WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.850 --> 00:00:11.562 Welcome to inclusion Bites, your sanctuary 2 00:00:11.626 --> 00:00:15.434 for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, 3 00:00:15.482 --> 00:00:18.974 your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of 4 00:00:19.012 --> 00:00:22.122 inclusion, belonging and societal 5 00:00:22.186 --> 00:00:25.894 transformation. Ever wondered what a true really takes to create 6 00:00:25.932 --> 00:00:29.142 a world where everyone not only belongs, but 7 00:00:29.196 --> 00:00:33.046 thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we 8 00:00:33.068 --> 00:00:36.562 uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo 9 00:00:36.706 --> 00:00:40.362 and share stories that resonate deep within. 10 00:00:40.496 --> 00:00:44.070 Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee 11 00:00:44.150 --> 00:00:47.306 or winding down after a long day, let's connect, 12 00:00:47.488 --> 00:00:50.880 reflect and inspire action together. 13 00:00:51.250 --> 00:00:54.862 Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach 14 00:00:54.916 --> 00:00:55.470 out to 15 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:59.226 jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk 16 00:00:59.338 --> 00:01:03.120 to share your insights or to join me on the show. 17 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:07.202 So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time 18 00:01:07.256 --> 00:01:10.542 to ignite the spark of inclusion with inclusion 19 00:01:10.606 --> 00:01:11.330 bites. 20 00:01:15.930 --> 00:01:19.586 And today is episode 110 with the title 21 00:01:19.698 --> 00:01:23.350 Queer stories across borders. And I have the absolute 22 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:27.158 honour and privilege to welcome Georgie Williams. Georgie is 23 00:01:27.324 --> 00:01:30.906 professionally queer and what that really means is that, is that 24 00:01:30.928 --> 00:01:34.774 they specialise in gender and sexuality diversity, 25 00:01:34.822 --> 00:01:38.426 field research, platforming, voices and stories in 26 00:01:38.448 --> 00:01:42.198 countries around the world. When I asked Georgie to describe their superpower, they 27 00:01:42.224 --> 00:01:46.062 said that they made the shocking personable. Hello, 28 00:01:46.116 --> 00:01:49.806 Georgie, welcome to the show. Hello, Joanne. Thank you so much for 29 00:01:49.828 --> 00:01:53.314 having me. Pleasure. I've been looking forward to this for ages. Very 30 00:01:53.352 --> 00:01:57.086 excited. So, Georgie, queer stories across borders. 31 00:01:57.118 --> 00:02:00.594 Tell us more about your project and what you're up to. 32 00:02:00.712 --> 00:02:04.466 So I started with Queer, which is my 33 00:02:04.488 --> 00:02:08.006 little organisation recording stories of gender and 34 00:02:08.028 --> 00:02:11.350 sexuality diversity around the globe back in 35 00:02:11.420 --> 00:02:15.142 2019. So originally I was supposed to start 36 00:02:15.196 --> 00:02:18.962 my phd in social justice at University College Dublin. 37 00:02:19.026 --> 00:02:22.774 I already had a background in gender and sexuality. I had a 38 00:02:22.812 --> 00:02:26.506 gender master's from Lund School of Economics, and I had an undergrad in 39 00:02:26.528 --> 00:02:30.286 psychology. And so I was very much coming at this from a 40 00:02:30.308 --> 00:02:33.726 research perspective. And what I wanted to be doing with my 41 00:02:33.748 --> 00:02:37.358 phd and couldn't do was create 42 00:02:37.444 --> 00:02:40.970 an oral histories archive of gender and sexuality diversity 43 00:02:41.050 --> 00:02:44.706 around the world that was very much steered by the 44 00:02:44.728 --> 00:02:48.546 people telling the stories. My concern was that people are 45 00:02:48.568 --> 00:02:51.922 very curious about gender and sexuality diversity at this 46 00:02:51.976 --> 00:02:55.742 time, but when we look at it from a global perspective, 47 00:02:55.886 --> 00:02:59.574 I often believe that people can be exploited by having 48 00:02:59.612 --> 00:03:02.886 their stories told in a way that doesn't truly represent their culture and 49 00:03:02.908 --> 00:03:06.530 community. And I wanted to be able to share these stories open source 50 00:03:06.610 --> 00:03:10.390 as well. I didn't want people to have to pay to learn about these things 51 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:13.926 in the way that I'd learned about many of these communities