Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I am your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I'll be interviewing a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people as simply having a conversation around the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the
Joanne Lockwood: world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to
Joanne Lockwood: join me in the future then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: S-E-E
Joanne Lockwood: Change Happen dot co dot uk. You
Joanne Lockwood: can catch up with all of the previous shows on Itunes, Spotify and their
Joanne Lockwood: usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a
Joanne Lockwood: decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 27 with the title Who Am
Joanne Lockwood: I and Who Are You? I have the absolute honor
Joanne Lockwood: and privilege to be joined by Roland Chesters. Roland
Joanne Lockwood: describes himself as someone who champions authenticity.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I've asked Roland to describe his superpower, he said that
Joanne Lockwood: it's slowing down the fast thinking. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Roland. Welcome to the show. Hello, Joanne. Thank you very much
Roland Chesters: for inviting me. It's great to be here.
Joanne Lockwood: We've been planning this for a couple of months and, I've been really looking forward
Joanne Lockwood: to this. Me too. Me too. Okay,
Joanne Lockwood: Rowan. So tell me, who am I? Who are you? What's that mean to you?
Roland Chesters: Well, from from one obviously, great
Roland Chesters: fashionista to another, how many hats do you wear? Not
Roland Chesters: all at the same time, obviously. But just think about the number of
Roland Chesters: different hats that we wear and change hats for
Roland Chesters: labels. What labels do we choose to apply to ourselves,
Roland Chesters: or what labels may other people apply to ourselves, and
Roland Chesters: how interchangeable are those labels? When does one
Roland Chesters: label become more dominant than another label?
Roland Chesters: What I'm I think I'm talking about is is what is
Roland Chesters: now in the the trendy DNI world called intersectionality,
Roland Chesters: where it is recognized that there are many different
Roland Chesters: facets to an individual. And some
Roland Chesters: facets may be be become more pronounced, more
Roland Chesters: recognized, stronger, depending on the con that the
Roland Chesters: particular context that that person is at that time. And
Roland Chesters: the reason I say that is in in my own experience,
Roland Chesters: my own history, I'm as a gay man
Roland Chesters: for many years, I wasn't out at work. I
Roland Chesters: didn't share that side of my private life with
Roland Chesters: anybody, which meant that on the Monday morning when you go into
Roland Chesters: work and people gather around the coffee station and share stories of what they've
Roland Chesters: been up to over the weekend, I was very careful to
Roland Chesters: not say, Richard
Roland Chesters: avoiding any, social activities. So no
Roland Chesters: drinks after work just in case a mannerism or
Roland Chesters: a wrong word slipped out and somebody, cottoned on
Roland Chesters: to the fact that I'm a gay man. On
Roland Chesters: reflection, many years later, if I had been out of work, it probably wouldn't have
Roland Chesters: made an iota of difference, but that was my own kind of
Roland Chesters: self stigma, if you like. When I joined the foreign office
Roland Chesters: in the year 2000, joining the foreign office, everybody has
Roland Chesters: to go through a very in-depth security screening,
Roland Chesters: including things like, wanting to know my partner's
Roland Chesters: mother's maiden name. So at that point, it
Roland Chesters: was, yeah, how to be honest about this,
Roland Chesters: and share information that I am in a same sex relationship
Roland Chesters: and so on and so forth. So when I joined the foreign office,
Roland Chesters: the first day walking into the foreign office with my head held high
Roland Chesters: and my metaphorical rainbow scarf gracefully
Roland Chesters: draped around my neck. It was with a huge sense of relief that
Roland Chesters: at last I could be wholly
Roland Chesters: who I wanted to be. I had no reservations
Roland Chesters: about engaging in conversation about what Richard
Roland Chesters: does, what we do together socially, and all that kind of
Roland Chesters: stuff, which is great and a huge relief.
Roland Chesters: Meant that I could be, I think, more productive,
Roland Chesters: more engaged because previously, there was all that little
Roland Chesters: bit of my brain that was on the alert, that little red
Roland Chesters: flag flying saying, be careful, be careful, be careful. Don't go
Roland Chesters: down that route. Now I didn't need to have that.
Roland Chesters: And yet something like 3 years into my employment,
Roland Chesters: I became unwell. I was eventually diagnosed
Roland Chesters: with HIV and AIDS. I was off work for 5
Roland Chesters: months recovering. When I returned, the sexual health records are kept separate to
Roland Chesters: all other medical records. My employers had not been
Roland Chesters: told about the HIV and AIDS, only about my AIDS defining
Roland Chesters: illness, which was a brain disease. My first day back at
Roland Chesters: work, I shared with my line manager the whole diagnosis, so not only
Roland Chesters: the brain disease but the HIV and AIDS. And she, with my
Roland Chesters: agreement, went off to share that information with HR, and
Roland Chesters: HR almost immediately came back, sent me that little email
Roland Chesters: saying you cannot share that information with anybody else
Roland Chesters: because we, your employers, cannot be held responsible for how
Roland Chesters: other people may react or respond to that information.
Roland Chesters: And I had been reaching out for understanding and support, not for pity
Roland Chesters: or sympathy, and and they ganked me.
Roland Chesters: And they deprived me of the ability to
Roland Chesters: be fully authentic. Being diagnosed with HIV and AIDS,
Roland Chesters: having the brain disease, actually gave me a different
Roland Chesters: person, a different character. At the time I was diagnosed, I was told
Roland Chesters: I had 2 weeks to live, and that makes you reevaluate who you
Roland Chesters: are, what you want to do, what you want to achieve, what
Roland Chesters: your legacy will be. And yet the foreign office
Roland Chesters: wouldn't allow me to do that.
Roland Chesters: Eventually, cut a long story short, I
Roland Chesters: I forced their hand into enabling me
Roland Chesters: to speak up, speak openly about
Roland Chesters: being HIV positive. And that meant that I could
Roland Chesters: again rediscover my full authenticity. But in
Roland Chesters: that period where a part of me was denied,
Roland Chesters: it had huge impact on my mental health, my mental
Roland Chesters: well-being. Shall I stop there? That's quite a lot to say.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. No. That's, I've I've heard your story before. I've
Joanne Lockwood: heard you speak live on a number of occasions and every
Joanne Lockwood: time you talk and say those words it's extremely
Joanne Lockwood: impactful and moving. And as you're talking
Joanne Lockwood: what's going through my mind is that this need
Joanne Lockwood: to be 1 person, to have 1 truth,
Joanne Lockwood: not to have 2 voices in your head and I went through a
Joanne Lockwood: similar, obviously not life changing, but maybe in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: being gay and coming out around that,
Joanne Lockwood: before I was out and open about my trans identity, I was always living
Joanne Lockwood: 2 lives, I had 2 Facebook accounts, I had 2
Joanne Lockwood: profiles, I had 2 wardrobes, when I went
Joanne Lockwood: away for weekends I was on a stag weekend with the boys which
Joanne Lockwood: in reality was probably not a big lie But it was it wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: how I saw the weekend or the people I was with. But it was much
Joanne Lockwood: easier to frame it in that way so that there was no mistake, there was
Joanne Lockwood: no error, there was no kind of it all seemed very natural to everybody else
Joanne Lockwood: around me. So yeah. Yeah. And the But didn't
Joanne Lockwood: the simplicity of being one person Yes. Is amazing as well. Didn't didn't you find
Roland Chesters: when you were finally able to be the person
Roland Chesters: that you wanted to be, the person that you were destined to
Roland Chesters: be, It's like a huge weight that's lifted off your shoulders
Roland Chesters: because finally, at last, you can step out into the world and say,
Roland Chesters: actually, sod you, metaphorically,
Roland Chesters: this is who I am. I don't have to change to
Roland Chesters: to please you. If you like me, that's great.
Roland Chesters: If you don't, just move on.
