Is Society Becoming Less Tolerant? | Bimini

0:00Music is political. Art is political. Drag is political. Being LGBTIQA is political. So who better to talk to about politics than a drag race legend, an artist, a writer, a journalist, an activist, an all-round icon? Our episode this week of Bold Politics Live, filmed at the Sheffield Crucible as part of the Crosswires Festival, this is Bimini Bon Boulash. This episode is sponsored by Crowdfunder. Bring your bold idea to life at crowdfunder.co.uk forward slash bold Now here's some fun information that probably no one in this room knows But me and Bimini have actually known each other a long time before I ever had public profile Because we were, get ready for it, this is niche We were on a Facebook group made up of homosexuals, secret, we're both gay But not just gay, we're also both vegan, so we were in a vagay group There was like 100 of us.

1:00Yeah, and that was back in the day. That was like 2012, I think. Very long time ago. So that was like, yeah, Facebook groups. And then it started getting, more people started joining, and then it started getting political, I remember. Yeah, totally. And actually, it's something I want to ask you about, because I felt during that time, which was a while ago, Facebook or social media just felt like a really good space for people to gather together, and it felt positive, and you could rally against things. I was just, yeah, I went to Pride yesterday and posted about it and lots of positivity, but then Tommy Robinson also kind of posted it with some pretty vile words.

1:34Is social media a force for good or a force for bad? We're doing binary tonight, which I know famously you don't do. No, so I have some opinions on this. I think social media was used, like back in the day when you just write on someone's wall, it was quite nice. Be like, hi, how are you? What are you up to? you know some of them i mean some of my old facebook posts i'm a bit cringe but like when you would get those memories but now i think algorithms have come into it algorithms weren't necessarily there back in the beginning of social media you know everything was chronological you kind of just saw things as it was now i think algorithms feed us and actually i think they are a big drive of division you know i think it keeps us in certain areas and then it can if something it is like being popular whether it's for whether it's hate comments or positive comments you're gonna see it you know and i think hate unfortunately fuels more hate and especially on things like i'm gonna call it twitter twitter and other like social like the more engagement even if it's negative it could be vile stuff it's just gonna get more and more and it riles people up so i think there's definitely it's become a darker side of it i mean social media's also got a positive you You can get inspired by it.

2:47You can see things like how people live their life and be like, oh, I want to try that. You can learn things about, I learned a lot about being neurodivergent from social media. I don't know if that was a good thing. But there are positives. But I definitely think algorithms and the way that they are controlling us right now is a bit of an issue. And as someone with a huge platform from going on Drag Race and generally just being brilliant, you have this kind of stage to be able to talk about the things that you want to talk about. And you've noticeably been really, really vocal, particularly about Palestine, but also about LGBTIQA issues.

3:20How much of you kind of goes, actually, it would just be easier to have an easy life, being beautiful and kind of enjoying the world, but actually you've chosen to take on the forces of evil? I studied journalism. So that was my way into learning about politics and the media, because I grew up not having really access to politics. I personally think politics should be taught in schools I do, I think people should be learning about that from a young age because I think it controls everything, you know, everything that we we do every day so it's so, everyone should be engaged in a way, or at least know about it, and I think there's probably a reason that we don't, but I have always been a bit of a gobshite but no, I even remember back on my Facebook days, like back in, I was like arguing with people on Facebook all the time like very like yeah just getting angry on there because i was always very left like that was that was the like the corbin um generation so i was like in university studying journalism a lot of the people in my class were not on the same politics as me i was always like not understanding why i was like this just just makes more it makes sense to me like a lot of these these views or beliefs but obviously you know i think um we were learning about the media and i was like god it's shit i think also that's that's a problem with it being so like what is 80 percent is privately owned i think that's a real big issue as well because you know a lot of a lot of the really important things that happen day to day in our lives someone is profiting from and there's always an agenda you know like it's like five million pounds worth of an agenda and were you political before you started doing journalism or did you kind of discover politics during university yeah I'm really interested in people I find people really in like curious I'm curious to know about people and just how the world has changed in such a short space of time you know and how it's forever changing and I often wonder how we're going to look back at this period of like sensationalism and everything being so instant and fast like I wonder is social media gonna end soon are we all gonna like turn off and go and hug a tree again and like have a nice time because I think like we're losing a lot of human connection and you know with the rise of AI it's quite a scary time so I think we've we are all switched on but we've got to be switched on you know like we've got to be in it in the know and and kind of be able to think for ourselves because that's a big worry I have for the younger generation is is with the rise of AI like not like just have to type something in it does it for you and it's like could you imagine that in school probably would have loved it but like that worries me because it's like I even feel like with AI, where is, obviously the information is coming from us, hang on a minute, they've basically taken all of our brains, all of our information and sold it back to us Before you said that you think they should teach education in schools and I noticed a lot of agreement in the room I didn't get into politics kind of in my 30s so I was kind of really late to it and yesterday being at Pride I was just struck by how many young people I met who were asking me really inquisitive questions that were a lot more insightful frankly than journalists often ask me like questions where they were really doing their work and doing their research.

