Cure me, I have Blue Eyes.

Cure me, I have blue eyes.

That would seem a random and silly request but is it anymore than the request in Dr Christian Jessen’s documentary “Cure me, I’m Gay”? For anyone who watched the documentary, it was truly shocking and heart breaking to see people wanting to be “cured” and the lengths they would go to. Why, in the 21st Century, is this is still happening?

The element of the show that upset me the most was the “gay-exorcism” taking place in East London. Built on the basis of religion, there was an “all-powerful” bald guy attempting to cure people on the spot of their homosexuality, whilst a vulnerable audience hung on his every word. Meanwhile in America, a group of “Ex-gays” demonstrated, whilst looking seriously unhappy and unloved, against gay rights. (I found myself sadly disappointed this group of ex-guys weren’t a squad of superhero mutants in the style of Marvel’s X-Men, but that’s another story).

Today I saw two things on Facebook that distressed me. A note from a dad to a son who’d tried to commit suicide, the note said “I wish you’d succeeded, I wish you were dead”. The other story was a mother punching her young son in the face when he came out. It might be the 21st Century but I can totally see why some people would want to be cured. Having those that love you turn on you is horrible.

So that’s them, what about me? Would I want to be cured?

I had a really difficult time in school, those people that know me know would be shocked to see the skinny and shy boy I was at secondary school. I was bullied, beaten and mocked for being gay and it upset me more because I wasn’t. I really, really wasn’t gay! One of the things that upset me, more than the insults and punches, was a situation that happened with my best friend Rajia. In school we often used to write our names on the others knuckles, like a temporary tattoo that showed our undying friendship to one another. One day, Rajia started dating one of the bullies that mocked and insulted me and I saw her hand had “is gay” written under where I had written my name. The fact that she’d allowed him to do that hurt me more than any punch I’d received.

It was a relief when I left school, I was no longer that bullied person as I could reinvent myself. I discovered nightclubs and made friends and the fact I could dance (Nope, still not gay) made me popular with girls. I was a bit of a tart and went home with girls at the end of a “successful” night out and the next morning I’d wake up and say “See I’m not gay……”

I then met a girl with whom engagement, marriage and a child followed but then suddenly my world crumbled. I came to the realisation I was batting for this team. There would be nights, as my wife slept, that I was be curled up by the bed, on the floor, crying “why can’t I be NORMAL”.

That’s a long time ago and here I am waiting to do a pile of ironing, whilst my husband is doing the weekly shop and our “kids”, our two cats are outside playing with their friend from opposite – another cat, whilst I shout at them to stay out of the road. Somehow my life has become “NORMAL!” When I come home from work. I don’t think my life is that different from my heterosexual colleagues, apart from the fact I come home to a man.

What is different is that it was a fight to get here, I was judged, bullied and despite how normal my life is, I’m aware things still aren’t equal. To anyone that is facing the internal drama of coming out, acceptance and the depression that can sometimes go hand in hand with being gay, the only thing I can say is “try and be true to yourself” and do try and google some of the videos from the ‘It gets better project” on YouTube, because it can get better. I promise.

Blogger ThatBaldGuyMK

About Giving Up

Being an older gay person is not necessarily better than being young. Of, course, I do not suffer bullying in school and do not worry about having to come out to people, but other problems have come up, which no one told me about.

I was 53 years old when I came out a few years ago. It meant first coming out to myself and accepting that the side of me I tried to hide for forty years was not going away, I was not going to grow out of this phase, or learn to love women’s bodies. Then, I had the challenge of coming out to my wife, my children, colleagues and more. I searched and found there is absolutely no support whatsoever for middle-aged people coming out. There are some groups out there who appear to be in the right direction, but they were not what I wanted or needed – they all seemed to be accepting the unavoidable fact that married gay men were destined to divorce, while gay dads were aimed more at adopting or surrogate parents rather than people who became parents in the old fashioned heterosexual way. The idea that my wife and I could actually love each other and want to stay together, even if I did not really enjoy the sexual aspect of the relationship.

I tried to live and accept my sexuality, while remaining faithful to a wife who did not understand that men (or at least I) could differentiate sexual activity from love and a desire for a long term relationship.

Now, as I see the number sixty coming up, as I have to check the bottom of the list when asked for my age group, the time has come to accept to inevitable and give up.

