5 | The Community

People have moved to The Midlands from all over the world — so how has this migration shaped the region’s queer community?

In this episode, Adam meets Ranjit Khutan who tells the story of his parents moving to England from India, and how they raised him with a community spirit. This led him to run the first support group for South Asian men who have sex with men in Birmingham in the 1990s, and do pioneering work in sexual health. Bursting out into Birmingham’s Gay Village at the same time was the drag queen Seema Butt, aka Naz Qureshi, in their extravagant and colourful looks. Naz tells Adam the story of how Seema came to be, and all the important queer South Asian nightlife from back in the day. 

The patch that they all stitch together through these stories is a picture of queer community.

For this episode we’d like to thank Saima Razzaq and Birmingham Pride, Laurence Butler at Birmingham Museums, Linda Spurdle at Birmingham Museums Trust, and Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum.

The Quilt is an Aunt Nell Production, in partnership with Queer Britain, the UK's first and only LGBTQ+ museum, and funded by Mindsets and Missions. 

It is hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith.

Music by Rhiannon Takel. 

The assistant producer was Marnie Woodmeade.

The associate producers for Queer Britain were Sue Shave, Siân Williams and Katharine Dick.

Mixed and mastered by David Pye.

Mindsets + Missions is funded by UK Research and Innovation in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and delivered by the Museums Association in partnership with The Liminal Space and the Association for Science and Discovery Centres.

Queer Britain museum is located at Granary Square, Kings Cross in London. It is free to visit and is open from Wednesday to Sunday, 12-6pm. 

If you’d like to talk to anyone about any issues raised in this podcast, you can always contact Switchboard - the LGBTQIA+ helpline on switchboard.lgbt or 0800 0119 100.

Transcript available here

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