01x02 - Out and Proud?

[bunniefuu]

My name is Cara. Do I

have to say my whole name?

No. Be ridiculous.

Model, check. Activist/actor, check.

Privileged western white

woman, check, check, check.

That's a lot of labels.

But sexual identity

well, like loads of us,

I'm still working all that out.

I date men, but, oh, do I love

women and everyone in between.

I was born female, but

often feel like a guy.

- Wow.

- Wow.

My sex life, my gender

I'm just living off this q*eer energy.

my relationships.

A p*ssy sandwich.

All a bit of a hot mess.

This is the first time I've

spoken like this ever in my life.

So sexy q*eer-tastic

people of the world

- My vag*na.

- That's your vag*na!

I'm coming to get ya.

- And I want answers.

- Very quickly.

Like, how many sexual

identities are there?

Yay!

Is monogamy dead?

He's definitely not

faithful. Look at that guy.

What makes us hot or not?

Stunning!

And how can we pleasure seekers

get our hands on more orgasms?

Start masturbating now.

The most important thing about life

is connections with other humans.

Is that not the point of being alive?

A land of clits.

We don't talk enough about

how we can help each other.

Most people won't have ever

had these conversations.

So let's talk about it.

Oh, hello!

Yes, just casually judging

a q*eer twerking competition.

In the absolute effing

hottest place on Earth

and having a jolly good

time, thank you very much.

Nice crowd. Loving

the crowd's vibe today!

Why am I here?

Well, there's so much to

know about the world of sex,

but I want to start

with sexual orientation.

We love lesbians!

Where does it come from?

Is it fixed or fluid?

I want to meet people who

live openly and authentically,

to unlearn the shame I've

struggled with for years

and accept my identity.

Hold on, it's going to be

a bumpy q*eer ride folks.

We're just gonna talk about being g*y.

Go g*y. q*eers here.

- Cara Dele-q*eer.

- Yes.

Serious.

How would I define my sexual identity?

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

I always have kind of believed

in the no labels thing,

but have spent a lot

of time then saying,

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

I am q*eer.

I'm a hundred percent can

tell you that I'm q*eer.

I just don't know what else

I can say other than that.

What do you think you'll discover

in this amazing journey we

are on about your sexualities?

Even though I've been q*eer,

I haven't really been

able to live a q*eer life.

You know, the internalised

shame or the kind of h*m*

is slightly there still.

When you are in this job

or when you are famous,

or something, it stunts a lot of things,

and, like, I didn't really

develop my queerness.

So I think I'm just

coming to it all very late.

Does that make sense? Cool.

I don't know where I expected

this journey to begin,

but it wasn't slap bang in

the middle of the desert.

What do I know about Palm Springs?

It's hot. It's a desert.

This is a place where

old people go to die.

Joking. That's a joke.

It's hot. It's so hot.

Why do people come here?

It's so hot!

Well, apparently, if you're

LGBTQ+, this is the place for us.

Once a desert hangout for

the 1960's Hollywood Rat Pack,

Palm Springs is now one of

the queerest towns in America

and was the first to have

an all LGBTQ+ council.

So it's a good place to

dip my toe in the water,

at the mother of all q*eer women events.

- I'm checking in, please.

- Yeah, of course.

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

It's hard to spell.

Yes, it's true.

I've still never been to

Pride or anything like that,

so this will be my very

first proper q*eer day out.

Sheesh.

So, do you come here often?

So scared. Scared.

- Where are you going?

- Where am I going?

- Am I meant to go this way?

- I'm a Cancer.

- I like long walks on the beach.

- So do I.

Okay, deep breath.

You guys are, like, the

least subtle posse ever.

Like this is not it. Yeah.

I don't really know what to expect.

Go round. A board.

But how intense could it be?

Are we gonna go in, though?

This is the Dinah Shore Weekend,

the biggest l*sbian

pool party in the world.

15,000 women, trans and non-binary folk

out here in the desert.

You're coming in and you just see

an ocean of women and t*tties

and glitter and pasties.

A lot of dancing, a lot of twerking,

a lot of making out,

a lot of happy times.

Different body types. Different

ethnicities. I love it.

It's like Disneyland for lesbians.

It's clear I won't survive

unless I find friends ASAP.

Luckily, I got me some neighbours,

Kimber and Lilly, to hold my hand.

