Maria Jastrzębska: on Girl Scouts, knives, and poetry

Hello and welcome to Season 2 of My Queer Museum, a podcast about the queer objects and queer stories that you won't find in your average museum or archive. I'm David Sheppeard. And I'm Roni Guetta and we had such an exciting, moving, and beautiful time making Season 1 and chatting to some of Brighton and Hove's most interesting queer residents that we just had to continue on our mission. But before we meet our third guest for this season, we want to tell you about our new queer community generated digital museum, queerheritagesouth.co.uk. As you can tell from the name, it's a website. It's a new digital queer museum space that you can visit anytime you want and discover interesting local queer collections and stories.

And we'd love for you to contribute to it as well. So have a dig around in your cupboards, maybe find a t-shirt from a queer band that you love or a picture of you or your first Brighton Pride and take a photograph of it and upload it to the queerheritagesouth.co.uk digital museum space. Hi, Maria. Lovely to have you on our podcast. We're thrilled that you have made time to join us. And would you like to just introduce yourself to our listeners? Sure. Dzień dobry. Witam serdecznie. I'm Maria Jastrzemska. I'm a poet. I write books. And I've edited some books, including the wonderful Queer in Brighton anthology. And I've translated some books from Polish. And I was a founder member of Queer Writing South with John McCulloch, another queer poet.

And I feel like I've known you forever in my Brighton life. And yeah, I know you played such a kind of instrumental role in those in the putting together of the first Queer in Brighton publication. Yeah. And it's fabulous that we've managed to keep on being connected in various ways through Coasters Queer Festival, through workshops and all kinds of things. So, yeah, it's been a lovely part of my Brighton journey, having you in it. Well, thank you. Well, you're always very supportive of all my artistic endeavours. Oh, it's always a pleasure. So we are here to talk about your entries into our imaginary queer museum, which will also become your imaginary queer museum. But what we would like to find out from you is what objects, stories, items from your life you thought would find a good home in our imaginary queer museum.

So would you like to start with your first selection? Sure. I don't know if this is going to cause trouble, which I do like causing, but am I allowed to bring a knife into the museum? You absolutely are. Yeah. You're not allowed to use it on anyone. No, no, of course not. So my first object is a knife. It's a camping knife, really. It has quite a long blade and a handle which you can really hold. You know, it fits nicely in your hand. And this knife is from when I was growing up and I was in the Polish Girl Scouts. And the Polish Girl Scouts were quite different from the English Girl Guides, I have to say. And we did a lot of outdoor activities and we, you know, we dug our own latrines. We built bed frames, we lit fires and we had we had camping knives and you could use those for whittling wood and doing all sorts of things.

But what I liked doing with it most of all was throwing the knife and you'd throw it into the ground. And if you threw it a particular way, then the blade would go in first. Wow. So we have your camping knife. So can you tell us a little bit about how you entered into the Polish Girl Guides and what that was like as an experience? Well, it's because I was growing up. I was growing up in London, but I was growing up Polish. So I lived in a in a very different world from my English friends. And, you know, when when people leave their homeland and, you know, when immigrants come to another country, you know, people hang on to their traditions much more. So the Polish community had a lot of activities for young people that were very that were very Polish and they were very different from English activities.

And Polish Girl Scouts appealed to me because I was a textbook tomboy and there was lots of scope. There was lots of freedom. There was lots of scope to do outdoor, adventurous, exciting things. And then I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God, I was going to say, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know, you know, that was my. And I still identify as Polish. And because I learned English when I was very little, I don't have a foreign accent. So people assume I'm English and, you know, English people will confide racist opinions to me. And then, you know, they're very surprised when I turn around and say, well, hang on a minute.

But, yeah, I was very, very identified as a Polish person. And, you know, the traditions and the values was it was all so different from the English culture around me. But I also had problems with it because I was growing up different. And, you know, I didn't fit the norm of what a nice Polish girl should be doing. So it was quite complicated because I didn't fit in English society because I didn't feel at home there. But I certainly didn't fit in Polish society either. And, you know, so it's quite a sort of complex thing, really. Yeah. It sounds like a lonely thing as well, because if you belong in a sort of community and then that's the community you identify with. And then your sexuality comes into play and that you don't fit into that community anymore.

