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My name is Cara. Do I have to say my whole name?

No. Be ridiculous.

Model, check. Activist/actor, check.

Privileged western white woman, check, check, check.

That's a lot of labels.

But sexual identity... well, like loads of us,

I'm still working all that out.

I date men, but, oh, do I love women and everyone in between.

I was born female, but often feel like a guy.

- Wow. - Wow.

My sex life, my gender...

I'm just living off this queer energy.

... my relationships.

A pussy sandwich.

All a bit of a hot mess.

This is the first time I've spoken like this ever in my life.

So sexy queer-tastic people of the world...

- My vagina. - That's your vagina!

... I'm coming to get ya.

- And I want answers. - Very quickly.

Like, how many sexual identities are there?

Yay!

Is monogamy dead?

He's definitely not faithful. Look at that guy.

What makes us hot... or not?

Stunning!

And how can we pleasure seekers get our hands on more orgasms?

Start masturbating now.

The most important thing about life is connections with other humans.

Is that not the point of being alive?

A land of clits.

We don't talk enough about how we can help each other.

Most people won't have ever had these conversations.

So let's talk about it.

Oh, hello!

Yes, just casually judging a queer twerking competition.

In the absolute effing hottest place on Earth

and having a jolly good time, thank you very much.

Nice crowd. Loving the crowd's vibe today!

Why am I here?

Well, there's so much to know about the world of sex,

but I want to start with sexual orientation.

We love lesbians!

Where does it come from? Is it fixed or fluid?

I want to meet people who live openly and authentically,

to unlearn the shame I've struggled with for years

and accept my identity.

Hold on, it's going to be a bumpy queer ride folks.

We're just gonna talk about being gay.

Go gay. Queers here.

- Cara Dele-queer. - Yes.

Serious.

How would I define my sexual identity?

I'm a Q for sure, I don't know.

I always have kind of believed in the no labels thing,

but have spent a lot of time then saying,

"I'm bisexual. I'm pansexual."

I am queer.

I'm a hundred percent can tell you that I'm queer.

I just don't know what else I can say other than that.

What do you think you'll discover

in this amazing journey we are on about your sexualities?

Even though I've been queer,

I haven't really been able to live a queer life.

You know, the internalised shame or the kind of homophobia

is slightly there still.

When you are in this job or when you are famous,

or something, it stunts a lot of things,

and, like, I didn't really develop my queerness.

So I think I'm just coming to it all very late.

Does that make sense? Cool.

I don't know where I expected this journey to begin,

but it wasn't slap bang in the middle of the desert.

What do I know about Palm Springs?

It's hot. It's a desert.

This is a place where old people go to die.

Joking. That's a joke.

It's hot. It's so hot. Why do people come here?

It's so hot!

Well, apparently, if you're LGBTQ+, this is the place for us.

Once a desert hangout for the 1960's Hollywood Rat Pack,

Palm Springs is now one of the queerest towns in America

and was the first to have an all LGBTQ+ council.

So it's a good place to dip my toe in the water,

at the mother of all queer women events.

- I'm checking in, please. - Yeah, of course.

Delevingne. D-E-L-E... V-I-N-G-N-E.

It's hard to spell.

Yes, it's true.

I've still never been to Pride or anything like that,

so this will be my very first proper queer day out.

Sheesh.

So, do you come here often?

So scared. Scared.

- Where are you going? - Where am I going?

- Am I meant to go this way? - I'm a Cancer.

- I like long walks on the beach. - So do I.

Okay, deep breath.

You guys are, like, the least subtle posse ever.

Like this is not it. Yeah.

I don't really know what to expect.

Go round. A board.

But how intense could it be?

Are we gonna go in, though?

This is the Dinah Shore Weekend,

the biggest lesbian pool party in the world.

15,000 women, trans and non-binary folk

out here in the desert.

You're coming in and you just see

an ocean of women and titties and glitter and pasties.

A lot of dancing, a lot of twerking,

a lot of making out, a lot of happy times.

Different body types. Different ethnicities. I love it.

It's like Disneyland for lesbians.

It's clear I won't survive unless I find friends ASAP.

Luckily, I got me some neighbours, Kimber and Lilly, to hold my hand.

