Thanks a lot.
There's a part of my bio that sounds really depressing.
I remember I was at one point I was like, God he sounds a bit depressing and gloomy.
So hopefully that's not the case, but we'll find out.
So normally you want to stand up and tell people who you are.
So I've been you've done that bit.
Thank you that my Twitter is there if anyone's online and
wants to have a look and tweet me and I'll retweet you and things like that.
And I think the first thing I need to start by saying is.
I am not representative of the LGBT plus community because I don't think one
person can do four letters and a plus at the end.
So what I've done is asked a few friends of mine and
people I know to tell me what it means to them to be either L or B or T.
And I am going to weave that in as we go along so
there is a couple of other people who've contributed this.
It's not just me because I think it's quite a big responsibility for
one person to say what does it mean to be LGBT plus today.
There were other titles I was playing with what does pride mean today,
what does life mean today?
But tend to that one [LAUGH].
I think this is really important because I think a lot of people, and
my background is marketing in coms, put LGBT in one place.
So have LGBT History Month much like we have Black History Month.
And that's one thing like that's over there.
So I'm hoping that I can kind of unpick that a little bit and
tell you what it means through three things.
I wouldn't be a communicator if there wasn't three things that have some
kind of alliteration.
I will tell you three things today.
And I'll round it up as we get to the end.
But they all start with P, so hopefully we can remember what they are.
So what does it means to be LGBT plus today, the first P, presence.
So I think being LGBT plus today through things like having the rainbow flag,
there was one I just outside this one on the building.
I think presence is a huge, huge, huge thing for
what it means to be LGBT plus today.
I think most people if they are from within that community wonder where
are people like me and how do I find people who get what I'm going through?
And I think that's something I had.
Growing up, I still have it today.
I had a Twitter debate with someone last weekend, and she said to me, I said,
not everyone walks around with a mirror in front of them.
And I went well actually, if you're in the closet and
you spent a long time growing up, you sometimes do that.
Because you're wondering what do people think about me?
And I'm safe in this environment and do people accept me for who I am.
And I think what's so interesting for
me was when only when I stands up I'm very aware that I am an Asian man.
But I sound like this and I dress like this and I talk the way I do and
then I go to India people look at me and think you're an Indian man.
But actually I'm not I've been British.
Ima so I think presence is really important for what it means to be LGBT
plus today because you just become very aware you're hypersensitive.
I think to to how you walk into rooms and that's definitely my felt experience.
I've been to a few training, sessions were have among the LGBT group who were said,
it's exactly the same thing, and I see individual experience.
And this was from Polly who's the director of strategic partnership at
pride in London, she's a lesbian woman, she came out kind of later in life.
She said there's still an issue with visibility.
When we talk to lesbians who were out years ago, in particular on 1967.
They talked about feeling invisible.
Now, it's a lot better than it used to be, but it's a challenge.
A lot of events are focused on gay men and women are an afterthought.
I think that's quite fair.
We were at an event last week, and it was an LGBT event and
the people who were asking questions were predominantly men.
Even though women were putting their hands up.
And it was one of those things where actually it took someone in the audience
to go, why don't you ask a woman the question?
And so even though, and I'm gonna come back to this later, but even though LGBT.
Can often be inferred to be very diverse and it's not always the most inclusive
place and I think that's something we have to be really mindful of when you
try to bucket people into one room, but then actually realize there's so
much difference and so much diversity within that group.
This is a point to make Polly's point,
which is does it matter that the nightlife for queer women in London is kinda dead.
And this was about a year ago on vice.
There's only two lesbian bars in London which I think is absolutely shocking.
There's a bigger fabric, so that's the question what does it mean to be LGBT plus
today, it means finding a space and more and more those spaces are going online.
All the spaces just don't exist.
And I think there's a big danger of those spaces just existing online.
For me, I think I see the hate say I see the younger generation but
I see younger people.
I was just crossing the road this morning and there were two girls in school
uniform one was like obviously sending a WhatsApp voice message and
the other one was on the phone.
I asked amazing but also quite worrying.
Because where are you talking to people face to face?
Where are you building up empathy and compassion and back to that point of.
