Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of
Joanne Lockwood: amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a
Joanne Lockwood: better place for everyone to thrive. 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: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot
Joanne Lockwood: co dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous
Joanne Lockwood: shows on itunes, Spotify and the usual places
Joanne Lockwood: to plug in your headphones, grab a decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going. Today is
Joanne Lockwood: episode 83 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: uplifting queer Genius. And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Dr Joel Davis
Joanne Lockwood: Brown. Joel describes himself as a change agent
Joanne Lockwood: that has too much stuff going on. When I asked Joel
Joanne Lockwood: to describe his superpower, he said queer minded creative
Joanne Lockwood: problem solving. Hi, Joel, welcome to the
Joanne Lockwood: show. Good morning. Or I should say, good afternoon.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It's a pleasure to be here. Nice to meet you.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely. Joel, we've just had an amazing warm up in the green
Joanne Lockwood: room, so I'm looking forward to this conversation no end. And we came
Joanne Lockwood: up the title uplifting. Queer Genius. So what's all that
Joanne Lockwood: about, from your perspective? I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: think, well, we're at a time in
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: global history where
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queer people are being denounced
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and how should I say
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it? Discriminated against,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: criticised, misunderstood, on, in new
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and not so new ways. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what is ironic is that a number of the skills that the world needs in
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: order to create a world that works more perfectly for all
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of us, a lot of the things
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that the queer community embodies are those very
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: skills. And so this is an opportunity for us, as a community
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and as a world, to start to fully recognise,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: appreciate and understand what queer people bring to the world from
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a leadership standpoint, from a transformational standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and from a global standpoint, in order
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to take advantage of our talents, to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: honour our gifts. And hopefully, I would hope, as a byproduct, to make more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: space for us in the world, given
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the beauty that we possess and the things that we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: naturally use and utilise just by virtue of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: being queer. So there's a lot there
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that we naturally, I think,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: bring to this space, bring to the world, bring to a lot of different
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: dimensions and regions and parts of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the planet. And I think it's about time for us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to spend some time really examining what those
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are and really giving breadth to how queer people actually
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: benefit the world, as opposed to this persistent narrative, which
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is one where people see us as a threat. So that's what the whole
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: idea of Uplifting Queer Genius is about, is giving
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: change the narrative and starting to view
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queer people in a more full bodied way than we have previously.
Joanne Lockwood: That's quite interesting. The way you say that, because
Joanne Lockwood: I would call myself describe myself as queer. I'm a trans
Joanne Lockwood: woman. And what you're saying there about
Joanne Lockwood: this queerness as a superpower within us that the world
Joanne Lockwood: needs more of to balance out some of the
Joanne Lockwood: things that are going on, I'd never really thought it in that terms. I
Joanne Lockwood: transitioned seven or eight years ago effectively, and I
Joanne Lockwood: felt an immense sense of freedom, an immense sense of enlightenment and
Joanne Lockwood: empowerment within myself as a result of that. I put a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of that down to my gender identity. But maybe there's a
Joanne Lockwood: whole different dimension in there that you're talking about here, around
Joanne Lockwood: the extra dimension of queerness. Not just around gender, it's around sexuality
Joanne Lockwood: and the multifaceted nature of queerness that
Joanne Lockwood: brings out that real richness of difference of
Joanne Lockwood: experience that maybe straight people, CIS people
Joanne Lockwood: have that, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: they see us as a threat. Because we're prepared to challenge the status
Joanne Lockwood: quo, break out societal norms, not be living to
Joanne Lockwood: the constructs of social society that they've defined
Joanne Lockwood: over the years. Is that what you're saying there? Is that the
Joanne Lockwood: influence of what you're saying? Is this empowerment we have that
Joanne Lockwood: maybe
Joanne Lockwood: we bring to the world, or is it more than that? I think it's more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: than that. I think it starts with empowerment. What you described is a beautiful
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: process of self discovery and self realisation, of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: going within to learn more about yourself so that you can be your
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: full and best self. Even that in and of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: itself requires courage and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: commitment and a certain level of energy that a lot of people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: choose not to possess. I'm not going to say people don't have the capacity, but
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people choose not to possess. And what you have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: experienced is what a lot of queer people, a lot of trans
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people, a lot of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: LGBTQ plus people have experienced, because we have to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: in order for us to be fully who we are, we have to excavate our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: truths. We have to understand our realities and our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: worldview. We have to give voice to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: our full identities and our aspirations. And in
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: doing so, we help to create freedom for ourselves.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Just modelling that process, I think, is something that could be a benefit to a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: number of people and to a number of global citizens.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Because how many of us actually take the time and actually create the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: space to be fully free? And I'm not speaking just in terms of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: historical systems of oppression. I mean to give ourselves permission to be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: free. Regardless of whether someone says, I deem you worthy of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: freedom, I deem you worthy of love, I deem you worthy of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: being happy or being fully expressed as a human
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: being, we give ourselves permission. And I think that by itself
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is a needed revolution in the world where people stop
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: looking to others and followers on social
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: media and other people to give them permission to be themselves. And to be their
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: brightest light. We do that for ourselves. That is a very important
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and understated aspect of leadership to say, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: embrace who I am, I appreciate my talents, I know that I can
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: influence my environment just by being who I am. But
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: before I can influence my environment, I have to first be clear and to lead
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: myself. That's the first step of leadership. And queer
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people do that every single day that we decide and we come out
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: consciously assert, this is who I am.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And I think the world could use that. And beyond that, there are,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I wouldn't call them unique traits, but there are aspects of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: our culture that I think really need
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: greater visibility in the world. There are aspects
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of who we are that need greater practise or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: elevation. And a lot of that,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think, has never been fully explored because for a number of people,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: when they think about queer people, they reduced us to a stereotype, to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a caricature, or they have just come to the conclusion that this
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: community is not worthy of study. So therefore, the idea that there's something of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: value that we bring would seem absurd to them, even to some members of our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: own community. And I think now is the time, through
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: my own journey and my own research, that I realise we actually
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: bring a lot. And what we bring is essentially what a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: lumber of people are asking for. And that is our cultural genius.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: That is the acumen that we have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: naturally, by virtue of being queer people. That serves us in
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: an ever changing, ever evolving
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: society. And I think more people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: could benefit from it if they simply took the chance to see us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: in our full light. Do you think this
Joanne Lockwood: is rooted in introspection?
