
Joseph Galliano: of culture war, for the culture wars. And
Joseph Galliano: it feels like as the
Joseph Galliano: argument for same sex marriage has been largely won
Joseph Galliano: for now, it's moving
Joseph Galliano: into where is the next frontier that they can use
Joseph Galliano: to probe and try and kind of break
Joseph Galliano: down coalitions that can exist between trans
Joseph Galliano: people, lesbians, gay people? How can
Joseph Galliano: feminism be used as a way of clawing
Joseph Galliano: people apart from each other, as opposed to doing the thing that it really
Joseph Galliano: should be doing, which is about bringing everybody together as.
Joanne Lockwood: Mean? I thought I thought it was interesting that Ruth Hunt was speaking in the
Joanne Lockwood: House of Lords the other day around her support for
Joanne Lockwood: trans equality. And whilst
Joanne Lockwood: not everybody loved her in her role at Stonewall, she
Joanne Lockwood: did certainly advance the focus of Stonewall to look
Joanne Lockwood: at trans rights and bring it to focus at Stonewall way over
Joanne Lockwood: to can. We can debate whether she was effective at that,
Joanne Lockwood: whether it was authentic. But at the end of the day, Stonewall now have
Joanne Lockwood: a trans positive element and they do a lot of trans awareness training to
Joanne Lockwood: organisations which love them or hate them. They're doing a
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic job doing something.
Joseph Galliano: I'm so glad that they are. I'm so glad that they are.
Joseph Galliano: Yes, it needs to happen. And actually, I think
Joseph Galliano: anything that can keep the
Joseph Galliano: L, the G, the B, the T, the Q closer
Joseph Galliano: together means that we'll be stronger or
Joseph Galliano: just come. Together as Q is. Kind of.
Joseph Galliano: The wonderful thing about that is that what I really love
Joseph Galliano: is people could
Joseph Galliano: just be whoever you are, be whoever you want to
Joseph Galliano: be. Yes. Because it doesn't really matter, does it? As long as
Joanne Lockwood: you come from a position of kindness, then
Joanne Lockwood: you just want to get on with your life. People don't generally want to
Joanne Lockwood: be bad people, actually.
Joseph Galliano: This is one of the interesting things through history, is that by and
Joseph Galliano: large, people have kind of got on with their lives
Joseph Galliano: and they've worked their way around the
Joseph Galliano: systems as much as they can.
Joseph Galliano: And this is no different.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm watching the news. I'm sure you are following
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on in America at the moment
Joanne Lockwood: about some of the rhetoric coming out of the White House, some of
Joanne Lockwood: the statements, but
Joanne Lockwood: there's the upswell of support around the globe
Joanne Lockwood: to call out racism to being vocal, being an ally.
Joanne Lockwood: But it does still show that no matter how far we think we've come,
Joanne Lockwood: racism is still prevalent in most societies in the
Joanne Lockwood: Western world. It's just below the surface.
Joanne Lockwood: Homophobia, biphobia, transphobia are just below the
Joanne Lockwood: surface. And I think if you
Joanne Lockwood: amplify those
Joanne Lockwood: supremacy type voices, then it doesn't take much for these
Joanne Lockwood: views to surface in clusters here and there.
Joseph Galliano: Isn't it about the
Joseph Galliano: ruthlessness of the urge to
Joseph Galliano: power, which, when you get a
Joseph Galliano: particular kind of, say, character like
Joseph Galliano: Trump, for example, and I'm not saying I think Trump is a
Joseph Galliano: symptom, he's
Joseph Galliano: not the sole problem. But
Joseph Galliano: when that kind of when when that sort of
Joseph Galliano: power is trying to establish and preserve itself, or is trying to preserve
Joseph Galliano: itself, it doesn't really care who it throws under the bus in order to protect
Joseph Galliano: its own position
Joseph Galliano: and actually divide and conquer. It's a classic
Joseph Galliano: tactic, isn't? And I imagine as well,
Joseph Galliano: that for a lot of black
Joseph Galliano: people in the States and in the UK,
Joseph Galliano: probably what they're going to be. I would imagine that they're going to be not
Joseph Galliano: surprised to see
Joseph Galliano: the films have disturbed other people, have disturbed,
Joseph Galliano: actually, lots of white people. Because I
Joseph Galliano: think probably what they're going to be saying is, yeah,
Joseph Galliano: this is what we experience as black people all the time.
