PantiBliss Noble Call speech

Hi, hello, my name is Panti, and for the benefit and visuals for the audience (incredibly naive???) I am a drag queen. I'm also a, what I would guess, a former,
accidental and occasional gay rights activists. As you may have gathered also, I'm painfully middle-class, and my father was a country man, and I went to a nice
school, and afterwards, I suppose, being in a middle-class institution, I went to art college and it won't be a surprise to you, I have always found gainful employment
in my chosen field, gender abomination?

[So this was kind of rising]? .... people, say tonight, I thankfully say I have no experience of but, I do know a little something about oppression. It is something I
can relate to. Now I am not for one for pity? compare my situation to? But I do know what it feels like to be put in your place.

Have any of you ever been standing at a pedestrian crossing and a car drove by, and in that car, a bunch of lads, right and lean out the window and shout "fag" and
throw a milk carton at you. Now, it doesn't really hurt, after all its just a milk carton, and, anyway, "I am a fag", it does hurt, but it feels oppressive and where it
does hurt, is afterwards, because its afterwards, then I wonder, worry, and obsess over what was it about me, is what they see in me, what was it that gave my gay away,
and I hate myself for wondering that. It feels oppressive. And the next time when I'm standing at the pedestrian crossing, I hate myself for it, so I check myself to see
what was it that give the gay away, and I check myself to make sure I'm not doing it this time.

Have any of you ever come home in the evening and turned on the television and there is a panel of people, nice people, respectable people, smart people, the kind of
people that would probably be good neighbours neighbours, the kind that would write newspapers and they're all sitting around and they're having a reasoned debate on
the television. A reasoned debate about you, abdout what kind of person you are, whether or not you are capable of bing "good parents", about whether you wanted to
destroy marriage, whether or not you're safe around children, about whether god gave yourself abomination abdout whether you are [increasingly disordered?]? And even
the nice TV presenter says you feel homophobic all the time, the nice TV presenter, for he/she feels perfectly ok, but they are all having a reasoned debate about you
and about who you are and about what rights you deserve. And that feels oppressive.

Have you ever been on a crowded train, wiht one of your best gay friend, and inside, a tiny part of you, is cringing because he is being so gay and you find yourself
[on top of his gayness] unsure? by trying to steer the conversation, to a safer, straighter territory. Now he has spent the last 25 years of your life, trying to be the
best gay friend possible. And yet, there is still a small part of you that is embarrassed at his gayness. And that, I hate myself for that and that feels oppressive and
when I am standing at the pedestrian crossing lights, I am checking myself.

Have you ever decided to go to your favourite cafe, with a paper that you buy everyday, and you open it up and inside there's, a 500 word opinion written by a nice middle
class woman, the kind of woman that probably gives to charity, a kind of woman you'd be totally happy to ???? And she's arguing about the 500 word opinion so reasonably
about, whether you should be treated less than everybody else. About arguing whether you should have fewer rights then everybody else. And when you read that, the woman
at the next table gets up and excuses herself, smiles at you and you smile back at her ????  and inside yourself you wonder does she think that about you too and that
feels oppressive and you outside and stand at the pedestrian crossing and you check yourself and I hate myself for that.

Have you ever turned on the computer and you would see videos of people who are just like you, even if they could be far away and some not far away at all??? and they're
being imprisoned, and beaten and tortured and murdered and executed because they are just like you and that feels oppressive.

Three weeks ago I was on television and I said, I believe that people who are actively campaigning for gay people to be treated less or to be treated differently, are,
in my opinion, in my gay opinion are homophobic. Now, some people, people who actively campaigned for gay people to be treated less under the law, took great
exception to that characterization. And they threatened legal action, against me and RTE. Now, RTE, in its wisdom, decided to, incredibly quickly, decided to hand over
a huge sum of money to make it all go away [Now I've been quite surprised]??? And for the last two weeks, I have been lectured to, by heterosexual people about what
homophobia is, and about who is allowed to identify with it. Straight people have lined up, ministers, senators, barristers, journalists, have lined up to tell me what
homophobia is and for to tell me what I am allowed to feel oppressed by. People who have never experienced homophobic in their life, people who have never checked
themselves at the pedestrian crossing, have told me that unless I am thrown into prison or [heard on airwaves???] that is not homophobia and that feels oppressive.

And for now, I would say to people, as we find ourselves, in this ludricious/lunatic??? situation, where we're not only allowed to publicly say what we feel oppressed
by, we're not even allowed to think, because of their definition, our definition have been disallowed by our oppressives and for that two weeks, I've been denounced
from the floor of your office to newspaper columns and whether??? to seizing miraculously and easily conquered, people hating me because I dare to use the word
homophobia, because the word homophobia is no longer available to gay people which is spectacularly and neat orwellian trick because now that, it turns out, that gay
people are not the victims of homophobia, but homophobes are the victims of homophobia.

Many people say that's not true, because I don't dictate to them, I do, in somewhat truthful way, that all people are homophobes are probably homophobes. It would be
incredible if we weren't grown up in a society that overwhelmingly and decidefully homophobic and somehow escape by the same, miraculously so, I don't take views
because of your homophobia. I actually admire them, I adimire them because most people have bits of homophobia, and to be honest, considering under circumstances
that is pretty good......????? But I do sometimes hate myself , I hate myself because I fucking check myself when standing at the pedestrian crossing and sometimes
I hate you for doing that to me. But never mind that, right now I'd like to thank you all very much for giving me a few moments of your time and for that I thank you.