Most people don’t know where I’m from. Mentioning the East Midlands garners the same tilt of the head, puzzled look, and forced “nice” from every poor soul who has the displeasure of listening to me explain where I’m from; the same tone of “nice” I respond with when they expect me to know the exact borough of London they hail from (what are the Tower Hamlets and are they near Hounslow?) The point is that Lincolnshire is the second-biggest county, and next to Cambridgeshire no less, but my two homes feel like experiencing night and day just by driving 90 minutes up the road.

“I share a home with the lady who let thousands of members of my community die from AIDS in the 1980s – and they build statues of her”

My hometown has the special distinction of having the most closed mind in all of the close-minded Midlands, having birthed Margaret Thatcher. What an achievement. I share a home with the lady who let thousands of members of my community die from AIDS in the 1980s – and they build statues of her. She’s Grantham’s goddess.

The voting population in Grantham is increasingly elderly and increasingly xenophobic, and each day feels like one of negative discovery: coworkers revealing their closed-minded views in casual discussion, being snickered at in the street by children too young to be teenagers, the constant honouring of The Iron Lady – as if she’d done anything to help the people of the town. There’s a feeling of permeating discomfort here, in that one cannot express their truth (as in, I can’t talk about my boyfriend), because the culture means I have to assume the people I speak to disagree with my very existence. Plus, we’re the first county to get a Reform mayor! God save our souls.

“The first county to get a Reform mayor! God save our souls”

It would be ignorant for me to say this hasn’t trickled down into how I interact with people. I remember it well: school leavers’ celebration. I’m several Long Island Iced Teas deep when a man in his late 50s starts giving us a lecture on life through slurred words – pun intended. I move my hair out my eyes and he tells me to “stop acting so gay”. I spend the rest of the conversation rage-baiting him, further unfurling his unwokeness, but it didn’t block out the realisation I had that evening: no matter what I do or say, people are going to notice it. I can’t go to the pub, because some lightweight teenager, or divorced deadbeat dad, will have one too many John Smiths and point out the way I walk or speak or how I hold my Lana Del Rey tote bag. I can’t go to the club because singing one song too loudly will get some underage chav calling me a slur. Going out in Grantham as a loud and proud queer person is untenable when the only spaces you can go to are ones where you are exceptional.

We associate escape with a sense of freedom, but there’s also the sense of fun that I think we overlook. It’s not that going to the city has to be this moment of blossoming, of transformation into your final diva evolution; it’s equally about the little moments. Going out to a queer club night, having one of the girlies paint your nails for the sake of it, and whinging about why on earth a Spoons pitcher is nearly £12 all of a sudden.

“It’s important that we not put blinkers on and stop supporting our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ siblings just because of some elements of progress”

One of my highlights since moving to Cambridge was at Mash in Freshers’ Week when I competitively lip-synced the house down to Madonna’s ‘Vogue’. Did I win? No, because I twerk like a blobfish and was too inebriated to know the words. But the concept of going out to a club, of hearing queer voices, and being that 365 party girl bumping that beat made me feel the most accepted I’ve ever been. Having a community at my disposal has been incredibly powerful and heart-warming – now, I can do what I want with no qualms, even if I don’t know the words to every queer classic.

This is not to say that Cambridge is anywhere close to perfect. I’ve suffered homophobia at the hands of locals, and it’s important that we not put blinkers on and stop supporting our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ siblings just because of some elements of progress. I don’t want to romanticise what has proven to be an imperfect space that still holds an imbalance of power towards people of minority groups. However, I can’t say I don’t yearn to spend £11.67 on a Spoons pitcher and hear actually good club music every couple of weeks. I don’t think Grantham has encountered Addison Rae yet, but when they do, I’ll probably be a lot happier.