6:26Do you think that's because social media has given young people extra access to politics or do you think something else is going on? Interestingly enough, somebody spoke to me in Soho Square after my performance there yesterday and was very doing the same thing, like asking me questions and very insightful. And I was a bit like, are you recording this? Because it felt very like, but they were studying politics. They were like 19 years old and they were like really interested in like hearing opinions of different people. they had their political beliefs and they were like that's obviously valid and I have mine which is valid too and I think they were just they didn't they weren't trying to shut me down they were just really unaskin so I think it's definitely younger people are definitely more engaged I think I don't know what is it still Gen Z they do seem to be switched on but a lot of them have grown up with with devices attached you know like I'm kind of that last generation 1993 where we were playing out had to be home by dark you know that kind of doesn't happen anymore my mum has to like beg my little sister to go out she's like I'm gonna ground you and make you go out like it's yeah so I think um the younger generation are definitely a lot more online so I think with that I mean in today's age everything is so feels so political right now you know so I think to be young and to be engaged I think is is coming more common and you grew up in Yarmouth um I don't know how long you were there before you moved to London did you spend most of your life there yeah well so my dad's from Clapham in London my mum's from Greenock and Glasgow anyone from Glasgow oh wow yeah love that I'm there tomorrow um yeah so that was my family so I had this like proper London Cockney family and then like Scottish and then I grew up in Norfolk which is so random and I had this weird Cockney Scottish twang from a young age and then I went to school and they were like you sound weird um but I grew up in Great Yarmouth and it was it's I've gone back recently and it's it's wild how much it's changed since when I left like I have really fond memories of growing up in Great Yarmouth like with the friends I had and being queer like I came out at 14 I mean I think I came out when I was born but like literally bum first no joke like but it wasn't a shock to people and I was accepted you know it didn't feel like a hard thing and we me and my friends started dressing up like we'd wear like stuff in the charity shop which at the time like was quite out there and we'd like ripped fishnets and we were experimental and when I went back that it just feels darker now which is probably well we can know why politically but like it's a shame because I think you know a lot of seaside towns have been forgotten about and there's a lot of seaside towns that need a lot more need investment and need need regeneration and it's a shame because I think a lot of the people have misplaced feelings and anger and they point it at the wrong people whereas you know building the community up is what needs to happen so me and my mum actually um recently like something happened in her personal life and she wanted to do something different and we're actually opening a charity in Great Yarmouth for LGBTQ youth and it's going to be like a community hub and it's open for allies too and it's for the trans people as well because there are trans people that live in Great Yarmouth there are trans people everywhere, believe it or not and they don't have access to anywhere each week that they can go to there are groups that come in, like outreach groups but then they cancel, there's like oh, they can't get the space, they can't get the room and that's not good if you're a trans person that needs to go every week to speak to somebody so then you feel isolated and they're alone so we want to open something there which is going to be called the charity is going to be called different kinds of people and I'm excited to do it because I just want to bring a bit of positive energy back to the Yarmouth because the Yarmouth that I remember was a lot of fun and I found a lot of myself there then moved to London found more of myself and partied more but it was like my coming of age you know and to see how it is now I feel like it just feels quite sad so yeah we're going to start that and um yeah just have a lot of fun with it i think and at 14 you came out and you had a positive experience which is quite an unusual oh yeah thank you thank you

10:50yeah my mum's fab as well like four foot eleven scottish glasgow wears heels everywhere still sounds like a sitcom waiting to happen yeah i was too starting it yeah um positive experience yeah My mum has always been of the mindset of, do what you want, love who you want, I just want you to be happy, but I just want you to be safe. And I think that last line, that last bit that she always said, shows a lot more about society than anything else. Society creates the rigid ideas, and that deconstruction of how we understand sexuality, how we understand gender, is something that a lot of the mainstream media don't want to discuss properly or discuss seriously.

