Wally Pride Journal - WSJ Issue 19

Wally Wally Wally Pride Pride Pride Journal Journal Journal Wally Pride Journal Wally WallyStreet StreetJournal JournalIssue Issue19 19 Wally Street Journal Issue 19

CCCCCContents MMMMMMeet The Editors

333333

TTTTTTrans Rights Protests

444444

MMMMMMedia Coverage – Press

555555

SSSSSsnapshot from my wedding

666666

BBBBBBorn In The Wrong Body

777777

AAAAAArtwork

888888

PPPPPPhases Part 2

999999

LLLLLLGBT Movie Recommendations Pt.1

11 11 11 11 11 11

MMMMMMedia Coverage – TV/Film/Theatre

13 13 13 13 13 13

LLLLLLGBT Movie Recommendations Pt.2

14 14 14 14 14 14

SSSSSSAGA Then

15 15 15 15 15 15

AAAAAArtwork

16 16 16 16 16 16

SSSSSSAGA Now

17 17 17 17 17 17

TTTTTThank You

18 18 18 18 18 18

Meet The Editors

Anna Gungaloo Hi! I’m Antara and I love being one of the editors for the WSJ, as I’ve always enjoyed political and historical debate. Hopefully you enjoy this edition just as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Pragati Gupta

Hi, I’m Anna and I’m really glad to be taking this opportunity to act as artistic director of the Wally Street Journal. It poses an exciting new challenge and an interesting opportunity to make use of my creativity. I look forward to creating for you.

Antara Singh

Hi I'm Pragati and I'm really excited to be one of the new editors of the Wally Street Journal as I have always loved reading. I can't wait to read your next submissions!

Photos shown here were taken by Christopher Pilbeam a student in year 12 who attended the protests in London in early July against the harsh reduction and infringement of trans rights by government policy. He said “They want to roll back our rights to self identify, they want to ban transitioning under 18 and they want to make it illegal for us to use the correct bathroom (protecting female only spaces)�.

Media Coverage - Press As a working form of media I feel the Wally Street Journal should tell everyone’s story. The media as a whole has failed the trans community time and time again with its portrayal of their struggles and the issues faced day in and day out. The fact that the media was practically silent on the trans protests just shows that people don’t care enough about the issue. It isn’t seen as divisive or radical enough and the press seem to think that the issues don’t matter, that the protests won’t make a difference and that the protests shouldn’t be happening anyway all resulting in next to no reporting happening on the subject.

The fact that the first I heard about these protests that happened in a city I live in was after they had happened when my friend posted it on his social media baffles me as LGBT activism is one of my key priorities. It hadn’t hit my dashboard on any form of social media nor had my news app thought it relevant to tell me. Why? Because LGBT issues, especially issues for the trans community are still taboo. No one wishes to admit that being LGBT is still seen as inappropriate and something to be discreet about but the lack of press coverage of any issue shows this clear as day.

Concentration camps in Chechnya have gone unnoticed by the West, trans rights removals in both UK and USA constitutions have seemingly never happened and the fact that there is still a legal defence known as gay/trans panic that legitimises violence towards a trans person, on the basis that the victim was at fault for making “same-sex sexual advances” without the perpetrator’s approval, still exists. The media pretends that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia have disappeared but the difference is that they have just gone quiet. LGBT rights are still under threat every day it’s simply that people have stopped talking about it.

This lack of media coverage is also interesting considering the coverage of the BLM movement. The newspapers were quick to take sides in the debate on whether the London protests were fair and justified whereas the newspapers have simply ignored the trans protests, I have seen more headlines on J.K.Rowling’s transphobic tirade than on the actual government proposals to reduce trans rights. Now whilst that may be just me many others that I have spoken to either had no idea about the protests or about the reasons for the protests or both so I’m not alone in experiencing the anti-LGBT sentiment of the media.

One thing I can recommend is looking into specifically LGBT news outlets such as Pink News in order to stay in the loop about issues facing all sides of the LGBT+ community across the world. Where there are LGBT+ humans there will probably always be anti-LGBT+ humans and whilst that is upsetting what, in my opinion, is worse is that we are often unaware of this.

