While being openly gay still feels like a problem for many young adults, members of the LGBT community talk about coming to terms with their sexuality, and why they are glad that they did it at a young age.
By Jinqian Li
Coming out anxiety
It has been 50 years since the first gay pride march took place in the UK, and since then many things have improved, from equal marriage, to the right to be protected at work, and same sex families. There is a common perception that the Gay pride job has been done. Right?
However, the Stonewall Survey in 2020 showed nearly half of the 18-28 year olds still avoided being open about their sexual orientation, fearing rejection or negativity from others.
Tanya Compas, award-winning Youth Worker for the LGBT community, explains that the shame often comes from seeing how the people around you react to gay people on TV and in their town.
“If you have been shamed, you carry a deep, heavy weight that is hard to shift,” she says.
When does gay pride end, and gay shame return?
We live in a more enlightened world, don’t we? Gay pride takes place every year in countries all over the world, drawing crowds in their millions. So why, when the parade is over, and the supportive crowds are no longer there, do millions of young gay people return to their communities, hiding their badge of ‘dishonour’?
“Yes! I’m a lesbian but don’t tell anyone,” Sophie Martin told her flatmates on a drunken night out when she was seventeen. That admission shattered her relationship with them, as from that moment their attitude suddenly changed towards her. That was six years ago, and although it was a tough time for her, Sophie says she felt a ‘huge sense of relief’ that it was out there. Dealing with her mother though, was another matter.
At home she would pretend to be obsessed with Zayn from One Direction, and it was more than naked pictures of Lady Gaga, that were hidden in the closet! She finally decided to come out to her mum and dad at her 18th birthday and was met with such responses from her mother as, “I don’t know why you’re like this. I didn’t bring you up to be this way. I had dreams and aspirations for you,“ as though all hope for Sophie was now gone in her eyes.
Sophie says: “I started crying, it was literally just a lack of education that was causing her to have such harsh views, but she didn’t want to hear any of it. It’s hard to educate somebody that doesn’t want to learn.”
‘Baby steps, but we’re getting there’
It was actually her dad who managed to calm the situation by first telling his wife that Sophie might be bisexual, and then by telling Sophie, “It’s great you have come out as a lesbian. Now, all I keep seeing are lesbians wherever I go. It’s like when you buy anew car, and you look around and see that everyone around you has got the same one. That’s what it’s like since you came out.''
Three years later, on the day of Sophie’s graduation, she even managed to get her mum tipsy, and took her to G-A-Y*.
“Mum I’m doing well, you can see I’ve got friends,” she told her, and Sophie now says,“I think that was the moment that we bonded. There’s a picture from that night of me and my mum in G-A-Y, and mum is smiling the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face.”
When she later introduced her mum to her girlfriend, she expected the worst but her mum simply said, “Okay, what’s her name? How old is she?” before inviting her and her family to a ‘getting to know you’ meal.
Although things have been better since then, Sophie says, “Mum still has her moments. When I broke up with my girlfriend, she said to my dad ‘I thought that might happen. She’s definitely still a bisexual, isn’t she?’”
Sophie still feels frustrated by her mum’s attitude but is relieved that they’re at least making progress.
“It’s baby steps, but we’re getting there.”
It’s not that bad at all.
As a 25-year-old award-winning writer for Attitude magazine, John Smith can now say he is a proud gay man, but he hasn’t always been confident enough to admit it. Back in 2009 it was just as difficult to come out - especially at the age of 13, when he first began to feel he was gay.
“I had an overwhelming feeling that I didn’t fit in,” he says. “It was a time when being gay was not widely accepted or truly understood.”
At his small village school, the pupils called him ‘gay,’ day in and day out, before he even knew what it meant, and he would try convince the bullies that they were wrong.
“I had girlfriends, kissed girls at parties, and throughout my early teens I felt like I couldn’t talk openly to anyone about how I felt,” John says.
“Not only did I think no one would understand, but I felt I would be hated or marginalised for being who I was. I didn’t feel safe in my own skin.”
He was 15 when he finally felt able to open up. He went to the village phone box to contact a helpline for young LGBTQ+ teens.“
As I kept popping coins into the phone, I was expecting answers to questions I couldn’t even really articulate, and guidance for thoughts I was yet to understand,”John says.
Although he didn’t find the miraculous ‘it’s okay to be me’ moment from the call, it was the first step out of the shadows. “I was talking, and I felt for the first time that someone wanted to listen - even if it was a stranger.”
At that time he kept isolating himself, suffering from extreme OCD, and scrubbing his hands until they bled, just to feel in control of one aspect of his life. Everything else felt so confused.
Things only changed for John when he eventually came out to his mum at the age of 18. When he did, a great burden was lifted from his shoulders. There was no negativity, she simply said, “It’s okay, I’ve always known.”
John says: “Looking back now, I wish I had realised at the time that the answers I needed were in fact in those around me, in my parents and my small selection of friends.”
Being brave, being prouder
Moving forward to 2021, John feels the world is a slightly more friendly place for gay people to come out. Home Office figures have shown a 10% decrease in crimes based on sexuality in the past five years, with a 15% increase in the ‘acceptance of sexual diversity’ nationwide. “Fear is a weird fishbowl, which distorts and distances the world around you,” says Charlie Craggs, a transgender activist. “Only by coming out do we start to experience life, love and friendship properly. Reactions can vary, but be brave - there’s a world of love waiting.”
In hindsight, John Smith agrees with that sentiment. “Talking about the anxiety, self-loathing and confusion would have helped set me free, and I wish I’d spoken about my feelings sooner.”
If you feel like it’s difficult to talk about your sexuality, and you’d like help there is always somebody ready to listen - 0800 0502020.
*G-A-Y is a gay bar and nightclub located in Manchester’s Gay Village.
*John Smith and Sophie Martin don’t feel comfortable with their photos published, so the article doesn’t have their pictures attached.
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