11:37Like they'll rather discuss it like and mock it or not want to understand. And you know, every single person in this room is unique. Every single one of us here is an individual person and we should all be allowed to express that no matter what. And we shouldn't be allowed to feed into like moral panics and propaganda about things that aren't, if it doesn't affect you it shouldn't upset you you know if it's not like a direct attack or anything I don't know I just feel like we've become a lot more I'm worried that we've become a lot more like closed-minded as as as a society and I think like when I was growing up I thought we were like yeah progressive it felt it felt really good but I definitely think since Brexit the pendulum started swinging back yeah for sure Brexit was pretty nightmarish I don't know how I got there from coming out at 14 but it flowed it was fluid um i know lots of younger people listen to this podcast because they tell me all the time as i say that another thing goes off in my head that goes i know lots of older people also support the podcast and you're very welcome but whenever i go to um sixth form uh student politics for instance they always say listen to every episode of the podcast if there's a younger person listening to this who is lgbtqa or even just different and they're not kind of having the positive experience you're having what what would you say to them I would say things will get better like you might not be having that positive experience now I'm lucky like my positive experience was because of my group of friends you know like I had the girls and like they were fab so a lot of the boys kind of just were scared of the girls so they wouldn't do anything and I was kind of with them and I had my group and like we were a bit like like you know we're in trouble that kind of vibe um but like not everyone has that and i think it will get better you might move from that space you might go to a different place you might find your people obviously online is is a really big tool of finding stuff but my worry with that is like the lack of human interaction but online is also really good for that so i think you know it will get better and just know that you are valid and you I loved.

13:46And when did you discover drag? Unfortunately I discovered drag when I was about eight years old I think. Oh wow. Yeah well I guess drag I was always doing drag really in play school I used to wear the purple velvet dress but I used to have a rota for everyone to wear it so I always wanted to wear it but that was fine they let me you know like everyone no one cared none of the kids cared like no one cared and it wasn't until it was getting a bit older that the old like my friend's older brothers would be like my brother says you're gay and I'm like why just because I can no slave for you choreo for the brittany you know and then obviously on television Pete Burns who's an absolute icon rest in peace I was so confused by Pete because Pete isn't necessarily drag Pete is just themselves but they were exploring gender in a way that I found so scary like I was afraid to start with because the society had told me that that was kind of wrong you know so that was my shooting but I was always I was always fascinated by it and then when I moved to the kind of London like I've always been aware of drag and then I moved to London and went out in Soho and I think I'd moved to London in September had a wig on by October the city can do that to you it can don't go to Soho and drink the I mean it happens in Sheffield as well I think.

15:05But yeah it was it was that was that was my discovery of it. When did you discover it? Drag. I mean obviously I know you don't do drag. Yeah I was gonna say I haven't had the experience yet but maybe you've just set a new challenge out there for me. I came out at 14 though as well so when you said that I was like oh it's the same age because it's unusually young right? Yeah it is but I think that's it's cool that like younger people are coming out a lot more like label-less if that's the right way to say it like they don't want to be uh defined by their identity and say that they will explore whatever and I think that's really cool but you kind of do know and I think like as you get a bit older and like hormones start coming in you do know who you're attracted to and I think just being allowed to explore that like as you get older and not feel pressure is what we need we should get to and obviously it feels like we have progressed a lot further and I I know we have in some ways but you know like what you said about the Tommy Robinson tweet there is a definite lack of kind of any accountability or responsibility for visual hate now like people get away with so much like hatred online and it just fuels the machine and people profit from it and I think like that's that's what that's what scares me for the younger generation seeing that I suppose my worry when I spoke about the Tommy Robinson tweet too i've done it now but one i didn't want to kind of amplify him but two he's not like the big problem i mean he is a big problem but i think the big problem is i saw west treating tweet yesterday happy pride and i was like this is the health secretary that has been uh removing gender you know health care for so many trans people and rolling back things and actually i think tommy robinson is the extreme of that but actually what i think we have is a kind of sensible and inverted commas politics that has been rolling back from lgbtiqa rights i don't know if you agree i totally agree and i think that's again i i don't think everything stems from brexit but i do think brexit started fueling a cat was a catalyst to to kind of an understanding that people are like oh maybe there are people that think like me about other things and you know i think that has feel Like we've seen since Brexit, racism has like doubled or tripled.

17:19Homophobia has doubled. Transphobia has tripled even more now. Like it's probably a lot worse. That was a statistic from last year. Like we have seen that happening and there can't be a coincidence. You know, there's a definite correlation. We're stronger when we're together. But the reality is there's been a deliberate shift to make us forget about the things that matter in life. kindness, community, looking out for each other. Decades of austerity and growing regional inequality has left so many towns, districts and villages with community projects underfunded. Green spaces neglected. Vulnerable people slipping through the cracks.

