Description:A number of groups and organisations provide health information aimed at different communities. Here we see a publication by the organisation Healthy Gay Life aimed at African Carribbean gay and bisexual men.
Mayisha and Saathi are both groups that were formed to provide social activities and support for black and Asian gays. The oral history extract below discusses the issue of racism in the gay and lesbian community:
“I have seen racism in the gay community, quite a lot of racism as you will see homophobia in some of the black communities and I think there’s the thing about if you’re scrabbling around for a place in the pile, you want to put somebody else below you with some people so you can say, well I may be black but at least I’m not gay or you could say, well I may be gay but at least I’m not black, so there is that kind of dynamic as there is as well between some gay men and women, saying you know, I might be gay but at least I’m not a woman. Lesbians and gay men are not always the best of friends. I think there’s a fundamental problem when people look at differences and they’re frightened of them, they want to emphasise the difference, whereas…they want to emphasise the difference in a negative way whereas what I say is…let’s embrace the difference in a positive way…we are all different, we’re all equal but we’re all different and we all bring something different, whether we’re black, Asian, gay, straight, lesbian, bi-sexual…whatever we might be we’re all individuals and let’s value and appreciate our differences”. [MS2255/2/102]
This extract comes from a longer interview undertaken as part of the Millennibrum Project in 2000. Transcripts and listening copies of the full interviews are available in Local Studies and History on floor six of Birmingham Central Library.