Episode 9 - Reverend Jide Macaulay with Rico Jacob Chace

Black and Gay, Back in the Day

Season 1 Episode 9 - “Reverend Jide Macaulay with Rico Jacob Chace”

Date: 29.11.22

Season: 1

Episode: 9

Presenters: Marc Thompson

Contributors: Reverend Jide Macaulay, Rico Jacob Chace

Producers: Shivani Dave, Tash Walker

Assistant Producer: Abi McIntosh

Music: Kemi Oyolede

Artwork: Amaroun

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MT: ‘Welcome to Black and Gay, Back in the Day’. We’re bringing to life the archive of images of Black, LGBTQ+ life in Britain from the 1970s to the early ‘00s. I’m Marc Thompson, I’m an activist and health promotion specialist, and I’ve built this archive with the journalist and writer Jason Okundaye.

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MT: In this episode, we are looking at a photograph that brings joy and warmth because of the power of support.

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MT: A colour photo shows two Black men in the forefront of the image as a party continues behind them. The man on the left looks directly at the camera and wears a green check shirt over a white t-shirt and the hat that reads for Festina watches. He's embracing the man on the right who has his face and eyes angled down. He's wearing a blue cap to match his blue shirt over a Black t-shirt. Both men are smiling ear to ear at the Big Up Christmas party in 1996. The people in the background are also smiling and having what looks like a good time. The walls of the room are decorated with fairy lights and tinsel. There is one poster that is slightly obscured. It reads ‘Why is safer sex like a…’ and the final word is cut off. 

One thing is clear in this image; it's the joy that comes from being surrounded by people who support you. Now we have heard through the stories in this podcast there are Black queer communities. We have had to support ourselves and each other during the 70s, the 80s and the 1990s. To understand more about that time and what support looks like today, I asked trans activist and LGBTQ+ organiser Rico Jacob Chace to uncover more.

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RJC: So I'm looking at this photo on Black and Gay, Back in the Day. It's Colin and Neville at the BigUp Christmas party in Brixton, 1996. There is such a warmth and natural embrace between the two of them. You can see they have a really, really strong relationship. And both of them are beaming. There are so many Black people in the room. There's Christmas decorations. Everyone's having a good time, everyone's smiling, and there's groups of people in deep conversations with each other. You see there's like a real community there; a real relationship. So, let's do some exploring, a google search!

My name is Rico Jacob Chace. I'm a trustee at LGBT Consortium and a director at TransActual UK, I’m a diversity consultant and activist. 

I'm currently googling right now and I still can't seem to find them. Which is unfortunate, the larger LGBT charities keep coming up. So let's do some digging. We found something from The Wellcome Collection. So let's have a look. BigUp was for Black men who have sex, for men delivering HIV and AIDS information to Black men who have sex with men, BigUp. I love the LGBT inclusion there, and it is an archive. So I'm looking at some old leaflets here. Information leaflet from the 90s, 1995 to 2000s. And this one is about safe sex with AIDS and specific information about HIV. 

From what I knew about the AIDS pandemic, I didn't realise that the community pulled together and created the information resources. So that's incredibly impressive, incredibly empowering. You can tell it was back from the 1995, or early 2000s because some of the graphics are old-school graphic design. It looks like a really, really warm environment and for the community to pull together and create the resources, I do see some similarities between BigUp and TransActional, because at TransActional UK, we've created our own GP resources because the government just wasn't doing it and it needed to get done. So we did it. So I mean, I'm online right now just exploring other Black queer organisations because safe spaces are really important so it's important to find the community, find individuals that are similar to us and hear their stories. I've come across this organisation called House of Rainbows. So I'm gonna drop a message to you Jide who runs it to  hear some of their stories and see if he knew of Big Up and he knew what they were doing, and some of the amazing people behind the organisation. 

And not only is Jide the founder of House of Rainbow, they are also very, very open about being HIV positive and a Reverend, and they have been quite open about their identity during the time that this photo at Big UP was taken. S,o fingers crossed Jide about Big Up and knew some of the amazing people behind that organisation. And he can tell me some really in-depth stories about some of the people behind this photo because I really want to get to know them better.

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RJC: Jide! Really lovely to meet you!  My name is Rico. I'm based up in London. How are you?

RJM: Nice to meet you too Rico!I lived in London until about four and a half months ago before I moved to Manchester. My pronouns are he/him but everybody calls me Mama Jide!