–        I will never have enough money to be able to retire

–        I need to continue working and selling myself, trying to prove that I have more energy than competitors who are thirty years younger than I am

–        My work does not allow me to maintain any long term commitments, such as joining a club, an evening course, attending regular committee meetings for charities

–        My work does not allow me to organize events, such as the “General Assembly” which I managed for three years

–        I will not overcome my anxiety of going into a night club, even now that I live a 3 minute walk from Pink Punters

–        My fear of social situations and lack of social skills will not go away and I will continue to be afraid of going to groups in which I do not feel I already feel I know everyone

–        I will never again have an intimate relationship with someone

–        I will never make a difference in the world, but will just fade away and be forgotten before I turn the corner

–        I will continue to disappoint those who place their trust in me.

It is time for me to give up trying and accept the facts. This is it, this is as far as I go. No one needs me any longer.

This is not depressing, it is accepting the facts, the time has come to stop pretending, my productive, useful, entertaining, fun life is over, now, all that is left is years.

Note to any young person who read this far: don’t waste your time. Do something, make a change, enjoy your youth, your beauty, your energy. It is not easy to suddenly realize that it has all gone away and there is nothing left but a bus pass.

Trustee Blogger

The Trapeze Artist Review

The LGBTQ Book Group Milton Keynes has been running for several months now, and the time has come, now that we’ve got the ball rolling, to give it some more publicity. At the most recent meeting, we discussed a book called the Trapeze Artist by Will Davis – which deals with a young man growing up gay in an a conventional suburban lifestyle; repressed by his mother’s orderly lifestyle yet drawn to a newcomer at his school called Edward, who we find out is also gay and encourages him to embrace his sexuality. In order to escape this existence, he eventually joins a travelling circus after an encounter with a trapeze artist called Vlad, and throughout the book there is a running motif of a trapeze to symbolize the act of swinging higher and higher; reaching out for freedom and striving towards potential. The narrative style is divided into past, present and future, which there was a mixture of opinions on.

 

One of the criticisms that was made was that the fragmented nature of each of the three narratives made the book difficult to follow. It was described as ‘gimmicky’ and for me personally, it didn’t quite work, since they didn’t link in with each other until the end of the book, when the story-line from the past ends where the story-line from the present begins – by which point the book will already have lost many readers who find it difficult to engage with this style of writing.

 

Characters were criticized for being too shallow, however there seemed to be a running theme of everyone wearing a mask to conceal their true emotions. Because as a reader we are given more access to the main protagonist, we instantly see underneath his mask, which would make him seem more vulnerable than many of the other characters, however their underlying feelings and motivations emerge as the book progresses.

 

For me, among others in the group, the most relatable narrative was the one that dealt with the protagonist’s upbringing and coming out process, since a wide variety of themes were explored, such as duality – with the difference between the protagonist’s upbringing, which is more conventional; as opposed to his boyfriend Edward’s upbringing, which is more unstable. Both characters long for the other’s lifestyle, which reflects the whole ‘grass is greener on the other side’ paradox. Also there is trauma, and the effect of placing responsibility, in terms of characters who blame themselves for traumatic events fall into a pattern of leading a reclusive lifestyle where they cannot be responsible for further turmoil. Parallels were then drawn between the death that occurs in the childhood narrative and the death that occurs later on at the end of the novel – using the metaphor of falling as a representation of failure to live up to one’s full potential, and escape the circumstances that repress us individuals – such as upbringing, lifestyle, order ect.

 

All in all, we rated the book an average of 6.3 for the story, 5.4 for writing style and 6.5 for likeability. For the next meeting we will be reading Oscar Wilde’s classic ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’, so feel free to come along and participate in the discussion, running on the third Sunday of every month in Waterstones, Midsummer Place, either round the table under the staircase, or, if we are redirected as we were today, in the Costa above. The meetings start at 2:30 and go on until about 4ish. E-mail bjlyons@talktalk.net if you are interested in coming along, or join the facebook group by clicking on this link http://www.facebook.com/groups/lgbtbookgroupmk/233728456749877/?comment_id=233730473416342&notif_t=group_activity.

 

Hope to see you there. Blogger Brendan xx

Guest Blogger: Karl

So I am the most recent addition of this fabulous blogging team and will start off with an introduction of who I am and what makes me tick.

I am Karl, I am 21 and I live in the town of Northampton which currently offers no LGBT support, youth or adult. So I attend the group HQMK and meet with the lovely people there every week and would strongly recommend the group to any young person looking for support and friendship.

