Sandi Toksvig has revealed she received death threats and her family had to go into hiding after she came out as gay in 1994. The former Great British Bake Off host, 68, made the admission while speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.
Toksvig, who shares three children with ex-partner Peta Stewart and is now married to psychologist Debbie Toksvig, said: "The death threats came immediately and the entire family had to go into hiding. I don't know why anybody was surprised. In an old school, typical way, I think it was easy to spot. Partly my shoes and partly my tremendous ability with power tools."
Threats continued for decades
The Cambridge graduate, who was born in Denmark, said she was told she would never work again after coming out. She also recalled being nearly expelled from her Cambridge college at the end of her first year after another woman stayed in her room.
Three years ago, Toksvig returned to Cambridge, where she revealed she was still regularly receiving death threats over being a lesbian. She told the Cambridge Union that she and Debbie, whom she married in 2014, had to have police protection on their wedding day.
Criticism of media representation
Despite the abuse, Toksvig has hosted shows including QI and The Great British Bake Off alongside Noel Fielding until 2020. She said she is saddened by the lack of representation of people like herself in the media, which she called "disappointing".
"I still feel like I have to stand up and be counted and that's because homophobic hate crimes, hate crimes of all kinds, are on the rise. And also I felt much of the representation of people like myself in the media are really disappointing," she said.
She listed examples of lesbian characters dying in TV shows, including Kat in the BBC series Lip Service, hit by a car; Kate in Last Tango in Halifax, dead in a car crash; Nurse Patsy in Call the Midwife, whose love interest Delia gets hit by a car; Emily on Channel 4's Skins, dead from cancer; Sarah on Hollyoaks, killed by parachute sabotage; and Maddie on Coronation Street, who dies in an explosion.
New book 'Friends of Dorothy'
Toksvig has written a book called Friends of Dorothy to give more of a voice to the gay community. She explained the title comes from an old expression for a gay person, originating from L. Frank Baum's 1909 Wizard of Oz book, where a character says, "You have some queer friends, Dorothy," and she replies, "The queerness doesn't matter so long as they are friends."
The book tells the tale of young female couple Amber and Stevie. Toksvig said: "It's a book for everybody, not just gay people. But it does have two women in it who love each other, and spoiler alert, they don't die or kill anybody."