in a lecture 52 00:03:13.958 --> 00:03:17.658 hall with a lot of student loans to show for it. 53 00:03:17.824 --> 00:03:21.514 So what I wanted to do was create this platform where I could share these 54 00:03:21.552 --> 00:03:25.086 stories from my field research all around the world for free. 55 00:03:25.188 --> 00:03:28.942 So I started queer and I went out into the field five years 56 00:03:28.996 --> 00:03:32.734 ago now, and I travelled in the first half 57 00:03:32.852 --> 00:03:36.158 of this project through the USA, Japan, 58 00:03:36.254 --> 00:03:40.094 Indonesia, and then I conducted the lockdown episodes 59 00:03:40.142 --> 00:03:43.746 in the UK and Ireland during COVID And then the second half of this 60 00:03:43.768 --> 00:03:47.510 project I conducted in 2022 and 23 61 00:03:47.660 --> 00:03:51.430 that took us through Malta, Turkey, 62 00:03:51.850 --> 00:03:55.394 South Africa and Lesotho. So we're 63 00:03:55.442 --> 00:03:59.210 still processing those episodes. The final episode of season two 64 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:03.146 will be coming out in about a month or so, which is 65 00:04:03.168 --> 00:04:06.954 our episode looking at sexuality diversity in 66 00:04:06.992 --> 00:04:10.378 Lesotho culture amongst Sutu people. And I actually 67 00:04:10.544 --> 00:04:14.254 interviewed a very senior member of the Lesotho government 68 00:04:14.372 --> 00:04:18.094 who works in gender about that. So I disseminate it all open 69 00:04:18.132 --> 00:04:21.866 source as a podcast and transcribe it as articles as well. Fascinating. 70 00:04:21.898 --> 00:04:25.246 I mean, I've spoken to you in the past around this project, and when you 71 00:04:25.268 --> 00:04:27.906 say you're in the field, I mean, you have been in the field, haven't you? 72 00:04:27.928 --> 00:04:31.582 You have been around meeting people in their homes, 73 00:04:31.646 --> 00:04:35.134 in their communities, in a wide range, 74 00:04:35.182 --> 00:04:38.594 diverse set of backgrounds and experiences beyond 75 00:04:38.642 --> 00:04:42.342 just the white middle class view of 76 00:04:42.396 --> 00:04:46.246 UK gender politics and gender identity. So what have you kind of, if 77 00:04:46.268 --> 00:04:49.762 you had to distil it all down, what have you learned yourself 78 00:04:49.916 --> 00:04:53.654 about your own sense of identity and sexuality 79 00:04:53.702 --> 00:04:57.494 and gender from a global perspective, rather than just our blinkered UK 80 00:04:57.542 --> 00:05:01.242 view? If you. So I think the thing that's been so interesting about 81 00:05:01.296 --> 00:05:04.766 conducting this project and learning myself, as I travelled in the 82 00:05:04.788 --> 00:05:08.222 fields, I entered the field as a specialist, but I have never 83 00:05:08.356 --> 00:05:11.838 tried to market myself as an expert, because you can't be an expert in the 84 00:05:11.844 --> 00:05:15.586 human experience. So when I was out there with the 85 00:05:15.608 --> 00:05:19.250 stories I got to hear and the people that I got to collaborate with 86 00:05:19.320 --> 00:05:22.980 in the field on this project, I very much came to understand 87 00:05:23.750 --> 00:05:26.870 how gender and sexuality diversity 88 00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:31.014 is part of what makes us human. That actually, no matter 89 00:05:31.052 --> 00:05:34.886 what culture, no matter what time period, the ideas that 90 00:05:34.908 --> 00:05:38.486 we had about gender and sexuality were actually quite broad, 91 00:05:38.598 --> 00:05:42.406 I think, where the ideas we have about a male 92 00:05:42.438 --> 00:05:46.250 female binary and about kind of heteronormativity 93 00:05:47.150 --> 00:05:50.898 having those propagated in the west, particularly 94 00:05:50.934 --> 00:05:54.266 in countries like the US and the UK, we believe it's 95 00:05:54.298 --> 00:05:57.530 universal for several reasons. First and foremost, 96 00:05:57.690 --> 00:06:01.374 through those ideas being exported in western media around 97 00:06:01.412 --> 00:06:05.182 the world, exposing other communities to that, but predating 98 00:06:05.246 --> 00:06:09.074 that as well. Colonialism had a huge influence on 99 00:06:09.112 --> 00:06:12.706 spreading these ideas about gender and sexuality. But it doesn't mean that these 100 00:06:12.728 --> 00:06:16.354 ideas emerged spontaneously in these environments. 