At 27, youth worker Tanya Compas has become an essential voice in the LGBTQ+ community, both in London, where she hosted the first, much-lauded Queer Black Christmas event over the 2019 festive period, and online.
“I’ve been very lucky to build a platform on social media while simultaneously doing my work on the ground with young people,” says Tanya, who established herself as a friend of, advisor to and advocate for young queer people of colour (QPOC) having observed a lack of visible role models while discovering her own identity.
Determined to help create safe spaces in which vulnerable young people can find their community, Tanya set up a crowdfunding campaign in order to host Queer Black Christmas, an event that gave young QPOC alone over the festive period the chance to celebrate with a chosen family.
Following in the footsteps of Adwoa Aboah and Amika George, Tanya, who has devoted the best part of a decade to working with young people at risk, is Miss Vogue’s latest Girl on a Mission.
When did you decide to use your voice to advocate for LGBTQ+ young people, especially those from BAME backgrounds?
“I’ve been working with young people on and off from the age of 18. Each experience has moulded me into not only the youth worker I am today, but the person I am. So often, [vulnerable young people] just need someone to advocate for them, to actively listen to them, to understand them – but most importantly to provide a safe space for them to explore their identity and just exist as themselves, without anybody… making them feel unsafe, unloved or unwanted based on their identity.”
Why does this cause feel so important to you?
“I grew up not knowing that black people could be queer, and believed that being LGBTQ+ was a ‘white people thing’. I don’t want other young people to think the same. Whether you are part of the community or not, we should all know that LGBTQ+ people exist outside of the realm of whiteness, and we should all learn how to advocate, support and love young QPOC loudly, through the good times and the bad.”
If you could sum up the ethos of your work in five words, what would they be?
“Passionate about creating spaces for joy.”
How do you think being a young woman impacts your success?
“Being a young, queer mixed-black woman has impacted my work greatly, because it has meant that I have had to seek out community and learn how to build a support network. This was born out of a need and desire to be around people who are like me and who just ‘get it’.