RJC: Mama Jide! Is that like an affectionate name?

RJM: It’s actually an endearing name because I struggled with toxic masculinity. I didn't like people calling me Sir or Mr or brother or bro, most of those things make me cringe. You know, I just prefer that gentle, compassionate mother in me. And what my congregation calls me Reverend Mother so it works out.

RJC:Yeah, it took me a while to stop saying ‘guy’s and ‘bros’, I now say ‘bud’, because it's very, very gender neutral. Noone is going to be offended if you say ‘bud’. But it's interesting how different pronouns can have a different meaning. And sometimes you just don't really want to be addressed a certain way. So it's cool that your congregation is respecting that.

RJM: Thank you. 

RJC: I guess firstly, just tell me a bit about yourself, tell me your story. How did you come to find your community? What was the conflict of being different parts of your intersectionality, different parts of your identity, how did you manage to pull them together and to be the person you are today?

RJM: I mean, when it comes to intersectionality, it’s always a minefield, and for me, as an individual putting everything together, not necessarily by chance, but it's actually by hard work as a Black gay, British Nigerian Christian theologian, an Anglican and someone living with HIV. Oh my goodness me, that is already loaded! Growing up,I've always had an understanding that you cannot be gay if you're Black, period. That homosexuality is for white people. And I think that the other thing, again, is that you cannot be gay if you're a Christian. But of course, growing up, it created a lot of challenges for me. And because I was raised in a very Christian environment, that meant that from an early age I already internalised the idea that I cannot be loved by God because of my sexuality. So of course, when I came out as gay, I felt that God was going to punish me anyway. So, later on in life when I was then diagnosed with HIV, I actually initially believed that God was punishing me for being gay. But I had to do a lot of work, I had to do a little soul searching in order to reconcile all of who I am. And today it is part of my work. As a person, as a minister, to be able to say to Black queer folks living with HIV, that God loves you just to where you are. And you know, I have used the acronym, G.A.Y and I've turned it around and I say to queer people, G.A.Y God adores you, God accepts you, regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.

RJC: That’s beautiful. Say that I'm religious, I think it would be nice to have faith. The idea that it's just me  by myself in the world and I'm responsible for all of my actions, and there isn't anything after death’s door. It’s just very difficult to accept, and it's probably the main source of a lot of my depression and anxiety, but I have found a lot of community and spirit in the LG community. And, interestingly, a lot of the solitude and comfort that I found in society is using techniques that are very, very heavily used in religious practices. So for example, like gratitude or community spirit like selflessness, a lot of these elements are seen across different religion.s So I do have a lot of respect for people who are in religious groups, and it is beautiful that you've created a space where queer people can reconcile the various parts of their identity. Because for  me growing up, I didn’t think it was possible to be queer and Black at the same time. So finding those spaces and finding people such as yourself are really, really holding those platforms and doing it with so much courage and positivity is really, really important. So I guess thank you for that. 

RJM: Thank you.

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RJC: So now we have this photo. It's part of the Instagram archive of Black and Gay, Back in the Day. It was an image at the Big Up Christmas party, and can you tell me more about Big Up?

RJM: Big Up, back in the 80s was a space that was created within an organisation called GMFA. And at the time, GMFA stands for Gay Men Fighting Aids, and because our group was within this organisation that brought Black gay men together or Black men who have sex with men together, it was that safe space that also includes friendships; socialisation. I was part of that community even long before my own HIV diagnosis. You know, I was part of that community, we shared a lot of stories, we shared information about sexual health, and how to protect yourself from HIV. And this is also the time where advocacy around using condoms properly during sexual intercourse was a big part of our conversations at the time. And of course, it was a time that I made so many friends and I met people like Marc Thompson, who has not just become a friend but a sibling to me. It was within those spaces that I found safety, that I found compassion, that I found a lot of things. Especially when I'm going through terrible times, and this is a community that I most often turn to for support.

RJC: So I mean, that was the first fully funded group in the UK to work to prevent HIV and Black gay bisexual communities and support those that live with HIV. Do you think that we still have those community spaces today?

RJM: To be quite honest, I think those spaces are very rare and that is heartbreaking. But I think that the reality is, small groups are still very, very powerful. You know, there are still individuals that are creating spaces, even though not on a large scale. There are groups like Black Ink, Blackout UK, Housing Rainbow, that are still organising spaces. For Black queer people there is also an organisation called UK Gays of Colour, there is Living Free UK. So again, there are spaces but they are not big spaces.

