Somewhere Else to Go

I am in the middle of a book tour for No is Not a Lonely Utterance. I am so grateful to everyone who has come along thus far.

In my introduction to the book, I acknowledge that I wrote it in an increasingly hostile environment. More and more messages are being sent out that say to some people: you do not belong here, you have taken what is ours.

I put it this way,

I have been writing whilst those of us who use the word queer to describe ourselves or our projects are called groomers and paedophiles. I have been writing whilst many people in government and the media have been campaigning to dismantle the rights of trans people, with report after report, article after article, representing trans people as dangerous and deluded. I have been writing whilst politicians describe the reform of the welfare system to make it harder to access benefits as “a moral mission,” labelling those who need benefits, including disabled people, the poor and the unemployed, fraudsters. I have been writing whilst Israel has been conducting a genocide in Gaza and when those of us who have protested that genocide, and who are fighting for a free Palestine, are labelled extremists.

I highlighted words from groomers to extremists because of how they stick, to whom they stick. And if I wrote the book in an increasingly hostile environment, we are now meeting in an increasingly hostile environment. That is why it is all the more precious to meet, a meeting can be a breathing space, helping us to hold on, to go on, in the face of so much violence.

In a previous note, I mentioned my gratitude to Round Table Books for the warmth of the opening event, spilling out as we did into a busy arcade in Brixton. I also thanked my complaint collective for sharing many profound reflections on the painstaking labour of complaint at The Feminist Library. In the events we have had since – hosted by Foyles, Queer Emporium, Small City Bookshop and Heffers - I have been in conversation with feminist of colour scholar-activists, Heidi Safia Mirza, Durre Shahwar, Noreen Masud, and Mónica G. Moreno Figueroa. What a privilege to be in conversation with you all! I was so lucky to be asked such thoughtful questions, crafted ...