Chardine Taylor-Stone

Taylor-Stone was born in London, England, and is from a working-class background. She was raised in Kettering, Northamptonshire, where at the age of 17 she first became politically active in the Stop the War Coalition. She studied for a BA degree in Arts and Humanities and a master's degree in law (LLM) at Birkbeck, University of London. == Career ==

Taylor-Stone was the original drummer for the band Big Joanie, started in 2013. In December 2015, Taylor-Stone founded Stop Rainbow Racism to campaign against the performance of "blackface" at LGBTQ+ venues. The campaign began in response to a performance by drag queen Charlie Hides at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. In 2015, Taylor-Stone organised an intergenerational one-day conference "Black British Feminism: Past, Present and Futures" at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton with Black feminist and friend of Olive Morris, Liz Obi. In 2016, Taylor-Stone co-founded Black Girls Picnic with cultural activist Kayza Rose. In 2017, Taylor-Stone won the British LGBT Award for Contribution to LGBT+ life for the Stop Rainbow Racism campaign. In 2021, she returned the award in protest at the award's sponsorship of MI5 and MI6. Taylor-Stone has written and spoken about Black British Feminism, racism in LGBT Communities, British working-class life, Afrofuturism, music and socialism. In 2022, Big Joanie were nominated for Best Alternative Act at the MOBO Awards. On 5 October 2023, the band announced that Taylor-Stone had left, replaced by an interim drummer for their European tour that month. Taylor-Stone is currently writing music and performing with Border Widow along with Hatty Carman. == Awards and recognition ==

• British LGBT Award for Contribution to LGBT+ life (2017) • Pride Power List 2018 • Pride Power List 2019 == Essays ==