108  many voices, one chant:

30th anniversary

 roundtable

Jay Bernard, Sita Balani and Camel Gupta

abstract
This article is extracted from a discussion between Camel Gupta, Jay Bernard and
Sita Balani. We took as our starting point Becoming visible: Black lesbian discussions
(Carmen et al, 1984), featured in the 1984 special issue of Feminist Review on black
feminism. Here, we reflect on the political, cultural and technological transformations of
queer life since the publication of Becoming visible. The original discussion focused on
questions of identity, safety, the public and the private, and the tensions between race
and sexuality. The discussants took personal and political risks to be active organisers.
As the beneficiaries of that activism, we interrogate not only the broader ideas of race,
sexuality and feminism, but critique some of the discussions circulating within our own
ranks. We also consider our responsibility to follow our predecessors and to learn from
their mistakes. We are more visible than ever, but at what price? What has been gained
and lost? Beyond visibility, what is our responsibility? In an attempt to understand these
questions we cover contemporary notions such as QTIPOC, monolithic whiteness and
online activism.

keywords
disability; queer/QTIPOC/QPOC; race; sexuality; social media; whiteness

feminist review 108 2014

(2643) 2014 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/14 www.feminist-review.com
Introduction
On 11 December 2013, armed with our highlighted and note-covered copies of
Becoming visible: Black lesbian discussions (Carmen et al, 1984), the three of us
settled into an office and began talking. As we bemoaned the passing of the
political movements that animate the original discussion, chants from a rogue
branch of the Cops Off Campus demonstration floated up to the window. Sirens
wailed past and we counted police cars, speculating on whether this would be
another day of mass arrests to deter resistance to Austerity Britain. Coincidentally,
it was also the day that homosexuality was re-criminalised in India. We checked our
phones for updates on the planned action that would be taking place outside the
Indian High Commission.
So the following text is extracted from a four-hour discussion at the Gender
Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE), which was followed by a month
of editing via Google docs and email. The technological differences between our
recording and the one created in 1984 are parallel to the social differences: the
internet as a free queer space has made organising easier, but it is prefigured and
grounded in concrete publications such as the original; comparisons of the two
methods/outcomes show that our objectives remain as difficult and contested as
they ever were.
There is also something to be said for the way concrete ephemera come down
to us. Ravinder Sethi, who typeset the 1984 discussion, leaves a moving postscript,
a trace of her labour, signing off In Black Sisterhood. The finishedness of that
issue, its existence as a single, permanent act, is what makes it valuable. A digital
file does not have the same gravity, but it is accessible and convenient.
Therefore, since most of the discussion could not be included in the print version, we
will be publishing it on the Feminist Review blog (http://femrev.wordpress.com/).
There were plans to create a pamphlet containing the full text of the 1984 debate,
but it never came to fruition. Possibly the energy and costs involved prevented the
publication of all the asides, all the quirky little points, that are sacrificed for bigger
themes. We have consciously tried to say things that are rarely said in discussions
like these, which could have been the intention with the pamphlet. The Feminist
Review blog, then, might be the continuation of a project that never happened.
There are always risks with recording a discussion like thisboth personal and
politicalparticularly as one attempts to challenge widely held views. But the
gathering strength mentioned in the original has, in effect, gathered. The dilemma
that the original participants had about using their own names versus pseudonyms
is largely a non-issue for us: we are all out, published and known in queer spaces.
Perhaps we take that for granted: Camels experience of deciding whether to
publish work on BDSM under his own namethe negotiations with self and others
required to do this from a position of strength and self-carespeaks to this anxiety.

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 27

 Speaking of anxiety, there was one notable area that was heavily emphasised in the
original and did not make the cut for this piece: interracial dating. We all agreed
that it was important to make space for that conversation, but some of us
struggled to articulate our opinions without very detailed and specific discussions
of our relationshipsdiscussions that were uncomfortable to have around the
table, let alone in print. We discussed this discomfort at length, but the
conversation was halting, a break in our fluency. We hope that the construction
of what an interracial relationship is, and the problems therein, is chipped at in our
discussion of monolithic whiteness.

