Izzy Rabey uses her alter-ego Madame Dollar to explore both her cultural and sexual identities
PHOTO NATASHIA JUDGE
Overlooking a raging seascape and a dripping blood-orange sunset on a West Wales coastline, I am interviewing fellow bisexual community arts practitioner and writer Jasmine Francois. In consequence, I am also introducing her to our local delicacy: the passion fruit mojito. We are discussing one of our favourite topics: the complexity of navigating sexual identity whilst belonging to minority cultures. Neo soul and scones come a close second and third.
Jasmine is from a Haitian family and grew up in California, and mentions how grappling with racial identity often dominated the process of coming to terms with identifying as LGBT: “At the age I was coming into exploring or realising my sexuality, that was very stressful because you’re thinking… ‘Oh, that’s another thing I have to deal with’.”