The media coverage demonstrates, amid the world becoming more aware of the systematic oppression of black people, that the world is not ready to be called out for it’s homophobia, biphobia and transphobia (someone has really got to make a word for those three combined) and there is a long way to go before we can say that these issues no longer exist.

By Anna Gungaloo (Editor)

snapshot from my wedding we’ll get hitched without a problem. my parents won’t mind that their daughter loves the pink candyfloss hair of a girl, and neither will hers. nobody at the reception will ask who the ‘man’ of the relationship is, and our dj won’t base a playlist off of the red leather tones of katy perry’s ‘i kissed a girl’. when we discuss adoption, nobody will question whether our child would receive violet sandstorms on their arms in the playground by children with mud-filled minds for our honeymoon, we won’t have to pretend to be sisters at the flesh red border of Russia or imprison our hands in our plush pink pockets instead of in one another’s at a supermarket in Sri Lanka. in the hotel bed, limbs flung together on a sun-soaked sheet, we’ll watch the women on tv. every woman will be a flower and every flower will be in bloom and every bloom will last a lifetime. the blush pink world will be elated to see that nobody cares that i am wildly in love with her.

By Dana Collins

‘BORN IN THE WRONG BODY’ ‘Born in the wrong body’- a ubiquitous phrase that arises during conversation around transgender subjects. It is often said and meant with good intentions, an easy-to-swallow way of explaining transgenderism to a majority cisgender society- but without ill intention, it perpetuates the idea that trans people cannot be proud of, or even find comfort in their own bodies. Trans identity is an extremely expansive range of experiences for a multitude of people, and saying it can be whittled down to somebody being ‘born in the wrong body’ is a grossly oversimplifies this identity, made as an easy way for cisgender people to try and fit the idea of transgenderism into their minds.

The focus in this phrase should be on the word ‘wrong’, which insinuates that trans people’s bodies are innately flawed, when this is simply not true. Trans bodies are not flawed objects in any sense, and the same way in which a cis person’s body is not objectively ‘right’, trans people’s bodies are not ‘wrong’. There is no such thing as a ‘wrong’ body, simply bodies that have been labelled in a certain way. Trans bodies exist regardless of labels. Labels like these are only indicators created for ease of communication. In other words, they’re just words!

As a trans person, I often found myself conflicted when it came to the subject of body image- how could I possibly feel comfortable in my own skin if I was born in the wrong body? Being surrounded by this idea was harmful and reinforced the thought that there was something wrong with me. Over time, I realise that this is not the case- rather that trans people are simply born in bodies which they are free to alter in a way which they deem fit and allows for congruence between external appearance and internal perception of the self.

It is vital that we recognise that trans bodies are not inherently bad or wrong, and until we are able to move past this idea, loving one’s body as a trans person will remain an act of defiance -Anonymous

Anonymous

Phases Part 2 Whilst I’ve discussed before in a previous WSJ Issue the idea of phases within the LGBT community I wished in this pride edition to candidly explain my own experience with sexuality and gender identity. Please take everything expressed here with a pinch of salt as it’s completely rooted in my experience and isn’t a representation in anyway of the whole community.

Phases are a fact of life for everyone but not everything is a phase.

The classic example of something that's typically seen as "not a phase" is sexuality. Constantly people say that you'll grow out of it and it is just a phase and as a whole the LGBT+ Community has taken on the idea that sexuality is not a phase. BUT IT CAN BE. And that is just as valid. For some people things are just a phase. Just because you've changed doesn’t make either identity any less valid or respectable. You weren't pretending to be something you weren't when you genuinely identified differently because life is a journey of self discovery and sexuality is not like treasure, you don't just find your sexuality at a point marked x, you discover new things about your sexuality and your preferences all the time, the way you identify as a person can change and your whole life can change because of this.

As someone who has now relabelled my identity and come out of the closet 3 times it's fair to say that my experience with phases is vast.

I came out as bisexual in year 8, lesbian in year 9 (and at this point my gender identity became a problem as well because I began to realise that I didn't particularly identify with either binary gender but also couldn't find my place within being non binary and at the same time couldn't get my head round being a non binary lesbian either so all in all a confusing time) and finally came back out as bisexual in year 11 having had new experiences of people and life and myself. I discovered a lot about myself within years 8 to 11 and the new ideas I found within my self and what many would identify as a soul changed the way I looked at the world which changed my responses and what I then thought my sexuality was because of this. My life has a changed and I have changed. The impermanence of self is key to my personal development and becoming the person that I believe I'm meant to be so changing the way I identified was essential to defining myself both then and now. These days I tend to identify myself as queer both in sexuality and gender and that's okay because that's who I am to me. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks as long as I'm allowed to be comfortable being me.