RJC: Out of curiosity, how did you fund that organisation back in the day? You said it was fully funded. Was it government supported or was it councils or it was the community?

RJM:I was a trustee at some point as well. The funding probably came from both government and philanthropies so it would have been funded to allow sexual health funding. But I think that the idea to be able to get successful funding will have been that organisations like JMFA will have had to say that we do have specific projects that targets the Black gay community. And that's often an area of ring-fencing successful funding for organisations. But the fact that Big Up was not an independent organisation, managing its own funding, for me, that was a setback for the Black queer community. It’s 2022 and we're still having this conversation. You know, racism has a huge part to play in how funding is distributed. So we have a white organisation managing a Black project, there’s everything wrong about it. 

RJC: You're right. We always tend to be almost like an afterthought when it comes to funding. So I'm a trustee and treasurer at LGBT Consortium, and we are the eighth largest funder of LGBT projects in the world. Being part of that is incredibly eye opening and luckily we do have the equity fund which also has a race relations element. So we need to specifically fund the LGBT projects to support not just the LGBT community, but also recognise intersectionality. But that in itself was an uphill struggle. You have to prove the need to funders, you have to prove to funders that intersectionality even exists because sometimes they aren't even aware. And I can imagine back in the 80s would have been an absolute nightmare.

RJM:I mean, obviously I'm sure you're gonna call this one out. I'm actually part of the people that advocated for LGBT Consortium to look into funding directly the various communities. So I did work with them last year and this year, and I think that the idea is to actually separate all the different groups like the older people's group, trans group, Black people, people of colour group, and then the generic group as well, because otherwise if you put everything together, you will not be able to identify them. And I think it's important that the thematic areas are clear, so that organisations that support the various underrepresented communities will be able to get the application looked into by those communities and then hopefully funded.

RJC: Talking about the same topic. You mentioned that the Black LGBT community is affected by decisions made by people outside of the community. Have you ever felt that the Black, queer community has to support ourselves because no one else would?

RJM: It was difficult for the Black community to support the Black LGBT community because of the history of homophobia within the Black community. To be quite honest, it is difficult because when funding is coming from the government or from the National Lottery, or from other sources, the question we have to ask ourselves is who speaks for us at the point of decision making? And we've heard the phrase ‘Nothing about us without us’ turned around so many times, but too often we are not present when decisions are made. So it is important that when we have funding whether it is from the National Lottery or from Comic Relief, or any other institution, it is important that Black queer leaders are in that space to help drive you know, the purposeful funding into the right direction, so that we can make decisions that will impact and benefit our community now and into the future.

RJC: Yes, say it again! Brilliant. So where do you think the history of homophobia in the Black community comes from? 

RJM:The history of homophobia in the Black community comes from colonialism and it also comes from religion. Let's be very clear. If the colonisers never came to Africa, I'm sure we would just be as wise and as independent, but oppression has a part to play in it. Let's talk about religion itself. The complete mistranslation of the Bible has caused so many people to go against homosexuality. I mean, Black people were never originally homophobic. We existed with people of different sexualities and orientation. 

So the imposition of conservative religion means that we displace in our own understanding of how to love everybody and be compassionate about everyone. I mean, if you go back into our history, prior to colonialism and the missionaries, there is no documentation of homophobia at all. But there is enough history where our queer people are embraced as part of the society, a lot of queer people are actually spiritual beings. And if you take South Africa, for example, where we have the Sangomas, you know, religious leaders who are mostly same-gender loving people or two spirited people. ‘Boy-wives, female-husbands’ is a good book that documents the history of the same-sex relationship in Africa prior to the imposition of religious missionaries.

RJC:That’s really powerful. My ancestors were Jamaican, and I have to keep reminding myself that we were as enslaved as opposed to slaves. It almost is, especially in the UK, they tend to sort of write history as if it just began, it began at slavery and that nothing happened before. And you have to try and reconcile your identity and reconcile who you are trying to find your ancestors are. A part of the way that I come to terms with my identity is that even if I encounter a family member who isn't necessarily understanding of who I am, the idea that my ancestors would have loved and embraced me is very, very comforting. So it's really important to get to know who you are, where you came from. It took me a while to work out who I was and what I should; who I want to be, rather. 