- All right, Dinah on three.

- One, two, three! Dinah!

Oh, my God.

That was the gayest

thing I've ever done.

Really? I don't believe you.

- Let's go!

- Welcome to Dinah Shore.

Soak it in.

And then a twerking contest.

Yeah!

Nice crowd. Loving

the crowd's vibe today!

Look, the whole thing

was face-meltingly loud,

so you'll have to read the next bit.

- This makes me emotional so much.

- Why?

I have never been to anything like this.

Just here's, like, hot

and amazing and fun.

And, like, just like

There's nothing hotter than

people living their best life.

But being here with this gorgeous,

colourful smorgasbord of q*eer people

has been intense.

What just happened? What didn't happen?

I don't know, I think

I guess I.. I don't know.

I'm out and I'm proud, you

know, to a certain extent.

But in my own life, I didn't

really find a community.

I didn't really speak, like,

experience these sort of things.

I did it in the public eye, which

again allowed myself to be

pointed fingers at,

or feel more of the hate

than I guess the love.

So it's a lot. It's

just a beautiful place.

Obviously, when you look at the footage,

it's arses and everyone dancing

and having the best time,

but for me it feels

so much more than that,

'cause it's just so much

love and that, you know.

Oh, God, this is the journey.

This is the discovery

of I don't know, yeah.

Like, I feel This is

Like, I'm feeling things.

I don't usually do that.

I didn't realise until

now how reassuring it is

to be with people who share

the same feelings as me.

I've been living in my own world,

when there's this whole big

LGBTQ+ wonderland out there.

In today's q*eer kaleidoscope,

there are a lot of

ways to define yourself.

Bears have a flag. I love that.

And dozens of different

types of sexual orientation.

So chic, darling.

Don't know the difference

between your As and bis and pans?

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

Dr Ronx is an ER medic,

q*eer activist and educator.

They'll help me straighten it all out.

Well, not straight-straighten.

Look, you know what I mean.

I love your trainers, babe.

Just to be clear, gender

is how you feel inside.

Sexual orientation, that's

who you fancy or not.

Okay, let's go!

"l*sbian."

A l*sbian is a woman who is

attracted to another woman.

- "g*y."

- A term men use

to say that they are

attracted to other men.

It's also an umbrella term

for anybody that is not heterosexual.

- "Bisexual."

- Bisexual people

- fancy men and women.

- "Pansexual."

People who are attracted

to other people,

regardless of their gender identity.

- "Asexual."

- People who are not sexually attracted

- to other individuals.

- "q*eer."

Everybody under the LGBTQI umbrella,

but not everybody identifies as q*eer.

We've evolved and so has our flag,

from a simple rainbow to

a cornucopia of colours.

Now called the Progress Flag.

It symbolises where as a

society we aim to progress to,

encompassing the whole spectrum

of sexual and gender identities.

I love that there's so

many more types of sexuality

being recognised than ever before,

and more openly q*eer

people on the planet.

36% of Gen Z say they feel some

level of same sex attraction,

twice as many as their

grandparents' generation.

What's driving this big q*eer leap?

I think it's because so many more of us

are unlearning the shame and

standing up to be counted.

Here's what I love about Tokyo.

A busy modern city and yet

bang in the middle of it,

ancient traditional scenes like this.

And this the ceremony hall.

Kodo Nishimura is the master

of this Buddhist temple.

- It's like a wedding ceremony.

- I know, look.

I feel like we could be married.

We have shared beliefs.

He grew up right here in this temple.

But even as a child, Kodo felt

different from the other kids.

I noticed that I shouldn't talk

about my interest in boys publicly,

and I felt like a perverted person.

I was constantly feeling

like there was a huge

black cloud above my head.

Back then, g*y people couldn't

live as openly in Japan.

Kodo needed to find a place

that accepted who he was.

Moving to the US was

such a liberation for me.

I was learning about the

history of LGBTQ community,

how people in the past

have vote for our rights.

So if I can bring that to

Japan, I felt that would be cool.

Kodo returned to Tokyo in

2013 to champion g*y rights,

and discovered to his surprise

the old family business of Buddhism

had been ready to

welcome him in all along.

What I later found out,

Buddhism is very embracing.

It says the mercy of Buddha

is just like the moonlight.

