Adulting - #33 How To Be Unapologetically You with Jamie Windust

Episode Date: June 9, 2019

This week I speak to the hugely inspiring Jamie Windust. We talk about freelancing, sexuality, gender and much more. I hope you enjoy! The petition we talk about at the end can be found at this link https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/240636. Jamie can be found @leopardprintelephant on instagram and @fabjamiefab on twitter.Please do rate, review and let me know what you thought xxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello, I'm currently under my duvet on my bed recording this because apparently that's where you get the best sound quality. Although it is really making me want to have a nap, but I have just woken up so I promise I won't do that but anyway I want to say a huge thanks to all of you who reviewed last week's episode with Alice who sent me messages and shared it on your pages online it's so kind of you and I'm so glad that you enjoyed it as much as I did this week our guest is Jamie Windus they are the editor of fruitcake magazine they are a writer journalist activist speaker model and this week's episode is all about how to be unapologetically you in a world that is trying to

confine you into boxes and labels i think you'll find this chat really inspiring really eye-opening and i highly recommend that you go and follow jamie post the episode because they've just got some great content to share with you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Bye. Hi, guys, and welcome to Adulting. And this week, I'm joined by Jamie Windust. Hello there. Hello. Thank you for allowing me to come and talk. Oh, thanks so much for coming. So Jamie is a writer, speaker and activist. Indeed. Yes. Do you

have any other bits and bobs you want to add to that list? It's such a hilarious millennial list of just... Mine's pretty similar. What do they call it? Multi like um multi-hyphenate yes they're like I mean yeah those are the big players I guess you could add model onto that if you yeah this is the thing it depends who I'm around if I'm in like a fashion scene I'll be like I'll say model yes I'll be like yeah I'm a model don't know if you know guys but I'm a model um yeah that's the that's the kind of the big ones yeah love that it's so funny actually because if i'm around like family members or like slightly older people i just honestly make up my job oh yeah i can't be bothered i'm just like oh i work for social media

no what do you and i'm like i work for instagram so i just can't be bothered to explain if i'm around like old men i'll just which is which is quite rare, but it does happen. It does happen unfortunately sometimes. I'll just be like, yeah, I'm a journalist and I write about politics. Or sometimes I just fully lie. I do that in taxis as well. I lie. Yeah.

I'm a teacher. I just can't be bothered to explain. In a weird way, we're all kind of journalists now, aren't we? Exactly. Social media. Yeah. But I bet actual journalists are going to be really offended by that. Anyone could be a journalist.

No, I'm joking. And the other thing I wanted to ask you, because it's going to be kind of where our conversation is centred around today, but what are your pronouns? Yeah, thank you. So I use they, them pronouns, which is great. I think, you know, it's really important if you're unsure, there's kind of a few things you can do. So it's like, for example, like you just very kindly didn't ask

or if you are unsure, just use their name. Yeah. Or sometimes it's just safer to just go with a they and then if you are in a position where you can ask them, just maybe take whoever you want to a side and just be like, oh, by the way, what pronouns do you use? For example, I did a shoot this morning and it was a really great environment because we all went around the room.

I know everyone who thinks snowflakes are a thing are going to think this is hilarious. But we all went around the room and we just introduced ourselves but also included pronouns in that introduction. But then it not only normalizes it for me, it just kind of normalizes it for everyone which i think is really great i think that's really good i actually been trying to practice just using they in general because i feel like it's going to become part of my let's go more often i don't actually know anyone else who uses like non-binary pronouns right now yeah so i was like i just want to start saying they but actually it is once you do it it becomes quite natural but I've just been doing it in whatsapp conversations so about people I'm talking

about it just used that just because I wanted it to feel yeah more normal because I think people's push back on it it's like oh but I just it just comes out exactly and I think it's it's interesting because in in our language we do use it anyway for example like if someone um say someone has left a coat or a jacket or something in a in a coffee shop and you don't know whose it is yeah just be like oh they've left their coat so true over there yeah i know it's funny that people have pushed back and the other thing actually about saying you're normalizing the group another thing i try to do now is say like white the white woman or like when it talks about color because then it rebalances it so it's not just like we're only pointing out color when

it's not a white person yeah absolutely that's really important because it's so often in spaces like that it is predominantly white people yeah so with your activism side of things you're often campaigning for lgbtqi plus have i remembered all the letters yes and what's your main goal so you write for fruitcake magazine right oh you're the editor yeah so i'm the again that's another one of the hilarious things i can add to my roster um yeah so i'm the editor-in-chief and founder um and it's just we've just celebrated our first birthday which is quite great um yeah so i mainly kind of look specifically on from my perspective as a non-binary person so whenever I write um out in the media am I allowed to say um like brands or oh you can say whatever you want media okay cool anything um whenever I write for like media outlets so like I write quite often

for like gay times at The Independent I'm often talking about my I say you could say angle but like my lived experience so it does tend to be quite non-binary focused but I do talk a lot about trans rights and kind of the the wider trans community um but yeah I think that's really important is when for example that I could I could obviously I'm obviously an ally for all the other people within the community but I think that's really important. For example, I'm obviously an ally for all the other people within the community, but I think it's important to not speak over or speak for them. So that's why I presumably just talk about what I live and what I know. With terminology, sorry, because I'm not always that au fait with it, does non-binary fall

under trans or does trans fall under non-binary or are they two separate things? If that makes sense. Yeah, so kind of like non-binary, if you looked at it definitively, it would fall under the kind of trans umbrella, essentially. So it's one of those things where it's self-definitive. So you can be non-binary and just just define yourself as that and be half content with that or you can be non-binary and define yourself also as trans and you feel like that using trans actually is a more of a um an easier word to describe yourself it completely is completely interdependent on who who is using it yeah yeah um for me i do quite like the feeling a part of the trans community

for me with labels i think it's ironic because non-binary essentially is to yeah is about not being labeled or put into a box but for me i i like the the ways in which you can still claim your identity but not be labeled by it yeah and use it to actually form a community rather than a set of expectations the idea of non-binary to me does just feel like it's super freeing because it actually is just like being like well i'm just gonna not be defined even though it is still labeled i completely when i imagine like visually in my head it's really funny when i think the words non-binary i do just see like a space yeah which is really nice to think about yeah that's really nice it's it's it's it's just fun like I think that's why I get

so frustrated with the media coverage or societal kind of perceptions of it is that it actually is very harmless and it's just yeah people almost just monarch people just being whatever they fancy what um how old are you now actually? 22. What age did you start expressing yourself? Because no one can see you right now, obviously. But Jamie's got the most beautiful makeup. Do you call it makeup or is this just your everyday face?