Joanne Lockwood: Completely. And I used to describe it as having a separate
Joanne Lockwood: subroutine in my head that every time I spoke, I had to pass it through
Joanne Lockwood: this processor to validate it, check it, and then pass it back going,
Joanne Lockwood: say it, don't say it and then every almost like every
Joanne Lockwood: waking moment involved these two voices in my head, these two identities,
Joanne Lockwood: these two ways of thinking. And it's and
Joanne Lockwood: I found it very noisy. The head that my brain was
Joanne Lockwood: always having conversations with itself, always questioning, always thinking
Joanne Lockwood: and having a discussion of should I say this, should I and I was actually
Joanne Lockwood: having conversations in my head with my 2 identities and what I
Joanne Lockwood: found I suppose in the last probably 3 years
Joanne Lockwood: since I became 1 person, authentically 1 person,
Joanne Lockwood: that my brain is so quiet, so silent,
Joanne Lockwood: so relaxing when I'm not doing anything I
Joanne Lockwood: can literally blue sky think and shut down and just wander off
Joanne Lockwood: and I have no noise in my head and I've talked to other people who
Joanne Lockwood: say oh I think about this, don't you think about that' it's like Jo, I
Joanne Lockwood: just have this relaxing silence
Joanne Lockwood: in my head and I can then fill that silence with thought, with music,
Joanne Lockwood: with whatever I want to do but I'm not fighting it and I and that
Joanne Lockwood: is really powerful to hear your story about the
Joanne Lockwood: same sort of thoughts about this this this
Joanne Lockwood: double thinking, this Absolutely. What you said. And and all of that
Roland Chesters: I've seen that. All of before that peace and that
Roland Chesters: calm, all of that processing that you
Roland Chesters: were going through, that I was going through, is actually
Roland Chesters: exhausting. It's mentally exhausting, and mentally exhausting means it's
Roland Chesters: physically exhausting. So and if as an employee,
Roland Chesters: certainly less productive, less engaged, less happy
Roland Chesters: because there's all of this stuff going on at the same
Roland Chesters: time that, hopefully, nobody else realizes
Roland Chesters: because that's the whole point of us having that stuff going on to make sure
Roland Chesters: nobody else realizes what's going on. And so for me
Roland Chesters: and that's why I champion authenticity because an authentic
Roland Chesters: person in the workplace is a happy person.
Roland Chesters: A happy person is an engaged, productive employee
Roland Chesters: who will stay with your organization for as long as they need
Roland Chesters: to, as long as you want them to because they found a place where they
Roland Chesters: can be fully themselves.
Roland Chesters: It's so important. Alright. Let's just talk about the,
Joanne Lockwood: your your job where you were diagnosed with HIV,
Joanne Lockwood: and they wanted you to effectively keep that secret, actually keep that
Joanne Lockwood: secret. Was that a sign of the times, a misunderstanding
Joanne Lockwood: or was that just the culture? I mean, would you have seen that in other
Joanne Lockwood: organizations do you think at the time? Well, this was so I
Roland Chesters: was diagnosed in 2006, so 14 years ago. So this
Roland Chesters: was 13 years ago. And,
Roland Chesters: certainly, the treatment of HIV and AIDS has
Roland Chesters: moved on considerably rapidly in the intervening period.
Roland Chesters: We are now at a point where somebody who is
Roland Chesters: on effective treatment and adheres to that treatment who's
Roland Chesters: HIV positive and on treatment, gets to a point where
Roland Chesters: the viral load is so low in their bloodstream that it's no longer detectable
Roland Chesters: well managed, it's undetectable. And if it's undetectable, it
Roland Chesters: means that it's not strong enough for that person to be able to
Roland Chesters: transmit the virus to somebody else so they are no longer
Roland Chesters: infectious. And the current slogan is u equals
Roland Chesters: u, undetectable equals untransmittable.
Roland Chesters: But not many people know that. Not many people understand that. Not many
Roland Chesters: people are aware of that. And this is only in the last
Roland Chesters: 3 years or so that this has happened. So 13 years ago, it was
Roland Chesters: potentially a different story.
Roland Chesters: But even then, the
Roland Chesters: mythology that if you use the same
Roland Chesters: cup, even though it's being washed, if you use the same keyboard,
Roland Chesters: if you use a toilet seat, that's something and all of that kind of
Roland Chesters: stuff. Just touching. Absolutely.
Roland Chesters: Yeah. And I think the response
Roland Chesters: of my then employers was based on that outdated
Roland Chesters: mythology. Eventually, when I kind of forced the
Roland Chesters: situation and and was able to speak openly, World
Roland Chesters: AIDS Day is 1st December every year. So I organized
Roland Chesters: on on the 1st World AIDS Day when I was out as being HIV
Roland Chesters: positive to have some speakers come in from the Terrence Higgins Trust,
Roland Chesters: which is the the biggest charge in the UK that supports HIV positive
Roland Chesters: people to come and talk about HIV and AIDS, the
Roland Chesters: global pandemic because, you know, there have been other
Roland Chesters: pandemics. And I put post Other pandemics now
Joanne Lockwood: available. Yes. Absolutely. Too surprised at 1. And I
Roland Chesters: put posters up around the office advertising this event with my name
Roland Chesters: on it, my phone number saying I was organizing it as a colleague living
Roland Chesters: with HIV and AIDS. And posters were defaced. They
Roland Chesters: had graffiti put on them, some of them were slashed
Roland Chesters: with scissors or a knife, some were pulled off the wall and
Roland Chesters: torn into pieces and trodden on and I I
Roland Chesters: was, bearing in mind that this is this was probably about
Roland Chesters: 2, 3 years after my diagnosis, It was the first
Roland Chesters: time I'd experienced that kind of visceral gut
Roland Chesters: reaction to me sharing information
Roland Chesters: about my status. And, yes, it absolutely petrified me.
Roland Chesters: I thought that if somebody could take a knife to a a piece
Roland Chesters: of paper and have that kind of intense reaction,
Roland Chesters: what happens if they came across me in a corridor late one night
Roland Chesters: when there's nobody else around kind of thing. But
Roland Chesters: on reflection, I kind of eventually understood
Roland Chesters: that this is a response of fear
Roland Chesters: and fear based on lack of up to date
Roland Chesters: current information. And
Roland Chesters: that fear then leads to a reaction
Roland Chesters: of hate, that gut reaction
Roland Chesters: that says, you need to stay away from me because you're you're
Roland Chesters: scary. And that then sent me on the
Roland Chesters: the the mission, I suppose, of
Roland Chesters: educating, informing, bringing people up to
Roland Chesters: date with current knowledge and information
Roland Chesters: about HIV and AIDS. So
Joanne Lockwood: I remember the eighties and those adverts on television,
Joanne Lockwood: the tombstones. There's very much a framing about this
Joanne Lockwood: is a gay disease where the reality
Joanne Lockwood: is more heterosexual people are transmitted than gay people from my understanding. Nowadays,
Roland Chesters: certainly, initially, it was the gay community that was most affected.
Roland Chesters: And, initially, the disease was called GRID, great gay related
Roland Chesters: immune immune disease.
Roland Chesters: But nowadays, as you quite rightly say, John, the the
Roland Chesters: there is more than 50 percent of the HIV community
Roland Chesters: that is not gay. The most
Roland Chesters: at risk groups are, postmenopausal
Roland Chesters: women who are at a stage in their
Roland Chesters: life where they, widowed, separated, divorced,
Roland Chesters: whatever, want to engage in sexual activity and think that
Roland Chesters: because I'm postmenopausal, I don't need to use any protection because I'm not going to
Roland Chesters: become pregnant. But then become infected with some
Roland Chesters: other kind of disease, including HIV and AIDS. And
Roland Chesters: and also the black African community that have,
Roland Chesters: certain certain members of that community because of their cultural
Roland Chesters: background, have difficulty in understanding
Roland Chesters: that HIV and AIDS is passed through unprotected
Roland Chesters: sex, one of the primary routes of of infection is through unprotected
Roland Chesters: sex, but no longer came in. And
Roland Chesters: I'm I'm pleased to say that the latest statistics from Public
Roland Chesters: Health England in terms of of annual rates of infections
Roland Chesters: have shown an enormous decrease over the last couple of years
Roland Chesters: in the number of gay men being diagnosed with HIV
Roland Chesters: in the United Kingdom. And this is primarily
Roland Chesters: due to the introduction of PrEP, p r e p,
Roland Chesters: which is, a a a form
Roland Chesters: of treatment that, is part of the HIV medication
Roland Chesters: that I and other HIV positive people take, somebody can take
Roland Chesters: as a as a form of prevention for them to become
Roland Chesters: HIV infected. And it has
Roland Chesters: proved to be really successful. NHS
Roland Chesters: England only agreed to allow this to be
Roland Chesters: rolled out, across England, in
Roland Chesters: the last few months. Scotland and Wales have
Roland Chesters: provided it free for quite some time. NHS
Roland Chesters: England had had withheld it until I settled it a few months
Roland Chesters: ago. So PrEP is pre exposure
Roland Chesters: prophylactics. Somebody can take that
Roland Chesters: medication, engage in a unprotected
Roland Chesters: sex, and be pretty confident that they
Roland Chesters: won't become infected. So
Joanne Lockwood: prophylactic, that's the barrier. That's the prevention of That's the prevention.