Anybody who looks up to the

moon can appreciate the beauty.

We can prioritise our uniquenesses

and shine in our own colour.

- Here you go.

- Oh, my gosh!

- Wonderful style of shirts.

- Do you want to open these too?

Oh, my gosh, she loves the jewellery!

I think the courage to speak up

is actually cooler than

pretending to be perfect.

- Yes, I completely agree with you.

- So Yeah.

- So

- High five to that.

So, now I'm gonna transform and

Transform away. I will leave you.

I will love you and leave you.

Okay, cool.

Today Kodo is a

celebrity in his homeland

and not just as a Buddhist monk,

but something totally extra.

For his powers of glam

as a makeup artist.

I can approach people's

hearts with Buddhist teachings,

and I can also approach their

outer attributes using makeup.

They both help people to

gain confidence or balance.

Yes, gorgina.

- Oh, my God, you look amazing.

- Thank you.

One foot in fashion and one

foot in ancient tradition.

And, for Kodo, it works.

What would you like for the

future and for the future of Japan?

If I can inspire leaders of the world,

also religious leaders, to

lift laws against LGBTQ people,

that would be wonderful, because

we have to be safe to be us.

And we're not going anywhere.

Society grows naturally like a tree.

So if you just keep watering,

it's gonna grow, and I have hope

that all communities can learn diversity

and celebrate its beauty.

What an incredibly strong

but also wise person he is.

No matter how much the traditional side

has probably stopped him from

wanting to be the certain way,

his heart and his light shone through.

And I really I've just

learnt a lot from him.

It made me very emotional.

It made me just so proud.

Being happy in yourself within yourself

gives you the resources to

be able to help other people,

and that's what is most

important in the world.

There are just little

glimpses into people

who are really brilliant

and radical and rebels,

and it's a beautiful thing.

Radicals and rebels made

same sex relationships legal

in my home country 50 years ago.

But growing up, the messaging

from the people around me

could still be heard loud and clear.

I couldn't talk to anyone

about it, and I definitely had

a lot of, like, internalised

h*m* and shame.

I thought that I was, like, abnormal

and I that I wasn't right.

Everyone else was right and I was wrong,

'cause I wasn't like everyone else.

I thought about ending my life.

Like, I had, like, multiple times.

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

because if I can help any other

kid, that means the world to me,

that means the world

to that little q*eer kid

that I was or am.

The thing is, I've always wondered

why I feel so much

shame about my sexuality.

Because, honestly, people,

this stuff is not new.

Since humans have walked the

Earth, there have been q*eer folk.

From famous gays like Ancient

Greek Alexander the Great

to Aztec god of

h*m*, Xōchipilli.

Through plenty of British

kings, who are apparently queens.

Two Williams, two Richards,

an Edward, a James,

and, of course, Queen Anne.

Same sex attraction has been around

for a long time and in a lot of places.

So what shapes our sexual orientation?

Is it nature or is it nurture?

Is it something that happened to me

growing up, or was I born this way?

Well, there are plenty

of ideas flying around,

but one person who studies

this area is Dr Gerulf Rieger.

He believes answers lie in our biology.

Think about it like this. The

majority of us are straight.

We need our sexual orientation

to create babies and continue

to thrive as a species.

So the idea that the social environment

has such profound influences

on something so important to us

just doesn't make any sense.

Everything from overbearing

mothers, boarding schools,

being in the Navy and

having older sisters

has been blamed for turning people g*y.

But if society really makes you g*y,

wouldn't there be a load more of us?

Gerulf thinks our sexual

orientation is set much earlier,

before we're even born, in fact.

- Hello. How's everybody doing today?

- Good, thank you.

Let's get one thing straight.

There's no one factor that makes us g*y,

just a big biological c*ck of bits

that shape whether you swing this

way, that way, or another way.

First up, there are

numerous genes involved.

Recently we've had complex

work done on the human genome

that suggests that

there are several genes

that could influence a

h*m* orientation.

There's not just one.

Hormones matter too.

Our number one educated guess is,

it's the level of testosterone

that we're exposed to or react to

as an unborn child.

Let's say a baby girl that was exposed

to unusually high levels of testosterone

is more likely to become h*m*.

Okay, and do you want to

know the baby's gender?

- Yes, please.

- Okay.

- Well, it's definitely a girl.