h o w di d w e g e t h e r e ?
Camel: I was nine in 1984. Now Im at a point where Im reading, meeting people
from that scene, participating in conversations and work that explicitly names
itself as black lesbian, having a black lesbian therapist (for the first time in more
than a decade of therapy.) So Im excited to be here. It feels like joining in on a
conversation that Ive been needing to have for a long time.
Sita: I was three years away from being born when Pratibha, Carmen, Shaila and
Gail sat down for the original of this roundtable discussion! And reading their
conversation I could feel the vast differences in the world they inhabit and the one
we live in now. But nonethelessand perhaps this is because Ive met most of
them and found them hugely generous and interesting peopleI can see how their
lives have shaped my own. And I feel very drawn to that time, to its aesthetic. I was
looking at the Do You Remember Olive Morris? book this morning and this quotation
captured some of my own attraction to this work: It began with a photograph. A
picture without colour, of a lone Black girl, barefoot, holding a placard that read:
Black sufferer fight police pig brutality. A Black girl who came before the words
and aesthetics of Black resistance became commodified for white, middle-class
audiences via mainstream pop and HBO, before anti-racist politics became
institutionalised in ivory towers and non-governmental organisations. Ive also
noticed that thirty years is often a key moment when people feel compelled to look
back. The spate of documentary films made in the last couple of years about the
AIDS epidemic, for example. So it seems fitting that, thirty years on, Feminist
Review are revisiting Many Voices, One Chant.
Jay: As someone who was very readily embraced by several of the writers who
appear in the original issue, and whose adult life is better because of what they
did, Im wondering about how I feel speaking back. Im imagining myself at 55,
reading the sixtieth anniversary response to the original, and the thirtieth
anniversary response to what weve recorded here. There are many things I would
be happy to see us achieve: a truly democratic, socially oriented, pro-immigrant
government with a genuine range of people from all walks of life; smarter ways of

28 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

dealing with conflict among politically active people that involve learning to
tolerate being disagreed with; a turn towards attaining and maintaining power in
society if only to protect ourselves from the inevitableand exasperatingsocio-
political tides that undermine our progress; finally, a turn towards creating,
directing and managing our own technology, and by extension limiting the ways in
which our activism is monetised by corporations and manipulated by governments.
Its easy to become calcified by the world you knew when you were young, but that
is not the tradition embodied in the original, and I hope this conversation can still
be recognised as part of a tradition of active change for the better, when I am
gone.

lesbian
C: I have never been a lesbian. I have been a straight woman, then a bi and queer
one. Im now a transgender person, somewhat male identified.
Ive written down the phrase counternarrative within a counternarrative, which is
something I feel pretty much everywhere. Ive almost always been isolated or within
a group which welcomes some of me, but requires me to chop off other bits.
Lesbian is a word that for a long time meant youre not queer enough or youre a
tourist/traitor, because of my involvement with/attraction to cis men. The term
woman is one I have a really complicated relationship to, it has mostly been
imposed onto me. Ive largely been really alienated from queer/lesbian writing and
politics that seemed to have no conception that bi women might be partners in the
struggle, not traitors to it.
But then Pratibha Parmar pointed me at June Jordan. And I found a black bisexual
woman talking in terms of race, class, gender and identity as inherently political. It
was like a homecoming. I didnt find any awareness of Jordan in a decade in a bi
scene thats very white, middle class, normative. So, the first time I was in a room
with women naming themselves as black lesbians was the first time I was pointed
towards a possible home. So lesbian has meant some very different things to me,
and no doubt will continue to do so!
J: Yes, I remember going to York Lesbian Art Festival when I was 17 and going to a
talk in which I said I did not like the term lesbian. At the time I used the term gay.
Lesbian, as it turned out, was too direct. With gay, I was able to avoid some of the
truth of my situation. Then I discovered queer and when I heard that term, I was
like wow, this is something that does not assume you are anything in particular.
Like you, Camel, Ive always had a funny relationship to being a woman.
Particularly a black woman. I ID as such, I use female pronouns, but that doesnt
mean that I believe being a woman is a fixed thing, you know what I mean? I have
always found the cultural, political and spiritual expectations of a black woman

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 29

 very tedious. Yet for the women in the original conversation, the term was
politically charged, because they really were on the arse end of the law. Their
refusal to take it is the reason I can walk around with a shaved head and a binder
and be legally (if not actually) protected today. So I think my position on lesbian
has shifted having realised that. Queer feels freer than lesbian, but the latter has
so much historical power and integrity.
S: And I feel there have been lots of very influential women in my life who have
called themselves lesbian: queer for them seemed alienating in its all things to all
people approach.
J: Exactly, yeah.
S: And it didnt feel like anywhere that one could build a home, as it were, whereas
lesbian seems to provide some of those markers. Obviously those markers are some
of the things that we felt uncomfortable with, but I can also see the attraction of
the term and its politics. I guess this combination of attraction and discomfort is
one of the reasons Im putting together the Queers Talk Lesbian Notions anthology,
to explore some of the tensions between lesbian and queer.