Roland Chesters: Yeah. Yeah. And then there's also isn't there PEP as well? Is there PEP and
Roland Chesters: blood pressure? It's post exposure prophylactic. So if
Roland Chesters: somebody thinks that they may have been exposed to HIV,
Roland Chesters: if they go to A and E or some GPs or maybe some
Roland Chesters: pharmacists within 72 hours of when they think they
Roland Chesters: were exposed. They will be given PEP, which is a
Roland Chesters: month's worth of the treatment, which again,
Roland Chesters: is something like 90% successful
Roland Chesters: in preventing, that person from becoming
Roland Chesters: infected. So there are methods of
Roland Chesters: of controlling. The the downside of of
Roland Chesters: this is that whilst we have seen the number of HIV
Roland Chesters: infections decrease enormously, the number of infections
Roland Chesters: from, of of other, sexual
Roland Chesters: infection STIs, sexually transmitted diseases,
Roland Chesters: has increased astronomically. So we are seeing
Roland Chesters: a fast increase in the number of particularly gay men
Roland Chesters: with syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and so on and so forth.
Roland Chesters: All treatable conditions. None of them nowadays life
Roland Chesters: threatening. But the message is that
Roland Chesters: PrEP prevents HIV, doesn't prevent all
Roland Chesters: sexually transmitted diseases.
Joanne Lockwood: So in the same way you're saying that women of a certain age
Joanne Lockwood: are not using barrier protection because they don't think they can
Joanne Lockwood: get pregnant, gay men are now saying well I don't need to use barrier protection
Joanne Lockwood: because I can't get AIDS because of PEP and PrEP'
Joanne Lockwood: Jo again it's yeah it's now allowing well
Joanne Lockwood: allowing the rise of these other infections which were once subdued and
Joanne Lockwood: suppressed. Well did I also, I mean
Joanne Lockwood: I had an HIV test for about two and a half three years ago.
Joanne Lockwood: I get regular bloods as part of my transition
Joanne Lockwood: the general the general identity clinic wants to monitor my hormone levels and
Joanne Lockwood: things and the bloods came back with a with a I think it was a
Joanne Lockwood: low lymph or no high lymphocyte count which is several
Joanne Lockwood: causes, 1 steroids, 2 is cancer and 3
Joanne Lockwood: could be HIV. Estrogen, for
Joanne Lockwood: those who don't know, is actually a steroid Jo the doctor was fairly sure
Joanne Lockwood: that it was the estrogen I was taking as part of HRT that was
Joanne Lockwood: the cause. He also established that my other
Joanne Lockwood: blood would have been would have had an indicator if I had some
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne of some sort. So he decided as
Joanne Lockwood: a complete rule it out, have an HIV test just to rule it out and
Joanne Lockwood: I was negative, but what he said
Joanne Lockwood: was that many people have received HIV through blood
Joanne Lockwood: transfusions, there was a point in time where blood wasn't screened properly
Joanne Lockwood: and that that caused, if not more than
Joanne Lockwood: maybe person to person transmission, would ever have done because of this
Joanne Lockwood: bad blood coming from the US for some of it wasn't it?
Roland Chesters: Well actually that that when I was diagnosed Jo it
Roland Chesters: was 14 years ago because I was so
Roland Chesters: unwell, the medical team tried
Roland Chesters: to trace back how long I, before my
Roland Chesters: diagnosis I've been infected. And they traced it back, and they said it thought
Roland Chesters: about 13 years. Previous to
Roland Chesters: diagnosis is when I was infected. And and
Roland Chesters: me working back in my mind, before my
Roland Chesters: relationship with Richard. And at the point of diagnosis, Richard and I have been together
Roland Chesters: 10 years in a monogamous relationship. Only had one
Roland Chesters: partner before that. And that
Roland Chesters: partner, we've been we were together 5 years. A couple of
Roland Chesters: years before he and I met, he'd been involved in a really bad car accident,
Roland Chesters: had had to have multiple surgeries, lots of blood transfusions.
Roland Chesters: Whilst he and I were together, he became unwell.
Roland Chesters: And it like I did, he went and saw lots of different
Roland Chesters: doctors and specialists, and they came back and said that they thought that what
Roland Chesters: he was experiencing was as a result of all of the
Roland Chesters: anesthetics he'd been given during the operations post
Roland Chesters: accident. I now know
Roland Chesters: and realize that the symptoms that he was showing then were
Roland Chesters: was symptoms of being infected with HIV.
Roland Chesters: And so that's how I became infected. So he was infected through
Roland Chesters: blood transfusions, and that's how I became infected. Of course,
Roland Chesters: nowadays, all bluffs are screened,
Roland Chesters: so there is absolutely no risk of being infected
Roland Chesters: through a blood transfusion. The other way of of,
Roland Chesters: used to be of transmitting infection is through mother to
Roland Chesters: child infection. But nowadays, the the
Roland Chesters: that rate of infection certainly here in the UK is very, very low
Roland Chesters: because, all women that go to antenatal clinic are
Roland Chesters: offered a blood test. And if
Roland Chesters: the the test, brings back an HIV positive result,
Roland Chesters: the mother is then put on medication, which lowers the viral,
Roland Chesters: level in their bloodstream to the point that where the child is born,
Roland Chesters: the child will not be infected. So,
Roland Chesters: the primary route here in the UK of infection is still
Roland Chesters: through, unprotected sex. The other
Roland Chesters: route used to be through, needle sharing,
Roland Chesters: but, Norman Fowler, who
Roland Chesters: was the health minister at the time of that campaign that you mentioned, the icebergs
Roland Chesters: and the tombstones, very wisely put in place the the
Roland Chesters: system of of needle banks, needle exchange places.
Roland Chesters: So now the rate of infections through intravenous
Roland Chesters: needle sharing in the UK is very low as well.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. We think of I mean, I
Joanne Lockwood: think of the year 2000 as being almost yesterday and
Joanne Lockwood: I was surprised when I watched a film the other week and, I think it
Joanne Lockwood: was set in 2003 and the mobile phones they were using
Joanne Lockwood: were just so alien, they're bricks. I thought I think in
Joanne Lockwood: ScratchMaker in 2003 that was just kind of like the other day.
Joanne Lockwood: How much the world has moved on in technology but also
Joanne Lockwood: in attitudes around, not just
Joanne Lockwood: being gay, trans, HIV positive, etc, the world has moved on a
Joanne Lockwood: lot, rapidly accelerating this kind of inclusion message, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? And then so you must notice a big difference just the way you're
Joanne Lockwood: accepted as a gay man let alone as a as a positive gay
Joanne Lockwood: man. I but certainly as a gay
Roland Chesters: man and very kind of funny
Roland Chesters: incident. So Richard and I decided to join a local
Roland Chesters: gym about 5 year you can tell, obviously, from my honed physique
Roland Chesters: that this is having a great impact. It's about 5 years ago,
Roland Chesters: and off we went. And, on the, you know, the
Roland Chesters: menu of different memberships, they had family membership,
Roland Chesters: so a couple could and I was all geared up in
Roland Chesters: my head to say, actually, we are a family
Roland Chesters: because, you know, we are a civil partner. We are a couple. We
Roland Chesters: should have the family membership. And without a
Roland Chesters: blink, the receptionist said, oh, are you a couple? Up or you dance family membership?
Roland Chesters: I thought, damn it. I was all good over a 5 day.
Roland Chesters: She stole my thunder. So in in many respects,
Roland Chesters: in in many areas. Yes. In the UK.
Roland Chesters: Obviously, other parts of the world, not
Roland Chesters: necessarily so enlightened. One incident when I was
Roland Chesters: working at the foreign office after I was fully out about HIV
Roland Chesters: and AIDS, I was working as diverse and inclusion officer, and I had to
Roland Chesters: go and deliver training overseas about
Roland Chesters: diversity inclusion. It's slightly, ironic
Roland Chesters: because I was asked to go and deliver training in Dubai.
Roland Chesters: Dubai is one of those countries that will not accept anybody
Roland Chesters: living with HIV to enter, the country
Roland Chesters: even if in transit. And in order
Roland Chesters: for me to be able to go and deliver the training, the foreign office had
Roland Chesters: to give the guarantee that I would leave the country
Roland Chesters: after delivering the 5 days of of training. And in order
Roland Chesters: to guarantee that, they would escort me onto the plane,
Roland Chesters: to to leave the country. And I agreed to all this
Roland Chesters: because I wanted to go and do it and and thought it'd be an interesting
Roland Chesters: experience and so on and so forth. And then sort of the thought
Roland Chesters: processes start kicking in as either I
Roland Chesters: can see this as being escorted out of the country
Roland Chesters: as a convict in shackles because I've done something
Roland Chesters: horrendous, or I can see this as being like a state
Roland Chesters: visit because state visits, the important person is escorted
Roland Chesters: onto the plane to make sure they're sat comfortably and so on and so forth.
Roland Chesters: And in my mind, I thought this is it. It's a state visit. It's gonna
Roland Chesters: be fine. It's a state visit. Did the 5 days' worth of training,
Roland Chesters: and then the the the poor unfortunate lad who'd drawn a short straw to escort
Roland Chesters: me back onto the the plane, from the office.
