Most of the stars in the Universe are not single like our Sun but in binary stars systems. A binary star is composed of two stars in orbit around each other, as they age they can “get-in-each-others” way and experience very different evolution to that our stars like our Sun. Only over the last decade it has become clear that to accurately understand the Universe we need to take account of these interacting binary stars. In my talk I will go over a few examples showing how understanding binary stars allows us to understand the appearance of galaxies, the diversity of supernovae and the production of gravitational wave transients.​ There is also another binary that has been exploded recently, that is the assumption that gender is a binary. After discussing astrophysics I’ll discuss gender diversity and how to make academia more welcoming for trans and gender diverse people with a few examples from science fiction.