- Perfect.

Then it gets even weirder.

Another theory is

mothers produce antibodies

in response to male babies.

Maybe we should call them "mantibodies."

When the mother is pregnant

for the first time with a son,

she actually gets exposed

to male typical proteins,

which is something that

her own body isn't used to.

These antibodies stay

in the mother's system.

Then they can affect the

development of the second son

and could therefore disrupt

the regular development

of his sexual orientation.

This suggests the greater number

of older brothers you have,

the more likely you are to be g*y,

only by a few percent,

but it's still a vital clue

in this big q*eer puzzle.

So what does this all add up to?

Well, with so many factors

involved in our sexual orientation,

it's no wonder there's so much diversity

and so many shades of g*y.

When it comes to the

question of how innate

is somebody's sexual orientation,

my educated guess is

probably a hundred percent.

It's something that really

comes from within the person.

What exactly are the ingredients,

that's the million dollar question.

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

So you can pack that judginess

away, thank you very much.

It's not a choice, which

is a relief, to be honest.

And it's nothing me, other q*eer folk

or our parents did wrong.

All right, okay, but next question.

Is our sexuality fixed from birth,

or is it something that evolves

and changes throughout life?

I still am of the belief

that sexuality is definitely a spectrum,

and I feel like mine wavers.

But also I'm probably definitely

more on the side of women.

But I like having sex with

men. I just don't date them.

I might, though. You never know.

But, again, I think it's a beautiful

unwavering wavering beautiful boo.

But if biologically speaking

there are so many shades of g*y,

how do I know for sure which one I am?

And what about my

fluctuating sexual fluidity?

Is it my mind choosing

who I want to have sex with

or who my body reacts to?

Sexologist Dr Marieke Dewitte

is an expert on what turns us on. Meow.

- Are you Flemish? I'm Flemish.

- I'm Flemish.

- Fellow Flem.

- Yeah.

So I signed up to her sex

lab to watch a lot of porn,

all in the name of science.

Who wouldn't be excited by

watching a whole lot of porn today?

Come in and welcome to our sex lab.

As you can see, we try to create

kind of a living room effect,

a little bit more cosy.

So, we are going to

present several video clips.

You know what I thought about?

My parents watching this.

Well, maybe you should have

thought about that before.

Try to ignore it. The main thing

is actually what you need

to do, is just sit, relax

and try not to touch

yourself and sit still.

Try not to? I can contain myself.

Try not to touch yourself and

just watch the screen, yeah?

- Okay, perfect.

- Have fun, Cara.

- I will. I will try. f*ck.

- Yeah, definitely.

I'm sorry, this is

what? And it goes where?

When you get sexually aroused,

more blood is being

pumped into your vag*na,

and, therefore, the colour

of your vag*na wall changes.

And this device

measures the amount of

blood in your vag*na cavity.

- Can I ask a question?

- Sure.

Can you read my mind through my vag*na?

- No.

- It's going in now.

Right. Jesus!

- Can you guys see that it's in?

- I can see your signal.

Oh, my God! My signal?

What the f*ck is happening?

I can see your vag*na pulse, yes.

Great. I love that for us.

Okay, try not to think about my parents

or about the camera

12 inches from my face.

My frankly ridiculous task is

to watch different kinds of porn,

while Marieke's vag monitor

records how aroused I am down below,

and I yank a lever

to rate how turned on I

feel up above in my mind.

Okay, fire it up. First,

two guys shagging each other.

Like, I can feel my breath

shortening or whatever crap.

We can see there's something happening.

Then l*sbian sex.

Yeah, okay.

My body feels that

shivering feeling again.

Great. Weird. This is strange.

Just had a real big influx of horniness

and then a real big influx of shame.

How bad is that still? Why?

Straight sex.

He's not very good at this.

There's men masturbating.

I'm less horny than I thought I was.

Oh, Lord.

Women masturbating.

That just seems uncomfortable.

So fake nails, bro.

You're gonna say something

different, aren't you, vag*na?

Then a surprise little bonus

clip of some hairy monkey sex.

Okay, this is properly weird now.

Oh, my God, what's it doing?

It's called oral sex.

This is wild. Literally.

An hour later, thank

God, that's it, I'm done.

I don't even know how to feel anymore.

- So there she is. How was it?

- Do I look traumatised?