Yeah, so this is actually my everyday face. So now I would say go somewhere and find it. Go to my Instagram or somewhere. I get it quite a lot. my everyday face so now i would say go somewhere and find it go to my instagram or somewhere um i get it quite a lot people just can't work out whether or not i'm going somewhere like i always get asked that oh where are you going yeah and i'm like oh bed the shops um but yeah so this is my my makeup but it's very it's very interesting like I started playing with makeup I guess probably when I was like 15 16 but that was from a completely different perspective like I was using it in a way that most people do when they start is kind of just like um to cover up because they're

insecure um and then as I kind of explored my gender and femininity and kind of looked into that and kind of realized that it was quite fun i realized that that makeup and fashion and kind of aesthetics are a way to not only express yourself but we like just kind of again throw caution to the wind and just have a bit of fun yeah um so yeah my face is my face is a bit of fun let's let's call it that i love it though and it's interesting because i have such a weird relationship with makeup where I get much too caught up in almost like feminist arguments of like, am I wearing makeup because I've been conditioned to wear makeup

or is makeup actually really empowering? And I think it does both. But I think what's interesting about the way you use makeup is it's neither of those things. It's not conforming to what we deem as like normal feminine beauty. And it's also not just making yourself blend in. You've literally just created your whole personality, which is why i wanted this episode to be called how to be you because i've never seen anyone who is literally just being their own individual like i love it

when you're like i'm a fucking alien or like you just you're just like i'm just an individual living in this world and i'm not going to be confined by the structures that exist around me yeah because i always get asked, like literally daily, either in person or online, like, why? People are like, yeah, but why? Why are you wearing all of that? Or like, why have you got 95 necklaces on? Or like, you know, stupid questions.

I do enjoy that, the amount of necklaces there as well. And it's like, yeah. And it's like, I always say like, why not? Like, it sounds a bit, like sometimes people get a bit put off by it. They think I'm a bit snobby, but I'm say, like, why not? Like, it sounds a bit, like, sometimes people get a bit put off by it. They think I'm a bit snobby, but I'm like, yeah, but why not? Like, if you genuinely think about, like, who is telling you not to, most of the time it's yourself. Do you know what else is weird, though?

I was thinking about this the other day, is when I was little, my mum would always go on and on about how we can't have tattoos where you can see them because you just won't get a job. And how much has that changed now, like? Like no one would give a crap now. But how weird that our parents would think that that's okay to not give someone a job because you've decided to decorate your own skin in a way that you like. Exactly.

So it's so bizarre. I just, it does baffle me. Because what I would say is that I really don't take myself too seriously unless I need to. So like, for example, in my activism and my work, I'm talking about quite serious topics. However, I think actually on the flip side, it makes me laugh almost when people can look at me and think that I'm taking myself really seriously when I've got like, you know, white foundation and blush all around my face.

I'm clearly just having a bit of a laugh. Yeah. But I also think you're very, the way that I'm following you is really inclusive, I find, because I think the way you write about the things that you go through or things that people in the trans community might go through that I wouldn't necessarily be able to understand is in a very open way. So for instance, you did a post, I think it was yesterday, talking about the way that people want to see you, but they don't want to hear from you. And it was interesting, because I actually that's kind of rhetoric that we as that women were using yeah not that long ago and it's the same thing it's like i want to look at you and

i want to kind of own own your the way that you look someone literally filmed jamie on their story which you'd put on your instagram i can't believe that yeah that's really it's really bizarre that kind of yeah talking about visibility because i think a lot of people think that this is in terms of kind of like the work that I do in terms of like modeling or being given positions or jobs in that position and making me visible is going to solve all of my not my problems but like the community's problems that actually doesn't really solve anything and in essence actually can danger um or put us at risk because you're just putting us onto a huge platform um like for example i did a piece with bbc london quite recently and i just like for whatever reason i just didn't really feel like it was right like the language was quite basic the team were quite um were all cisgendered so there was no kind of trans inclusion in that respect from the team so i just was like i don't really fancy this going out out and then they didn't tell me and they just

published it onto like the news so I remember it was a couple of weeks ago I just woke up and I was like oh my god I'm literally like all over BBC London and that's a massive example of just how actually visibility done wrong is actually really harmful because it really took its toll on my like mental health and I was just like this is really stressful because I'm having people like see me like millions of people um so that's kind of yeah visibility is a is a is a tough one but's like, I think the people who are being visible should always have the onus behind how they're being seen. Well, it's like to put it more obviously in terms of like why it's dangerous is you see it on things like, for instance, in our own communities on Instagram where you have your following,

that generally everyone who follows you is really supportive and very kind and understands what you're doing. But if you see someone who's got an instagram following then post on the daily mail and you read the daily mail comments when that reaches a wider audience it can turn really nasty and i can completely understand why for you when your rhetoric which is very specific and people who are attuned to it will understand but people who have never seen it before can be really awful and it can be really scary i wanted to talk to you as well actually about that about you had at one point you had a taxi fund didn't you because you want to explain to people how the difficulty is everyone's like oh just be yourself and that's a really great message to put out but then you actually can put yourself in danger by trying to just live an existence that

you want to live yeah that was a difficult one the taxi fund because it was something that I knew a lot of people in my life, like friends and stuff, had done it before so I knew it was something that was possible but I just kind of felt almost guilty that I couldn't essentially just use public transport but then I realised that you know that problem is not mine. So I set up a basically a GoFundMe page to allow people to donate so that I could travel safely around London. So I think what's interesting about that is people think when they look at the word safety, they think that I must be in immediate physical danger. And it's not always physical danger, like 99% of the time it's not there's no physicality behind the vulnerable position I mean it's about my mental health or my kind of invasion of privacy or just

like one thing I think a lot of people do that they don't think is harmful is like staring like staring is really it's not really rude, it's just really invasive because it's, you know, the tube is a confined space anyway, you can't shoot so you can't get on the tube unfortunately. So I always just got to a point where I was like, this is awful. And I remember the first day that I used the fund, it was like, literally changed everything. I was like, this is, I don't only feel like Mariah Carey but I feel like like this is great because I don't have to interact with people that I don't want to and I think yeah like you said earlier when when that message goes to a wider audience you've never heard of it before their immediate reaction is you're being selfish everyone has to get the

tube it's just a part of life living in London blah blah blah and it's like actually no offense but like you have a lot of privilege when it comes to things like this yeah um but yeah that was really grateful i'm really grateful for that yeah and obviously it's not just because you don't want to use the tube the tube's really convenient you would use it if you felt like it would be safe for you but it's the fact that i think this is what's really difficult the same people that say oh why are you moaning so much are the same people that make places really inhospitable for people that don't fit into gender conforming or sexuality conforming or whatever it might be. When you first, I don't even know, I don't even like saying coming out anymore because I feel like I don't want coming out to be a thing. Yeah. Especially because I follow Florence.

