Skin, vocalist, Skunk Anansie
Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy
Smalltown Boy is, undoubtedly, one of the best songs ever written. It’s the anthem which guided us queer kids out of our villages and into the clubs. At first, it spoke to me musically. There was something haunting in the sound before this high soprano voice comes in. I’d heard nothing like it. But it’s the lyrics that hit me when I listened closer. I was from Brixton, in my own village: Jamaicans who came over in the 1950s and 60s. It was a religious, conservative city upbringing. I felt isolated, being gay. This song was a call to arms for little gay kids to find our space: “The love that you need will never be found at home / Run away, turn away, run away.”
I found my family in clubs. I would always walk past the nightclub Brixton Fridge, before realising there was a monthly lesbian night there, Venus Rising. The first time I ventured in, I shrunk against the DJ booth, terrified, thinking: there are so many lesbians, what to do with myself? Then Smalltown Boy came on, and I ventured on to the dancefloor. I put it up there with Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, which spoke to Black people’s experiences at the time like nothing else. Smalltown Boy was its modern, gay counterpart. Generation-defining.
Stephen K Amos, comedian
The Wizard of Oz
At the age of five or six my parents got me a pair of red Clarks buckle shoes. It was around the same time that I first watched – cliched as it may sound – The Wizard of Oz. I was mesmerised by the entire production of this film that was made years earlier: the first part in black and white and then in colour; this girl looking for her home. Maybe subconsciously those sorts of things were going on in my mind as a child. It really got me into the whole notion of torch songs, tragedies, being an outsider, feeling fear and vulnerability, looking for your own place in this wide society. Also, this idea of finding your own tribe, as it were, of all these other misfits who are looking for something.
That must have sowed a seed in my head because I also loved my red shoes. I remember that we went on a school trip to a farm in south London and I’d click my heels like nobody’s business. Clicking my heels and wanting to go off into a fantasy world was perhaps the underlying thing I was hoping for.
Mhairi Black, former SNP MP
Hannah Gadsby – Nanette
Nanette was released in 2018. I was 26, a member of parliament and out publicly. I’d never been in the closet. But it doesn’t mean I always felt proud, even if I acted it. Watching Nanette was transformative. It was the first time I’d ever felt truly seen. The way Hannah Gadsby spoke about being “incorrectly” female in the eyes of lots of the world? That resonated. Gadsby was just as bewildered by the heteronormative world as I always had been. It cemented my view that it’s the world that has to change, not us. Growing up a Catholic, sent to Catholic primary and secondary schools, the reason I felt different from 10 years old? It’s because I was made to feel different.
Yes, the jokes made me laugh, but it was the last 20 minutes, where the comedy made way for talking, that left me blubbering. Hannah controlled the tension, making people uncomfortable while keeping them onside. It was a masterclass in powerful performance and communication. For me, It came at the right time. Around then, the war against trans people really picked up, the latest wave of moral panic. Nanette made me feel confident in myself, yes, but also gave me the strength to speak out. I was in the corridors of power and knew I had to use my voice to ensure others in our community felt someone was in their corner, just as Hannah had for me.
Mhairi Black: Politics Isn’t for Me is at Gilded Balloon at the Museum: Auditorium, Edinburgh, 31 July to 25 August.
Margaret Cho, comedian
Madonna and Sandra Bernhard
During the late 80s and early 90s, the relationship between these two women fascinated me. There was lots of hinting to romance: did they or didn’t they? Madonna and Sandra would be pictured partying, and flirting on talkshows. I fell in love with how much fun they were having. This was an era when showbusiness was curated and controlled. Madonna and Sandra flaunted their business for all to see. It was magnificent and magnetic, and made me realise not only was it OK to be gay, it was also way more fun to be. There was the bisexuality of it all, too. I didn’t need to be straight or lesbian to be visible. And, I found comfort and safety seeing the biggest star in the world be close, publicly, to someone so clearly queer.
I was queer, and living in San Francisco in the early-ish stages of a comedy career at the time. I was out, somewhat, in my professional life, but I felt unsafe and uncomfortable. I worried about finding acceptance beyond the San Fran bubble. Then I saw this relationship play out. It made queer kids feel safe. That we’d be OK. And that one day, we too might be friends with Madonna.
