Singer Beth Ditto is interviewed on growing up in Arkansas and Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

Music: Beth Ditto interview; Part 2 of 7 ENGLAND: London: INT Beth Ditto (Singer) interview SOT Q: I READ SOMEWHERE YOU SAID GROWING UP IN ARKANSAS AS A QUEER WOMAN WAS PROBABLY ONE OF YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS - (Laughs) I made it out of there / it was confusing, not confusing about the way I felt / we were watching Sam Smith last night at the fashion thing and there were a lot of gospel references in it, church music almost / I was sitting next to somebody and we were talking about church, I guess they grew up Catholic, I grew up Baptist and we were talking about how we were constantly scared that we were going to burn in hell, and what a crazy concept that is to us now, it's so weird / you're worried for your soul / it's something in you you can't change, it's intense Q: THE THEME IN A LOT OF YOUR NEW MUSIC WITH THE GOSSIP IS RUNNING AWAY FROM THAT - Yeah, running yeah / I don't think that's ever going to go away; that's how you developed, the route of everything / we have a trauma bond basically, not to use a buzzword / when we're together it's unavoidable, that whole experience / I think it made us really ridiculously hilarious, not like a stand-up comedian, but we all have a really good sense of humour about things / you have to learn that things are temporary; when you are in a moment of pain or crisis it really teaches you there is something else, you just have to wait for it Q: ONE OF THE THINGS I WAS STRUCK BY LISTENING TO YOU TALKING ABOUT GROWING UP, WHEN I HEARD ABOUT THE 'DONT SAY GAY' BILL BEING INTRODUCED IN FLORIDA IN OTHER STATES, FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW, THIS IDEA YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO OPENLY DISCUSS YOUR GENDER IDENTITY, SEXUALITY - And don't forget the ban on books and critical race theory, and there's all these things you're not allowed to teach the actual history of things / while we live in the information age and it's so easy to be connected to people and find out different stories and there's so much access to informati...