So I found a lot of community in UK Black pride. I was also working as a bartender at She Bar, which is the lesbian bar, and when I was working there, I realised that I was annoying virtually every single lesbian bartender with my dad jokes. They were like, ‘you’re not the same as us! You’re a bloke.’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah! I think I am.’  And then one of the managers came up to me, he said, ‘Are you trans?’ And I say  I think so.’ I wasn't really sure. And they were like ‘What are your pronouns?’ I said, ‘Probably he/him but don’t really worry about it’. And they were like, ‘No, no. Rico, your pronouns are your identity, you have to take it seriously.’ And that conversation happened about four years ago. I really, really find that who I am today is 100% directly credited to the communities that are around me. And it was their understanding and their power. And so community for me is everything. And I have the privilege right now at TransAction to be in rooms with such amazing and gendered intelligence, where we will kind of work out how to strategically respond to the latest round of transphobic nonsense that hit us.

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RJC: When I looked at that photo, I realised that it was a couple years after I was born. I was five then and to think that back in that time, people had the opportunity to have that level of happiness and that level of community and freedom made me realise that even when I was trying to find it about three or four years ago, it already did exist. I had a massive sense of empowerment and happiness. When I first went into LGBT bars, I just wanted to find my people, it was all very, very white. And there's nothing wrong with having white spaces, but there are always going to be cultural differences. And sometimes you just want to talk about the music that you always grew up listening to, sometimes you want to feel at home in a safe space.

RJM:Thank you so much for sharing your own story. There is no doubt in my mind that for every Black LGBTIQ person, we have incredible stories. But looking back at the pictures as well,like you said on Instagram. I know both of them. I'm not sure if I was at that party. I came out as gay in the summer of 1994. I was married to a woman and we had a child together; our son is 30 years old. And so you can imagine I, he was born in ‘92, I came out as gay in ‘94. There was a Big Up Christmas party, and I’m sure I was at that party. I’m not sure if I can find pictures.Maybe it was the time that I didn't allow cameras near me. 

RJC: What was that? Like you sort of come to terms with your identity? Was the anxiety about not wanting to be photographed? Was that about your family finding out or, not to sort of throw cliches, was it because of your job or work? Did you have to have a certain level of bravery in order to be photographed? So if you did have a photograph and it went public, and that was that sense of empowerment or recklessness? 

RJM:Yeah, I think it's probably recklessness because when I first came out as gay, I wasn't too super conscious about cameras around me. I didn't think that I recall either judging from cameras, for example,  if you're in queer spaces and you want to express nudity, the question is, will I show my face in that kind of scenario? But as a clergy and someone who works in public spaces, public areas, like the university, I think probably the last thing you want to see is a fully naked chaplain or fully naked priests, and because of the industry that I work in. So I have to choose carefully. But going back to 1996 at the Christmas party, Black people went to the clubs, we went to the bars; we're always trying to hide away from people. And a good example are the nightclubs because this was the days before Uber taxis and things like that. So when you come out of the club, there are like a hundred Nigerian taxi drivers touting for fares. And of course, you don't want them to see you because the Black community is still a small community. And you know if Uncle Jerome, a taxi driver, sees you outside of the gay club, you know that the entire family and the community is going to find out within minutes, and I think that was part of the fear. 

RJC: How did you manage that risk? Like how did you leave clubs and bars?

RJM: You have to have a hoodie on! [Laughs] Seriously,many of us had hoodies or would tie handkerchiefs around our faces, you know, and we don't go to those taxi drivers.

RJC: Was it quite common for you to encounter people in bars who had wives or word relationships and just didn't want to tell their partner?

RJM: Absolutely, it’s commonplace. You will walk into people you know, either someone from your school days, or somebody from your work environment, even someone from church. Oh, goodness me, brother Jerome! The Black community, the Black gay community is very huge in the nightlife, definitely. But when it comes to peer support and interventions like Big Up, they're very small in numbers, and that is why the Big UP community, in my opinion, is still one of the strongest peer support communities.

RJC: I heard that some people in the LGBT scene back in the day used code names, they didn’t actually use their given name so they didn’t know anyone from their first name terms. Is that the case? You must have known people who became ‘ the regulars’, people who were always there.

RJM:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there were so many coded names. I have coded names as well.

RJC: What was your coded name?

RJM: My coded name was James Island! 

RJC: It’s got a cool bit of flair to it. It does sound a little bit like a pirate.

