Courtney Act, a contestant on this year’s Celebrity Big Brother, has gone viral for perfectly explaining the spectrums of sexuality and gender to TV presenter India Willoughby.
Courtney Act, whose real name is Shane Jenek, is an Australian drag queen who appeared on season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Willoughby, who was born Jonathan Willoughby and became Britain’s first transgender television newsreader, previously admitted to Jenek that she had a “weird phobia” of drag queens.
After their initial encounter ended awkwardly, Jenek and Willoughby had a further frank discussion about transgender issues.
Jenek has been highly praised for describing the scales of sexuality and gender calmly and clearly.
“We know that a lot of people just see us the same and we both know that that’s completely incorrect,” he said to Willoughby.
“I think the tricky thing is that my feeling is that gender does exist on a spectrum.”
“I would say [it’s] like the Kinsey scale with sexuality from zero to six, where zero is exclusively heterosexual and six is exclusively homosexual.
“I think that gender’s similar where you know if one is female and six is male I’m probably a four.
“Gender can exist on a spectrum.”
Jenek went on to discuss how because people aren’t used to considering that there are more than two genders, they’re often opposed to the idea that gender can be as fluid as sexuality.
Regardless of whether you watch #CBB or not, @courtneyact's articulation of sexuality and gender is thoughtful, sensitive and compassionate - worth listening to. https://t.co/RznDqFg8qq
— Ryan Nelson (@RyanJohnNelson) January 7, 2018
Never been fussed over BB but this is wonderful and I’m so glad this is airing on mainstream television 👏🏻 https://t.co/R4AM68iUJD
— Jake Edwards 🌸 (@jakeftmagic) January 7, 2018
This is how you maturely speak about the “issue” of Gender/sex. It’s not doing tweets like “if I had a pound for every gender.” Educate yourselves, listen and evolve. https://t.co/sjTuUtQx2u
— MJ (@Bitch_itsnasty) January 7, 2018
And this is why @courtneyact is the perfect person to put this case across https://t.co/w2DVTBLiEd
— Bunny Galore (@BunnyGalore) January 7, 2018
The video of Jenek and Willoughby’s open-minded debate has gone viral, garnering over 12,000 likes on Twitter.
Many people feel encouraged by the fact that gender issues are being given a platform on mainstream television.
Twitter user Ryan Nelson wrote: “Regardless of whether you watch #CBB or not, @courtneyact’s articulations of sexuality and gender is thoughtful, sensitive and compassionate - worth listening to.”
Another Twitter user Jake Edwards wrote: “Never been fussed over BB but this is wonderful and I’m so glad this is airing on mainstream television."
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- Courtney Act
- Celebrity Big Brother
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