Adulting - #24 Common, Fat & Faggy with Scottee

Episode Date: February 3, 2019

So glad to be back! Happy belated new year, in this first episode of 2019 I speak to artist and activist Scottee about class, privilege, fatness. queerness & so much more. I hope you enjoy this candid chat and, as always, please do rate, review and subscribe! Find Scottee online @scottee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hi guys, welcome to Adulting and I guess I should say Happy New Year as well because I haven't seen you since the big 2K18 and now it's 2019 which is just groundbreaking. And today I am joined by Scotty. Hiya. Hiya, who is unbelievably hilarious, I've already found out because we've been just giggling already. Oh no, you're setting like a precedent.

Like I have to be funny throughout the next seven hours because that's how long this will be, right? It will be that long. Final edit down to seven, but we'll record 24 just to be safe. It's fine. We are literally profusely sweating opposite each other in a very swanky studio, but just dripping in sweat. Absolutely dripping.

But I think it's just adding to the atmosphere. I agree, especially because it's freezing cold outside. But that doesn't affect us. Do you still think we'd have to say Happy New Year to people? I mean, I actually prefer saying, do you know what? This is how quirky I am. I like to say Happy Birthday to people. No.

I like to say Happy New Year to people in July. Just because then people think, you know, like woke people think, am I not, is this a new... Oh, you're supposed to know. Is this like a zodiac new year that I'm unaware of? We should make up our own July new year that

we just pretend is a thing. Jalir. So, yes, happy Jalir. And we'll be like, oh, it's when the world became woke to all these things and it's like the awakening of the year. The July of 2004. Yeah. Okay, I'm so ready for this.

Wait, before we confuse everyone, do you want to tell people who you are? No. Okay. I mean, I can. I mean, it's not obligatory. I think they should just listen. So my name is Scotty.

I'm an artist. Some people call me an activist. I don't know how I feel about that. But then some big posh activist journalist wrote this thing for my book called Scotty, I Made It, which was sort of justifying the activist space that I exist in. Because I don't, I'm not one of these like political activists that goes on rallies. I actually work with marginalised communities across the UK and beyond.

And yeah, the work that I make is often about class fatness queerness survival and activism and where those identities all intersect and like who's not at the table who needs to voices needs to be made louder and how I can use arts and the arts and arts money to kind of create sort of art socialism I love that makes me sound like I'm a nice person. You're amazing. I just, I know this already. The one thing I want to bring up, I don't think class as an intersect is talked about enough.

No, it's often, it's, yeah, it's often ignored. And that's for lots of different reasons. I think when we're talking about privilege, often people who hold privileged positions feel that we are robbing them of an experience. So when we say, actually, it's more easier for you, dot, dot, dot, dot, they feel like you're personally attacking them. But what we're talking about is the demographic.

We're talking about the group that that person belongs to in really broad senses. And largely because the people who are at the table come from privileged backgrounds that they can't see what it is like to live in precariousity yeah so from the age of six years old I think I was very aware of my queerness and my class and didn't have the language available to me and so that's that my class has determined everything um that has come up in my life. And so, yeah, it's often an intersect that's ignored, largely because posh people think that class isn't a thing anymore.

Yeah. And I think often when we see class in the media and in the arts and on telly and in the radio, it's often parodied. So we see these things like shameless, or we see things which victimize or um villainize sorry um working class people like benefit street yeah it's like people just trying to get away with stuff that's really interesting because i actually i'm obviously from a very privileged background my accent my parents don't tell me but i was sent to a private school so i i had no concept of class

i'll very openly say this now i remember going to uni and watching benefit street and genuinely being shocked because i just wasn't brought up with it that's mortifying to say but it's really important to accept it I wouldn't say that was mortifying I would say um I really appreciate that you are in a position where you can acknowledge your privilege and understand that people have different um upbringings and um different environments that they grew up in I think there's a lot of people that have grown up with the privilege of education, because we have to acknowledge that education is a privilege

in this country now, that they can't see beyond that. And actually they become capitalist libertarians where they just feel like actually because of the way that our government, current government, sort of DUP and Conservative have sort of curated class by saying, if you're not trying hard enough, then it's your own fault. If you're not working hard enough, it's your own fault. That people sort of buy that. They believe that.

And that's, I think, that's another reason why class, I think, isn't often put on the table. Interesting. Have you heard of, is it Darren Loki-Megavi? Yeah. He wrote Poverty Safari. So I haven't read it, but I was listening to him on Russell Brand's podcast and he was talking about this as well. And he said that to him, he was like, to privilege people, you think classism is like rungs on a ladder and you're trying to work your way up. He was like, to me, class is just a parallel universe. I was existing in a working class background. I wasn't trying to get anywhere anywhere we were just looking at each other from different sides of a road and that's really interesting

because I I would have not looked like that I would have agreed in thinking that you would try and progress up towards being middle class whatever not recognizing that it's not not really even to do with money necessarily it's to do with your actual conceptualization of the what they don't want to be middle class like there's the we're so um like i was so far away from understanding what it really meant truly meant to be working class that i had no real understanding of it and when he was talking about on the podcast he was saying how um he thinks that one of the reasons as well that we don't talk about class as an insect is because if we start talking about how much of an issue it is to have people in poverty it will mean that the economy and the rich people have to do something about money whereas when it's to do with like gender or race

or sexuality those things you can kind of extrapolate from the economy you don't necessarily literally have to have to re-address the way that we do capitalism or whatever to fix those problems. You do, but not in their eyes. So I wonder if that comes into it. I think so. I think I've really enjoyed listening to him and we've shared similar space, but never at the same time, where both of us have been invited to speak on quite prolific Radio 4 and Radio 3 programmes.

And we're quite disruptive in those spaces. And it's interesting, that feels like a really natural thing for me just to be like, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know what words you're on about, you're talking about this, that and the other you know, when you've got like middle class academics talking about class, it always feels a little bit like, I don't know why you're here because you've got no lived experience of it, like give us

a working class academic, they might be able to tell us from an academic point of view and from a class point of view, a lived class point of view I think there's there are things that we need to distill as well which I think Darren does really well which is about um like the difference between class and poverty um and I grew up poor so my awareness of class was actually about money right but it wasn't until I came into the arts, until I came into contact with posh people when I was like 15,

that I was like, oh, oh. You mean you don't live on a flat? Like I remember I met this girl, Hannah, at this sort of like drama thing my mum sent me to because it was 20p, so I went along. And also, you know know like being like a big fag I was like oh my god drama that's a little fad um and then I met Hannah and she had like this amazing haircut and I was like oh my god your parents let you have that hair and she was like

you can come and she wore dms as well oh my god she's so cool I've seen people like her on the telly you know like I've seen people like her on Grange Hill yeah and then uh went back to her house and it was an actual house like three stories and I was like and there were stairs leading up to the house I was just like oh my god went in and she called her mum by her first name I was just like I'm sorry who is that person that you've just called and like had someone there who cooked the meal oh I'm not that posh and then we sat down don't lie and then we sat down we sat down and then they gave us red wine I was 15 oh my god I love it it was like posh rabina and then she was allowed to smoke in her room and I was

just like this there's too much culturally here that I don't understand and feeling like that those first experiences of like meeting posh kids made me start to go, why didn't I have that? That's your first sort of capitalist thought. Why don't I have that? Why am I not allowed to have a room like that? And particularly because I grew up in one of the poorest and largest estates in North London. And everyone on my estate was first or second generation Irish migrant and we all went to the Catholic school and so you're completely