RJM: Yeah, I had coded names. And my parents and my family called me Roland. Definitely people would know that I'm Roland these days. But when I came out as gay, I dropped Roland and I started to use Jide. Jide is also one of my names, in fact it is my third name. But then again, I was facing a lot of challenges with Roland, because Roland was a hetrosexual guy, the guy who was pretending to be straight, so I did not want any association with Roland. So when I met my queer friends, I told them my name is Jide. But of course, you know, when you go out on the gay scene, and even when I went to the clinic for my STI tests back in the days, I gave the name James Island, for example. I think that it got to a point after my diagnosis, I think it took another three, four years before I was able to change the record in the clinic to my real name. Because I was so afraid that all of this information is going to be passed on to my GP, and, again, we've had so many damning stories about how you'll never be able to get a mortgage, you won't be able to get insurance if they find out that you even had an STI let alone HIV. Yes. So you go to the clinic with a pseudonym. Yeah, and that record stayed for a while, but things have really changed. Legislation has protected people with HIV these days. So you kind of discriminate against but unfortunately, insurance is very high and very difficult, there’s a high level of scrutiny and unfortunately, the premiums are still very high for people living with HIV to get things like life insurance. You know, so again, it's just ridiculous. I mean, the process is not good at all.

RJC: Yeah, I think as a trans guy, I was to have an interesting association with names. I originally picked Rico Jacob Chace, because it was different to my legal name so I could hide. So to see people in that photo who are so liberal, liberated and free and happy and smiling and having the courage to have a photo taken. Because when I first came out, people were like ‘Oh do you want a photo?’ and I was like ‘with the flag in the background?!’ I can't quite put that on my social media yet because you know, even now, you still have the risk. So you have to check if people want to be photographed before we take a photo? Because not everyone has the privilege of being so out with identity and it's true, it is a privilege.

RJM: I think you're very right. When I first came out, I was going through a very difficult time with Roland. So when people call me in the street, Roland, I don't answer. I didn't turn back. I just keep going. If you don't know me, you don't know me. Sorry. Yeah, that kind of feeling. So I carried a lot of pain when I first came out.

RJC: I mean, as a trans girl, I definitely do relate to the fact that if you don't know me as Rico, you don't know me. But it's been an absolute honour speaking to you. I actually think I have you on Instagram. I follow you on social media, I literally like all your photos but I’ve never had a conversation with you.

RJM: We need to address that!

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MT: Hey, Rico, how are you doing?

RJC: I’m well thankyou, How are you?

MT: I'm very well, thank you. It's really good to see you here today. So you went out and you met my dear friend and fellow activist and longtime troublemaker, Reverend Jide. How was that?

RJC: Troublemaker! There's a backstory there, please tell me later! It was brilliant, actually, it was very, very empowering for me because I think we do tend to get understandably bogged down about what's happening in the current political climate. So it's nice to see and hear stories of empowerment from the past to recognise that there has been some progress, but more importantly, to recognise that there have been members or people in my demographic in the Black community who have existed and have been fighting, because our stories aren't really told and it's very, very hard to even find those stories. So to be face to face as someone who's fought through so much was really, really beautiful to hear.

MT: I mean, I've worked with Jide for gosh, 25 years, and we both worked at Big Up together. I think you talked about that when you met. What did he tell you about how he engaged with Big Up and what support he got there?

RJC: He mentioned that it was a really supportive environment and how it was a pivotal part in his life, going along to those support groups and to have the community there. He mentioned that everyone in the room had different names in the Black community, the Black queer community, and some of them had wives and had different lives and had to lie about who they were and their families through fear. So he did mention that it was iconic to have a Christmas party and for it to actually be a Christmas event and then that everyone in the room was beaming. So we were talking about how incredibly happy people were there. How free and liberated they felt. So he did touch on it, but from what I know about Big Up, there's more to the story.

MT: So Jide gave you a narrative which was about some men, particularly at that time because of homophobia, because of wanting to stay hidden to protect themselves, they would choose different names. I remember some guys doing that, I was very open so everybody knew Marc. But I remember Jide giving a different name. Tell me a little bit about your experience of that.

