Let me start by saying, I’m old, or at least, whilst I don’t feel old, I am old compared to most undergraduate students. The first time I went to Pride was in 1989, in London. I remember the joy and the protest, the colours and the smells, the songs on the tube and the chants as we marched, and then the party in the park afterwards. It was magical; here were my people and finally I felt at home. There were ‘comments’ too though which today I guess we’d call hate speech, but then were just part of life, and that was why the march mattered. To be visible. To be loud. And to say to those who made the comments, and to society more broadly, “we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going shopping!”.

Since my first Pride I’ve watched as marches have become more numerous, encompassing more towns and cities, with people feeling more and more able to be visible in their local communities not just in the biggest cities. And I love it. I love the party and the celebration it has become as we have gained more rights. And I think that we know we’re so much more accepted when our heterosexual friends want to come too. But it’s also important that we never lose sight of the political point of Pride; it isn’t just about the party, it’s still about standing up for us, and not just us in the UK, but all over the world.

And I think I’ve never lost that desire to stand up and be counted, so when I joined the University of Glasgow, I was determined to be open about being a lesbian. As an undergraduate (at Sussex University), I hadn’t known for sure if any of my lecturers were LGBT+ (we whispered about it, of course!) and whilst that was okay, I really wanted to see myself in others, to know if what I saw was something I could be. As a member of staff here, I was determined that I would be out so that younger LGBT+ people could see that it was possible to do what I’d done, and that being LGBT+ didn’t hold me back. To that end I come out, all the time. In teaching, in meetings, in general conversation… I usually do this by mentioning my wife because for those who hear it, it matters, and for those who miss it, it usually doesn’t. And my experience has been consistently positive. People thank me, or approach me to chat, or simply grin and nod as they walk past.

So, after all these years, and as I head more and more deeply into being an old lesbian, I am still here, I am still queer, and I am still not going shopping, and Glasgow is great place to be all of those things.

Written by Dr Amanda Sykes

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