101 00:06:16.482 --> 00:06:20.246 Quite the opposite. I've worked in communities all around the 102 00:06:20.268 --> 00:06:23.862 world who, some of whom have five gender, three 103 00:06:23.916 --> 00:06:27.486 sex social systems, some of whom normalised 104 00:06:27.618 --> 00:06:31.382 women having relationships with other women even when they were married 105 00:06:31.446 --> 00:06:34.540 to men. Our ideas about 106 00:06:35.070 --> 00:06:38.810 what kinship and what human connection and what personal 107 00:06:38.880 --> 00:06:42.638 identity looks like, we've very much, many of us who have grown up in the 108 00:06:42.644 --> 00:06:46.202 west, grown up with this very distilled, very reductive 109 00:06:46.266 --> 00:06:49.630 idea that doesn't account for global human 110 00:06:49.700 --> 00:06:53.406 diversity. And through that as well, it's given me a lens to 111 00:06:53.428 --> 00:06:57.146 better understand my own identity. And I've had feedback from listeners 112 00:06:57.178 --> 00:07:00.666 as well, who have used episodes to articulate their identities 113 00:07:00.858 --> 00:07:04.378 to people in their lives. And that's been really encouraging. 114 00:07:04.554 --> 00:07:08.038 There's a belief or a myth or 115 00:07:08.204 --> 00:07:12.022 that we as a society have evolved to 116 00:07:12.076 --> 00:07:15.558 understand around sexuality and family 117 00:07:15.644 --> 00:07:19.426 values and our structure, our social constructs, 118 00:07:19.458 --> 00:07:22.822 if you like, that we live in the rule set. We have. We consider ourselves 119 00:07:22.886 --> 00:07:26.134 an evolved society where some of this queer 120 00:07:26.182 --> 00:07:29.866 notion is we've evolved out of, but I think it's the 121 00:07:29.888 --> 00:07:33.546 opposite way around. We kind of haven't evolved yet to truly 122 00:07:33.578 --> 00:07:37.326 understand queer identities. So I think it's really interesting that you've brought in that 123 00:07:37.348 --> 00:07:40.942 idea of evolution, because I think that 124 00:07:40.996 --> 00:07:44.686 the arena of evolutionary psychology, the exploration 125 00:07:44.718 --> 00:07:48.126 of human behaviour through these evolutionary 126 00:07:48.158 --> 00:07:51.666 lenses, has often caused harm and 127 00:07:51.768 --> 00:07:55.326 caused significant misunderstanding with regards to what is quote 128 00:07:55.358 --> 00:07:58.774 unquote normal with regards to human behaviour and 129 00:07:58.812 --> 00:08:02.438 socialisation. And the example I'll bring up, actually, is 130 00:08:02.604 --> 00:08:06.278 something that I learned during my work in Japan was that 131 00:08:06.444 --> 00:08:09.978 with regards to sexuality, during the Edo period of 132 00:08:09.984 --> 00:08:13.334 Japan, which is around the mid 16 hundreds to early 18 133 00:08:13.382 --> 00:08:17.114 hundreds, relationships between men, romantic and 134 00:08:17.152 --> 00:08:20.940 sexual relationships, were very much normalised. And this, 135 00:08:21.310 --> 00:08:24.382 I don't describe it as falling out of fashion, but was 136 00:08:24.516 --> 00:08:27.966 discouraged by the japanese government from the point of the 137 00:08:27.988 --> 00:08:31.534 Meiji reformation at the end of that period, where, 138 00:08:31.652 --> 00:08:35.282 and this is unusual compared to some other countries I've looked at and worked 139 00:08:35.336 --> 00:08:38.994 in. What happened at that stage is that Japan looked to the 140 00:08:39.032 --> 00:08:42.846 west for what was in vogue, 141 00:08:42.958 --> 00:08:46.542 I guess, culturally at the time. If they were going to be increasing 142 00:08:46.686 --> 00:08:50.438 their trade connections and they were going to be connecting more with the western world, 143 00:08:50.524 --> 00:08:54.166 then what were the cultural norms? And at the 144 00:08:54.188 --> 00:08:57.762 time, one of the things rising in popularity was the pseudoscientific 145 00:08:57.826 --> 00:09:01.078 field of sexology. This was popular 146 00:09:01.174 --> 00:09:04.634 in, I believe, Prussia and the 147 00:09:04.672 --> 00:09:06.860 UK, and I think France as 148 00:09:08.270 --> 00:09:11.886 mean. Interestingly know, anyone could call themselves 149 00:09:12.068 --> 00:09:15.594 a sexologist at the time you could be working in a zoo, behaving 150 00:09:15.642 --> 00:09:19.134 animal behaviour and call yourself a sexologist. And the 151 00:09:19.172 --> 00:09:22.894 consensus amongst these sexologists was, well, 152 00:09:23.092 --> 00:09:26.818 animals engage in what was described as same sex behaviour at 153 00:09:26.824 --> 00:09:30.606 the time. Humans don't because they're better developed than that, so we don't 154 00:09:30.638 --> 00:09:34.466 do that here. And Japan looked at that and went, okay, well, the 155 00:09:34.488 --> 00:09:37.814 relationships that we have going on right now between men that are 156 00:09:37.852 --> 00:09:41.698 permissible, that is going to be unacceptable in a global arena. 