in this Irish migrant bubble and it wasn't until then going to secondary school you met other people who like parents like picked them up in the cars or their their au pair picked them up in a car and you were like what who what I get free buses here um but I think it's really important that we share these stories and when we share them that we try to share them with as much generosity because I feel like um a lot of conversations around privilege can be super loaded again like people feel like you're saying you've had it easier where of course everyone has lived traumas and experiences which like they feel shouldn't have happened to them and rightly so but um I guess we just need to get to a place of listening I feel we're such in a space of like

defending and um anger and aggression yeah I think you're completely right with that idea I think this is where people really struggle especially with class and race and gender issues because you're right we all have our own trauma and whether that's a massive thing or a tiny thing it's happened to you and it's all relative so it doesn't really make a difference it's kind of irrelevant to the point the point is that you're at some point where you can get through doors or you can make like I wouldn't have the career I have now if I wasn't from the family I'm from I didn't have the friends I'm from and had the opportunities and the way that I was taught at school all led me to be able to do this I don't think I'd be doing this if I didn't have those privileges and I can see that very clearly now which makes me a lot more grateful makes me want

to work harder but I wouldn't have really clicked unless I'd done that digging because if you are in a privileged position you're above the parapet you don't have to look down and see what it could have been like do you know it's so refreshing to hear this because I think so many very prolific forward-facing Instagram folk and I'm not saying that's what you your sole identity is but um as somebody who is quite prolific on that platform and you look around and you see the other prolific faces on that platform and they are from a very similar background, from a similar upbringing. And I wonder if this is the floor of Instagram, right? Where actually that is a platform which is about people being able to show their lives

and keeping up appearances. And so those who are able to keep up those appearances or those who have got the surroundings which look aesthetically nice with a rise feel to put on top of it, mean that those people can excel and succeed. So the fact that you're trying to share that privilege and to distribute and disseminate knowledge through that platform. I know you've spoken a lot on your stories about being conflicted by capitalism and that platform and how you navigate that whilst being woke and also intersectional I think that is the conversation that we need to keep on putting out there I think I think it's changing now I'm I'm I've realized because I thought the same I was like everyone I follow is the same as me I'm reading the same things from

white women from middle-class backgrounds I looked out and I found actually there's loads of incredible women of color that trans people amazing just doing incredible things a lot of them artists a lot of them working in creative industries a lot of them with a lot smaller following than I have for no other real reason why probably because as I said I'm white middle-class cisgendered conventionally attractive and can I think it runs a little bit deeper as well the school I went to was that didn't really care what grades you got but they brought you out to be a speaker everyone from my school can navigate and network a room that is a privilege that ability to talk in that kind of way even have these conversations talk smoothly is a huge massive privilege of education and a very good education and I think

that's almost why because I remember saying it must have been like last year when I was with an agency and I was like isn't it funny how everyone on YouTube and Instagram all went to that private school and I was like wait no it's not funny that is why they're on it. I am so part of my practice is I make these sort of text pieces in lots of different ways some of them occupy high streets some of them I create these big paintings and sometimes I just leave these text pieces in public space and one of them that I made is middle class kids are born with a sense of entitlement, working class kids are born with a sense of inadequacy and I think that middle class kids are raised and curated often by their parents to have confidences, to be creative, to pursue other pursuits which are less capitalist because of the afforded luxury.

I, as a very poor working class migrant kid, was raised to not to assimilate and to try and earn money through some form of means of labour because labour equates money and money equates stability. And I was not raised with, but something that I bring with me wherever I go is imposter syndrome. So I know that people will judge me.

As soon as I open my mouth, people will judge me on the way that I talk. And it can go two ways, right? If I'm meeting a big curator or a programmer for a space um I'll either soften my accent because I think they don't understand what I'm saying or they'll start swearing oh right to be like more wet fucking hell yeah god I know how that's fucking like fuck fuck you're like you've never said that word before so why are you saying it now but it's from a place of empathy I understand both of us are coming from a place of empathy.

But yeah, that imposter syndrome that constantly, when I make a piece of work, says to me, this is rubbish, no one's going to like it. Or if I make a big stage show, I think this is the one that they'll come and they'll say, we don't like it and I can't do this job anymore. And then I have to think about other ways of earning a living. And so I think that sense of survival and imposter is always with me.

Yes, I definitely get imposter syndrome. And I think what's important to recognise is, because I talk about intersectionality a lot, but in case people don't necessarily understand the point of it, feminism is fighting for equal liberation and equal rights for people. Well, some types of feminism. Yeah, yeah. If you're not, like, kind of classic white feminist.

But what's interesting is, like, we think feminism is all about fighting for women. But I've got way more privileges than Scotty does because I'm white, cisgender, heterosexual, all those things we've talked about. Whereas you're working class, homosexual and fat. Yeah. Which I'm allowed to say because i know someone's stressed but we have to talk about fatness as a thing that's not a bad thing you're just fat before someone's like so rude um so those intersex mean that you've actually got more barriers in your pathway despite being a white man which might get confusing there's a nuance

to it there's there's different layers to things and we have to recognize that whilst women we all feel imposter syndrome within intersectionality and intersectional feminism we have to look out for the other people in our spaces that also don't get those true so yeah this this is intellectual yeah let's just lay things out so um this is this is where i think like um we need to acknowledge assumption right so uh in this space you've made the assumption that I'm homosexual. Oh yes, I was. And that I identify as male. Oh my God, yeah.

But we're both here with the right frame of, we're both coming here as in this space to be like, let's be like, let's learn from each other. I do have learning to do. Tell me. We've all got learning to do. But this is how we've got to deal with learning.

It's not to be like, no're wrong i'm leaving that was my miming footsteps outside um but um actually what we've we've got to do is go oh okay let's have a way that we can have these conversations because i think selena thompson talks about that we're at this place at the moment where we actually are so new with theories that language often fails us and we've got to meet each other at a place of generosity right because this is how we learn and I think we don't learn from calling each other out you know that yeah um call out culture yeah because I sort of understand where it exists where where violence and um aggression and extreme violences are at play but we weren't having the chat. No.

So what I was thinking there when I was on the way in here, because we're recording in Soho, I just went past a sort of landmark for me, which is the place that I was first sort of violently assaulted by gay men. And so gay men, like, have always sort of found a way of ostracising me, largely because I'm effeminate and largely because I'm fat and I'm considered not to have any sexual or cultural capital by them. And to be explicit, this is white gay men

and often privileged white gay men that often were very, very nasty to me. And outside a cafe that used to be there, a 24-hour cafe, and a whole group of these guys started to, like, dressed me down, I was, like, 17, and they just started hurling abuse at me about my fatness and, like, really femme-shaming me as well. And I just burst into tears because there was a programme called Queer as Folk in the 90s on Channel 4,

and I used to watch it in my bedroom in secret, and I used to think, oh, this is what the gay scene would be like and it definitely wasn't so I just burst into tears and from that I've had other white gay men try to set me on fire in nightclubs twice actually I've had lots of physical violence towards me from white gay men and also I think from about the age of six men white men and often white working-class men who I grew up around found ways of ostracizing me and when I was very young very young it was just through you're not allowed to be with us you can't play with us you talk like a girl you are a girl

and then not being allowed to play with the girls because I was a boy. So quickly, femininity within white gay male culture is a negative, is a bad thing. It's a bad thing because what we have to acknowledge is they are also men as well as being gay. Still misogynistic. So they find a way of making like a really complex misogyny. So I think Russell Tovey has quite prolifically said in an interview, which he then apologised for, that he was glad he didn't go to drama school because he didn't want to end up like one of those namby-pamby.

So like campness, I guess, is what we're talking about. Campness as a cultural capital only holds capital really in sort of straight entertainment world, so for entertainment value. Because it's also, sometimes campness, when it's profiled on television and stuff, not all campness, is about gay men unicising themselves.