t r e a c h e r y an d t el ol ogi cal t h i n k i n g
J: In the original, Carmen makes a brave admission: I was one of the women who
didnt stand up and declare my bisexuality, but it all depends where you are at the
time. You know, Ive been heterosexual and anti-lesbian, Ive been bisexual and
now Im lesbian and coming on strong. I love that she admits her homophobia,
though she does play into the idea of bisexual as a transitionary period.
C: I homed in on that instantly because its my experience too. I agree thats risky
and brave, but it shouldnt have to be. So often lesbian/queer womens things seem
either to have never heard of bi women, or to vilify them.
I figured out I was queer and bi when I was 23, moved to London to do an MA. Im a
straight feminist woman, Ive never (knowingly) met anyone gay/queer and
suddenly Im in this totally different world and realising how clueless I am.
So, because Im a nerd (and Im at Goldsmiths, where its offered on my MA), I do a
queer theory course, because I want to get less clueless. Somewhere in the middle
of all of that the penny finally drops that I really fancy girls. A well-meaning gay
male friend of mine says, Oh, I dont really know where women go, but theres this
place called the Candy Bar. I go there, very nervous, having had a couple of Dutch
courage drinks at home. I go in, have a pint, women are lovely and say, Oh wow,
you came on your own, good on you, thats really brave and introduce me. All is
great until the word bi comes up and I can immediately tell that somethings wrong:
the social temperature of the group drops. They say Obviously its all new, bi is just

30 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

a phase, sort it out. I say, Look, Im 23, and yes, realising I fancy women is new,
but Im still attracted to men, thus: bi.
In the ensuing argument I use the phrase, I thought the point of womens liberation
was that nobody gets to tell women what to do. The group tell the bar staff that
Im causing trouble, Im kicked out. Im standing on the street in Soho at 3 am,
first time out, drunk and alone and freaked out. This is bi womens experience and
Ive heard much worse. Many bi women who would love to be in womens spaces
more but stay away. Lesbian/queer womens space and thinking need to look hard
at their biphobia and transphobia.
I founded a Bis of Colour project with Jacq Applebee because at BiCon (the major UK
bi community gathering) we face racism. But then in many lesbian/queer womenss
spaces we face racism and biphobia and then in black spaces, we face biphobia. It
seemed like all the places for people who are shut out are happy to shut us out.
We refuse the progress narrative which lies at the heart of much gay and straight
(monosexual) suspicion of bi people and our lives. Were assumed to be on the
way to somewhere, to be fluid, whether that reflects our lived experience or not.
Were considered to be untrustworthy, traitorous, immature and all sorts of other
qualities which are assigned to those who are regarded as unfinished.
S: Yeah, a stepping stone on your way to
J: Somewhere. Why are some places somewhere, a concrete destination, and
others not? I feel like this sort of biphobia has many parallels with transphobia.
People demand one thing only, you cant possibly exist somewhere in the middle or
move between what we know to be constructions. Somehow by doing this youre a
traitor to the cause.
C: Coming to queerness first is important for me: we were queer women, not lesbian
and maybe bi, and not even mentioning trans women except to hate on them. It felt
like we could focus on womens lives and issues, and all womens experiences were
important. Ive been really shocked by apparently normal levels of trans misogyny.
Theres a gap at this table that if were talking about women and feminism and
race: there are no trans women at this table.
J: This is a good time to point out that we are not an organic group and have been
put together.
S: Yes, and theres no attempt to be representativewhatever that might mean
in terms of race or religion either. The absence of Muslim voices at the table is stark
in our age of Islamophobia.
C: Of course were not a representative set of people, but its relevant because its
reflective of a dominant norm.

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 31

 J: Yeah, completely, I feel like a lot of discussions will have somebody whos trans
masculine or transmale in a lesbian context, because I think that makes more sense
to people than somebody whos a transwoman. Although I do not agree with some
of the terms of the arguments posed, nor all of the conclusions the authors come
to, I think its good that theres been a spate of stuff about transwomen finding it
difficult to date queer cis women. I dont think you can be honest about your
politics if you do not interrogate your desires.
C: I find it really bizarre. Fuck it, Im going to be strong about this, it seems really
insulting to trans women (and other trans people too) to include ftm people who
may have been women or may identify with womanhood in things when they are
excluded. Why do I make the cut? Because I look like a woman? Because I was
compulsorily and wrongly assigned female at birth? Because I have tits? Thats a
problem; its not separate from the fact that were looking at a raced sexual politic
that emerges from a lesbian-centric worldview: not a wider (and this is where queer
is hugely useful for me) queer womens view: one where LGBTQ women are all key
and central.
Theres work for LGBTQ women of colour to do in looking hard at the herstory, not to
expect bi and trans women to get on board unless they are welcomed, and
fundamental exclusions and problems are dealt with.
S: Theres another stepping stone narrative that comes up around female
masculinity and transness as well. In terms of trans politics, there are two strong
threads here. There is both this idea of treachery through transition that possibly
(hopefully!) is less common in people our age, but its certainly familiar to all of
us, and theres also the idea of female masculinity as a stepping stone to being
trans-identified.
C: Yes! Interesting though that trans womens treachery is not that theyre
regarded on the way to womanhood but as men trying to sneak into womens
spaces. Theres a moveable logic of treachery depending on whos accusing who.
J: I am regularly assumed to be trans. Its not that I mind, but I wonder. The fact
that I use She is as troubling to some queers as my chin hairs are to my parents. I
once had someone ask when I intended to have chest surgery. Why does that
happen? Why is it so often that your ID is broken into three parts, so youve got this
beginning bit where youre clueless and then this middle bit where youre on your
way to something else.
C: And then you reach the promised land of your true self.
J: Exactly. And that should conform to the expectations of those around you.
S: Yes, I have a similar experience. And I find the assumption that being
vaguely masculine in appearance excludes me from being seen as a woman quite