18:02And the flip side of that is, if we're only looking out for ourselves, it's only going to get worse. That's why Bold Politics have partnered with Crowdfunder to inspire people across the country to do something amazing for their communities. Whether you want to create a local litter picking group, start a community garden,

18:26or turn an unused building into something useful like a food bank. And whether you've got a big idea that needs a lot of money or you just need a little bit, Crowdfunder have raised over 300 million pounds for charities, projects and communities. And there's a crowd of people out there waiting to turn your bold idea into reality. Hey, we'll even give you 50 quid towards your first project if you raise 250 pounds from at least five donors. What could you do for your community? Turn your bold idea into a reality at crowdfunder.co.uk forward slash bold. and 2006 was when i first discovered drag i was just thinking about it i went to italy and i was in a production of 12th night and i played viola that's going to give the daily mail a whole thing to go hunt now i'm fine but there you go as you asked me the question i thought i know i've done it but i can't remember when but it's just hit me but isn't that interesting that you know because of misogyny back in the day right men were doing drag on stage because women weren't allowed to act on stage like how mad is that if you think about it like it's insane how and that's why i find society so interesting that's why i love sociology because stuff shifts so much and if you look at fashion i love fashion history as well that's so fascinating heels were for men you know the royals the royals were in heels because they wanted to be more they wanted to be taller they wanted to be more grand but then now it's like men in heels and it's just like come on it's just a piece of clothing we're gendering it you know clothes don't have a gender we are making that and for you fashion is really political right fashion is definitely yeah for sure i think like definitely when i was younger it was like expressing myself and like wanting to show that i am unique or i am me you know probably pushing it a bit too i was like bright blue hair and blue eyebrows and green beard ones i regret one tattoo i've got but other than that i think like you shouldn't regret things because you should be exploring things and i'm so i love punk and i love subcultures and I love the new romantics and I love how music influenced that and I think we're lacking that a lot right now.

20:33I mean, there is definite pockets in the UK that are happening, but I feel like those were real shifts in the whole of society, you know? They really made a mark and yeah, I think we're losing a lot of that individualism. Yeah, for sure. Every single person in this audience and listening right now wants me to ask about that tattoo. I've got someone's name on my bum. Oh no. Called Josh. I wasn't going to ask, but you're bothered. Hi, Josh, if you're listening. No, it's funny. When I went on Drag Race, his mum, because basically when I was 20, I went travelling to Southeast Asia, did the thing. Six months.

21:11Ran out of money in six weeks. So I got a job and I started working in Thailand. So I was working on CoPP and I became friends with this guy called Josh and we got drunk and basically got each other's names on our bums and I've not seen him again. That's a much more wholesome story than I was expecting to be fair. And you mentioned Drag Race. I want to go a bit meta here, because I want to ask you something about Drag Race. But before I do that, how much do you enjoy talking about Drag Race? Or are you kind of like, oh, it's all I get asked about? How do you feel in relation to Drag Race? I mean, I love to talk about Drag Race.

21:46I think Drag Race is an incredible platform. I definitely think, like, I am... Well, my career came from that, you know? I was working. I do miss the days. Well, I still hustle. But I miss the days of like, I used to drag a suitcase to five different gigs on a Saturday. Sometimes a fold-up chair. Not to just sit on, honestly. Do loads of tricks on. It was really handy on the tube, but there was no seat. But there was a real hunger of drag at one point in the UK. And I do think Drag Race, like as much as I love it and as much as it's given me a platform it has also pushed a lot of people backwards in terms of the economy is a lot smaller than it was that's that's this is a big it's not just because of drag race this is a big society thing as well you know drag brunches were huge at one point like literally you'd like you couldn't even get in one and now it's like don't think people go to that many anymore and that was like feeding the economy you know and And a lot of people I know no longer do drag.