157 00:09:41.794 --> 00:09:44.840 And that led to this discouragement and 158 00:09:45.370 --> 00:09:48.706 ultimately rampant homophobia within japanese 159 00:09:48.818 --> 00:09:52.474 society. And obviously there's other contributing factors as well. These 160 00:09:52.512 --> 00:09:56.058 things never happen in a vacuum of one specific cause. 161 00:09:56.224 --> 00:09:59.786 But yet you talk about the idea of the way 162 00:09:59.808 --> 00:10:03.470 we've evolved and the way that humans conduct themselves 163 00:10:03.540 --> 00:10:06.814 in relationships and in society, and actually 164 00:10:06.932 --> 00:10:10.746 pseudoscientific ideas about that fed the propagation 165 00:10:10.778 --> 00:10:14.354 of homophobia in parts of the east. Yeah, because we are programmed from a very 166 00:10:14.392 --> 00:10:17.474 early age around rule sets of right and wrong and 167 00:10:17.512 --> 00:10:21.186 normal expectations. I'm a great fan of the 168 00:10:21.208 --> 00:10:24.930 work defining the act like a man box, the gender box, 169 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:28.702 the rule set that we're given as a man, as a woman. 170 00:10:28.846 --> 00:10:32.486 God knows where non binary people fit into those two boxes. There's no kind of 171 00:10:32.508 --> 00:10:35.880 middle box offered in this rule set. And it's trying to figure out 172 00:10:36.730 --> 00:10:40.478 how do we evolve people's thinking where these boxes don't 173 00:10:40.514 --> 00:10:44.294 serve any real purpose other than to police people back into behaviours. 174 00:10:44.422 --> 00:10:48.166 It's a great question, and I like that you mentioned policing, 175 00:10:48.198 --> 00:10:51.990 because gender policing is something I talk about often, ways that we are 176 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.834 encouraged to regulate one another's behaviour, because if we align 177 00:10:55.882 --> 00:10:59.502 with that, it creates this social currency. Right. We are 178 00:10:59.556 --> 00:11:03.406 favoured by our peers, we are given advantages that other people aren't, as 179 00:11:03.428 --> 00:11:07.154 long as we perform correctly within the box assigned to 180 00:11:07.192 --> 00:11:10.658 us. And it's funny, I mean, I don't want to get too technical with what 181 00:11:10.664 --> 00:11:14.386 we're talking about today, but there is a phrase I came across kind 182 00:11:14.408 --> 00:11:17.526 of, I don't want to say early on in my research, but around the time 183 00:11:17.548 --> 00:11:20.930 my masters, that describes the gender binary 184 00:11:21.010 --> 00:11:24.642 between the concept of being male and the concept of being female 185 00:11:24.706 --> 00:11:28.266 as we know it in the contemporary west as a 186 00:11:28.368 --> 00:11:32.074 parasitic symbiosis. And if we break that down, 187 00:11:32.112 --> 00:11:35.638 what it's basically saying is that these two identities 188 00:11:35.734 --> 00:11:39.162 sustain each other by feeding off each other. 189 00:11:39.296 --> 00:11:43.066 So in the sense that men are encouraged to recognise who they 190 00:11:43.088 --> 00:11:46.558 are in the world by going, oh, well, I'm not feminine, I'm not like a 191 00:11:46.564 --> 00:11:49.998 girl, I don't do this I don't do that. Therefore I must be a man. 192 00:11:50.164 --> 00:11:53.906 And this is why non binary identities, if we use that 193 00:11:53.928 --> 00:11:57.486 very culturally west specific term, 194 00:11:57.598 --> 00:12:01.074 this is why they're considered so disruptive. Because if 195 00:12:01.112 --> 00:12:04.466 someone's identity can be an amalgamation of feminine and 196 00:12:04.488 --> 00:12:08.162 masculine behaviours, or male or female 197 00:12:08.226 --> 00:12:11.846 coded anatomy, how does a person look at an individual 198 00:12:11.948 --> 00:12:15.798 like that and go, well, I must be a man or I must be a 199 00:12:15.804 --> 00:12:19.626 woman. But also that person has some of these attributes, and they're not a 200 00:12:19.648 --> 00:12:23.174 man or a woman either. And it's disruptive. It's incredibly 201 00:12:23.222 --> 00:12:26.698 disruptive. So, yes, those boxes are 202 00:12:26.864 --> 00:12:30.300 still