32 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

troubling; I dislike the idea that in our very important attempts to undermine the
gender binary, we have perhaps also unwittingly narrowed our definition of what a
woman can be.
C: A question re unwittingly: have we though? Or are we expanding and
questioning the founding logics of why we think x is a gender indicator: whats
with that anyway?. Im troubled by the linking up of fighting transphobia with
narrow definitions of woman, as it suggests that were not thinking really in terms
of gender liberation. Women like Julia Serrano and Kate Bornstein are entirely
capable of analysing their own construction as women as part of/alongside the
constructedness of woman as a thing in general.
S: But even as we question that founding logic of x as an indicator of gender in the
normative senseI have a cunt therefore I am a womana similar logic comes
back into play in queer communities where there is the assumption that an
androgynous appearance makes one not a woman. As far as Im concerned, that is
a narrowing of possibility. I think this teleological logic is curious, because queer
proclaims itself as anti-teleology, right? And yet, the idea of a progress narrative
in our culture at large is so ingrained that it exerts a powerful pull on our lives,
however subcultural they might be!
J: So you think theres examples of this outside, like in the greater community?
S: Yes, I think the idea of progress is a very strong liberal trope that we can
certainly dissect but that nonetheless forms a horizon of intelligibility that we
cannot simply opt out of. A queer no future argument is exciting and attractive,
but its cultural weight cant compare to the ingrained heterosexual progress nar-
rative.
J: Job. Marriage. Baby. House.
C: I think the no future is worth fighting for (although the misogyny of Lee
Edelmans work is a serious problem) but with a dash of realism about how strong
the progress narrative is.

QTI POC
J: On this topic, I wanted to say that the term QTIPOC, although I understand
and use it, is not a term that I identify with. I am black. Im not a person of
colour. Coloured is an Americanism that elides the racial dynamics among non-
whites.
C: Its a conversation that I dont think particularly needs to have a definitive
answer, but we need to talk about it.

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 33

 J: At Slutwalk, in 2011, where they were holding up the sign that said woman
is the nigger of the world and then in the States where they were talking about
Prop 8 and how queer is the new black. Weve just had season one of Orange
is the New Black, all about a nice white lesbian in prison surrounded by crazy
black women. When it comes to these new terms like QTIPOC and people of colour,
black is still a thing inside that. So I am still only black. I notice how people
balk when I use brown to describe myselftheres no fluidity. The term poli-
tically black is fraught for obvious reasons. I feel the women who said black is
ours, not yours, had a point insofar as they were uncertain of how other women
were really perceiving them. I find this a really curious racial position to be in.
Blackness is always the thing that is at the bottom of the pack, you know what
I mean?
S: Yes, I was at a Q&A with Spike Lee a few years ago, and some fool asked him if
Arab was the new black according to exactly this logic, that black signifies being
the bottom of the pecking order.
J: And I feel like QTIPOC plays into that in a lot of ways, like I feel like calling me a
person of colour is a euphemism to avoid insulting me. Its a bit like how people
call me a graphic novelist and not a cartoonist. I fucking draw comics.
S: Sure. I think were stuck in language that doesnt take into account the fact that
the ethnoscape, to use Arjun Appadurais term, of the UK has changed massively in
the last thirty years, so a notion of political blackness based on solidarity between
African-Caribbean and Asian communities doesnt really work. Where do more recent
immigrant communitiesLatin Americans, Vietnamese peoplefit into that?
J: Yeah, because I think the problem with it is, its still opposing whiteness as if
there are no racial dynamics among people who are not white.
S: I can see the possible political strategy, but it takes more than good intentions
to build solidarity. We all know that people from particular countries have more
mobility in this country than others. Okay, if you look at just the South Asians in
this country, its much easier to get a loan from the bank if youre Indian than if
youre Bangladeshi. Thats why you see upwardly mobile Indians, Hindus especially,
separating themselves off, because they dont want to be associated with the
mass, particularly with Muslims, especially since 9/11, even since the Rushdie
affair. QTIPOC is similarly flattening.
J: And, being an import, largely exists on the internet for me.
C: When I first encountered QTIPOC online, it sounded incredibly American
and a bit alienating. Then I met people who use it as an organising term,
not as an identity category, but as a solidarity practice, this is how we organise.
Most of my experience of it is a face-to-face one, through one or two
friends who move between North American and European contexts. People

34 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

were using this term because it was a way to build solidarity between dif-
ferent groups of people struggling simultaneously with white supremacy and
heteronomativity.