Not at all. Did you

find it traumatising?

No. Maybe.

But what the F does this all mean

when it comes to sexual orientation?

What did you see?

We could clearly see that your body

automatically reacted

to a sexual stimulus.

So the moment there

was something sexual,

you had this automatic

genital arousal response,

because your body, your brain,

recognises this as sexual,

you've learned this is

sexual, so you react.

So it sounds like my genitals

find everything, human and animal, sexy.

But is this to be expected?

Your response actually matched

with what we saw in previous research,

that the genital

arousal response of women

is rather non specific.

It kind of shows that for women

it's sexual activity that matters.

It says nothing about your

sexual orientation or identity.

'Cause matters of the genitals

are not matters of the heart.

So sometimes women who don't

identify as being l*sbian,

they get turned on by the women,

and it's like, "Oh,

my God, is this ?"

They get confused.

But it's just this diversity of

Yeah, women get aroused

by different stimuli.

Phew, so this isn't some

secret lust for monkeys.

It's a primal bodily

response to sexual stuff,

one shared by females.

But what was my mind

saying about all of this?

Your reactive sexual

arousal clearly differed

depending on the type of

porn you were watching.

And what we saw in your pattern,

it seems that, especially

the l*sbian porn in specific,

really turned you on in

terms of reactive arousal.

Does it match your sexual orientation?

- For sure.

- Do you feel attracted to women?

So generally I think women are

my preferred gender, I suppose.

How you feel, the mental component,

we see that in women,

it's more specific,

that what really turns you on

is kind of a little bit more

tied to what you also prefer.

My mind is much more in sync

with my own sexual orientation.

For males, though,

it's a different story.

Their bodies react only to the

stuff that turns on their minds.

Men actually only respond to stimuli

that match their sexual orientation,

but in women there's much more fluidity

and erotic plasticity, as we call it.

Women's sexuality can

change throughout life,

and they're much more diverse.

So both our bodies and minds

feed into this thing we

call sexual orientation.

And women are more fluid

and varied than men.

But, crucially, none of it is a choice.

I think it's also asking

yourself, or thinking,

"However you're feeling is not natural."

But it is natural

because it's happening.

That's always what I would think,

growing up with a lot of shame,

is thinking, "This isn't

normal. this isn't human."

- But it's, like, it is.

- Yeah. I mean

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

The pressure from society and

the world around me growing up

doesn't have the slightest impact

on our innate sexual orientation,

but it sure does affect how you

feel about your sexual identity.

I wrestled with that today.

It did bring up little silly

feelings of self-identifying

and, like, guilt or shame,

and that kind of stuff.

And it kind of also made me

silence myself in that way

because I'm, like, so bored

of that kind of self-projection

and, like, self battery.

The more I tried to deny the fact

that I was in any way h*m*,

the more I hated myself.

What you also try to deny

then kind of rears its head even more.

The thing is, you could

say my sexuality is natural.

I can say, "I'm born

this way. Accept it."

But the truth is I can still

feel the stigma and the shame.

And I know there are

many people out there

who have grown up in far more

difficult circumstances than me.

I want to meet people who have lived

through societal shame and

rejection, and fought back

so I can understand how

to be more self-accepting.

Sound check.

My name is The Darvish,

and I am a Syrian performance artist,

an event organiser,

community changer and an

LGBTQIA+ rights advocate.

And I consider myself a force of nature.

- Hello.

- Hello, my love.

- My man, indeed.

- Hi, my love. Oh, my goodness.

- How are you, my man?

- Pleasure meeting you.

We're now entering the club.

We need to create some magic.

The Darvish is from Syria,

where same sex relationships

are still ill*gal.

- Whoo, honey.

- Honey.

We need a little bit of

techno, and that's it basically.

It's literally all you need.

I realised when I'm q*eer

probably in the age of 14.

Up and straight and you

drop it. One and two.

And then the journey started

of me immediately realising

that this is a taboo in the

country that I am in right now,

and that it is dangerous

for me to, you know, own it.

So, yeah, started living, um

more carefully and

cautiously, but gracefully.

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

She's getting it. Okay.

When !sis overtook parts of Syria,

The Darvish had to make a choice.

The w*r got really serious.

Persecutions and executions

and stuff like that.

That's where it really hit us

we cannot be visible at all.