Joanne Lockwood: Before I came out to myself,
Joanne Lockwood: we all have to come out to ourselves first. We're the first people we come
Joanne Lockwood: out to. And that whole exercise is around self
Joanne Lockwood: analysis, self questioning, introspection, who am
Joanne Lockwood: I? What's important to me? Until I went through that
Joanne Lockwood: process, I probably never considered those questions to
Joanne Lockwood: myself in the rest of my life. So it's some of our power,
Joanne Lockwood: the fact that we are self analysing, we are questioning who we are, we
Joanne Lockwood: are working out our position in society and that's where our
Joanne Lockwood: camaraderie within the queer community comes from. Maybe because we've
Joanne Lockwood: all been through that place of discovery, I think, as you
Joanne Lockwood: put it, we have to come out all the time, so we're constantly making
Joanne Lockwood: choices about who we come out to, how we come
Joanne Lockwood: out, our safety, the benefit to us,
Joanne Lockwood: all that impact. So those decisions are going on in our head every time we
Joanne Lockwood: step out the front door. As a straight
Joanne Lockwood: person, a non queer person, you probably don't even
Joanne Lockwood: realise that you have to have those thoughts.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: No, you probably don't. Or you take them for granted, or you don't use them
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as often as you could. And like anything, any talent, any muscle,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the less you use it, the weaker it becomes, to the point of where it
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: almost seems like it's nonexistent. What we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: give our attention to, what we prize in a society or in a particular
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cultural group, is a value. So if we say, for example,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that we prize or we value creativity, then that is a value. If
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we say that we value inclusion, that is
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a value. If we say that we value money, that also is a value. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: depending on the particular group we all have, every
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: group within the world has a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: sense or a core set of values. And we typically think about values from a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very nationalistic standpoint. So you'll hear people, for example, say, in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: UK or in places like or any country, it could be Kenya, it could be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Singapore, it could be Japan, it could be Chile, it could be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the US. Well, what do you all stand for? And there are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: certain principles that countries, nations, people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: organise around to say people of like, mind are here. Or if you are part
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of this group, this is what you subscribe to, this is what you believe in.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: That doesn't mean that people don't have individual differences and that doesn't mean that people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: don't have serving values that perhaps they lean
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: into more than others. But what I would say is that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: with the queer community, there are values that we support.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: That, for example, the idea of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: interconnectedness that are really important
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and who doesn't need more interconnectedness
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: now, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic? And given the fact that we've
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: see loneliness become a bigger issue in the social
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: sphere. Even before COVID-19 even came on
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the global scene, there were a number of countries, denmark,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Japan, New Zealand, the UK,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the US, that were focusing on loneliness
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: because they said, and they realised that there were pockets of the population that were
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: feeling more estranged, more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: disconnected. And here we are as a community, has spent a lot of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: time out of necessity, to build community, to build connection, that doesn't
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: mean we're perfect. So if our community has been able
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to do these things at the risk
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of being harassed, discriminated against,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: even killed or hurt, and we've never been able to do them,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: well, I would think most people in the world if I were
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: studying a group I heard about this group that, despite the odds and despite
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very few resources, was able to do these miraculous
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and powerful things in the world. I'd want to learn what they were doing,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I don't want to learn how they were doing it. I didn't want to study
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what their model is. And that's where I think we have an ability and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: opportunity to teach. Because we as a society, we as a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: group have been able to do things in our society that others
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: probably wouldn't be able to do. Given the level of deprivation that we've
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: suffered from a legal, political and social standpoint that's,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: again, part of our cultural genius. How do we do that? How do we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: maintain that? How do we keep that flame lit? Those are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the things that we don't talk about enough. So there is the aspect of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: being out and proud and engaging
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: in self realisation and being self determinative. There's also that aspect
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of, wow, look at this community that here.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: There are 71 countries that have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: passed anti or have open
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: discrimination or discriminatory laws against LGBTQ people.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: There are, I think, at this point, 37 countries that explicitly
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have laws that are hostile to gender nonconforming
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: populations. And yet we still are able to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: do some pretty remarkable things, not the least of which
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is exist. So
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that is part of our superpower and we're so used to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: doing it that we don't think it has great
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: consequence, when in fact it does. The fact that you and I are having this
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: conversation, the fact that you created this platform and this
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: podcast, there's something powerful in that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and I think a lot of people could learn from that because a lot of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people are looking for inspiration, they're looking for hope, and I think
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we can offer that.
Joanne Lockwood: So, as a community, yeah, I get what you're saying.
Joanne Lockwood: Our long standing
Joanne Lockwood: fight against marginalisation oppression. So you are a black
Joanne Lockwood: man. How does the intersection of racism and queerness
Joanne Lockwood: differ?
