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Hello everyone. How are you all doing? Happy June from Glasgow, Scotland. It's Jordan S. Daniel, formerly known once as Jordi Delight. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. There are lots of changes going on for me that are personal that I will be probably addressing and acknowledging on the podcast in the upcoming weeks. But I think it's important right now just to let some dusts settle and for me to allow myself time to just process and you know come to terms with a lot of different things. I hope you have all been enjoying the podcast and just feeling like you can really understand yourself more, hear your anger and frustrations in my anger and frustrations or confusions or happiness. Because you know, I might moan about a lot of negative shit, but I'm also not like a total negative Nancy. I do have my positive moments. So obviously, last week was a very intense episode about glee and how it helped me overcome, you know, NTM, and you know, I busted my ass and got back to school and did my exams and gave up politics lol and decided arts are for me. And here I am, an award-winning par me presenter, performer, writer, and so on and so on. And something rooted in my arts career has been my queer identity and my queer expression through that. And I wanted today to talk about something that I think is really important this month and needs a good conversation, and that is Pride Month. Because in Glasgow, Pride I think is next month, but in Edinburgh, where I'm Faye, and other places across the UK, it'll be Pride Month right now. And Durham recently had to put their own pride together because those reform bastards decided to slash funds and they couldn't put on their pride because the council funds have been axed. Oh my god, this is exactly what people have been saying for fucking years that reform would do. Even my cat in the background is getting angry and responding because she hates those reform cunts. Ooh, I said the C word now I will say I'm Scottish, and if I've got any international listeners that are like, oh my god, I can't believe you said cunt. Well, honey, I'm Scottish. We say that about our best pals. But honestly, darlings, like I we have been saying for years when reform and Nigel Farage was like, Yeah, we're gonna run, that this would happen, and it's already started. Look at Durham fucking Pride having to like pool resources to get our work with unions and minors, etc., to make pride happen. And I felt really empowered by this this morning when I was on Instagram seeing this video and thought I need to talk about pride. Now, I don't really want to go down a historic episode on Pride and how it was set up and what it means from a historical context and the people because I could do that all day. But the Stonewall riots occurred in 1969. There is a funny ridiculous meme of Derek Berry from Drag Race saying, like, you know, people died, and Willem's like no one died, and for me, the one thing with Pride that I think is crucial to know is why it was started, and in the you know, post-stonewall riots in the States and what happened to people and how they all pushed back against the police system, which I should probably do another episode about one day lol. But pride, you know, started to become this really necessary protest movement for queer people, and you know, their allies who help them navigate that. And for me, it is so crucial to our foundation as queer people to know why pride exists, what it's for, the negative surroundings around pride right now in terms of capitalism, but also for people to really listen and actually have a think about why this is important, and there will be a lot of people I think who follow me who listen to podcasts who will be like, Oh, I never knew all this. There also might be people that think that's actually quite you know an a soft a sore spot for me because I don't go to pride, and I'm sorry, but you need to know this, even if you make your active congruent choice not to go, which is totally valid, you need to know the implication of pride, what it stands for, and how we can as queer people use our voices. So, pride for me, when I was younger, I was 18, I remember coming out and wrestling with my identity and deal with the conflict of being LGBT plus, and people would say, Are you coming to Pride? And I'd go, Oh no, no, I I I don't really do that. That's not really for me, it's not my thing. And that was because I had an internal dialogue conflict of I don't want to be seen as completely queer because I'm one not comfortable in my skin, two, I'm scared of getting you know queer bash free, I'm not really sure what that would feel like, and I'd feel really vulnerable and I wasn't ready, and that is valid. But with time, energy, I decided you know what, I'm gonna pull my finger out and go, and I did my first March. Now, for me, if I'm being completely honest, Pride events are so wonderful, what they're rooted in, but when you charge people to go to Pride, I take a big issue with this, and there might be Pride organizers who listen to me that go, Well, you don't understand the implication of money side. And I'm like, I do completely understand. I was in charge of a charity once years ago, but for me, Pride should never be a ticketed, expensive event unless the money is literally going to local queer communities, foundations, organisations so that they can support queer people. I'm not giving you £25-30 to watch someone from a B-side band in the naughty's do a set. And this is what a lot of queer people and I see in one another is this conversation on the capitalism aspect of people who go to pride, but really what they go for is to see artists from their youth perform, get drunk, get messy. And don't get me wrong, I also think that is genuinely valid. If you want to go and you want to have fun with your friends, let your hair down, drink, not drink if you're