Chardine Taylor-Stone

Chardine Taylor-Stone is a British feminist activist, writer and musician.^[1] In December 2015 Taylor-Stone founded Stop Rainbow Racism to campaign against the performance of ‘Blackface’ at LGBTQ+ Venues.^[2][3] The campaign began in response to a performance by Drag queen Charlie Hides at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Taylor-Stone was the drummer for the band Big Joanie, started in 2013.^[4] On 5 October 2023, the band announced that Taylor-Stone had left, replaced by an interim drummer for their European tour that month.^[5] She is currently writing music and performing with Border Widow along with Hatty Carman.^[6]

Chardine Taylor-Stone
Taylor-Stone on stage whilst in punk band Big Joanie
Nationality	British
Education	Birkbeck, University of London
Occupation(s)	Writer and musician
Known for	Activism such as the Stop Rainbow Racism Campaign former drummer in Big Joanie

Early life and education

Taylor-Stone was born in London and is from a working-class background.^[7] She was raised in Kettering where at age 17 she first became politically active in the Stop the War Coalition.^[8] She studied a BA Arts and Humanities and Masters in Laws (LLM) at Birkbeck, University of London.^[9][10]

Career

In 2015 Taylor-Stone organised an intergenerational one-day conference ‘Black British Feminism: Past, Present and Futures’ at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton with Black feminist and friend of Olive Morris, Liz Obi .^[11][12] In 2016 she co-founded Black Girls Picnic with cultural activist Kayza Rose.^[13] In 2017 Taylor-Stone won the British LGBT Award for Contribution to LGBT+ life for the Stop Rainbow Racism campaign.^[14] In 2021 she returned the award in protest at the award's sponsorship of MI5 and MI6.^[15]

Taylor-Stone has written and spoken about Black British Feminism,^[16] racism in LGBT Communities,^[17] British working-class life,^[18] Afrofuturism,^[19] music^[20][21] and socialism.^[22][23] In 2022 Big Joanie were nominated for Best Alternative Act at the MOBO Awards.^[24]

Awards and recognition

·       British LGBT Award for Contribution to LGBT+ life (2017)^[14]

·       The Voice Newspaper's Women Who Rocked the World (2015)^{[citation needed]}

·       The Most Inspiring British LGBT People Of 2016^[25]

·       Pride Power List 2018^[26]

·       Pride Power List 2019^[27]

Essays

• Opoku-Gyimah, Phyll; Beadle-Blair, Rikki; Gordon, John R. (2018). Sista! : an anthology of writing by and about Same Gender Loving Women of African/Caribbean descent with a UK connection. London. ISBN 978-0-9955162-4-3. OCLC 1006298766.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)