Diva Mag Interview

As part of project research I interviewed Carrie, who is editor-in-chief of Diva Magazine. Which is a bisexual and lesbian based magazine that aims to smush gender stereotypes and push positivity into the world. They have a readership of over 1 million in Europe.

I asked Carrie questions about queer representation in the magazine industry today and her were her thoughts.

Diva is successful and shows representation for the queer community, however do you feel queerness is still underrepresented in the mainstream magazine industry?

Yes, massively. Mainstream magazines are definitely getting better at representing queer communities and telling our stories, but they aren't doing nearly enough, and certainly not for those who are marginalised within the LGBTQ umbrella – people of colour, people with disabilities, trans people, intersex people and so on. Queer people with multiple intersecting identities are still ignored, overlooked, and erased. That's why I think it's so important to have a magazine like DIVA – by queer women, for queer women – which manages to encompass celebrity, culture and many other subjects found in mainstream magazines while still being a safe space. For us, that means no body shaming messages – we'll never run a piece about dieting for example – it means being explicitly trans-inclusive, it means telling all of our stories - not just white, cisgendered, able-bodied ones. I think our readers really value this, and in fact we get lots of letters and emails from straight women who say they love the magazine because of the way we position ourselves apart from other women's magazines. 

Showing representation for queer people is something that is really important and necessary! What do you think about certain creative companies taking advantage of queer culture as a 'trend' and using it as a tool to make themselves more appealing? 

Obviously appropriating queer culture in a bid to make a quick buck is disappointing and depressing – especially since these companies will be the first to distance themselves from the community when we're no longer in fashion. But it's important to be pragmatic too and the reality is that we need visibility and this, sadly, is one way of achieving that. It's important though that we see these companies for what they are and support companies which are genuine in their support for the queer community. 

• Interviewing Carrie has made me more passionate about representing the queer community within my own personal work and reassured me it is necessary to do so with the information she has provided with her insight into the magazine industry