I’ve been in the closest and out of the closet and in and out and the woks but really I’ve just been going with it. I’ve realised that my wish to be accepted has led me to want to conform to all sorts of ideas that surround being bisexual and gender queer, however my need

to label and identify myself as a person is what has really caused me the hassle. My self identification based around all the ideas I had been fed about my own identity wasn’t really the issue, it was my need to announce and explain to everyone who I was. I sought to justify myself in my identity. I now realise that wasn’t necessary. I don’t need to explain why I used to use they pronouns and I don’t use them anymore, or why I identified as a lesbian but had only ever dated one guy; it’s not like I withhold that information when asked or that it’s particularly sensitive. I just have recently understood that, if I didn’t need to explain myself to everyone else, I wouldn’t have spent such a significant amount of time coming out when I could have just been being me. The journey has made me who I am today and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. My past is my past, it frames my present and is the canvas I paint my future upon and it helps make me: me.

My sexuality and gender do not define me but they’re a part of my life and they always will be. I was allowing myself to be defined by them when I was younger for lack of true identity in any other place in my life, as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to understand myself as a person and find identity in not just the people I love, but in the actions I take that I love and things I am passionate about. There’s nothing wrong with your sexuality being a big thig about you as long as you’re comfortable with yourself. I wasn’t and I feel that this contributed to my constant need to identify myself and relabel myself. I wasn’t comfortable with being defined by anything other than my sexuality and if that wasn’t being put across correctly than my whole identity came under question in my mind. Realistically no one was that bothered after I’d come out the first time, I didn’t half confuse a lot of my friends but I feel a sense of privilege to have been able to come out so easily so many times. Many people don’t get the privilege that I have had of accepting family and friends. I am more comfortable with my mind than ever before and I hope my story on phases can help you and inspire you to feel comfortable in your own self discovery.

It's okay if it's a phase. It's okay if it's not a phase.

It's all okay.

You're still human.

Human is capable of change.

Human is development.

And human is beautiful.

By Anna Gungaloo(Editor)

LGBT Movie Recommendations

L Pariah Alike is a 17-year-old AfricanAmerican girl who slowly and firmly comes to terms with her own identity as a butch lesbian

Call Me by Your Name Italy 1980s; chronicles the romantic relationship between a 17-year-old, Elio Perlman and Oliver a 24-yearold graduate-student assistant to Elio's father an archaeology professor

Portrait of a Lady On Fire Set in France in the late 18th century, the film tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aristocrat and a painter commissioned to paint her portrait.

Carol Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.

Boy Erased

Moonlight

Jared discovers that he is homosexual and tells his family. However, his father sends him to a conversion therapy camp.

Chiron, a young AfricanAmerican boy, finds guidance in Juan, a drug dealer, who teaches him to carve his own path.

G

LGBT Movie Recommendations

B Colette After moving to Paris, author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette agrees to ghostwrite a semiautobiographical novel for her husband. Its success soon inspires her to fight for creative ownership and overcome the societal constraints of the early 20th century.

A Kid Like Jake

Appropriate Behaviour

Margarita with a Straw

A secretly bisexual Brooklynite from a traditional Persian family struggles with her identity and the disintegration of her relationship with her girlfriend.

A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves India to study in New York.

On her journey of selfdiscovery, she unexpectedly falls in love.

T Man Made

Alex Wheeler and her husband, Greg, are The world of trying to find the right primary school for transgender their 4-year-old son, Jake. Described as bodybuilding gender-expansive by his adviser, Jake's increasingly erratic behavior starts to cause a rift between the couple. Alex worries that the adults in her son's life are labeling him prematurely, while Greg wonders if Jake's fondness for dressing up might be more than just a phase.

A Fantastic Woman Marina's life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.

