Courtney Act

“I would have hated for my 'Drag Race' moment to have come down to lip syncing a Whitney Houston song.”

“I know when there's lots of stuff racing around in my head it can be hard to sleep and stay asleep. And one of the biggest things that used to keep me awake at night was worrying about my gender and sexuality.”

“I think it's really important to acknowledge that gay men and straight men can be friends.”

“We live in a fear-based world where HIV stigma can prevail.”

“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.”

“I've seen attraction manifest itself in so many fascinating ways. Lots of straight-identifying men have been attracted to me as Courtney.”

“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.”

“It's important to acknowledge bisexual, pansexual.”

“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 think it's best if I remain as dysfunctional as I can.”

“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.”

“I acknowledge that I'm really fortunate to have found pockets of people all through my life who've accepted me.”

“'Fight For Love' is a dancefloor banger all about coming together and fighting for the things we believe in.”

“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.”

“People who cling rigidly to gender binaries are more than welcome to. But for a lot of young people, we're seeing that our gender roles don't have to be dictated by a set of rules made by society. We can do whatever feels natural to us.”

“Gender roles are absurd when you actually look at them. The fact that anybody could ever say or think that dressing in women's clothes is wrong, or odd. Women dressing in women's clothes and men dressing in men's clothes is the actually the thing that is really odd.”

“I'm no Joan of Arc, but it's pretty revolutionary having a gender illusionist selling the illusion of beauty to females.”

“Often with bigotry it's passive not active.”

“I sort of throw away the definitions of gender - that boys are 'supposed' to wear blue and girls are 'supposed' to wear pink - and those gender roles and gender presentations. I do it on my own terms rather than based on what other people say I should do.”

“I've learnt I don't have to be a man and I don't have to be a woman, I can just be me.”