Now onto my identity, I identify as both bisexual and transgender. I would hope that everyone would understand what bisexual is (even with the negative connotations) so I will write a little bit about my trans identity and how I see myself. In clinical and medical terms I am a female to male transsexual, born with a female body but identify as male. Despite what I was born as and how I developed I see myself entirely as male, so I would consider any relationship I have with a guy as a gay relationship and any relationship I have with a girl as a straight relationship.

I have been involved with online LGBT communities for almost four years now, since I first came out. In that time I have learnt a lot and grown as a person, I have also become very passionate about LGBT issues and the rights of my community. I will be very vocal about an injustice and will fight strongly for my community and will get involved with what I can to be part of the movement.

Having said that, my blogs will likely have a political slant to them when discussing LGBT rights, where I challenge views held by others and have people consider the use of certain language. But I will also use this as a space to talk about my experiences, who I am as a person and sometimes the unfortunate incidences that occur when being me!

Keep watching, excitement and hilarity is coming up!

Guest Blogger Karl

An introductory blog; who is Blogger Bernie?

Hey there and welcome to my first blog entry for Q:a. This is exciting stuff. I guess I should start off with the basics; who is ‘Blogger Bernie’? It’s a good question, and one that I’ll try my hardest to answer, because truth be told, it’s still something that I’m trying to figure out. In very simple terms, I’m just your average teenager- not entirely sure of what I want to do with my life, even less sure of how to do it, and completely reliant on my close knit network of friends to get me through the craziness. On a deeper, more detailed level, I’m an individual with quite complex gender views and identity. I struggle to decide on whether or not I identify as something non-binary- something outside of just ‘female’ and ‘male’- or whether I just hate the idea of gender stereotypes. But then, should I have to justify my gender? I don’t think so.

Anyway, I’ll get in to all of that some other day. Seeing as this is my first entry, I figured, why not tell you all the story of me coming out to my family? (Sexuality wise, that is.) Let me tell you now, it was not intentional. Let me take you back three, nearly four years. I was 15, and very much comfortable with the fact that I was attracted to girls… although not the term ‘lesbian’- I realised later that this was due to a gender identity issue. I’d been dating a girl that I’d met through a friend for a good while… maybe eight months? Seeing as she lived all the way in Brighton, my dad and stepmother had never met her. I hadn’t really felt the need to tell them and have an awkward conversation regarding my sexuality and ‘staying safe’. Unfortunately, life had other ideas. I suppose it was my fault, updating my Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’ and forgetting that I had family on my account…

At that time, I was staying with a good friend of mine, at their house and although we both went to different schools, my dad had picked us up one morning and was dropping us off to our schools respectively. Just as the aforementioned friend ambled out of the car, my dad uttered the words: “So, Bernie… I see it says that you’re in a relationship on Facebook”. I could have died. Had this occured at home, I could have fled. Instead, I was stuck in a moving vehicle with the most awkward silence. I wasn’t ready to come out to my parents, if I had been then I would have just TOLD them already. The conversation that ensued literally made me cringe in my seat, and I practically sprang from the car and ran to class- a first, I must admit. I was bombarded with all the usual questions; where are they from, how old are they, what’s their name? He also offered to put me on the pill if it was a guy. I wasn’t remotely sexually active at the time, and I had to tell him that it was infact a girl… turns out he already knew.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is. Luckily for me, my dad was relatively accepting (albeit in denial- he keeps telling me not to get pregnant like my sisters) but I’d really rather him not have found out like that. I guess, be careful what you’re putting on the internet. You never know who might be reading.

Blogger Bernie

Coming Out is Simply an “Enter” Key Away

First Blog, so I thought I would keep it light. In fact, stuff that, I’ll write about is something that matters to me. Schools. Specifically, Schools and LGBT.

With the rise of importance of Social Media, coming out is simply an “Enter” key away. Not as hard as going round telling people face to face, but a difficult “Enter” key nevertheless. However, the response I got was incredibly supportive. So I began to express it, didn’t hide that I was into guys anymore. I was accused of Advertising. “We all know you are Gay, Stuart, you don’t need to Advertise it” was the phrase most coined. My response? “Well, why should I hide if I’m out of the closet?” And I didn’t. Just as girls express their feelings to Men, I also did, telling them they are good looking, complimenting them.

This did not go down well.