It does leave you wondering where you really sit. Was there any kind of blueprint for your queer identity within that Polish culture? Or was it something that was quite repressed and just invisible? It was pretty repressed. I mean, my mother said that there weren't any queer people in Polish culture, that it was an English thing. And if only we hadn't come to England, it would all be different. There were a few sort of hidden clues. I mean, there were, you know, there's a national heroine, a woman who dressed like a man to become a soldier and fight for Polish freedom. So there's sort of little clues like that, but not a lot. And as I was saying, because we were a community outside of Poland, we were even more traditional than anyone else.

So I was looking to English culture more for role models or sort of inspiration for a different kind of identity, a lesbian identity. I mean, queer wasn't, you know, used in the same way then as the word is used now. But of course, the time I was growing up in England, I mean, the images of lesbians and gay men were very, very negative anyway. You know, everywhere, all over the world, not just in Polish culture. And there was very little information about trans people. You know, they were quite hard times in that respect. I was in a Jewish scouts in Rome. So we did a lot of digging and trenches and knives and all that stuff. But, you know, I'm recognising some of your story there because I identified very strongly with that group

and also identified very strongly with being in the diaspora, you know, with not being Italian. And it was a very strong identity for me. But then when I came out, it left me very, very lonely, I think, and sort of very at loss to where I belong. Because all of a sudden, similarly to what you're explaining, all of a sudden being queer was not something we do. You know, it was something that belonged to Italian people. So all that identity that I'd built around myself where I was an Italian and I was definitely a Jew and definitely part of my community. All of a sudden, that community was not really welcoming me anymore. So it's definitely a different experience. And when the community that you rely on rejects you, it's heartbreak because you need them.

And yet, you know, and I think, you know, I can see that also within queer communities, that if people, you know, step out of line, it's quite scary. I mean, I think, you know, when I was growing up, I mean, I was attracted to men and to women. And then within the lesbian community, that was very, you know, bisexuality was frowned on and kind of, you know, you weren't you weren't sort of the real McCoy. You know, so there's there's all sorts of internal things that go on. And in the end, you just have to be yourself, don't you? Yeah, kind of live with the consequences, really, isn't it? And I think eventually, hopefully, you've over time, maybe you get to kind of recontextualize your relationship with those traditions.

And I'm wondering whether there is a kind of I'm sure it's something we're going to go on to talk more about. But there is a queer Polish identity that allows you hopefully to be more of yourself in traversing all those different spaces. Is that the case? Or am I just being an optimist? No, no, I think that is. I mean, you know, one thing that was I mean, it's probably the same for you, Roni. One thing that was wonderful for me was to meet other Polish lesbians. And I mean, that was that was just heaven because we didn't have to explain anything to each other. And, you know, there was so much common ground. So I think, yes, you do customize your own identity. And at the same time, I think you also, you know, identity is so important, is so important to me.

And yet at the same time, I recognize a place where it isn't important, you know, or where you just want to connect with other people. And I don't mean that in a sort of wishy-washy way, because we are, you know, differences do matter. And it's not that you want to gloss over them, but you also you also want to be the freedom, have the freedom to be many, many things. Yeah, absolutely. Just out of my curiosity. So what what kind of dates were you in the Polish Girl Scouts and which part of London were we talking about here? We're talking about West London and we're talking about the mid 60s, something like that. So quite an amazing time to be in London. I'm sure that there are kind of degrees of exposure you have to that like countercultural stuff that's going on in the other parts of the city.

Well, yeah, I mean, so much is going on. And the sort of culture clash within my family isn't just a clash of generations, but it's also a clash of, you know, my parents were brought up in a different country to me. So there's yeah. Maria, well, how old are you at this point when you when you when I'm in the when I'm playing with you when I'm throwing knives? Yeah. When you're throwing knives. I think I must be around 12. I'm not sure or younger or because I think once I head into my teens, I'm so drawn by sort of counterculture, you know, and, you know, kind of hippie values. And then later, the women's liberation movement, which I'll come on to. But so then I'm and then I'm kind of rebelling against my my Polish background, even though I need it and I still need it to this day.