22:50They have either fell out of love with it, they don't feel like it stands for, it's as radical or it's as political as it once was, or they just haven't got the work because of how the economy is, but also because of Drag Race and the machine that it is. It's responsible for so many amazing careers, but it's also got that issue where it's what people expect to see. and if you don't fit that kind of kind of idea of what drag is like people aren't going to book you or you're not going to get the gigs and you know drag is for me drag was a way of like exploring my gender and my identity and wearing what i wanted and you know like it wasn't always about like looking like a like a female illusion like it wasn't that for me it never has been it's just more just like expressing this with a tight like a little smoky eye so i think yeah drag has changed a lot and I think like Drag Race I love it for what it gave me and I love it when I see people do well and I love seeing like the talent as well because there's so many so much talent and like what other show do you see where you have to do everything like that you have to be funny you have to be able to dance you have to be able to like well I just safety bid but you have to be able to sew like you know you've got to make it work and I think like it's so cool to see that and also people's stories so there's always space for it but um yeah I definitely think there's obviously the double-edged sword with something that becomes so big and popular and how did you find the reality tv aspect because you're someone i associate with being kind compassionate and pluralistic and wanting to kind of collaborate and create art but there is you know from watching it kind of an edge to drag race that you are competing is there kind of an inner competitor in you too or did you just kind of get on with that well like i my thing is if someone underestimates me don't do that but I do try and compete with myself I don't look at anyone else and be like I wish I was like that, I want to be like that I try to be me as much as I can obviously there are going to be influences somewhere along the line but I think, yeah I always try to stay like that and I wouldn't get involved in the drama so I was always just like whatever, can't be bothered for me I forget about that to be honest, when I'm on the show I forget oh maybe I have to be a bit of a bitch sometimes to get a bit of air time, but no I'm like no I'll just try and do well I went on SAS as well I did SDS Who Does Wins which was I just wanted to do that because I was like I'm never going to go into that world I find it I wanted to see it from a different lens because I have been very critical of a lot of that so I was like I want to understand it and it was interesting I like got to know the guys that the DS's and I really got on with them these like proper masculine men and then there's like me and at the end they were like you're quite a hardcore bitch and I was like I know don't underestimate me but like it's that it's that thing it's like yeah i i love i love just to push it so that's how i see if i ever get the opportunity to do something that's what i would do but i wouldn't go on there with the idea of like wanting to just purposely cause drama and well maybe we'll see but yeah that's that's not how it is i've got the competitiveness but with myself and like the real moment i think lots of people are i certainly remember from you being on drag race was your conversation i think it was with ginny lemon where you talked about being non-binary and I don't remember before that or afterwards seeing such a heartfelt genuine authentic conversation about gender did you intend to have that conversation or did it just come up naturally and what's been the impact it was very natural but then obviously what happens like me and Ginny started talking about it started going to and they're like oh hang on and then like everyone everyone in the room had to be quiet then we had to have the conversation but it was natural like it wasn't like we rehearsed it it wasn't like we redid it it was what we were talking about but in my head I was just like I don't know what I'm doing here because this was the design challenge and I was like looking at the the fabric like safety pin it just do that while we're having this heartfelt conversation and I'd forgotten about the conversation to be honest because the direct the the filming is so quick like it's and then also we had the break because of covid so we went back after six seven months and um I remember getting a phone call because they they give you a call if something comes up like if that that that week there's going to be something negative or something big you know like if something negative is going to be there like oh I was getting called every week um well I got the phone call and I was like what's what have I said I can't remember they were like no there's a conversation just so you know that might get a good reaction might not like we don't know because they don't know like they didn't know how it was going to be but the reaction was beautiful and I still get messages about it I still get people come up to me about it and I was having people that were messaging me they're saying I'm 80 years old and that's the first time I've heard that and felt like that resonated with me and I was just like it's so incredible how powerful words could be without realizing when you're just being authentic or you're genuine and I think that's what we need more of on reality tv because a lot of reality tv is forced or contrived and they do want drama and they do push that and they don't really want these like heartfelt moments but i think a lot of the a lot of the times with the media now even when you have certain people sitting people down and it's like someone that is anti-trans somebody that is trans or they don't even often have somebody that is trans but there's always there was trying to push an agenda whereas i think there needs to be conversations human experiences and human conversations with people that are living the identity that they're talking about or or and actually understand it because i think most people are kind in a way like we've got kindness in us and we see compassion and we have compassion and we can we can feel the human element and i think that's what's missing in a lot of these debates that aren't necessarily debates they're just like you know clickbait or just trying to fuel some sort of moral panic yes

28:53this might be a niche conversation but i think i'm going to keep the room um so drag queens often talk about or they blame the edit and what they're saying there on reality tv is a producer presented me a certain way and actually when you film enough content a producer could technically go who am i going to choose to be my villain my hero and they tell the story in a certain way And we've known that's gone on for a long time in reality TV. I feel like it really happens in politics as well. I've had interviews where I wasn't going to name, in fact, I won't name them, where they kind of interview me for 20 minutes, and then they'll take a one-minute clip, and they kind of do an introduction to the clip where they editorialize it.

29:30Then they show a minute of you speaking, and then they comment afterwards about what you said. And I start to go, before you even have the interview, you know exactly what it was you wanted me to say in that story, and you're kind of pushing that story. And they did this with the Green Party for a long time where they just wait for the environmental story. Now they've done the opposite, which is if I talk about the environment on nature, almost will never make it into the edit. Actually, they'll just stick the bit where I talk about the thing they want me to talk about. How much relationship do you see between the experiences you've had through reality TV and the spectacle, I suppose, of politics?

