Off the top of your head podcast

Pride season and allyship with Chloe Davies

• MHFA England

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MHFA England Ambassador, Chloe Davies joins Simon Blake to talk about Pride, why it is still important and what allyship and advocacy mean to her. 

Voice over:

On this edition of MHFA, england's Off the Top of your Head podcast.

Chloe Davies:

I'm an ally, but what did you do? How did you help? And I would probably differ towards advocation Like how have you advocated for others, Because there's an action behind it.

Voice over:

Understanding mental health in the workplace is changing. Join MHFA England's Chief Executive, simon Blake, and his guests as they shine a light on creating healthier workplaces and their impact in our wider communities. This is the Off the Top of your Head podcast.

Simon Blake:

Hello and welcome to this edition of Off the Top of your Head podcast, a podcast all about mental health and well-being in the workplace and beyond. I'm Simon Blake and I'm the Chief Executive of the social enterprise Mental Health First Aid England. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this episode Today. I'm joined by Chloe Davis. Chloe holds a number of roles, including being Ambassador for Mental Health First Aid England, but Chloe also volunteers with UK Black Pride and the London Queer Fashion Show. We talk about pride, about why pride is important and all about allyship. We're here today in the middle of Pride Month and it's great to have you here to talk to me about Pride, what it means, about allyship. But first can you just tell us a little bit about you, who you are, what you do?

Chloe Davies:

Of course, my name is Chloe Davies. I am the founder of it Takes, a Village Collective, which is a global hub for black women in Adelaide. I am an ambassador for Mental Health First Aid England, but I also volunteer in the space. So I volunteer for UK Black Pride and the London Queer Fashion Show and I'm a trustee for London LGBTQ Plus Community Centre, charity and apart from asking you when you're going to stay?

Simon Blake:

how did you get involved? What was your entry into working in and with LGBTQIA plus communities?

Chloe Davies:

Really interesting question, I think, especially as someone who identifies bisexual and queer. Often we feel like we don't belong in community um, and so that's really where I sought out my belonging or I felt like I was represented. I started volunteering well, maybe over a decade ago um, I volunteered at Pride in London. Um, I volunteered at UK Black Pride and London Queer Fashion Show, but it gave me the ability um, especially being within UK Black Pride and London Queer Fashion Show. But it gave me the ability especially being within UK Black Pride and LQFS a home and a place where I was really amongst community members, amongst chosen family, but I also got to connect with so many other communities at the same time, so it felt like I needed it, and then I had the ability to give back what I got and LQFS.

Simon Blake:

For those of you who may have been trying to catch up London Queer Fashion Show Pride Month some people say it's not important anymore. Other people say it's really important. Some people say it's got too corporate. Other people want it to be more of a protest. Tell us a bit about what Pride means to you. Why is it important?

Chloe Davies:

Well, I say Pride season, not Pride month, especially here in the UK, because we go from the beginning of May until, I would say, the middle of September.

Chloe Davies:

I think we have 172 Prides around the United Kingdom now, which is incredible, and every community within our collective community has a voice and has a need. So UK Black Pride, bi Pride, trans Pride, asexual Awareness Day we really want to be able to see ourselves in abundance and I think that's where the importance comes for me having those moments to celebrate who you are and why, to love with each other, but to also share in what are some of the challenges and the struggles that might be going on within community and to invite other people in that aren't just us. I think that there's never been even more need for pride, even more need for this time that the world is looking to really hear our stories and to share our stories. But I think, to hear and share our stories with each other, first and foremost, and call in the world, when sometimes the world is calling us out for things that they don't understand.

Simon Blake:

So interesting that you say pride has never been more important. There'd be some people who say, what's it all about? You've got equality, you've got what you need, and so tell us a bit more about why never more important.

Chloe Davies:

My response would be be but from whose lens? From whose lens are we all equal and are we all free? Um, I don't have a human rights background, but there are still over 60 countries where it is illegal to be lgbtqia. Plus there are still places here in the uk. Our hate, our hate crime is up. You know it's discrimination is every single day.

Chloe Davies:

Equality doesn't always mean freedom and freedom doesn't always mean equality. And I think oftentimes we might just do it through what we see and not necessarily what we know. And I think you know when we think about the most marginalized parts of our community trans, non-binary folk, genderqueer folk, and how society is weaponized experiences when we look at it from a black and brown perspective, we look at through a refugee lens. That's not equality. So I would challenge anybody that said, oh, you've had it all because we haven't, and I think that's why everybody's still fighting in their own way, whether they're an activist, an advocate, you know. However, they choose to protest.

Chloe Davies:

If you don't see yourself in abundance, then yeah, how do you know? And we're not quite there yet. But also, we're never finished. So I could do it from my own lens as a black woman. Black women are not given the equity that they deserve. We see that played out on a global stage. I'm also bisexual. I also am someone who has my own mental health challenges, so, um, in any of those perspectives, I have ADHD, I mean. The list is long, but you see my point. There are so many different communities where we don't have the equity, the conversation, the support and the structures and the tools that we might need every single day. That's all.

Simon Blake:

Lgbtq plus people are asking for and, of course, in the context of mental health, we also have wide disparities in mental health outcomes. So, for anybody who says that equity is there, for all of those reasons you describe, and from a mental health first aid england perspective, yeah, those disparities in mental health outcomes as a result of prejudice, you know, are really, really clear, I guess, as you talk about stories, calling people in, wanting people to hear, to listen. The obvious question then is what does allyship look like? And it seems to me that there are two things.