Well, that feels like a fantastic juncture to maybe move on to your second item. And I'm thrilled to put in a put in your Girl Scout knife, accompanied hopefully by a picture of you at age 12 in a Girl Scout uniform. Yeah, some latent lesbian potential, bisexual potential.

Now I'm incredibly curious about your second object, Maria. Well, I have a fur coat, but don't worry, it's fake fur. It's not it's no animals was were harmed in this coat in the making of this coat. So, OK, so a fur coat, my mother for my mother, that would have been, you know, a status symbol to have a fine fur coat. It's also a practical thing because Poland has very cold winters. My fur coat is one that in my early 20s, very early 20s, I pick up in a Brighton secondhand shop, you know, like one of those kind of Army and Navy stores where I dress throughout my 20s. So it's a big bear coat, you know, like an animal bear coat.

And really, for this museum, I would have liked to have given you a clothes rail of lots and lots of my outfits. And I think you should have a museum just of, you know, outfits, really. The Maria costume wing of our museum. I love dressing up. I love dressing up. And, you know, I've got all sorts that I could have brought in, you know, cowboy outfits, guerrilla outfits, all sorts. But I had to, you know, I had to be disciplined and just bring you one. So I brought you this fur coat because I was wearing it when I lived in Brighton the first time when I was a student at Sussex. And it's when I discovered the Women's Liberation Movement. And as I said, there was no sort of queer community to slot into then.

There was GLF, Gay Liberation Front, and there was the Women's Liberation Movement. And I found my way into the Women's Liberation Movement. And it was just, I don't know how to describe it. It was an explosion, really, of ideas and activism and, you know, falling in love every five minutes and all of that. And heartbreak. Oh, my God, I got my heart broken. Maria, what year was this? So this is 1973 to 1976. Wow. So this is the moment, this is really the peak of this sort of second wave feminist awakening. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, in my first year at uni, the first thing I was doing was we were all occupying the admin buildings. That was a mixed protest. Then, you know, I was joined. And I joined the Women's Movement at a point where the whole thing of lesbianism was exploding.

I think the first meeting I went to, there was a whole debate of, you know, should we openly support lesbians or not? Obviously, I was on the side, you can imagine. And so there was all, you know, it was everything was kicking off. It was so exciting. I hope that if you're 20 now, you're having as exciting as I'm going to be really exciting. And you can't see this, but I've got a photograph of me in my fur coat. And I'm on a demonstration for the national abortion campaign. And there were lots of other protests, occupations and, you know, things that I got involved with throughout the 70s. I brought this along because I've got a photo of it, because I'm wearing the fur coat. And also because the national abortion campaign and, you know, fighting for women's reproductive rights wasn't a kind of, you know, it's not an obviously lesbian cause.

And there are, you know, many women who it isn't the sort of first thing that is on their agenda. And what I like about us getting involved in it is that we were kind of thinking outside the box. So although we were fighting for our own rights as bisexual people, as gay people, as lesbians, and I did go on various other queer protests as well at that time, we also, we want to tackle the whole picture. And it's what nowadays we refer to as intersectionality. So we can see the links. We can see that if one set of rights is attacked, then another set of rights is attacked. And later on, you know, you've got lesbians and gay men supporting the minors. You know, I'm going on pickets in London to support Grunwick's and Trico, which are trade union disputes, which are nothing to do with sexuality.

But we're seeing the links. And I'm very proud of the fact that we saw those links. We didn't always get it right. And, you know, lots of mistakes were made. And there was, you know, there was classism and there was racism and all sorts. But there was an attempt to see the whole picture and topple the whole thing, not just my rights for me. That's amazing. Yeah, I think that sense of connectedness is, you can see in the current political landscape, how it's trying to set up kind of marginalised groups as adversaries. It seems to be a tactic as age old as humanity itself. It's just, but it just stops people seeing the, yeah, just seeing the interconnectedness of people's oppression, doesn't it?