Its not an identity category for me; I might say Im a QTIPOC but it doesnt signify
fixed identity any more than Im a queer. Queer has always made sense to me as a
verb, not a noun. Queer is a doing. I am a QTIPOC only insofar as words are useful
to describe me, which they mostly arent; these again are the best I can find.
J: I queer.
S: Queer as verb is powerful rhetoric, but I rarely see it in action. What does it mean
to queer something? What are the things we want to queer? I think we need bigger
political ambitions that could live up to the big claim of queering as an action.

J: When it comes to power I think we miss a lot of opportunities to organise. If you

look at the tech world, for example, virtually no black women at the top, let alone
queer ones. Who owns the servers? Who do we pay for hosting? Why does everyone
have Gmail accounts? Im a writer, but Ive recently learned to code because it
seems so important. What would happen if being black/queer meant commanding
the technology that is dominating our lives? I think weve swallowed the idea that
you can be political if you just retweet this.
S: And theres a catch in it. I think you are totally right about taking hold of the
technology. A project called Trans Hack in the US is attempting something along
these lines.
J: Gay Bombs/transCoder was more of a spoof, but still made a point. Theres also
the Universal Automation browser extension which automatically applies for jobs on
the governments depressing new Universal Jobmatch.

whiteness as monolith
J: Among those included in the term QTIPOC, I feel we understand that we are
different. Whereas among white people I feel like that difference isnt felt in quite
the same way, despite the historical and present-day racism towards Eastern
Europeans, Jews. If you break up whiteness then in what world does QTIPOC make
sense? It still makes whiteness monolithic and I think as long as whiteness is
monolithic it will always be extremely difficult to tackle.
C: I use alpha whiteness in my thinking now to try and complicate it. White
supremacy has been hugely scary and traumatic for me, but I dont want to invest
any more energy in something that doesnt take into account different whitenesses
nor re-centre whiteness.

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 35

 So we have an idea of alpha maleness, which is what youre supposed to be
under patriarchy and I think theres an alpha whiteness too. Some of us will
never qualify for that, clearly all of us round this table would struggle,
visually would struggle to qualify. Some of us can qualify conditionally via
education. Theres a middle-class desi thing of growing up here being
encouraged to work really hard, and the prize is to pass as educationally,
culturally alpha white.

J: Yes, but what Im really talking aboutthe fact that you mentioned Irish, now
you wouldnt mention an Irish person as a QTIPOC.1 1 This part of the
discussion has been edited
out and is not included in
C: No. this article.

J: It doesnt make sense and thats because Irish people have become white, as
Noel Ignatiev puts it, by embracing racism. We define it by the one drop rule, which
is a racist rule.
S: And this is the thing: if you take on the logic of the oppressor, then how do you
ever transcend that? What always comes to mind is Wendy Browns work on the
wounded attachment to ones own oppression. In Paul Gilroys Between Camps
(Gilroy, 2000), theres a line that always comes back to me which is suffering
confers no virtue on the victim: yesterdays victims are tomorrows executioners.
I cant think of a truer statement. The obvious example is the logic of Israeli
citizenship: you can be a citizen if you have one Jewish grandparent, which is the
logic of the Nazis. What does it mean to use Nazi logic? I think that we also need to
consider the implications of defining ourselves by our not-whiteness as an act that
could be seen to prop up whiteness. Nonetheless, obviously some acts of racial
categorisation are more dubious than others.
J: I wonder about racial primacy in the context of conquest. The Englishthe
Angles and the Saxonsmurdered and enslaved the indigenous Brits before they
ever sailed over to Africa. Did the same to Scots, Irish, Welsh. Bristol became a
major port for black slavery, but from the eleventh century it was actually a
notorious port for white slaves.
S: Yes, and this moment of Scottish independence as something that chips into the
monolith of Britishness. What difference it will make to Scotland I have no idea, but
I think it will do something to chip into the foundational establishment of
Britishness, because a bunch of people have said

C: No thanks.

S: Fuck you guys, weve got no interest.

J: Yes, and you can start to shake the foundations of being British as intrinsically
better.

