Stop the world – there’s something wrong! What’s wrong is that I’m thirty-something, fit, fab and funky but... somehow, incredibly, I’m not famous! I don’t have my dream job. I’m not a millionaire. I fear that my days of being recognised for the starlet that I clearly am and being whisked off to the lesbian equivalent of a PlayBoy Mansion (shorter, crop-haired, Diesel-wearing, lightbulb changing versions of the current January through December maybe?), are numbered. Why? I cry in despair. Why not me? It just isn’t fair.

Equality should mean that I be as famous as Martina Navratilova, no? Without having to do anything for that fame. Is it that I’m not young enough, blonde enough, stupid enough, big-titted enough to get into the public eye (take the public’s eye out)? It’s clearly not a question of talent – that’s just not a pre-requisite of ‘celebrity’ these days. So what is it that makes a celeb a celeb? Perhaps if I just turn on my webcam...hang on...there, and set up a 24/7 broadcast of my life, alongside a minute-by-minute update on Twitter...
 
It makes me wonder whether celebrity is really what I want. Is that what would really make me happy? Do I really want to be the next Jordan-Paris-Dakkar-Lohan-BarbieKen-Doll? Er, no. I mean I wouldn’t mind the scores of adoring women knocking on my door (although not during CSI or Gray’s Anatomy) but I think that when I answer that call I’d rather have a reason for them to come in and stay for a while – say, a talent, or something beyond my empty fame to talk about.
 
So what do we aspire to these days? Where has the meaning gone in our lives? Equality doesn’t mean us all being the same. It doesn’t mean having everything you want in life without having to work for it. It doesn’t mean that if I get an easy ride then I am disrespecting you. What it does mean is equal chances, equal possibilities, equal treatment with regard to human dignity. Unfortunately it’s not just handed to us. We have to go get it, and if necessary fight for it.

According to the boffins (think white lab coats, thick glasses, underactive social skills) we (the LGBT community) make up around 8-10% of the population of the UK. Here in Brighton & Hove, the boffins (perhaps wearing kaftans) reckon we make up around 13-17% of the population. So should we have one-sixth the same rights as everyone else in the land? We are a sizeable minority with increasing recognition and acceptance, but we are still not equal in all respects. Just as women, black people and Jews in the past have been treated as second-class citizens, we are still often not treated equally, and we are the only ones who can do anything about that.