If I'm thinking, growing up for me, I walked into every room and thought, God,
how am I being seen?
If you're going online, I think God,
how am I being seen online that can be quite a scary thing for people.
And I think what it means to be LGBT plus today is actually to try and eke out.
These sorts of spaces because that is the best way to become visible.
Yes, you can do it online but I do not think that is that is the only point and
I could spend a whole, that is a whole different chapter on the online.
You should you live your life that way and I would love to do that separate point.
Probably not one for LGBT history month but I think.
We have to look at what are the spaces that LGBT people have because as much
as society is becoming more inclusive,
there is something about this community or the other is really nice.
And tight knit and having the right places like this are really important.
And I wrote this 2015.
Wow, through two and a half years ago, can a Muslim be gay?
I said yes, exhibit A.
>> [LAUGH] >> Why is it I write this?
So, when I was University, I went and did a year abroad.
And I went and worked for the Financial Times Scotland.
And then I spoke German, so
again being a British Indian man in Germany was quite fun.
Try to change people's perceptions, but I was there and recording podcasts.
I thought I really want to be a writer, that's exactly what I want to do And
then I realized 2010 financial crisis don't do that.
And also, part of my cultural upbringing is you work for money,
you become a doctor or a lawyer, a dentist So, writer doesn't fit any of those three.
But I thought maybe I'll get him working PR and working column.
And I did that and I still do that, where I work with companies and
big businesses on how they position themselves which is usually fascinating.
But I think in about 2012, I had an itch and that itch came from not seeing
Asians and Indians and Muslims in particular in the media And
the only way I saw them were with the words Islamophobic terrorist.
I thought that's not cool, I should change that.
So I wrote to the Huffington Post and said, can I write about Channel Four?
They put the call to prayer on Channel Four three in the morning.
And it's like wow, the only place I've seen the call to prayer is on this Tiny
satellite TV channel.
So this is cool She writes about it.
And Huffington Post said, yeah, cool.
Write your column and I was writing things and that built up a profile.
And the one thing I wasn't writing about was the word at the end there.
I wasn't writing about being gay because I wasn't really out.
I was with some of the time and he said You should probably
write about the gay thing cuz people will be really interested in that.
And I said I should probably tell my mum first.
>> [LAUGH] >> So we had that debate and
then that relationship ended but I thought.
>> [LAUGH] I thought well, I should write something about this because back to
that Point of Presence, I felt like I didn't have a presence in the media.
And that was quite scary because in that year,
the only two stories are sore about being Gay and Muslim.
If you type those words in were a person who had been outed to their family and
then had jumped off and suddenly killed themselves and I thought.
Wow, how does that happen and happening?
Like a salubrious suburb of Northwest London?
I thought as 2014-15 like come on that doesn't that shouldn't happen and
that's why I draw the parallels to the 1980s.
Because I think similar things are happening and
things like that happen in other countries, but this is Britain.
Like, how can that be happening?
And then the other one was?
Shereen Diwani.
I don't know if anyone remembers the case of Shereen Diwani,
I think in South Africa where there were accusations that
he had killed his wife because he was in the closet.
And I remember just sat there going.
How is this the only thing that I'm hearing?
I've got to change that, so I know all right,
this kind of Muslim be gay because only presence we need a presence.
We need to be out there needs to be visible.
And this is what this is showing my age.
This is what I used to ask Jeeves when I grew up.
>> [LAUGH] >> All jeeves for
people who don't know was a search engine and
you would ask questions through Jeeves, this technology buffer.
So I did that and why that then was important was.
I think got lots of phone calls from other people who said, God,
I never knew that was possible and I have been waiting for something like this.
And there was someone who had contacted me and
said he was in his 50s silver is just in his 50s.
He's in his 50s and I've been in the closet for all my life.
I've got two kids, I've just got divorced.
This is I know why I've got divorced.
And I thought,
wow, like these are conversations that are not happening because it's so
difficult to go back into Asian community and have that conversation.
Because we've not had a Tom Daley moment I call it we come on lady, but
we've not had that moment within within the Muslim community.
So for me being LGBT today is about being present.