Credit to Wikipedia & Google for summaries

Media Coverage – TV/FILM/THEATRE The truth is people still don’t want to hear from LGBT voices unless they are discussing LGBT issues. The gay character is often not the centre of the story unless the work is about them being gay, the trans character often doesn’t get to tell their story at all with very few trans stories being able to break through into pop culture. People also find issue here with the fact that many popular movies about trans people have cis actors playing them. Whilst I don’t find fault in cis actors playing trans roles and vice versa I find the idea of a cis man playing a trans woman to demonstrate the prevalent idea that transwomen aren’t real women, they are simply cis men dressed up as women like the actors who portray them. For example in “The Danish Girl” a transwoman was played by Eddie Redmayne a cis male actor. If a cis actor is going to play a trans actor then they should be of the same gender in my opinion.

Another problem with the presentation of LGBT characters is that many of them are either very angsty or very open or a combination of both, none of the characters are ever LGBT and something. For example in popular tv show ‘Sex Education’ both Eric and Adam’s characters are centred around them being gay and one of them bullying the other. They don’t get to just be and have a storyline that doesn’t revolve around them being gay (this isn’t the best example as the show does have a lot of focus on relationships but the point is Eric is the gay character whereas Otis is the awkward one, Maeve is dark and mysterious and Aimee is the ditzy one – gay is Eric’s character trait which is the problem. Moving on from this we see the typical trope of one gay kid bullying another because he’s secretly gay which whilst being vaguely realistic is just wildly overused in my opinion.

There isn’t enough variation in the storylines shown about gay people. Another trope is the “bury your gays” trope in which so many gay characters get killed. How many LGBT characters die is disproportionate to how many LGBT characters are actually exist in the first place.

A key issue is also the representation of different kinds of LGBT people. Much of the representation we see is white and able bodied which marginalises further the problems faced by LGBT people of colour and disabled LGBT people across the world. The characters often lack the subtlety of a human in that many are very stereotypical for example the lesbian is very butch or the gay is very feminine which fails to see the wide variety of people that are LGBT and further solidifies the concept of people acting of looking LGBT. The final problem in telling LGBT stories is the hyper sexualisation of same sex relationships and the age ratings given to a movie. I found when finding movies for the recommendations in this issue that many LGBT movies had quite high age ratings, specifically in lesbian films, time after time I’d start to read the reviews and then realise the film was an 18 which shows either that LGBT relationships are portrayed extremely sexually in movies, or that LGBT relationships are still seen as inappropriate giving them higher age ratings for less sexual content than a straight film requires to be given the same rating. This is also linked to another key issue in representation and that is the representation of gay characters within young children’s media or lack thereof.

The fact that many young children don’t experience gay characters in the tv they watch or the books they read leads to many of the struggles with identity that LGBT youth go through because many people simply won’t realise gay people exist for the first 10 or so years of their life meaning that you have to then actively educate yourself before you can understand yourself. If we presented LGBT characters to children from a younger age this would be less of an issue and would also show that being gay is acceptable to any age.

It’s not age inappropriate to be LGBT same way it’s not age inappropriate to be straight; imagine if someone had told Thomas Sangster in ‘Love Actually’ that he was too young to love the girl or if people told straight parents to hide it in public because they didn’t want their kids to see a same sex couple.

It however would be misconceived by me to not acknowledge within this article the positive and increasing level of representation of LGBT stories. The representation is not perfect but it is a start and has come a long way in recent years, for example “Love Simon” is a teen romance movie that just happens to be gay and “Pride” tells the story of an LGBT activist group without following any romance plots. Representation is wonderful but could be improved in a vast number of ways to help portray more LGBT characters in more ways and as whole humans not just LGBT humans.

By Anna Gungaloo (Editor)

LGBT Movie Recommendations

Bohemian Rhapsody

Blue is the Warmest Colour (French)

Pose (Series)

Imitation Game

Love Simon

Kinky Boots

Handsome Devil

Pride (Editors’ Pick)

Booksmart

The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of The Desert

Tipping the Velvet Euphoria (Series) (3-Part Drama)

