I’m proud to be an ally.
Maybe you totally get that, or maybe you wonder why it’s something to be particularly proud of. Or maybe you wonder why I don’t just shut up and go away - but that’s why I’ve put this in a blog that you have to click on to read it. I’m assuming a basic level of interest in the general area, or at least a will to read on.
It’s the anniversary of Stonewall, today. If you don’t know what Stonewall is, or why it is called ‘Stonewall’, here’s a bit of further reading: https://thestonewallinnnyc.com/the-stonewall-inn-story/2017/4/4/ntmsg5ni7iixxdjimmg16hz6dvsi4v. There’s an excellent film, currently free to view on Amazon Prime: “Stonewall”. Some of it may shock you. I certainly hope it does, if it wasn’t stuff you already knew.
I was born in 1969. I was four months old when Stonewall happened.
Up until 2 years earlier, homosexuality was illegal in England and Wales. I grew up in Belgium, though, where homosexuality had been legal (as part of France) since 1795. Nope, not 1975 - not a typo. 1795. All in all, I’ve never lived in a country where it was illegal to be gay, in my lifetime.
So I didn’t really know homosexuality *could* be illegal, growing up, although I knew it was frowned on.
Up until 2 years earlier, homosexuality was illegal in England and Wales. I grew up in Belgium, though, where homosexuality had been legal (as part of France) since 1795. Nope, not 1975 - not a typo. 1795. All in all, I’ve never lived in a country where it was illegal to be gay, in my lifetime.
So I didn’t really know homosexuality *could* be illegal, growing up, although I knew it was frowned on.
It has never mattered to me whether someone is gay or not. I say that hand on heart. That isn’t a matter for pride - that’s just a fact. Although I’m quite proud of my parents for not teaching me otherwise.
With the obvious proviso of consenting adults, how is it possibly any of my business what gender of other human someone chooses to sleep with? It’s an honest question, not a high horse. How could it possibly be my business? How can it possibly hurt anyone? Why it has ever been illegal is genuinely beyond me.
With the obvious proviso of consenting adults, how is it possibly any of my business what gender of other human someone chooses to sleep with? It’s an honest question, not a high horse. How could it possibly be my business? How can it possibly hurt anyone? Why it has ever been illegal is genuinely beyond me.
I do remember being rocked back on my heels when homosexuality was legalised in Scotland, because it was 1981. 1981! And 1982 in Northern Ireland. Process that. You could be jailed for loving someone the same gender as yourself until the early 80s. I was rocked back on my heels because it was the first time I realised it was actually against the law in some places.
I spent most of my childhood around dancers and thespians, both amateur and professional, so there was a fairly high level of camp in my life - plus the 70s were as camp as tits, anyway, right? We also had no English language television, so I largely grew up on things like Round the Horne, had more than a passing knowledge of Polari, and got told off for writing “there I was, trolling along the waterfront” in a piece of creative writing at school.
Plus we had this strange advantage - I think it’s an advantage, anyway. Being an immigrant or ex-pat or migrant or Eurobrat or whatever you’d like to call me, we lived in a strange limbo between the cultures of Belgium and England, not having to conform to the societal mores of either country, and with a resultant exultant freedom to choose what we believed to be right.
Being at a European school, too, where, by the time I left, there were 3,500 different kids all on the same site, in 8 different language sections (now more), we were all very obviously culturally various.
I think it’s very much endemic to the human condition that people need to identify their tribe. Part of this, sadly, is identifying who is not in their tribe. Who is perceived as a threat, in that shitty little caveman part of the brain that we really have to try so hard to rise above.
Well, when you are surrounded by so many differences, that’s very easy indeed. You don’t have to look hard for the differences, they’re right there in your face. You don’t have to pick on the kid who is a bit camp, or the one who is a bit more or less feminine than “the norm”, the artistic boy, the athletic girl.
When you are surrounded by people who are mostly the same as you - the same nationality, sexuality, ethnicity - that shitty little caveman part is hunting for the different ones, trying to find people to cast out of the cave, and very fine distinctions will be magnified. When you are surrounded by people who are very obviously different from you, it’s very easy to, for example, find the people who speak the same language as you. Tribe: done. And there are so many other clear tribes of people defined by speaking their own language that there’s no point in feeling threatened by them.
As a result we kind of grew up knowing that our tribe was the Brits - I’ve always been a patriotic Brit, contrary to popular perception. But we also knew right from the start that we were essentially all the same in our differences - and we all mixed freely from an early age. So I’ve always been a proud and patriotic European, at the same time.