Yeah. But how did, in terms of this coat, was this a, did this stay long in your wardrobe? Was this like a piece of your armour for going on protests and pickets and doing the kind of direct action that you were doing? I think armour's a good word. And I think badge is a good word. You know, it's something in Queer in Brighton we looked at, isn't it? Everybody's badges. And I think, you know, you want something that is kind of big and bold and defines you in some way. So I think there were a number of years, I don't still have it, but there were a number of, I mean, it fell apart, I think. But there were a number of years when I wore it and, you know, and felt loud and proud and out and all of that.

So, you know, I enjoyed it. And when you left, so you left the University of Sussex, did you leave with a kind of community of activists and friends who you then took into that next stage of your life? Did it feel like a really, was it a really seminal moment? I know a university generally is for people, but in terms of introducing you to a new tribe that would then take you into your 20s and 30s? Yes, definitely. I mean, there were some steps back because at one point I, you know, I tried training to be a social worker and I suddenly found myself in a much more conservative environment and I was just lost. And then, in fact, I left Brighton at that point and I moved to London and sort of got back in to, you know, found my tribe again.

And I, you know, I worked for Women's Aid. I worked in a refuge for battered women. I was also, I found a member of Lesbian Line, which was a, you know, a switchboard for women. And, yeah, and we did some amazing things from protests and, you know, pride marches and lesbian strength marches and Alvinos and all, you know, all sorts of things. So, yeah, it, it, and it, and, and it was that thing of discovering this whole world and feeling I'd come home. And, and, and we've talked earlier on about how sometimes home isn't quite home. So, you know, but initially there was that sense of I'm completely home and I've got connections and, and, and that was empowering and very, very, very exciting. Tell us a little bit, if you can, of just about that, um, founding of Lesbian Line and that, um, cause I've seen, we've actually got some flyers in the archive, in the Queer and Brighton archive that relates to that, to the, to Lesbian Line.

Um, what had prompted that? Well, there was, uh, a meeting was announced, uh, at a woman's place, which was, um, you know, a, a, a hub. And some women who were on the lines for Icebreakers, which was a befriending organisation, and some women who were working for Gay Switchboard or volunteering for Gay Switchboard had got together and felt that the, that the needs of women were being overlooked and sidelined. And, and so they wanted to set up something that specifically focused on, on women. And so, and I went along to that, that first meeting and, and we then set up, um, a phone line, you know, found a venue and, and set up a phone line. Um, and that was amazing because it was, you know, talking to women who, I mean, this is the late seventies, you know, talking to women who'd phone up and clearly had no support and were very isolated.

And it was great to, to, to be able to offer them something. Sometimes young women, I had a whole spate of phone calls from very young, young girls who phone up and giggle and, you know, ask me ridiculous questions, but they wanted to know and they needed to know. Wow. That's fabulous. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I'm interested in this overlap. There's obviously a lot of overlap between lesbian activism and feminist, feminist, uh, activism and women's right and, and just intersectional activism. Because you said when you first moved to Brighton, there wasn't really a queer community per se. There was more of like an activist community. Um, I'd like, I'd like to hear more about that.

I think that, well, I think there were queer communities that were very hidden. Um, you know, I mean, in London, there were, there was the Gateways Club, which you've probably heard of. In Brighton in the seventies, there were, there was the Ace of Spades. Uh, so there were, there were communities. Because I got involved in politics, I was very much in the sort of activist side of things. And I think we were a little bit snotty, probably, about the non-political, uh, clubs. Uh, we didn't feel they were challenging stereotypes enough, uh, all of that. But at the same time, there was something, there was something very remarkable about them. Because I can remember going to the Ace of Spades, which was a, uh, it was a women's disco, but not a feminist one.