So like becoming, desexualising and depoliticising themselves for sort of hegemonic, heterosexual cultures. Like they'll be like the gay best friend, like the accessory, they're never like the gay best friend, like the accessory. They're never like the main... As long as you don't talk about bumming, you're totally fine. Right, I guess because I see what you're saying

because it desexualises it in people's minds. Totally. So interesting. So then gay men have adopted, through lots of really complex reasons, have adopted this misogyny, internalised misogyny because uh one of them being that for a very long time probably since like the 30s um gay men have uh objectified the

oppressor so often the oppressor is like heterosexual brutish men yeah and so like through a lot of gay culture there has been this this adoption of what those men wore as a drag. Right. So, like, when I was growing up, like, in the 90s, like, lots of middle-class white gay men were dressing like working-class men that I grew up around as because it holded sexual capital. I get you.

And in the same way, like, I guess in the 90s when we had, in the 80s when we had clones, so people were, like, wearing leather and biker stuff and that sort of extreme look of a 70s... Hyper-masculine. Hyper-masculinity. And so what holds sexual capital in gay male scene is the ultimate hyper-toxic male.

Right. And so, of course, those opinions have been adopted as well. And to be femme is to be considered lower and I guess it's the same with women it's like or any like phobia or kind of like sexism they attack you because they don't want to that is their fear of being associated with that kind of expression is that what it is I think so and I think if we really want to go into the sort of um sexual psychology around it i think it's the penetrated i think it's this idea that and i'm not saying that all femme folk and anyone who presents camp is a bottom as we call it in the business um but often the the perception of uh bottoms or bottom and the bottom shaming is an

actual thing where you're considered to be lower I thought that was a really like uh ignorant idea to think that that any non-heterosexual couples play out heterosexual roles I thought that was like a kind of like a made-up thing as well or is that is that a true thing no it can be I mean um there is uh you know there's a great quote which I love and I live by that if you're not first told you're doing it quote, which I love, and I live by that, if you're not versatile, you're doing it wrong. And I think that, but I do think there is a replication of hetero, what we call heteronormativity, or homonormativity, which is this idea that because the way that queer equality came through, and I'm talking about legislation, was through

assimilates. so the ones that wanted to assimilate so they're like look we're just like you I love that we're just like you look we've got you know clean cut hair cuts we go to bed at nine o'clock we we shop at Ikea and Habitat we've got a little dog you know like that sort of soft white um it's the sort of Nat West version of gayness so of course those who are able to see themselves reflected on a mortgage poster are white, cisgendered, able-bodied, got great teeth and hair, and they're holding hands, skipping down the road. Now, we know, because on New Year's Day in London,

there was a physical, very violent attack towards two queer people. So we know that that advert is telling us some lies. We can't just walk down the road skipping because actually if you hold your partner's hand and they perceive you to be same-gendered, then it's always a statement, regardless of what space that you're in. Well, do you know you say that,

and it was so, I was walking and I was in Brixton and I saw two guys holding hands and they kissed and I went, I've never seen that before in the street. Ever. And I, first of all, I went, but just because I had no judgement, my body just went, oh, this seen that before in the street, ever. And I, first of all, I went, but just because I had no judgment, my body just went, oh, this isn't, look at this. And I had to, I make myself think about

why I've thought something. And I was like, oh, I've just, like my cousin's happily married gay guy. And so I'm not, and I've got gay friends. And that sounds like the worst excuse, doesn't it? But I mean, I just was shocked to see it because not because I find it shocking, but I just registered

that oh my god this is new that this is happening so that's awful that it's taken until now like really everyone should be walking around there should be gay people everywhere snogging on the streets and holding hands or like gay and queer people and trans people like we're often I guess less so like when we apply intersectionality to this, so less, it's more acceptable for a gay white male couple to be affectionate in a public space because, you know, they hold privileges in other spaces. But it always, regardless of which demographic you come from, it always takes bravery and you've always got to watch your partner.

Like, I've been with partners that just can't do that because of the fear of violence, because of violences that have happened to them in the past because of that. So, you know, we grow up in a space where we know that our love isn't normalised. And so, you know, as naff as it can be to be like, oh, there's a gay character in this soap or whatever, actually those moments, you know,

some of my first moments of seeing queerness um as like a working class counsellor state kid were through the telly and so they do do something but we know we're still in a space where i think people think of what's left to fight for and then you get reminded that there are these extreme violences that happen to queer and trans people across the world prolific actually like at the moment what's going through for the gender non-conforming and trans community and how that is being played out in terms of um uh public space and toilet space i mean the violence that's enacted towards trans bodies on a day-to-day basis um i think travis alaban, they've talked about a statistic

which is about, I think it's like one in three trans or gender non-conforming people experience urinary tract infections because they just can't go to the toilet because they can't find public space. I think we're safe then. Yeah, and so when we're talking around these things again we do have to apply intersectionality and be like okay well

we're just talking about going for a wee just talking about going for a wee and we can't even cross that barrier but the violence that comes towards that and it's always women and children which are used as some form of cultural capital which I think is really interesting that the sort of uh the the male uh journalist eye will kind of push forward the male gaze as soon as it feels that it's it is under attack yeah and then it will use women as some

sense of like um cultural capital even though they are the ones that are mostly appraising women and children in society well wholly and this is what i just think like sometimes within our feminist uh circles and i use our feminist circles like how like the anger seems to be like displaced like if we want to be angry at someone like i know who i want to be angry at i want to be angry at those who show me on a day-to-day basis um physical and verbal violences and I know who those people are those people know who those people are and I think if we actually asked ourselves who is our active oppressor I think we would be able to really come together and create some form of progressive change rather than keep on squabbling about whether or not like trans

people are people yeah but the other problem i think so we have the active oppressors that are blindingly obvious and everyone knows who they are including them but i think the dangerous ones are the ones that do all that silent oppression and they don't register that their the conversations they're having with their friends are transphobic or that the things that they did to that girl that night when they were 16 is actually not consensual i think those people are almost the more problematic ones because we all know a fascist when we see one and they're going how hitler and everyone could go uh you're an arsehole um but when they are someone who says oh no i'm very liberal which is what i got a massive backlash because i put men need to do

better i'm going out with a white cisgendered guy. He's great. He wasn't offended by that because he knows in his day to day life, he's being an ally and doing shit that he needs to do. But scores of men, my whole post had been about rape culture and women getting abused and stuff like that. They all read the whole thing. And the last sentence was men need to do better. The rest of it was about women being oppressed in different cultures and societies and whatever and they all just went oh no sorry not all men and it's like no you're part of the problem stop talking about why you're not involved in the conversation and look at the actual problem and it always deflects back to the victim oh i'm all do you know what i'm all about hashtag yes all men yeah me too because actually hashtag me too because I actually I feel that what's

really interesting when you sort of put your head above the parapet and you say this needs to be sorted out and we can see this with something that happened very ugly happened to Monroe Bergdorf last year right so she calls out um white people are racist and we need to talk about white racism maybe it was two years ago now yeah I think it was a few years ago. And was dropped from a prolific advertising campaign for that. Now, what followed was Monroe being like death threats, harassment, racism that followed. Now, if that isn't a painful demonstration of the problem, I don't know what is. And so often in very small ways where you're then saying like men need to do better and they're like, no problem I don't know what it is and so often in very small ways where you're then saying like men need to do better and they're like no we don't it's like why let's ask

why you're so defensive but I also think that there's another group of people that I feel are the problem and I'd like to call these people the bystanders right so um let's take for instance this story that I've mentioned there's two queer people on New Year's Day in South Bank Centre outside National Theatre in one of the prolific most cultural quarters of London. And it's populated often by hundreds and hundreds of people, right? There's always people there. These two people are assaulted by three men and no one does anything.

No one intercepts. No one thinks this is violence towards somebody no one wants to get involved and it's those people that i'm like you tell me that you're you can walk away from that experience and say that you're an upstanding citizen tell me like how many of those hundreds and hundreds of people that would have been there and witnessed that how many of those people like to call themselves that ally how many of those people like to call themselves an ally on their twitter bio because that's what this has become yeah we've become a culture where actually to call yourself something means that you're it

and this is why i have a difficult relationship with activism because i don't want to call myself an activist i just want to be activist this is what i find really funny because i would never ever say i'm an activist i'm not I don't go out and do activist things but people who are very very on the really like on the outskirts of understanding what I do they don't really really get what feminism is they think I'm the most ardent raging misandrist

and that I'm like the biggest activist ever but they have no fucking clue what real activism is giving up your entire like the things that people who are activists for their job oh my my god, you won't have a life. And we've got, we've lost the conversation because it has become, it's funny because it goes both ways. Like, it's not good when something's a trend for the sake of it.

And it's not good that people are coming into feminism being like, it's trendy. Like, wearing a top that says feminist probably doesn't help the movement. By the same token, if it's getting the conversation out there, it's great. But you're right, it creates all these random people going, oh, yeah, no, me, yeah, I'm in that. Yeah, no, I'm one of them. And it's like, but you don't, you're not really, because it's the same conversation with race.

Like you're still complicit in structural racism if you're not calling someone out. If you're on the tube and someone's being racist to someone, you need to stand up and tell them, you know, that's not right. You shouldn't be doing that. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. And it's those silent people that, yeah, you're right,

that are the real... And it's hard because you can't catch them. You can't hardly be like, it's not that you're a bad person, but you're not what you say you are either. Totally. So, yeah. And I feel as well when in sort of digital activism,

so like people who use online spaces, a space to talk about activism, we need to acknowledge incompleteness and contradiction. Yeah. So when people are like wearing t-shirts that say, this is what a feminist looks like, and they write this big blog and they're like, this is my feminism.

And everyone's like, for a three clicks, double tapping. And you're like, where's the t-shirt from? Yeah. Oh, is it from that high street? Oh, okay, cool. like where's the t-shirt from yeah oh is it from that high street oh okay cool and who made that t-shirt and how many children died yeah i know do you know what i mean and so there's there's always i want to like always ask people particularly when we look at pride in london excuse me so pride in london is often sponsored by a major coffee chain, right?

Who say, come into our coffee shops on Pride Day, looking fabulous, and we will give you a free mocha chocolate latte, right? And the gays go wild for it. I want a skinny mocha chocolate latte decaf with, you know, they've got a huge rack. And they're lapping it up and they're hashtagging this, that and the other. And you want to say, okay, so where do we stand with our POC brothers, sisters and siblings who are actually the people that are harvesting that coffee for absolutely no wage? Like, where do we like have those conversations?

Just because they're doing gay for pay, right? Which is like, you know, there's something about buying the rainbow, which like they feel like we're going to harvest this pink pound by doing this thing. If they said that to me, I'd be less critical of it. If like the multinational banks that sponsor Pride said to me, you know what, we're just really interested in getting some queer customers. I'd be like, fine, that's capitalism. I know how that works. But buying into a protest that's supposed to be about the liberation of my community, that's why I won't be involved in it. But this is what I hate on social media, because I think we get this a lot.

Like, it happens when people start with a good intention and then realise they can monetise it, and the intention goes out the window, and it just becomes all about the money. And that's where I struggle a lot of the time. Because it's like, unfortunately, we do live in a capitalist society where everything is powered by this money. But you're entirely right. Like, you see these people who suddenly, at the face of these campaigns are doing this stuff and it's

like you have never once in your life even put any thought into this you don't care about this at all and I do agree that's an issue but then I think but might that invite someone else to learn you know there's always like swings and roundabouts but we can mitigate incompleteness right so incompleteness is this idea where we understand that us as a solo entities like by breathing and walking by getting on public transport by using contactless just by like getting into the shower and using like we are always assisting and playing a part in it but the more we acknowledge that and we try to mitigate that so we don't try to like so we do try and think ethically about how we participate in try to like so we do try and think ethically about how

we participate in those spaces yeah but we do try and think okay I've done this and so there needs to be an outcome for this right so you know really shoddy thing is I felt very bad that I got to a position where two years ago I was able to leave the bedsit and council estate that I grew up on so I was able to get a house by the seaside so it's like how am I gonna like mitigate this so I planted five trees but you know what listen to that this is what is so interesting about the difference between privilege and and not having as much privilege because someone who's really fucking privileged because you have so much you never even recognize like the the gratefulness of having it whereas you've gone from like a

situation which probably wasn't the best you could be in and you've gone from like a situation which probably wasn't the best you could be in and you felt guilt at that and that's because you get a guilt imbued in you when you're marginalized in any way shape or form you're told that everything about you is wrong it's undeserving it's whatever you have that imposter syndrome and this is i'm going to really weirdly round this into why it's so important to educate women because women always put as a general put more money back into the system than men ever do and it's so important that we educate like women from a young age we put money back in because people who are marginalized generally care more about the system because they're affected by it when you're really

privileged the people earning millions don't want to pay tax because for the life of them they don't need the nhs or the parks or the schools or whatever else that we're paying for with the nh with that tax money which absolutely kills me because I'd happily pay more tax. I think tax is amazing and we should be so proud to pay into our systems. But that's why it's so important that we acknowledge these conversations because for you to say that and be like, oh, I felt guilt, to anyone else that would be like, why would you feel guilty about that? But that is just a signal, an exact signal of how we treat people.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does I think I felt guilt because I wondered if I was deserving of it um and I'm not like it's not like I've got a 25 bedroom house mansion yeah I'm living in like one of the poorest areas of Essex in a house that like has taken like three years to renovate excuse me which I'm like super grateful for like I've got a garden right these are things that I dreamt as'm like super grateful for like I've got a garden right these are things that I dreamt as a kid to be like what I've got a thing called a dining room I had to buy some tables and chairs because I didn't even have some so there's these moments

of like me awakening to but it's also about me acknowledging like these privileges and then sort of a really great acknowledgement of this kind of privilege that I guess I've earned is that me and my husband were talking about having kids and then we just were like, oh my God, our kids are gonna be middle class. Our kids are gonna be, we hate, they're gonna go to school and be like, what do your parents do? Actually, I've got two daddies and they're both artists.

Oh, I will babysit daddies and they're both artists. Oh, well, baby's here. So it's like... FanDuel Casino Daily Jackpots. Guaranteed to hit by 11pm with your chance at the number one feeling. Winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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See full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com. Please play responsibly. You know, like, I think often when we talk about class, like there's in working class circles, there's this sense that you're a class betrayer if you, like, get yourself to a position. But I think that's everything that my grandparents

and my mum came to this country for. Yeah. It's like to be able to not be, like, poverty stricken. And so, like, I don't see this as my sole achievement I see this as my granddad when he was 15 smuggling himself onto a cattle ship I see that as his achievement actually yeah I love because it's true it's everything like that it's your journey and those privileges are exactly that they're a format that you've been brought up and it's all the steps that someone's already done for you which is why it's so important when we talk about race that we

recognize especially when people say, like, demographics of people of colour are more likely to commit a crime or this conversation. It's like, that's such a flat statistic. You haven't even dug into the fact that that person's family probably went through slavery, whereas white people have got

six generations of gentry behind them. Of course they're going to find it easier to get a job at Goldman Sachs. Like, you are just not thinking about it. I think it's also about social profiling. So, you know, I walk into shops with friends of colour and then like we're followed around yeah and I'm really acutely aware that like actually if I walk into a shop on my own that often doesn't happen apart from when I was in Dublin a couple of weeks ago and I was like this is like really

quite a bizarre thing I was wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms for 24 hours. I did have a shower in between. Love it. And three very bizarre things happened to me. I went into a nightclub, a gay nightclub,

and I was removed because they didn't want people like me wearing these clothes in their nightclub. So I was removed from quiz space. Right.