30:05I mean, what I think is, in politics right now, it's a lot of like you know um characters it's a lot of like kind of you've got people like farage and and you know you've got to like it's not about standing for good anymore or standing for like it's about standing for something so far that it's going to create division with people and i think that's kind of the same with reality tv they want the villains they want the good like good but then yeah the media is the like the mitigator is the middle part that's kind of fueling both sides of of it and they know what they want to push you know i often i think about it all the time because i just think like oh but like the newspaper that's banned in liverpool i'm not gonna say its name um but that one the day that labor came into power recently they just swung to that swung to labor after being like and i'm just like there's no integrity like what are you doing like at least stand for the bullshit that you talk about like if you're gonna say it just say it like do it with your chest like what you don't support them so it's just like things like that I just think really irritate me but I do think yeah like what we talked about earlier like social media fuels a lot of it you know you see the debates that we you see on tv aren't always fair I think that there's just a lot of unfairness massively and you how are you feeling with that because I think like the media they're just they can just be yeah I don't want to keep swearing but you know what I'm going to say.

31:33The main thing I've taken away is that me and Nigel Farage need to have a lip sync for our life, and I'd be fine. It's all going to be great. Do queens stand before me. Yes, you do. To genuinely answer your question without being too earnest, when it first started to happen, I won't lie, it worried me. It becomes very personal, and I think the human reaction is, this is horrible. And then very quickly, partly from people just saying it to me over and over again, you go, oh, we're on to something. if the billionaire media thought that you weren't there to challenge status and power they just ignore you um and i think we're at the point where you know first they ignore you then they laugh at you then they attack you i feel like there needs to be another line where they go then they attack you even more and it gets a bit you know wild and then you win i think we're in that penultimate stage where it's a lot of you know attacks kind of constantly but i also meet people all over the country all the time who see through it and i think again to come back to a social media conversation it's complicated because I think there's lots of harms lots of harms with social media but I also think it's ability to connect people and to realise good is more powerful than it's ever been yeah I agree with that and I also agree with what you like I want to say I love I kind of admire and I love how you are handling the media situations on your socials just being like sassy and just calling it out it's just like haha it's my inner drag queen but it's just like I do the same I'm just like, I find it like so just like, because like the thing is, a lot of people don't read past the headline.

33:02And that's where there's the power in them finding that exact snippet. Like I studied media and I remember like learning. I was like, this is evil. This is very nice. And then I think, yeah, they're out to get people, you know? Like I remember like saying something like at university. I was like, I want to start a good news newspaper where it's just good news. And they were like, no one will read it. I'm like, why not? Because people like a bit of drama. I still think you should make that newspaper. I think it's a good place. I think people have tried. A guy made a video about me yesterday that said I'd taken£3.5 million from Bill Gates, just on the record.

33:40I've not taken a penny from Bill Gates. But by the end of the video, he pointed out that this was all a lie that he was making up. And he was doing it as an experiment to see how many people believed the lie and didn't watch the video. And the amount of people underneath who'd gone, see, we knew it. and I appreciate what he was doing but I also really don't appreciate what he was doing so if you're in the audience or you're watching this please don't make up lies about me to then say at the end of a video this is a lie because people don't look at the nuance but don't you think that's such a massive and I've never understood how the media can just lie like I don't get it like it should be fact checked it should be like you should it should be illegal to print things that are misinformation or like propaganda it's propaganda constant you know If you're lying about someone, I don't get how it's legal.

34:28I had a conversation last week, actually, or a couple of weeks ago, that I've not spoken about publicly with a group called Hacked Off. So this is a Hugh Grant group that was set up around phone hacking. And they said to me that the vast majority of people who face press intrusion are not politicians, they're not public figures, they're just members of the public. Sometimes they're the parents of dead children. There was someone from the Tavistock Clinic where the press pretty much destroyed their life or tried to destroy their life, making up lies about medication that they'd given that they'd never given.

34:55There was someone where it was rumoured they'd had an affair with a celebrity that they'd not had an affair with. And the most outrageous thing of all is there's a body called Ipso, which regulates the media. But Ipso is made up of editors of the media. So they make up their own rules. They decide how they're going to regulate themselves. And then when there's a complaint, these big, powerful editors all get together and go, no, no complaint to be seen or decide a complaint. And so this group hacked off, which I encourage anyone who's interested in this to kind of look out for is pushing for a much kind of tougher regulator.

35:27And in fact, even the National Union of Journalists, so not kind of the big editors, are saying, we want to decide the regulations that we write by rather than the editors, but actually the people doing the work are saying the media is so problematic. It's interesting. I didn't expect to be talking to you about the media tonight, but also it's quite obvious that as someone who's in public life, who's LGBT and has been on Drag Race, you've also experienced kind of the negativities of people making up lies or even spin and negativity. and it doesn't need to be that way we can change it yeah i hope so i hope we get to a point where it's a lot fairer and it's a lot more like see-through you know like but it's it's it's just worries me that it's continuing like this and i think we are in a time where everything like sensationalism is is wild like we are a lot of people have compassion fatigue everyone's knackered you know everyone's exhausted these like things that we have in our hands all the time are taking our energy and we are constantly like numb to it you know you're scrolling past something you're seeing something happening in in palestine then you're going past you're seeing kim kardash's new flat or house and then you're seeing like a new like like brand that have come has popped up and it's just like all of this information where is it going like what are we doing with it like how much are we taking it in i mean maybe i'm just saying this because madonna says she only goes on instagram for 10 minutes a day she's like then i'll turn it off because i just don't know what it's due to my brains but no it's true i'm like if madonna says it it must be we've spoken a lot about human rights and lgbt rights i could not have you on the stage tonight though and not talk about animal rights because it's something we both deeply care about and in fact this isn't the only festival oh the animals are getting a clap good to hear