incredibly limiting in the west, even when 203 00:12:30.990 --> 00:12:34.206 there's a lot that happened over the last hundred years in terms of 204 00:12:34.388 --> 00:12:38.126 expanding the idea of what womanhood can be. You know, we talk about things 205 00:12:38.148 --> 00:12:41.978 like fashion and haircuts and job roles, et cetera, et 206 00:12:41.994 --> 00:12:45.586 cetera. But there is still a ways to go in terms of 207 00:12:45.608 --> 00:12:49.346 dismantling those incredibly rigid boxes. You find that in 208 00:12:49.368 --> 00:12:52.974 your experience, that a lot of misunderstandings 209 00:12:53.102 --> 00:12:56.886 come from people's repression and self oppression of 210 00:12:56.908 --> 00:13:00.646 their own identity. Maybe they're scared to explore who they are. Maybe 211 00:13:00.668 --> 00:13:04.342 there's this fear of being finding out or 212 00:13:04.396 --> 00:13:07.638 allowing themselves to consider they may be bi, trans, 213 00:13:07.724 --> 00:13:11.274 nonbinary, and they're trying to hold it in, into this 214 00:13:11.312 --> 00:13:15.046 little box with these rule sets, otherwise 215 00:13:15.238 --> 00:13:18.858 it'll explode. And they don't know how to handle that. Yeah. And actually, there was 216 00:13:18.864 --> 00:13:22.298 a really interesting documentary a few years ago on Netflix. I don't know if it's 217 00:13:22.314 --> 00:13:25.662 on there anymore, but it was called the mask you live in, and it talked 218 00:13:25.716 --> 00:13:28.942 about masculinity. And it 219 00:13:28.996 --> 00:13:32.686 opens with this conversation about what it means to do 220 00:13:32.708 --> 00:13:36.206 anything like a girl. They said, listen, if you want to 221 00:13:36.308 --> 00:13:39.646 hit like a girl, behave like a girl, cry like a girl, it's rock 222 00:13:39.678 --> 00:13:43.506 bottom, right? That means that you've ultimately failed at the thing you were supposed to 223 00:13:43.528 --> 00:13:47.106 be doing. But to do something like a man is absolute 224 00:13:47.208 --> 00:13:50.454 top of that bar, right? And it's also an 225 00:13:50.492 --> 00:13:54.038 unsustainable achievement. To do anything like a man means you have to 226 00:13:54.044 --> 00:13:57.706 continually prove it to yourself and others for the rest of 227 00:13:57.728 --> 00:14:01.130 your life. And if it slips for a moment, your whole 228 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:04.630 identity as a man can be revoked externally 229 00:14:04.790 --> 00:14:08.042 by judgmental outside forces. And 230 00:14:08.096 --> 00:14:11.840 so, yeah, this idea that we have about 231 00:14:12.450 --> 00:14:16.154 gender, especially when it comes to things like masculinity, it's 232 00:14:16.202 --> 00:14:19.854 all so fragile. And I think there is this fear that 233 00:14:19.892 --> 00:14:23.458 comes with asking those questions, because 234 00:14:23.544 --> 00:14:27.314 what it means is that you can lose that currency, you can 235 00:14:27.352 --> 00:14:31.074 lose that potential. That privilege, especially for 236 00:14:31.192 --> 00:14:34.914 cisgender heterosexual white men, if 237 00:14:34.952 --> 00:14:38.646 they question their identity regarding their gender or 238 00:14:38.668 --> 00:14:41.926 sexuality, their social standing can absolutely 239 00:14:42.028 --> 00:14:45.734 plummet. And it's incredibly daunting for many 240 00:14:45.772 --> 00:14:48.780 individuals to ask those questions, because 241 00:14:49.150 --> 00:14:52.826 societally, we haven't facilitated a safe environment for people to 242 00:14:52.848 --> 00:14:56.202 ask those questions of themselves without risking something. Other 243 00:14:56.256 --> 00:14:59.222 societies cope with these multiple 244 00:14:59.286 --> 00:15:02.414 genders, a more fluid kind of 245 00:15:02.452 --> 00:15:06.218 identity, not just one spirit, two spirit, three spirit 246 00:15:06.234 --> 00:15:09.754 or five spirit, however you want to describe it. How do their societies cope 247 00:15:09.802 --> 00:15:13.550 with those multiple identities in people? Because 248 00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:16.994 in the UK, we seem to have this big culture clash. How does that 249 00:15:17.032 --> 00:15:20.866 manifest in different societies around the world? So I'll add 250 00:15:20.888 --> 00:15:24.686 going on to that. So two spirits are a very specific cultural 251 00:15:24.718 --> 00:15:28.130 term that has been used specifically within native american communities, 252 00:15:28.210 --> 00:15:31.814 particularly navajo communities. And when we think 253 00:15:31.852 --> 00:15:35.446 about identities, they're always culture bound. Right? 