As June saw national Carers Week come and go, we thought we’d share some of our learning from the last five months of our ‘Who is a queer carer?’ programme. The answer to the question posed in the programme’s title hasn’t been at all straightforward to answer. Rather, it’s thrown-up a lot more questions around who sees themselves as ‘carer’ and why (let alone a queer one). We’ve also wondered about what level of care it requires to run a carer’s programme, working with multiple partners to pilot differently themed workshops. We’ve asked: who is our audience for this and how do we understand this queer-care overlap?

We kicked off the programme with a film screening of the documentary Ted and Noel back in February, which told the story of Ted Brown’s latest fight for justice, long after he founded the Gay Liberation Front. His longtime partner, Noel, was horribly mistreated within a care home. Post screening, Ted told us about winning a case against Lambeth Council, the first test case to acknowledge homophobic bullying. A rich discussion ensued between Ted and Tony Collins-Moore (Carer’s Centre, Tower Hamlets) and Sadiya Abjani (SAGE, a US charity that advocates for LGBTQ+ elders) who identified levels of governance at which pressure for change might be exerted through community mobilization.

Terminology might alienate someone for whom making time to attend any event might already be severely limited by their existing responsibilities. We found this to be the case when we tried to host a ‘coping creatively with cancer’ workshop, which drew few sign-ups despite us working with the LGBTQ+ cancer charity, OUTpatients: people were simply too much in the thick of things. Other times, queerness didn’t feel so relevant. One person - who supports an ill parent - attributed the barriers of their caring role not to their LGBTQ+ identity, but to their treatment as a black, working-class woman. 

In response to the complexities of identification, language, as well as practical logistics, we’ve adapted our approach to make it both more specific and more open - running alternate discussion and peer-support groups every month. Going forward we have commissioned Jules McGee-Russell to co-curate and facilitate an online forum which aims to provide useful tools through which we can care for ourselves: weather through creative expression (integrating them into a busy, caring life) processing difficult experiences (through journal writing) or finding other ways to connect with yourself and your own needs (through nature).  Like Tam, Jules thinks the word 'carer' feels like it claims an unwelcome  sense of ownership of the person you care for - pointing to other words such as 'caregiver' (used in the USA). 

Together we are also keen to open-up the focus beyond personal care, leaning into the political aspects of care, learning from community networks that sit outside of medical institutions or welfare systems. Some of the ideas we are bouncing around involve talking to people involved in drug and alcohol harm reduction programmes as well as enlisting those involved in disability justice movements. We are also interested in profiling the work of groups such as The Care Collective, who take their work into clubbing contexts completely outside of the domestic space. (With lessons from grassroot community health movements forming part of our new season, Gathering with Palestine.)