J: Oh, no!

J: You're the one person who should get this right.

Both: Hello, lovely people!

J: Aw, that was beautiful, thank you.

J: If you haven't been here before, I'm Jessica.

C: And I'm Claudia.

J: And this is the Pride Rewind Tag

which we got tagged in, by Annie.

C: Ooh, I see. J: Yeah, so we have to do it.

J: So we have to answer questions, then we have to tag C: Oh, I get it. Right.

J: ...other people C: Someone else.

C: Oh, I see. I was a little bit, "What is this?"

C: Yeah.

J: And we're doing it because it was Pride in London this weekend!

C: Woop!

C: We didn't go. J: No.

C: It was like 31 degrees

and England vs Sweden quarterfinal World Cup match was on as well.

J: Don't act like you care.

C: No! I'm saying it in the sense that it was going to be really busy in London.

J: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. C: So, yeah, no, we didn't go.

C: We are going to celebrate Pride in Brighton, which we do every year.

J: We are! On the 4th of August.

J: If you're going, let me know in the comments down below

because I can look out for you when I am watching...Britney!

J: Our Pride is the best Pride.

J: It has Britney.

C: I wouldn't go see Britney

C: ...but I think it's pretty amazing-- J: But you can't miss the opportunity to see Britney.

C: Yeah, it's pretty amazing she's going to be playing at Pride.

C: And, did you know? (J: What?) She shares my birthday.

J: Yes.

C: 2nd of December!

C: We're like birthday twins. J: And she gives you a birthday card every year.

C: Yeah! Last year's was really good.

J: Yeah, which...it's in no way sent by our friend Andrea.

C: No.

J: So, if you're new to our channel, we do various gay things

because...

J: you know, everything we do is gay. C: Yeah...?

J: Because we're gay. C: Where are you going with this?

J: Subscribe for gay stuff.

J: Also, I do other things

Like vintage stuff

but also disability and deafness stuff.

C: An educational channel.

C: Based around Jessica's perception of the world.

J: Jessica's fabulous perception.

J: Right, number one...

C: In terms of my sexuality? J: Well, I assume so!

J: You can go with your gender as well, if you like. C: I could go with my general identification.

C: I'm a cis-female;

I'm homosexual,

so I tend to just reference myself as being gay or lesbian;

I'm mixed race.

I have Chinese-Malaysian heritage, and English;

a young professional...

and I'm a British/UK citizen.

C: That's how I'd identify myself! J: I mean, that was thorough!

J: OK! Sure.

J: Able-bodied, that's the one that you missed there. C: And able-bodied! Yeah.

C: I was Christened, but I don't practice the Christian faith.

I would say I'm probably agnostic

but don't follow a particular religious order.

J: I am a cis-gender woman

(although I don't like really calling myself a woman because it makes me sound very adult,

so I just say female);

I am super gay.

Like 100%, all the way gay.

White.

I'm a Quaker, which is a religion

- you can Google it! No, I'm going to make a video about it, because everyone keeps asking.

C: And you're a British citizen J: I'm a British citizen!

J: Oh, I'm also deaf and disabled and I have a chronic illness.

J: And if you're wondering how I understand Claudia throughout this video, because many people ask that,

even though I have a video that tells you how I do this,

I lip read her.

C: Well, yeah, there's a screen that she-- J: There's also a screen.

C: There's a screen that we can watch.

J: Or a mirror when we're doing live streams.

C: Also, she is wearing a hearing aid, which helps undulation of the noise.

J: It does. It helps me know when you're talking.

J: But generally I just stare at you. C: Yeah.

J: Oh, we're married? Did we say that already?

C: That's not an identifi--is that an identification?

J: I identify as your wife. C: All right.

J: Like sometimes we say we're wifesexual.

J: OK, this is excellent.

J: Number two...

J: Marrying you.

J: I plastered one entire wall of my bedroom

with pictures of Eliza Dushku.

Some of which involved her in not a lot of clothing.

I was about ten.

J: My parents just had to go with it.

C: I had a similar sort of thing, I guess, with like

I didn't really realise this, but up until the age of my mid-twenties before I came out,

I had pictures of, like, nude women...

Painted nude women, not like, you know, Playboy pictures.

Like, tasteful...art work.

C: around my room-- J: Tasteful nudes!

C: Around my room, and I just thought it was because I was artsy and liked the female form.

C: But, yeah, looking back, people probably came into my room and were like, "Woah."

J: Yeah, she also watched The L Word obsessively. C: I also watched...yeah.

C: No, but I hid that from everyone because that would be too obvious.

C: From earlier on, when I was a teenager,

I got really obsessed with the girl

in the sixth form, who's like, you know, four years older than me

playing Henry Higgins from 'My Fair Lady'

J: Because...

J: It was a girl's school, if that wasn't obvious enough. C: Yeah, it was an all girl's school.

C: So, you know, when this girl who was pretty hot dressed up as a man, I was like

C: "Woah." J: "Yes."

C: "I feel things...down there."

C: I saw this play three times.

C: My sister went up to her and said, "My sister's obsessed with you

in My Fair Lady," and she was like, "Aw, that's so cute!"

C: And I was like, "Nooo!" J: That's not helpful!