Joseph Galliano: This is why black kids
Joseph Galliano: are so often taught by their parents
Joseph Galliano: how to not attract the attention of police as they're walking out in the street.
Joseph Galliano: This is why people are worried when they go out jogging in
Joseph Galliano: nice neighbourhoods. Nice meaning white and
Joseph Galliano: wealthy.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, that perception. A black person out for
Joanne Lockwood: a run with a hoodie on is likely to be there for nefarious
Joanne Lockwood: purposes, rather than be there just to go for a run. Yeah,
Joseph Galliano: true. Completely true. It's
Joanne Lockwood: something I don't experience even as a trans person. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: perceive that people perceive me as a
Joanne Lockwood: threat and a criminal in that way. They may perceive me in other ways. But
Joseph Galliano: they clearly don't know you.
Joseph Galliano: Shh. But, no,
Joanne Lockwood: I've never experienced that kind of guilt
Joanne Lockwood: by perception type. Yeah, okay.
Joanne Lockwood: Like yourself, I've experienced discrimination in employment,
Joanne Lockwood: in opportunity, but never being
Joanne Lockwood: judged as a criminal without
Joanne Lockwood: cause. Or some of the
Joanne Lockwood: impact that racism has on people, so I've never experienced that
Joanne Lockwood: and I can only have a little
Joanne Lockwood: bit of empathy because I can't understand the full impact of it.
Joanne Lockwood: I know what I feel about having to cover,
Joanne Lockwood: having to pass, having to maybe
Joanne Lockwood: my voice is quite deep, I'm cautious about how I speak in
Joanne Lockwood: certain company. If I'm on the train, I'm conscious about if I shout out for
Joanne Lockwood: a cup of coffee, it could cause some
Joanne Lockwood: sort of kind of confusion amongst the people around me, so I'm very
Joanne Lockwood: cautious about it but that's nothing compared with
Joanne Lockwood: a black youth just being themselves, if you like.
Joseph Galliano: How does that make you feel? I mean, what does that do to
Joseph Galliano: you on an emotional level or an intellectual
Joseph Galliano: level? I assume on an emotional level?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I suppose what I'm doing is. I'm trying to protect
Joseph Galliano: myself from having. A further situation, so it's better
Joanne Lockwood: to control myself, to maybe
Joanne Lockwood: whisper or not to ask for a cup of coffee or
Joanne Lockwood: if I'm out with my wife, sometimes I say, can you go and have that
Joanne Lockwood: conversation, please? Because I really can't be doing with
Joanne Lockwood: having to out myself effectively to the waiter or to the person
Joanne Lockwood: serving or to someone who I want to try. To get
Joseph Galliano: some help from. I think it's just easier for you. Guys feet
Joseph Galliano: because I don't really want. To bring me into the equation,
Joanne Lockwood: I've kind of got used to that, but you're right, it's holding
Joanne Lockwood: back.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not bringing my whole self to the world, I'm bringing my whole self
Joanne Lockwood: society. So, yeah, it does impact and my wife and I are conscious
Joanne Lockwood: about holding hands, kissing in public, like many, many queer
Joanne Lockwood: people do, which I find really confusing because
Joanne Lockwood: she doesn't look any different. To me.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe a bit older and a bit more gorgeous, but, yeah, she's matured.
Joseph Galliano: Well, isn't it funny, though, how
Joseph Galliano: a kiss between partners can be politicised?