Not just about being present in a room and looking around you but being present so
that other people can see and acting as a bit of a role model to others.
To say we are here, there are gay Muslims out there,
not just because the media find that interesting.
And I find it interesting from a personal point of view but
also because you build a community.
Now, part of the board of Imam, which is a group of LGBT Muslims and it's amazing.
Whiat they can do like every year at Prides like they are the show-stopping
parade group because they remember turning cold.
I did, we turn a corner was like, yeah,
we're turning Corners platform quite literally with the Packard and.
A woman said, God, I can not believe you exist.
>> [LAUGH] >> Cool!
Carry on and she meant it in a way of like, God, you just have to be present.
And you have got to think even though there are all the haters haters are going
to hate like you have got to be present.
And that is what for me being LGBT.
Classes about that's why things like LGBT history month also important because yes,
it's once a year and the rainbow flags out there but
it's present, people are talking about it.
If they're not talking about it, then there's no progress.
So that's the first p presence, second p is protest.
So what does it mean to be LGBT plus today, it means a form of protest now
Bear with me.This was from Jackie Gavin, who is a transactivist.
And she said being able to be myself in a world where there is much more of
an acceptance than I ever thought there would be.
That to me comes from the world of protest.
Because people before have protested for someone like Jackie to be out and
be open and be public about it.
And a lot of people think of protests like this.
They think protest is of cardboard box and writing on it and that is the protest.
That is absolutely a form of protest and, I think we would all be killing ourselves
if we didn't think that was but for me, I think protest today is taking a new form.
And if you think about my personal journey of why we're now for
a corporate company versus writing in the financial situation, I think.
protest starts to look like this.
So this is pride a couple of years ago I think and it's Barclays they sponsor
pride, and they had a bus and it's like freedom to make a statement.
And lots of people look at this and
say, well actually this is very corporate and being corporate and
being LGBT to different things because the corporate holds.
The people down in the community, but actually the LGBC communities within
some of these big corporate companies are life-changing entities.
Because a lot of people after university go back into the closet.
Because you step out of this lovely liberal world where everyday you're
testing ideas, and you think about yourself,
to then stepping into an environment.
Full of profit margins and trying to make a living that doesn't have that space and
for me, this is what being LGBT plus today means it means being out at work.
I think that's huge progress for a lot of people not least things like a bank and
some of what you might expect to be the world's most,
like small-minded places are actually not.
The army the Navy,
this is the 10th year marching in pride Like this is amazing progress.
Third P, I've just given you a spoiler, but
also this is a new form of protest to me.
And I think people are on the fence about whether it is but
I personally do believe it is because I've been through the process.
I think being part of the board of Pride.
I see the amount of effort that goes in of people within their workplace is
having those difficult conversations to say well, why should we support this.
Like, why is it important and bosses who might be in their 40s or
50s who've never had to interact with an LGBT person saying?
God, I didn't know and I think that that's really, really important.
And, I am part of something called pride and pride in advertising marketing we did.
This was really insightful.
We did a challenge last year, where we challenged brands and
their agencies to recreate ads that LGBT+ audiences.
When you look at advertising, I remember this from about 2014
you have to be able to see it to be it, so I remember looking around an H and
M advert and I thought God I don't see anyone like me here, too.
Well that doesn't make sense, and I think the same exists for the LGBT community.
And that's why protest is so important because we have to be processing and
continually challenging stereotypes and continually challenging the status quo.
So we challenge brands and we said look, give brands a makeover, take an advert,
change it, there's all sorts of legal implications of doing something that.
And there's all sorts of creative challenges but we did it,
we had a brand makeover.
We had brand owners from Mars and Snickers come in and
show us like what it might be like if you had Rupaul In a Snickers adverb,
people more than go all a bit stereotypical but it kind of works because
it starts the conversation and that's a form of protest in my mind.
That's the form of process of people sitting around a table and going hang
on a minute, where am I, because I need to be present in this output because
this output means so much to other people young people look at adverts.
We all look at adverts, we all look at communications and wonder,
this is shaping who we are.
No more is still important Dante at Tom Daley's back no more, so
important then just last week,
there's a current tension I see within the media about how things are working out.
