STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE
Lady Phyll Puts the Global in WorldPride
UK Black Pride founder takes on colonialism in fi ght for LGBTQ rights
BY MATT TRACY
As WorldPride bloomed
in New York City, UK
Black Pride co-founder
Phyllis Akua Opoku-
Gyimah, better known as Lady
Phyll — an out lesbian grand marshal
in the June 30 march — cast
a bright light on international injustices
and invoking historical
fi gures outside her home country
to illustrate the global struggle for
racial equality in the LGBTQ community.
“In the words of Audre Lorde,
‘There is no such thing as a singleissue
struggle because we do not
live single-issue lives,’“ said Phyll
of the late poet, writer, and activist
from New York City who, in a
speech at the 1979 National March
on Washington for Lesbian and
Gay Rights, said, “We cannot separate
our oppressions, nor yet are
they the same.”
Phyll has long played a role in
pushing for civil rights in the UK,
where she famously rejected an
honorary Member of the Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire
— or MBE — rank to make a bold
statement about her country’s role
in colonizing Africa and imposing
laws there that continue to hold
back LGBTQ rights to this day.
Perhaps her most impactful work
as a queer activist came in 2005
when she was leading an organization
known as Black Lesbians in
the UK. That group embarked on
a bus trip to Southend-on-Sea, a
coastal town east of London, where
they sought to briefl y escape the
racism, sexism, and homophobia
they endured in their day-to-day
lives. That trip led to the creation of
UK Black Pride the following year,
which planted the seed for others to
launch Black Pride events around
the world in following years.
“We haven’t looked back since
then,” Phyll told Gay City News in
an email interview just days before
WorldPride and Stonewall 50.
“It’s really a political movement because
our lives are political.”
At its core, Phyll said, UK Black
Pride represents a safe space
Lady Phyll, a UK-based LGBTQ activist on the global stage, was one of the grand marshals in the LGBTQ
WorldPride March.
where folks can celebrate diverse
sexualities, gender identities and
expressions, cultures, and backgrounds
while also honoring black
and LGBTQ culture through education,
arts, cultural events, and
advocacy.
“Importantly, UK Black Pride
promotes unity and cooperation
among LGBTQ people of diasporic
communities in the UK, as well as
their friends and families,” Phyll
said.
Even as Black Pride celebrations
spread to different parts of
the world, Lady Phyll is mindful of
the deep history of the intersection
of race and LGBTQ justice — and
how that history predates existing
Black Pride events.
“It’s important that we’re always
very clear that there were Black
Prides before UK Black Pride,” she
explained. “They may not have
been called Black Pride, but they
did the life-giving work of creating
spaces and moments for our communities
to feel safe, welcome, and
wanted. The creation of UK Black
Pride was in direct response to a
lack of visibility and real meaningful
inclusion in mainstream Pride
organizations, which are often
built using the same structures
and hierarchies from which we’re
LADY PHYLL/ TWITTER
trying to escape.”
She continued, “In the Black communities,
grassroots interventions
have always had such far-reaching
impact. I think UK Black Pride continues
on in the spirit of all those
who laid the foundations for us to
build something as momentous as
UK Black Pride. And to be frank,
unless we dismantle patriarchy,
we’re always going to have a need
for Black Pride, for Trans Pride, for
Disabled Pride, you name it.”
Phyll is continuing her work in
the broader, global campaign for
justice in the LGBTQ community
through her new position as the
executive director of the Kaleidoscope
Trust , which she starts in
August. The organization fi ghts
for LGBTQ rights in nations where
those rights are nonexistent or
folks continue to face discrimination
for their sexual orientation or
gender identity.
Some nations formerly occupied
by the British have gradually
started to roll back the centuriesold
laws against LGBTQ rights, but
those advancements represent only
a fraction of the long list of nations
still enforcing penalties today. And
even in places where anti-LGBTQ
laws have been scrapped, it will
take time and effort to unravel the
homophobic and transphobic attitudes
that built up during those
eras. Lady Phyll wants to continue
chipping away at the long-term effects
of colonization through her
new role.
“Kaleidoscope Trust empowers
the on-the-ground activists and
gives them the money and resources
they tell Kaleidoscope they need
to help shift the dynamic around a
specifi c hurdle,” she said. “We then
go move through the corridors of
power, among funding bodies and
in spaces Black and Brown activists
are not often granted access to
in order to secure those resources
and get them to the people who
need them,” she explained.
Lady Phyll’s engagement on LGBTQ
rights on an international
level gives her a special perspective
of the meaning of WorldPride. She
viewed the celebration in New York
as a “momentous recognition” that
the fi ght for queer rights is a global
one that transcends borders and
spans across oceans worldwide.
And although her work is centered
on addressing the lingering injustices
facing the intersectional queer
community, she believes that it is
equally important to appreciate living
as out LGBTQ people.
In other words, Lady Phyll
planned to have fun and make connections
in New York at WorldPride.
She sought to meet as many people
as she could, engage in conversations,
connect with queer black sisters
and brothers, and learn more
about what’s happening with the
local LGBTQ community here.
“So much of our lives as queer,
transgender, and intersex people of
color is in opposition to others or in
defense of our humanity,” she said.
“It feels important to recognize that
our lives are also about those celebratory
moments, when we come
together to embrace each other, to
say, ‘I see you,’ and to share in that
collective joy together. We will get
where we need to go if we do this
together, if we fi ght for each other,
and if we remember the global community
of LGBTQ people who are
working hard for their freedoms.
There is so much to celebrated.”
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