Joanne Lockwood: As a marginalised black person, you must have experienced discrimination
Joanne Lockwood: from a different vector. Is being
Joanne Lockwood: black a similar empowerment to queerness
Joanne Lockwood: or it's a different experience that you can't
Joanne Lockwood: compare the two? I'm just really curious as to where that
Joanne Lockwood: intersection kicks in. And is there a commonality
Joanne Lockwood: between the oppressed community and the spirit and the problem
Joanne Lockwood: solving within it, or is it something unique to queerness?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I would say there are some similarities. However, the way that queer people have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: been able to create it or fashion it or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to design it is different. The same way that for a black person or for
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: black people, it's different. And I think, like any
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: superhuman beings, our tools and our superpowers are just
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: slightly different. So you may see one superhero that they're able
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to shoot a beam through concrete or through
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: some precious mineral, whereas another superhero
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: might be able to or super person excuse me, might be able to fly and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: another one might be able to speak with animals or whatnot.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think we possess unique, indifferent talents
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and that doesn't mean that our talents are exclusive and it doesn't mean that other
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: groups and communities don't have them. One of the things I like to remind people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is that people of colour, or I know in the UK, I think
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it's black, Asian, minority, ethnicities also are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: part of the community, so it's one and the same, right? So there's not always
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: this distinct difference between the groups. You have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people of colour who are queer in the community and those superpowers have been
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: embellished, expanded upon or enhanced
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: by their experiences in different areas. So I think
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: there are different experiences. They're not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as different as we make them out to be. It's like having
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a cousin. So you have a cousin, know
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you're connected, you have something in common that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: would be the human experience, but their life is completely
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: different than yours. Let's say they're living in Manchester as opposed to living in
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Portsmouth, and that's how I think it is. When we look at diversity
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: overall, is that, yes, a number of us, all of us have different
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: identities and, yes, they can be distinct, but we all come from the same mosaic.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And the emotions and the realities
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are not all that different. They just show up a little bit differently and that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: allows us to maintain our individuality or our unique experiences, but also to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: recognise that in the whole, there are a lot of things that we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: encounter that are not all that rare and that are not all that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: different. You can't talk about white supremacy without talking about
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: heterosexism and you can't talk about patriarchy without talking about
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cisgenderism. They're all connected, right?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And just the way that these things play out is just a little bit different.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: So that's how I think of it. I would say to you there are definitely
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: times where I have to use my black
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: superhuman powers and there are times when I use my queer
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: superhuman powers. I think at least with black
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people, there has been at least some recognition,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: albeit slight, that the way that we think and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the way that we are relational and the way that we are community minded is
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: an asset. And I still think that we're at the very beginning
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of looking at queer people from an asset based
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: perspective, even for those of us who are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: allies. I've heard things like where you like to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: party, you're lively and I say, well,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: perhaps there are some of us who like to party, but what is the deeper
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: value that speaks to that? So that requires us to go deeper. And what that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: requires is for even our allies and even ourselves
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to go beyond the idea and the belief
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that they know who we are to actually say, well, do you actually know what
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it's like to be us and what we actually stand for? Because what you see
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: when you say that we like to party or we like to be lively is
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what's sticking above the waterline. It's the iceberg that sticks out.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: But have you taken time to really be clear as to what more we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: bring to table, where that comes from? So if I'm I remember a guy on
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a plane said to me I was going to some
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queer event conference and he said, oh, there's going to be a lot of parties.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And he thought he was being endearing to me when he said that and I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: said, Well, I don't know about going there to party. I said, I do
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: appreciate that people do want to celebrate and that comes
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: from an idea of wanting to be closer and to connect with people, but also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: wanting to honour who one is. And if you frame
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it that way, then I think a lot of people can understand it from a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: deeper level and have more appreciation for how important it is for
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: all a billion of us human beings to honour and celebrate who we are,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as opposed to just thinking that we want to go party. So
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's where I think for the queer community, I would love to see
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: more exploration and more research and more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: humility to say maybe we don't understand well, we know that we don't
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: understand this group and maybe we can do more. And I think the black
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: community has that as well. And I would say that there are a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: lot of parallel synergies and energies between the two groups and there are obviously
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: some distinct ones. And I just think that right now, the queer
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: community, I think a lot of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: minoritized communities, but I think the queer community needs
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we need to take the reins of our narrative and stop
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: allowing other people to define us in ways that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are completely disrespectful to our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cultural legacy and to who we are.
Joanne Lockwood: How much do you think the media plays in this? Because.
Joanne Lockwood: Going back a few years, ten years, 20 years, the
Joanne Lockwood: media used to trope and stereotype queer people
Joanne Lockwood: in a certain way, as you say, the camperness, the
Joanne Lockwood: flamboyance, the party, the
Joanne Lockwood: elements of queerness we can all see represented in the media. But
Joanne Lockwood: lately I've noticed a real shift where people
Joanne Lockwood: aren't centering someone's queerness in the storyline, they're by the
Joanne Lockwood: way, they're queer. There'll be a kiss later on, there'll be a handhold, there'll be
Joanne Lockwood: a look, and you can go, oh, they're going to kiss in a minute. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's quite an emotional thing from a queer
Joanne Lockwood: perspective to see that queer representation without it being the whole
Joanne Lockwood: point of the movie or the whole point of the episode, and
Joanne Lockwood: it becomes a voyage of discovery in the same way that
Joanne Lockwood: heterosexuality is just a by the way thing. And I think
Joanne Lockwood: that I see a shift in the media, but before that it was all
Joanne Lockwood: stereotypical
Joanne Lockwood: leading to the you don't seem gay, you don't sound gay to me. Those kind
Joanne Lockwood: of microaggressions and tropes that come out. Are we seeing a shift in the media
Joanne Lockwood: now? Yes and no.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think the media at the and I think we all know this, the media
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: at the end of the day is entertainment business and so it's trying to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: put out whatever is most expedient and what's going to get most people's attention.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I do think what's changed is that there are more queer people in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: media and there are more allies in the media and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people recognise our humanity. So that the difference. The
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: perceived weirdness of us is not as much
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of a storyline because we're human but at the same time
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I also think, as opposed to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: downplaying our queerness, I would love to see more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: recognition of what our queerness really stands for. So there's one of two
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: choices that you can make. If you have had a history, as the media
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: has, of distorting, mischaracterizing and stereotyping
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queer people, you could downplay it and not talk about any difference at all, just
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say, oh, they just happen to be two people who are queer. Or you could
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say, maybe we need to think about how we present queer people in a more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: positive, affirming and culturally
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: respectful light. And I would love to see more of that too, because there's parts
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of me as a queer person that, yeah, this is a queer thing that you
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: might be experiencing and seeing. But let's talk about where it comes from and why
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it's important and how being in the crucible known
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as human existence as a minoritized person has contributed to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: this as opposed to just downplaying it to something that's not culturally
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: informed or rich, layered, nuanced and complex. So I think
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it's a both. And has the media improved?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Definitely. Are there still more opportunities
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: for us? Yes, and I think one of the ways in which the media can
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: improve its representation of us is not focusing
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: just on the cisgender, straight male
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: aspect of our community. I've been in many situations where
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: people have said to me why don't we see more trans people? Why don't we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: see more bi people? Why don't we see more people of colour? Why don't we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: see more women? I'm like, well, we don't have enough time to talk about
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that. But at the same time it's not that complex because we have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the same forces of racism and sexism and cisgenderism and ableism
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and all those sorts of things are still very much at play within our community
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and in terms of how people portray our community. So
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that would be something nice. And I think also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: seeing us in a more of an intersectional lens and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: recognising that. For example,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what someone represents as queerness is and may be informed
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: by their ethnicity and by
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: their idea of gender, and that may work for them,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: but that is not how the rest of the community see
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: itself. So I think the next chapter for us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is and for how we're viewing the society as a whole
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is to see more of our multidimensionality.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: You see we are being recognised more for our humanity.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think there's more work that can be done, but I think also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: recognising more of our identity and recognising, too,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that, yes, many of us have achieved some level of privilege,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: but there are still many of us in many countries around the world who don't
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have freedom. And I think that's the thing that concerns
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: me is this trope of, oh, you all like to party. You all just are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very lively. Can give the impression that we're still not being
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: persecuted, which of course we are. So those are things
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that I worry about because I want us to have a broad
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: lens where we look at the community to not create the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: tragic queer person stereotype, but also not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to create the party. Everything's okay and nothing's wrong and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: everything is just and perfect, because that's not true either.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And also making sure that we represent all the communities. One of the things I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: love to say is we are one community, but many people and I would love
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to see us represent and show more of the people aspect, too.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I prefer the term communities rather than community
Joanne Lockwood: because we have multiple communities coming together and there's no one
Joanne Lockwood: representation, no one view. Really interesting
Joanne Lockwood: what you're saying there.