Incidentally, this whole tribe thing also meant that we didn’t give a toss about skin colour. There were POC across all the language sections - they were just English or Italian or Danish or French like all the other English or Italian or Danish or French. Anyhow. Back to the point.
Plus we had this strange advantage - I think it’s an advantage, anyway. Being an immigrant or ex-pat or migrant or Eurobrat or whatever you’d like to call me, we lived in a strange limbo between the cultures of Belgium and England, not having to conform to the societal mores of either country, and with a resultant exultant freedom to choose what we believed to be right.
Being at a European school, too, where, by the time I left, there were 3,500 different kids all on the same site, in 8 different language sections (now more), we were all very obviously culturally various.
I think it’s very much endemic to the human condition that people need to identify their tribe. Part of this, sadly, is identifying who is not in their tribe. Who is perceived as a threat, in that shitty little caveman part of the brain that we really have to try so hard to rise above.
Well, when you are surrounded by so many differences, that’s very easy indeed. You don’t have to look hard for the differences, they’re right there in your face. You don’t have to pick on the kid who is a bit camp, or the one who is a bit more or less feminine than “the norm”, the artistic boy, the athletic girl.
When you are surrounded by people who are mostly the same as you - the same nationality, sexuality, ethnicity - that shitty little caveman part is hunting for the different ones, trying to find people to cast out of the cave, and very fine distinctions will be magnified. When you are surrounded by people who are very obviously different from you, it’s very easy to, for example, find the people who speak the same language as you. Tribe: done. And there are so many other clear tribes of people defined by speaking their own language that there’s no point in feeling threatened by them.
As a result we kind of grew up knowing that our tribe was the Brits - I’ve always been a patriotic Brit, contrary to popular perception. But we also knew right from the start that we were essentially all the same in our differences - and we all mixed freely from an early age. So I’ve always been a proud and patriotic European, at the same time.
Incidentally, this whole tribe thing also meant that we didn’t give a toss about skin colour. There were POC across all the language sections - they were just English or Italian or Danish or French like all the other English or Italian or Danish or French. Anyhow. Back to the point.
I knew from quite early on that my younger brother was gay, and I knew he got a hard time for it, being called names even before he really knew what it was all about. We went to different schools, so there wasn’t much I could do about it in the school years. Then I left home and moved to England when I was 18, and left him dealing with the worst years by himself. I wish I’d been around more at the time. Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about it now.
Living in London in the late 80s was bliss for me. I’d wanted to live there since I was four years old, so it was the realisation of a long held dream. Heaven (the nightclub, not the sky-paradise thing) was in full sway, new romantics were everywhere, androgyny and fashion experimentation were very much the order of the day. Again, most of my friends were actors and musicians, and nobody gave a flying toss who was gay and who was straight. And who was bi, for that matter. But I did notice that people in the UK used the word “gay” as a derogatory term. “No, I don’t want to go to the Student Union Friday night disco - it’s totally gay”. I had two reactions to this - first: “yay! Better dancing and no risk of getting forcibly felt up!" - and second: “Oh, right. You just mean naff? Why not just say naff?”. It puzzled me, and I didn’t like it, but I just raised an eyebrow and moved along.
Time moved on. My brother moved to London and lived with me for a few years. My friends continued to be actors and musicians with no hang ups about anyone’s sexuality. I guess I grew up in a lovely bubble.
I met Simon, we got married and had kids (just about in that order) and moved to the countryside. I wasn’t happy to leave London and when I arrived here my initial reaction was “where are the gays? Where are the foreigners? Where are the black people?” Because there are so few, it felt very oppressive to me. I didn’t understand it. But, you know, I don’t like someone MORE because they’re black or gay or foreign, and I don’t like them LESS because they’re white or straight or British. If they’re nice, I like them. If they’re an arsehole, I don’t. So I learned to love living here, very quickly, because pretty much every single person I’ve actually met down here has been really nice. I learned to relax, adapt and not have preconceived ideas, either way.
The kids have grown up down here, but have had a lot of time in London and Brussels. The first wedding they went to was my brother’s wedding, to Bruce. Their second was Jane & Wendy’s wedding. Their third was a straight wedding. Their fourth was their godfather, Stefan’s wedding to the lovely Marc. So of four weddings, three had been same-sex and they didn’t think anything of this. They didn’t really think anything of sexuality at all. People fall in love, they get married if they want to. Whether they’re marrying the same gender or not - so what?
It never occurred to me that this complete lack of discrimination on their part could be dangerous until one of my girls was asked, aged 12 or so, whether she was a lesbian. This was because she had put a little message on insta to her best friend, saying “love you!”. There followed a storm of “two brides” emojis and laughing faces. But when she was asked, to her face, “oi, are you a lesbian?”, her totally innocent response was “I’m not sure, I might be”. She wasn’t interested in boys or girls, that way, and she really didn’t think the answer was a big deal.
