Phyll Opoku-Gyimah
In 2016, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah was offered an MBE from Queen Elizabeth – she turned the English royal down. She did it in protest of the United Kingdom’s imperialist legacy across the world, and in that moment, she became widely known as Lady Phyll. A leader in LGBTQ+ activism in the UK, Lady Phyll is the executive director and co-founder of UK Black Pride, Europe’s largest celebration for LGBTQ+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American, and Middle Eastern descent. “Across the world, our LGBTQ siblings face unbelievable violence and persecution for wanting to live as themselves,” she says. “It is our responsibility to ensure we are fighting alongside our siblings, speaking truth to power, and ensuring that our movements are intersectional, radical, and rooted in feminist practise.” Appointed the Executive Director of Kaleidoscope Trust in 2019, Opoku-Gyimah is also the first Black woman to lead a UK-based international LGBTQ+ charity. “As a Black African lesbian, mother, warrior woman, lover and friend, I feel compelled to do the work I do,” Opoku-Gyimah tells GO. “My lived experience, that of my daughter’s, mother’s and grandmother’s means I understand intimately what we’re fighting against. I also understand the radical potential of our lives because I have experienced first hand the power of Black women coming together and fighting for the world we deserve to live in.” —GP
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