37:05veganism why is it important to you i guess is my question i went vegetarian when i was fear well tried to go vegetarian when i was 10 maybe younger because i had a dog called ellie and i used to love her she's not with us now rest in peace ellie but um it's a good mom why can't we why don't we ellie and she'd be like well we don't eat dogs and i'd be like well why do we other animals then i just didn't get it and then um i was like well i don't i want to stop eating animals then if we don't want to eat if like this was like actually some places do we ellie and I was like what? Devastated but then I was like I don't want to eat animals and my mum was like okay well I was like I want to go vegetarian she was like okay for two years I thought I was vegetarian but she was feeding me mince but I was like eight or nine so she's just probably like she's meat and two veg Scottish you know so and then she was like you can go vegetarian when you start cooking for yourself so when I was 15 I started cooking for myself and then stopped eating meat and then went vegan in I think 2015 or no it would have been earlier 2014-15 um because also milk I mean dairy is not good for us anyway it's good for a baby cow but it's not good for our bodies and it it rejected from our body anyway it's not good for me so I remember thinking well why not go fully vegan and yeah I think um it's it's just it's kind of natural now you don't have this problem because you're not a politician but if I share my kind of my take on it because I'm vegan I believe very strongly in it I also believe strongly in not lecturing people or telling people what they do and I always think if someone is even shifting to vegetarian just eating less meat or drinking less dairy is is both good for your health and also good for the animals how do you navigate kind of because you were very kind of openly vegan on Drag Race it was kind of a big part of your brand did you get pushback for that did you think about oh I don't want to be seen to be preaching or did you just think actually I'm I'm here to preach I mean I think there's power in humor I I think there's power in making people laugh.

39:08And if you can get people on your side, they're more likely to engage in dismantling the patriarchy. So I always try to do it with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And I'd never lecture someone because my dad, he's vegan. He's not so bad anymore. But at one point, he was very on Facebook, arguing with people constantly about it. And I was like, Dad, I'm arguing about politics over here. You're arguing about... It's kind of compulsory when you first become vegan. Yeah, I mean, I think that kind of was. But I tried to never do that. And I think I, a lot of people do always say, like, oh, it's cheese, isn't it?

39:46That's what people always say. They can't stop eating cheese. But I do think that the way to tackle it is through humour and not lecturing because it never worked and it wouldn't work. People don't like being told it's wrong or what they're doing. And it's all they've ever known a lot of the time. My mum was really offended when I was not wanting to eat meat. She was like, do you not like my cooking? I was like, do you want a real answer? No, she's a great cook for minced potatoes. Love you, mum. I know you've got to listen to this. I want to move on to music, but you mentioned SAS before, and actually I have so many questions, but I think I'll condense them to one, which is, like, what were you thinking?

40:27At what point did you go, this is, like, did they approach you, and did you immediately know you wanted to do it or did you have to have a long think about do I want to put myself through that? I've got ADHD so it's pretty much yeah right let's do it again it's a world that I'm not part of it's a world that I would never probably have the experience to do although I'm not going to like at the end one of them did say I think you should do this I was like no I'm not going to also on my family side my grandad and my uncle are both were in the navy so I grew up with like that and it was very masculine and I didn't like it wasn't part of that for me and I was always I remember my uncle saying you're gonna go out first and I was like watch me bitch but that's like that whole that whole underestimation and like just because I'm like queer and out there and like being like myself doesn't mean I can't jump off a building and like sink a ship or like do whatever you know like the task was fun as well like it was fun to do I mean it was quite crazy we're getting like two hours sleep a night i've always been also critical of obviously war i've been very critical of uh systems of that create that so i was always very interested in people that kind of wanted to serve and i was i like learned a lot about why they chose to do it a lot of it was like a lot of it felt like they there was a lot of patriotism you know they wanted to serve their country and it's like this kind of idea that people want to do that and want to make could change and you know like it was a really different perspective to how I view things so I wanted to learn about that and um it was difficult but I was also not going to be getting beat by the straight men basically did it change any beliefs I mean I'm presuming you're not now very pro-war well you know but I'm I'm pro the the camo print I think the print's quite cute but I'm not I like definitely would like to see it in like sand and pink but like i'm not i'm not pro i'm not pro war no not at all i think war should be illegal i don't know why it's not but it's also because it's big rich men making money but it sounds like it gave you a different respect for the people who do go out and it made me because i want to be able to i don't always want to be like this is my like i want to understand the other perspective like i do i like like it might be wrong but i want to know it like it might not be how i believe it but i want to understand so i understood a lot of the time like there was there was like a feeling of and this isn't obviously going to be for everyone this was just a lot a couple of people that i'd like spoken to and asked like why they got into it like they they didn't feel like they were giving anything or they felt like a bit of an inadequacy and they wanted oh they didn't have any friends and they wanted to camaraderie you know and like that was an interesting perspective for me to look at because I'd not thought about it I was like why why are you going to why would you go and go to war and do that like I mean I still don't agree I don't think like don't get it I don't agree I don't think we should be running around with guns and doing things like that at all but I was like it was interesting to think like that's how the brain would work for some people you know that's what they wanted like it's it's it was uh yeah it was a different perspective like don't agree with it but like I think like it made me understand them and think okay I can see what you were thinking there and it's a shame that that's where you felt you had to go you know yeah makes sense um to flip it around to the opposite then in terms of how we're going to change the world for the better I know that big part of that for you is music um how's music going to change the world I love that I made a statement, put it in your mouth and then asked you to.

