What Words do you Not Yet Have? Queer Musical Storytelling on Love, Life and the Law
Non-academic host institution: SAYiT
Academic Host Institution: University of Sheffield
This project uses musical storytelling as a way to foster solidarity both within and beyond LGBTQ+ communities in Sheffield and Bradford, exploring how musical storytelling can build understanding, deepen community, and catalyse solidarity for social justice.
Summary
LGBTQ+ folk in the UK have made significant strides towards legal equality. Today, these protections are increasingly under threat, while homophobic and transphobic hate crimes are on the rise.
Musical storytelling blends the specificity of language with the emotional and disruptive power of music (Gosine and Tabi 2016 Hess 2019). It has the potential to challenge fixed ideas and serve as a springboard for learning, connection, and action. Yet, rigorous research on its effectiveness—especially in relation to queer lives—remains limited.
Fostering solidarity—both within and beyond LGBTQ+ communities– is more crucial than ever. However, polarised debates around gender and sexuality are deepening divisions. Queer communities have long grappled with issues like whiteness, ableism, classism, and transphobia (Lorde 1984; Ferreira, Moscati and Raj 2025; Butler 2006). These challenges are intensified by growing intergenerational divides, which complicate care, learning, and collective action. More broadly, queer individuals face persistent stigma and increasing legal and regulatory discrimination. Many queer folk feel unheard, isolated, and underprotected. The proliferation of academic and public writing on this topic has done little to counter such feelings.
Our project asks whether musical storytelling (song-writing and poetry set to music) can play a positive role in this context. Can it be affirming for storytellers? Can it build understanding, deepen community, and catalyse solidarity for social justice?
Our project focuses on Sheffield and Bradford, drawing together socio-legal researchers, community organisations, creative practitioners and activists. These areas are ranked among the highest in the UK for reported hate crimes related to homophobia and transphobia (Statista 2024). Both cities have vibrant LGBTQ+ histories, but lack the depth of queer community networks found in neighbouring Leeds and Manchester. That said, the success of emerging queer events and spaces is testament to the strong desire for connection in both spaces.
We will hold two workshops with 20 LGBTQ+ folk in Sheffield and Bradford. During the two-day residential workshops, participants will build their musical storytelling skills, writing a song, or a piece of poetry with musical accompaniment.
These workshops will explore the impact of law and regulation on queer life and love. This focus has political and academic significance: participants can explore the harms they have experienced without reducing their lives to stories of discrimination.
Working with participants, we will draw on our interdisciplinary expertise in socio-legal research, creative pedagogy and community activism, to pioneer a new research methodology that utilises their musical storytelling in three forms of public engagement.
First, we will engage local publics by creating mixed-media exhibitions for an ‘open air’ museum as well as physical exhibitions in Sheffield and Bradford.
Second, we will engage learning publics with creative teaching resources for secondary education, higher education, and community education.
Third, we will use musical storytelling in a series of events in Bradford and Sheffield to bridge intergenerational divides and deepen community ties within the queer community.
In our critical exploration of these interventions, we will explore the effectiveness of musical storytelling in affirming storytellers, provoking curiosity, building understanding, and catalysing action for social justice.
