What’s occurring on the Virgin Radio Pridecast this week?!

Virgin Radio

13 May 2022, 11:23

This week on the Virgin Radio Pridecast, Alex Milsom and Shivani Dave are exploring the many different identities which are found inside the LGBTQ+ community. They’ll hear from comedian Stephen K. Amos on how these different identities give us different perspectives and experiences, as well as how there is still discrimination which occurs from within the community. 

They’ll also hear from musician Skin from Skunk Anansie about racism within the community and the changes that she thinks are needed if we want to reach equality:

"One thing that I’ve learnt is that it is about accepting everyone as being different to yourself… I think there’s two ways that you can step to people. You can step to people in a positive way or a negative way, and I think we’ve just got to be much more open and step to people in a positive way and see differences as not bad, and not evil…"

Alex and Shivani will also be finding out more about the cultural appropriation which occurs both inside the community and outside of it, hearing from Tik Tok inclusivity educator Benjy Kusi on how our own queer culture can be appropriated, and how this reflects the wider issue of cultural appropriation in society. 

They’ll also hear from Britain's first out Muslim drag queen, Asifa Lahore, on the ways in which our own community can appropriate the culture of others: 

"If I were to pinpoint drag culture as part of our community - words like ‘busted’, like ‘slay’, like 'shantay' - people would say 'We should be celebrating them, it’s part of our community, it’s part of our culture…' But the actual culture is taken from ballroom culture, and American Black culture…’

Finally, Alex and Shivani will be hearing from journalist and student Mishti Ali on the positives of intersectional identities within the community:

"I think it’s lovely seeing how intersectional people’s identities are, and I think often, unfortunately, people will conflate being an immigrant and being part of an immigrant culture with being inherently homophobic, for example, and these people are completely proving that to be untrue - both parts of their identity are parts that they take pride in and they make them whole…"

You can listen to the latest episode from 5pm Friday 13th May here. 

The Virgin Radio Pridecast is a weekly look back through the archives of Virgin Radio Pride, our fabulous three-month pop-up radio station which ran last summer. Each week, Alex Milsom and Shivani Dave re-live some of the best moments, as well as attempting to continue the great conversations that Virgin Radio Pride started. There are entertaining guests, jaw-dropping stories, and of course loads of the laugh out loud moments and insightful, important discussions which made Virgin Radio Pride so special…