So, Sensor Parks Polls they are advertising in the Daily Mail because
of an article, this article by Richard Littlejohn, he said please
don't pretend two dads is the new normal and as a result this happened.
This for me is really fascinating, because, first of all,
it makes me think about bear with me, but it makes me think about Weimar and
a third reich in Germany, because this is actually about the freedom of the press.
And what this article is saying is,
is the press really free to critique from the right wing?
Because what they did was critique, right they critiqued how it came out,
and Richard Littlejohn has a history of doing but to an extent where
you would label it homophobia, but is that allowed within the press?
And I think for me when you look at the banner of protests,
there's a lot of nuance here, but we have to dissect this, I think and say,
well, what does this actually mean?
Should the Daily Mail be known for that?
Should an advertiser take their money away from a publication on
accounts of that publications right to write what they want and critique.
And what I'm learning I think being an LGBT plus person working in the media,
comes from an experience that a campaign that I work on last year,
which was HSBC had 10 gender neutral titles.
And they had said, if you are transitioning,
it doesn't matter whether you are MX, you can change your title,
HSBC, because we know we want to be there and this for me was phenomenal.
If you ever go on to work in PR, what you do is you find a nugget of a story and
you tell that story, the best you can and we found Stuart Burette,
he was an activist, he was within HSBC, he had transitioned,
and he said, look why is it such a difficult process.
It shouldn't be so hard and gave that feedback to the business,
they then changed their policy, we then said,
let's tell that story because people should know about that.
So Mail Online actually ran the story in it was quite a positive
piece about the gender neutral options,
obviously the comment pieces that came out were spent to PC.
I remember being in the middle of the office when Louise Echols called and
said sub just how I've had the press release, I wanna talk to Stuart and
I was like, my God, like what is she gonna ask him?.
This is suicide like career suicide, what do you do?
And actually she said to me, the thing is within the media,
there's just no education of LGBT matters, because when you really think about it,
how many well known trans journalists do you know?
So where are you gonna get your knowledge from?
So back to that point about presidents, it's you've got to be present and
then the more present you get, the more you have to protest because
you've got to educate within that level of protests.
And I think for me that was really telling and
I'm you know, the the conclusion of center part was absolutely right
Richard Littlejohn Tom Daley doesn't look like that's an ongoing debate.
I'd love to have that one over a drink, because I think it's really
interesting about just what role the press is playing within the broader
LGBT plus narrative and what it means to be within the community.
This, like a really proud point was then, a week later RBS and
Lloyds also offered the same title, so back to that point of protest.
Sometimes protest doesn't need to be the cardboard box with the writing
on it sometimes there are other ways to do it, and I think we really by telling
that story I still feel so proud about it not as proud as Stuart should.
But by telling the story you have a knock on effect,
a new passports possibly becoming more more gender neutral, it's just amazing.
So I think that's that's the thing about being LGBT, is that that level of protest.
I think I'm quite good for time so I'm probably gonna go a little bit quicker
than I thought but it means more time for questions and more time for drinks.
Progress, so if you think about what it means to be LGBT+ today,
does it mean progress?
There is a reason there is a question mark at the end, and
I think it comes back to the pont about the four letters and a Bi person,
Chloe Davis, she has a pro-community engagement.
So her role is to go and
find the communities who are under represented in pride and talk to them and
say, do you feel like you can protest, do you feel like you can parade?
And I said, what does it mean to be bi?
And she said it means being judged and misunderstood.
I face more discrimination from within the LGBT+ community than from outside it,
some call me greedy, others need to label me and put me in a box,
you just haven't met the right man or woman yet.
I'm attracted to the energy of a person if the connection is right,
and the agenda doesn't matter.
And this for me like, this blew me away a little bit,
because I think it's really easy to get into stereotypes, and
one of the things I've discovered since coming out and writing what I've done is,
the LGBT community loves a label, more so than any community I know.
And those labels are really damaging,
because what they do is push people into something that they probably aren't,
or push people into thinking they should be something they're not just in order to
fit within that spectrum, and this quote for me really brings that to life.