Joanne Lockwood: As a trans woman, one of my ultimate
Joanne Lockwood: aims is to be perceived as a CIS
Joanne Lockwood: woman, ideally. So in some areas I want to downplay
Joanne Lockwood: my queerness and my difference and blend in as
Joanne Lockwood: much as I can. So my objective in some respects isn't to
Joanne Lockwood: party, isn't to go out and be visible and flamboyant
Joanne Lockwood: or express myself openly. Just I almost downplay
Joanne Lockwood: it. Dress for the supermarket.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't want to be obvious.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just thinking as you're talking, I'm looking to hide my
Joanne Lockwood: queerness. Not because I'm ashamed of it, because as a trans woman, my ultimate aim
Joanne Lockwood: is to blend in. That's what I'm looking for. So everyone experiences
Joanne Lockwood: their queerness differently. But, yeah, obviously I'm proud of who I am. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: proud of being part of the community. I'm proud that,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, there's this superpower, there's this camaraderie, for want of
Joanne Lockwood: a better word, this shared belief in we are more
Joanne Lockwood: having a level of empowerment and change agents.
Joanne Lockwood: So I completely get that. But I feel sometimes that my
Joanne Lockwood: objective really goes against it's about blending and hiding.
Joanne Lockwood: So how does that rationalise? Well, when you
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say hiding, I guess the question I would ask for you, is it
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: hiding because it's just your personal sensibility or because
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you are wanting to maintain your level of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: safety? It's not about safety. It's
Joanne Lockwood: about
Joanne Lockwood: my objective of transitioning is to realise my
Joanne Lockwood: female potential and by expressing
Joanne Lockwood: myself with the trans adjective, if you like,
Joanne Lockwood: it's creating a I'm not as good, I don't pass the test.
Joanne Lockwood: I failed in my persona to convince you
Joanne Lockwood: that I'm female. So it's all about trying to blend
Joanne Lockwood: in as a female persona. I didn't transition to be
Joanne Lockwood: perceived and read as a man. I transitioned to be perceived and red as a
Joanne Lockwood: woman. So for me, an element of my
Joanne Lockwood: identity is not to stand out as a trans woman. Although
Joanne Lockwood: professionally I'm professionally trans. I talk about it all the time. Just when I go
Joanne Lockwood: shopping in a supermarket, I want to take my trans hat off and
Joanne Lockwood: just be a woman.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a different expression, no doubt. You go
Joanne Lockwood: to the supermarket, you don't want to go to the supermarket as a gay black
Joanne Lockwood: man, you just want to go there and buy some eggs.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: That is true. Joelness is the thing that I go
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: by first is I want people to just see me as Joel. And, yes, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: don't want to bring undue attention to myself, but I think this is where my
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: blackness also has helped me in many ways, because I realised
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that no matter what I do, people are going to see me however they see
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: me. And people sometimes are going to see me as different, even just by
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: walking down the street, even by going and buying tomatoes
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: or pumping gas into my car or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: going to the movie theatre. And so I think with
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that there comes the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: comfort of I have to just be who I am. Because no matter
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what I do, people are going to have their expectations and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: their beliefs as to how I should
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: behave, how I should show up, or they're going to have their reactions to how
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I am or who I show up. And there's nothing I can do about that.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And because my skin tone is going to be one that people are going to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: notice readily, I don't get away from that. So with my
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queerness too, I think the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: goal for any person, at least for me, I'll speak for myself, is to be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a fully integrated person, which means I am
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: all of me, all of the time. And when
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you sample me or when you experience me, you're going to necessarily get a little
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: bit of blackness, a little bit of queerness, but you're going to get a little
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: bit of Americanness, but you're also going to get some
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Midwesternness. You're going to get some Agnostic aspect
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of me. You're going to get the sports lover in me, you're going to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: get the artist in me. You're going to get the person who is very much
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the anti American. You're going to get all sorts of things and have all those
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: things sampled and not feel like I have to pull back the one,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: which is the queer aspect of it. So that's where it really comes from.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It's not so much that I'm trying to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: blend, I just want to be able to have everything show
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: up as it would naturally in any environment, and not feel like I have to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: be diminished in that in some places, it's going to come out more so than
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: others. And I think from the black standpoint and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of course, our journeys are different, it's just a matter of people are going to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: think whatever they want to think. So I'm just going to be me and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: whatever they need to think. As I'm in the grocery store, they'll think wherever
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: they need to think. When I'm in the gym, they'll think. And whatever. They need
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to think when I'm on stage speaking to an audience, they'll think that as
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: well. And at all times, I'm still just going to be me. And so
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's part of our unique
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: journeys, right, is that, yeah, we want to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: blend and that sometimes we just can't blend. We
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are the part of the stew that no matter how much
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you heat it, no matter how much you stir it, no matter how
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: vigorously you try to blend in those ingredients, some are just not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: going to blend. And I think I've gotten okay with that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and just realised that's just part of my experience as a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: queer black man in this world is that there are parts of me that will
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: never blend. And sometimes that's frustrating, but most
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: times that's okay. Yeah, I agree
Joanne Lockwood: completely. When I speak on stage, I know you do as
Joanne Lockwood: well in front of audiences. And I'm not looking to hide
Joanne Lockwood: who I am. In fact, the only thing I hide until the last second
Joanne Lockwood: is my voice. Because I know my voice gives me a
Joanne Lockwood: shock, a power, something to surprise
Joanne Lockwood: people, get them to look up and pay attention, because they see me on stage
Joanne Lockwood: in a dress, wearing heels or whatever I'm wearing, and my voice
Joanne Lockwood: is incongruent. And that creates a kind of a snap moment.