I know you're a really good friend, so I'm obsessed with it. And I've just decided that everyone is on a spectrum of sexuality, and that you kind of veer it in points of your life or depending on your condition or whatever. But did you, I don't know if you've done, how did you reach the identity

that you're at now? Or did you always feel this way? Or did you have a family response to it, if you want to answer that? Yeah, no, absolutely. It was kind of a, it's one of those things that i throughout kind of like for again from the ages like 15 onwards i had a fairly kind of open mindset to most things so i was just kind of like again the same mindset that i have now i'm just just like, yeah, why not? Like, I want to do that. So why not? Which is quite good in some circumstances, but others, it might be

a bit precarious. Not very adult of me. And it was just kind of like a process of me at the time when I was like 16, thinking that I was just like an effeminate gay person. Like I hadn't really correlated its gender at that point. I was just like, okay, yeah, like I'd always been quite flamboyant or quite feminine and I was like, that's absolutely fine. It was when I kind of realized that actually the combination of expressing how I express and then the expectation of me still being like cisgendered and male those two things came into conflict not

with myself but just was like how I would then be treated in certain circumstances so I'd be like people would if I was to go there and they'd be like oh yeah you're and I would say I'm cisgendered male but I'm gay it was kind of it's people couldn't sit with that yeah which is not like you can absolutely valid to do that if you want to do that but for me I just felt like actually if I find something else I always felt like there was something else but I don't really know what it is I know I'm not um like binary trans like I don't want to necessarily transition into a binary gender I was like I just kind of want to be a bit of nothing almost um and then I found out about non-binary identities through

kind of just like social media essentially and online resources and just kind of really looking into it um and then I was just like, oh, okay. Like it wasn't a massive like hurrah. I was just kind of like, okay, that really fits. And then I was just like, sure, let's do that. It was really weird. As you're saying that, you just haven't really had a realization, which is really obvious, but it's just that we do things.

I think we always think we're doing this for us and sometimes we know things are extrinsic. But when you you said i didn't want to elicit a certain response i realized if i changed the way i look it would change how other people i hadn't really made that link to the fact that i know i do it because i actually like actively will do it i'll think i even said it yesterday i was shooting with a photographer and we were talking about how you don't want to shoot in hyde park and we're like we're very small and blonde so if someone comes up to us we'll just pretend we didn't know which is awful yeah like it's the one of the only great privileges of being like looking like you're stupid yeah is pretending that you're stupid yeah but you do

we all do fit around each other and try to make not only make ourselves happy but create a response that we want from other people with the way that we dress and a lot of the time we might end up pushing ourselves into places that we don't want to be because we think that's how for where the way we're dressing people are supposed to react to us i don't know if i've explained that right but when you're talking i just had a whole oh yeah because i i think it's important because i that's exactly right it's it's about i think it's important to know that although yes that was a massive reason why I did it I didn't do it for other people you know I didn't do it just to evade that kind of thought processes from other people but yeah when you when you start to think about it you kind of just presume how other people

are going to react based off of so many factors based off of their gender their race the kind of their age so many factors so when you actually try, their race, their age, so many factors. So when you actually try and when you take that away in regards to gender, it's so much easier because people, well, for me, I just feel like there's no expectations being put on me. Yeah, it's interesting. But bizarrely, there obviously are because, for example, if people aren't aware of non-binary identities,

that's why i think people get so confused by me because they they literally don't know how to treat me because their brains like okay so i know how to talk to a man and a woman my brain hasn't processed all the stereotypical responses that i would give to someone who's nothing like neither yeah um that's why i find it really funny with men because they're like you look feminine so to treat you like a woman and harass you but also you look like a man a bit so do i call you mate it's like really funny they just don't get it um which i love yeah i love that sometimes yeah i think making people feel awkward is really fun.

Yeah, I always say that. I love making people uncomfortable because it just shows how hilariously fragile their lives are. And it shows that it pushes their boundaries. Great segue. I really want to talk to you. You talk a lot about boundaries. And it's something that I'm trying to learn to practice myself because I realized that I, one of my things I used to think was good about myself, aka being a people pleaser, is actually so negative because it means that you like give too much yourself or you actually aren't recognizing it's really damaging. And I've learned that from following people like you in Florence, Africa. Can you explain a bit more about

about boundaries and how you employ this to help you one live in the way that you want to live but also why it's positive to teach others about boundaries because it's such a new thing i'm coming across but it all intersects perfectly with what we're talking about absolutely i think after kind of spending time with people like florence and and really just like-minded people and amazing people who uplift we let uplift each other we learn from each other so much i think boundaries was a massive kind of again similar to like how you just said a gap for me where i was like i've never really thought about this yeah um and it's so easy to fall into kind of traps where your boundaries are just

not there because i think people think boundaries means walls and actually it's not you're not putting up a wall you're just kind of protecting yourself and your energy and your time sorry it's okay um you're protecting your energy and your time and you're kind of just making sure that you are your best self yeah and I think it's it's difficult because for example like when you employ those boundaries around the people closest to you they can sometimes get a bit jarred or they can kind of be like are you off of me or are you x y and z and it's like no I'm just like you know having a bit of time like I'm just doing me um because I think people initially think when you talk about

boundaries they think instantly to boundaries in relationships um and like romantic relationships and obviously that is super important but I think it's also important to have boundaries in like all aspects of your life like work kind of socializing just in every essence you need to be able to know when is right to give your time and energy and when it's not um especially for me because it's like you know it's emotional labor yeah and if i constantly give and give and give then i'm not gonna be able to give anymore well that's it's kind of like the thing of putting your oxygen mask on first that you can't help someone if you're dead um but also it seems like we've come so far away from this

boundary so i think it's really great things even thinking about london like people especially my friends who work in the city they will go into work ridiculously early leave ridiculously late be absolutely exhausted and be doing like running off nothing because if we gave people space to recoup and have energy i know that's a really boring analogy but i do you do see it more and more you see it with doctors and junior doctors who are exhausted to the point where it's like they're not safe to perform operations and i'm just trying to think of like obvious things and the more i think about boundaries and what makes so much sense that we just actually take time for ourselves and i know

that people think we're millennial selfish or whatever but you can't you can't give if you've got nothing in you absolutely it's it's it's I always think about that in terms of work like for example um yesterday I did something that was quite like emotionally intense um and i knew that in the evening i had an event where i was asked to go and also do something that was on similar levels of emotional intensity so i just rang the organizers and was like guys i've had like a really heavy day like super emotional wasn't didn't think it was gonna happen um like is it okay if I just skip or just not go? Because A, they're not going to get me at my best, and B, it would be detrimental to me and my mental health, essentially, to just push myself to the limit.