36 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

ar e we B r it i s h?
J: Because were from the Diaspora, because were from Britain, we have all these
privileges that should really be rightscoveted passports, few immigration
problems, were not being deported and kicked out, we dont have all of those
narratives that generally accompany people who look like us. I think thats really
great, but thats why I identify as British. Zadie Smith has really led the way, I think
in identifying as English specifically, because theres no way I could say I was Irish
or Scottish, with devolution on the way.
S: Totally. And identifying as British is a way to avoid saying that you are English
and dealing with the specific colonial legacies of Englishness. And I think we have
to kind of have some sort of ownership over this part of our lives, which for me
doesnt mean anything like pride, it just means being honest, being realistic
J: Its a fact.
S: Yes, exactly. I cant possibly be anything other than British.
J: And it would be actually disingenuous.
S: Deeply disingenuous. I am doing a PhD in English Literaturehow can you
possibly, if you spent years of your life reading dusty old English books and
attending wine receptions, claim to be a third world woman?!
J: Yeah, it just doesnt really work. I just think its like such a bit of luck to be born
queer and black in England, because here is this monolithic, sacred thing, this
institution that Ive fallen into and no one will ever be able to deny it.
C: I dont identify primarily as British any more. Diaspora is increasingly a useful
descriptor. It allows for specificity: I am Indian and Bengali in a diaspora, born and
bred in England (and I very much agree that this Englishness, in my case South East
Englishness, is not to be denied). Second generation: yes.
J: Obviously I do not believe you can only be one or the other. However, if you are
from an established second- or third-generation migrant community, thats a
specific culture which is of that place.
S: And its that second-generation culture, which is not tightly bound with ideas of
a connection to another homeland, that feels like such a rich seam. I have no
desire to go into celebratory raptures about Britain, but I do feel a sense of joy in
the culture of the second generation, especially the more confrontational work.
Something like the anarchic early Kureishi-Stephen Frears collaborations seems so
distinctly British, Asian, queer, second generation.
J: Its not about celebrating the fact of Britishness, because borders and
nationalities are violent, arbitrary and absurd, but what people make of their
situation. Thats another question I have, like how secure do we feel as queers,

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 37

 black, Asian, in this current political climate? How concerned are we about whats
going to happen in the future? Weve just seen what happened in Russia with that
massive U-turn which has created this terrifying new climate; India, the same; in
Australia, they have had two false alarms regarding gay marriage; Goodluck
Jonathan of Nigeria has just signed a very vicious bill.
C: I have been in spaces which were focused around alpha whiteness my entire life
(certainly my entire adult life) and I feel like Im only just getting a glimpse of what
things are like outside of that. At the age of 38. It has taken me this long to be in a
position, to get to spaces in which queerness is not necessarily white-and-middle-
class, western queerness. I think about scarcity and abundance, about options,
a lot.

s e c u r i t y, pr e c a r i t y a n d wa y s of li v i n g
S: I think your question about the security, or lack of, in being black and queer
is very important. I think that what were going to see is more and more
representation in various forms, while our material situations become more
precarious. As we see ourselves enshrined in culture and celebrated, we will see
our benefits go, we will see the state being dismantled: itll be very easy to be out
and proud in the Guardian and it will be very difficult to get a job with a proper
contract. After decades of this political framework, it is becoming increasingly
difficult to think outside of that and to connect these cultural struggles to material
struggles around borders and wealth and access.
C: If, for example, you are white and middle class and monied and British and able
to work, there still isnt equality in your queer life, but you can find your way to
other people who might share your experience. The more intersections you throw
onto a single persons life the harder it is; isolation is a massive fear for me.
And of course all of this directly affects how well, or wealthy, or stable we are,
which is my answer to the question about precarity: that Im on disability benefits,
because Im not able to work. I feel very frightened and very insecure about that,
because the disability system in the UK is being hammered into the ground.
J: You make a good point about precarity. A lot of the structures that allow for
straightforward living are being eroded. You brought up June Jordan earlier, and
theres a line from her book of essays, Civil Wars ( Jordan, 1981), which I love: Im
not sure any longer that there is a difference between writing and living. She hints
at the absolute connection between art and life, that life is an art. And art is full of
conflict because its a problem-solving tool: how to make this piece of wood reflect
the lived experience? How to make this patch of wilderness feed my family? The mix
and the chaos and the arguments, its part of an artistic life, its part of any life,
yet the kinds of problems people are facing now are designed to make us live

38 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

complex, expensive, work-oriented lives. Housing Benefit being removed for under-
25s at a time of massive youth unemployment and the criminalisation of residential
squatting being examples.