Joseph Galliano: Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: We used to go to a lot of National Trust walks, do a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: National Trust houses, and we would find cubby
Joanne Lockwood: holes behind doors or behind a curtain somewhere and we'd
Joanne Lockwood: have a quick snog. I feel like we were really devilish
Joanne Lockwood: because we were being kind of naughty behind the cupboard sort of thing
Joanne Lockwood: as grown adults, but we just didn't feel brave enough or
Joanne Lockwood: open enough to be. Able to sort of just show public. Signs of
Joanne Lockwood: affection, hold hands walking around. A National Trust building. Well, I had
Joseph Galliano: a funny moment. My experience
Joseph Galliano: is, again, it's very gentle, I think, compared with what many
Joseph Galliano: people have to experience. But I found myself
Joseph Galliano: about five or six years ago,
Joseph Galliano: and I was in a local shop near where we just
Joseph Galliano: moved into the house that we just moved into and
Joseph Galliano: went to buy a bottle of wine. And the woman
Joseph Galliano: serving nicest pie, oh, your wife will be pleased
Joseph Galliano: with that, obviously. I'm wearing a wedding ring,
Joseph Galliano: and I had almost like a weird
Joseph Galliano: out of body experience where
Joseph Galliano: the thought process went for first of all, I
Joseph Galliano: blushed because I thought,
Joseph Galliano: well, I can't just let that
Joseph Galliano: pass. Because somehow that feels like that's letting
Joseph Galliano: my lovely husband down and not kind of respecting that
Joseph Galliano: relationship that I have with him. And then
Joseph Galliano: there's the conflict of not wanting to
Joseph Galliano: be antsy or awkward or
Joseph Galliano: rude and then the next
Joseph Galliano: thought thinking oh my God I'm as
Joseph Galliano: out as it's possible to be. You google my name
Joseph Galliano: it is gay, gay, gay out there. You can't
Joseph Galliano: get away. There's no going back into the closet for me
Joseph Galliano: thankfully. Not that I'd want to
Joseph Galliano: exactly, but I also just thought
Joseph Galliano: if that is how I felt former
Joseph Galliano: editor of Gay Times. Somebody who's
Joseph Galliano: been very well supported by his mother, who you just met.
Joseph Galliano: Somebody who at the time
Joseph Galliano: in his early forty s and has
Joseph Galliano: been there, done that. What is it going to be like
Joseph Galliano: for somebody who is not so sure of
Joseph Galliano: themselves? What is it going to be like for that person who
Joseph Galliano: is like a young person who hasn't
Joseph Galliano: yet come out the closet or is struggling to come out the
Joseph Galliano: closet or is struggling with our identity issues.
Joseph Galliano: And I just felt in
Joseph Galliano: that moment it was like well I have to say something
Joseph Galliano: because for that person I can't leave that
Joseph Galliano: unsaid. And so just actually very kind of politely
Joseph Galliano: it was just like oh husband actually
Joseph Galliano: and of course nothing more was said. It was just like oh well, enjoy your
Joseph Galliano: wine. And obviously because these situations we're kind of
Joseph Galliano: almost trained to think that these things are going to be much
Joseph Galliano: bigger than they will be in the moment.
Joanne Lockwood: But, God, it's complicated. That whole series of thoughts that you.
Joanne Lockwood: Can I was at my wife's Christmas party
Joanne Lockwood: with her office colleagues, and she started
Joanne Lockwood: introducing me as her other half.