Because what I find is pushing yourself physically isn't necessarily as hard as pushing yourself mentally because yeah it's it's harder to try and recoup um your brain especially when for example like this week I've literally got so much stuff on because of pride which is amazing but it's like I'm I'm like very aware that i need to have some jamie time because otherwise i'm just gonna like fizzle out can we talk about pride a little bit i saw you posting on your stories today that you couldn't figure out where your stance was or was that yesterday yeah yeah and scotty as well spoke about this previously and i guess i'd never really thought about it

but i noticed it because i position myself as feminist but almost too obviously brands will when it's international women's day suddenly be like oh and only we'd love to work with you and i'm like you've never ever spoken to me before you've just noticed that i actually took feminist out my bio because you say intersectional feminist and i actually think people are giving me jobs based on the fact of searching who would be in line for this women empowerment thing yeah um so i do completely but then do you think of the argument where you're like you might have bad intentions but it still bolsters the movement in a positive way is that kind of where you're caught between yeah it's really difficult like i had a

i had a situation yesterday where i got off with something that i was like i was like i always think like if it wasn't Pride Month, would I do it? And I always, I basically rang them back and I was like, my kind of conclusion that I've come to is make your money because they don't want you any other time of the year. Yeah. And I know it's a bit bizarre and you know capitalism, gross, but I'm also like, I say that I'll do it if I have creative or intellectual control over the conversations

that are happening. For example, like the job yesterday I was like, I'm happy to do this, it is maybe a bit of a reach for me, but if I can decide who's in the room, like who I'm going to be talking with because it's to host something right and I can control the conversations not in a domineering way but just so like that it's not a waste of time yeah then I'll do it because yeah like you say it's good to kind of keep that pride momentum going um but the the amount of just bare audacity from people that want you to do stuff for free in that month is actually just hilarious yeah um and also I kind of accept the offers them because a lot of them come from places that I've tried to work with that whole year and they've been like now's not the right time like yeah and I'm like I literally sometimes have emailed editors back and be like are you literally waiting for June and they're like I'm

afraid so yeah so I'll be like okay I'll come back to you in June because unfortunately sometimes you do have to play the game yeah a bit um but that's what I try and do on social is keep it um actually I'm going to be truthful now I didn't know that i put that on my story i thought i clicked close friends which is really funny close friends it wasn't green it's definitely normal and i went on it because my mom replied to it like stop smoking and i was like i was like oh no i was like oh that's really bad isn't it so like a lot of people see me just i was like sat on an i think that was a really good i didn't think it was a place i actually really related to it because it's that that mind struggle especially

think when you position yourself as someone who's quite socially aware i find it hard all the time because i'm like i need to live so i do need to earn money but all of these businesses fundamentally at some level if it's a big company are going to go against my values but we can't just be broke because like you can't just be broke because like you can't just not get paid but i think funnily enough when you have some kind of any kind of social justice want or you start any of those conversations you almost feel more guilty than the people who are literally doing the convincing the worst crimes because your level of empathy goes i don't know what it is i don't understand i what my hubris seems to be that I'm like so good. But yeah, it's about, I always say to Florence, like when people who are a combination of like social changemakers and also big-ish online,

we're put on such a pedestal that we could be doing like, like we can all be doing more. But when we're literally doing like quite a lot, the people who are doing the bare minimum aren't even scrutinized it's the people like us who are actually like watched over with the magnifying glass and it's like no offense but you have to be strategic about these things you have to be able to think okay yeah I might not work with this company normally however if I can almost get in there now and maybe say something that is going to help someone and make people think, I'd rather do that than not do it.

And the likelihood is if you're getting paid by a campaign, that's when you're getting an elevate. You'd be able to almost redistribute that income because the more we redistribute that wealth and decentralize the power from voices that are the same, the better it's going to be exactly but i was saying the other day it's so funny someone got really pissed off at me because i was doing a q a and someone asked me what i thought about marriage and i said oh i don't agree with like where it's coming from it's all about ownership but like i would quite like to have a ring and a party and

i got this swathes the message being like you haven't spoken at all about how the financial part of marriage is so important blah blah it was so long and i was reading it and i was watching her and i was like wait a minute you're angry like you're just projecting your own insecurities and then i went on twitter and saw the stuff where someone's threatening to rape jess phillips and i swear that mp probably got less shit than i did yeah and i genuinely think mps get away with more i just don't understand it's bizarre like that love yeah again like that level of you just saying your opinion but then being like yeah but what about this this this this and it's like okay yeah obviously we're both white so we can talk about our white privilege and we can talk about

our able-bodied privilege and we can we can acknowledge those things and and make our answers attribute to that. However, we can't talk about everything. Like I kept getting asked for comment on Casta Semenya. And I was like, I obviously have opinions on this. However, I don't write about sport. No. I'm not like a biologist. So I don't really know like all the actual ins and outs. And also, I'm not a woman of color or a person of color.

So it's not really my... My voice isn't needed here. I can give my opinion, but it's not necessarily... Probably not as credible. Yeah. Go and speak to someone who's maybe interested in this and who's working in this field like it's just funny that we all get grouped into that yeah i think it's just lazy yeah i'm totally honest the other thing because

it's interesting obviously we're sat here and a lot of what we're talking about is gender and activism but obviously i imagine that your goal or hope is that one day you'll you'll be able to write about whatever you want and it won't have to be through the lens of I am an LGBTQI activist or even just write your story without having to preface it with how you got there and I know I'm asking you um because I'm still guilty of I think gender's the latest thing that i've i'm getting my head around just being complete trans but yeah i do think that at the same time as us being saying things are negative we are coming sways forward but do you think it's getting better yeah i think there's definitely it's definitely progressed like to say to say that it hasn't would be a lie um do we have a long way to go absolutely but i think

you know it goes back to what we're saying it's about infiltrating and not in a weird way but just like it's about making sure that you know to continue that progress that we put our selves in positions. And by by our I mean people who are able and want to do it, put ourselves in positions where, you know, we haven't been here before, but we want to actually begin to change the system. And I think a lot of the activism to make things more progressive is actually behind the scenes or invisible. Yeah. Like I've started doing quite a lot of

stuff that's not in the media or not focused on me putting up my social media because I'd rather do that and kind of almost be a consultant in these spaces than do it publicly for no reason. It's something that I've literally just started talking about, so funny you say that, but I've realised that what you do in private spaces is so much more important than what you do in public spaces because in public as well if we talk about some kind of activism the people are going to interact with that one it might be not not that we're necessarily virtue signaling but it can be quite empty and people will go oh hurrah well done but not really do anything because if you have a close friend who makes a bigoted remark and you kind of call them up and go you know what this is not okay they're obviously going to listen and i think that what we've got to encourage i actually

i literally did a ted talk lol the other day and um it was about it was called tomorrow's day and one of the things i said in it was that i know we call influences like disparaging but we all have influence and if we all take that and recognize it we can have so much power like it's a bit like the whole veganism argument if you all eat one less steak if we all just tell and recognize it we can have so much power like it's a bit like the whole veganism argument if you all eat one less steak if we all just tell one more homophobic person just stop being homophobic it would be better than sometimes empty shouts on social media which i do think can fall on deaf ears sometimes yeah fully is that's so important like having the conversations and almost like drip feeding it because you don't

have to I think people presume that I for example if I go into a room and someone says something transphobic that I'm gonna like absolutely go wild and it's like okay no I'm obviously not gonna be best pleased but yeah I understand that if I sometimes that situation doesn't need me to be angry, I can just kind of have a conversation. And, you know, like a lot of the times when things happen like that is the malice. The intention isn't malicious. However, that doesn't mean that it's not hurtful. No, totally. hurtful. I think that's important. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one

feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus

and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca Please play responsibly. Yeah, exactly. We're all influencers. I think that word has become so skewed now

that it's like we actually all are in our own circles and in our our own ways and in the conversations that we have so do you think I can imagine that you must have a massively positive impact to well I want to say young people actually I think the interesting thing with things like gender is actually probably older generations almost probably more impacted by the negative conditioning we have around gender than younger people because I feel like it looks like there's a massive positive change in younger communities in terms of gender yeah I do get quite a lot of quite a large response from

um I'm not gonna say old because they're like 30 but like or just like people who are just like genuine adults with kids. And that's like what I really appreciate is when they tell me things that I've made them like raise their children differently or not like in a bizarre way, but just like they it's made them think about the ways in which they are bringing up their children. Yeah. Because they tend to do it. And I think, again, it's unconscious bias. They tend to do it and i think again it's unconscious bias they tend to do it in quite a gendered way um and actually to do it in a in a neutral way or just in a way that's like you can do what you want it's actually so much it's easier for them because they can just be like yeah do what you want and

i think that's the thing that the critique of or the kind of arguments against non-binary and trans identities when it comes to kids is that where people like myself and other activists are making these children neutral or making them trans. And it's like, actually, no. What we're trying to do is just let them know that here are all the options

for ways that you can go about your life if you want to do it in a binary sense rock them out but know that other people don't and when you say it like that it just sounds so ridiculous that people are literally killed for being trans i just can't i can't quite get my head around it and it was funny i was in little the other day and i was watching and this mom went to her son she pointed to all the little boys magazines was going which ones you want and he'd so he then didn't even look at little girls magazines i was like that's really interesting because he might not want to play with the truck he might just want to play with eyeshadow and neither of those things are gendered we've gendered inanimate objects and been like you can't have that yeah and i thought

god it does start so young and that mom obviously wasn't thinking about it it's just that's what she's been taught yeah so that drip feeding thing i think is really important and i i think about gender all the time in terms of children and actually i think back to my own childhood and i do think that had i not been brought up so um so conditioned to be girly especially my generation it was so much about that then I do think I would have gotten to sport younger I probably would have had a very I probably would have very different lived experience yeah for the better yeah because it just opens you up I think that's like I said like you it doesn't force you into one path it just makes you aware

of all of them and then it's like you can literally decide what you want to do now did you when you were so were you wearing makeup at school when you were 15 um so school school no but like sixth form yeah so like 16 17 um i did but not not to this extent was that an okay experience? What were your peers? Were they good about it? Or was that? I think it was a bit bizarre. I'm just trying to think.

But mentally blocked out. Oh, no, sorry. No, it's fine. No, I fully am. I'm being dramatic. I think it was almost like a progression. It got to a point where my fashion kind of was elevated yeah to an incredible level to like a level of kind of feminine expression and I kind of just was like yeah I'm gonna rock

them out um and then the makeup came after however yeah it was kind of you know i'm originally from dorset so it was quite like yeah wild um quiet dorset yeah so it was it was definitely a shock but i think i have i had that mentality that i have now where i was like yeah but i really want to so i'm just gonna it's such a good mentality. Where did that come from? Have you just always been quietly assured in yourself? See, that's the thing, no, because I found one of my old school reports the other day, and I forgot.

I don't know how I forgot this, but I was like, oh, yeah, I used to be, like, really, really shy. Really? Like, ridiculously shy. Because all my school reports used to be like, Jamie does really well, but they don't like they need to speak more or like it'd be great if it'd be great if Jamie made friends or like things like that and I was like I'd like almost forgotten because I'm like I'm writing a book at

the moment and I had to like essentially just go back and like look at yeah stuff so that do you think that was probably because you just felt so like you didn't know who you were or do you think it was that? Yes, that's the thing that I was thinking about. I was like, why was I like that? And then I think it was a mixture of like being outcast because at that time, this was like in a time of when we were at school. So I was in a uniform. I wasn't wearing any makeup or anything but I was fairly like flamboyant and quite quite gay so like I think that was it and also just because there were literally no other out gay people at school so were you out from a very

young age it's kind of one of those things where i didn't have onus over my own coming out right people just made the assumption yeah people were just kind of like we think you're gay so we're gonna like tell everyone you're gay and then now you're gay and it's like quite a me because when i was younger it was that age when people saying you're gay was nasty yeah it was there still definitely had that um that kind of rhetoric to it and it was it was frustrating because i only recently realized that that i was like oh yeah i didn't actually have control over my own coming out essentially because i it was done for me even though at the time i obviously knew um like i've never had the classic like sit down with anyone because people just yeah tend to know which is you know

it has its benefits but it's also like i'd quite like to take some some control over that i guess yeah and also i guess it's that it's the other binary idea that just because someone acts camp or in a certain way it means that they sexually navigate themselves it's that again the binary problem of yeah it could have been that you weren't gay and you just had that personality. Yeah, that's why I love the, I love tricking, not tricking, what's the word? I love catching people out because they're like, oh, non-binary identities are only for a specific minority.

And it's like, actually, if we all kind of elevated ourselves away from the binary, then we can all just be free to do what we want without expectation. Like it helps people of all genders to think about gender in a less binary way because like you say if you just have a cisgendered male friend who's just quite camp and everyone around him was just like, yeah he's just camp, it doesn't mean anything, then it's like his life's easier, he doesn't have all these expectations on him. I don't know if this is too much of a way to question it in that it would because it's like

almost unimaginable but say we did have a more elevated understanding of gender and really saw it as a construct do you think that it would allow for more people to be non-binary or present in whatever they want way they want without feeling like they had to be transgender if that makes sense or do you think that that transgender would always exist if we didn't so much ascribe certain traits to literal sexual anatomy? Does that make sense to the question? Yeah. Is it problematic? I don't know. I mean...

Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. I don't know i don't i mean maybe it's not maybe it is i don't know i don't think i know it's not problematic don't worry um i think no i think trans people would still exist because yeah well i suppose there's always going to be a definitive it's always just you might just want to be the other thing yeah yeah because it's it's i'm just trying to... It's quite a lot of maths, isn't it? No, it is... I think if we all got to that point of elevation, it would just be so much freer for people of all genders. And it it's just more it'd just be more enjoyable like

it would just be like if we all just had that empathy and i always talk about empathy of just being able to be like okay you're over here and you're doing this cool here like and in your own brain you can be like okay these are some of the challenges this person might face great let's help them with that um i think people when you talk about empathy or allyship people always think that it's like i literally need you to hold my hand and like walk me down the street and it's like well no there are like so many simple things that you can do like really close friends of mine if they know that we're going to be out late they'll'll like, and it's, and it's for something that they're doing. They'll put me in an Uber home or like, I always,