Joanne Lockwood: So I use it as my superpower. I recognise it. I'm not going to change
Joanne Lockwood: my voice. It's mine. I've had it all my life. I'm not changing for
Joanne Lockwood: you. And I also have people who are style consultants,
Joanne Lockwood: do my colours or get my outfits and I say,
Joanne Lockwood: Look, I'm trans.
Joanne Lockwood: People look at me wearing a dress and they have opinions. I don't need you
Joanne Lockwood: to tell me what I should be wearing either. I'm going to stand up here
Joanne Lockwood: and express myself, not what your version of what looks good on me.
Joanne Lockwood: I want my version of what's good on me. So I'm very much more self
Joanne Lockwood: assured about my own sense of identity and it's about
Joanne Lockwood: how I feel and the impression I create that I want to stage
Joanne Lockwood: manage. I don't want someone to stage manage me for me. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think the empowerment I have by transitioning is recognising that
Joanne Lockwood: I have the power over myself to express myself as I
Joanne Lockwood: wish, and not to be governed by constructs or
Joanne Lockwood: societal expectations. So, yeah, I like to look good, but I like to look
Joanne Lockwood: good my way. And that in and of itself
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is not common. The level
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of consciousness and the way that you're
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: living signals to me or is a way
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of being that many of us haven't and don't
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: achieve the ability to say, I'm going to not only
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: separate myself or distinguish myself from
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: interpersonal expectations. Familial expectations, but also systemic
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: constructs is a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: pretty powerful thing to do, and it's not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: commonplace. That is one of the things that we, I think,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are able to inspire and motivate other people to do is to say,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are you questioning that's part of being queer minded? Are you questioning
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what's been handed to you? Or do you just accept that there's either this way
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of thinking or this way of thinking? Do you look at the truths that are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: set before you as being infallible? Do you take the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: philosophies and the ideas around the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: world and heaven and hell and do you accept those
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as unbreakable? Or do you look back and say, there's a different way
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that I can think about this and I don't have to be beholden to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what's shared with me or the two polemics that have been laid out for me.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I can actually look at something different. That's the very essence of queer
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: mindedness. And to do so in a way to explore
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: our own journeys and our own identities, but also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to help the world to be different.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: So that is what you just shared, which I'm
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: sure I don't want to say I'm sure maybe for you, you might think, no,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's just who I am and that's just my way of being.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And I'm very comfortable with that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: fact. That's not so common. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that, in and of itself, is just one of the very
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: powerful but delicate ways in which I think we help to bring
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: in a different perspective, where people say, I don't have to live a certain way.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I don't have to think a certain way. I can be open to love, expression,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: identity, actualization in so many different
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: ways. Which then means if a person can be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: powerful then the communities, the institutions,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the groups that they inhabit become much
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: more affirming and heart centred and human centred as
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: well, as opposed to the opposite, where they become and remain these archaic,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: formulaic state institutions that many of us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are trying to break from in many ways. But many of us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have resolved that we'll just deal with them as best we can and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: maybe we get away from them by going on vacation or buying a bunch of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: stuff on the internet or by having
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: addictions or whatnot. There's something to be said of saying
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: instead of going into the matrix and accepting that I'm going to swallow the red
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: pill and choose to see life as this and be different.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm sure like you, I often walk into a
Joanne Lockwood: room and I'm likely to be
Joanne Lockwood: the only one. The chances are I
Joanne Lockwood: am one of a very small minority of gender diverse people in the room.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think you have to kind of get used to
Joanne Lockwood: that level of uniqueness and the
Joanne Lockwood: attention that brings, even if it's not overt discrimination or anything
Joanne Lockwood: like that. It's just the kind of having to explain yourself sequentially or
Joanne Lockwood: having to be representative of yourself all the
Joanne Lockwood: time, even getting a coffee or even hanging out in the lobby or
Joanne Lockwood: whatever it may be, or going to the toilet and having to have that
Joanne Lockwood: cognitive load about being different. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think I took the choice that rather than you trying
Joanne Lockwood: to work out or guess who I am, I'm just going to put it out
Joanne Lockwood: there, just own it and say, look, you don't have to quit. But the difference
Joanne Lockwood: is, I think professionally that's okay, but in the
Joanne Lockwood: supermarket, I want to take that load off and
Joanne Lockwood: just hide. Not hide, you know what I mean? Just chill.