sober, but really enjoy your childhood or nostalgia, that's also fucking valid. But I cannot get behind anyone charging people astronomical prices to go to a pride event right now when we are in such a political discourse where people like Reform are literally putting prides like like closing prides, getting rid of them. And this brings me to my next point. When I hosted Pride in 2019 for Edinburgh, I remember feeling so electric because Pride Edinburgh is free, and that is to me such a good thing. There have been some raised important questions around accessibility, and I totally agree that events need to be accessible as a disabled person myself, and I leave that up to the pride organizers because that is not my conversation to really try and comment on. But I stand with those people as a disabled person myself that yes, there needs to be more accessibility for sure. And I remember when I hosted it in 2019, people, it was like the biggest turnout it had in years of 20,000 plus people, and I remember going on stage and feeling so emotional, thinking, God, I used to like be really terrified to go to Pride and had my own, I would say, internal dialogue of like, oh well, why should I go to that? And I can go out and drink with my pals in the night, that's more safer and that feels more comfortable. But when I hosted and gave this speech about trans general conforming folk and and anyone who gets their ass out of bed and is themselves as a hero to me, and everyone's clapping and I'm crying and people are crying. I think this is why we do this. And the march for me is one of the most beautiful things that you could do. Last year I went to Glasgow Pride's March, but I didn't go to the event, and when I did the March, there was a football game on which kind of stressed me out, not gonna lie, but I thought, well, if I can do this, I can do anything. Because you never know football culture how things are gonna go, if there's gonna be violence because of teams not winning, etc. But I have to say, challenging that, you know, stopping traffic, the whole point of this is protest for me. So when people do say to me, and people that follow me, or people that are in my circle, or people that I work with say, I don't do pride, that's not for me. And this is like a number of people I know that say this, I do really struggle with that, and I actually think I can't agree with you, and here is why pride is central to who we are. If there had not been the Stonewall riots and pride events and marches, I'm not talking about the capitalist side of things with events and entertainment, I'm talking about the actual pride marches, the actual protesting aspect of this. If that did not exist, we would not be here, honey bun. We would probably probably be at home being queer, being repressed, and we would be hating our lives and not have our rights to exist. And that for me, that for me is why it is so imperative that people really sit and think, Why do I not like pride? And really, why do I not go? And why have I never even gone to the march once just to see what it can be like? I know someone years ago that I'm not friends with, but she had said to me, I don't like pride, it's just a fetish. And I said, What are you talking about? And she said, Oh, it's just a fetish, these people dress in leather, and it's just really exposing and it's dirty, and what does that look like for us? And I couldn't help but think, God, how fucking repressed are you from your own community that you are tearing people down in your community and not lifting them up when everything they're doing is consensual and safe, and there is people that literally are sitting at home right now terrified to even mention they might be questioning their sexuality, gender identity. This is obviously not to be mixed up with people that are generally doing harmful, illegal things that are you know violent or sexually inappropriate towards people. This is very different. So for me, when people say things like, Oh, I don't really do pride, it's not for me, or I've never really went and I wouldn't want to, I don't think it's right, or I'm not really comfortable with that, and to be honest, like, do we even need one? Once I heard someone say, 'Why do we even need pride anymore?' and I thought, Oh my god, you need to wake up, you need a reality check. And I remember saying to them, We need pride, you can't be serious as a queer person right now. And I think it goes back to heteronormativity that people want to feel accepted by their peers. There are a lot of queer people, a lot of gay men, gay women I have found. I can only speak for knowing those people. I'm sure bisexual, trans people might feel the same way, by the way. I've known a lot of gay people and gay women and gay men who have literally said, Oh, you know, I might be gay, but that does that's not who I am. And I'm like, uh-huh. And they'll say things like, you know, I I'm normal, I just happen to like the same sex in a romantic context. And I often feel like there is this internal queer phobic dialogue going on for that person of I don't want to be part of that group. I've heard people say, I'm not part of that lot. I'm like, what lot? The people that got your fucking rights, so you could sit with your straight friends in a pub, drink a pint, and say how awful we were. If we hadn't like went to do protests, pride, etc. Emailed our MSPs, if people hadn't died during the AIDS crisis, if people hadn't been, you know, navigating, being teachers, NHS professionals during section 28 when it was illegal to be out as gay. Like, if we hadn't done all that, you would not have a fucking chance to actually even consider being part of the heteronormativity that you want. You can hear the fireness in my body, can't you? It is so crucial that we talk about these things, and again, it's not to be mixed up with this capitalist thing. I've got friends who are like, I'll go do the march, honey, but