I always find it tiny bit sad because I saw, I bumped into someone who I knew the other day in Shoreditch and it was like 10, half 10 at night. And, um, they were trans and they were like, we were talking and then we're like,

we said goodbye and we like properly held each other and we're like, get home safe, like message you when you get home. And it's like, we goodbye and we like properly held each other and we're like get home safe like message you want to get home and it's like we know we don't even know each other but just that that level of awareness that we both know that it's not safe for us to be out now um you know if we can even be allies within our own community it's it's really interesting so what other ways of allyship i mean i guess i guess the best thing that anyone could do is try and spread allyship further because the biggest enemy to anything is always ignorance, I think. And so I think probably those people that are commenting on the Daily Mail

or are seeing your program on the BBC that have just never been introduced to it because mainstream media outlets probably aren't platforming voices like yours or they're not hiring non--binary transgender different identities it means that you can leave a breeding ground of kind of prejudice and and misnomer and misunderstanding and i think that's why social media is so positive but then also social media is a young liberal well if you're following certain crowds it's the same people yeah so how do we what would your goal be in terms of or as if i want to be a better ally how can i how can i make it easy and better if that makes sense in terms for like for you or me for you um i think it's about understanding Understanding that people like myself, and I'm quite a specific example,

I have platformed myself online to, within reason, educate people on this. I'm giving my time, my energy to educate allies. However, I think it's really important to remember that not all trans and non-binary people are... Spokespeople. Yeah, like you can't, just because you see people like myself doing it or other people from marginalized groups doing it doesn't mean that you can go to every member of that group

and be like, hey, so what bathroom do you use? Or, you know, like, can you help me? Like, I just really don't, because it's not, it's invasive and it's just too much. I think it would be about making sure that you are doing your own research because there's not, like, there's honestly nothing better than, sorry, I'm a bit Australian there. There's nothing better than going to, like, me meeting someone

or doing a job or something and then just fully understanding and knowing everything about how to but like language with me and kind of just like general awareness because a it proves that it's not difficult because i think people think that like people think that i'm going to walk into a room and everyone's gonna be like oh my god jamie's hair right everybody be nice and it's like no just like treat me yeah like an like a normal person because actually i'm i'm just maybe not as common i mean common as in yeah i know what you mean not common as in rude um as everyone else like it's just about that level of awareness is so impactful to people like me because then I just instantly feel at ease yeah um which I often don't in especially in work situations like the media is actually

a bit vile well it's it's interesting isn't it what do you feel about in this moment in time where a bit what I was talking about like with feminism but when people suddenly are doing this is awful i saw that it's kind of not the same thing it's kind of the same thing oh poly which is like a bikini brand oh yeah have you seen that they've made a separate page called oh poly inclusive and on oh poly inclusive page they have uh fatter models women of color and basically separate from the normal skinny white women, they've got a whole new page. And they obviously thought that this would be an amazing step in inclusion and diversity. But how could you make anything less inclusive and less diverse than literally separating it from your main?

And this kind of rhetoric is where it goes. It really falls on its face because it's like you see it with media a lot. I've seen, I mean, I need to stop reading the Daily Mail, but I really can't help but put the TV and showbiz section only for the photos. Don't actually read them. But accidentally sometimes do. And you can see where they've tried to make an effort to be inclusive. And it's almost worse.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I always say. I'm like, if you actually had just not. It would have been better. Yeah, because they think, they always think that by doing, again, it's like talking about visibility. They always think that by doing, again, it's like talking about visibility, they think that just by putting someone who is visibly different or visibly not as common in this scenario, that their job's done. Things like that, like the El Polly thing are just almost laughable because it's like you've got so many other brands out there.

You know, I studied fashion business. So throughout my three years, there was a lot of discussions around trends and people always used to bring up gender. And I'd be like, okay, from a business perspective, if we look at fashion, yeah, it does kind of make business sense actually to make your clothes as inclusive as possible because you're going to sell more. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it in the right way. It's about intention.

Don't do it for the financial gain. That thing with El Polly is just very clearly them trying to appear some kind of way and actually falling on their face. Again, like with media, we say like, if you just hire us, that's a crazy concept, and actually pay us a living wage, then A, you're not going to get as much of a bad reaction if it doesn't go right.

And B, you're going to be able to feel morally okay in knowing that as an editor you've platformed a voice that is authentic and i'm just thinking about it when i was thinking about how you said because you write for the gay times isn't it so interesting that we even have to have a gay times yeah i i love i really do enjoy their platform because in the past kind of like year or so they've had a massive kind of rebrand and focus on isn't sponsored um refocus on kind of queer voices and lgbtq plus voices throughout the whole community across the world so it's less predominantly cisgendered white gay man um i do agree with you in some respect yeah only because those gay writers or those people that

are writing in those magazines they're not only writing to that specific audience and so the people that probably need to hear those stories aka a white middle-class cisgendered man who's reading the daily man or whatever will never because they're never going to go and pick up yeah gay times are they and that's the only reason why it's a shame that you have to have those spaces all night with the fact that we have women's hour which is as long as you have one hour on the whole of radio for women but that is just funny i mean those spaces are really helpful but then it just shows i think that echo shame about yeah but it's actually baffling when you actually think about the fact we have to create inclusion and diversity the fact that these initiatives have to exist

yeah is quite baffling really I was at um I don't care if they're listening hello everyone um I was at a a meeting yesterday in parliament which and it was a part of an all parliamentary party group on fashion and representation and diversity and how they can make the fashion industry in the UK essentially more diverse. And it was so interesting to hear how these people essentially approach problems like this because they're very methodical and they're very kind of like we need bullet points we need x y and z we need to know what we're doing and I was kind of Just like whoa like this is really wild because a hilarious I'm in Parliament what's happening and

B it's kind of like there's it's such a complex issue that we actually need to like most issues in the UK or the world you need to actually look not at the fashion industry and look wider

well that's one I didn't even know they discussed fashion in parliament I know crazy who knew but also fashion is a representation of culture and culture is a reflection of society so fashion's not going to be diverse until parliament is

diverse and inclusive it's ironic to look at that when fashion's like a symptom of whatever's going on exactly i did get a bit um i had to apologize to them afterwards because i got a bit angry good for you and i was like i did get a bit angry just because I they're basically like how do you feel about this and I was like yeah it was really good but I was also like I'm not gonna lie I'm quite frustrated by the conversations that are happening here because they're very analytical like and and and they're very like they're almost treating it like a business problem and I was like that's fine I understand a lot of people here are business people absolutely valid however like for me it's so much more than that and I think you know the work that they're doing and and the the research paper there is

going to be an amazing thing I don't discredit that and I do think it was it was an amazing opportunity however I just kind of was like do you think it's lacking emotion maybe emotion but also just kind of like it's one of those situations where and I'm sure you'll understand like once you've opened those floodgates of social awareness and you actually realize and openly discuss with other people who have also done that the amount of problems within you know this was just the fashion industry let alone like wide society it just becomes very heavy yeah you're just kind of like well these are so many things and it's like like i said you you can't just fix them within the fashion industry they're like ingrained societal bias. You can't easily go and change that. So it's just maybe a moment of just like

realisation of how dire it can be. Yeah, it is stressful because I do feel like that it's like putting plasters on stuff but not actually like looking after it. I do feel like that's an issue. But one thing that I'm thinking of with the influencing I started to think recently

is maybe we need to stop being so worried about whether or not Parliament are going to catch up with us or whether or not the systems are going to fix it. Because I do think that actually as people, we do have like power to create change. Yeah. And I think sometimes it can be really damning and feel quite depressing when you're like, why is this not happening? But actually, if you look even the way the media is taking the toll, like mainstream media, yes, it still actually is so important, especially when reaching those people.