Joanne Lockwood: And I sort of laughed at her because
Joanne Lockwood: I just used to introduce her as my other half in the distant
Joanne Lockwood: past. And she kind of didn't get upset with
Joanne Lockwood: me, but she kind of went, oh, other half bit on the side. It sounds
Joanne Lockwood: a bit yeah I'm your. Wife sort of thing. And then to hear
Joanne Lockwood: her introduce me as our other half I sort of said well and she said
Joanne Lockwood: well I thought about it. She said because you're not my wife
Joanne Lockwood: because technically and legally I'm still a
Joanne Lockwood: husband. I haven't change that role really.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't identify as wife in that way and to
Joanne Lockwood: call me husband when I was in a cocktail dress sound right
Joanne Lockwood: either and
Joanne Lockwood: partner didn't quite work either. So we kind of fell back
Joanne Lockwood: to other half as being kind of a
Joanne Lockwood: nondescript of we're together and everyone knew she
Joanne Lockwood: was married to me but described me as
Joanne Lockwood: a very neutral way of describing me. The people who knew we were
Joanne Lockwood: married you got to double think
Joanne Lockwood: these things, haven't you? It's no longer can you just go through life
Joanne Lockwood: just using everyday language that other people, other
Joanne Lockwood: straight, normal, typical people use. We have to sort of
Joanne Lockwood: normal wherever normal
Joanne Lockwood: is, but the
Joanne Lockwood: societal norms. Whatever.
Joanne Lockwood: People use who have never questioned any part of our identity,
Joanne Lockwood: they just do. They don't think about what they do. Having to double
Joanne Lockwood: think everything, having to work out the risk, the
Joanne Lockwood: reward, the impact. Am I going to come across
Joanne Lockwood: as pedantic? Am I going to come across as really
Joanne Lockwood: another gay person trying to make trouble or trying to
Joanne Lockwood: you almost have to think about the impact of what you say back.
Joseph Galliano: Do you? And every time I'm misgendered, do I make a big deal of
Joanne Lockwood: it or don't I? When I talk about my wife, do I say
Joanne Lockwood: partner? If I'm talking on the phone to somebody,
Joanne Lockwood: my partner will be down quick, down soon. Do I say
Joanne Lockwood: wife? Sometimes I just use language that just makes it
Joanne Lockwood: easier for me not to have to explain it. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's probably what you're saying there as well. Yeah.
Joseph Galliano: Do you ever feel like you kind of also trip up on those things
Joseph Galliano: for other people? Is there any anxiety around getting the language
Joseph Galliano: right. Doing it deliberately for other
Joanne Lockwood: people? Not deliberately, but the kind of accidental,
Joseph Galliano: say, around misgendering, for example.
Joanne Lockwood: I misgender people occasionally.
Joanne Lockwood: I misgender myself sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: I've described myself as the eldest of three brothers before
Joanne Lockwood: I ended up correcting myself and saying, well, actually, I'm the eldest of three children,
Joanne Lockwood: or the eldest three siblings. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I've corrected the language of myself. I sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: refer to myself in the third party sometimes, and I sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: misgender. Myself historically, but
Joseph Galliano: no. I am I slipped
Joanne Lockwood: up with people before someone was telling me about
Joanne Lockwood: they were going to be a grandparent. I said, oh, it must be really great
Joanne Lockwood: to be a granddad. And I thought, actually, that just misgendered
Joanne Lockwood: you. I haven't actually asked you how you want to identify in
Joanne Lockwood: relation to that child. I suppose it's that building
Joseph Galliano: I've built assumptions in without letting you tell me what it is that
Joseph Galliano: you want. How do I describe myself in relation
Joanne Lockwood: to my brother's children?
Joanne Lockwood: Am I an uncle? Am I an auntie? What's the sort
Joanne Lockwood: of the non gendered term? I know a niece and a
Joanne Lockwood: nephew. The non gendered terms are nibbling. I'm not sure what the reverse? Nibbling. I've
Joseph Galliano: never heard a nibbling. Apparently it's a nibbling is a non
Joanne Lockwood: gendered brother or
Joanne Lockwood: sister of a parent, but I'm not sure what the reverse is
Joanne Lockwood: of an aunt or an uncle. The non gender version of that is nibbling. I
Joseph Galliano: like that. I like nibbling. Nibbling. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, it's language,
Joanne Lockwood: the constructs, I guess we're all working around them, aren't we?
Joseph Galliano: Yeah, yes, very much.