Joanne Lockwood: Because it's a huge pressure, a cognitive load, to go into these spaces
Joanne Lockwood: and have to be something not fake or
Joanne Lockwood: inauthentic, just be kind of a stage managed
Joanne Lockwood: model of who you are. It's hard to
Joanne Lockwood: relax. Yeah, I call it the difference between having to be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: focused all the time and just being able to casually flow and allow
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: yourself just to be it's like the ability to be carefree, which for,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: again, for a number of people in society,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's their privilege. You don't have to think about these things. What you
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say, do, how you operate, is seen as a norm. You're not questioned, you're
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: not challenged. You don't have to think concretely about, oh, if I'm
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: walking down the street, I hope this person doesn't think I'm trying to rob
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: them, or if I'm in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: store, how much do I have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to navigate or negotiate someone's expectation or belief that I shouldn't even be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: in the store? I have that all the time. I remember, for
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: example, I was getting into a Lyft or an Uber. I don't know if they
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have that in the UK, if it's called Uber or Lyft or there's some other
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: UK equivalent. And I had
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a bottle of water, and so I get into the car and this guy
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: says to know you can't drink in my car. I said,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you mean I can't ingest water? He said, oh, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: thought that was like what we would call here in the United States,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a 40 ounce, which is kind of a derogatory.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It's a very charged word because what it suggests is you're
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: drinking beer, but it's almost like you're someone who's drinking
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: beer from a tavern, but you're just
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: kind of out there during the day doing nothing and having a good
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: time and probably up to no good. You're a miscreant of some sort. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: when he said that, and then he realised his mistake and I'm thinking,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: here, I can't even get into the ride. You're assuming that I'm somehow
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: guzzling some beer when all I'm trying to do is stay
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: hydrated. Because let me put this in Celsius. It's 30
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: degrees Celsius out here. It's hot. So the last time, I'm
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: just drinking some water. So, yeah, it does get exhausting to do
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that. And so that's where we have to give ourselves grace and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: compassion and say, Just be. And you don't have to fight all battles all the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: time, and at the same time realising that when those
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: incidents happen, that's not your issue,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's not your problem per
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: se. Yes, you may have to deal with that situation, but you're not the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cause of it. Again, to see yourself as who I am is beautiful,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: essential to the world. I am perfect as I am,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as opposed to the deficit model, which is or operating from the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: deficit model of I've done something wrong or who I am is wrong and that's
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: why this happened. As opposed to I'm. Good. And this is
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: somebody else's stuff that they need to work through that's. The balancing
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: act with any of this is to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: be yourself and understand that being yourself means
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that you take care of yourself. You
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: prioritise yourself. And that you are many things
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and one thing that you can also be proud of to use your queerness. It's
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: not something that you need to hide from or that you need to subjugate
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: or suboptimize because that is part of what makes you just as beautiful
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as anybody else. Love that
Joanne Lockwood: we're chatting before I push the record button in the green room,
Joanne Lockwood: we talk about the economic
Joanne Lockwood: or political climate in the US. You also touched on
Joanne Lockwood: the fact that 37 odd countries around the world
Joanne Lockwood: criminalised same sex
Joanne Lockwood: behaviours, if that's the word I want to use. Same see acts.
Joanne Lockwood: Some of those include women, some of those include trans people,
Joanne Lockwood: some include death penalties, some include imprisonment, incarceration, meetings,
Joanne Lockwood: whippings, whatever it may be. We're seeing a rise of
Joanne Lockwood: this kind of division in the US as well. And the
Joanne Lockwood: US is a massive country, coast
Joanne Lockwood: to coast, top to bottom, and you're almost
Joanne Lockwood: a microcosm of the world where it's becoming illegal
Joanne Lockwood: to be trans, illegal to be gay, legal to talk about it, legal
Joanne Lockwood: to express it. And you have to almost
Joanne Lockwood: double think where you can travel, where you can live, who you can hang out
Joanne Lockwood: with. I've looked at people on LinkedIn when I'm
Joanne Lockwood: connecting, checking which state they're in as to how likely they are
Joanne Lockwood: to want to have a conversation with a trans woman because they're coming from
Joanne Lockwood: a southern state or a state that you know is potentially
Joanne Lockwood: hostile. The climate is hostile, the political climate in
Joanne Lockwood: that state is hostile. So how do you navigate
Joanne Lockwood: living in that toxic,
Joanne Lockwood: developing political climate in your own country?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I'm so over the US. On some level,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I am so over the US. And when I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: fantasise about moving places like Spain
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: or the Netherlands or going to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Kenya or to Singapore, the reality is there's no place to go.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It's happening in different levels. And part of what's happening in the US is part
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of what's happening across the world in places like the UK and France and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Hungary and Poland and Russia and Italy and Spain and the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Philippines and Chile and Argentina and Brazil
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and Ghana and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Uganda and the list goes on. Singapore as well, China, the list goes on and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: on australia. So I think that's the first thing
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we have to realise is that this is part of a larger global trend and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the US has its own role in it. And I think the US. Has a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very important role because we're
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: exporting a lot of our ism a lot of our prejudice and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a lot of our methods, right? So the whole idea of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: fake news and a lot of the autocratic behaviours that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we've seen in the US have been
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: mutually reinforced and have taken other countries as well.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It is very difficult until
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you remember the history. And that's where I think it's really important.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: So 2016 to 2020 was probably
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the most dystopian time I've ever had as an
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: American. When Donald Trump was president.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I thought to myself, if he is reelected, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have to leave this country. Because it was just madding every day
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to wake up and to think, okay, how else are you making the world a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: miserable place? And as you and I were discussing
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: before, there's almost like this patchwork quilt
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of jurisdictions, of states where here it's
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: okay to be queer and here it's not. And it can be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very easy to fall into a sense of helplessness
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: until you start reading and learning and remembering our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: history. And when you go back and you track our history, you learn
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: about all the people who were able to do miraculous things, powerful things.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Let me just take it out of the realm of being miraculous. They were able
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to be authentic and live their lives and they did so in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: midst of very repressive laws.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Then that tells me that we can handle what's being thrown at us now
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and we'll be okay. This stuff tends to be cyclical and right now
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we're at the bottom of the cycle or we're at a low point in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cycle. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think the reality is that the fantasy would
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: be to think we could escape it by moving someplace else. What
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I would love for us to do as a community, but also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as a globe, is to start talking more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: across national lines about what we can do to support each other. Which
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: means that people in the Global North and the Global West have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to show greater humility and be open to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: learning from those, our friends in the Global South and the Global East,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what we can do differently and what we can do together to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: counter some of this stuff.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Right now things still seem kind
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of bizarre because, yes, there are 71 countries that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have criminalised same sex relations. There are 37 countries that have made
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: it de facto illegal to be trans or gender
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: nonconforming and at the same time think about
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: where we have come. And so our legacy is one of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: persistence, one of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: commitment and one of fighting for ourselves and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: advocating for ourselves. And we have to remember that. And we
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: also have to make sure that we find times to rest and to enjoy our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: lives and not to be in a constant state of vigilance because it leads to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: burnout and it can zap our energy and it can take away our life pulse
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and our life force. So there are times, and quite
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: frankly, I just said to someone the other day, they asked me where my partner
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and I are looking to move to a particular state. And they said, well, why
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: don't you move here? You can come here and join the fight. And I said,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I want to come someplace and live. I don't want to come someplace and fight
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: anymore. I've dedicated 40 plus years of my life to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: this. I deserve to have at least maybe ten years of just
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: watching Netflix,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: toiling in the garden and walking around the neighbourhood with my
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: dog and I have to worry about some of that stuff. And the reality
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is, too, that sometimes that's just not possible. So I pick and choose my
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: battles. I always look for inspiration from my friends
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: abroad, like yourself, who are fighting along the same
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: front. And I also take times to rest. And I also realise
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: too that in some way, because I don't want the next generation to have to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: experience the things that we're experiencing, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: cannot completely abdicate my responsibility.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And so I'm
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: selective, I'm intentional, I'm always strategic and savvy
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and when it's time to speak up, you speak up.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And that's the best that any of us can do. And that's, again, been
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: our historical legacy since time immemorial of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what queer people have always done, is say, we're going to be here and we're
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: not going to back down and allow someone to tell us who we can be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and what we can do. So it's difficult, there's no easy answer.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And I think having conversations like this can only
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: one build connection so that we can lean on each other when we do
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: feel tired and zapped. But we can also feel inspired by each other
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and continue to support each other in different ways and know that each of us,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: collectively, but individually, is marching towards the centre and marching towards a place
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: where we can all be free.