- All right, Dinah on three. - One, two, three! Dinah!

Oh, my God.

That was the gayest thing I've ever done.

Really? I don't believe you.

- Let's go! - Welcome to Dinah Shore.

Soak it in.

And then a twerking contest.

Yeah!

Nice crowd. Loving the crowd's vibe today!

Look, the whole thing was face-meltingly loud,

so you'll have to read the next bit.

- This makes me emotional so much. - Why?

I have never been to anything like this.

Just here's, like, hot and amazing and fun.

And, like, just like...

There's nothing hotter than people living their best life.

But being here with this gorgeous,

colourful smorgasbord of queer people

has been intense.

What just happened? What didn't happen?

I don't know, I think... I guess... I.. I don't know.

I'm out and I'm proud, you know, to a certain extent.

But in my own life, I didn't really find a community.

I didn't really speak, like, experience these sort of things.

I did it in the public eye, which again allowed myself to be...

pointed fingers at,

or feel more of the hate than I guess the love.

So it's a lot. It's just a beautiful place.

Obviously, when you look at the footage,

it's arses and everyone dancing and having the best time,

but for me it feels so much more than that,

'cause it's just so much love and that, you know.

Oh, God, this is the journey.

This is the discovery of... I don't know, yeah.

Like, I feel... This is... Like, I'm feeling things.

I don't usually do that.

I didn't realise until now how reassuring it is

to be with people who share the same feelings as me.

I've been living in my own world,

when there's this whole big LGBTQ+ wonderland out there.

In today's queer kaleidoscope,

there are a lot of ways to define yourself.

Bears have a flag. I love that.

And dozens of different types of sexual orientation.

So chic, darling.

Don't know the difference between your As and bis and pans?

Don't worry, I'll call a doctor.

Dr Ronx is an ER medic, queer activist and educator.

They'll help me straighten it all out.

Well, not straight-straighten. Look, you know what I mean.

I love your trainers, babe.

Just to be clear, gender is how you feel inside.

Sexual orientation, that's who you fancy... or not.

Okay, let's go!

"Lesbian."

A lesbian is a woman who is attracted to another woman.

- "Gay." - A term men use

to say that they are attracted to other men.

It's also an umbrella term

for anybody that is not heterosexual.

- "Bisexual." - Bisexual people

- fancy men and women. - "Pansexual."

People who are attracted to other people,

regardless of their gender identity.

- "Asexual." - People who are not sexually attracted

- to other individuals. - "Queer."

Everybody under the LGBTQI umbrella,

but not everybody identifies as queer.

We've evolved and so has our flag,

from a simple rainbow to a cornucopia of colours.

Now called the Progress Flag.

It symbolises where as a society we aim to progress to,

encompassing the whole spectrum of sexual and gender identities.

I love that there's so many more types of sexuality

being recognised than ever before,

and more openly queer people on the planet.

36% of Gen Z say they feel some level of same sex attraction,

twice as many as their grandparents' generation.

What's driving this big queer leap?

I think it's because so many more of us

are unlearning the shame and standing up to be counted.

Here's what I love about Tokyo.

A busy modern city and yet bang in the middle of it,

ancient traditional scenes like this.

And this the ceremony hall.

Kodo Nishimura is the master of this Buddhist temple.

- It's like a wedding ceremony. - I know, look.

I feel like we could be married.

We have shared beliefs.

He grew up right here in this temple.

But even as a child, Kodo felt different from the other kids.

I noticed that I shouldn't talk about my interest in boys publicly,

and I felt like a perverted person.

I was constantly feeling

like there was a huge black cloud above my head.

Back then, gay people couldn't live as openly in Japan.

Kodo needed to find a place that accepted who he was.

Moving to the US was such a liberation for me.

I was learning about the history of LGBTQ community,

how people in the past have vote for our rights.

So if I can bring that to Japan, I felt that would be cool.

Kodo returned to Tokyo in 2013 to champion gay rights,

and discovered to his surprise the old family business of Buddhism

had been ready to welcome him in all along.

What I later found out, Buddhism is very embracing.

It says the mercy of Buddha is just like the moonlight.

Anybody who looks up to the moon can appreciate the beauty.

We can prioritise our uniquenesses and shine in our own colour.

