Many years ago, and I’m talking decades, I was repeatedly asked by those close and not so close to me, ‘why don’t you have normal friends?’ I was defiant in my answers. Given I was a teenager at the time, psychological theories and the ‘grown-ups’ around me may have put my stance down to being rebellious, to p*** off the parents or, it’s just a phase. Not true. It was the foundation of who I was growing into and discovering what was important to me.

Queer people are some of the strongest, most creative, and resilient people in human history. Not because oppression is noble, but because despite everything that has been done to us, we still create, love, organise, dream, and survive. We still build communities. We still hold one another through loss. We still imagine futures that many people tried to convince us we did not deserve.