JUNE 2022
pride
Table of Contents Colours of Progress
Words by Anna Geier and Illustration by Zsuzsa Goodyer
All or Nothing
Words by Ruth Sellin and Illustration by Alice Catteau
Love
Words by Ananthi Parekh and Illustration by Rachel Middleton
Dietrich, Berlin and The Blue Angel Words and Illustration by John Chamberlain
Cover and Endpapers: Rachel Middleton Editor: Margarita Louka
By: Anna Geier
Colours of Progress
Proud to be you, proud to be they/she/he,
With Blue, welcoming peace, harmony and serenity,
Proud to be what you want to be.
With open arms, invoking the calming ebb and flow,
Celebrating individualism, together,
Of peaceful waves, softly caressing sandy beaches.
Waving flags in unison. With Violet, summoning the inner spirit, Campaigning for rights, on warm Summer nights,
Seeking spiritual wisdom from a glistening
Making voices heard, crystal clear.
Amethyst.
Not just on this month, but every day of the year.
A confident connection with our true selves, Crystalised and made permanent.
Still fighting for change, Progress is progress,
With Black and Brown, outwardly practicing
As represented in the flag,
solidarity with BAME,
Donned by Daniel Quasar.
Less represented and historically excluded from you and me.
With Red, celebrating the great fire of life,
Also extending comfort to mourn brothers and
Expressing love, passion and compassion,
sisters,
A limitless life without fear or subjugation.
Made host to HIV, blood to blood, dying in unity.
With Orange, healing old wounds,
With White, Blue and Pink, lamenting baby boys
Practicing peace and contemplation.
born to be baby girls
Just like Theravada Buddhist monks,
Or vice versa, donning skinheads or curls,
Self-healing through meditation.
Or in fact, no gender needed. Supporting those on their transition journey,
With Yellow, embracing new ideas and beginnings,
Binary or Non-binary, for now and eternity.
Shining new rays from the bright yellow sun, Spreading for all to see and inspiring others. With Green, wishing for prosperity and abundance, Mere seedlings growing into large, bountiful trees, Bearing rich and ripe fruit, ready for the picking.
Illustration By: Zsuzsa Goodyer
By: Ruth Sellin
All or Nothing
I have known my best friend for over ten years and we are very different people; where one of us is an introverted bisexual, the other is an extroverted asexual. Our sexualities have never affected our friendship, despite how strange it may seem that a bisexual and an asexual can have anything in common. Bisexuality and asexuality are among the most underrepresented sexualities within the LGBT+ umbrella. Whilst this is beginning to improve, erasure and misunderstanding still abound. Those who identify as bi are sometimes regarded as greedy or confused, suffering from fetishization from those both inside and outside their own relationships. So much of the discourse around pride month and LGBT+ rights seems to revolve around who you sleep with or your biological sex. For those of us represented by one of these letters, it’s about a lot more than that. It’s about our very right to exist as our truest, most authentic selves; something that only very recently we have been allowed to do. In this world where so much emphasis is placed upon finding ‘the one’ (or, frankly, anyone), asexuals and aromantics are constantly made to feel broken or lacking because they do not all prioritise sexual or romantic attraction. Up until 2013, lack of sexual desire was considered a mental disorder rather than a recognised sexual orientation, and there is still discourse both within and outside of the LGBT+ community about the validity of asexuality as a sexuality. This pride month I hope to not have to justify my existence to anyone, a sentiment I know is shared amongst many in the LGBT+ family.
Before I accepted the label of asexual, I felt incredibly off-kilter in a world that sometimes feels like it revolves around sex. However, I know that Alice sometimes struggles with the bisexual label that can attract serious stigma from some people, often feeling as if she has to prove that she is still bi despite being in a happy relationship with a man. At the end of the day, we are all just people looking to be understood and accepted. Labels such as ‘ace’ and ‘bi’ may work for us today but sometime in the future they may not. This doesn’t make what we feel any less valid, sometimes words just aren’t enough to explain some pretty complex experiences.
Illustration By: Alice Catteau
By: Ananthi Parekh
Love
In regards to Boys and others It’s complicated Ups and downs And hills and troughs
You ask for nothing And yet if you asked I’d give you the world And because you don’t I want to
Often not enough Or too much Or unrequited And sometimes Unreturned
My image of love Is no longer that Perfect relationship It isn’t a boy Or even a girl
It’s hard to grasp And harder to keep And even harder To understand. But with you
I know love As I know you It is sweet and beautiful And faultless to understand
My love It’s easy, I don’t Feel the need To prove myself And yet I want to
It sings to me When I need it most And stays with me When nothing else does And I return every heartbeat
Illustration By: Rachel Middleton
Dietrich, Berlin and The Blue Angel By: John Chamberlain
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) is all angles and arching eyebrows. The voice of Berlin between the wars. Both on film and on the record player. I can’t forget first watching her starring in The Blue Angel. (1930) Images of hope, love and loss. At the time (2007) I was transported from overcast Edinburgh, to a Berlin cabaret. Then much later, I discovered the 1948 film A Foreign Affair. A different Berlin to the one of the Weimar era. Berlin after the damage and poison. Out of the ashes. More recently, the German television series Babylon Berlin, (2017) portrays the city in the 1920s in great detail. The sense of time running out, the sense of democracy as something increasingly fragile. The times never change. So many images, and faces. Dietrich is one out of many. Often an LGBTQ icon. Or a forgotten poster at the back of a vintage store.
Illustration By: John Chamberlain
Copyright © 2022 by Anna Geier, Zsuzsa Goodyer, Ruth Sellin, Alice Catteau, Ananthi Parekh, Rachel Middleton and John Chamberlain. All rights reserved. This publication or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, copied, reprinted, reworked, redistributed, or used in any manner whatsoever without the explicit written permission of the copyright holders.