254 00:15:35.548 --> 00:15:39.094 This is why sometimes I take umbrage with using the acronym 255 00:15:39.142 --> 00:15:42.806 LGBT for communities in the global 256 00:15:42.838 --> 00:15:46.586 south, communities in Southeast Asia, for example, communities across 257 00:15:46.688 --> 00:15:49.820 the continent of Africa, because very often 258 00:15:50.190 --> 00:15:53.834 people in these communities already had terms for this gender and sexuality 259 00:15:53.882 --> 00:15:57.646 diversity that predate the term LGBT. And so, 260 00:15:57.668 --> 00:16:01.486 yeah, with some of these communities I've worked with, there is this. 261 00:16:01.668 --> 00:16:05.342 I don't want to say perfect harmony, but a sense of balance, 262 00:16:05.406 --> 00:16:08.286 that it comes from the fact that they don't 263 00:16:08.478 --> 00:16:12.290 ground one's worth and identity 264 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:16.270 in innate biology, which can change. Anyways, biology 265 00:16:16.350 --> 00:16:19.906 does change over time, and there's so many people whose biology doesn't 266 00:16:19.938 --> 00:16:23.734 fit into a binary anyways. The sex binary was 267 00:16:23.772 --> 00:16:27.174 very much an invention. It is something that was formulated by 268 00:16:27.212 --> 00:16:30.954 doctors in order to determine what was the 269 00:16:30.992 --> 00:16:34.586 correct male or female body, which often led to the 270 00:16:34.608 --> 00:16:37.754 abuse of many individuals whose bodies divide those 271 00:16:37.792 --> 00:16:41.626 boxes. I'm sidetracking myself. But within many of these 272 00:16:41.648 --> 00:16:45.386 communities, I'm thinking in particular of my interview I did with a member 273 00:16:45.418 --> 00:16:49.166 of the Bugis community, which is a community that 274 00:16:49.268 --> 00:16:52.938 recognises a five gender, three sex social system in Indonesia. 275 00:16:53.034 --> 00:16:56.866 The Bugis are an ethnic group who are 276 00:16:56.888 --> 00:17:00.626 comprised of, I believe, 6 million indonesian citizens. And, I 277 00:17:00.648 --> 00:17:04.258 mean, this is incredibly large country. I believe that 278 00:17:04.344 --> 00:17:08.086 Indonesia is the largest muslim majority country in 279 00:17:08.108 --> 00:17:11.702 the world. We're not talking about some tiny little 280 00:17:11.756 --> 00:17:15.222 corner of the world that observes this. And there it is very 281 00:17:15.276 --> 00:17:18.838 much held belief within the buddhist community 282 00:17:18.924 --> 00:17:22.458 that, yes, all five of these identities are supposed to exist because 283 00:17:22.544 --> 00:17:26.006 everybody fills a different niche. And it's 284 00:17:26.038 --> 00:17:29.786 funny, when I think about this myself, I'm not even going to relate it to 285 00:17:29.808 --> 00:17:33.402 gender and sexuality, but I spent the best part of last 286 00:17:33.456 --> 00:17:37.306 year when I wasn't in the field doing research, working on a ship 287 00:17:37.338 --> 00:17:41.166 as a crew. And it's funny because within the crew, every single one of us 288 00:17:41.188 --> 00:17:45.022 took on different responsibilities. But if one of those people wasn't there, 289 00:17:45.076 --> 00:17:48.834 then mopping up those responsibilities was difficult because we all held our own 290 00:17:48.872 --> 00:17:52.526 role, we all contribute in different ways. And the Bukhas 291 00:17:52.558 --> 00:17:55.394 community, I would like to draw a very loose 292 00:17:55.442 --> 00:17:58.502 comparison, that everybody has different 293 00:17:58.556 --> 00:18:01.974 responsibilities and contributions that 294 00:18:02.012 --> 00:18:05.858 are not married to but aligned with their gender identity, 295 00:18:06.034 --> 00:18:09.778 and it creates this sense of balance. It's, as 296 00:18:09.804 --> 00:18:13.514 far as I can tell, relatively non hierarchical, or at least 297 00:18:13.552 --> 00:18:17.322 not hierarchical in the way that a male female gender binary is. Yeah, 298 00:18:17.456 --> 00:18:21.142 I'm with you on the LGBTQ plus II 299 00:18:21.206 --> 00:18:25.018 AP Alphabet system. I think all it's doing is it's creating 300 00:18:25.034 --> 00:18:28.480 more boxes and trying to stuff people into boxes. And 301 00:18:29.570 --> 00:18:33.374 I'm a bigger fan of the word queer because I don't need to define 302 00:18:33.422 --> 00:18:36.898 myself any more than just queer. I e, 303 00:18:36.984 --> 00:18:40.798 not straight, not Cis, not whatever. I can exist 304 00:18:40.974 --> 00:18:44.546 in this space that is me without having to 305 00:18:44.568 --> 00:18:47.586 explain it. Because I think once you start mixing gender 306 00:18:47.698 --> 00:18:51.330 identity and sexuality, it's not a linear scale, 307 00:18:51.410 --> 00:18:55.254 it's a four dimensional model, and your little point within 308 00:18:55.292 --> 00:18:58.754 that model can change and evolve and float 309 00:18:58.802 --> 00:19:02.086 around from day to day. Who I'm with, what I'm 310 00:19:02.118 --> 00:19:05.814 doing, how I relate to tv programmes. 