And I think as people who are part of the community, it's about being aware of that,
and about saying well, what are we doing, and do we all understand each other?
And for people outside, to say well actually, are we tarnishing everyone
with same LGBT, like we've done it, let's check, have we really done it?
Because I would actually challenge that we probably haven't, couple of examples.
So there was a piece in attitude young queer people shouldn't be obliged
to care about LGBT history and that's the biggest sign of success there is.
This is one of those pieces where you look at it and go what, but
I think it's brilliant that it's been written,
because it brings out a conversation that I think in today's day and
age may be happening over a pint, but aren't happening publicly.
Which is what do younger people feel about the older generation?
And that's why I feel that I can draw this really a nice tangent
between coming out as a 20-something,
now 30-something-year-old gay muslim man in 2018, and
actually the experience for a lot of people in the 70s and 80s.
Because when I talked about that example of the balcony and
the suicide, I think within the younger white British community that
would be quite unheard of and if it happened would be unreported.
But within the 60s and 70s was probably a lot more common than we know, and
it just wasn't reported cuz we didn't have the Internet, in the same way we do now.
So this for me is what it means to be LGBT today,
it's about having these conversations.
About who are the giants on whose shoulders we stand we now stand.
And what did they do for us in order to get to where we are for Tom Daley, for
example, to be in a position to put a picture on Instagram of an unborn
child it blows my mind because you could not have imagined that I think.
And so why are we changing how we react and how we feel and also,
I know from going into school, so I was a school role model for Stonewall.
And [LAUGH] I'm gonna tell this story, they said, Asad,
we want to put your face on a poster, I was finally I'm a poster boy.
>> [LAUGH] >> It happened, and the post,
you had my face on it and it's about being gay and Muslim not being gay or Muslim.
That's quite good slice playing with words and aural as they put them in schools and
I thought I didn't actually think through what would happen, I just saw poster boy.
>> [LAUGH] >> But they put it on posters, and
I was invited to speak at a school in West London, and
the person who'd gone in before was a British white man in his 40s,
I think he might have even been a priest, I think.
He'd gone in and I said, well, what was wrong with that?
He said well this school Asad is 80% Muslim,
I went okay, cuz what happens is, and I am talking quite glib terms, so
please excuse me if it sounds offensive, it is not meant that way,
which is if a white person stands in front of a room of brown people,
brown people will often go that's their problem, that is not my problem.
Just talking quite glibly, so what happened in
that room was the kids were like, being gay is not a brown problem,
it is a white problem because I only see white people who are gay.
And so then [LAUGH] I saw the poster went up, and
I was there, and you just saw the kids go, hang on a minute.
He sounds a bit like me grew up in just down the road and Harrow,
this could be something and one kid came up to me at the end and
I just knew she was suffering or struggling with her sexuality,
and just came up and looked at me and thank you so much.
And it was that look and that one saying where I thought,
she just needed to hear this and I felt really touched I could help her,
but then there was one kid who came up to me and said so
we saw the posters sort of poster, I went home to my dad.
And I think this this kid was of Iranian or Iraqi heritage and said,
saw the posters, my dad was actually gonna take me out of school today,
he did not want me to come to school because of this talk.
I went, jokes, but you could have a day off and he went,
no, but you have to come because of school and that, and I was cool.
So I spoke to my dad and he said, tell him at the end that he should go home and
pray, because maybe that will absolve it and he'll be better and I said to him
I've been doing that for a long time, let me tell you, [LAUGH] hasn't worked.
Maybe you should go home and pray that your mind opens, because if that happens,
and you grow up in narrow country that who's the fabric is changing so
much, he'll be able to talk to people who are writing things like this and
actually have a reasonable debate, versus a the, and us type discussion.
And I think that's part of the bit about progress,
which is really how much progress is there if kids and parents,
aren't teaching or surrounded by different views and different views
that can shape what people think of the LGBT community and the fabric of it.
Because if people see it as Tom Daley, white gay man, yes,
that's one part of it, but what else is it is there?
And now back to the present bit, what are people saying?
So, for me, the progress is still there, there's still a lot more to go, but
I am quite hopeful just because we need to allow our opinions like this.