SAGA (Sexuality and Gender Acceptance)- The LGBT+ Society at Wallington Girls Forming WHSG’s LGBTQ+ society is definitely one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life. Coming out at 14, there was a lot I had to figure out on my own about my identity and the complexities of the LGBTQ+ community. Having someone more established in the community and more secure in their identity to guide and reassure me on my journey would have been amazing, so one of my aims when I formed the society was to be this person for others. Taking on that role was incredibly humbling, but also very exciting to see people freely explore their identities and grow. Similarly, I knew from my own experiences that having a safe queer space in which to develop and explore your identity was extremely valuable, and so I wanted to create that space for future years of queer and questioning students at WHSG. I also wanted to create an informative space for the growing number of allies I saw around me. Being the driving force in creating this was very gratifying despite the hard work it entailed, and I’m proud to have been a positive force for both the LGBTQ+ and WHSG communities. However, I’m even more proud that members of the society over the past six years have taken up my mission of creating a more tolerant and diverse WHSG. Isha Dwesar (pictured below) - Ex Student on the creation of WHSG’s LGBT+ Society in 2014/15, the first ever leader of SAGA aka LGBT+ Society

Anonymous

SAGA (Sexuality and Gender Acceptance)- The LGBT+ Society at Wallington Girls I went into my leadership of SAGA (alongside Sophie Breeds) with a lot of excitement. For one, it was another chance for an external like me to be fully immersed into Wally Girls culture, but it was also an opportunity to exercise responsibility in a position of leadership. And that’s exactly what that position is, a responsibility, which made me much more nervous than I expected. The expectation be a voice for the LGBT+ youth at Wallington, and a role model was very daunting, but I managed to do it with fun! Sophie and I actually had the privilege of being stumped for sessions on numerous occasions, as there was not always an influx of inflammatory LGBT news. It was wonderful to be able to share positive experiences with the whole group as we witnessed progression in LGBT causes around the world. We definitely seized every opportunity to have a party, but we also were able to set our minds to important issues. One of the highlights of my time as SAGA leader was Pride Week. Not only did I get to break out my baking skills with a rainbow cake, but we also saw the school raise over £700 for international LGBT causes. Though my legacy may not be as influential as some other leaders, I hope everyone in SAGA can look back on this year with as much joy as I will!

Ellen Ellen Fuller Year 13 – Ex SAGA Leader Left I always hoped I’d end up running SAGA one day when I joined. I wanted to help the LGBT youth at my school in the way Isha Dwesar, Jim Morton and Laurynne MacCallum, who were leaders when I was year 8-10, had helped me. I don’t mind doing it alone despite the club being co-run by two people for the last two years, since it became SAGA instead of LGBT+ Society, as I have been going to the club for almost 5 years so it’s a space I’m very comfortable in. The club had kind of dwindled in the last Anna year as we relocated and the atmosphere changed with no new people really joining so I hoped that I could do Below something to change that. I started planning ways we could get more involved with the LGBT societies at other local schools and also ways to promote SAGA at school. These were setting in motion when lockdown basically said no so we shall see what happens in the future. I look forward to the rest of my time leading SAGA and whatever that holds in the new socially distanced world. Sadly pride month was unable to go ahead this year as we couldn’t really do anything over the internet for fear of risking outing someone but we shall see what can happen when we return to school in September. It’ll be a new world and SAGA will have to find a way to fit in. I have enjoyed leading SAGA thus far and hopefully I will get to enjoy leading Saga for some more of the year.

Anna Gungaloo Year 12 - Current SAGA Leader (Editor)

Thank you to everyone Thank you to everyone Thank you to everyone Thank you to everyone Thank you to everyone Thank you to everyone who contributed to this who contributed to this who contributed to this who contributed to this who contributed contributed to to this this who special celebratory issue special celebratory issue special celebratory issue special celebratory issue special celebratory issue special celebratory issue of the Wally Street of the Wally Street of the Wally Street of of the the Wally Wally Street Street of the Wally Street Journal Journal Journal Journal Journal Journal Anonymous means anonymous and outing someone is both unkind and UNSAFE so please refrain from it.

We hope you enjoyed reading this issue of the WSJ as much as we enjoyed making it If you have any work for the next issue feel free to send it to agungaloo14@wallingtongirls.org.uk asingh14@wallingtongirls.org.uk over summer for the issue when we return to school in September You are always welcome to come to SAGA and to ask about anything LGBT+ related as it’s always there to help email agungaloo14@wallingtongirls.org.uk (SAGA Leader) for more information