J: There is always that older girl in school, isn't there?

J: Who you get obsessed with.

C: I can't even remember this girl's name; it was just Henry Higgins to me.

J: I have always been gay

but I didn't know that that was what being a lesbian was.

So when I was in primary school

I had incredibly intense feelings for some girls

in my class

and I just thought that was how you felt about a best friend, 'cause that's what everyone told me

and then there were some boys in the year that I mildly didn't dislike

J: So I was like, "I must fancy them, then."

I didn't realise that I was actually super gay

and that the word was "lesbian" for what I was feeling

until I saw an accidental video

that my parents had recorded late at night.

C: What was it? J: No, wait, that sounds terrible!

J: My parents had recorded this movie for me

and you know like on the old VCR players

you start it recording and then you just go to bed?

J: So it had recorded the movie and then it had recorded

the start of a show that was after it.

C: Oh, right, yeah. J: ...which had something to do with lesbians

C: Oooh. J: ...and involved two scantily clad women

J: ...in bed, and I was like "..."

C: How old were you? J: Still in primary school.

C: Oh, OK. I was trying to think what Drama that would've been, because there weren't that many Dramas on TV

C: that had lesbians. J: No, no, there weren't!

J: But I do--I do very clearly remember that

these two women were doing this and then one of their husbands walked in

and it was (obviously, obviously)

and it was all kind of brushed over.

J: Like this thing that had happened. C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

J: They weren't really lesbians! It was fine!

C: They were just sexually frustrated because their husbands had been so distracted with the receptionist.

J: Yeah, her husband had been away! So she was like...

"Oh well, here's my best friend"

J: And then she actually said, "Oh, I'm not a lesbian"

J: Oh, but I am!

C: I don't know, I probably lived a lot of my, like...

you know, up until the age of like twenty in denial.

C: Because I was... J: I've seen pictures of you!

C: Yeah, I was a tomboy, so I liked playing with boys, but I was just like, "Well, I just like playing with boys

because they're more interesting - that doesn't make you gay."

C: And then, um... J: It doesn't make you gay, by the way.

C: But then we used to play role-plays in primary school. J: Who was the she?

C: Yeah. We used to play mummies and daddies, but privately in our own rooms

like at home, when we went round to each other's houses.

C: And I would put things down my pants so I had a bulge

and then we would hump - like dry hump each other.

C: We were only like eight-years-old!

C: But I was just like--oh, no, I did it with my other school friend as well.

Like, we always used to get quite sexy

and I'd always be the boy role -- there were boys in our school, but for some reason I did this.

And I guess maybe that was a bit like--I never really thought much of it, but I knew I wasn't like the other girls

All the other girls didn't wanna be the boy; they wanted to be the girl and they wanted to be the mummy,

whereas I was like stuffing things in my pants

and, like, dry racing against them.

J: Yeah... C: So I guess that was probably

C: ...something that I should have-- J: But that's also really interesting

C: But at the time I just kind of thought it was like

my normal development, you know?

J: Yeah. But then did you ever question your gender?

C: No. J: I think young lesbian girls

J: ...sometimes think, "Oh!"

J: You get--you kind of start thinking, "Wait, am I a boy?"

J: Because we get shown... C: No--yeah, yeah.

C: I never personally felt that I was in the wrong body or anything.

J: I think it's just because we see so many images of men and women

together that you think, "Oh, I fancy a girl"

"So in order to kiss a girl, I have to dress up like a boy"

C: When I was a bit more early secondary school, like Year 7 and 8,

I used to have some best friends, you know,

but also girls that I admired, but they weren't really like my best friends;

they were kind of like--occasionally, they'd be like,

"Do you wanna sit next to me in Biology?" and I'd be like, "Yeah!"

C: And then they'd sit next to me and they'd be like,

"Oh, can I borrow your gel pens?" and I'd be like, "...Yeah."

J: "Take them all." C: And then they'd borrow it and I would feel like

all these weird tingly feelings

watching them use my pen.

C: I probably should've caught on at this point.

C: I wasn't upset by it.

It didn't haunt me to the point that I had to question who I was.

C: And then I just followed the trend and went... J: Get a boyfriend.

C: "Oh, I'm gonna go out with boys now" and then...

You know, so then it wasn't until I got to sort of university age where I realised my sexuality.

J: I think what really helped me is that I had a gay aunt.

C: Yeah. J: So I knew that women could be together.

J: My Barbies would always be married to each other

and they would always be dating each other.

They'd always have the babies together.

J: So I think it really helps to have those representations.

C: Mm, I didn't have any gay role models

and I don't think I even really knew about gay people

as a child

because, you know, we're born in the 80s, Jessica and I,

it was condemned still.

J: Yeah!

C: And Margaret Thatcher was really quite aggressive towards it. J: Section 28!

C: So...

C: Your dad was best friends with, um... J: Yeah, my godfather was gay.

C: Yeah. Whereas my dad...

is a bit older

and my mum's from Malaysia, where it's still illegal.

So I think they were very closed.

C: Not--they're not homophobic, but, like,

it wasn't on the radar.

I don't think they even felt they needed to educate me and my sister about that.

J: And also I grew up in Quaker spaces, which are really

open and...