Tanya Compass transfigured the pain of her experiences of homelessness and queerphobia into the necessary work of Exist Loudly, an organisation `committed to creating spaces of joy and community for queer Black youth’
1992
2019- Became homeless after falling out with her family, due to her sexuality
December 2019- Started the Queer Black Christmas event in London, raising £7000 for support
June 2020- Started fundraising to sestablish Exist Loudly Fund and successfully raised £110,000, which was enough for her to register it as a charity
Compass used to work as a caseworker for the Albert Kennedy Trust, where she worked with homeless young LGBT people. It was here where, as she stated, “it became very apparent that these sentiments were felt amongst many young people, the feelings of isolation, the nervousness around having to spend time with family over the Christmas period and thinking about whether you have to ‘tone down’ your queerness or compartmentalise parts of your identity in order to ‘survive’ over the holiday period”
In 2019, Compass became homeless after falling out with her family, due her sexuality. She explained that her sexuality wasn’t a secret but she says that the difference was “when I brought my girlfriend to my family home to stay over; they couldn’t ignore the fact that I’m gay”. She then had to spend Christmas alone, without her family, and decided that she would use her experiences working in the charity and social work sector to create events which would support other Black queer youth who are estranged from their families.
In December 2019, she started the Queer Black Christmas event in London to do so, using a Crowdfunder to raise money resulting in donations of just over £7000. The initiative allows ostracised members of the community to eat a Christmas meal with a Caribbean twist, gifts and travel for the young people, in a room filled with games, decorations, Christmas movies, as well as performances by queer acts.
During the national lockdown in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic in June 2020, she decided to start raising money to set up the Exist Loudly Fund, with which she said she intended to “support the needs of young people in the queer black community with projects such as monthly workshops, mentoring projects and fun activities, … [and] physical supplies, like breast binders”. Following the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests in the UK, her Crowdfunder gained in popularity and raised £110,000, which was enough for her to register it as a charity.
In 2018, Amnesty UK named Compass as `one of the UK’s most inspiring women’, and the Evening Standard listed her on its Progress 1000 list of London’s most influential people.
Compass came out when she was 23 and has a girlfriend. She identifies as gay and genderfluid but doesn’t like using the word `identify’ to refer to someone’s gender or sexual identity, as she says it makes it seem like it’s a choice.
She also said “I don’t identify as queer, I AM queer”.
https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/tanya-compas-queer-young-black
https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/tanya-compas-interview-2020
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/tanya-compas-is-changing-the-lives-of-black-queer-young-people-in-london-and-beyond-071620