Gareth Thomas, former Wales rugby player
The Kenny Everett Video Show
My parents watched the Kenny Everett show religiously. I would sit and stare at the screen alongside them, never quite understanding what was happening. I was only four years old when the first series aired. In the area we lived around Bridgend, I’d never come across anyone who was openly gay. His presence on screen was intriguing. For minutes, I could – without anyone knowing – search the show for references, insights and ideas. It was a window into a world I had no handle on.
Alongside the outrageous and absurd were crossdressing, camp and sexualised characters. To my young mind, seeing these on screen was affirming. Then I’d notice my parents and brothers were laughing. I wasn’t sure what was funny, but I’d laugh along. In school the next day, kids would imitate Everett’s more effeminate voices. For them, that was the joke. Subconsciously I think it left a mark: if you’re going to be open, you have to accept it’ll come with some derision. If anything, I was pushed further away from my own authenticity. To this day, I’ve no idea how the show felt for him to make: were audiences then laughing at or with him? Watching those shows didn’t give me licence to be myself. That would take decades. But still, deep down it made me hopeful that one day it might be possible.
Rosie Jones, comedian
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I first watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer quite late on, when I was in my 20s. Even before Willow came out, she was my favourite character – lovely and goofy and funny. When the show decided to pursue a gay storyline with her and Tara it didn’t feel sensationalised: it was just two people falling in love who happened to both be women. But, classic lesbians in the media: Tara bloody dies! We get two seasons of happiness and then we’re done.
I wasn’t out at all to anybody at the time I watched it. I knew I fancied women, and I’m ashamed to say this now, but the lesbians that I did see on TV were often on the butch side. That wasn’t really the type of person I was attracted to. I thought: well, I don’t have short hair and I don’t fancy women with short hair, so I can’t be gay. But seeing Willow, who is feminine, falling in love with a feminine-looking woman, made me go: why am I trying to fit into this narrow-minded theory of what a lesbian should be? Through watching Willow and Tara, I came out to my friend Jim, who I was watching it with. I said: ‘I really relate to Willow, I think I’m attracted to girls too.’ What did Jim say? In a really loving way he said: “I know you are, you big dyke!”
Rosie Jones: Triple Threat is at Pleasance Courtyard: Grand, Edinburgh, 14 and 15 August.
Jodie Harsh, drag queen and DJ
Queer as Folk
Queer as Folk came out when I was 15 years old. I was living the exact same life to the tee as Nathan the protagonist. We were the same age, he hooking up with people and terrorising Manchester, and I was doing the same things, secretly, in London. I lived in Canterbury so I’d get the train and go to the Astoria and get up to no good. Queer as Folk was like a how-to guide, which is probably not ideal for a 15-year-old. Even though we’re only going back a couple of decades here, it was so shocking. Now everything’s got sex in it, but back then there were so many controversial moments, specifically the rimming episode.
I had the gay shining out of me since I was a little kid. When my parents found out they were pretty shocked, which I thought was surprising. I felt some urge inside to escape from the banality of Canterbury and the need to get to a big cosmopolitan city and be around thousands of people who were like me. To dive into that herd and feel safe and accepted.
You Had to Be There is out in autumn 2025, published by Faber & Faber.
Heather Baron-Gracie, vocalist, Pale Waves
Twilight
When I was growing up I really didn’t feel like I had a lot of queer people, or queer material, to turn to. But I feel like now is a great time to be queer, and there’s so much representation, especially with lesbian artists such as Reneé Rapp and Chappell Roan. It’s such a better time.
I had crushes on people when I was in high school and I remember watching Twilight when I was 14 and I was obsessed with the character Alice Cullen. She was the dream girl for me. I’ve still not got over that crush; I’m still very much obsessed with her. I remember thinking: I just want to kiss her. I didn’t want to kiss Edward or Jacob, even though I was Team Edward, but that was because I’m always going to pick vampires over werewolves. I wanted to be a vampire myself, and I still have that dream. Through that film I realised I fancied women and that I wasn’t like my other friends in school.
Pale Waves’ album, Smitten, is out on 20 September.