Simon Blake:

We often talk about allyship from outside the community, somebody who isn't part of you know, lgbtqa plus community communities. Um, we, we talk a lot about allyship there, but I'd be keen, you know what does a good ally look like? But also, there's a more nuanced question isn't there about what does allyship look like within the community? I'm a white gay man. I arguably have, uh, benefited from all of the progress that's been made over the last 20 or so years more than many, more than most. So what? Yeah, two questions allyship if you're not part of the community, but also, then, what do we need to think about when it comes to allyship from within communities?

Chloe Davies:

okay, I think, um, personally, I struggle with the word ally and allyship. Um, I understand the premise, but sometimes it's become weaponized and quite lazy and performative. Um, and the thing that I would always say is but what are you doing? When someone says, oh yeah, but I'm an ally, I'm like but what did you do? How did you help? And I would probably differ towards advocation Like how have you advocated for others? Because there's an action behind it.

Chloe Davies:

So, to those who aren't from the community or communities, this isn't something that's just specific to LGBTQIA plus folk. It's really about listening to hear, and listening to understand, rather than listening to respond. Um, because you don't know what you don't know. And I think that's the first thing that allyship advocacy can do, which is to bring people into a conversation that they might never have been a part of. What did you learn? And then, how did you share that? And that's an active practice that you can do every day. You, you do that when you meet a random stranger or you know someone smiles at you on the train, you start talking about your kids or whatever. It's the same practice. So I would say it's not a big deal, it's something you can do every day, and I would encourage people to do that.

Chloe Davies:

Allyship within our own community. I mean, that's a bigger nuance. I'm going to give a. I think I could describe it in the example of a personal one between us, which is, you know, know, in the relationship that you and I had, simon, you knew about my own personal story when it came to mental health, my own personal story when it came to my identity, and so that's actually how my relationship with mental health first aid England started. It was a viewpoint that didn't exist within this community that you invited me in to share my story, in the hopes that me sharing my story might help other people and in the work that we've been able to do here, especially talking about black mental health and black LGBTQ plus mental health for the last three years has been phenomenal. It's made a change.

Chloe Davies:

For me, that's allyship. When you learn something that you didn't know and you can use the passing privilege that you have that might be more than somebody else, how can you actively make a change? So I think, as LGBTQIA plus folk, some of us have had more privileges than others. Some of us have had more privileges than others. Some of us have had more access than others. What do you do with that? And we have to be the example that everybody else takes from. So if we aren't working together in collaboration, if we aren't united, if we don't show advocacy and allyship to each other, that sets the wrong tone for everybody else In many different communities. They say nothing about us without us. You know, within our Black QTPOC community we say by us and for us.

Chloe Davies:

It's about coming together as a. I always say Avengers Assemble like come together as one united team and bring each other in. You know, how is the bi community working with the lesbian, the gay community? How are we all coming out in solidarity for our trans, non-binary siblings? How are we creating a conversation for intersex folk? Because across all of those identities we then put the layer of race. We then put the layer of race, we then put the layer of gender, but, more importantly, we have babies and children and we have family. So how do we create a stability for generations of our own community for time to come if we don't work together now, because history will continue to repeat itself? Um, so very long-winded, like very long-winded answer, but, um, that's the nuance. Right, it's complicated, but we have to find a way to come together, talk to each other, listen to each other and also, you know, say to each other how can we help what? What can I do to support you and then actually go and do it and that bit's really so.

Simon Blake:

Allyship is a being ally is about doing, and they don't have to be big things, and MHFA England obviously has a really big focus around workplace mental health and the my whole self campaign. And the thing which always strikes me when we talk to people is somebody listened, somebody saw me, somebody heard, somebody listened to me, somebody asked the question. I didn't feel nervous using my pronouns or talking about my same-sex partner and those, so sometimes people. It's the little things that if we all do, the little things that add up. You talked about families, next generations. We've got a general election coming up and, without being party political, whoever is in, what would your message be? If you were on Hyde Park Corner and you were saying Hyde Park Corner and you were saying you know, this is what I hope for for LGBTQA plus people in the next parliament, what would it be?

Chloe Davies:

Okay, my caveat is it's this is a personal thing, because I would never stand on Hyde Park Corner, but integrity is expensive and once lost, you can't get it back.

Chloe Davies:

Um, I think it's fair to say for a lot of communities, in particular, the lgbt community. Um, there is so much that needs to be done, and so I would hope that the next party, whomever they may, are really intentional about how they support, protect and put in place effective and honest measures that give LGBTQIA people the rights that they deserve, the rights that they need. We are human beings just like anybody else, and that respect and value that we are intentional and integral about that. That the government sticks to its word, but also that they do more. That they do more because we are human beings and we deserve the right to live as human beings. And, yeah, I grew up that my word meant something, um, and that you could stand by that. So, to whomever the politicians would be that you stick by your word and you do right for all people and not just the ones that might give you something. I think that's my most politically responsible way of saying yeah, integrity is expensive.

Simon Blake:

Chloe. I think that gives us a really nice short podcast that people can listen to on their walk, on their run, on their. Is there anything else you would like to say to mark Pride Month? Mhf England podcast.

Chloe Davies:

Two things Happy Pride Month, absolutely. And also, may your mental health is your wealth. So I would encourage everybody please take care of it, please protect it. If you are struggling, know that you're not alone and that you have resources available to you. That's what has been built here.

Simon Blake:

So, yeah, please come and continue to be a part of this community that was Chloe Davis, and I was really struck, yet again, by the reminder that allyship is about the things that we do and the actions that we take. So thank you, chloe Davis, for joining me, thank you to the listeners for listening and until next time.

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