Which is working class erasure, right? They were like making an assumption that because I'm wearing a tracksuit I'm going to kick off. And because they're wearing gold rings they think I love your rings

thank you thank you and then so go home and I was like this is really quite troubling this is weird but like you're like am I surprised that this has happened in queer space

no I'm not I walk down the high street doing a bit of Christmas shopping as you do in Dublin and then I went into this really bougie department store wearing a pair of ladies' Adidas tracksuit bottoms. They're, like, gorgie, actually, to be fair. Went in, and immediately I'm followed around by two or three, like, security.

And I was like, what's going on? Because I'm, like, walking into Fendi and all of this malarkey, and I'm just, like, nosing at things. I'm being like, how much for a round back? Do you know what I mean? I love that. So I was like,key and I'm just like nosing at things being like how much for a handbag? Do you know what I mean? I love that. So I was like oh I'm being followed

because they've profiled me as shoplifter because actually if I look around here everyone else is wearing Victoria Beckham I don't know if they're wearing Victoria Beckham

I get you. It looks beige and boring that's what I mean by that. Is she a fan of yours? Is she listening to podcasts? I think she is actually she's probably going to be quite upset

it's fine I'll have a word with David please if you could on many levels if you could have a word with David so then I'm in the

shop and I'm like okay wow this is interesting this one garment has caused these two things right and I come out of this department

store oh no I'm wearing grey tracksuit bottoms so I was wearing the latest tracksuit bottoms in the club

and they were grey tracksuit bottoms in the department store. I come out of the department store. And these three guys in grey tracksuit bottoms come towards me. And they start calling me, like, faggot. You've dropped your gay card. And start trying to intimidate me.

And I'm so confused by it. I just sort of say nothing. I'm one of the most busiest high street. Like on Grafton Street. It's a very busy street in Dublin. No one says anything. And I'm suddenly'm suddenly left like in the last 24 hours I've been like profiled for just one garment that I'm wearing and it's really interesting like in queer space I'm profiled as working class and thuggish and then when I go into the shop interesting I'm profiled as being like a like a criminal but then when I come out the men see Oh, interesting. I'm profiled as being like a criminal. But then when I come out,

the men see me and they see me for what I am and they see me that I'm failing at masculinity in their eyes. And so I was like, how do, how do, how do, how do? Do you know what else is stressful as well? Because right now, I'm even bad for doing this, but like people are appropriating that working class dress code of track suits and stuff it's

it's high fashion valenciaga and all these brands are bringing out like trainers that are like five years ago would have only been seen in like different areas of london that would like do you know what i mean i don't i'm getting scared about language to talk about class as well because i don't want to say something that's um but do say it and then i'll always say oh do you know what right here we go rewind um because this is Because this is how we learn, right? We learn through each other. And by you doing this podcast and by you giving us the space to talk with each other and to use the platform that you have means that other people are learning at the same time.

So if we sort of live in this state of fear, we're never going to progress and we're never going to be able to see each other and see each other's experiences. So I often ask people, don't worry. If you say you say something wrong I'll go I wouldn't say that if I was you and this is why and I'd hope people would do the same with me and come out with generosity it's funny though because on my social media weirdly I've become very like hyperbolic what I'm saying because I do have a following of quite woke people but the people that are getting annoyed at me are never the people who I'm talking about so I might make a slip up and say something that is potentially offensive but it's offensive on such a high level like it's so extrapolated it'll be

like because if you were hyper educated you would know that that one word might be offensive to one particular group of native people from a certain place do I mean the person telling me that is so privileged and really I'm sure that if someone from that place was to be talking and what i was saying they would go oh she doesn't know that do you know what i mean yes the people always calling me out are generally the people that wouldn't be offended so i've got very clever about what language i use i'm very careful and aware of how i um say things just because I've been policed so much. It's helpful, but on the other hand, in some ways, like you say, it's silencing.

But it all depends on intention, doesn't it? I think it depends on intention and I think it depends on the generosity in which people approach it. So recently I was making a short film for BBC Three. Hi, Mum. Is it out? Because I haven't watched it, I saw. Yeah, it's called Fat and Fabulous.

Yes. And I put a secret camera on me and you follow me for two days and see how the world interacts with the Fatball D. And literally, I put the camera on, step outside my house

and a policeman comes up to me and goes, what are you dressed like that for, you plonker? Okay, and so, I was just like, excuse me, sorry?

And he's unaware that it's being filmed and stuff. And I posted something on Instagram to be like, this has happened. And the police are supposed to be there to look after us. And a very beautiful, tender friend, person of colour said to me, that comes from a position of white privilege, because actually most people of colour don't feel like the police are there to look after them. They actually feel like they're there to penalise them.

And I edited it and I said said I'm keeping the main post but I'm just going to add this little note at the bottom to say I'm really grateful for my friends of colour who've like enlightened me to actually seeing things I don't see of course there are a bunch of white people being like why does it always have to be about race oh it's so annoying but I left that conversation to play out yeah because I think it's so annoying but i left that conversation to play out yeah because i think it's really important that like as long as the language isn't violent as long as it's productive that we actually do learn and so from that person saying to you you shouldn't use that language at least there's some contribution to thinking but when it turns

into people like then using personal slurs against you, people like calling death threats against you, or like what we're seeing outside Parliament, people being called Nazis. Now, that I think is like a really weird place that we're getting in a so-called democracy. And actually for us on the left, I'm assuming that you're on the left there, love. Like we are like being confronted with this idea

that we have got female politicians who sit on the right who are being penalised and victimised because of some of their opinions. And actually what it's made me go is, oh, yeah, democracy is about actually all of us listening, isn't it? So I think we kind of come to this thinking all the time, but we've got to have our ears on, right? Our ears on?

We'll go with it. I know what you're saying. Yeah, it's a complicated argument because you get to the... I also, I always try to be so diplomatic and so nuanced and always... I also will do what you do, and I will say, i've just been told

this is this someone once said to me that wearing hoops as cultural appropriation i've worn hoops since the beginning of time that's maybe me wearing something that's not from my class background as well which is another interesting thing that people bring up it's a circle but it got so like and so i just went some this is something someone said to me i'm just going to share it with you guys i don't know what i think but i get nervous now to not share information and then that turned into i talked about another podcast basically i talked about that fear of people kind of policing you and then that made the conversation nicer because it it became less less combative and people realize actually we've all got to work together on this like there's no sometimes there isn't a right and a

wrong and sometimes it is contextual and you've got to figure it out because also the stuff we're talking about is so new it's not the slurs and stuff if you were to wear hoop earrings I wouldn't walk in here and think working class appropriation actually no but they were saying cultural appropriation from Latina culture

it got very long but then yeah I think that's really extrapolated did I just say a big word? I think that's very extrapolated that's I just say a big word? I think that's very extrapolated. That's class appropriation. That is, yeah. Just use words from your own oomph, bruh.