C: Yes: because of the work Ive done as an activist and the positions I occupy, and
the work it takes me just to live, Im always struggling. I have to be constantly
advocating for my right to exist without being endlessly grateful.
Losing access to places is a huge loss. I was diagnosed recently with likely Fibromyalgia,
very likely from the PTSD. And a lot of us (where us is multiply marginalised queer/
trans people) are sick. Because this kind of life on the margins takes a toll.
S: Yes, these implosions and divisions of groups always feel catastrophic and
I agree with you, Jay, theyre inevitable. I think this is why I am opposed to the
utopian politics of separatism. In the original conversation, they talk about
internationalism, which seems to have fallen out of favour. Mandela dying this
week and seeing the way that people are rewriting their own history in relation to
that global struggle has really revealed the diminishing purchase that internation-
alism has had on our imaginations. I wonder if this links to the desire to retreat
into walled gardens of cultural similarity, rather than engaging on a wider level.
J: Completely. Consider Lesbiana, which was at the film festival this year. What
was really striking, and very beautiful, was that absolute connection between the
lesbian identity and the economic vision. In the text they talk about socialism and
capitalism and I feel like queer people generally are kind of leftist, but anti-
capitalismall the hallmarks of differenceare sold back to us.
S: Yes, there is a general feeling of dissatisfaction, if you take the leftist to be
leftish ...
J: But its a leftishness that is based on identity and culture.
S: Not based on
C: Economics.
S: And being involved in a fight against the neoliberal market economy, which isnt
happening. The queers are not leading that fight.
J: No, I dont know where or how that happened, how those identities got pulled
apart. Indifference, theory over practice, but also facing new levels of belli-
gerence?

S: I think this is about autonomy and funding. The state was never going to fund a
socialist movement. Particularly as the link between the Labour Party and the
unions is all but totally severed. The state cannot fund anti-capitalism but it can
fund identity politics, and so organisations based on identities became NGOs, that

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 39

 were no longer answerable to their members but to their funders. Black Star,
Anandi Ramamurthys recent book on the Asian Youth Movements, captures this
very well. Rather than belligerence, perhaps it was new levels of inclusion that
helped to prise apart the cultural and the economic.
C: Yes, as some people have been included it has shored up a supposedly
commonsense but fundamentally conservative worldview. So, one in three
marriages end in divorce but gay marriage equality means that a whole new set
of people are suddenly really invested in it.
This conversation is happening in London, between three people who live here.
I moved back a year ago, and partly it was to leave a deeply racist place (Brighton)
and partly towards conversations like this! But we need to be vigilant about that
horrible London thing of assuming were further along, or the place to be, which
is seductive nonsense. Im here trying to a sustain a life on little money and with
very limited physical mobility. This is much harder than it was in Brighton, and
I suspect itd be easier anywhere other than London.
But, I came back because I wanted different types of encounters and communities,
to access black queerness or QTIPOCness or something. Despite the very real grim
aspects of London, I am getting that; London right now is (or feels like?) the only
place in the UK that can satisfy that need. And it is a need. Which actually annoys
me more, because it feels like many structurally oppressed people, we have to
somehow make this expensive, harsh, increasingly colonised by elites city work
for us.
S: Yes, theres something disturbing about how London can provide such a sense of
connection and belonging, yet it is a deeply inhumane place to live in many ways.
J: Yeah, totally. Writers who are very important to me have been part of creating
the bit that I enjoy. Im part of the Complete Works II, a development project
initiated by Bernardine Evaristo.2 Yet I wonder, wouldnt things be even better in a 2 See: http://
thecompleteworks.net/
different economic system? If writers all fought for that instead? I cant fault the
generation before me, who really worked hard for freedom and representation, but I
wonder about our generation. It has always been drummed into us that you get an
educationas fancy as possibleand succeed. That is your activism, that is your
contribution. Now I think, how can we have contributions that arent based in
sacrifice?
S: I agree with that, actually, and I think this goes back to Camels point about
diversity in some ways. I think many of us swallowed the line that if we dont make
our way into the institutions then they will remain bastions of privilege. But they
remain those with or without our presence! I think the question for me, which is
possibly also one of the questions that I think theyre asking in the piece that weve
read, is how does our work build counter power?

40 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

J: What does that mean?
S: It means, what is the legacy of our decisions going to be? I think sometimes you
have to sacrifice recognition in the short term for longer-term gains. I dont know
exactly how that would work for the artist or the writer, but I do think we have to
think about how to make what we do less commodifiable, and how to resist
tokenisation. I dont know what this resistance would look like bar a stubborn
refusal to participate in anything, because its not merely that it happens, its that
we actively participate in that process of commodification.
J: And theres the rub, because participating has boons as well as bullshit.
C: I went to hear two black autonomous organisers, ex-Black Panthers, speak. It
was a couple of months ago for black history month and was so inspiring, because
it countered the feelings of hopelessness. Something was there, really powerfully in
the room, that refused the but what can I do? They were both saying What you
can do is your work, decide where you want to work and you work in it and you try
and keep up with other people and try and stay connected to whats going on.