44:11I mean, music, like music has always been so vital for change, you know, not just change, but just like, like, yeah, if you think back about through even just decades of the UK and like popular culture, music has always been, has always changed. and it's always been political music has always been political whether like i mean not all musicals political you know like obviously some songs like carly ray jepsen call me maybe is it political i don't know but there are songs that are political and disco is a genre as well like i love dance music and i think dance music is political and the dance floor is political and i think like it's so important to have again go back to spaces we need places where people could dance and be free, you know, and express themselves.

45:00And, like, disco is really interesting to me because disco was a time in the 70s when the prominent music you were hearing, the prominent artists were black, Latino, queer, some trans. Like, it was a lot of people that weren't at the front of society, but they were being celebrated for having amazing voices and making this really cool music. And then the rock came in. and I don't know if many people know about this but it was called the Disco Sucks movement so after disco rock came in and there was a massive and this just shows about like toxic masculinity not all masculinity is toxic but toxic masculinity is toxic they took all the disco records from the stores and went to football pitches all around America and set them on fire like just burn all of the records because they were the prominent like they didn't want that the radios stopped playing it, the radios didn't want that anymore, and then it just became this masculine rock music.

45:58And I love rock music now that has women that are just like, bad bitches going for it, you know? I think it's so cool and being subversive to how the ideals of what the structure of the power is. So yeah, I always find music is so political with everything. So I think where we are now, again, with radio and stuff, it's algorithms too. And I think that's what Spotify is worrying. like so streaming services because you're kind of kind of sometimes it works in your favor but then you're also being fed someone what they want you to listen to and i feel like we need to go and just like see bands see people live like see artists you know like where a lot of labels are no longer investing in artists they're not doing the build-up like they did you know you might be independent put a song on tiktok does really well labels will sign you expecting that again and that's not how it works you know you need to develop these artists and you need to develop people that create music and we need to invest more in art in general

47:07i suddenly feel like graham norton or something like that but have you got future music coming out that you want us to know about yeah i do actually i um have made an album because i was signed to a label and um was with them for four years was making loads of music didn't really always get feedback we just basically had a creative difference so they wanted to keep me which i was confused about because i was like why i don't we've been four years and like i just don't know anyway in that interim i made a new album and left the label and i've got an album and i'm calling the genre electro-cunt punk.

47:43And finally, you've spoken about Brexit quite a lot in this conversation and kind of a lot of the doom and gloom that there's been in the kind of last few years. Largely because of Brexit, but politics more widely. What gives you hope and where are you finding hope from? We went to a protest back in March, the House for Hate, House Against Hate, not House for Hate. We were not at the House of Hate. That for me is where we need to be. we need to be back on people need to be out in the streets and dancing and celebrating and celebrating is a big one you know like celebrating life we are on this planet for not a long time why make it harder for everyone else why make it more difficult to live for another person if if they're not affecting you don't like why why spread hate and I think that's always been like my innate feeling is like you do your thing girl like unless you're gonna come up and punch me that's when there's an issue but if you're doing your thing I ain't gonna judge you know and I think we need more more just human compassion and these algorithms need to stop dividing us so much and we need to go and have a conversation in a pub maybe that's still open well thank you for bringing all the fun and all the love tonight Sheffield Cruisball please give a huge round of applause for the amazing Bimini thank you this episode was brought to you by crowdfunder what's your bold idea start it at crowdfunder.co.uk forward slash bold