Roland Chesters: He was very young. And he all the way to
Roland Chesters: the airport, in the car, through the airport, up to
Roland Chesters: the door of the plane, he couldn't stop apologizing, saying
Roland Chesters: how embarrassed he was, how ashamed he was having to do this, and he
Roland Chesters: hoped I'd understood that it wasn't his fault. You know, he'd been told he had
Roland Chesters: to do it. And in the end, I had to stop him. And I said
Roland Chesters: to him, Patrick, Patrick, honey, sweetie, I'm on a state
Roland Chesters: visit. Don't rain on my parade.
Roland Chesters: Well, it went down like a bit like a lead balloon because apparently his name
Roland Chesters: wasn't Patrick, but, you know, such is life.
Roland Chesters: But, as I say, you know, attitudes have
Roland Chesters: changed, but there is still work to be done. And I'm sure
Roland Chesters: you've experienced this yourself, that attitudes have changed but there's still
Roland Chesters: work to be done. But there's still
Joanne Lockwood: territories in this in the world where it's not safe being you
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? We know that but and one of the things I
Joanne Lockwood: always say that I can't pack my trans in this in a box
Joanne Lockwood: and not be trans for that week and some
Joanne Lockwood: people who are gay, lesbian, bi Joanne put their their sexuality in a
Joanne Lockwood: box, leave it at home, do what they've got to do then come back and
Joanne Lockwood: unpack themselves. But
Joanne Lockwood: it's really really strange I mean there's some countries that I couldn't even share a
Joanne Lockwood: room with my wife even if we even if we
Joanne Lockwood: weren't a couple is frowned
Joanne Lockwood: upon 2 women or 2 men sharing the same hotel room. No. I we
Roland Chesters: we went with a lesbian couple friends of ours for
Roland Chesters: to Istanbul. And when we checked in, I
Roland Chesters: went off with 1 of the girls to that that room, and Richard went
Roland Chesters: off with the other girl to the other room. And then in the dead of
Roland Chesters: night, we we swapped rooms. Came down to breakfast the
Roland Chesters: following morning, and nobody battered an eyelid. But
Roland Chesters: there are times when you just have to be a little bit
Roland Chesters: cautious, a little bit careful, I suppose.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I I was offered some work in
Joanne Lockwood: Moscow and I had to really think long and hard. 1, would I
Joanne Lockwood: be safe? Well, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
Joanne Lockwood: 6, 7, and 10, would I be safe, basically, especially as I was going
Joanne Lockwood: there to talk about DNI. I was there
Joanne Lockwood: specifically to talk about trans awareness, I think if I was promoting
Joanne Lockwood: LGBT messages then I would have been really dangerous but I
Joanne Lockwood: think just being there but I've also been to Estonia and I've
Joanne Lockwood: been to Ukraine, Kyiv and I was
Joanne Lockwood: I was more nervous about Kyiv, just
Joanne Lockwood: purely because I think that they still have a kind of
Joanne Lockwood: an anti or not an LGBT positive kind
Joanne Lockwood: of culture there, they're still unknown. I mean the younger generation yes they're they're
Joanne Lockwood: evolving but it still it still holds some of that post
Joanne Lockwood: Soviet type anti LGBT rhetoric. It's like all
Roland Chesters: the what's happening in Poland with those
Roland Chesters: zones that they've declared that will not allow Gay
Joanne Lockwood: free. Yeah. Gay free zones. And and somehow in
Roland Chesters: my mind, I've been to to Poland.
Roland Chesters: I still see Poland as being part of Europe and
Roland Chesters: quite close to us. And that's kind of
Roland Chesters: scary that that is being allowed in inverted
Roland Chesters: commas to happen. Some of my lifelong
Joanne Lockwood: friends live in Gdansk in that area because I when I was in
Joanne Lockwood: my younger life, I I traveled to Gdansk and stayed there on and off. I'd
Joanne Lockwood: probably be there for a month over the course of 5 or 6 visits,
Joanne Lockwood: searching for for amber on the shores of of the
Joanne Lockwood: baltic in Gdynia I think it was. So yeah
Joanne Lockwood: I've I've I've I've I see Gdansk as kind of a friendly
Joanne Lockwood: warm European city and now I'm thinking, Joanne I
Joanne Lockwood: ever visit Poland again or for a while in Hungary?
Joanne Lockwood: I had a great week in Budapest. Budapest is okay,
Roland Chesters: absolutely, yeah. Yeah, so I'm now thinking
Joanne Lockwood: I may have my my Joanne passport but I'm looking at the countries
Joanne Lockwood: that that passport is is safe to visit as as being
Joanne Lockwood: restricted. We went to Melbourne last year for a
Joanne Lockwood: conference and I was picking the least worst
Joanne Lockwood: place to stop off on the way. Wow. Do I fly Emirates
Joanne Lockwood: via Dubai? Do I go, via
Joanne Lockwood: China, via Shanghai? Do I go via Hong Kong?
Joanne Lockwood: Where should I stop off which is least least worst and we end up,
Joanne Lockwood: transiting in Hong Kong because I just perceived that as the safest of of
Joanne Lockwood: those 3 or 4 options and and the cheapest as it happened. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, it's it's a real yeah. We're having to do this double thinking again, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: we? Where not only who am I, but where am I where am I
Joanne Lockwood: safe? What is the least worst option here? And, you know,
Roland Chesters: you mentioning Hong Kong just made me think. I I
Roland Chesters: before working in a foreign office, I was director of exams for the Charles Institute
Roland Chesters: For Linguists, and I used to have to go out to Hong Kong to supervise
Roland Chesters: exams out there a couple of times a year and would take a
Roland Chesters: colleague with me. And one time, one of the colleagues I took with me
Roland Chesters: was a a a lovely Nigerian woman, Tolu.
Roland Chesters: She'd never been to the Far East before.
Roland Chesters: And you having been to Hong Kong and this is
Roland Chesters: now probably about 15 years ago, so things may have
Roland Chesters: changed. But at that time, in Hong Kong,
Roland Chesters: you saw very, very few black people.
Roland Chesters: And so I walking out industries with Tolu was an
Roland Chesters: object of curiosity. First of all, a black woman and then
Roland Chesters: a black woman with a white man. And it
Roland Chesters: was fine when she and I were together. I then had to go off and
Roland Chesters: do some stuff in China, and Tolu decided that she'd stay on in Hong Kong
Roland Chesters: by herself just to do some touristy things for a few days. When I
Roland Chesters: got back to Hong Kong, I found actually that she'd left Hong
Roland Chesters: Kong after just being one day by herself because it just got too much
Roland Chesters: people coming up and wanting to touch her skin to, you know, see if it
Roland Chesters: rubs off kind of thing. And I can
Roland Chesters: that was a real eye opener for me. You know, we talk
Roland Chesters: about white privilege and all this kind of stuff. And, yes, absolutely, I
Roland Chesters: recognize as a as a white Joanne,
Roland Chesters: kind of middle class, whatever that means these days, I
Roland Chesters: am absolutely privileged. But I recognize that and
Roland Chesters: I understand it. But at the same time, if I wear one
Roland Chesters: of these different labels and that takes our conversation full circle, if I wear one
Roland Chesters: of those different labels of being gay or HIV positive,
Roland Chesters: then some of that privilege is is taken away from
Roland Chesters: me. If I choose to share that kind of information,
Roland Chesters: Tolu obviously couldn't hide her skin color, and
Roland Chesters: she felt very threatened. Not
Roland Chesters: that people were intending to make her feel scared,
Roland Chesters: but that was her response to how they were behaving towards
Roland Chesters: her. And that can happen sometimes in
Joanne Lockwood: organizations in the UK, can't it, where you people are being
Joanne Lockwood: well meaning but their over curiosity becomes exhausting
Joanne Lockwood: and you're always having to explain your story or
Joanne Lockwood: come out again as whatever that may be.
Joanne Lockwood: I imagine you have told the story you told at the beginning of this
Joanne Lockwood: podcast a thousand times in various forms to to many
Joanne Lockwood: people. Indeed. Absolutely. And and one of the things with hidden
Roland Chesters: disabilities, because I I talk a lot about hidden disabilities as well, is
Roland Chesters: the fact that because the disability is hidden,
Roland Chesters: if you choose to share information about it, then you need to
Roland Chesters: be prepared to explain to people what the disability is, the impact
Roland Chesters: that it has on you, and so on and so forth. When I was in
Roland Chesters: the foreign office having recovered from a brain disease, I was then diagnosed
Roland Chesters: with dyspraxia as a result of the brain disease. And
Roland Chesters: as a reasonable adjustment, the foreign office had provided me
Roland Chesters: with the voice recognition software on
Roland Chesters: the computer. And when initially the voice recognition software was
Roland Chesters: loaded onto the computer, there was just me and my line manager showing an office.