311 00:19:05.862 --> 00:19:09.130 I can sometimes relate in a more masculine way or more feminine way. Even though 312 00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:12.910 I perceive myself as a woman and feminine, 313 00:19:13.250 --> 00:19:16.686 I don't reject some of my traits and my 314 00:19:16.708 --> 00:19:20.414 upbringing. And to queer really allows me to exist without 315 00:19:20.452 --> 00:19:24.266 a border. Yeah. And I mean, I will say, regarding 316 00:19:24.298 --> 00:19:28.114 the LGBTQ plus acronym, there are ways in which it can be useful. I 317 00:19:28.152 --> 00:19:31.714 recognise the fact that having these specific terms allows us 318 00:19:31.752 --> 00:19:35.382 to, number one, articulate ourselves, but also, number two, find 319 00:19:35.436 --> 00:19:39.286 people of similar experience. Also, specific terminology is 320 00:19:39.308 --> 00:19:42.962 incredibly valuable from a legislative standpoint in terms of ensuring 321 00:19:43.026 --> 00:19:46.854 particular protections. That said, I completely agree in the sense 322 00:19:46.892 --> 00:19:50.582 that recognising it as a reclaimed term, 323 00:19:50.726 --> 00:19:53.786 I prefer to describe myself as queer because 324 00:19:53.888 --> 00:19:57.706 I don't believe that I owe anybody an explanation of 325 00:19:57.728 --> 00:20:00.842 the nuances of my identity every time I come out to someone. 326 00:20:00.976 --> 00:20:04.686 Queer, for me, has been a wonderful catch all, where 327 00:20:04.708 --> 00:20:07.886 it says I exist outside of the bounds of 328 00:20:07.988 --> 00:20:11.758 heteronormativity and cisnormativity, and that's incredibly freeing. I 329 00:20:11.764 --> 00:20:15.234 think I remember when we first met online, I think a couple of years 330 00:20:15.272 --> 00:20:18.722 ago, maybe during COVID you were using both 331 00:20:18.776 --> 00:20:22.546 masculine feminine and gender neutral pronouns, almost like 332 00:20:22.568 --> 00:20:26.050 he, they, she, they, her, him, and you kind of 333 00:20:26.120 --> 00:20:29.926 weren't prescriptive about how the pronouns are used, because sometimes, 334 00:20:30.028 --> 00:20:33.766 again, that triggers people into trying to box you off again, doesn't it? It's like, 335 00:20:33.788 --> 00:20:37.446 oh, it's so difficult. Totally. And actually, I now use they 336 00:20:37.468 --> 00:20:41.194 them pronouns. And it's interesting, I have friends who will occasionally use he him 337 00:20:41.232 --> 00:20:44.906 pronouns with me, but I retired using 338 00:20:45.008 --> 00:20:48.426 she her entirely. Because the issue that I came across 339 00:20:48.608 --> 00:20:52.330 is that when I listed my pronouns, especially, we're talking 340 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:56.238 Covid era, most of my work I was doing was online, and so I 341 00:20:56.244 --> 00:21:00.046 would have my pronouns in my zoom tag. Overwhelmingly, people would look 342 00:21:00.068 --> 00:21:03.486 at that, decide that because I was presenting in a feminine way, the thing that 343 00:21:03.508 --> 00:21:06.738 made them the most comfortable was to just use she for me. 344 00:21:06.824 --> 00:21:10.674 And I very clearly remember, and yes, 345 00:21:10.792 --> 00:21:13.902 I was angry in this moment, but I actually think it was a really justified 346 00:21:13.966 --> 00:21:17.630 anger. I remember in a meeting with some colleagues 347 00:21:17.790 --> 00:21:21.410 mentioning that, yes, if you've noticed that my pronouns have changed from they she 348 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:24.806 he to they them, I want you to know that it's because I've revoked the 349 00:21:24.828 --> 00:21:28.042 other pronouns until you learn how to play nicely with them, that 350 00:21:28.096 --> 00:21:31.866 actually, at the end of 351 00:21:31.888 --> 00:21:35.546 the day, my identity is a very. I 352 00:21:35.568 --> 00:21:39.306 don't describe it as fluid, and 353 00:21:39.328 --> 00:21:42.782 I don't describe it as complex either, but a 354 00:21:42.836 --> 00:21:45.600 nuanced, non prescriptive thing. 