I go home. Or I've got friends who are like, I'm disabled, I can't handle the uh exhaustion of the march. So I go to my local Pride event, which has a market stall, and I'm like, Yes, absolutely, that's engagement, that's engagement, or people that say, I can't handle the loud noise and the music again, totally valid because you could have neurodivergence or be neurotypical and just not enjoy that and find it too much. But then there is a sort of this feeling of like, well, you need to consider then. I honestly feel like we as queer people need to consider what ways am I being politically active, but also what ways can I engage with pride as an act as a form of protest. We can't start as a community being like, Oh, pride isn't important anymore, or I don't really do that, you know. I have known people that are like very vocal online about being queer, and I hate to break it to you, sweetie pie, but being queer on social media is not really that big a deal anymore, it's not really that important. It might get you monetization off of engagement, but actually putting your fucking work into the actual protest, political implications of pride and what that stands for is the important thing. Because social media it changes every day, it changes every week. People see a post and forget about the next week, but people are never gonna forget when you tell them I went to March and there was this guy stood there who held a you know gay should burn hell sign, and I got a photo of in front of him kissing my partner. See when I see photos like that, oh my god, the dopamine hit, the the endorphins, the euphoria I get just seeing people challenging that, being like, nah, fuck you, God loves all gays. I'm not even by the way, like a god-worshipping Christian, but I am still a believer that if you believe in Christianity, Catholicism, and God, that God would never put you on this earth to be gay, trans, whatever in between you know, he would never, she would never, they would never, as a god, put you on this earth and make you something that you would not cope with and have to hide. That is not what God is. So yeah, I hope you've enjoyed this more about pride. You know, I think pride marches are so important if you can handle them and factor in accessibility because there were some years that I was too sick and I was like, I can't really get involved in that this year, I'm too ill to do the march, blah blah blah. But there are people I know who are like, Oh, I don't want to go to this one, I might go to this instead, and I'm like, Good for you. That's the political protest that we need. And I'll close on a note with that I watched Tiptoe recently, and in the episode, um Melba, this drag artist from the sort of nineties, who's played by this wonderful performer, I can't remember his name, um, but when she is saying, you know, we're in a time now which is basically like the 90s, check social media, check check the communities online, see what people are saying about us in the press. She is so right, by the way. This is why I'm like, we need to really be sitting and thinking, maybe pride isn't usually important for me, but now it's more important than it has ever been. So yeah, I hope you enjoy. This was actually a longer episode because I just felt I really need to get this on my chest. You know, we as queer people and allies, if you're listening to this as an ally and thinking, how can I get involved? You have the power and ability to get involved. I actually have one more story to end on. This has been such a long episode, but I bet everyone's loved it because I went so passionate and ranty. But I actually wanted to share something that happened to me personally that was so small but such a significant impact. And if you're an ally, this could be something that you're thinking, I could actually do that, if you wanted to, of course. I'm in a group chat for something, I can't share what. Um, and it's not really something to be honest, I'd choose to be in, I would say. And when I was in this group chat, we were talking about lots of things related to it, and I was like, Oh, I want to post happy pride, but I was also bearing in mind, mm, should I really do that? I don't know, because right now people have a lot of strong opinions on these things, and I was toying with it for about 30 or 40 minutes in the morning, having my coffee, going, Should I do this, should I not? And I thought, no, do you know what? Fuck it. I am going to put in this group chat happy pride, and if people don't like it, fuck them. Because that is my right to exist. Pride is a protest, and I would say the majority of people responded, agreed, put their own comments, and that's lovely. And for me, that is such a significant, small act of putting in a group chat on WhatsApp. Happy Pride, everyone, love is love, hope the world becomes hope the world is always full of kindness, and that is such a small act, but a significant impact because there is gonna be somebody probably in that group chat and other places in the world that goes, hmm, I'm not really sure what I think about that, but then that you realize, do you know what? That person's right, love is fucking love, love knows no bounds. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed join us, Daniel, on social media. Uh I'm looking forward to sharing upcoming episodes. If you've got any ideas for episodes, like say if you want me to actually talk about something that you find annoying and I can see if I agree or not, then I could always do an episode on it, I suppose. I can't promise, but what I mean is like if you were to be like, hey Jordan, do you find this annoying? I'm just gonna like make this up because I'm looking at one out the window, but seagulls. I think seagulls are very misunderstood creatures, but you know, if you were like, I hate seagulls, what's your opinion? Go on then, I could talk about it. And just remember it's okay to moan about pride.