Joseph Galliano: And actually, it's funny,
Joseph Galliano: it's interesting how, I mean, obviously where we're at now with
Joseph Galliano: this pandemic, with
Joseph Galliano: everything that's going on. We're about to launch a piece
Joseph Galliano: of in the process of launching a piece of research that we're doing with
Joseph Galliano: Goldsmiths and Kent State University in Ohio,
Joseph Galliano: which is going to be a research project that's going to look at not
Joseph Galliano: only experiences in queer
Joseph Galliano: people's, experiences across the UK, in
Joseph Galliano: pandemic, but it's also going to be looking at that question as
Joseph Galliano: to sort of how do these kind of
Joseph Galliano: times affect
Joseph Galliano: senses of identity?
Joseph Galliano: This is a little bit of a sideways kind of thought from what we were
Joseph Galliano: talking about, but I wonder how identities are
Joseph Galliano: going to change as we come out the other side of this. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I often have this similar thought when I think about the
Joanne Lockwood: Robinson Crusoe kind of scenario. If I was alone
Joanne Lockwood: on a desert island, who would I be or how would I be
Joanne Lockwood: or what would I be? I guess I would re identify as
Joanne Lockwood: a survivor, primarily, and as a
Joanne Lockwood: human being trying to survive. So I think
Joanne Lockwood: identity is relative to your scenario surroundings, and when
Joanne Lockwood: we're in lockdown, we're kind of almost like
Joanne Lockwood: in a smaller bubble, so our identity is more limited.
Joanne Lockwood: We're not expressing it to anybody, we're not being it to anybody,
Joanne Lockwood: we're not who we are with anybody else. We're just within our own heads.
Joanne Lockwood: So how do we maintain that identity when no one can see us, no
Joanne Lockwood: one can hear us, no one can feel us? Well, it's interesting,
Joseph Galliano: isn't it? Because we have all got
Joseph Galliano: multiple, multiple identities,
Joseph Galliano: different times and with different people. Different parts of those come to the front.
Joseph Galliano: So are you a
Joseph Galliano: husband, son, bad guitar player,
Joseph Galliano: shoddy singer? Someone who's trying to set up a museum?
Joseph Galliano: Nephew
Joseph Galliano: bloke who likes a bit of banter in the shops on a Saturday morning?
Joseph Galliano: Any neighbour? All of these things are different kinds of
Joseph Galliano: identities which all in around
Joseph Galliano: make us who we are. But,
Joseph Galliano: I mean, even the funny thing is, when you think about a mean, these are
Joseph Galliano: all social constructs as well, because
Joseph Galliano: I'm not Joe. You're not Joe? That's just a label that's been
Joseph Galliano: stuck on your not. That's not nothing intrinsic about to who you
Joseph Galliano: are. We're just this collection of atoms here, assembled in this
Joseph Galliano: particular way at this particular moment in time, if that's not too esoteric.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, we could just be seven of nine, couldn't we?
Joseph Galliano: Yes. Just defined by
Joanne Lockwood: where we live or where we sit.
Joanne Lockwood: Third person from the right.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just a way of
Joanne Lockwood: controlling policing, organising, helping us fit
Joanne Lockwood: identify each other. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's probably less devaluing than describing a
Joanne Lockwood: feature of you. If you have a name, it doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: become, is that Joe with the which which Joe with
Joanne Lockwood: the oh, Joe with the glasses and the long hair?
Joanne Lockwood: It's Joe Lockwood sort of thing. So we can create
Joanne Lockwood: a name and label that isn't relative to how we look or where we're from,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose. Yeah. And I
Joseph Galliano: guess at the end of the day, how do we just allow ourselves to
Joseph Galliano: be ourselves?
Joanne Lockwood: And that sounds like a great moment to ask you kind of where's
Joanne Lockwood: the world going from now then,
Joanne Lockwood: what's your predictions for the Lockdown and the communities?
Joseph Galliano: Well, I wouldn't dream of making predictions. I mean, I certainly would
Joseph Galliano: have hopes. I hope
Joseph Galliano: that this is one of those moments and including actually
Joseph Galliano: it's all interconnected what's happening in the States at the
Joseph Galliano: moment, the pandemic.
Joseph Galliano: And I would hope that out of this we'll emerge with a
Joseph Galliano: greater sense of community, better sense of values
Joseph Galliano: about. What'S important and what's just g jaws.
Joseph Galliano: I wouldn't dream of predicting. What do you think, where do you think we're going?
Joanne Lockwood: I oscillate between
Joanne Lockwood: hope that we won't go
Joanne Lockwood: backwards and that we'll learn a lot from this.
Joanne Lockwood: But then I see what's going on at the beaches, I see what people
Joanne Lockwood: are doing the moment they're allowed to go out, allowed
Joanne Lockwood: to unlock. Old behaviours are coming back very quickly.
Joanne Lockwood: The anti government rhetoric is starting up again, the politicalness
Joanne Lockwood: is starting up again, the division is starting up again.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not sure we'll learn all the lessons.
Joanne Lockwood: Will we see this as a sad time, a happy
Joanne Lockwood: time, or a time for learning? I don't know. I'd like to
Joanne Lockwood: see where we are now as a time for learning the great social
Joanne Lockwood: experiment and hopefully we'll
Joanne Lockwood: take stuff from this and learn from it. And
Joseph Galliano: it's all those things, isn't it? Yeah, it's all of those things.
Joanne Lockwood: Too many people have lost things for everyone to be happy. So I think we
Joanne Lockwood: have to find a way of helping the
Joanne Lockwood: people who've lost a lot, but also allowing those
Joanne Lockwood: people to recognise what they have gained. I think we've gained a
Joseph Galliano: lot. People are speaking to people they've never spoken to before or haven't spoken to
Joanne Lockwood: another a long time. They're spending more time with the families that the children are
Joanne Lockwood: spending more time with their parents. We're commuting less
Joanne Lockwood: pollution is down. There's a whole lot of stuff we can take
Joanne Lockwood: and let's hope we keep the good stuff and chuck
Joanne Lockwood: the bad stuff out with the bathwater, not the baby. As I
Joseph Galliano: guess, an anxious optimist,
Joseph Galliano: I'd say that I think it's really
Joseph Galliano: important that in however tough times are,
Joseph Galliano: we've got to kind of make sure that positives can
Joseph Galliano: be taken out of them.
Joseph Galliano: And I really hope that that's the case
Joseph Galliano: now. Obviously, I'm anxious about straightened times,
Joseph Galliano: I'm anxious about the things that people have lost, I'm anxious about all of those
Joseph Galliano: things, but I'm also hopeful that greater community can
Joseph Galliano: come out of this well, many thanks,
Joseph Galliano: Joe. I'm sure all agree there's much there to ponder and take
Joanne Lockwood: inspiration from. So how can I listen to get. In touch with you?
Joseph Galliano: If you go to
Joseph Galliano: www.queerbritain.org.uk,
Joseph Galliano: that's a website for the charity or for the
Joseph Galliano: museum, or you can drop me a line to
Joseph Galliano: hello@queerbritain.org.uk
Joseph Galliano: and yeah. Comments, thoughts,
Joseph Galliano: ideas? How can we helps all welcome.
Joseph Galliano: Fantastic. Well, a huge thanks to everyone today for
Joanne Lockwood: tuning in and listening. Please do subscribe to keep updated on future
Joanne Lockwood: episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's
Joanne Lockwood: B-I-T-E-S. Please, please tell your friends and colleagues
Joanne Lockwood: I have a number of exciting guests lined up and I'm sure you'll be inspired
Joanne Lockwood: by over the next few weeks and months. If you'd like to be a guest,
Joanne Lockwood: please let me know. I would welcome any feedback and suggestions to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk for the
Joanne Lockwood: future shows and how we can improve. My name is Joanne.