Roland Chesters: So, obviously, she was fully in the know about it. We then moved
Roland Chesters: into a bigger office of a 150 odd people, all hot
Roland Chesters: desking. Everybody hotdesk apart from me because
Roland Chesters: my computer had the voice recognition software loaded on it. And people were
Roland Chesters: saying, why do we have to move desks and Roland doesn't?
Roland Chesters: Okay. And then, of course, when I start using a voice recognition software,
Roland Chesters: everybody around me says, why are you talking to your computer,
Roland Chesters: Roland? And at times, if I need to put check you
Roland Chesters: know, write down stuff that's sensitive, personal, how am I
Roland Chesters: supposed to talk it into it when everybody around me can hear?
Roland Chesters: And then when I start to say to people, actually, I've got this because dyspraxia,
Roland Chesters: then people come along and say, oh, can I have a go? That why can't
Roland Chesters: I have that? That looks like fun. No. You can't have a go because
Roland Chesters: it's trained to recognize my voice, and you don't need it because you don't
Roland Chesters: have dyspraxia. And, yeah, it just kinda gets
Roland Chesters: exhausting after a while. But, again, it goes back to
Roland Chesters: labels and that, intersectionality
Roland Chesters: bit and that authenticity bit, and
Roland Chesters: how far do we have to go in order to be
Roland Chesters: accepted, understood, recognized for who
Roland Chesters: we are? I was gonna say a 100%, but
Roland Chesters: are we ever fully authentic? Particularly in the workplace, do
Roland Chesters: we ever actually bring in 100%
Roland Chesters: of us? When I you know, in the privacy of our own home with
Roland Chesters: Richard, I'm a very different person than I am in a professional
Roland Chesters: setting. And I recognize and understand that, so
Roland Chesters: I change the hat. I put on the appropriate hat to meet the suit
Roland Chesters: the setting and the context. So maybe authenticity
Roland Chesters: is about recognizing our different hats and
Roland Chesters: knowing when it's appropriate to wear which hat.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. That that's interesting because sometimes in
Joanne Lockwood: certain situations, I find I'm wearing a hat
Joanne Lockwood: without realizing it. So if I'm in an all
Joanne Lockwood: female group, I I I act behave
Joanne Lockwood: in one way and if I'm in a majority male group I behave in a
Joanne Lockwood: different way, some of that's down to my historical socialisation,
Joanne Lockwood: my familiarity with that role and
Joanne Lockwood: I actually start realizing that I'm feeling really uncomfortable in that
Joanne Lockwood: setting and I'm trying to get the hat off
Joanne Lockwood: sliding back into that that that way of speaking, that
Joanne Lockwood: culture, the sort of the attitudes and I've realized it's making me
Joanne Lockwood: feel really really uncomfortable. And
Joanne Lockwood: I wouldn't go as far as say dirty but I definitely feel it's
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable and I often wonder whether that's how other
Joanne Lockwood: women feel when they're in an all male company about this kind of the culture
Joanne Lockwood: that goes on and how uncomfortable they feel as well. And maybe it's not just
Joanne Lockwood: me. It's about it's about groupthink. It's about
Roland Chesters: peer group pressure and that leads me thank you for that
Roland Chesters: lead into the the fast thinking versus slow thinking bit that
Roland Chesters: that you spoke about in the introduction. So Daniel
Roland Chesters: Kahneman introduced this concept of fast thinking versus
Roland Chesters: slow thinking, which says that all of us have
Roland Chesters: two ways of processing everything that's going into
Roland Chesters: our our brains. The fast thinking stuff is stuff that we don't need
Roland Chesters: to reflect on, that doesn't require us to deliberate
Roland Chesters: and take action on. The habit stuff, the things that we do
Roland Chesters: instinctively. And the slow thinking, the stuff that requires
Roland Chesters: us to sit sit back, pause,
Roland Chesters: think about it, then make a decision. And the
Roland Chesters: habits are stuff that we do because we need to have stuff that we can
Roland Chesters: do rapidly. It's a protective mechanism. That's big and scary. I'm gonna run away from
Roland Chesters: it. Do it fast without pausing to think about it.
Roland Chesters: These days, obviously, hopefully, we very rarely are
Roland Chesters: put into situations where our lives are in
Roland Chesters: danger. But as as the scenario that you described, we
Roland Chesters: Joanne feel uncomfortable, anxious,
Roland Chesters: overexposed, and so on and so forth, and so we resort
Roland Chesters: to those biases. And one of the biases is it's
Roland Chesters: that group thing because it's protective. I'm gonna become
Roland Chesters: like one of them Jo I don't appear to be standing out like a
Roland Chesters: sore thumb and become an object of
Roland Chesters: whatever. So I will assimilate into the
Roland Chesters: group so that I don't stand out. And
Roland Chesters: we're all like that. We all have fast thinking and and slow thinking.
Roland Chesters: And sometimes, we need to be able to take that
Roland Chesters: step back and think slowly what
Roland Chesters: this actually means. Why am I behaving this way?
Roland Chesters: Is it because of some kind of bias, some kind of
Roland Chesters: pressure? What if I took this into slow
Roland Chesters: thinking? Would that make a mean that I would make a different
Roland Chesters: decision? And if the decision is different, then what is the impact of that
Roland Chesters: decision on me and on the people around me?
Joanne Lockwood: That comes very very typical when we talk about unconscious bias. We we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: this kind of concept all the time, don't we? Where most of our
Joanne Lockwood: biases are or our biases tend to be unconscious which means we don't know we're
Joanne Lockwood: doing it but by being able to pause our
Joanne Lockwood: brains for a second and go why do I think that', why am I thinking
Joanne Lockwood: that', what influences am I being receiving to
Joanne Lockwood: make me think that', what media bias, what what presumptions am I
Joanne Lockwood: making for this label I perceive has made me think that
Joanne Lockwood: way? And that's part of the way we're trying to train our brains to
Joanne Lockwood: press this pause button, isn't it, and and to step back and go back into
Joanne Lockwood: the into the slow thinking which is is quite expensive for brain
Joanne Lockwood: though, isn't it? Our brain burns a lot of calories, not a lot of energy
Joanne Lockwood: Jo the brain works best fast and it's really we've got to use
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of thought process to get us into this slow methodical
Joanne Lockwood: state of mind because when we're stressed, when we're rushing, we go into this
Joanne Lockwood: autonomous sort of mode it's like when we drive a car, yeah? How many times
Joanne Lockwood: have you driven home and not remembered any of the roundabouts, not
Joanne Lockwood: remember getting there? Absolutely. When I used to do
Roland Chesters: regular commuting on the train up into London, there's 3
Roland Chesters: main roads between home and the station. And on
Roland Chesters: mornings, I'd arrive at the station, and I think I I don't actually
Roland Chesters: remember crossing any of the roads. I could have left behind a
Roland Chesters: trail of destruction, crushed cars everywhere, but I I just
Roland Chesters: automatic pilot, and that's quite dangerous, really.
Joanne Lockwood: But at the time, you're you're probably conscious at the time that you're doing it.
Joanne Lockwood: If if something had triggered an exception in your mind you'd have
Joanne Lockwood: remembered it but the fact that it was just routine your brain decided it wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: worth remembering because it's got a memory of that junction, it It doesn't need another
Joanne Lockwood: one, does it? Absolutely. Our brains are wonderful
Roland Chesters: judging people. Our brains are wonderful things.
Roland Chesters: We just need to learn how to use them perhaps
Roland Chesters: slightly better sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: But, yeah, we both know that this is millions of years of
Joanne Lockwood: evolution. Yeah. It's not going to change their mind. No.
Joanne Lockwood: And you know if you've met one Roland, I'm going to treat everybody that I
Joanne Lockwood: think is Roland like the Roland I know and that's like the roundabout, you don't
Joanne Lockwood: create a new memory, you just recall that information and
Joanne Lockwood: build your own picture, yeah, as I was saying, you make shit up and fill
Joanne Lockwood: in the gaps, That's what your brain does sometimes. Yeah.
Roland Chesters: So a great Joanne quote, you make shit up and you fill in the cracks.