Joanne Lockwood: It's easy to sort of demonise a certain group of
Joanne Lockwood: people that are instigators of these views and these
Joanne Lockwood: beliefs. I would always use the
Joanne Lockwood: expression the Christian far right as
Joanne Lockwood: a kind of a body, well funded,
Joanne Lockwood: monetized agendas, around perceived
Joanne Lockwood: agendas, around family values. But a lot of it is just around the
Joanne Lockwood: patriarchy trying to exert, control and create division.
Joanne Lockwood: And a lot of this is leaking
Joanne Lockwood: across the Atlantic and in the UK, you can't
Joanne Lockwood: necessarily polarise it in the same way.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a lot of middle class,
Joanne Lockwood: often white women from good backgrounds
Joanne Lockwood: who are not far right. They're probably centre or even
Joanne Lockwood: slightly left leaning, who are also having the same thing.
Joanne Lockwood: So you can't simply blame right extremism
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. It's becoming a pervasive noise
Joanne Lockwood: around societal values, which is what worries me. It's the undercurrent.
Joanne Lockwood: And I don't think we have the same problem in the UK, in the US,
Joanne Lockwood: from conversations of average people, is that a lot of the
Joanne Lockwood: challenge that started at the government level becomes really
Joanne Lockwood: activated in communities and in law enforcement. So you don't feel
Joanne Lockwood: safe in the community, you don't feel safe with law enforcement. In the
Joanne Lockwood: UK, the political climate is such that it's creating this negative rhetoric,
Joanne Lockwood: it's creating these tropes, it's propagating the stereotypes, making people feel
Joanne Lockwood: unsafe, but it's not being activated in communities in the same way
Joanne Lockwood: where I feel unsafe walking down the street, I don't
Joanne Lockwood: feel under threat in the supermarket. I know some people who are
Joanne Lockwood: queer, have suffered violence, et cetera, et cetera, but my lived
Joanne Lockwood: experience is it's a fairly safe
Joanne Lockwood: environment, day to day. Whereas I get the impression the US,
Joanne Lockwood: in certain areas of the country, you are more likely to
Joanne Lockwood: experience violence and hurt
Joanne Lockwood: and overt discrimination than maybe we do in the UK.
Joanne Lockwood: Is that relatable or have I misunderstood that? Well, I would
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say your perspective is interesting because when I talk to my friends in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: UK, I get a different perspective. I get a perspective that depending on where you
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are, it can feel feel
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you can't feel marginalised. Of course, that level of safety is going to be different.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: It doesn't necessarily mean people are going to attack you, but you could feel frozen
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: out. You can feel that people challenge
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: your right to be in the mean. We certainly are seeing
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that on a number of different levels. Around immigration, around
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: anti Muslim rhetoric. So here in the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: US, I think all of our countries
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are made up of other little
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: countries and everybody's reality
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: can be different from one place to the next. I mean, I can travel across
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: San Francisco and have a completely different reality, 3 miles or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: three kilometres, I should say, from where I am, than I do where I'm sitting
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: right now. Same in New York, same in the States. And so
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think what's important to realise is
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: our sense of peace and safety has to constantly be
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: negotiated. And I would say also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: reminding ourselves that what we have so
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: easily fought for, what we so easily take for granted, can
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: be taken away very quickly. I think that's the thing that I would ask us
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to be thinking about. And in the US,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think a lot of what's happening is,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: compared to the UK and compared to what's happening in other places,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the US is fighting for its soul. The US is fighting
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: very much for who are we going to be? Are we going to be what
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we've been in the past? We're going to be something different. And I think for
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a number of people so this goes back to what you were saying before. People
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are afraid of anything that's different, especially if they've been invested in a system
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that, albeit imperfect, has given them certain rewards and benefits.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And that unknown factor makes people scared. So if you have a country,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: as we have, where we had a black president for two terms,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we have an increasing Latino population, we have
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: gay people, queer people getting married,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and our national identity and our national
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: narrative is being challenged and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: questioned, that scares people and that is not a religious
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: argument. And you're seeing the same thing happen in places like France,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: where, for example, there's the secularism. It's not a religious argument
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that families should operate, know
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: a man and a woman at the head of them. It's this whole traditional idea
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of this is how French culture is supposed to be. It's not necessarily a religious
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: argument as much as it is a traditional republic type
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of argument, that we have existed
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: this way and how dare anybody tell us that we should be different? Yeah. So
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think in the US there is a strong element of that that's the same.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And I think there is the religious argument that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: fuels a lot of that, or the religious and I wouldn't call
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: them all religion, but some of these right wing Christian beliefs. But I would also
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: say there is a sense of Americanism
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that's also behind this. That for us to be good and great
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and mighty, we have to maintain this. And giving
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: LGBTQ people privilege, rights and opportunity
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is going to further erode the America that we know.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And therefore we're going to become a socialist republic, even though many Americans
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: don't even know what it means to be socialist, and though many Americans don't realise
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that a lot of the programmes that we benefit from are indeed very much
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: socialism, but there's this fear that we're becoming
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: something different. And if you've been
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: entrenched or you've had privilege and power, that is scary. And
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: so queer rights is just part of that larger trend of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the country being different and that being intolerable more
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: insufferable to people who are scared of any type of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: change. As you challenge the
Joanne Lockwood: paradox of tolerance, you've got to be intolerant of
Joanne Lockwood: intolerance. It's a really nuanced thing. And
Joanne Lockwood: people often when we talk about inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging, what we both talk about the need to be
Joanne Lockwood: inclusive. Naturally, people believe you've got
Joanne Lockwood: to hear all views, you got to balance arguments. At some point, you've got to
Joanne Lockwood: say that your views go beyond the bounds of
Joanne Lockwood: what's right and proper in a decent society. So how
Joanne Lockwood: do you balance this intolerance of intolerance
Joanne Lockwood: whilst creating cohesive, inclusive conversations? I focus
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: on equity because you're right, there is a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: point where people will say, why aren't you supposed to be tolerant of all views?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And I said, Well, I can tolerate them to an extent,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: but any actions and voices that are there
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to rob someone of their humanity, then no. I don't necessarily want to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: support and elevate and give credence to equity, I
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: think helps to refocus the conversation. How
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: can we make sure that everybody's taken care of while recognising the different systems of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: historic, systems of oppression that have kept some people at the margins?