And just the sheer variety of women who were there. There was something very empowering about that. And I suppose it's empowering for a minority to not always have to be political. Just, just the right to exist in a, in a fun space and have time together. Well. It's something that I think sometimes we forget to do as queer people as well. There is a sort of, you know. I don't think I thought of it like that then, but I see it now more. We appoint ourselves as like having to bring the change into the world. But, you know, there's also an element of maybe we're a bit tired and we could just hang out. Yes, definitely. And think, you know, things did, did change in the, you know, um, over time, things developed

like tea dances where you could just go and dance. I think when, when I was in my kind of first, first flush of feminism, it was very much about, you know, you, you had to change the world. And I think, I think we did work hard and, uh, I think there was a sort of moral imperative to work hard. And I think over time, the, the sort of pleasure principle, uh, also came, came to the fore and yeah. And, and also I think people got burnt out and, and, uh, and they wanted something more healing or more, uh, you know, that, that I think it became apparent that there were different ways that you could effect change. And it wasn't just by marching or by, you know, daubing graffiti or protesting, although

those were all, you know, they still are. And I think that it was also this thing of, you know, because, because a lot of our oppression was invisible. Um, you know, people, people would assume that you were heterosexual, uh, unless you, I don't know, unless you wore something really flamboyant or, uh, you know, you wore a three piece suit or something like that. I mean, I was often mistaken for a man, you know, throughout my life, but I was also often mistaken for heterosexual. I mean, I don't quite know how the two things coexisted, but they did. Uh, and so you'd go to a place like this and you'd see women dancing together. And you'd think if I saw her in the street or in a shop or in an office, I would have no

idea. And there was something exciting about that.

And I think your big fur coat is one of those kind of look at me statements, isn't it? It kind of like slightly pushes you out of the, out of ordinary dress. It does make you more visible somehow, I guess, um, in a, in a, in a way. But so your fur coat on a, uh, 1970s Maria mannequin is now inside our Queen Museum. Would you now like to tell us about your final piece? Yes. That you're going to, uh, donate? This may seem a bit blowy of my own trumpet, but what I've got here is, um, a pile of my books. And the reason I've brought along books is because, you know, poetry is such a niche minority thing. And so queer poetry is kind of minority within minority. Uh, so I, that's why I've dared to bring along some of my books and.

And. Be daring. We would be delighted to have your wonderful book. My niche. So tell us more about your. Your niche, niche books. One of them is a little piece of paper that's been folded over and on it, it says Maria, my book in, in handwriting that you can tell I've only just learned to write. And somehow my mother, uh, kept this all these years. And, uh, so this is kind of my first ever book and it's just a piece of paper with, you know, I can barely write, but I already have a sense of having my book. And then there's a kind of strange drawing with lots of colors in it. And someone has ticked it. So somebody has marked my book. And so that's probably my earliest ever book. And I'm, I'm kind of dovetailing that with, uh, the latest book that's out.

There was another one coming this year, but this is the one that's out. And it's the one called the true story of cowboy hat and ingenue. And it's probably the queerest, the most obviously queer of my books, uh, because it's the store, a love story between two women. One is called cowboy hat and the other is called ingenue. And so that's why I've, I've, uh, brought you that. So, and really in a way, nothing's changed. You know, uh, when I was little, I'm squiggling, uh, something and calling it my book. And, uh, and I'm still really doing that, you know, all these years later. And, uh, including, you know, some or all or many of the identities that I've acquired along the way. So tell me a little bit about what poetry, you talk about being in minority within minority within the poetry scene.

What has it been like, I think, being, uh, an out lesbian, bisexual woman in that poetry scene and how that, how your experience, whether that, whether your identity kind of really plays a role in your poetry. Obviously it does. Because I know that there's a lot related to language and translation and, and your Polish identity and whatever else is going on. But I think, yeah, tell if, sorry, I'm going to, we will edit that out. But yeah, speak a little bit about, um, what poetry has kind of meant for you as a, and what role it's played in your life. I think it's something, it's partly what Roni was saying about, um, playfulness, uh, or the, the, the playful part of activism. So I think for me, there's, there's a great playfulness in poetry.

There's a, you know, there's a delight in language and a playfulness in language and in including as many of my different languages as possible. And that's, you know, whether they're sort of queer codes or whether they're Polish. I mean, in the true story of Cowboy Hat and Angenue, there's lots of Spanish, which I was just cheeky enough to include, uh, although it's not my culture. Uh, and the, you know, and I'm always looking for ways of getting the, the reader to have a sense of something being different or unfamiliar or, you know, layers of, of, of difference. So there's that. Uh, I think it's interesting what you say about the identities because, because I've got a Polish name and because there's a lot of Polish references in books I've written.

