Performance Is the Truth: Class, Queerness & Becoming Yourself

Dee Whitnell on Why Sex Is Taboo, Trans Kids & Section 28

Dee Whitnell is a multi-award-winning sex educator, content creator, journalist and activist who is quite literally changing the conversation around sexual health and wellbeing in the UK. The author of Beyond Bananas and Condoms and founder of Trans Kids Deserve To Grow Up — a campaign born from witnessing the devastation of trans youth loss — Dee is working tirelessly to deliver inclusive, affirming sex education to young people across the country. Dee's work centres on one truth: comprehensive sex education is life-saving, and shame has no place in conversations about our bodies. On this episode of The Pieces, Bimini and Dee dive into the formative moments that shaped their mission. They discuss why sex remains so taboo despite literally being how most of us came into existence, the dangerous gap between abstinence-based education and reality, and how Section 28 created a generation of queer people who learned about sex through pornography. The conversation tackles the myth that queer people are at higher risk of STIs (spoiler: we just test more), the terrifying reality of AI replacing comprehensive sex education, and the moral panic around trans youth that echoes Thatcher's Section 28 rhetoric. Don't forget to subscribe and don't miss new episodes of The Pieces every Tuesday! Follow The Pieces with Bimini Listen Now on Global Player Instagram: @thepiecespod [https://www.instagram.com/thepiecespod] TikTok: @thepiecespod [https://www.tiktok.com/@thepiecespod] YouTube: @thepiecespod [https://youtube.com/@thepiecespod]

Performance Is the Truth: Class, Queerness & Becoming Yourself

This week on The Pieces, Bimini goes solo for a deeply personal episode about identity, class, performance and becoming who you’re meant to be. As they prepare to launch a new era of independent music with their debut punk-inspired single Tank Top Bum Boyz, Bimini reflects on the journey that brought them from Great Yarmouth to London — and the version of themselves that first arrived at Liverpool Street Station with blue hair, a fake Louis Vuitton bag and a dream. Bimini also opens up about growing up working class and queer, the hidden “tax” of navigating creative industries, and the pressure to reshape yourself in order to fit in. Along the way, Bimini reflects on grief, family, nostalgia, Britpop, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and the power of pop music as a survival guide for outsiders. Honest, funny and philosophical in equal measure, this is an episode about reclaiming your voice, embracing every version of yourself, and realising that the pieces you were searching for were inside you all along. Don't forget to subscribe and don't miss new episodes of The Pieces every Tuesday! Follow The Pieces with Bimini Listen Now on Global Player Instagram: @thepiecespod [https://www.instagram.com/thepiecespod] TikTok: @thepiecespod [https://www.tiktok.com/@thepiecespod] YouTube: @thepiecespod [https://youtube.com/@thepiecespod]

Elizabeth Day on Rock Bottom, Societal Pressures On Women & Failure

Elizabeth Day is a bestselling author, award-winning journalist and the creator and host of How To Fail, one of the UK's most beloved podcasts. With over 300 episodes and millions of downloads, Elizabeth has built a global community around the radical idea that failure isn't something to be ashamed of — it's what makes us human. From her novels including One Of Us and Magpie to her Sunday Times bestselling memoir How to Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong, Elizabeth's work centres on the messy, complicated, beautiful truth of being alive. Beyond her creative output, Elizabeth is a fierce advocate for redefining success, challenging societal expectations around relationships and motherhood, and celebrating the power of chosen family. On this episode of The Pieces, Bimini and Elizabeth dive into the formative moment that changed everything: being dumped three weeks before her 39th birthday, staring down the barrel of her 40s alone after a decade of intense transition — divorce, failed fertility treatment, three miscarriages, and the collapse of what she thought would be her second chance at love. They discuss how sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to break through, why failure is what happens when life doesn't go according to plan and how that heartbreak led to the creation of How To Fail. The conversation touches on the time limits society places on women having children, redefining family as chosen rather than conventional, and why the Virgin Mary is the ultimate IVF queen. Elizabeth and Bimini also bond over their shared love of Real Housewives before Elizabeth reveals where she finds her power... Don't forget to subscribe and don't miss new episodes of The Pieces every Tuesday! Follow The Pieces with Bimini Listen Now on Global Player Instagram: @thepiecespod [https://www.instagram.com/thepiecespod] TikTok: @thepiecespod [https://www.tiktok.com/@thepiecespod] YouTube: @thepiecespod [https://youtube.com/@thepiecespod]

Is Entertainment Always Political?

In this powerful solo episode of The Pieces, recorded on Bimini's birthday, pop and politics collide in a way that refuses to be separated. With Eurovision 2026 approaching and five countries boycotting in protest, Bimini tackles the myth that entertainment can ever be apolitical — reminding us that Eurovision was literally invented in 1956 to bring a war-torn Europe together through song. Also - it's Trans History Week, marking the 6th of May 1933 — the day Nazi students and brownshirts ransacked Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and burned its library to the ground. Bimini draws the line between then and now: Jewish people being attacked on the streets of London in 2026, synagogues firebombed, the UK terror threat level at severe. This episode refuses to let you pick a side between caring about Palestinians and caring about Jewish people, because the lesson of 1933 is that the same forces come for the same communities. But joy is also the discipline. Bimini finds power in people who refuse to be erased, in community, in Magnus Hirschfeld dying in exile on his birthday 91 years ago, in Marty Davies building Trans History Week, and in a kid from Great Yarmouth who got off the train in 2012 with a fake Louis Vuitton bag and didn't know any of this was coming. Don't forget to subscribe and don't miss new episodes of The Pieces every Tuesday! Follow The Pieces with Bimini Listen Now on Global Player Instagram: @thepiecespod [https://www.instagram.com/thepiecespod] TikTok: @thepiecespod [https://www.tiktok.com/@thepiecespod] YouTube: @thepiecespod [https://youtube.com/@thepiecespod]

Sam Buttery on Therapy, Sobriety & Having A Shameless Drive

Sam Buttery is a comedian, writer and actor whose sharp wit and unapologetic honesty have made her a beloved figure in the UK queer scene. From scene-stealing turns on stage to unforgettable vocal performances, Sam has built a reputation as one of the most distinctive and dynamic performers in UK theatre. Most recently, Sam has starred in Netflix's KAOS, the London Palladium production of The Addams Family Musical and the Sheffield Crucible production of Little Shop of Horrors. Sam has built a reputation for her advocacy for mental health and addiction recovery, turning personal struggle into powerful performance. Much of her work centres queer stories with humour, heart and unflinching truth. Beyond the stage, Sam is nearly six years sober and uses her platform to support others navigating addiction, mental health and gender identity — all while maintaining the shameless drive and delusions of grandeur that got her out of Tamworth in the first place. On this episode of The Pieces, Bimini and Sam dive into the formative moments that shaped who she is today: therapy and sobriety. They discuss how she didn't realise she was trans until she stopped drinking nearly six years ago, why good mental health support was necessary before positive thinking could begin, and how childhood gender dysphoria felt like just "feeling weird" without the language to name it. The conversation touches on the complexity of sleeping with people whose politics are abhorrent, shameless drive as something that confronts people who want you to stay in your place and imagining different parts of yourself at different ages in therapy. Don't forget to subscribe and don't miss new episodes of The Pieces every Tuesday! Follow The Pieces with Bimini Listen Now on Global Player Instagram: @thepiecespod [https://www.instagram.com/thepiecespod] TikTok: @thepiecespod [https://www.tiktok.com/@thepiecespod] YouTube: @thepiecespod [https://youtube.com/@thepiecespod]