David MacNicol worked with The Proud Trust in Manchester to help a group of young people, who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and/or Trans-gender to make a short film about exploring identity. The Proud Trust was a successful applicant through BBC Outreach’s Community Doorway programme.
‘The volunteering experience helped me to learn that I need to challenge my understanding of areas I assume I know a lot about’
I volunteered to work with older LGBTQ+ young people to explore my understanding of them and the issues which affect them.
David MacNicol shared his film-making skills with The Proud Trust
I am an Assistant Producer on Newsround which means I make content across our TV and Online platforms, working with an audience aged 6-12. years old. Before that, I worked in the Arts department at BBC Scotland for a very long time. I worked on big BBC One and Two programmes like, The Culture Show, Imagine and The Review Show. It meant I got to work with and meet all sorts of amazing people, from Grace Jones to Joan Rivers, Antony Hegarty (the artist who is now known as Anohni), Tracey Emin and many other queer artists who I respect.
My job opened the door to a world I had always cherished when growing up. The Arts, via my TV, was the only place I could catch a glimpse of people I identified with, but didn’t see around me day to day. With the proliferation of images that bombard us now, you don’t need to set your video player to record Top of the Pops to watch your favourite singer over and over again.
This volunteering opportunity felt like a good way to find out if LGBT+ millennials still encounter the same ignorance and stigma that I and many of my friends and peers did growing up. I was charged with making a short film with a group called The Proud Trust in Manchester which works with Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans and any other young people who feel they need their . It was pretty much a blank canvas to create a piece of work that would benefit me, the young people and both organisations involved: the BBC and The Proud Trust.
Even though I live happily as a gay man, and assume that I am pretty clued up, I learned that there are still aspects of LGBT+ life that I need to learn more about. I realised that I needed to increase my understanding of issues which affect trans people. Commonplace things like, the pronouns I identify with: he/him/his, and take for granted, are actually far more important to a trans person – I totally underestimated that.
Challenging my own perceived notions of gender, and learning to use pronouns which differed from the gender a person is born into, was hard to get to grips with. The young people were very understanding when I slipped up.
The volunteering experience helped me to grow my own confidence, to learn that I need to challenge my abilities and understanding of areas I assume I know a lot about. My team on Newsround will also benefit from the first-hand knowledge I gained which will help us to address these stories better, in the newsroom, when they come up.
I was left with the impression that The Proud Trust was an organisation which had helped the young people who use it to transition from being fearful of their identity to being proud of themselves, whatever they identify with. I hope they were left with a similarly positive impression of the BBC.
I wish that there had been a similar resource for young people when I was growing up. I went to school in the '90s in a seaside town in the West Coast of Scotland. There was nothing where I lived for young people. British society has come leaps and bounds since those days but, constantly addressing the challenges and concerns which affect young queer people is still really important to safeguard and protect them and ensure their positive contribution to society.
BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community and staff volunteering.
