In celebration of UK Black Pride, two young lesbians and a young trans man have created a video on what it means to be an LGBTQ+ person of colour.
Amy, Isaac S and Pippa Sterk, who are all ambassadors for LGBTQ+ youth charity Just Like Us, discuss their identities and what the theme for this year’s UK Black Pride Event, ‘Love and Rage’, personally means to them.
“When I was at secondary school, I felt really insecure about my body, I felt really insecure about the way I expressed myself,” says Pippa.
“I felt like everyone had learned how to be a girl and it just did not come natural to me at all.
“I tried wearing makeup a couple of times, I tried wearing skirts and dresses, but always just felt that I looked ridiculous. When I came out I thought that that would make me feel better about the way that I look and the way that I dress.
“But I still see a lot of LGBT+ communities that idealise white bodies and often LGBT+ people of colour aren’t even recognised as LGBT+.
“I’ve walked into a lot of rooms where people assume that I’m in the wrong place or I’ve got the wrong door because they just can’t imagine that there are LGBT+ people who look like me.”
However, Pippa admits that coming out to her family and loved ones was much easier and “didn’t feel like it was a big deal”.
She adds: “I think a lot of the time when LGBT+ people of colour speak about being LGBT+ publicly, there is such an audience for hardship and really difficult family relationships but for a lot of people, there actually can be a lot of love in our families as well and it’s really important to share those stories too.”
Amy credits Netflix’s comedy-drama The Half Of It, which focuses on a closeted Chinese-American lesbian student, with highlighting “that being a lesbian was not because of Western influence,” which she believed throughout her childhood.
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