And while people tell me that there’s still some battles on B3ta‘s mailing list about my post the other day, across the Atlantic a young gay man who’s had enough trouble in his life already is now having to deal with post-coming-out fallout from his parents. Bart did the deed a couple of days ago and their first reaction seemed really positive, but since then things have gone downhill. I feel awful for Bart – completely awful. I think it’s terrible that the world can make it so difficult for young gay men and women. And I just cannot understand how anyone can try and stop accurate information being distributed to parents and children. Or why any religion, society or political persuasion would want to make gay teenagers’ lives any more difficult than they already are. It scares and – frankly – disgusts me.
My own experiences of coming out were very different from Bart’s. In the early nineties, there was no internet to be a first point of call. I had no contact with any other gay people or impartial information of any kind except for a late-night television show. That show was literally the only thing I had in the world that told me that there were other people out there who were like me. And to be honest, they weren’t really like me – they were very politicised, very scary looking people. It wasn’t until my year out before University that I came out to anyone, and that was undertaken in a pretty half-assed way. He didn’t even realise I’d done it for weeks. It just kind of happened in the background. And it took me until my first year at University to come out to anyone else, and it was a few years after that before my mother and I had the fateful argument that ended with me telling her what a bloody difficult woman she was and that, by the way, I was a big homo.
If there are any teenage gay guys out there who are having trouble with their parents, then you could do much worse than send them information about PFLAG. They may sound a bit worthy, but they’re really good decent people. I had the honour of arranging an event at my old university with some people from the English branch. They were amazing. There’s a really good PDF that’s worth downloading too: Our Daughters and Sons: Questions and Answers for Parents of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered People. And feel free to e-mail me if you want to have a talk about anything…