global queer movements

S: Today the Supreme Courts overturned the overturn of Section 377, so
homosexuality has once again been criminalised in India.
J: Really, today?
S: Today, after four years, and in those four years the landscape of queerness in
India has been absolutely transformed.
C: The original roundtable participants talked a lot about what fights do you take
on? Ive put myself in different places, and have come into contact with a lot of
Indian queer activists. Im beginning to get a sort of sense of home that I never
thought Id get, because its one thats sort of related to Indian queerness. Using
terms likes desi.
S: As I understand it, desi means of the homeland, which is vague enough for
people from all across South Asia to use it in the diaspora.
C: I feel like I have a network or the beginnings of a network which is shared: desi,
queer and transness. Which makes living in Kolkata at some point a possibility.
There are gigantic quote marks round the words back and homeland, but theres
a different way back to India through political organising and comradeship and
my chosen family.
J: Krystle Warren sings that: I can always find my way/but I cant come back the
way I came. But what you say is more powerfulthere are entirely new routes

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 41

 back. So its like there are several narratives being overturned. We were all born
here so we dont have that immigrant narrative and that makes a return to a
particular place very different to the return narrative that accompanies an
immigrant. Ive had similar desires to go back to Jamaica, hang out in Nairobi
places where the queer possibilities are growing despite the intensity of the
opposition.
S: Crucially I think part of whats happened in India in the last four years is that
unlike LGBTQ movements here in the UK, in India theres a real connection between
those movements and feminist politics and sex worker politics. They are creating a
broad progressive movement against the often fascist Indian state. And that, in
many ways, seems very exciting. I think that is an interesting, though also idealised
and romanticised, point of reference. Generally, the Global South is characterised
as backward with regard to sexual politics, so it is fascinating that we are now
seeing it as a space of possibility, in comparison to the West where the discourse
around sexuality is calcifying and becoming quite stilted. On the other hand, our
desire to look to the Global South as a counterpoint to our mechanised, mediated,
consumerist lives could also have some imperialist undertones.
J: I dont wholly agree, but yes, one thing Ive noticed is the standardisation of
certain queer spaces. In Vietnam, in Singapore, in Mexicotheres a kind of global
passport for queerness, which is a certain set of western cultural and educational
standards. Aesthetics, too.

t r a v e l a n d mo b i l i t y
S: Jay, you and I have talked about how travel while brown or black and queer, gay,
whatever, is a peculiar thing. You get very used to how you are read in one place,
and then you get off a plane elsewhere and think Fucking hell, this does not
translate. I do not translate. Because it feels as though whiteness has achieved
the impossible and got the monopoly on both foreignness and not-foreignness
which is like
J: Un fait accompli.
S: Un fait accompli. Its strange to be in another part of the world and not be able
to explain where youre fromand not in the way that one might be asked that
question in the UK. In Guatemala, being asked where I was from meant something
wildly different and my answers were unsatisfactory and I can see why, because
India didnt really exist in the cultural imagination there. Britain kind of existed,
but didnt look like me. My age and my appearance didnt match up, my
unmarriedness was peculiar, my lack of children, and so on. And yet, these
questions seemed rather reasonable, in a way that they dont when asked in the UK,
as I actually was a stranger, a tourist there.

42 feminist review 108 2014 many voices, one chant

J: Yes, why arent you at home? I think were among the first generation of black
queers to be travelling en masse. The experience hasnt changed: James Baldwins
A Stranger in the Village says everything I attempted to say when I was writing
about Singapore and being in Asia. I am neither native nor foreigner; I am familiar
to strangers in a way that diminishes me. Yet there is a directness and innocence to
it too. In Laos, for example. When asked where they thought I came from, they said
Cambodia. I mean, they were kids, but the geographical vagueness you talk
about, Sita, is comforting in a very small way. If their racial assumptions are
obtuse, then their ignorance is just ignorance. Its not rooted in a theory of
violence or superiority, which is what I always assume. Baldwin got it right: The
astonishment, with which I might have greeted them, should they have stumbled
into my African village a few hundred years ago, might have rejoiced their hearts.
But the astonishment with which they greet me today can only poison mine. Unlike
the Africans he refers to, we are part of a generation who travel for its own sake,
despite the costs. Who have shifted class.
S: Who have that kind of
J: A kind of freedom.
S: Mobility in all senses.

authors biographies
Jay Bernard is a Londoner and is part of the Complete Works II, was joint winner of
the Caf Writers Poetry Competition 2014 and was Cityread Young Writer in
Residence at the London Metropolitan Archives 2013.

Sita Balani is a PhD student at Kings College London, writing on contemporary

literature, national identity and modernity. She is editing an anthology called
Queers Talk Lesbian Notions.

Camel Gupta is a South Asian bi and trans person, an activist, scholar and artist
based in London.

references
Carmen, Gail, Shaila and Pratibha (1984) Becoming visible: black Lesbian discussions Feminist
Review, Issue 17: 5372.
Gilroy, P. (2000) Between Camps: Nations, Cultures and the Allure of Race, London: Allen Lane.
Jordan, J. (1981) Civil Wars: Observations from the Front Lines of America, New York: Simon & Schuster.

doi:10.1057/fr.2014.27

Jay Bernard et al. feminist review 108 2014 43