Men began to feel awkward around me. I got in numerous Facebook Arguments, with guys telling me not to say that they are good looking. I began to lose most male friends, my friends list on Facebook slowly depleated. I had a theory for this. They are not used to change. Simple. All their life, they have been expecting compliments from Women, all of a sudden, their mindset has changed. Something new? Do we accept it? No, let’s discard it. They assumed that I would have the cheek to flirt with them, even though they are straight.

Now, readers, I do assure you, I have ethics! If I wanted to flirt, I’d head to Pinks. Not ICT. So, I left them, and began to make friends with the girls in our school, men were simply something to admire from a distance. They really changed me. They are a lot more sociable, a lot more accepting, and you can talk to guys with them! Before, I was quite a rough guy. I went around, playing pranks with my mates, messing around in classes. Some people say that Coming Out doesn’t change who you are at all, that “you are still you”. In my case, it changed who I was completely.

Before I came out, I was quite a loner, I didn’t have anywhere to fit in, I never felt quite at home in All Male Social Groups, I could never discuss guys with anyone apart from my hidden boyfriend. All the girls didn’t speak to me because I was with the guys. Coming out almost advertised me to people that I had never spoken to before; People started saying “Hang on, we’ve never really paid attention to this Stuart kid, maybe we should now, he had more to him than what he seemed?”

Now, I have a brilliant and diverse support network of friends, both inside and outside of school, from Male to Female, or people who don’t identify as either! From Young to Old, from the campest people you could possibly imagine, to the most masculine guys could you could dream of, from the most devoted Christians, to Pagans! And I love it. I don’t think many people could have such a diverse range of friends, and it’s brilliant.

I feel right at home in the LGBT community of Milton Keynes, it’s vibrant, and there are so many saints, people willing to do whatever it takes to enhance the community! The moral of the story: Many people say that Coming Out doesn’t affect your friendship groups, they reassure you that all of your friends will stay the same, that declaring your sexuality changes nothing. It changes a lot. But you have to go through that transition stage of losing your fake friends and earning your real friends, to make yourself a better person. If you are coming out, expect to lose some friends, but expect to gain some much better ones, and find a loving place in the LGBT community of Milton Keynes!

 Blogger Stu

Things I Should Know

I will admit to you all that I am a late bloomer in the official LGBTQ world and have only been negotiating it for four or five years or so. As a result I get looked at with a mixture of pity and sympathy when I confess that I have only seen a few episodes of the L word or that I’ve never seen any of Queer as Folk. Worse than that (and this caused an outrage) was the early and quickly rectified admission that I had no idea that Sue Perkins was a Lesbian…I know I know…It’s obvious now, obviously. But I really didn’t have any idea.

Once I happily listened to an entire conversation about ‘Gold star Lesbians’ honestly believing that they were just really clever women and that the gold star reference was a metaphor. It was weeks later when I accidently stumbled on the term in the Urban Dictionary that I learnt otherwise.

Five years ago I’d heard of the word Gaydar, but I had no idea what it meant. If truth be told, even now that I do know I am still not entirely sure mine is working correctly. Mine seems to resemble a slightly dodgy Sat-Nav that is intent on driving me into a canal (or a very awkward situation). I probably just need some practise but my friends seem reluctant to let me out in the real world to do this. Apparently, and I quote, ‘it’s bound to end in tears’. Whatever.

I truly feel like I was supposed to receive an encyclopaedia of things I needed to know in the post. I am sorry to say that mine never arrived and humbly ask that if anybody has a copy they could lend me I’d really appreciate it. I’m just not sure that hiding in the toilets whilst frantically keying unknown phrases into my mobile browser is the answer.

Blogger Melody

The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality

During my time as a GLBT youth worker in Milton Keynes, I encountered a number of young people who were struggling to reconcile their Christian upbringing and their sexual orientation.  This can make the coming out process far more difficult for people who have been brought up by parents who believe that simply being gay is sinful.

While I don’t count myself among the faithful anymore, I was raised Catholic and can definitely understand the heartache this causes, parents sometimes sadly reject their GLBT children and the toll that all of this can take on a young person’s confidence and self esteem can be devastating.

About a month ago, a 21 year old student named Matthew Vines from the rather conservative state of Kansas in the US posted a video on Youtube that he researched for two years. In the video, Matthew looks very carefully at the biblical arguments made by conservative Christians related to this issue and very gently and brilliantly puts together a persuasive case that they’ve got it all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQjNJUSraY&feature=player_embedded

Blogger Bart