Do you know what? That was another lesson for me, actually, because what I used to do years ago, if someone trolled me, I would often reply with an asterisk correcting their grammar. And then one day I was like, fuck no, I can't do that because I don't know what that educational background is and it's such a privilege of me to have good grammar they could be dyslexic be

anything that was probably actually the very first lesson I had in privilege just that really small thing because I used to do a hat it's your like the twat that I am apostrophe re well at least you know you were twat you know what I mean yeah exactly you've got to be twat privilege exactly to be fair my mum loves the word twat and still calls me one to this day, so that is very appropriate. But yeah, so that was like the first thing. And you get, and it does build up and you learn more.

Wait a minute, I want to go back to this moment. Correct me about why I was, made assumptions in calling you a man. A homosexual man. A homosexual man. I love it when people say homosexual because it feels so vintage as well i know i couldn't remember what the word was i was like um homosexual so um but yeah because of the

violences i guess that i've experienced from both of those demographics that i talked about about gay white men and white working class men from a very early age i realized that i just i obviously didn't fit in and i wasn't a part of them. And so I made this piece of work called Bravado, which basically is me like exploring the things that men did to my bodies for a 10 year period. And I guess masculinity I've always felt alienated from, because I'm effeminate, because I wear clothes that are marketed towards women. And that by no means says that I'm gender non-conforming or I'm trans, but when people call me a man,

I do this, I go, is that, I don't think I'm one of those people. But again, I always say, like, I'm really fine with people using he, him pronouns for me. Like, that doesn't feel like a fine. But when people say, oh, a man, I always feel like, I don't know if that's true feel like a finance. But when people say, oh, a man, I always feel like, I don't know if that's true.

I get you. And I think you do know if you do feel like a man or you feel comfortable being a boy. And it was never those things, never those things. And I guess when I first came out and I was, like, rumbling around Soho, I did think, oh, yeah, I'm a gayer a gay one of the gays um and very quickly I realized that culturally I was very different the things I wanted were very different and I was ostracized to the lesbian and dyke scene and I spent most of my time hanging out with the very forward-thinking radical feminist dykes that have like completely shaped

the person that I am today because they weren't afraid of my fatness they weren't afraid of my feminacy they understood that I had a huge amount of respect for women femmes um and it was a space that I felt safe in it was my my 90 my 2003 safe space before that was even a thing I love that because I think what I'm recognising as we're talking and I'm realising and I think it's what everyone's struggling with with all the conversations going on about transgender and non-conforming stuff is the conversation surrounding gender, I feel like I'm

already quite, I think, well versed but I just registered as you're talking to me I was like god I didn't even click, the concept of man when I said that to you it's such a small space to put you in to say that you're a man you might have a willy I'm assuming I don't know and you kind of look like what I think men look like yeah because it's got a hairy face yeah exactly and short hair and whatever else but when I when you're right when we think

of what a man is a man isn't just a willy and a beard a man is all of these cultural things and he's all of these attributes and personality traits and opinions and thoughts and he thinks he's a man yeah and you but he's also not a willy because we have other men who don't have willies yeah yeah but i mean and sorry in the context of my thought you're right though yeah yeah um and as i was listening to i was like yeah that's what we need to to address to people it's like you can't just have two boxes and then be annoyed when people don't want to be it. Make more things then or take away those labels.

You can't expect people to fit into a very small prescription. In the same way that we do with sexuality now, I think there's also very clumsy words around that. And of course, there's still things like bi erasure where we don't recognise bi people, we just think they're greedy or they can't make their mind up where it's completely untrue like people can fancy both binary genders I I almost think sorry to interrupt you I've come to the decision that I think everyone is basically bi but are just so conditioned that they think they're not this is

what I'm like starting to wonder if we if we didn't have social conditioning would we all just be like I just like so and so I've made up a term okay just here and now so I don't know if it's the real thing I think we're all spectral sexual yes we love that this is what a spectral sexual looks like oh my god I love that I think uh in the same way that some days I feel more towards the butch end of femme. I feel some days like, like I've, disclaimer, I've slept with women.

It's not a horrible experience. We are great. Honestly, but it's not one of those things. Yeah. So many gay men do this, like, oh,

vaginas. And I'm like, that's misogyny. Yes. That's misogyny in action. And I totally understand preference. If people are like, I don't want to have sex with a vagina.

Fine. Yeah. Totally fine. But you don't need to say, oh, vaginas are disgusting. It's just, I just don't want to have sex with a vagina fine yeah totally fine but you don't need to say vaginas are disgusting it's just i just don't want to yeah but emotionally i connect with uh butch people and mask people um more than i do on like a actually that's a lie i think on a on a i get on on different planes with femininity than i do with masculinity and there's a oh god here is the massive head fuck right i prefer always the company of femmes and women i feel safe i feel like there's a mutuality we can talk like i feel like i'm part of a gang i feel like i'm there I feel solid right men when I leave this space will there'll be men shouting things at me they'll look at me they look at me like I fail masculinity and so because of their bravado they feel that they have to shout it from vans they have to

tell me they have to take pictures of me in public space to let me know right I so I end up hating a lot of men. And I'm all right saying that out loud. I end up thinking, you are going to do something to me. You're horrible. You're nasty. But I also want to sleep with them. Babe, this is my day-to-day life. Oh, it's so disappointing.

I feel so disappointed with myself to be like, oh God, why love thy oppressor? But no, but it is that. And I think it's because we're conditioned to believe that those traits are attractive. Like we spoke about before. So all the things that are fundamentally, like, dangerous to you, you've also been told are what you should be looking for in a mate. So literally, I'm exactly the same. And I can sit in here with you for an hour and talk about, like, this, that, and the other, intersectionality, gender, da-da-da-da.

And then as soon as I see a very attractive man I will just be like I'm a big gayer and I'd like all of my identities completely full because I want to try and make myself the most attractive and oh it's so bizarre I do this too and actually someone said this to me that's my boyfriend is really conventionally attractive he is fucking he is correct and people message me a lot being like you're're really feminist, but your boyfriend's really good looking. As if those two things are mutually exclusive. So first of all, either they're saying I'm punching, which is fucking annoying,

or they're saying that if you're opinionated, you can't possibly catch one of these good looking men. He's actually really, can you not ask me, is he as feminist or as clever as you? Don't ask me, you're not quite as good looking and also you open your mouth a lot which he likes i dig it sorry i really love the idea that people like victimize you because they're like you're

feminist you must have an ugly partner yes exactly or be a lesbian please like as if those are the only options available to you. I'm trying to think what I thought when I first saw your boyfriend. I thought, delish. So delish. And then I thought, well done. Well done. Well done you, actually, for finding a nice one.

Yeah, he is. He's very good. Yeah. Great skin. Well done. Actually, the one thing that disgusted me about you was both of your skin was great. And I was like, oh, sorry. Oh, do you know what?

It would be really nice if there was like a pimple or just something that made me go can relate. No, but his skin is annoyingly good. And actually, sometimes I'm like, you are too good looking. It's just annoying. Don't look at me. Do you know what? Confession. Go.

I only really fancy two good looking people because I really love, I love the chase. Oh, yeah, always. Right. But something that I really love is introducing partners to people that don't really know me. Oh, to, like, see what they... To new people. Yeah, I love it.

So people will meet me and they'll think, oh, my God, you've got to be great. And I'll be like, oh, I'm going to bring a partner along to this event that's happening tomorrow. And it's happened so many times where the partner turns up and they go, oh, hello. And you can see in their mind, they're like, I was expecting someone fat and ugly. Oh my God. I was expecting Scotty. Has this person seen you?

No, but just because, first of all, one, you're really attractive. We need to stop making fatness a thing that means you're automatically less attractive. I just think you're really attractive, so it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe I'm just fucking cool. You're just phwoke. Phwoke. Fucking woke. No, phat woke.

