Sue Perkins has spoken out about the heartbreaking moment her brain tumour consultant told her it would be “easier” for her to be infertile because she’s a lesbian.
The Great British Bake Off co-host was told she would never be able to have children of her own because of a benign tumour in her pituitary gland, which was diagnosed in 2007.
However, the news was delivered with a homophobic comment from her consultant, which she has revealed in an extract from her book Spectacles, published in the Sunday Times.
Sue was asked by the doctor if she had a husband or boyfriend and replied that she was actually a lesbian.
She was then told: “Oh, OK. Well, that makes it easier. You’re infertile. You can’t have kids.”
The star, whose partner is television presenter Anna Richardson, was shocked by the comment, and told the newspaper: “Does not a lesbian have a fallopian tube? Am I not human, and [am] I not somebody who could be a lovely, wonderful mother?”
Sue said not being able to have children felt like bereavement and she found it difficult to come to terms with.
She added: “It really did hit me, as it hits a lot of people, I’m sure, when it’s too late, this is not going to happen. I can’t now have it as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind possibility, lurking.”
The television presenter has been living with the tumour for eight years and, while she admits she’s glad it’s benign and therefore somewhat less worrying, it still does make her sad.
The discovery was made when she was filming BBC’s Supersizers, which saw Sue eat a variety of different food from different eras, and doctors conducted tests to see how it was affecting her.
She told Good Housekeeping: “I found out when I had a check-up while filming The Supersizers, eight years ago.
“I was at a point where I was spending so much of my life doing TV that I only found out about my real life through a television procedure.
“I didn’t have the time to go to the doctor in real life. That’s what really made me think that the balance [in my life] was wrong.”