(Trigger Warning for Holocaust, racism and homophobia mention)
Hey everyone! Kezia here, your new Equalities Officer! Even if we’re in lockdown, I’m sure we’re still all happy for Pride month to be here. Maybe you’re in the closet and will just be reaching out to friends online, or maybe you’re cracking out the glitter, face paint, and flags to take some fun selfies – but did you know that Pride isn’t the only important time for minorities this month? Possibly not, but I’m here to tell you that it’s also Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller History Month! As a queer Romani myself, I thought I’d use my first blog post of Pride to spread the word!
There has unfortunately always been a great deal of hatred towards Travellers of all backgrounds, and this still continues to this day. Did you know that an estimated 50% of Roma people died during the Holocaust, but that we will never know the true percentage because all of those records were destroyed? Or that Nazi documents omitted Romanies from legislations because they thought we’d soon be wiped out? That’s why we call the Holocaust Porrajmos, meaning ‘the Great Devouring’. Does this bring to mind the Nazis’ persecution of queer people and burning of the Institute for Sex Research (which advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and offered some of the first modern sex reassignment surgeries in the 1930s)? They are certainly both aspects of the Holocaust that don’t get taught in history lessons at school. Many people have no knowledge of how our communities were abused by the Nazi regime because no one wants to talk about it, acknowledge it, or, in many cases, even admit that this treatment was wrong. To this day both communities face serious threat in all countries. Travellers and LGBTQ+ individuals are still abused, tortured, and killed to this day, and very close to home. Imagine the added risk of being both!
For years I tried to deny being Romani. The way people from my area spoke about “the bloody pikeys” parked up on the verge (pikey being a slur, for those of you who may not know) made me think that there was something wrong with being a Traveller. It took years to overcome that internalised racism and embrace who I was. I always remember my dad telling me about how, as a child at school, he’d told someone he was a Gypsy and was beaten up behind the church after school. The LGBTQ+ community has seen a lot of the same. I wonder how many of us faced bullying and hatred for being ourselves? How many of us were too frightened to come out of the closet because we saw how other people talked about and treated people like us? Imagine having that fear on both fronts. Imagine being too afraid to tell your friends you’re a Traveller, and too afraid to tell anyone you’re queer. The hatred that is so prevalent towards both communities can make it feel like you don’t truly belong in either. Progress is being made, but progress is rarely ever made fast enough. This needs to stop now and Travellers and the LGBTQ+ community need to show solidarity with one another.
It’s Kushti To Rokker, a campaign by Traveller’s Times which aims to start important discussions both within Traveller communities and between Travellers and non-Travellers about mental health and the issues we face as a community, have released a series of short videos. Their video Hard Road To Travel is on the subject of LGBTQ+ Travellers and I highly recommend giving it a watch. It’s only five minutes!
Even though Travellers are still fighting for many of their basic human rights and combating the negative, racist stereotypes that have become ingrained in our culture (to the point that many people don’t even claim to know that they are being racist), the LGBTQ+ Traveller community are still determined to make our voices heard, no matter how much we may be silenced, overlooked, or discriminated against. Traveller Pride officially marched for the first time on the 6th July 2019 in London – only a year ago! We may not be able to march this year, what with the state of the world right now, but we will march again. I know that when I finally get to march in my first Pride, whether that’s with Traveller Pride or not, I’ll wave my Romani flag just as high and with just as much pride as my actual Pride flags!
I encourage everyone to re-evaluate their opinions of the Traveller community and to learn whatever they can, this month and always! The It’s Kushti To Rokker videos can be found on their Facebook page, the Traveller’s Times Online YouTube channel, or at www.travellerstimes.org.uk/its-kushti-rokker online.
Traveller Pride also have a website at www.lgbttravellerpride.com, and can also be contacted via Twitter @travellerlgbt and Facebook @lgbttravellerpride.
Finally, I encourage everyone to watch Crystal’s Vardo. It is an hour long play by Travellers about our past and possible future. I unfortunately missed its stop in my hometown on its tour, but it has kindly been made available on YouTube for the entire month of June! I’ve heard wonderful things about it from my dad (who did get to see it live, the lucky thing) and I’m looking forward to watching it myself. We’re all stuck in lockdown, who’s going to refuse an hour of free entertainment that teaches you something too?
I hope all of you are doing whatever you can to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. We’ll get through this! I hope to see you all again once this is over! x
By Kezia Johnston
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