Quotes About Stigma

Many people secretly think that gays are a lot happier than they are, and want to punish them.

More women than ever are having babies at the peak of their careers. When will we stop punishing them for it?

By the '80s, anything to do with punk was perceived as rancid. Me being known as the 'punk poet' meant my work and I plummeted.

I've done bit parts on shows where I've been the fat girl or the punk rocker.

Mental health affects every aspect of your life. It's not just this neat little issue you can put into a box.

What puts people off metal is they think it's all nutters and blood. We don't want to be seen that way.

No, I am not a homosexual. If I were a homosexual, I would hope I would have the courage to say so. What's cruel is that you are forcing me to say I am not a homosexual. This means you are putting homosexuals down. I don't want to do that.

'Single' is usually applied to women as though they are a problem to be fixed.

I think people make a really big deal that I'm this big character-issue guy, and I've got red flags. I'm not.

I'm calling for a cultural change in how we think about addiction. For far too long people have thought about addiction as a character flaw or a moral failing.

Blackness has always been stigmatised, even amongst black people who flee from the density of that blackness. Some black people recoil from black people who are that dark because it has always been stigmatised.

I've been thought to be a flight attendant many many times.

Films with predominantly white casts can come in any form, tell any story, big or small. For black films, you have the light, fluffy rom-coms or 'Madea' movies, and then you have the black-torture awards movie.

I think sexuality is fluid, and we have such a strange relationship to it in this country. It's been so fixed and so controlled for so long.

Parts that are desexed, matronly - to just put me in a couple of scenes and have me be the older, you know, dead character, is not gonna fly with me.

Why can't a seven-foot guy play a doctor? Why can't I be a teacher? Why can't I be a football coach? Why can't I be a cab driver? Anything. Anything else than that. I can cry. I can do those things that they think the big guys can't do. So just give us a chance.

If you say you're a football coach, especially with a dude, they're always all over you.

I would go on record saying that there is probably one gay or bi-person in every football team. They're there, they are 100 per cent there. I think people that are gay or from that community definitely are very worried about having to shoulder the responsibility of being the first. I think once the first comes out, there would be loads.

When you say a 'former child star,' you may as well say 'failed child star.'

I call myself a FFP: former fat person, and when you're an FFP, you will always see in yourself what people used to bully you for.

The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids.

It's extraordinary how a physical disability makes people think that somebody is frail.

Facts are, directors are not thinking of me; they think I only act in my films, because they're stupid. Or they think I'm a control freak, that I will try to, I don't know, pimp their scripts and just change everything, which I will never do.

Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak.