Queer Lives with Hina Siddiqui

Raga D’Silva was born in Mumbai and currently splits her time between Mumbai and London. She has worked for over 25 years in advertising and marketing in India, New Zealand, Australia, UK Singapore, Middle East, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia.

Nerissa is a professional keynote and transformational speaker who inspires audiences globally. She is also the author of two international bestsellers Growing Through and A Different Reality and in this episode, we definitely spend time talking about her writing process and as well as the entire concept of growing through — not going through — as applicable to all our lives.

Here are the key moments of learning, connection and growing through with Nerissa Trindade.

Mary Anne Adams is the Founder and Executive Director of ZAMI NOBLA (National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging). She has a Master’s Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Community Partnerships and over 25 years of work experience in public health, social work education, community engagement, capacity building, group facilitation, outreach and recruitment, planning, community organizing, and mobilization.

My conversation with Mary Anne goes on for over two hours.As always, here are the highlights.

Growing up in the late 60’s  - during the Vietnam War, the beginning of the Feminist Movement, Student protests, Dr King’s assassination, JFK’s assassination and going to the Black House - a local community centre established by Rev Wayne Johnson where an influx of black professionals from all over the country taught kids black history and helped organize the civil rights work in the area.

We take a brief detour into queer territory to talk about how Mary Anne went from having no conception of queer to being babysat by a gay hairdresser to being propositioned by an army wife

A fresh graduate, Mary Anne started to work at the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives in Jackson - travelling all over rural areas in the Southern United States to train co-ops in managerial, administrative and entrepreneurial skills. In this section, she talks about her work in those early years and the humility, grace and generosity she learned from rural black folk. Then we talk about the Cooperative Movement and its relevance in today’s day and age.

After her mum passed from ovarian cancer, Mary Anne became the legal guardian of her three younger siblings - 9, 11 and 13 years old. In this section we talk about how she raised them, raised herself and learned to lean into her identity - all with the help of community.

Mary Anne talks about the openness with which she lived her lesbian identity and how she taught people, including her family, to respect her always by being “unapologetic about who I am and how I live”.

Mary Anne talks about building community for lesbian elders who are often pushed to the edges by the generally youth-centric approaches of queer spaces. Stories about people leveraging community resources, community gardening, caregiving for elders living with Alzheimer's and dementia. We talk about her journey surviving breast cancer and the community programmes at ZAMI NOBLA. 

“Maximize practise and minimize theory”. We wrap up with Mary Anne giving us advice on how to keep learning by intentionally seeking information and keeping our eyes and ears open.

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herself - is a Queer Feminist Writer, Editorial Strategist, and Gender-based Violence Activist based in Bengaluru. She is a former journalist and community media-person, and advocates passionately for mental health awareness and disability inclusion - something we talk about a lot during our conversation. She has been winning awards ever since I have known her. The latest was during the pandemic, where her piece, The Sexual Violence Of Flashing, And The Problem With Saying, “It Could Have Been Worse!” won the National Laadli Media Award in 2020.

Shruti and me had a whole lot of ground to cover and a certain amount of catching up to do. So, for your listening convenience, I have broken down Shruti’s conversation into 2 parts of about 45-50 mins each. Here are the key moments from both parts of the conversation.

Shruti talks about growing up in an abusive household and how the atmosphere cloistered her. And then she got to college in a new city, where the layers began to peel off.

Shruti pushes back when I ask her what strength means to her and how appearing normal is far easier than accepting that you are not. She then goes on to talk about her struggles with anxiety and depression, living the single life with her mother and how an eventful day is so beautiful.

Shruti talks about her current search for a job and lessons learned from the trauma of working in a toxic workplace. This is an incredibly important section for anyone out there looking to verify the values and offerings of a workplace they may be applying to.

We wrap up part 1 of this episode with a few more details about Shruti’s professional life. She talks to me about how she started off in the corporate sector and then grew to be an award-winning writer and communications specialist in the Development Sector. Some good career advice here for anyone looking to start off work with NGOs.

Shruti talks about how the development sector can become a toxic space and why sometimes one needs to assert their privilege to make a change.

We talk about Shruti’s slow questioning and uncovering of her identity, why she uses the term queer to describe herself and what her amma thought about it.

Shruti’s prompt is a question, one that should provoke some deep thinking if you’re up for it. You can hear her explain it in the episode, but her question is: What was one thing that you never really thought of as being a privilege but later realized it was a privilege?

Part 2 | 33:17 |  Caregiving is Bonkers

We talk about Shruti’s mother - her recent hospitalization and how the fact that they are both survivors can often cause their anxieties and traumas to clash. Shruti gives us a rundown of the guilt she carries, but then she also talks about the joys and hopeful moments of their lives together.

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Queer Lives with Hina Siddiqui is a podcast where I (Hina, waves awkwardly) have conversations with Queer People from across the world, because I want to. This is the very first episode of the very first season, so I hope you'll give it a shot. 

Our guest on Queer Lives today is Ms Versus. Ms Versus (Vermon Santiago) is 23 years old. She is a singer, songwriter, musician, performer and record producer. She is also a Transgender Heterosexual Woman. And it was my tremendous delight to have this midnight conversation two weeks into the new year, with her at her home in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines and me in my study in Pune, India. We talked about a lot of things - why she chose the name Versus, the arts and education scene in the Philippines, her music (of course) and shooting music videos in the lockdown, thrift shopping and buying Barbies when upset, wars and history and of course Ben Barnes. Peeing and pooping comes up a lot. Which is no surprise given the unnecessarily gendered nature of toilets.

In case, you’re one of those quirky, quick people, here are some key highlights from this episode:

• 06:10: Ms Versus talks about being an alien in her own country because of the way she sounds and looks and then we get into what it means for her to be an artist and to be queer in a conservative country. A lot to relate to here/
• 23:43: In this section, Ms Versus talks about making music and shooting videos all across the countryside IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUMKEN PANDEMIC! Listen in to get a taste of her process, the struggles and victories. And after that we talk about the kind of things Ms Versus likes to write and sing about and the inspirations behind her album - The Pearl Majesty.
• 42:30: We talked about the little joys in life and after some philosophy, Ms Versus talks about shopping and how she recently bought 17 Barbie dolls for her little sister and her to play with. Here’s a cap of the dolls if you don’t believe it. Also, we talk thrift shopping, the perils of saving clothes from landfills and Marie Kondo.
• 51:15: Art is everywhere. And there is power in the acceptance of ourselves as artists. Then Ms Versus gives us a lesson in history, war and peace.
• 56:46: We have a proposal for Ben Barnes.

That’s it for now. Hope to see you next time for more Queer Lives.

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