Sophie Duker, comedian
Bible films
As a little kid, I lived mostly with my mum, and religion was in the fabric of everything. She would put biblical films and miniseries on our small television: usually low-budget, heavy saturation with stories from the Old Testament where people were trekking through the desert. The women in the films were always quite chaste, but there was a lot of unresolved sexual tension and yearning – at least on my side of the screen. I would watch till the end, hoping for a kiss between two married characters– the money shot. I remember seeing the red glistening lips of one female character and getting a tingly feeling.
Then there’s The Prince of Egypt. Yes, it’s a cartoon, but it definitely sparked bisexual panic – maybe because I found both of the romantic leads so hot. Tzipporah was an early example of a woman-of-colour character with her sensuality foregrounded as part of the plot. Her relationship with Moses is quite goals. I’ll always remember a scene where he is waking her up and her curls fall delicately over her face.
Obviously, this wasn’t the intended response to these films. Maybe I’ve retrospectively queered them, but to be fair, the Christian experience can be camper than you’d think. My experience of growing up religious is that there’s definitely a point in your pre-teens when adults clock your simmering hormones and double down on doctrine. But with all this added pressure you can literally end up horny for God.
I know I’m not the only one: Michaela Coel’s Tracey Gordon in Chewing Gum is a hot mess of horniness and Christian zeal, and the comedian Jaboukie talks about going to Catholic school and perving on Jesus’s abs on the cross. Biblical paternal figures are kind of like daddies: strict but representing strength and safety. The Old Testament can be quite epic and naughty, too – just take Sodom and Gomorrah.
My auntie messaged me once cryptically telling me that someone was “madly in love” with me. When I replied asking who, she texted back: “Jesus”.
Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her is at the Pleasance Courtyard: Cabaret Bar, Edinburgh, Wednesday to 25 August.
Perfume Genius, musician
Edward Scissorhands, Hairspray and Tupac Shakur
There are a few for me. The first one is Edward Scissorhands, specifically all the orgasmic hair-cutting scenes. There’s one scene in particular where a lady is straddling Edward and he doesn’t really understand what’s going on. The reason why it struck me is because I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to be her or him. It felt subversive and campy, even though the camp went over my head when I first saw it aged seven or eight. It was dead serious to me. My queerness at that point wasn’t about sex, but I knew there was something.
The second one is Hairspray, not the musical, the 1988 John Waters film. There’s a scene where Ricki Lake licks the TV because her boyfriend is in prison, and I remember doing that. When the boyfriend came on screen, I would lick the TV. That was just a pure, beautiful crush.
What really sealed the deal though was a Tupac video for I Get Around. I remember very specifically thinking: right, am I gay or not?, and doing my own tests. There’s a bunch of clips in the video of Tupac getting a sponge bath and I realised I really wanted to give him the bath. I did the same with the famous Rolling Stone magazine cover with Janet Jackson; I flicked between the cover and then this Jockey men’s underwear advert. The Jockey ad won.
Perfume Genius’ Too Bright 10th-anniversary vinyl is out on 10 September.
Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
The Black Civil Rights Movement
In 1963, when I was 11 years old, I heard about the racist bombing of a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama, by the Ku Klux Klan. Four young girls, about my own age, were murdered. I lived thousands of miles away, in Melbourne, Australia. But those killings profoundly shocked me. They prompted my interest in, and support for, the ideals and campaigns of the Black Civil Rights Movement (BCRM).
I realised I was gay in 1969, when I was 17. Homosexuality was still punishable in Australia by several years of imprisonment. Later that year, I read about the first gay liberation protests in New York. Immediately, I wanted to protest, too. But there were no LGBT+ organisations, helplines or campaign groups in Melbourne. So I looked to the BCRM as a template for my LGBT+ activism.
I reasoned that just as Black people were a victimised minority who deserved equal rights, the same applied to LGBTQ+ people. Studying the history of the BCRM, I calculated in 1969 that it would take about 50 years to win LGBTQ+ equality in Western countries like the US, Australia and the UK. When lobbying did not work, I adopted the BCRM tactics of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience and applied them to the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation, like staging sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve “poofs” in the early 1970s.
I feel immensely indebted to the BCRM. It has remained the lodestar of my 57 years of LGBT+ and other human rights campaigning. When Black Panther leader Huey P Newton in 1970 expressed his support for the gay liberation struggle, it strengthened my belief that we should and could build alliances with other oppressed minorities. I still follow that mantra today.