The decision over me leaving

Syria, that was the hardest thing.

Choosing my life.

And

Yeah.

One second.

I focused on imagining

how my life would be.

You don't have to live a double life.

You don't have to pretend

anymore. You don't have to act.

You can be you. Free.

The Darvish has now been

safe in Berlin for six years.

Your mum, she understood,

though, you leaving, or not?

Well, she didn't want to.

She didn't want to understand.

It was very hard for

her, for me to leave,

but I think I made my point very clear

that if I stay, there is

no future for me, you know?

- It got too dark.

- Yeah.

Right? I don't like it.

Oh, no. I thought you meant life.

I said, "Yes."

I disagree, honey.

I actually have a

little something for you.

This is for you. This

is a little dervish.

- Yeah, whirling dervish!

- Yes.

So, this is to say that you

mean a lot to the community

and we really appreciate you,

and thank you so much

for being with us tonight.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

I am a whirling dervish.

- Perfect, I'm happy you like it.

- Oh, that's so cute!

Tonight The Darvish will be performing

with their collective called

Queens Against Borders,

working for the Trans and

q*eer Refugee Community.

Hello!

Okay. Thank you so much everyone

for being here with

us at this fundraiser.

We're very glad that you're here.

Welcome to the stage, Dornika

and her bad b*tch Tram.

Yes.

Whoo!

I think finding and building a

community anywhere in the world,

whatever community

it is, is super vital.

The community that I have built

brought to me everything

that I could ever imagine,

which is me being me.

Yeah!

Please, put your hands together

for the gorgeous, the

stunning, the beautiful,

the one and only, The Darvish!

I never really had any

interest of politics,

but being the person I am is a

political statement by itself.

I am a walking politician, let's say.

I choose my dance and my

passion and my performances

to say something.

I am trying my best to

have the visibility here

in order later to mobilise

it there, in Syria.

I'm beginning to understand

what I've been missing

by not being more

active like The Darvish.

They've unlearned the shame and

surrounded themselves with love.

It's given me so much to think about.

I don't really go to g*y

bars. I don't really know

I mean, I'm a sh*t g*y person.

Also because I think that

comes from a deep line

of like not really wanting

to be g*y that much.

But like I do, it's just with

every story there's been

It's been plagued with some sort

of, some element of heartbreak,

but then some massive

amount of joy, you know.

And that's the magic of q*eer people.

I mean, it's an amazing gift

and a curse in so many ways.

It's a double edged sword.

But that's what I always

leave feeling, is joy,

which is that's the

rainbow, that's the community.

Today, across the world,

there are trailblazing countries

where marginalised LGBTQ+ folk

can find that community and that joy.

And South Africa is a known

haven for q*eer refugees.

One of the first countries to

legalise same sex marriages,

and the only one in Africa.

There are LGBTQ+ church groups

To find an LGBT ministry

within South Africa,

it just makes everything better.

and q*eer festivals

I actually love it because I

can be whoever that I feel like.

Well, I'm a h*m*, very g*y,

over the top, extremely flamboyant.

Spaces like this are

definitely important

because I don't know, I

just feel so much more need.

We wanna get married

and just settle down

and just live a beautiful life.

And have furry babies, 'cause

I don't want actual ones.

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

to be a part of this

big old q*eer family

when it looks like so much fun?

Yet, it's no wonder so

many of us LGBTQ+ folks

still feel shamed,

given that even in

so-called liberal countries,

there are laws being

tabled against q*eer people.

Don't say "g*y," right?

Which is why we need

events like Dinah Shore,

not just to party, but as a refuge.

I'm back with my new

friends, Kimber and Lilly.

I wish I could go back to

myself, back when I was younger,

and just kind of

figuring out my sexuality,

and I wish I could show

myself what my life is today.

I grew up in Tennessee,

in a very conservative

family, very religious,

and being g*y was just, like,

absolutely not acceptable.

Here I am all these years later,

and I have an unbelievable

q*eer community around me.

It's just so important

to not feel alone,

and I feel like a lot of

q*eer people feel alone.

And you're not gonna feel alone here.

Where we live, there's

not very many places

- It's better now.

- They're starting to accept it,

but you still get a little

bit of a look here and there.

Like, do you walk down

the street holding hands?

Probably not.

It's amazing for me,

especially, like, I didn't

come out until later in life.