Oh, phat woke. Phwoke. Okay, fine. Love that. Get that on a T-shirt too. Yeah, and i think that skinny people are real people too yeah i know god we have to i yeah no i do get that a bit when people get annoyed about people not speaking up for skinny people moment of silence for them um but yeah and

and i i think it's so funny that when we think about attractiveness as well it's like how you but this is also the problem we're sold an image that like what you should look for is exactly what they are I think I'm attractive because I'm clever I think it's the coolest thing about me and it irritates me that you're not validating that can you validate me for that please clever I fucking hope so. It would be awkward now to have said it, wouldn't it? Let's put it to the Instagram vote. No. I've completely lost my train of thought. Oh, yeah, can we talk about, actually, relationships?

You're married. I am. Tell me about that. So I met the person that I'm married to, or married with. I'm trying to decolonize language around um around relationships because i think i'm heading towards this space of relationship anarchy which like is a whole nother podcast right i'll come in for another two hours at a different point and then we can talk about relationship anarchy and there's so much the way that we talk about partners where we say my partner my boyfriend my husband we're married that i'm trying to like and you know in the same way that we talk about partners, where we say my partner, my boyfriend, my husband, we're married.

Oh, so true. That I'm trying to, like, and, you know, in the same way that we use ableist language, I'm trying to be like, I've said that thing again and I need to correct myself. So I am married with a person. Okay. Is that the right way?

Yeah, we are with each other. We are partnered. And we've been with each other for almost 15 years, which in gay years is like dog years, right? But that's forever anyway. Well, yeah, but honestly, you say that to gay and queer fans. That's most of my life, babe. How old are you?

24. Oh, get in the bin. 24 and woke is so disappointing. Yeah, but look how good your skin is. How old are you? You've got not a wrinkle inside. 34 this year. Oh, that is really young still, so you're fine.

You don't have to get wrinkled. No, you should have said no. The correct response there is, oh, my God, 34 is still no wrinkles. 34 this year. Oh, that is really young still, so you're fine. You don't have to get wrinkled. No, you should have said no. The correct response there is, oh my God, 34 is still no wrinkles. You look great. Oh yeah, that is what I meant. It just came out weirdly worded.

Fatness preserves. No, I've thought this through. I'm going to get fatter when I'm older. My face is already quite brown. Fat appropriation there, hun. Sorry. Fucking hell. But it makes you look younger.

But also, you have to be interesting to be fat. So there is a test. Oh, okay. Which me and Sophie Hagen could do for you. Okay, yes, yes please. There's a sort of test. To see if I'm allowed to enter.

Initiation, ceremony, and then we put it to the fat vote. It's a bit like going through to judges' houses on a fat judge. Oh my god, I'm so excited. Yeah, you might not get through, just a disclaimer. You might be evicted, you might come to a deadlock, we might have to go to a people's vote, might be a referendum okay saying all those things i don't think you can deal with any more referendums but apart from that we'll survive um so yeah we've been partnered for 15 years and yeah it's it's like it's joyous because people are often um like

friends of ours who are queer particularly often look towards our relationship as this form of success. And they're like, why didn't I have it? Why I wanted, I wanted. And it's like, well, you need to accept that you'll hate each other at periods of time. And you'll majorly disappoint each other. And it's not going to be a Disney film. And I think too much about love and partnering

is about these perceptions that are put upon us from films yeah like I'm sorry what you don't like cheese in which case not going on a second date with you and you're like it's really okay that you don't like aspects of each other and there have been moments where with James that I've been like um disappointed in him and there have been moments where he's been disappointing with me um but you acknowledge that you will disappoint each other at periods in your life and that's all right i think what i'm starting to learn is that what we're sold is that you'll meet someone and then you'll be happy no i need to be happy on my own and then if i'm happy i can be happy in a

relationship but i'm not going to get someone to add to my life to try and like fill me up I mean I don't know I disagree do you oh when I met uh James I think I was a deeply unhappy person oh so he helped and I think well I think we both helped each other understand and also we give each other the space to change so the person that was 15 years ago is not by any means the person that i am today yes so be giving each other that space to adapt and um change and develop with each other or without each other exactly so you're not codependent on each other is what i mean yes whereas i think you're sold as especially as a woman that like your life is fine but when you

meet a man then you well done whereas i want to be like, maybe that is me rebelling a little bit from that narrative personally, being like, actually, no, I would be fine on my own, but Matt's a fab addition and he's amazing, but I don't need, he's not necessary to my story. Does that make sense? That totally makes sense, yeah. I mean, you know, it's part of a very radical feminist

thought of thinking, like, do we need masculinity to validate us? And I think there's some theory around triangulation, about how often we can hold these positions. So there's our self, there's the political self, and that political self can exist in its radical form about being I'm a radical feminist or this, because there is still a man present.

And so, yeah, I think it's really good to try and find ways of decolonizing that I'm reading a book at the moment um that a partner gave me called I can't even say what it is it's so like clever xenopheminist something oh it's in the bag I know that xenophobic means a fear of foreigners doesn't it well it's not that it's not a fear of foreign no but it's the xeno bit does that mean foreign then i don't think maybe i've just said it wrong it's i could have made that also the xeno feminist manifesto or what does that word say yeah that must be xeno feminist tell me about it, this is a book that I've only got to page 28 and I've been trying

to read it for a month because, like, look, the opening gambit is biology... I can't even say it. Here we go. Teeth in. Ready.

Comprehend this. Biology is not destiny. Oh, so it's saying that the nature versus nurture argument. So it's like, your nature isn't what you have to be. But is it? No, I don't think it's fair both.

So it's got these, like, really beautiful thoughts in it where I'm just like, OK, I need to reread this page again. And literally, I am up to page 29. I love that note. But it's about looking at feminism through the gauze of intersectionality gender awareness and non-biology and going beyond this idea that capitalism will always be present i can't even imagine i i try and imagine the world without capitalism and you like can't

you get one step and you're like oh there it is because because what what else i don't know yeah me either unless we just like no if we looked after the land i was thinking this we didn't wouldn't work and we just looked after the world and didn't kill everything we could just live off the land but everyone would have to die because too many of us there are too many of us i often think that we are the problem oh we are no problem, 100%. And people like, because some of my work exists in this idea of looking at intersectional ecology. And so I've written papers around, written papers, look at me, a pseudo-academic in the corner. Last day I went to school, I was 14. So I mean, definitely not an academic. Yeah, but we need to separate that idea of like institutionalised education from what it means to be academic or intelligent, because they are not the same.

This is a round of applause. Where was I? Sorry sorry i was talking about xenofeminism no i can't remember what i was doing and your essay and your oh yeah so i look at um intersectional ecology and how like it's actually easier to be an eco warrior if you're posh because you can afford the 250 extra that eco is going to cost you per bottle or whatever um uh so yeah and within that thought i often say things like people ask me questions like okay so what what's the future how do we do it and i'm like get rid of ourselves delete us just like regrow and do something i often think that by the time humanity works out how to fix all of our flaws it'll literally literally, someone will go, oh, I've got it, and it'll just explode. I literally think that's how long it'll take, like millions of years. Yeah, because we've been talking about identity politics for a very long time now,

and actually we need to accelerate the speed in which we're talking about it and become a bit more radical and ecologically minded when we're talking about this type type of stuff because time has run now yeah and like it's it's not like like someone in a tinfoil hat is saying the world is going to end like people who have like got big letters after name you've dedicated all their lives to it are going yeah probably got about 20 years till it gets a bit hot yeah but i think we were i think we go cyclically so we've seen all we've That means in a circle. Yeah. But, like, move forwards. So we take 100 steps back,

and then we go, ooh, back again, and then forwards. Because we've had these conversations before around gender, around sexuality. They've happened. And now we're just going, ooh, we'll have just a little bit of revision, go back, oppress, oppress,

and ooh, go 20 years forward again. I feel that's what, like, happens. Well, because conservatism, in many forms of that words takes hold yeah because people get frightened i think the clue is we need to all be having it off with each other agreed and i think uh like commune culture and when we're looking at like how people shared space and living space particularly adopting some of the thoughts of like polyamory queerness and relationship anarchy

and applying those to like socialism and how we might live in the future off the land with each other coexisting meeting everybody as an energy and now now I sound like I'm the no I'm into energies now but I think like some of that radical thought could hold the devices of how we move forward. Yeah, I agree. And also, yeah, because we're so individualised, social media causes this problem as well, but there is no sense of community. We've completely lost that. And that's like we have a minister for loneliness.

Apparently, like if you're lonely, it's just as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day for your health. And we're creating these new paradigms of what it is to be unhealthy. We're getting so healthy on the one sense. All of us are going to the gym and exercising loads. But our mental health and all those other zones that we could be tuning into, we're completely losing. So much to break down there. So let's break this down. Pause.

Not all of us are going to the gym. Okay. Sorry. Just want to put that out there some of us are doing half an hour of yoga in the morning that's amazing i love doing my yoga like and fat yoga at that as well because you've got to adapt some of the moves because like there are other body parts in the way yeah no one's ever told you about that uh then the other point was um social media no you said something else. It was really important. Oh, I always do.

If the last hour is anything to go by. Oh, that we're losing our mental health. Loneliness. So, not all of us are going to the gym. Oh. Pow, pow, pow. Number two is that I made a piece in response to loneliness, right? And where I got a whole street,

I worked with a whole street and said, I want you to nominate yourself as the loneliest street in Leeds. Then the street came forward and it felt like the right street to work with. The project was called Would Like to Meet. And I put out these estate agent signs outside everybody's house

about the type of people they would like to meet. And then I dared them to talk to other people that they shared similarities or hobbies or pastimes with. And then I was asked this question about the loneliness minister I'm like well we've got a loneliness minister now right so of course like we're trying to tackle this I'm like this is incompleteness in its like beautiful sense right so we have a minister now in place to tackle loneliness who is part of a government who has done everything possible to de-communicise our communities yeah to strip back as much as possible from the public purse so that there are no access to libraries public space community centres that this thing that do

you remember this person called David Cameron remember him did this thing called big society which is essentially him going, we're not going to pay for it anymore. You'll just make it up in your head. It'll be a concept. You'll just sort of go out and look after each other. And this is how the government's going to look after you because I've called it something.

So we've got, this is what I'm talking about, like major incompleteness. It's like one hand is doing one thing and the other hand's saying, no, but it's fine. We're tackling it. And I think those are the where I see my activism's lying yeah where I want to be looking at those that sort of detail because if you try and solve that one thing if we try and get people talking to each other

we try and get like this happening what I think like really brilliant thinking happens I mean people who listen to this might think otherwise they They think, maybe they haven't even got to this bit. They're like, this is boring. No, we're brilliant and we'll be fine. No, I am. I'm great.

Yeah, yeah, you are. I really like you on the internet. Oh, thank you. Sorry, that also sounded like I meant like, but not in real life. How am I doing in real life?

What are your thoughts and feelings? Better online? Catfish, slightly. No, you're better in real life. Oh, thanks. Yeah, you should put more of that on the internet. I'd just bottle it up and put it on.

Thank you so much. What we're saying, oh, yeah, no, quickly. You're right. Everything in life, this is such a good example of that, where we see something, so we think it's being fixed. Like with the Minister of Loneliness, it's a bit like when Barack Obama was President so they were like oh we've got no racism in America now because we've got a Prime President

A President who had to have 26 million pound security budget Yeah so that doesn't work you're right and we have to look deeper than the surface for everyone to see working because of this capitalist world like people just don't stop working it's fucked basically this is what happens when i do the podcast you get like meet a great person and just feel a bit depressed yeah but i mean um what we'll do is we'll go away and

we'll think about it and then maybe i'll slide into your dms and think oh i've i think i've worked something out yes this and we come up with ideas and devices and other people that listen to this might go do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go out, I'm going to talk to someone. Or they might think, do you know what? I'm going to start calling that person fat. Or they might think, do you know what? I'm not going to make the assumption

that everyone goes to the gym. Do you know what I mean? Like this is through that, these like little things happen. And that's all we can hope for is the little things happen. And often when I'm making a piece of work, I have these big dinner debates where I invite people in,

I order a takeaway, and we talk at speed until the takeaway arrives, and then we all eat with each other. Oh, that sounds like a dream. Because I think we're most democratic at the moment when there's food on the table, because it's like you've been invited to my house for tea, and we all know how to behave, regardless of what social strut we're from.

We all sort of know how to behave when you've been invited somewhere and there's food on the table. Oh, i've lost my train of thought again but i was gonna say oh yeah so um often in that space what i do is i always start the conversation by going lower your expectations like if you're here because you think someone's going to be solved yeah you think we're going to solve disparity in any sense soz yeah and all i can't even say but soz not gonna happen it's not gonna happen like you and i have the conversation it's brilliant it's gorgeous it's lovely you've got wonderful eyelashes we've stopped sweating we both well you might i'm still going strong but nothing here's solved it's the work that comes after that yeah that actually starts to create

some form of shift and change. And there's a really brilliant book called How to Change the World, right? And that has taught me about ancestral activism. So everything that we do now, we shouldn't be invested for it to be for the self. It's not for us. It's going to have a ripple effect

that will create some form of change for the next generation. And to approach activism and conversations and politic in that way, I think decentralises that capitalist thought of me, I, me. And that is possibly what I want my epitaph to be. That is amazing. I literally think that's the best thing I've ever heard. And that makes so much sense to take it away from the you and put it into the future. Because that's what we're lacking now.

That's why the environment's fucked. Because we only think about that five minutes ahead of our own time. And it's why a lot of those Brexiteers voted in the way that they did. Yeah, 100%. Well, I'm going to let you go because I know you've got to go get your lunch. I mean, it has been nine hours. I know, I've locked him in here and everything. Thank you so much for giving me your lunch. I mean, it has been nine hours. I know, I've locked him in here and everything. Thank you so much for giving me your time.

I've absolutely loved it. And if other people want to come and find you, follow you, tell us where you are. I'm across the internet as Scotty is fat and that's Scotty with two E's. But yeah, I mean, if you put in mouthy fat gobshite on the internet, I'm probably up there quite high. How pissed off would you be if someone else is at the top?

I think Sophie Hagen was probably slightly higher than the mouthy fat gobshites um but maybe if you put in mouthy fat gobshites with no sophie still wins uh yeah um but um yeah i think i just i like sometimes i meet people and i'm like where do i recognize you from i'm like it could be like from the internet or it could be from the chip shop. Yeah we just don't know. Who knows. Who knows. Amazing. I've really enjoyed this. I have thought this was okay. Okay.

Thank you so much. This has been fun. I get really sincere at the end. Does it creep you out? Not in the slightest. No because you're dead behind the eyes. You're not. You're not. You're not. These are all things I'm saying for comic effect. I'm really enjoying them.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much for listening, guys, and I hope that you do go and find Scotty online because he's a ledge. Why did I say that? A better word. A ledge is horrible. I'm leaving.

He's a fantastic human. We'll see you soon. Bye. Are you going to say bye? Oh. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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