Because bisexual people almost have a foot in the gay and the straight world, their friends can misunderstand them too. Like if a bisexual man starts dating another man, people are like 'Ah, he's gay,' but you know, bisexual people remain bisexual, and their attractions can change and flux over time.Collection: Dating
For my teen years and all of my twenties it felt like I was trying to live up to this expectation of being a man and what that meant - not just what clothes I wore, but how I acted.Collection: Teen
For people living with HIV, the knowledge that undetectable equals untransmittable is huge news, not only as a means of preventing transmission, but in breaking down the stigma that many people still experience.Collection: Knowledge
It's a common misunderstanding, that when a bisexual person is dating someone of the opposite sex that they are now straight, or if they are dating someone of the same sex they are now gay.Collection: Dating
It's detrimental not to support marriage equality, even just on a financial level.Collection: Equality
The gay community has had a sometimes tumultuous relationship with non-queer people coming to their shows because it was tourism, like using the queer spaces as a form of comic relief or entertainment.
There is so much frustration in the heterosexual male community manifesting in different ways, whether it be aggression or sexism or racism. I'm not saying all heterosexual men are that way, but you do see a lot of it.
I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in a heaven or afterlife. I believe that once I die, that's it.
I was always made to feel that men were desirable because of their masculinity, and for a boy, being feminine was not something you should be proud of. But, I came to realise it's OK for boys to be feminine, for girls to be masculine and we should all express ourselves however we want.
You can literally tour all around Australia in two weekends.
I'd always been a performer, growing up in a theatre school.
On New Year's Eve, 2000, my friends and I were going to a party in Melbourne and I decided to do it in drag. It was the happiest night of my life.
The Spice Girls and Fran Drescher were such important parts of my childhood. There was something about them that allowed me to be myself.
I had post-traumatic stress from 'Drag Race' a little bit.
I'm just looking at other opportunities, television... not so much another existing reality show, but more about creating stuff.
People care about what I have to say now, and they want to hear it, and that's one of the greatest gifts you can be given.
I think my first actual real job was a door-to-doors salesperson for Foxtel, a cable TV company, and that lasted a couple of weeks because I got held, like I wouldn't say at swordpoint, but I was kept in someone's house against my will and she did have a sword and was sort of brandishing it.
I genuinely had always thought, this sounds dumb, I always thought that 'RuPaul's Drag Race' was shot in the basement of RuPaul's house.
I remember my first Mardi Gras. It was in the year 2001. I decided earlier that day that I was going to go in drag. It was my third time in drag.
Normally when you go to a queer space the people often look like you, they are the same age as you and so on, but at Mardi Gras and at queer events in general, everybody is different, everybody comes together. And that is what I love about Pride and Mardi Gras and those sort of events.
I think that gay men in particular need to just listen to bisexual people and believe them when they say they're attracted to different genders.
I acknowledge that I'm really fortunate to have found pockets of people all through my life who've accepted me.
When someone is saying something bigoted, try and remember that that person actually just doesn't understand, and that it comes from a level of ignorance, or from socialised brainwashing, or religious ideas.
It's so easy to be polarised and yell from different sides of the room about certain subjects, but I think it's so much better to walk into the middle and have a conversation to drive change forward.
So many reactions in our lives are based on what happened to us when we were younger.
Call me old fashioned, but I love songs that end. As a songwriter, I feel like you put a fade out when you can't work out how to end a song.
I am a Madonna fan.
Pole dancing is way harder than it looks.
I'm a big fan of Stormzy.
I think it's really important to acknowledge that gay men and straight men can be friends.
I love being Courtney, but it almost feels like something different to drag for me - it's a part of me, it's not a parody, it's a form of expression for me, a way to give my feminine and masculine sides an outlet.
Drag is more like a license to be what you want. But you don't need drag to do that.
I think it's really cool that 'Drag Race' has created this space where so many different kinds of people can come together and socialise and have fun on equal terms.
Drag can make you a little more fearless and I think girls especially love drag because they get to see somebody define their own standard of feminine beauty.
My style of drag has always been a little bit more moderate.
On 'Love Island' you're trying to win the prize money and stay together; on 'The Bi Life,' the winner is the one that finds love.
It's easy to make a reality show that's sensational but it's more challenging to make a reality show that's got a lot of heart and integrity and still keeps you enthralled and makes you want to keep watching.
You can't really necessarily explain what being on a reality show is like until it's happening to you.
Recognizing your place of power and privilege in an unfair system can, as an ally, help you to start using that privilege as an opportunity to do good.
I just feel like, at any moment, a drag or a trans or a gender-diverse artist that doesn't fit in a box is ready to break into the mainstream. I want to do my best to put myself in the best position to have that happen for me.
The thing about gay male pop stars is: they aren't supported by gay men. Gay men don't really support them until they've gone beyond the gay community and had success in the mainstream, so it's really challenging.
As a drag performer, people have traditionally put us into the category of 'pervert' or 'deviant' or things like that. So I've always been really careful not to be vulgar or grotesque with sexuality.
I've seen attraction manifest itself in so many fascinating ways. Lots of straight-identifying men have been attracted to me as Courtney.
I've had boyfriends I've dated whom I met as Courtney, but then dated as Shane. Courtney can certainly act as a glamorous stepping stone across the pond.
There are gay people in every community, there are bi people in every community and they can come together with a bit of strength.
The art of drag is intrinsic to who I am.
The ability to create anything I want without rules is the real thing I love about drag.
To hold and know the power of a woman is something so amazing that I don't think a woman could ever understand because they cannot know life without it.
Drag has taught me that I have deliberate control over my image, and when this notion is applied to one's whole life, it is both powerful and transformative.
An ex-boyfriend of mine is living with HIV. He has an undetectable viral load so I know first-hand how this can affect people in a serodiscordant couple - which is where one partner is HIV-negative and one is HIV-positive.