It doesn't have to be like that

[drdoug]

Blimey, things have changed for queer people in Britain

Comments

[artremis]

Oooo that is lovely to read about **FIXME's school - thankyou for sharing.

I was having similar conversations with softfruit on the Bi stall at Manchester Pride, seeing young queers being brought by the Parents or acompained by straight friends. It's so very different to our youths ...

[drdoug]

That's lovely. I love the idea that these days it's not unusual that the parents and/or straight friends would support you in going to Pride. I mean, there was PFLAG from well before I can remember, but this sounds really quite different.

[mistdog]

Well, it's a good song. And yes, things are almost unimaginably different for kids nowadays.

Why were you terrified? What did you think would happen if people knew you liked a song by a gay singer? I'm a handful of years older than you, but I don't remember even being mildly afraid of being outed, let alone terrified. Of course that could just be because I was stupid, naive or just clueless.

[drdoug]

In practical terms, I was terrified because I had been beaten up in the past because people thought I was gay, and had (what still seems in retrospect) a fairly well-founded expectation that if the bullies noticed me liking a gay song it would be an immediate trigger for an attack and probably an ongoing excuse for persecution. I'd got quite good at avoiding bullying situations by the time Respect came out (1988) and really didn't want to go back there.

In social terms, I'd seen perceived-gay kids being socially shunned entirely. And I believed it would be a massive problem for the Presbyterian community that was important to me at the time.

There was also a lot of internalised homophobia going on.

[spacelem]

I had a gay relationship at school. I denied it vehemently when someone queried it.