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: That's what I focus on. And so
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I will be the first one to tell you I'm not very tolerant of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: anything or anyone who will debase
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: someone's humanity because they're LGBTQ. I'm not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: tolerant of someone's belief
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that they debase someone because they're a person of colour or they're a woman or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: they're disabled or they're an immigrant or they
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: are working class. However you want to say it. Do
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I give you honour your right to say that? Yes. Do I honour your right
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to think that? Yes.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: However, as a society
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I think that's where we have to focus on equity and realise
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that while people can say and think anything that we want, this goes back to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: what we talked about at the beginning values. Our value as a society
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is that we have said that we want to make sure that people, regardless of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: who they are and in celebration of who they are, they can be their best
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: selves as long as they're law abiding citizens. And I know that whole law abiding
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: could be charged as well. But as long as they are wanting to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: contribute to society in a meaningful, positive way,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that we're here to support them and we're here to make sure that people can
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: do so to the best of their ability in their own authentic way. That's where
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I come from with it. So I think tolerance has
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: different levels and degrees and I think we have to be careful in our
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: society of creating these false equivalencies of because I'm sure you've seen it,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: there'll be something where, let's say there's a protest and someone will say, okay,
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: let's hear from, let's say, the queer person. And then they'll say, well let's get
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the anti LGBTQ person's perspective as though that's
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: balanced. And I'm like, well, that's not really balanced. And why are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we basically giving platforms to people to behave if they think
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: that you can't stop someone from thinking and saying those sorts of
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: things? But what I think we have to do, just like we wouldn't necessarily give
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: credence to someone who injures someone or
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: physically attacks someone, we have to also recognise that we're creating the same type
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of dynamic. When we say to someone, it's okay for you to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: we're going to treat your opinion as though it has validity
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and reason and logic when the fact it doesn't. So I think if we're going
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: to talk about those things, I think the way we frame them is different and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: so we don't want to tell somebody that they can't voice it, but just say
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: this is just not a reasoned position or opinion. And based
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: on the values that we share as a modern day a society, these are the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: things that we hold dear and this runs counter to that.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: And these are just not values that we want to uphold and these are not
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: values that we want to celebrate or honour, and I think that's
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: the way that we do that. So there are
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: some people who I think disagree and there are a lot of interculturalists out
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: there who will just say it's just a difference of opinion when people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have these different views. But I think from a
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: human standpoint and from a power and privilege standpoint, when
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: you do that and you treat these opinions as being neutral, you ignore the histories
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: of our world notice I said histories. And you
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: ignore the ways in which people have been oppressed and people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: have been harmed. And I think in our society today, in 2023, that
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is just not acceptable.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. I think on that note, we'll leave our listeners to
Joanne Lockwood: ponder on those thoughts and I think we've achieved the
Joanne Lockwood: objective of uplifting queer genius in this episode. So thank
Joanne Lockwood: you. Joel, do you want to just tell our listeners
Joanne Lockwood: how to get in contact with you about any programmes or books
Joanne Lockwood: you have or anything else out there? Sure.
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: I appreciate that. So. My book, The Souls of Queer
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Folk how Understanding LGBTQ Cultural Values Can Transform Your
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Leadership. Practise is a bestseller on Amazon and
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: is doing very well. Just won an award. So, please, if you would like to
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: learn more about my book, please search it out. You can also find
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: me@joeldavisbrown.com you can find me on
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: Instagram at joelabround and you can also find me on
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: LinkedIn. And I encourage my friends from all around the world to reach
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: out. We do best as a people
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: and as a society when we support and honour each other. And I'm
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: always looking just to meet people from around the world who are on the same
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: journey and have the same mindset. So that's how you can find me and reach
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: me. And it's been a pleasure. So thank you for the time and the
Dr Joel Davis-Brown: opportunity to be with you today. Thank you, John. I'm going
Joanne Lockwood: to dive onto Amazon in a minute and see if I can pick up a
Joanne Lockwood: copy of Souls of the Queer Folk. How understanding LGBTQ
Joanne Lockwood: plus culture values can transform your leadership franchise. I'm going to
Joanne Lockwood: look that up and I strongly recommend listeners out there do the same.
Joanne Lockwood: So, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today. It's been an amazing
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. Thank you. Thank you to you, the
Joanne Lockwood: listener, for tuning in, listening to the end. I really appreciate
Joanne Lockwood: that. Please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Please tell your friends,
Joanne Lockwood: tell your colleagues, please share this episode far and wide. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: I have a number of other exciting guests lined up over the next
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Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And
Joanne Lockwood: finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood. It has been an
Joanne Lockwood: absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye.