Tag Archives: black queer women

Wanda Sykes Discusses Coming Out

Watch as out comedian Wanda Sykes discusses how she never meant to come out at a Prop 8 rally in 2008.

Talking on The Meredith Show, she says she was called on stage by organisers as she had been vocal about her support for the anti Prop 8 campaign, but she didn’t intend to come out.

However the timing was just right. She married her wife Alex Sykes in 2008 just before Proposition 8, the law that banned same-sex marriage in California, was passed.

Although afterward her speech, she says people treated her like a Unicorn because, at the time, there was very little visible representative of the African American people in LGBT community.

“It just came out. I had just gotten married. So instead of speaking as a supporter, I was speaking as one of the victims. It just happened. I didn’t even think about it… We continued with the rally and by the time I got to the hotel, I’m looking at the CNN scroll and it says, ‘Comedienne Wanda Sykes: I’m proud to be black and gay’ and whatever, I was like, ‘Oh lord. What the hell just happened?’ It was crazy.

It was funny though, because especially being an African-American celebrity who’s out, it was like they started treating me like a unicorn. We’ve never seen one of you before! It’s like me and RuPaul. I guess that’s it.”

Wanda Sykes

The Black Lesbian Handbook

Channel 4’s 4oD, is currently showcasing a new series – The Black Lesbian Handbook, which is has been pitched as ‘a lively guide to the underground Black Lesbian scene in Britain’.

The show is focusing on different aspects the black lesbian community – from studs, to the underground black LGBT scene, tokens (the minority white women who hang about on the scene), fems, and Stems (a lesbian who plays both masculine and feminine roles).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AzKNHOX6Kg

All the women featured speak openly and honestly about the social pressures they face not only as queer women, but as black queer women.

Black LGBT community faces a number of problems in society and within the LGBT scene. These included the overwhelmingly white nature of the ‘mainstream’ LGBT scene, racism both inside and outside the scene, and the difficulties of coming out to families, who generally perceived homosexuality as a ‘white’ issue.

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To watch the show click here