355 00:21:46.050 --> 00:21:49.694 And I want to know when 356 00:21:49.732 --> 00:21:53.566 people are actually making an effort with my identity. I 357 00:21:53.588 --> 00:21:57.330 am always incredibly touched when someone that I meet 358 00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:01.186 isn't familiar with my pronouns and puts in a real concerted effort. And that 359 00:22:01.208 --> 00:22:04.994 doesn't mean getting it right straight off the bat, but I can 360 00:22:05.032 --> 00:22:08.520 tell when people are trying, and I can tell when people are 361 00:22:09.450 --> 00:22:13.122 barely navigating their own discomfort and trying to avoid 362 00:22:13.186 --> 00:22:16.806 doing something that's ultimately a very low level of respect for a 363 00:22:16.828 --> 00:22:20.106 person. So, yeah, I use they them now 364 00:22:20.288 --> 00:22:23.898 because for me, anyone can be they 365 00:22:23.984 --> 00:22:27.818 masculine or a feminine looking person can be they. And it's the same for 366 00:22:27.824 --> 00:22:31.558 the pronouns she and know. There are many lesbians in the world 367 00:22:31.584 --> 00:22:35.358 that use he him pronouns. There are many gay men who refer to 368 00:22:35.364 --> 00:22:38.810 one another as she or her. But where we're 369 00:22:38.970 --> 00:22:42.542 know, especially in the UK, in terms of our 370 00:22:42.596 --> 00:22:46.298 societal development at this stage, we still have incredibly gendered 371 00:22:46.314 --> 00:22:49.966 ideas about the pronouns she and he. So where I'm 372 00:22:49.998 --> 00:22:53.746 at now, they feels like the way to go. And 373 00:22:53.768 --> 00:22:57.542 I wish that it wasn't informed by that external pressure. But 374 00:22:57.596 --> 00:23:01.138 at the same time, our identities do respond to our environment. 375 00:23:01.234 --> 00:23:04.786 Yeah, we're kind of hooked up with how people look, aren't 376 00:23:04.818 --> 00:23:08.006 we? Yes, you've got this in your 377 00:23:08.028 --> 00:23:11.734 pants, you've got this in your head and you have to portray 378 00:23:11.862 --> 00:23:15.706 those to make me comfortable. As 379 00:23:15.728 --> 00:23:19.562 you say, you identify with they, them pronouns, nonbinary or kind of 380 00:23:19.616 --> 00:23:23.246 queer as such. But you look, as everyone would 381 00:23:23.268 --> 00:23:26.746 probably say, traditionally feminine. And it's not that you aren't 382 00:23:26.778 --> 00:23:30.494 feminine in some way, but your identity is 383 00:23:30.532 --> 00:23:33.694 queer. And amongst that, and I remember you saying to me once that you really 384 00:23:33.732 --> 00:23:35.986 love to take a little bit of testosterone and grow a little bit of a 385 00:23:36.008 --> 00:23:38.980 moustache or a beard. And I thought that was fantastic when you said 386 00:23:39.910 --> 00:23:43.598 this and I thought, wow, that amazing blonde hair 387 00:23:43.614 --> 00:23:46.946 you've got, and a little bit of a moustache would be fantastic. It looks so 388 00:23:46.968 --> 00:23:50.006 good on you. I still want to get to the moustache, Joanne, I really do. 389 00:23:50.108 --> 00:23:53.926 I was on testosterone for about six months and then I think I 390 00:23:53.948 --> 00:23:57.666 said to you that I had to stop, mostly because travelling meant 391 00:23:57.698 --> 00:24:01.446 that I couldn't access testosterone easily. And then when I came back to the UK, 392 00:24:01.478 --> 00:24:05.286 I didn't have the money for healthcare and trans healthcare 393 00:24:05.318 --> 00:24:08.986 is treated like a luxury instead of a. Right. So, yeah, I 394 00:24:09.008 --> 00:24:12.846 didn't take testosterone long enough to get that wonderful little moustache that 395 00:24:12.868 --> 00:24:16.426 I still dream about. But the thing is that I'm acutely 396 00:24:16.458 --> 00:24:19.566 aware of how choices I have made with my 397 00:24:19.588 --> 00:24:22.720 appearance lead people to read me in particular ways. 398 00:24:23.730 --> 00:24:27.066 For a long time, I have had long blonde hair, very blonde 399 00:24:27.098 --> 00:24:30.754 hair, and people always read that as an inherently feminine thing. And I'm always like, 400 00:24:30.792 --> 00:24:34.514 no, in terms of where my masculinity is at, I kind of want to be 401 00:24:34.552 --> 00:24:38.326