Roland Chesters: I have to write that one down. That's what we
Joanne Lockwood: do, don't we? Our brain makes stories up, it looks at patterns,
Joanne Lockwood: looks at previous events and decides a good
Joanne Lockwood: fit and you get into that good fit and that's the biases and the perception
Joanne Lockwood: that we struggle to overcome, isn't it? And when we talk about HIV, we're
Joanne Lockwood: talking about being gay, we talk about whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: your fantastic moustache, all those kind of things which the viewers will see
Joanne Lockwood: on the podcast cover but they won't be able to tell by listening to it,
Joanne Lockwood: but you're an awesome moustache, you're into the steampunk look and you've got some
Joanne Lockwood: really some amazing outfits I love and
Joanne Lockwood: people draw perceptions from me by looking at you don't they? And they
Joanne Lockwood: obviously look at me as a trans person and they're trying to work
Joanne Lockwood: me out and my my intelligence gets
Joanne Lockwood: questioned 1 because I'm trans or b because I'm a woman. It's kind of you
Joanne Lockwood: can tell people weighing you up. It's pretty weird. But it's interesting now because
Roland Chesters: obviously both you and and I have made
Roland Chesters: deliberate decisions to present
Roland Chesters: in the way that we present. So me with a mustache and a bow ties
Roland Chesters: and the outfits, all that kind of stuff, that's that's my it's
Roland Chesters: almost my costume that I put on when I'm
Roland Chesters: giving a professional, in inverted commas, performance
Roland Chesters: because that's what gives me confidence. That's what I feel comfortable
Roland Chesters: in. And we all need to have that kind of confidence
Roland Chesters: and comfort factor when we are standing up delivering what can
Roland Chesters: sometimes be messages that people don't necessarily want to hear
Roland Chesters: or that make them feel uncomfortable. And we have to sort of
Roland Chesters: drive that through and enable them to remember it.
Roland Chesters: And part of enabling them to remember it is to remember, actually, is Roland with
Roland Chesters: the bow ties and the waistcoats and the the twirly mustache that
Roland Chesters: delivered that message. In the same way that I'm sure that that you think
Roland Chesters: about how you present yourself, the Joanne brand
Roland Chesters: as it were. Yeah. I I think going
Joanne Lockwood: back to the hats we wear, we have a a parent hat. We have
Joanne Lockwood: a a child we're a child obviously. We have our child
Joanne Lockwood: hat when we're talking to our parents or our siblings. In the
Joanne Lockwood: office hat we have our shopping hat, how we behave as a customer, how
Joanne Lockwood: we behave as a supplier, as you said you have you have
Joanne Lockwood: your angry hat ready ready tucked away for when someone you have
Joanne Lockwood: to explain that you are you are a couple. So I think we all have
Joanne Lockwood: those kind of things things in our pocket we want to bring out or we
Joanne Lockwood: know we've got them there Jo yeah and I don't think we hide them we
Joanne Lockwood: just bring the hats out as needed don't we? It's it's kind of transactional
Roland Chesters: analysis. You know, transactional analysis where you're either an adult, a
Roland Chesters: parent, or a child And, both people on
Roland Chesters: each side of the conversation fit one of those roles, and the best role to
Roland Chesters: have is adult to adult. We have an adult to adult conversation.
Roland Chesters: But at times, we all slip into being the either the parent or the
Roland Chesters: child as well, and then the conversation come gets
Roland Chesters: slightly skewered by that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I sometimes do that consciously,
Joanne Lockwood: but I'm aware of the fact that right now I
Joanne Lockwood: don't want to be an adult. I'm quite happy being led, being told,
Joanne Lockwood: being managed. If that makes you happy, I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: bothered actually, I don't need to adult at this point in my life
Joanne Lockwood: Jo I'm quite happy with this whereas other times I'm
Joanne Lockwood: adulting up and making sure that I'm having my voice and saying what I need
Joanne Lockwood: to or conversing in a very mature way, I don't think we're doing that now.
Joanne Lockwood: But yeah it does you sometimes have the choice and you
Joanne Lockwood: can step in or step out, can't you?
Roland Chesters: Reflecting on current times and, you
Roland Chesters: know, the pandemic that we are now experiencing
Roland Chesters: and the way and I don't want to make this political at all, but just
Roland Chesters: a reflection of of that that the
Roland Chesters: government stepped into role of being
Roland Chesters: parent when and and spoke
Roland Chesters: to us as children when it might have been
Roland Chesters: more effective. I said, I don't want to make this political at all, but it
Roland Chesters: might have been more effective if they they establish a sort of an adult to
Roland Chesters: adult relationship with us.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Who knows? Who knows?
Joanne Lockwood: But yeah. I I have my have my own views about
Joanne Lockwood: the quality of the briefings that they were doing on a daily basis. They were
Joanne Lockwood: confusing, misleading, beating around the bush,
Joanne Lockwood: it's very hard to glean some evidence out of that and what you
Joanne Lockwood: really wanted was kind of this is this is this is
Joanne Lockwood: the facts, this is what's going on, this is what will happen and this is
Joanne Lockwood: what we're doing about it' but they tended to have 20 slides
Joanne Lockwood: of build up and you Jo what are you telling me? What are you telling
Joanne Lockwood: me? What are you telling me? Oh okay, people are still dying, we need to
Joanne Lockwood: isolate, stop people dying and this is where this is how we're basing our
Joanne Lockwood: decision. Okay, I get it. Whilst that graph is here, we're doing this, when the
Joanne Lockwood: graph gets to there, we can do that, and if it goes down to here,
Joanne Lockwood: we're cool, we can stop doing that. Okay. Right. I I can I can now
Joanne Lockwood: understand the form of myself? That would have been an adult to adult conversation,
Roland Chesters: which which sadly we didn't get.
Joanne Lockwood: But isn't that reflective of the media where they're always dumbing down
Joanne Lockwood: headlines and articles to the reading age of a 9 or 10
Joanne Lockwood: year old is kind of that mentality where government
Joanne Lockwood: dumb it down to the Joanne and John the Fisher Price. Well,
Roland Chesters: I I my my personal feeling is that social media is
Roland Chesters: hugely divisive. And and again, that kind of
Roland Chesters: brings us back on the topic of inclusivity that
Roland Chesters: certainly through the pandemic, of course, we've seen
Roland Chesters: people on Facebook and other social I do I
Roland Chesters: I do quite a bit of Facebook, but I don't engage much with other
Roland Chesters: social media Joanne, but people
Roland Chesters: getting very, very heated,
Roland Chesters: to put it mildly, and taking polar
Roland Chesters: opposite views on how people should
Roland Chesters: respond and engage and react to the pandemic and so on and so
Roland Chesters: forth. And just letting rip
Roland Chesters: into people. The anonymous keyboard warriors have got
Roland Chesters: a lot to answer for, I feel. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: certainly, the the 3 big instances I think of you you got the
Joanne Lockwood: Remain Brexit, you've got the the election across the
Joanne Lockwood: pond, the red blue divide there and we've now
Joanne Lockwood: got the vax, anti vax, we can all name 100 of other ones,
Joanne Lockwood: even Black Lives Matter has had its polarizing effect on people as well
Joanne Lockwood: and we don't allow ourselves as a society to
Joanne Lockwood: have open conversations, rhetoric where we can debate and talk
Joanne Lockwood: about things, it's I'm right. You're wrong. And and that's I'm
Joanne Lockwood: intelligent. You're stupid on both sides. Yeah. And I I think social
Roland Chesters: media has a large portion of blame
Roland Chesters: to to be responsible for in in that in the
Roland Chesters: certainly on Facebook, you know, that knee jerk reaction,
Roland Chesters: just a a short phrase of of
Roland Chesters: dismissal. Some of them, sometimes very
Roland Chesters: rude, very arrogant, and so on and so forth. And people feel able
Roland Chesters: to do that because of the non anonymity that
Roland Chesters: that provides. I think if you
Roland Chesters: think back, you know, when when the
Roland Chesters: computer was was first invented, if they had
Roland Chesters: thought that this is how we would end
Roland Chesters: up. I wonder if they would have had a rethink and thought actually might not
Roland Chesters: be such a good idea.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. It's interesting that, here we are on
Joanne Lockwood: the 8th December, just to put a time stamp on it. And
Joanne Lockwood: today we had the 1st person to receive the the COVID-nineteen
Joanne Lockwood: vaccine, so Margaret Keenan who is 90
Joanne Lockwood: and 91 next week. I think it's a it's a great milestone for
Joanne Lockwood: and we I'd like to stick with it beginning of the end.
Joanne Lockwood: Obviously this the the legacy of COVID is going to be going on for a
Joanne Lockwood: while but at least we're at the beginning the end of uncertainty and
Joanne Lockwood: it's a part of the country maybe to sort of if the people are
Joanne Lockwood: scared, people are not sure about the vaccine, to listen
Joanne Lockwood: to the fact, listen to what's going on, see the evidence and then the people
Joanne Lockwood: who are vehemently anti vax call into question the
Joanne Lockwood: truth that they know or whether that is true and
Joanne Lockwood: not get into arguments about it. I think that's what I'd hope for the next
Joanne Lockwood: 6 months as we we actually have proper evidence
Joanne Lockwood: and maybe the government or the NHS or whoever it is
Joanne Lockwood: looks at trying to allay the fears collaboratively
Joanne Lockwood: rather than telling if that makes sense Jo produce evidence,
Joanne Lockwood: show because I've heard someone the other day saying
Joanne Lockwood: what about Thalidomide?' I said what do you mean what about Thalidomide?'