I think sometimes people kind of miss the queer stuff completely. Uh, and I think it's because people can't sort of hold too many things at once. So they sort of think, you know, they want to pigeonhole you and sort of have an angle on you. So they say, oh, right, well, she's writing about Polish heritage. And therefore they, they can't kind of see that it could have a queer aspect to it or, you know, so that, that's quite interesting. Uh. And poetry is also, you know, it's about what we don't know how to find the words for. That, that's really what, what you're doing as a poet is you're reaching for things that you, you can't quite name. Uh, so there's a, there's a mystery, there's a yearning, there's a striving in there.

Uh, so sometimes I think when I first started writing, I was, I was perhaps more obvious and I wanted to sort of hammer out a message. Uh, and I was more, you know, we, we felt so much that, you know, we had our backs to the wall and we had, we had to sort of keep, keep coming out, keep showing ourselves, keep sticking up for ourselves. And it's not that that's gone away and it's not that things are resolved enough not to have to do that. But I think also there's, there's the sort of inquiry, there's the playfulness and wanting to come at things from, from different angles. Uh, so that poetry sometimes isn't literal or isn't completely obvious, uh, or doesn't have a straightforward message. And I think there's something quite queer about that, that, you know, it doesn't go in straight lines.

Uh, and it, it kind of gets you by the shortened curve. Sometimes without you realizing. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about when you're describing poetry is kind of fluid, uh, fluid means I was really thinking poetry is very queer compared to prose, isn't it? It's sort of, uh, less prescriptive and, and leaves a lot more room for things to change. Yeah. Yeah. As you look at them, you know, and, and, um, we all get to interpret it as so many more layers of interpretation and it's so much less literal. And I'm interested about the relationship between queerness and poetry because, you know, you're talking about queer language and queer code. And, and I wonder if, if poetry lends itself to queer writing because it's nebulous as well.

And, you know, historically queer writing has been kind of secret in a way. Definitely. I mean, I think, I think at times in, I think at times queer writers have written poetry in order to be in the closet. And, and, and you can see that in, in certain, you know, in certain writing that they're writing things which a queer reader would find, you know, they're leaving the room. Correct. Yeah. But they're also in a position, you know, in a position where they can't be very out. Uh, so I think, I think there is, I think that's part of the queer code that, that literally things are in, in code. Um, but I think also there's the, you know, there's the fluidity, as you say, and, and wanting to, yeah, not go in straight lines.

I mean, in, in true story of, and cowboy hat and ingenue, it is a story, but it's completely deconstructed. And, and somebody did say to me, well, you know, you could write this as a novel. And, and, and I was saying, yeah, but I don't want to, you know, uh, the fun for me is that it zigzags and double, doubles back on itself. And if a reader is willing to enter that and enjoy it, then, then that's great. And if, if they want something much more straightforward, then there's loads of really good, straightforward, you know, linear writing as well that other people have done. So, yeah. Were there any particular kind of queer North Star poets that really lit the way for you or gave you a kind of sense of like, oh, I could do that?

You see, when I was growing up, David, it was nearly all male writers that I was coming across. So there, there wasn't that much. I mean, there was Sappho and thank heavens there was actually, because that, that, you know, she was sort of one in a million. And that, and that was amazing that there'd been this woman, you know, thousands of years ago kind of thing. Um, but there wasn't, there weren't so many women anyway, writing, uh, getting poetry published, let alone, uh, queer women. So I don't think it was, it was as obvious as that. Uh, and I think my route into writing came through all different, you know, through different, different pathways. Um, I, you know, I was influenced by Central and East European writers.

I was influenced by, uh, black American writers. Um, I wouldn't say there was sort of one simple, straightforward sort of gay icon writer that, that got me into it. Uh, and initially I started writing short stories, in fact, and then somehow I don't quite know how it happened, but poetry just came and claimed me. Well, I think it's nice, you know, it makes sense that you have a circuitous queer route into writing. It all neatly ties up in a bow, I think, by the sounds of it. So we've got your wonderful books on a little bookshelf in our queer museum. And we've been, it's been so amazing getting a chance to talk to you at length about your objects, Maria. There's some beautiful, thoughtful and soulful contributions to our queer museum.