- So

- I'm an old l*sbian.

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

It just feels like very

less, I don't know, stressful.

Like, I don't feel like

I need to hold back.

I'm just I'm pretty

much me everywhere,

but here it's just a little extra.

- Like, just total.

- It's emotional.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's having a good time.

That's all that matters. Sorry.

It's incredible to be

free just for a few hours.

It feels like a weight has been lifted.

- Hey, Cara!

- Yes?

Welcome to Palm Springs!

Thank you!

Yeah!

We love lesbians!

I now have g*y friends.

- What have you learnt?

- So, wait, I'm confused.

Okay, pass me back that. I need it.

Okay, so what have I

learnt about myself?

I love being q*eer.

You know, this, like,

internalised h*m*

or this repressed, you

know, whatever, um

Yeah, I don't know why I said

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

It's something that I put on myself,

not generally to other people.

It's about myself.

But then this experience has really

I've felt like I've made

friends with that in myself.

I think that's what I've learnt,

which is a whole roundabout

way of saying, um

I shouldn't be shameful, I suppose.

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

My own journey of

self-acceptance done and dusted

thanks to the amazing

q*eer people I've met

and the wet and wild

world of Dinah Shore.

Well, not quite.

The thing is LGBTQ+ festivals

are kind of a closed

world, a cosy safe refuge.

It's time to stop hiding

and do what I said at the

start that I've never done.

It's time to go out there and

be visible in a city I love.

Yes, at last, I'm gonna

go to fricking Pride!

I want that outfit. You look amazing.

Look at those models' faces.

The fame.

Do you mind if I interview you?

I'd love to interview you as well.

- I can do that.

- Okay, good.

I've never been to Pride before,

so this is my first Pride.

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

- Happy Pride.

- Happy Pride!

Tell me a bit about your

experience as drag queens.

How old you were when ?

- But we're still only 15.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Me too.

- I'm 12.

- I'm 12.

- No, you aren't.

When did you come out?

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

I wouldn't ask a lady

that. Yeah, I know.

- The last ten years, changing a lot.

- It's changing a lot.

But now marriage, family,

kids. It's wonderful.

Yeah. It's possible.

It's always that one month of

Pride or Pride Week or Pride,

but I think we need

to be proud every day.

- But thank you so much.

- And thanks for spreading the word.

It's a really big deal.

It's a duty, I feel. I

haven't done it until now.

- Happy Pride!

- Happy Pride!

It's emotional for me a little bit,

'cause I think when you're q*eer

and you spend so much time

being quiet and being silenced,

Pride allows a space for

people to come and feel safe.

The rainbow's a perfect example

of showing their true colours,

showing who they really

are, being able to be loud.

Oh, my God!

Pride has now been running

for more than 50 years.

Since the first one in New York in 1970,

there are dozens of Pride events

around the world every year.

Here, the weather might be gloomy,

but there are rainbows galore,

and I've just seen a familiar face.

- Hello, again!

- Hi! Oh, my gosh!

- Sorry. How are you?

- Hi.

This is amazing, yeah.

Yesterday I saw two men holding hands

for the first time in my life, and

Anybody who sees them will

be like, "Oh, this is "

- This is normal. Not weird.

- Yeah.

What Pride has taught me is,

in so many places in the world,

you can find LGBTQ+ community.

Many of us have been

on similar journeys.

Some individuals can make a difference.

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

to say goodbye to that

shame once and for all.

I feel so much more comfortable,

and I feel very proud.

I mean, not just because it was Pride.

It's not like it's changed me.

It's not like I've discovered

new elements of myself.

It's just me being able to

be myself in these situations.

It's just been a real revelation.

I just want to keep being

in this Planet Sex mode.

Meeting people from around the world,

connecting, listening

to people's stories,

trying to imagine their

situation, trying to understand,

and through that,

understand more about myself,

and hopefully ignite or inspire others

to have similar conversations.

I've just never done

anything so personal.

It makes me realise what's important

and how much more active I want to be

in terms of trying to make

some sort of small difference.

Any difference is still

better than nothing.

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

It's never over. Pride's never

over. Here's to coming out.

It's a really beautiful experience,

and I'm so thankful for it.

Don't, I'll get f*cking

emotional. I hate emotions.

What do you want? Just say can't.

Yes.