- Here you go. - Oh, my gosh!

- Wonderful style of shirts. - Do you want to open these too?

Oh, my gosh, she loves the jewellery!

I think the courage to speak up

is actually cooler than pretending to be perfect.

- Yes, I completely agree with you. - So... Yeah.

- So... - High five to that.

So, now I'm gonna transform and...

Transform away. I will leave you. I will love you and leave you.

Okay, cool.

Today Kodo is a celebrity in his homeland

and not just as a Buddhist monk,

but something totally extra.

For his powers of glam as a makeup artist.

I can approach people's hearts with Buddhist teachings,

and I can also approach their outer attributes using makeup.

They both help people to gain confidence or balance.

Yes, gorgina.

- Oh, my God, you look amazing. - Thank you.

One foot in fashion and one foot in ancient tradition.

And, for Kodo, it works.

What would you like for the future and for the future of Japan?

If I can inspire leaders of the world,

also religious leaders, to lift laws against LGBTQ people,

that would be wonderful, because we have to be safe to be us.

And we're not going anywhere.

Society grows naturally like a tree.

So if you just keep watering, it's gonna grow, and I have hope

that all communities can learn diversity

and celebrate its beauty.

What an incredibly strong but also wise person he is.

No matter how much the traditional side

has probably stopped him from wanting to be the certain way,

his heart and his light shone through.

And I really... I've just learnt a lot from him.

It made me very emotional. It made me just so proud.

Being happy in yourself within yourself

gives you the resources to be able to help other people,

and that's what is most important in the world.

There are just little glimpses into people

who are really brilliant and radical and rebels,

and it's a beautiful thing.

Radicals and rebels made same sex relationships legal

in my home country 50 years ago.

But growing up, the messaging from the people around me

could still be heard loud and clear.

I couldn't talk to anyone about it, and I definitely had

a lot of, like, internalised homophobia and shame.

I thought that I was, like, abnormal and I... that I wasn't right.

Everyone else was right and I was wrong,

'cause I wasn't like everyone else.

I thought about ending my life. Like, I had, like, multiple times.

And, like, I'm so glad I didn't

because if I can help any other kid, that means the world to me,

that means the world to that little queer kid

that I was or am.

The thing is, I've always wondered

why I feel so much shame about my sexuality.

Because, honestly, people, this stuff is not new.

Since humans have walked the Earth, there have been queer folk.

From famous gays like Ancient Greek Alexander the Great

to Aztec god of homosexuality, Xōchipilli.

Through plenty of British kings, who are apparently queens.

Two Williams, two Richards, an Edward, a James,

and, of course, Queen Anne.

Same sex attraction has been around

for a long time and in a lot of places.

So what shapes our sexual orientation?

Is it nature or is it nurture?

Is it something that happened to me growing up, or was I born this way?

Well, there are plenty of ideas flying around,

but one person who studies this area is Dr Gerulf Rieger.

He believes answers lie in our biology.

Think about it like this. The majority of us are straight.

We need our sexual orientation

to create babies and continue to thrive as a species.

So the idea that the social environment

has such profound influences on something so important to us

just doesn't make any sense.

Everything from overbearing mothers, boarding schools,

being in the Navy and having older sisters

has been blamed for turning people gay.

But if society really makes you gay,

wouldn't there be a load more of us?

Gerulf thinks our sexual orientation is set much earlier,

before we're even born, in fact.

- Hello. How's everybody doing today? - Good, thank you.

Let's get one thing straight.

There's no one factor that makes us gay,

just a big biological cocktail of bits

that shape whether you swing this way, that way, or another way.

First up, there are numerous genes involved.

Recently we've had complex work done on the human genome

that suggests that there are several genes

that could influence a homosexual orientation.

There's not just one.

Hormones matter too.

Our number one educated guess is,

it's the level of testosterone that we're exposed to or react to

as an unborn child.

Let's say a baby girl that was exposed

to unusually high levels of testosterone

is more likely to become homosexual.

Okay, and do you want to know the baby's gender?

- Yes, please. - Okay.

- Well, it's definitely a girl. - Perfect.

Then it gets even weirder.

Another theory is mothers produce antibodies

in response to male babies.

Maybe we should call them "mantibodies."

When the mother is pregnant for the first time with a son,

she actually gets exposed to male typical proteins,

which is something that her own body isn't used to.

These antibodies stay in the mother's system.

Then they can affect the development of the second son

and could therefore disrupt

the regular development of his sexual orientation.

This suggests the greater number of older brothers you have,

the more likely you are to be gay,

only by a few percent,

but it's still a vital clue in this big queer puzzle.

So what does this all add up to?

Well, with so many factors involved in our sexual orientation,

it's no wonder there's so much diversity

and so many shades of gay.

When it comes to the question of how innate

is somebody's sexual orientation,

my educated guess is probably a hundred percent.

It's something that really comes from within the person.

What exactly are the ingredients, that's the million dollar question.

You're born this way. I'm born this way.

So you can pack that judginess away, thank you very much.

It's not a choice, which is a relief, to be honest.

And it's nothing me, other queer folk

or our parents did wrong.

All right, okay, but next question.

Is our sexuality fixed from birth,

or is it something that evolves and changes throughout life?

I still am of the belief

that sexuality is definitely a spectrum,

and I feel like mine wavers.

But also I'm probably definitely more on the side of women.

But I like having sex with men. I just don't date them.

I might, though. You never know.

But, again, I think it's a beautiful

unwavering wavering beautiful boo.

But if biologically speaking there are so many shades of gay,

how do I know for sure which one I am?

And what about my fluctuating sexual fluidity?

Is it my mind choosing who I want to have sex with

or who my body reacts to?

Sexologist Dr Marieke Dewitte

is an expert on what turns us on. Meow.

- Are you Flemish? I'm Flemish. - I'm Flemish.

- Fellow Flem. - Yeah.

So I signed up to her sex lab to watch a lot of porn,

all in the name of science.

Who wouldn't be excited by watching a whole lot of porn today?

Come in and welcome to our sex lab.

As you can see, we try to create kind of a living room effect,

a little bit more cosy.

So, we are going to present several video clips.

You know what I thought about? My parents watching this.

Well, maybe you should have thought about that before.

Try to ignore it. The main thing

is actually what you need to do, is just sit, relax

and try not to touch yourself and sit still.

Try not to? I can contain myself.

Try not to touch yourself and just watch the screen, yeah?

- Okay, perfect. - Have fun, Cara.

- I will. I will try. Fuck. - Yeah, definitely.

I'm sorry, this is what? And it goes where?

When you get sexually aroused,

more blood is being pumped into your vagina,

and, therefore, the colour of your vagina wall changes.

And this device

measures the amount of blood in your vagina cavity.

- Can I ask a question? - Sure.

Can you read my mind through my vagina?

- No. - It's going in now.

Right. Jesus!

- Can you guys see that it's in? - I can see your signal.

Oh, my God! My signal? What the fuck is happening?

I can see your vagina pulse, yes.

Great. I love that for us.

Okay, try not to think about my parents

or about the camera 12 inches from my face.

My frankly ridiculous task is to watch different kinds of porn,

while Marieke's vag monitor records how aroused I am down below,

and I yank a lever

to rate how turned on I feel up above in my mind.

Okay, fire it up. First, two guys shagging each other.

Like, I can feel my breath shortening or whatever crap.

We can see there's something happening.

Then lesbian sex.

Yeah, okay.

My body feels that shivering feeling again.

Great. Weird. This is strange.

Just had a real big influx of horniness

and then a real big influx of shame.

How bad is that still? Why?

Straight sex.

He's not very good at this.

There's men masturbating.

I'm less horny than I thought I was.

Oh, Lord.

Women masturbating.

That just seems uncomfortable. So fake nails, bro.

You're gonna say something different, aren't you, vagina?

Then a surprise little bonus clip of some hairy monkey sex.

Okay, this is properly weird now.

Oh, my God, what's it doing?

It's called oral sex.

This is wild. Literally.

An hour later, thank God, that's it, I'm done.

I don't even know how to feel anymore.

- So there she is. How was it? - Do I look traumatised?

Not at all. Did you find it traumatising?

No. Maybe.

But what the F does this all mean when it comes to sexual orientation?

What did you see?

We could clearly see that your body

automatically reacted to a sexual stimulus.

So the moment there was something sexual,

you had this automatic genital arousal response,

because your body, your brain, recognises this as sexual,

you've learned this is sexual, so you react.

So it sounds like my genitals

find everything, human and animal, sexy.

But is this to be expected?

Your response actually matched

with what we saw in previous research,

that the genital arousal response of women

is rather non specific.

It kind of shows that for women it's sexual activity that matters.

It says nothing about your sexual orientation or identity.

'Cause matters of the genitals are not matters of the heart.

So sometimes women who don't identify as being lesbian,

they get turned on by the women,

and it's like, "Oh, my God, is this... ?"

They get confused.

But it's just this diversity of...

Yeah, women get aroused by different stimuli.

Phew, so this isn't some secret lust for monkeys.

It's a primal bodily response to sexual stuff,

one shared by females.

But what was my mind saying about all of this?

Your reactive sexual arousal clearly differed

depending on the type of porn you were watching.

And what we saw in your pattern,

it seems that, especially the lesbian porn in specific,

really turned you on in terms of reactive arousal.

Does it match your sexual orientation?

- For sure. - Do you feel attracted to women?

So generally I think women are my preferred gender, I suppose.

How you feel, the mental component,

we see that in women, it's more specific,

that what really turns you on

is kind of a little bit more tied to what you also prefer.

My mind is much more in sync with my own sexual orientation.

For males, though, it's a different story.

Their bodies react only to the stuff that turns on their minds.

Men actually only respond to stimuli

that match their sexual orientation,

but in women there's much more fluidity

and erotic plasticity, as we call it.

Women's sexuality can change throughout life,

and they're much more diverse.

So both our bodies and minds

feed into this thing we call sexual orientation.

And women are more fluid and varied than men.

But, crucially, none of it is a choice.

I think it's also asking yourself, or thinking,

"However you're feeling is not natural."

But it is natural because it's happening.

That's always what I would think, growing up with a lot of shame,

is thinking, "This isn't normal. this isn't human."

- But it's, like, it is. - Yeah. I mean...

Yeah, that's the sticky bit, the shame.

The pressure from society and the world around me growing up

doesn't have the slightest impact on our innate sexual orientation,

but it sure does affect how you feel about your sexual identity.

I wrestled with that today.

It did bring up little silly feelings of self-identifying

and, like, guilt or shame, and that kind of stuff.

And it kind of also made me silence myself in that way

because I'm, like, so bored of that kind of self-projection

and, like, self... battery.

The more I tried to deny the fact that I was in any way homosexual,

the more I hated myself.

What you also try to deny

then kind of rears its head even more.

The thing is, you could say my sexuality is natural.

I can say, "I'm born this way. Accept it."

But the truth is I can still feel the stigma and the shame.

And I know there are many people out there

who have grown up in far more difficult circumstances than me.

I want to meet people who have lived

through societal shame and rejection, and fought back

so I can understand how to be more self-accepting.

Sound check.

My name is The Darvish,

and I am a Syrian performance artist,

an event organiser,

community changer and an LGBTQIA+ rights advocate.

And I consider myself a force of nature.

- Hello. - Hello, my love.

- My man, indeed. - Hi, my love. Oh, my goodness.

- How are you, my man? - Pleasure meeting you.

We're now entering the club.

We need to create some magic.

The Darvish is from Syria,

where same sex relationships are still illegal.

- Whoo, honey. - Honey.

We need a little bit of techno, and that's it basically.

It's literally all you need.

I realised when I'm queer probably in the age of 14.

Up and straight and you drop it. One and two.

And then the journey started of me immediately realising

that this is a taboo in the country that I am in right now,

and that it is dangerous for me to, you know, own it.

So, yeah, started living, um...

more carefully and cautiously, but gracefully.

And, yella, yeah. Use the hands, okay.

She's getting it. Okay.

When ISIS overtook parts of Syria, The Darvish had to make a choice.

The war got really serious.

Persecutions and executions and stuff like that.

That's where it really hit us we cannot be visible at all.

The decision over me leaving Syria, that was the hardest thing.

Choosing my life.

And...

Yeah.

One second.

I focused on imagining how my life would be.

You don't have to live a double life.

You don't have to pretend anymore. You don't have to act.

You can be you. Free.

The Darvish has now been safe in Berlin for six years.

Your mum, she understood, though, you leaving, or not?

Well, she didn't want to. She didn't want to understand.

It was very hard for her, for me to leave,

but I think I made my point very clear

that if I stay, there is no future for me, you know?

- It got too dark. - Yeah.

Right? I don't like it.

Oh, no. I thought you meant life.

I said, "Yes."

I disagree, honey.

I actually have a little something for you.

This is for you. This is a little dervish.

- Yeah, whirling dervish! - Yes.

So, this is to say that you mean a lot to the community

and we really appreciate you,

and thank you so much for being with us tonight.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you.

I am a whirling dervish.

- Perfect, I'm happy you like it. - Oh, that's so cute!

Tonight The Darvish will be performing

with their collective called Queens Against Borders,

working for the Trans and Queer Refugee Community.

Hello!

Okay. Thank you so much everyone

for being here with us at this fundraiser.

We're very glad that you're here.

Welcome to the stage, Dornika and her bad bitch Tram.

Yes.

Whoo!

I think finding and building a community anywhere in the world,

whatever community it is, is super vital.

The community that I have built

brought to me everything that I could ever imagine,

which is me being me.

Yeah!

Please, put your hands together

for the gorgeous, the stunning, the beautiful,

the one and only, The Darvish!

I never really had any interest of politics,

but being the person I am is a political statement by itself.

I am a walking... politician, let's say.

I choose my dance and my passion and my performances

to say something.

I am trying my best to have the visibility here

in order later to mobilise it there, in Syria.

I'm beginning to understand what I've been missing

by not being more active like The Darvish.

They've unlearned the shame and surrounded themselves with love.

It's given me so much to think about.

I don't really go to gay bars. I don't really know...

I mean, I'm a shit gay person.

Also because I think that comes from a deep line

of like not really wanting to be gay that much.

But like I do, it's just with every story there's been...

It's been plagued with some sort of, some element of heartbreak,

but then some massive amount of joy, you know.

And that's the magic of queer people.

I mean, it's an amazing gift and a curse in so many ways.

It's a double edged sword.

But that's what I always leave feeling, is joy,

which is... that's the rainbow, that's the community.

Today, across the world,

there are trailblazing countries where marginalised LGBTQ+ folk

can find that community and that joy.

And South Africa is a known haven for queer refugees.

One of the first countries to legalise same sex marriages,

and the only one in Africa.

There are LGBTQ+ church groups...

To find an LGBT ministry within South Africa,

it just makes everything better.

... and queer festivals...

I actually love it because I can be whoever that I feel like.

Well, I'm a homosexual, very gay, over the top, extremely flamboyant.

Spaces like this are definitely important

because I don't know, I just feel so much more need.

We wanna get married and just settle down

and just live a beautiful life.

And have furry babies, 'cause I don't want actual ones.

I mean, come on, why wouldn't you want

to be a part of this big old queer family

when it looks like so much fun?

Yet, it's no wonder so many of us LGBTQ+ folks

still feel shamed,

given that even in so-called liberal countries,

there are laws being tabled against queer people.

Don't say "gay," right?

Which is why we need events like Dinah Shore,

not just to party, but as a refuge.

I'm back with my new friends, Kimber and Lilly.

I wish I could go back to myself, back when I was younger,

and just kind of figuring out my sexuality,

and I wish I could show myself what my life is today.

I grew up in Tennessee,

in a very conservative family, very religious,

and being gay was just, like, absolutely not acceptable.

Here I am all these years later,

and I have an unbelievable queer community around me.

It's just so important to not feel alone,

and I feel like a lot of queer people feel alone.

And you're not gonna feel alone here.

Where we live, there's not very many places...

- It's better now. - They're starting to accept it,

but you still get a little bit of a look here and there.

Like, do you walk down the street holding hands?

Probably not.

It's amazing for me,

especially, like, I didn't come out until later in life.

- So... - I'm an old lesbian.

So, yeah, for me, like, it's, um...

It just feels like very less, I don't know, stressful.

Like, I don't feel like I need to hold back.

I'm just... I'm pretty much me everywhere,

but here it's just a little extra.

- Like, just total. - It's emotional.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's having a good time. That's all that matters. Sorry.

It's incredible to be free just for a few hours.

It feels like a weight has been lifted.

- Hey, Cara! - Yes?

Welcome to Palm Springs!

Thank you!

Yeah!

We love lesbians!

I now have gay friends.

- What have you learnt? - So, wait, I'm confused.

Okay, pass me back that. I need it.

Okay, so what have I learnt about myself?

I love being queer.

You know, this, like, internalised homophobia

or this repressed, you know, whatever, um...

Yeah, I don't know why I said that. Being here, I don't know why.

It's something that I put on myself, not generally to other people.

It's about myself.

But then this experience has really...

I've felt like I've made friends with that in myself.

I think that's what I've learnt,

which is a whole roundabout way of saying, um...

I shouldn't be shameful, I suppose.

So I guess that's my story over, right?

My own journey of self-acceptance done and dusted

thanks to the amazing queer people I've met

and the wet and wild world of Dinah Shore.

Well, not quite.

The thing is LGBTQ+ festivals

are kind of a closed world, a cosy safe refuge.

It's time to stop hiding

and do what I said at the start that I've never done.

It's time to go out there and be visible in a city I love.

Yes, at last, I'm gonna go to fricking Pride!

I want that outfit. You look amazing.

Look at those models' faces.

The fame.

Do you mind if I interview you?

I'd love to interview you as well.

- I can do that. - Okay, good.

I've never been to Pride before, so this is my first Pride.

I've been out for a while, but yeah.

- Happy Pride. - Happy Pride!

Tell me a bit about your experience as drag queens.

How old you were when... ?

- But we're still only 15. - Yeah, exactly.

- Me too. - I'm 12.

- I'm 12. - No, you aren't.

When did you come out?

26, 27. Don't ask me how old I am.

I wouldn't ask a lady that. Yeah, I know.

- The last ten years, changing a lot. - It's changing a lot.

But now marriage, family, kids. It's wonderful.

Yeah. It's possible.

It's always that one month of Pride or Pride Week or Pride,

but I think we need to be proud every day.

- But thank you so much. - And thanks for spreading the word.

It's a really big deal.

It's a duty, I feel. I haven't done it until now.

- Happy Pride! - Happy Pride!

It's emotional for me a little bit,

'cause I think when you're queer

and you spend so much time being quiet and being silenced,

Pride allows a space for people to come and feel safe.

The rainbow's a perfect example of showing their true colours,

showing who they really are, being able to be loud.

Oh, my God!

Pride has now been running for more than 50 years.

Since the first one in New York in 1970,

there are dozens of Pride events around the world every year.

Here, the weather might be gloomy, but there are rainbows galore,

and I've just seen a familiar face.

- Hello, again! - Hi! Oh, my gosh!

- Sorry. How are you? - Hi.

This is amazing, yeah.

Yesterday I saw two men holding hands

for the first time in my life, and...

Anybody who sees them will be like, "Oh, this is... "

- This is normal. Not weird. - Yeah.

What Pride has taught me is, in so many places in the world,

you can find LGBTQ+ community.

Many of us have been on similar journeys.

Some individuals can make a difference.

I've met them, and they've inspired me

to say goodbye to that shame once and for all.

I feel so much more comfortable, and I feel very proud.

I mean, not just because it was Pride.

It's not like it's changed me.

It's not like I've discovered new elements of myself.

It's just me being able to be myself in these situations.

It's just been a real revelation.

I just want to keep being in this Planet Sex mode.

Meeting people from around the world,

connecting, listening to people's stories,

trying to imagine their situation, trying to understand,

and through that, understand more about myself,

and hopefully ignite or inspire others

to have similar conversations.

I've just never done anything so personal.

It makes me realise what's important

and how much more active I want to be

in terms of trying to make some sort of small difference.

Any difference is still better than nothing.

Okay. No, I'm sad. Is it over?

It's never over. Pride's never over. Here's to coming out.

It's a really beautiful experience, and I'm so thankful for it.

Don't, I'll get fucking emotional. I hate emotions.

What do you want? Just say can't.

Yes.

- Synced and corrected by chamallow - - www.MY-SUBS.com -