Joanne Lockwood: I said 'that was a drug, that was a that was a to cure
Joanne Lockwood: morning sickness, that's not a vaccine' and you know, I look
Joanne Lockwood: back you know, I joined I was in the RAF when I left school and
Joanne Lockwood: the first thing you do when you join the forces is you become a pincushion
Joanne Lockwood: yellow fever, diphtheria, hep A, hep A,
Joanne Lockwood: smallpox, polio, everything, you get top up BCG
Joanne Lockwood: and you know we as a we would go on holidays to Hong Kong and
Joanne Lockwood: used to have or Africa, you have cholera, diphtheria, you
Joanne Lockwood: did nothing about and those vaccines actually did
Joanne Lockwood: knock you out a bit, didn't they? And they were you know, you had yellow
Joanne Lockwood: fever, you knew you had it for a couple of days. And
Joanne Lockwood: so we would go on holiday and say what what jabs do I need, just
Joanne Lockwood: go into doing it. And now this mentality seems to me well, are we anti
Joanne Lockwood: vaxx? Well, if you if it's smallpox would you be anti vaxx? Well maybe
Joanne Lockwood: not, no Jo smallpox is bad. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's maybe reframing some of these conversations around well
Joanne Lockwood: look, you take that, smoking's bad, we know smoking kills
Joanne Lockwood: you but you still smoke. So you won't have a vaccination but
Joanne Lockwood: you'll smoke, okay, drinking beer, eating red meat, all these things are
Joanne Lockwood: carcinogenic, we know too much chocolate Jo we're
Joanne Lockwood: happy to we're happy to kill ourselves in different ways but as soon as we
Joanne Lockwood: were given a vaccine we say well hang on a minute, I need some evidence,
Joanne Lockwood: I need to prove so we've got evidence that smoking kills but we still do
Joanne Lockwood: it Jo evidence doesn't matter, the facts don't change people Jo what it
Joanne Lockwood: is is the emotional, the attachment, the echo chamber you're in so if you're in
Joanne Lockwood: an anti vax echo chamber then stepping out of that means you've lost
Joanne Lockwood: your network, you've lost your friends, your
Joanne Lockwood: tribe, So it's not just about what you believe, it's about
Joanne Lockwood: what goes with that belief that people want to hang on to. That's where it
Joanne Lockwood: becomes dangerous I think and that's where the labels and the hats come
Joanne Lockwood: in and the safety we feel in our tribes, isn't it? One
Roland Chesters: thing that struck me about the pandemic. In
Roland Chesters: the 1st lockdown, I'm I'm I was on
Roland Chesters: the sheltering list. So originally, I
Roland Chesters: just used to go out for a walk of an evening later in the evening
Roland Chesters: when there were hardly people on the streets, and and, we
Roland Chesters: could avoid people easily. But if you did meet somebody coming
Roland Chesters: down the street towards you, either they cross over the road or we cross over
Roland Chesters: the road and we'd smile and say, hi. How are you? I mean, didn't know
Roland Chesters: them. But there was that air of civility
Roland Chesters: and caring for other people, and
Roland Chesters: I really, really hoped that we would hold on to
Roland Chesters: that. Sadly, human memories are very short,
Roland Chesters: and we appear to have already lost the
Roland Chesters: positive, the good stuff that may have come out of the pandemic,
Roland Chesters: which is a real shame because it was a golden opportunity that that
Roland Chesters: we've lost. That solidarity of cheer in the
Joanne Lockwood: NHS at East Auckland on Thursday. And just Jo if I
Joanne Lockwood: Marie and I used to walk down the road in the evenings and someone else
Joanne Lockwood: would come the other way, one of us would dive into the bush or into
Joanne Lockwood: a driveway or step right back and make way, we'd work
Joanne Lockwood: out actually you've got right away because you you've got less pavement on
Joanne Lockwood: your way. We could we've got more. Yeah. So Absolutely. Yeah. That's
Joanne Lockwood: very much, Ella. Cheers. Good evening. How are you doing? Yeah. Smiling at each
Joanne Lockwood: other. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. We've lost that already to say that that
Joanne Lockwood: was a that was a flash in the pan for 3 months in the summer.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What shall we do, Alan?
Joanne Lockwood: We're arguing about masks and, we're looking at people we're
Joanne Lockwood: ostracising people without masks and
Joanne Lockwood: whether they are valid non maskers or we think well
Joanne Lockwood: actually you don't look that bad' yeah just Jo it's
Roland Chesters: And again, it's making that instantaneous judgment,
Roland Chesters: judging people by what we see, making assumptions
Roland Chesters: about a person that because you look like you don't have any
Roland Chesters: kind of disability, that means you should be wearing a mask
Roland Chesters: kind of thing. I I I wear a mask, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't even think about it, but I know that I feel uncomfortable sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: It builds my temperature up and I can feel kind of a bit claustrophobic, I've
Joanne Lockwood: got one of these kind of like plastic things you put under the mask and
Roland Chesters: gives you a bit more breathing space which seems to work quite well,
Joanne Lockwood: But yeah, as a fellow glass wearer, it doesn't stop
Joanne Lockwood: you misting up at all and you don't have to wave your glasses around
Joanne Lockwood: or or Jo blind for a few seconds all the time. Yeah. I'm with you
Roland Chesters: on that one. But I don't I don't
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. I think if someone's gonna fix the the misting problem they would have done
Joanne Lockwood: it by now. It's it's kind of one of those things, isn't it? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: All these little devices you put on your cheekbones or you you, you
Joanne Lockwood: smear stuff on your lenses or something, it's all kind of not not that
Joanne Lockwood: effective. Or you you have one of those sort of visor shields that you wear
Roland Chesters: instead. But I went and got my haircut yesterday, and my hairdresser
Roland Chesters: had a mask and a visor. So I was very grateful
Roland Chesters: to her for that. So thank you very much. But that that
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I went I was in London on Friday having my hair adjusted, which
Joanne Lockwood: it happened, okay, every 4 to 6 weeks. And
Joanne Lockwood: my usual thing is I go to the station, I grab a
Joanne Lockwood: pasta pot from Marks and Spencer at Wolf Lew and a coffee, I sat on
Joanne Lockwood: the train thinking okay I've just kind of -Take your mask off. -Yeah,
Roland Chesters: I spooned it under the mask and I thought well I feel a bit kind
Joanne Lockwood: of guilty so I positioned myself so I was angled down,
Joanne Lockwood: nobody was in front of me Jo I've been very considerate about making sure that
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't transmitting any droplets in it but
Roland Chesters: thank you thank you for being so conscientious. Yeah. Not
Roland Chesters: everybody is. But No. And to sort of sat there thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: how do I deal with this now? I thought, well but Jo no, I was
Joanne Lockwood: I was very deliberate in making sure that I I was minimizing my own threat
Joanne Lockwood: footprint if you like, in that situation but
Joanne Lockwood: yeah at that point I was reflecting on one of these with the one of
Joanne Lockwood: these plastic masks. A) is it
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable and better and b) is it safe? Because
Joanne Lockwood: if it's safe why isn't everyone wearing those instead?
Joanne Lockwood: Because clearly people with an underlying health condition that prevents them wearing
Joanne Lockwood: or maybe a clip on onto their face mask, the plastic
Joanne Lockwood: shield has very little impact on your breathing
Joanne Lockwood: abilities. So why aren't we promoting those? I'm guessing the
Joanne Lockwood: reason is a) they could be expensive or b) they're not as
Joanne Lockwood: effective Jo the government don't want to promote them as alternatives.
Roland Chesters: Or, and I'm not one for conspiracy theories at all,
Joanne Lockwood: You are. Could be that some minister somewhere has got shares in the
Roland Chesters: companies that make those masks instead of the shields, and that's why
Roland Chesters: no. Ignore that. Did he Who knows? Who knows?
Joanne Lockwood: For the tape, you said. Yeah. For the record here. But I'm tempted
Joanne Lockwood: to get one of those plastic masks just purely from a
Joanne Lockwood: just be able to eat eat a sandwich on the train, but then I thought,
Joanne Lockwood: well, I'm only get to London every 6 weeks. I can I can I can
Joanne Lockwood: I can actually put up with a train journey for once every 6 weeks and
Joanne Lockwood: not eat? I could I could plan my journey better. Jo,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah well well we've been we've been yacking on now just over an
Joanne Lockwood: hour so we've done before. We have. It's been brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: Very inspiring and, so you've been
Joanne Lockwood: doing a lot of stuff over the last few years and you've even written a
Joanne Lockwood: book, isn't it? I have absolutely. 2 years ago, my
Roland Chesters: book, Ripples from the Edge of Life, was published,
Roland Chesters: and has has been quite successful, I'm I'm
Roland Chesters: pleased to say. And it's not
Joanne Lockwood: just your voice for what I'm saying. It's a lot of other people's stories in
Roland Chesters: those stories. I decided to write the book.
