Book Review Blog: ‘The Glass Closet’ by John Browne

“The Glass Closet” by John Browne

John Browne was a gay man who was brought up in England in the 1950s. He stayed, as most of his generation carefully inside his closet and kept his secret well. At work, he was successful, rising through the ranks until he ended up CEO of BP and very much in the limelight.

In 2007, a young man with whom he had a long relationship decided to sell his story to a tabloid newspaper and Lord Browne very publicly resigned his position and the company for which he had worked so many years.

In this recent book, he explains the business case for a more accepting society. The case for an inclusive and welcoming society. He talks about the efforts made by many for the LGBT people of the world, including Harvey Milk, the  drag queens of Stonewall, David Hockney and James Baldwin, all who were willing to come out very publicly.

The book is full of stories of all sorts. These include stories of people who were never able to succeed at work because of their efforts to hide their real lives, but also stories of success and openness. It questions how productive and efficient you can be at work when you may not talk about your family, your week-end, or when you have to be careful not to get offended by a distasteful joke, when you have to think carefully about what pronoun to use when referring to someone who is dear to you.

We may have marriage, but the battle for the acceptance and equality is not yet over. Maybe the next  step needs to be won in the boardrooms or the world.

Strongly recommended to business people as well as to LGBT activists!

(Published by WH Allen, Ebury Publishing, Random House. ISBN 978-0-75-355532-3 www.glasscloset.org)

Trustee Blogger

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

Trustee Blogger: Negative Testing

So after applying for life insurance eight months ago, the company, of whom shall remain nameless at this stage, have only just this month told me that my application is successful and my policy is in place.

You see, I believe that when buying a property with someone else the insurance cover you should get is a joint policy. In which case you name the two people who are on the policy and say what relationship you are to each other. Peter – partner Daniel. Now the process of the application had already taken quite a while, they ask a lot of questions you see. They had picked up on the fact I was 6ft 3″ and had not been weighed by a doctor for sometime to see if I was underweight for my height. I went to my local GP and had them send of my weight and BMI, all standard practice I believe.

We had now answered all other health questions honestly and were under the impression all was fine. It was now five months into the process and someone processing the application must have looked at our application again and read the names Peter and Daniel, not Pete and Danielle, but Daniel, and sees the form states we are gay! We must immediately send a man round to their house to do a HIV test were their thoughts. Tell me if you think I am being just a little over the top by thinking by this… erm rude! Not so standard practice from my understanding.

Well this is what they did anyway, one Sunday afternoon a man came round and set up his equipment on the kitchen table. Not the kind of equipment you want a guy to come round to your house on a Sunday afternoon and whack out either. Don’t get me wrong he was a nice guy and just doing his job, my annoyance was with how discriminating it looks. The guy gave us an explanation that people who are being insured for a large sum of money often have to have to have a HIV test. We were being insured following the purchase of a two bed terraced in Milton Keynes, hardly a mansion in Notting Hill.

We are awaiting to hear from the insurance company in question as to the reasoning behind the testing. On one hand yes they did me a favour, a test that I didn’t need to leave the house for!  On the other, we want to understand the reasons behind asking us to take a HIV test and if the words gay or homosexual come up, then perhaps the company in question need to learn customer relations and how not to discriminate people with such assuming requests.

Trustee Blogger: Peter John Simpson

You can read more from Peter John Simpson on his Blog www.cardboardcakes.com