TEDDI TALKS
LGBTQIA+ Pride & Black Lives Matter
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By Teddi the Drag Queen. With thanks to Feyisola Akintoye.
or many people, Pride has been cancelled because of the current Covid landscape, meaning a pause on the large festivals, parades and walks of solidarity. Let me take you back 50 years to the first Pride march which was a year after the Stonewall riots. The gay liberation front, along with likeminded peers, joined forces and walked a route in New York City to show the people of America that Gay Lives Mattered. And who was there alongside them? None other than Marsha P. Johnson, a black drag queen and trans rights activist. She is considered, along with two other queens, Zazu Nova and Jackie Hormona, to be the vanguard that pushed back against police brutality in those times. Marsha campaigned for years; even up until her death in 1992, for rights for all LGBTQIA+ people.
we love without the hard work of people like Marsha P. Johnson. For anyone thinking that the BLM movement is not necessary or not needed, just think about this - have you ever been turned down for a job because of your name? The fact that parents of black children must consider what they name their child is just alien to me. A parent should be able to name their child anything they wish, without fear that later in life their child will receive hardship. We only need to see the backlash of the Black Lives movement and counter protests to see inequality within our country. So, my final message to you over this time of Pride is to educate yourself on these issues, because without ‘black lives mattering’ then all lives will never matter @teddi957 Teddi is a local drag artist with her hand and mouth firmly on the pulse. She is never one to shy away from the limelight and always has her opinions ready and raring to go!
I would not be allowed to be who I am today without her. There is a percentage of my community saying that because of the Black Lives Matter movement, pride has been cancelled - this simply is not the case. Our community would not be able to celebrate and love who 40
QueenBee magazine
Change issue 2020