But Twitter and social media have massively changed the way that we digest news and information and stories. And I think that is a really positive thing. Yeah, like Extinction Rebellion are a massive example of that. Like the fact that they, yeah, like you say, they

brought their message very loud and very clearly, which is amazing. And then government caught up with them and essentially was trying to now catch up with them. Yeah. Sometimes you've just got to kind of be like, okay, if the powers that be aren't listening, then I'll shout louder or I'll shout so they can hear me. I guess it's making us, if there's one thing that's happened around us, I think we're such an engaged society now. After Brexit and after Trump, it might seem scary, but I don't quite even think about America.

But I do feel like we've got a collective purpose. Like there's a sense of we can actually do something and we want to do something. And that is a nice feeling to be a part of that. Yeah, absolutely. Like Gina Martin is a massive example of that i always talk about just like the power and that gusto essentially to kind of do that um and change the law because you know she wasn't happy and she knew so many people weren't happy and that's kind of what um i'm trying to do with the petition and campaign that i'm running and it's like if you're not happy

then try and do something so gina martin changed the law on upskirting which is when someone takes a picture up with skirts i believe someone did it to her festival and then she couldn't uh the police didn't really do anything about it so it's literally illegal now which is amazing and jamie what is your petition you were talking about earlier so you're starting positions so people don't have to say female or male on legal documents right yeah so it's kind of essentially it started generally looking at just legal documents on massive that's like passports driver's license birth certificate and then kind of the main focus of it now is predominantly looking at passports. However, the petition is with the government.

So it's a government run, you know, one of the gov.uk. Right. Yeah, yeah. So it's got 16,500 signatures. So at 10,000, we got a response from the from the government inequalities committee and they basically were like yeah this is bro sure um it was actually quite a nice response but then i realized shortly after that of course they're going to write something nice because it's a public response and being right it got emailed

to like everyone who'd signed. Okay, yeah. But they basically were very positive, and they were like, we understand, we think this is an issue, we're going to do a call to action, which is essentially like reach out and do kind of like funny focus groups. So that was quite positive. And then I've got to August to get to 100K. Okay, fab. Which, if I'm honest with you, I don't know if I will,

but I still think that there is ways for this to move forward rather than having to reach that 100k. Yeah. Because, you know, what I'm trying to do now when I talk about it is use the right language. And instead of being like, oh, yeah, maybe if I do this, I'm kind of trying to be like, when I do it when it gets into parliament or when it gets there you also did an amazing post i just want it because you did something said something the other day and you're like i think

social media makes us think that we've already got to achieve all these things and stuff and i just want to say to you that 10 000 signatures on a position is already you've already already achieved something we're so bad at not recognizing our achievements we're always looking for the next thing it's so it's so hard especially when you work for yourself or you you know you don't have the traditional kind of structures of a job for you know i can't go to myself for an appraisal i know but i can but but we're afraid the worst thing is i thought about so the day is like when other people go in for like a work appraisal or have their six months,

where every three minutes, someone's telling you why you're shit. You have no, you can't escape it. And it's always people want more. People literally said to me the other day, I'm disappointed in your content. You're not trying as hard as usually. I'm like, I've literally been writing like an article.

I've done a TED Talk. Like I've just not been on my stories. And they're like, you are letting me down. You're like bloody hell. You're fizzling out. it's this is thank you yeah it's it's a bizarre one because it's like what six months ago i wouldn't i didn't know i'd be i'd be doing this or i'd be kind of trying to essentially bring down the whole government now um or just like be in government you know i'm trying to now like yes infiltrate i think so i said that to my friend the other day i was like god would it be

hilarious if i was just an mp for a bit oh my god imagine if you're the mayor of london don't you said it now such a fab idea but you know what i was thinking about and i always wondered what my 15 year old self would do if they could see me now because I always think that like because I compare myself you always compare up don't you

you know like well they're doing this and they're doing that and actually if my 15 year old self was like oh my god she's got like a podcast

people actually listen to her I'd be like that's amazing but my 25 year old self is like whatever you're not even doing anything yeah no literally

it's really important to do that because i'm like if i yeah if i told myself yeah what i would be doing now even like a 20s even like a year ago i'd be like are you joking yeah so um because i've only been out of uni for a year so i've only kind of been floating around the world as a faux adult slash worker for yeah nearly a year so it's a bit bizarre but even what you're doing outside of that like i've learned so much just from following you because as i said i think the way you write is really inclusive even though you're speaking about what would seem to be quite an exclusive group of people yeah and i think that it's i don't know i think it's so fascinating so

that's so funny because when i first followed you i was like oh my god their makeup is like this all the time and now i met you and just hey, Jamie, because that is just your face. It becomes the norm. Absolutely. Quickly, I wanted to ask you, if you go to the airport, can you wear your makeup? I was just thinking about it when you were talking about passports. Great question. So I don't know because I've only, it's hilarious, I don't know why, I've only ever flown internally.

Interesting. So I'm going to Edinburgh next week and in november i went to glasgow so those are the only two flights i've ever been on oh is there a reason are you scared to go abroad that bit of a jump um i would say i would say that is a that is a factor yes also i don't have a passport at the moment. Just because? Just because it ran out and then I was like, oh yeah, that petition. So yeah, do you want one when it's not got one? I'm debating it because I'm like, I don't know if I should be like a full martyr to my cause

because I don't want to limit myself, but also, you know, I can't landlock myself. I've genuinely had to turn down jobs recently because I'm like you're gonna Brexit yourself yeah I'm literally Chex it I'm just segwaying on um yes do I haven't it's a mixture of just like maybe not having the opportunity to fly or like not having the reason and then now because I know how um stressful it can be I tend to not yeah so that when yeah so when I fly I won't wear any makeup just because my passport or my driving license picture is so old anyway yeah that I'm going to be like

they're not going to think it's me anyway yeah i get you sorry i was just thinking about that um okay so how long got i mean i've got that one left um the last things i think i wanted to talk to you about were oh yeah that's what i'm saying so first of all your instagram name is is it their leopard print or just leopard print elephant just i search you all the time so should know what where did that name come from don't it's so embarrassing i just have no idea okay it was just it just felt right at the time yeah and it's it's do you know i don't mind it because i remember when i made it i was like it's really funny because i'm like not a great elephant but i'm like a leopard print one i love that and i was