And, um, where can people find any information about your writing and what's coming up next for you? Where can people find you? Oh, I've got a, I've got a blog, uh, you know, a WordPress site. So they can go on that. It's my name, Maria Yastrzewska, uh, dot WordPress dot com. And I'd highly recommend checking out Maria's books. So, which can be bought on many good bookselling sites. Take your pick. Thank you so much, Maria. I could talk to you guys for hours. Thanks. Do vidzenia. Pa, pa.

We played Maria's amazing interview to our resident queer museum curator E.J. Scott. And this is what he had to say. Ron, I've got to tell you, I just loved listening to Maria. There was so much in her interview. I actually really just wanted to tell her about how, when I was young, I was absolutely desperate to join the Boy Scouts. I'm like, I literally begged and begged and begged and begged. But of course it was the early eighties in Australia. And you're not allowed to join the Boy Scouts back then. If you were classified as a girl, you had to join the Brownies. And the Brownies in Australia were not throwing knives. I'm here to tell you that. That sounds a bit more advanced where Maria was.

But I just, you know what I mean? Like there's no way we would have been allowed to do that. Which is why I wanted to join the Scouts. They were doing loads of the fun stuff. And I actually remember being really incensed at this very young age that the gender roles were segregated and that there were roles for girls and activities for boys and, you know, and that they mustn't be tampered with. So it's a very early personal memory for me about this idea of gender roles and how I fit into that. So I think this is something nice about these intergenerational conversations is that they bring up your own memories, but they also talk about the way things were at different times. I think what I loved most of all about the interview, though, and what Maria has put in

the Imaginary Queer Museum is the idea of intersectionality in the 70s. For me, it was a fantastic reminder that by listening to our queer his and her and they stories intergenerationally, we're often reminded that we're kind of sold as new ideas, ideas that have been queer ideas already for multiple generations. Absolutely. The intersectionality itself as a term and an idea is an extraordinarily important and helpful one. It was actually coined by law professor at Columbia and UCLA, Kimberly Crenshaw, to describe how people's social identities overlap and to explain how not all inequality is created equally. Crenshaw introduced that idea. She gave it that term more than 30 years ago now. And she used it to explain how race inequality is often separated out from other forms of inequality,

class, for example. And of relevance, I guess, to our conversation with Maria was from gender and sex and sexuality. And to reiterate Maria's fantastic point, the lesbian feminist movement of the late 70s and early 80s in particular did. And in her words, they saw the big picture. She mentioned, for example, the lesbians and gays supporting the Mine Workers Alliance. That's right. It was a year-long strike from 84 to 85. That group's archive, by the way, is actually held at the People's History Museum in Manchester, where anyone can go and request to see it. It's got, like, the minutes of their meetings in it. It's got their flyers. It's got banners from the protest march. Just amazing. And I guess that kind of work carries through today when we think about the efforts that are made,

for example, to align the trans rights movements and the Black Lives Matter movements. It happened both in, we saw it, didn't we, both in London and in Brooklyn. The Museum of Transology, for example, collected over 70 placards from the march, and they're all now saved at the Bishopsgate Institute. And what I want to do is we want to photograph them so that we can add them on to the Queer Heritage South archive so that everyone can see the way that our collections continue over time. And hopefully, I think, really, Maria's interview just comes as a really important reminder that we need to work closely together over these boundaries, you know, that we can't separate out gender, sexuality, class, race, all these things as neatly as the media perhaps would want us to do.

And that's why I found, I mean, I found the interview really quite extraordinary. But her reminding us that this term intersectionality has actually been around for decades now is an important reminder, I guess, of why we do this archiving work and why we want to save our queer history at large. So, yeah, it was really quite incredible. Thanks, AJ. The My Queer Museum podcast is a Queer Heritage South, Queer and Brighton project created by Marlborough Productions and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. For more information about our work, visit www.queerheritagesouth.co.uk Original music and editing by Olive Mondegreen.