We have to, we can't get into the filter Bubbles and our Facebook feeds like
we are because then we won't hear it and this is how another viewpoint will grow.
And then finally, this is the article that I wrote for
The Guardian at the end of last year, LGBT community should be havens of tolerance.
Instead, racism is rife with this is born out of a few things which was Owen Jones
had written in the Guardian, Owen Jones to people that knows people are nodding,
he's very well known, and he wrote about racism on the scene.
That's really interesting, a white man telling me about racism on the scene.
[LAUGH] Can I write about it, please?
[LAUGH] And he said, yeah sure so then I wrote this piece and this actually stemmed
from, again a story and I'll tell you the story, at the end to finish it off.
No, I won't do that, cuz there's quite a better way to end it.
>> [LAUGH] >> I'll tell you the story and
then do that, then I'll tell you what I told you, but at the end.
But when I came out, I thought,
I felt very liberated there's a moment actually, when you come out and
all of that stress that's living somewhere in your body just goes,
it comes back because your body relapses but it goes and your shoulders, just go.
[SOUND] And then you, for me my experience was then I was termed the LGBT community,
I was hang on where's the presence?
Where's the people like me all of a sudden I'm now like out of the frying pan into
the fire like there's something, well, that's quite a religious term, isn't it?
>> [LAUGH] >> But there was something about that, and
I felt like I've had to keep talking about this, which was the LGBT community is for
me being LGBT needs to be about flexing a bit more.
It needs to be about accepting cuz a lot of people say, well,
you can't be Muslim be gay because like even your Islamophobic
are homophobic you've got me one or the other.
Why can't I just be neither,
because actually if you really investigate the Quran and you investigate Islam,
there are a couple of, I'm not gonna say loopholes is the wrong word.
>> [LAUGH] >> There are a couple of there
are a couple of unknowns and
you're talking about a script that was written 1400 years ago,
I can barely remember what I wrote 14 days ago, I mean 1400 years ago.
Things change, slightly changes and
actually society is what has changed how we view people.
And so here's my story example, then I'll break up and
then we'll finish and then we'll have a drink.
So I was out with my friends Sam,
Sam sounds absolutely brilliant Samri's her name is, she said let's catch up,
called let's catch up and then we went to a bar in SoHo, she said I love
going to gay bars it will be fun I was yeah cool, let's go Friday night.
And so we went and we were just like catching up and
having a really nice time, and this guy came up to me, I was like, here we go.
And he went, gosh so you're aware.
We're like, so what's your name?
It was like, I'm Asad, and he went and told me his name and then he said, so
where are you from?
And I said I'm from Harrow North London, how about you?
He's like, no, but where are you from?
I must know it's Hatch End it's a small village of Harrow from
the overground zone six, he went no but where you really from?
Well London, he went no, where where you're really from?
And I went, well, my parents are Indian if you must know, and
he said, so you must be Hindu?
And I went no, I'm Muslim, and he went, so did you support ISIS then?
I went really where chance hotline this is [LAUGH] really where chats online.
And then I thought, gosh, how can that exist in the in the LGBT space that
we're fighting so hard to create and keep open I mentioned earlier.
How can I exist when we've protested and fought so
hard to be tolerant and open, that someone legitimately on
a Friday night has asked me if I support ISIS in a gay bar?
You can't make that up, so then I wrote about it in The Guardian cuz I felt
that would be quite jokes, I hope he's ready it, I don't know who he is.
>> [LAUGH] >> But but it is it's things like that
where you and that's the point about the Venn, the Venn diagram, which is I think
a lot of people get get to where you're part of the LGBT community, aren't you?
And actually, you're not your part, you're so many other things, but
there are so many things about people it's so easy to put a label on them.
I think that for me is what it is about what it is to be LGBT + today,
it is about that presence being out there it is about the protest in new forms,
but ultimately is about the progress that still needs to happen.
Because I think hopefully maybe in 20 or 30 years time,
we're not really talking about what does it mean to be LGBT today?
We're talking about something else, and actually, just being LGBT is is,
it doesn't mean anything, it just is, so yeah, that's my talk.
>> [APPLAUSE]