It was 1992 and the music I loved to dance to was nowhere to be heard on the Brighton lesbian scene. They didn’t do house. So I didn’t do lesbian nightlife and it stayed that way. Dancing my young life away at Club Shame down the Zap Club, single but sweating as my gay house music playing DJ heroes delivered the soundtrack I needed. It was only the joy of Venus Rising at The Fridge in Brixton that truly got my house rocks off. Lesbian promoters, DJs, and clubbers meant lesbian joy as the house music stayed as hot as the dykes I found myself dancing alongside.

It was this sweatbox of sapphic joy that enticed my frustrated DJ soul to step up and find a way to bring house music to the Brighton scene for those dykes who cared to. Co-founder Tiz Cartwright and I called it Shameless Hussies, it was born of Lesbian Strength and it remains to this day one of my proudest achievements. Bringing a new kind of BPM to Brighton’s dykes as the repetitive beats of house music finally delivered us that sweat.

Rage, fury, passion, love and house music are all you need when you are 21 years old. Sharing it with others the fire that keeps you going, the love of a genre meeting the need for a community as the jump becomes all. Up and with – if you know what I mean. I didn’t even know what Tiz and I was doing back then was even promotion but it was and it kinda delivered. A new space for lesbians to party, a moment in time to kick off and get off and be all those sassy things you wanted to be come the weekend. And, as it turns out, meet the love of your life. Hey Queenie 😉.

Shameless Hussies was the beginning of my Brighton DJ life. Decks On Dykes is a new chapter in a now long one. And Queenie and I couldn’t be more chuffed to be part of it. Another dyke night born of need and passion, love and grins. The dancefloors they create are as glorious as those Shameless Hussies one bought us back in 1992, and the music is as up for it as the dykes dancing to it. Whilst Queenie and I joke about the funding obviously granted from the Heritage Trust to pay for us two old queer dears to join Dykes on Decks and He.She.They. this Brighton Pride Friday, the seriousness with which we take the recognition and appreciation two young up-for-it promoters called Leb and Alex have shown us is one we shall always shout about. To be part of the continuing fight for spaces we can call our own, to work alongside those doing everything to bring dyke and truly inclusive nightlife to the forefront of LGBTQI+ culture in 2024 is an honour we will always sing about. To the backdrop of a house beat. Obviously.

Dykes on Decks we thank you. 32 years on since those first Shameless days but still forever the house Hussies who just wanna dance with the dykes. See you at the front.

He.She.They. x Dykes on Decks at The Tempest Brighton Friday 2nd August 21:00-02:00 Tickets here