Roland Chesters: There was an article that appeared in The Guardian newspaper,
Roland Chesters: by, some journalists who were saying that
Roland Chesters: very little contemporary stuff is written about HIV and
Roland Chesters: AIDS. And I thought, okay. Well, that's that's a sign that
Roland Chesters: something needs to be done. But I recognized I do lots of
Roland Chesters: entry work in the HIV and AIDS sector and obviously engage with a
Roland Chesters: lot of people living with HIV and AIDS. And I recognize that
Roland Chesters: my story is is by no means unique or special.
Roland Chesters: So I wrote my own story and then put a message out
Roland Chesters: asking if there's if there were any other people who'd be willing to share
Roland Chesters: their stories, and 14 other people came forward and said, yeah.
Roland Chesters: Absolutely. Including some women living with HIV,
Roland Chesters: quite a number of the people, out of those 14 have also
Roland Chesters: had AIDS as well. So it's me plus 14
Roland Chesters: others. But what I thought was interesting is that out of those 14, about
Roland Chesters: half of those people didn't want to to use their real
Roland Chesters: names in the stories, and I'm not there to out people at all.
Roland Chesters: But I just thought that that was still a reflection of the
Roland Chesters: fact that, people experience
Roland Chesters: huge amounts of stigma around HIV. These people didn't want their
Roland Chesters: real names to be used because they were concerned of the repercussions that that
Roland Chesters: may have on them. So, yes, Ripples from
Roland Chesters: the Edge of Life. I've probably given
Roland Chesters: away as many copies as I've sold. But as I say, it's it's had
Roland Chesters: some really nice reviews. People are being very positive about it. And it's
Roland Chesters: just my way of helping to,
Roland Chesters: break some of the out of date mythology that still surrounds the
Roland Chesters: condition. I think we first
Joanne Lockwood: met probably 2 years ago or thereabouts.
Joanne Lockwood: I remember it being quite cold and approaching Christmas, so it must have been
Joanne Lockwood: around about this sort of time a couple of years ago at, there was a
Joanne Lockwood: launch of a, I think a charity called Positive Allies run by
Joanne Lockwood: Drew Dolby in London and you were the speaker that night which is I think
Joanne Lockwood: the first time I heard you speak and met you, even if we checked on
Joanne Lockwood: the phone. So you're quite involved with Positive Allies. So I am. What what is
Roland Chesters: that? So I I I'm an ambassador for Positive Allies. Positive Allies
Roland Chesters: is a charter mark created by the University of Sunderland
Roland Chesters: where Drew Dalton is a a lecturer. It's the
Roland Chesters: only charter mark of its kind in the whole world, and it's a
Roland Chesters: charter mark for organizations who wish to demonstrate
Roland Chesters: their understanding and knowledge of HIV and AIDS and how they are
Roland Chesters: prepared to support
Roland Chesters: and work with their employees,
Roland Chesters: customers, clients, university students, and so
Roland Chesters: on who, who may be HIV positive.
Roland Chesters: It's something that I am really
Roland Chesters: keen to promote more widely, having had my own
Roland Chesters: experiences of sharing that information in the workplace and
Roland Chesters: knowing the devastating impact that that can have, having
Roland Chesters: worked voluntarily with others who've been through the same experience.
Roland Chesters: So, yes, the positive allies on the University of
Roland Chesters: Sunderland website is something worth looking at for any
Roland Chesters: organization who wants to demonstrate its,
Roland Chesters: positive with a small p, attitude towards
Roland Chesters: HIV and AIDS. So yes. I mean, I
Joanne Lockwood: it I was a bit self off the mark because it took me a while
Joanne Lockwood: to realize that positive allies, positive was around HIV positive
Joanne Lockwood: and being an ally to someone who was positive. But it's a great play on
Joanne Lockwood: words about being a positive ally as well. But, yeah, no,
Joanne Lockwood: I've spoken to Drew a number, I think after the event that you spoke at
Joanne Lockwood: and we met, we had a great conversation with Drew and I've spoken to
Joanne Lockwood: him a number of times over the years, my follow-up on Facebook and chat to
Joanne Lockwood: him, and he's doing some amazing work to push this this kite mark out and
Joanne Lockwood: to create awareness is a really, really powerful
Joanne Lockwood: way. It's easy and accessible for all organizations to get
Joanne Lockwood: involved with.
Roland Chesters: Absolutely. And, we are, planning to
Roland Chesters: refresh the the website and all of that kind of stuff, and
Roland Chesters: we've got some great new activities lined up as well to support the
Roland Chesters: the chartmark. Drew and I and the other, people to
Roland Chesters: engage with positive allies are meeting early in January to put a plan
Roland Chesters: together of how to implement all of this. So do go and look at
Roland Chesters: university University of Sunderland Positive Allies website.
Joanne Lockwood: I'll put all of these details and the links in the in the show notes
Joanne Lockwood: on the website Jo people will be able to find that. And
Joanne Lockwood: we can't leave because one of your proudest moments was to be nominated as a
Joanne Lockwood: finest for the National Diversity Awards a couple of years ago. Don't tell me what
Joanne Lockwood: that was. Last year in actual fact. Oh, shit. I was I was totally
Roland Chesters: gobsmacked. It it sort of happened out of the blue.
Roland Chesters: I got an email saying that I'm being nominated by somebody,
Roland Chesters: and then sort of countdown towards the
Roland Chesters: the the deadline, and I got the message. And so it was something like 35,000
Roland Chesters: nominees last year. And I was
Roland Chesters: one of the 8 people who'd been shortlisted as a finalist
Roland Chesters: for disability role model, which
Roland Chesters: is just astonishing and astounding. And
Roland Chesters: when turned up to the to the awards ceremony, met the other
Roland Chesters: finalists in in my category, all truly
Roland Chesters: inspirational people. It was
Roland Chesters: just a night to never be forgotten,
Roland Chesters: something I'm extremely proud of.
Roland Chesters: But I think due to all
Roland Chesters: the support that I've had across the years
Roland Chesters: from from Richard, my partner, from
Roland Chesters: friends, colleagues, anybody
Roland Chesters: who has shown any kind of interest or
Roland Chesters: support. We are we are not lone
Roland Chesters: ships in the night. We can't achieve this without other people
Roland Chesters: around us. So although, you know, the recipient to the award is
Roland Chesters: one person, there's always a a an army of people
Roland Chesters: behind that person, and I'm very grateful for that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. There's many unsung heroes but the award is
Joanne Lockwood: celebrating all of the people doing all of the work and
Joanne Lockwood: creating that as you say that that focus for the evening about
Joanne Lockwood: talking and celebrating what people are doing and inspiring other people to join in as
Joanne Lockwood: well. So I think that's it's actually amazing the work you
Joanne Lockwood: do and with Positive Allies yourself as Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: open out HIV positive gay man
Joanne Lockwood: and being visible, being a role model because that will
Joanne Lockwood: inspire No doubt many future generations and the stories in the
Joanne Lockwood: book also amplify lots of stories which is extremely I'm
Joanne Lockwood: extremely proud to have been to be your friend and
Joanne Lockwood: also to, have you on here today. Jo It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you
Roland Chesters: very much. Excellent. So well many
Joanne Lockwood: thanks once more. For anyone listening I'm sure there's much to
Joanne Lockwood: ponder and take inspiration from. Listeners,
Joanne Lockwood: you mentioned your website RipplesFromTheEdge.com, connect me on
Joanne Lockwood: Linkedin, find find your contact
Joanne Lockwood: list from there, and I'm sure you're welcome to have people contact you.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely. Yeah. Sure. Totally. Well thank you
Joanne Lockwood: for listening, thank you for tuning in, I appreciate your sticking
Joanne Lockwood: out to the end and if you want to catch up with other episodes of
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's B-I-T-E-S, then please
Joanne Lockwood: do check us out on the website, please do subscribe, tell your friends, tell
Joanne Lockwood: your colleagues because I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up
Joanne Lockwood: I was sure you'd be inspired by over the next few weeks months. Of course,
Joanne Lockwood: if you've got a story, you'd like to be on the show, then please do
Joanne Lockwood: let me know. And of course, I'd also welcome any feedback or suggestions you may
Joanne Lockwood: have on how we can improve to jo.lockwood@seehangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast
Joanne Lockwood: for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.