RJC: I think for the trans community, I guess, historically you were saying, because of homophobia, you'd pick a different name to hide. Trans people are the other way around, our name is visibility; it’s existing, it's empowering. And I remember Jide saying how liberating it was to be in a space where people actually saw you and you get to pick your name and that is who you are and that level of acceptance was something that I resonated with in that particular discussion, because when people use my name, we do describe it as our ‘chosen name’, but that's my name. My old name is my dead name, I no longer use that, it gets to the point where I get ‘Mel’ from my old name, I get confused, like who's this? Oh, yeah  that's who I used to be! I don't really have much association with that name. I am who I am. And you don't realise how powerful your name and your identity is until someone tries to take it from you. So having that and embracing it is really important. 

MT: It's a really interesting one, I've never thought of that before,  in some ways, for say, sis men at that time who were giving fake names to protect themselves, when they were able to come out with their real name and their real identity like Jide did and now everybody knows Jide Macaulay, is an incredibly powerful thing. 

And I love what you're saying about the connection between owning who we are and claiming who we are, which I think is fantastic. And it's great to see that journey happening. So tell me a little bit more about your work, with TransActual and the LGBT Consortium, and how does it help you to support Black queer people?

RJC: I mean TransActional was founded about five years ago, and originally it was just a website for trans people to have resources. So for example, blogs, but now it's expanded in the last two years; expanded significantly. I came on board about two years ago, and I was the first POC director at the time, and they purposely hired me because they were like ‘we need to address the intersectionality element’ of being part of the LGBT community. The intersectionality piece is important because when we were doing a survey of trans non-binary people, two years ago, we made sure that the intersectionality element was included in the survey. So you have statistics available in order to make the point that intersectionality does actually exist, that there is a disproportionate difference when it comes to income. Also, that would impact transitioning. When it comes to access to our resources you get the biases of medical providers. There is a difference when it comes to our experiences. Over half of the users of Galop, a support line for individuals who are experiencing domestic abuse, our POC people, over half of the people and LGBT homeless shelters are POC people. 

So intersectionality does make an impact and it's not necessarily because there's embedded homophobia in communities, it's because of colonialism. Let's not start pointing fingers and blaming the communities but it's important to recognise that the LGBT consortium they disputed just shy of a million in funding to LGBT charities across the UK. And that funds some of the biggest charities such as Stonewall, Mermaids, but we also tried to fund some of the smaller charities as well. So we made the grant funds anything from like 25k all the way down to 100 pounds. So if you do need the funds to do something small, which is still going to make an impact, then you can access the funding. So that's kind of the work that I got into. For me, personally, I got into it because I was angry. I was so livid! I think I realised that I was Black and trans and  from day one, I was like ‘this isn’t it. this needs to change.’

MT: I mean, anger is a great motivator. Particularly when we see stuff like this, plus you’re Jamaican like me! That goes with the territory, right!

RJC: It’s in the blood!

MT: Something I wanted to ask you about was, you talked about intersectionality, so you use  your intersectionality and you’ve talked about for yourself. If we think about Jide and Jide is working on multiple fronts around sexuality and identity, but also about religion. And what do you think about the way he has found a way to support Black queer people through religion? Did that resonate with you in any way? Did you see any connection between your  trans communities and Jide’s with religion and faith?

RJC: The bringing together of all the different components that make you human and being comfortable with all of them. I think we found common ground. There were some moments where it got a bit dark when he was talking about his history. I felt probably a bit triggered by that.But triggered in a sense that it resonated, and I've been there. I've been in those places. I have had Jide on Instagram for about two years. We both follow each other, but we've never had that conversation. So I respected him before I even met him but having actually seen the story in depth and the brilliant work that he's doing, it made me understand them more. And to probably see the value of actually speaking to people within the community.

MT: You're working at LGBT Consortium and TransActional, Jide’s work at House of Rainbow, the work that we did at Big Up, is very much around structured support, kind of formal even if it feels informal. From your chat with Jide, what are you going to take forward in your work? What might you do differently? Or enhance, which has been inspired by talking to Jide?

RJC: I will say for me, speaking to people who have climbed hills that you thought unclimbable. I think you know what I mean? Like looking at gay rights back in the 80s, it would have seemed impossible, it seemed bordering on impossible. And I do feel as if, when it comes to trans rights with the current government, there are moments where I think ‘Good God!’ So taking from that discussion, I did get some empowerment, I did get ‘keep going!’

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MT: I've been your host, Marc Thompson. The reporter in this episode was Rico Jacob Chace. You can find the picture we've discussed in today's episode and all the images talked about throughout this podcast on Instagram, @BlackAndGayBackInTheDay. And drop us a message if you have something you want to submit to the archive, a link will be available in the show notes. 

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