PANTI BLISS

Panti Bliss is an Irish drag queen, bar owner and LGBTQ+ rights activist. Panti owns “Pantibar” on Capel Street in Dublin and it is known as “Dublin’s hottest LGBT bar”.

In January 2014, Panti appeared on RTÉ's The Saturday Night Show with Brendan O'Connor where they discussed homophobia and Panti alleged that some individuals involved in Irish journalism were homophobic. This became known as "Pantigate". Those mentioned threatened RTÉ and Panti with legal action. RTÉ subsequently removed that section of the interview from their online archive. On the next episode of the Saturday Night Show, the host issued a public apology on behalf of RTÉ to those mentioned by O'Neill in the interview held two weeks previously. RTÉ paid €85,000 to those named by O'Neill.

The payouts were later discussed by members of Oireachtas and in the European Parliament; with Irish MEP Paul Murphy, calling the payout "a real attack on the freedom of speech" and stating "When John Waters says that gay marriage is ‘a kind of satire’, that is homophobia. When Breda O’Brien says ‘equality must take second place to the common good’, that is homophobia. When the Iona Institute campaign against gay marriage because it is gay marriage, that is homophobia." RTÉ's head of television defended the €85,000 payout stating that it saved RTÉ "an absolute multiple" in the long term.

In February 2014, Panti gave a Noble Call speech at the Abbey Theatre in response to the events surrounding the RTÉ controversy, which garnered over 200,000 views in two days.[28] As of December 2018 the video has nearly 1 million views. The speech was described as "the most eloquent Irish speech" in almost 200 years by Fintan O'Toole and garnered the support of Dan Savage, RuPaul, Graham Norton, Stephen Fry, Madonna, and others. T-shirts with "I'm on Team Panti" have been sold as a fundraiser for BeLonG To Youth Services, raising over €10,000. In March 2014, English electronic pop duo Pet Shop Boys released the speech, backed with their music, as "Oppressive (The Best Gay Possible)," they followed up with a "slow mix" of the track, and accompanying video with a "montage of homophobia-related clips." Panti later donated the dress she wore at the Noble Call to the National Museum of Ireland, where it was put on display about LGBTI+ history in Ireland.