like at the time it was hilarious but now i don't mind it but not to sound like a a big shot because i'm verified i can't change it. Can't you? Like easily. Like, I was going to say normal people. If you don't have a verified account, you can fairly easily change it. But because it's verified

and it has to make sure that it's still me, if I change it, I have to do it very officially and ring them. Your name's actually really cool because Windust is a really cool surname, I think and i want to change it to that because yeah it i also get um i don't want to say this in an offensive way to any influences um i don't mind partaking in the odd influencer campaign sure like i find it quite funny yeah like it's fun but because my instagram is not my name i

think i often get confused as just like yeah yeah what's interesting is people always say to me can you stop having influence on your podcast i'm like actually none of them are influenced they're just good at their job and have a master following yes by proxy of being good at their job but people are quite lazy and will conflate someone having followers to just automatically being like that's it yeah you're an influencer exactly um which i find really irritating so i literally have to be like no they're an author or they're whatever and they haven't actually yeah that is interesting what um in terms of with the magazine i actually want to read it now but in terms of what's your career path going forward what's your goal or your dream yeah i'll go with that first quite a big question already um i think for me it definitely

is within the media world whether that be an editor of somewhere larger or kind of just having that presence um but then also i do i love the the fact that i have lots of facets to my job. Yeah, me too. All my jobs. Like, it's just that it's really fun because it means I'm never doing the same thing. And I honestly, like, no offense to people who work in traditional hour jobs, I just don't know if I could. And that sounds really snobbish, but I just don't know if I could.

No. Now I've had time to not do it and and have a year of literally managing my own time and my own flexibility it's so i don't think i could do it either because i'm the same as you i was straight out of uni i wanted to do like freelance stuff including my influencing and it's interesting because i actually think it's a much more natural way of living for instance like i could never normally tell people this but i might have a nap at at 3 o'clock because I've got up at 6. And then I might have a 20-minute break to watch a bit of something on my laptop. And I'm really productive then.

Whereas try and stuff me in a room from 9 to 5, I will not do anything. I could have proven that to you by being at uni and at school where any time I was in an actual classroom, I did nothing. And then when I was given creative space i would do my work which could have been at four in the morning or 8 p.m it was never in those designated because i think any kind of restriction if you put it on me i will just go the other way and be like i'm gonna be silly now yeah sorry that's the exact same as me like i i can't and it sounds really childish but like i don't like authority yeah I know I think I'm the same

in some circumstances because I'm like especially when it comes to me creating something or me doing something I'm like fine I'm so fine yeah I'll do that for then sure but like yeah I just obviously that's it's a very privileged position to be in to be like i am working for myself like it took but then also it took a lot of hard work that's the thing so i always feel very lucky and very privileged and i realized my boyfriend said to me once he was like but you've got this constitution to do he's like i could never do that i don't know how you live like from one not knowing when you're gonna get paid he was like that would put me off enough to not even start because you just might not get paid for like six months for jobs you did yeah um and then just being

able to do creative and like no and that is actually just it's just a personality type but i think we're so used to praising type a personalities and people that want these certain things that you feel like oh i'm so lucky when actually it's quite hard being freelance juggling five jobs yeah but it just because it looks so fun and they are the fun jobs, it doesn't mean that it's not work in and of itself. Because I think people think that. They see us going wherever or we're at an event or whatever and it looks really fun. And of course, yeah, it is.

And it can often be really fun. But also what they don't see is us sat for days on emails being like, please can I do this? Yeah, exactly. all the rejections you get yeah like the the yeah the just mass amount of no's yeah or not replies um I think that's I get that a lot I get critiqued um so stop caring about obviously yeah it's people just being like people give you things because you look how you do and I'm like actually if you really break down what you've just said it's the complete opposite yeah um as people just

think that I've handed things and it's like well no I what's important to remember especially like if you are freelance is you don't necessarily know the trail of what you're doing you don't know where it's going to go so you could think that this tiny job that you're getting paid for is just a tiny job, but you don't know who's going to see it and that's going to then lead to a big job. Yeah. It's so interesting. It's so true.

Actually, I found that because also in the beginning of my career, it was very much like I could have taken a different route and there were quite well-paid fitnessy things that I never did because in the back of my mind I was like, don't i know they're not going to sit in line with my future what i want to do yeah and those choices can be really hard because a lot of the time the really well paid things are the things you actually really don't want to do yeah and it'll be a random event that you happen to say yes to because you're in a good mood even though it's like really the opposite side of london and you really can't be asked and you go there and

that turns into an amazing relationship with the brand or something yeah and it is very much like you have to have quite a happy-go-lucky personality. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, because this episode is going to be called How to Be Unapologetically You, if you had a piece of advice to give to people who maybe feel like they are finding it difficult to be themselves or feel like they're being shoved into a box. Do you have any advice that you would give to try and be yourself um i think the best piece of advice i always try and give is to take your time because i think what can happen

is people see people like myself who you know i'm still fairly young and sorry I'm young not fairly young like 12 um I and they kind of see me and they I think they think that I happened overnight physically like or they think that it it was quite an maybe an easy process or a quick process to get here and it's like if you try and do everything at once you're gonna unfortunately and that's not your fault, but get hit by society's prejudice and wall of anger. So take your time and make sure that you try and surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and aren't toxic. And I know that is easier said than done,

especially if you're young and you're kind of not able to fly the nest yet or you're surrounded by family that might be problematic. You know, use social media to cultivate your own community, especially for queer people and LGBTQ plus people. Social media is essentially like having your other family in your hand. So yeah, that's what I'd say. I love that.

Give it a go, guys. Amazing. And if everyone, I've mentioned, if we want to find you online or anywhere else, you are? So on Instagram, it's at leopardprintelephant. And then Twitter is at fabjamiefab. Love. Not sure why.

And, yeah, Free Cake Magazine is, Instagram is at Freecake Magazine and then I'm going to put I'll put your link to petition in the show notes thank you and do you have anything else that's upcoming

or that people can come to do I it's a great question I mean it's not coming I mean it's not coming now but next year I'm releasing a book

oh yeah sorry so many things can you tell us a preface or not yeah so I mean he's not coming now but next year I'm releasing a book. Oh yeah, sorry, so many things happening. Can you tell us a preface or not? Yeah, so I mean he hasn't told me, I can't so sure. Okay fine, here's an exclusive. Basically just like me, which is hilarious what he told me, it's just like a non-binary guide to existence. So like me basically giving at the moment I'm writing the chapter on dating which is really hilarious, just giving hilarious anecdotes of my life and then actual practical advice on how to be like

so it's a book on how to not follow the rules basically essentially yeah a rule book for no rules oh my god I've needed a name for a while there we go it's like when Hermione's like it's kind of fun breaking the rules yeah that's what I'm going to call it love that so much thank you so much for listening guys

and thank you so much Jimmy for coming on I've absolutely loved it thank you I will see you guys next week bye bye We'll be right back. issue. I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning in an exciting live dealer studio,

exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly.