Highland News & Media
  • 16 hours ago
Transcript
00:00I'm Andrew, I'm 28, I'm cisgender and bisexual.
00:15My name's Ro, I'm 18, my pronouns are they, them, and I'm queer and non-binary.
00:24I'm Gavin, my pronouns are he, him, I'm 30, and I'm a cisgendered gay man.
00:34My name's Julia, I'm 79, and I don't use pronouns.
00:42I'm Simon, I'm 50, I'm a cisgendered gay man, and I use pronouns he, him.
00:49So the first thing that I was going to throw out to everybody, and I don't know if this
00:52is going to be a surprise or not, how was your coming out?
00:56I know it's a pretty big topic for LGBTQ plus people, so I feel like that's an important
01:01place for us to stop, start rather.
01:04Does anybody want to kick us off with that?
01:07Very much just throwing it out there, we'll go Julia.
01:11Because the word that comes to mind, coming out, is very gradual, it's very gradual because
01:18transitioning from being a piano teacher wearing trousers, to being a volunteer with
01:27the sexual health charity Reach Out Highland, meant a very confusing day.
01:35It was gradual, it was challenging.
01:38So I came out, but I came out at university, which felt like a relatively safe amount of
01:46distance between home life and where I was.
01:51And a reflection very much on the fact that university felt like an environment where
01:55all this was possible.
01:57But it was actually forced because somebody in my student halls had started to victimise
02:04me, and another friend had quite manfully stepped in to defend my honour, not quite
02:10realising that he was sort of defending the wrong bit.
02:14It would have been better perhaps if he'd known in advance and then he could just have
02:18been my mate.
02:19But anyway, so that came out quite quickly because it sort of had to.
02:28But I came out to my family as bisexual because I thought it would be better.
02:33I thought somehow if I liked both, then there was still skin in the game in terms of normal
02:40relationships and that would be fine.
02:42It's a very strange logic now I reflect on that, and certainly not the way I live my
02:47life anymore.
02:48But you asked the question, what was it like coming out?
02:54And the answer is, at that time, very uncertain.
02:58Of course, I actually come out all the time now.
03:03And that's something that I don't think many people realise, is that you come out every
03:07time you meet somebody new, potentially.
03:09And certainly in the work context, that can be quite a do or die moment, you know.
03:16But it's never really crossed my mind to keep myself to myself.
03:19I just might not lead with it, or sometimes for fun I will, but coming out is actually
03:25with you every day, I think.
03:27And that's something that I don't think many people realise, is that you come out every
03:32time you meet somebody new, potentially.
03:34And certainly in the work context, that can be quite a do or die moment, you know.
03:41But it's never really crossed my mind to keep myself to myself.
03:44I just might not lead with it, or sometimes for fun I will, but coming out is actually
03:50with you every day, I think.
03:52There is a big difference between, say, a gay man coming out and somebody who identifies
04:03as transgender.
04:04It's kind of like the worst time in my life was the sort of, the six months before I first
04:13came out.
04:14And then suddenly everything got better.
04:15And it might have been to do with other things that happened in my life, but yeah, it was,
04:21even though there's other things that have happened since then, like pandemics and stuff
04:24like that, I still think of that hiding part of yourself as being quite a bad experience.
04:31I often sometimes feel that I will try and do everything in my power to make it visible
04:35to people, so that I don't have to explicitly say, I am non-binary or I am this, because
04:41not that I don't want to say those things, I'm very proud of my identity, but I just
04:45feel like in a world where straight cis people don't have to say that outright, because it
04:51is the automatically assumed thing.
04:54When I was coming out, I think times were very different.
05:02The consequences of coming out were much more serious.
05:08You could lose your job, instant divorce, and it was okay for people to physically and
05:17verbally abuse you in the street.
05:21That's what it was like.
05:23So coming out was, yes, it was gradual as the years went by, but it was also very secretive
05:35in many ways, that you really only came out to people you felt safe with, because everything
05:46else had an element of risk and danger to it.
05:50I met someone new at a new job, and it was the first time that someone asked about my
05:54partner and said, is it he, she, what do they do, and they just led with that question and
06:02gave me all the options to answer with.
06:04So that's a really nice experience that the other person, who isn't even a part of the
06:10LGBT community, they had that foresight to think, maybe this person, they could be anything.
06:20So they gave me all the options.
06:22My school particularly did have a lot of things in place to recognise LGBT history and recognise
06:28Section 28, and sort of looking at how we can prevent that from happening again and
06:34what was happening, because people my generation didn't have to live through that.
06:39About five years after I'd left school, I remember walking past, and I could see the
06:44senior common room window, and there was a pride flag hanging in it, which when I was
06:49at school, I would never have imagined there being a pride flag in our common room without
06:54it being torn down, or whoever put it up there being ridiculed for it, you know.
06:59I remember always being aware that I was different, but when I was at school, I didn't know what
07:09different was.
07:13Yeah, that was, that's how much it's changed.
07:23So I was at school when Section 28 was introduced, and in fact school wasn't terribly supportive
07:30before it was introduced.
07:32There was very definitely an atmosphere.
07:35I think I actually got a random Facebook message the other month, about a month ago.
07:42It was someone from my school who apologised for the insults and the jokes, the gay jokes,
07:48when we were at school, because he didn't know I was gay then, and he does now, and
07:53he hasn't seen me since, so he apologised.
07:56I wasn't expecting an apology, because I think a lot of the people who are using those insults
08:02and jokes are not really thinking about what they're saying, and they're just not educated
08:10enough on how it comes across.
08:13Nowadays, perhaps, if people are saying those words like, oh that's so gay, blah blah blah,
08:23it's maybe with more malice, because they should know better.
08:26They really should, unless they're very, very young, or they're stupid.
08:30They should know better, and I don't think there's an excuse now for that, and sometimes
08:37when I was in school, and I was a bit younger, I would educate someone, even if it's not
08:42another sort of slur against neurodiverse people, or other people, and I would say,
08:48you can't say that, what are you saying?
08:51They would go, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know that, that's just what my friends
08:54have been saying, and in that case, it's like, well they've apologised now, and they'll hopefully
08:59not say that again, but you can't always go around educating people.
09:04They have to educate themselves, to better themselves.
09:09To me, it's clear that what matters is the intention behind the words, it's not the word
09:15themselves, it's just a word, it's the intention behind it.
09:19I'm all for an easy life, and if I give myself a hard time every time somebody sees me as
09:29a man, how would I want that?
09:35So it's a tricky path to walk, because words can hurt, but we can educate ourselves to
09:47understand what's actually going on here, and instead of reacting, we can choose our
09:56response.
09:58Somebody gets overly defensive, and then someone else, and then that's how there's hate festers,
10:05and it's really negative, and I think it doesn't need to be like that at all.
10:09I think we are facing the same challenge as before, and that is the granulisation or the
10:20division of the community into smaller groups, so that those smaller groups can be held in
10:28place or even diminished in some way.
10:31The only thing that's changed is the language, really, and that's not even changed that much,
10:34it's more so the group of who they're attacking.
10:39We've seen it back in the 80s, it was with the AIDS crisis and with gay as being the
10:44big bad, and now it's trans being the big bad, and it's so crazy how some people aren't
10:56recognising these patterns and seeing that it's just the exact same thing that's happening.
11:01So when you can't change how somebody relates to you, all that's left to you is to change
11:14how you perceive yourself in the world, and that's where you find your power.
11:23I've recently spoken to a young gay man who has experienced physical attacks on the bus
11:29because everyone in their community recognises them as an openly gay person, and in those
11:37small communities you can't just blend in, because everyone knows everything again.
11:44This might sound really cheesy and really corny, but it genuinely has made me who I
11:48am, both personally and professionally, and I would not have it any other way.
11:53I always find it strange when some people would say, oh I wish I wasn't trans, or I
12:00wish I wasn't gay.
12:01Why would you wish that?
12:02It's a wonderful thing to be who you are, and although we have that sort of extra struggle
12:07in the world, I also think that it's a really amazing thing to have, to already be perceived
12:14as different allows for doors to open where you can express yourself fully, because for
12:21me at least, I know that if I'm going to be perceived as different, why not just embrace
12:26that fully and do what I want, because I have no fear in that anymore.
12:32I can't say that I've always wished that I wasn't gay, but now I definitely do not.
12:39There was a lot of double negatives there, does that make sense?
12:43So I think being a part of the community and engaging with other people in the community
12:51is something that maybe I probably didn't have when I was younger, I didn't really have
12:57so much of an option for, but it's just nice to be able to have people to chat to about
13:04shared experiences, and it doesn't always have to be about these heavy topics we've
13:07touched on today, you know, sometimes it is just having a bit of banter with another gay
13:13man.
13:14You mentioned the word connection, and I think that's such an important part of the human
13:21spirit, that sense of connection, and I think possibly the LGBTQ plus community appreciate
13:30that feeling of connection more, because so often it's been denied to us.
13:38I have never seen being a gay man as permission to accept my difference or my place in the
13:44world, but I'm going to borrow a little bit of what you've said and try it on and see
13:50if I can do a bit of healing of a younger self, because I just think that's a lovely,
13:54beautiful way to look at where we find ourselves as individuals.