The resulting bullying broke up her friendship with a really lovely friend, because my amazing daughter didn’t want to open her shy friend up to the same bullying she was facing. She withdrew into herself and felt a lot of self-hatred for a long time. To my shame, I didn’t notice what was happening. I remembered banging a lot of doors as a teenager and wanting my own space, so the amount of time she was spending alone in her room didn’t ring the alarm bells that it should have done. Once I was shaken awake to what was going on it was hard to push away the guilt of a) not noticing and b) bringing her up to be so open minded that this apparently innocent question seemed, to her, to deserve an honest answer. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the guilt for the first but the second, I’ve learned to celebrate, once again.
Time moved on. My brother moved to London and lived with me for a few years. My friends continued to be actors and musicians with no hang ups about anyone’s sexuality. I guess I grew up in a lovely bubble.
I met Simon, we got married and had kids (just about in that order) and moved to the countryside. I wasn’t happy to leave London and when I arrived here my initial reaction was “where are the gays? Where are the foreigners? Where are the black people?” Because there are so few, it felt very oppressive to me. I didn’t understand it. But, you know, I don’t like someone MORE because they’re black or gay or foreign, and I don’t like them LESS because they’re white or straight or British. If they’re nice, I like them. If they’re an arsehole, I don’t. So I learned to love living here, very quickly, because pretty much every single person I’ve actually met down here has been really nice. I learned to relax, adapt and not have preconceived ideas, either way.
The kids have grown up down here, but have had a lot of time in London and Brussels. The first wedding they went to was my brother’s wedding, to Bruce. Their second was Jane & Wendy’s wedding. Their third was a straight wedding. Their fourth was their godfather, Stefan’s wedding to the lovely Marc. So of four weddings, three had been same-sex and they didn’t think anything of this. They didn’t really think anything of sexuality at all. People fall in love, they get married if they want to. Whether they’re marrying the same gender or not - so what?
It never occurred to me that this complete lack of discrimination on their part could be dangerous until one of my girls was asked, aged 12 or so, whether she was a lesbian. This was because she had put a little message on insta to her best friend, saying “love you!”. There followed a storm of “two brides” emojis and laughing faces. But when she was asked, to her face, “oi, are you a lesbian?”, her totally innocent response was “I’m not sure, I might be”. She wasn’t interested in boys or girls, that way, and she really didn’t think the answer was a big deal.
The resulting bullying broke up her friendship with a really lovely friend, because my amazing daughter didn’t want to open her shy friend up to the same bullying she was facing. She withdrew into herself and felt a lot of self-hatred for a long time. To my shame, I didn’t notice what was happening. I remembered banging a lot of doors as a teenager and wanting my own space, so the amount of time she was spending alone in her room didn’t ring the alarm bells that it should have done. Once I was shaken awake to what was going on it was hard to push away the guilt of a) not noticing and b) bringing her up to be so open minded that this apparently innocent question seemed, to her, to deserve an honest answer. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the guilt for the first but the second, I’ve learned to celebrate, once again.
Because now my daughters are the strongest allies I know. They are a safe haven for a bewildering variety of friends from all backgrounds, genders and persuasions. They are fearless in their defence of their friends, and staunch in their defence of strangers who are “strange”. I thought I was open minded and tolerant, but I continue to learn from them every day, as does Simon.
My brother and his friends, over the last decades, have travelled to as many Pride marches in as many cities all over the world as they can afford the time and money to get to. Pride may look like a big old party (and boy! Is it a great party!). But don’t be fooled. It is a serious issue. They are all there for more than the party.
We all watched Stonewall again, last night. It is shocking and harrowing and joyful and strong in equal measure. As always, the stark reminder at the end of the film that being gay was still, at the time of the making of the film, illegal in 77 countries, pushed me over the brink and into tears. Angry tears, sad tears, tears of incomprehension.
I’ve just checked, and four years later it’s still illegal to be gay in 70 countries or more. And it carries the death penalty in 12 countries. **** that ****.
Keep forcing the change. Don’t accept the bungeeing of human rights. Call out inequality where you see it. Be a safe space. And teach your kids, if you wanted kids and were lucky enough to have them, to be kind.
I’ve just checked, and four years later it’s still illegal to be gay in 70 countries or more. And it carries the death penalty in 12 countries. **** that ****.
Keep forcing the change. Don’t accept the bungeeing of human rights. Call out inequality where you see it. Be a safe space. And teach your kids, if you wanted kids and were lucky enough to have them, to be kind.
