Hello and welcome to Out with Susie Ruffle. This is Series 4 episode 6.

Before we begin, as always I want to thank all of you that got in touch with me this week and all of you that listened to last week's episode it seemed that it was

really great to have someone like Jay on the episode last week his story

resonated with a lot of you so I'm really pleased that it did and I was so

thrilled to have him on the podcast so I'm

pleased that you enjoyed it as much as I did. As ever we've got a fantastic

conversation coming up with a drag king Adam all. I love this conversation with Jen. They are brilliant and I'm really excited to share

that episode with you. But before we get into that as always I have the listener emails. let's get stuck in to a couple of those.

Hi Susie I listened to your episode of the mankind podcast I was excited to hear you talk about this show

I've done a little else but listen to all of the

back catalog over the last three days. Thank you so much for such an inclusive space.

I especially love the listener stories and felt compelled to share my own. I came out late in life in my early 30s.

Prior to that I was living in the closet out of total fear.

I grew up in a small northern village in the 90s

and a Catholic family where gay people were objects of ridicule.

Living in this one-dimensional place and being schooled through Section 28

meant I heard nothing positive about being LGBT and only passing comments that such people were disgusting and perverted.

I knew that I was different and that I didn't belong.

I knew that village life wasn't enough for me.

Yet I felt such guilt because everyone seemed to be content there.

All of my family lived there, so what was wrong with me?

Why wasn't it enough?

...