Film Review: ‘Pride’

Now I love an angsty-gay/trans* film as much as the next girl; Boys Don’t Cry, Milk, Brokeback Mountain, The Laramie Project, but Pride was really in a genre of its very own. Packed with the humour we have come to expect from a British-made comedy film, but without loosing the important messaging of gay culture in the 1980s. Also, as a self-confessed gay-geek, it was fantastic to learn about a part of the history of the gay rights movement that I have never known about before, and to see how it linked into other political movements of the time.

The film starts with the 1984 London Pride Parade; I was at London Pride this year, 30 years on, and it made me remember just how far we have come. The film went on to highlight the issues specific to the day, such as the difference in age of consent between ‘the breeders’, as described by self-defined dyke Steph, and gay men. However, it also showed issues that are still present, such as coming out, hate crime and HIV. It wouldn’t be a gay-film set in the 80s without some reference to HIV, but it was done subtly and appeared throughout the film in a way that tied in well with the storyline.

Joe/Bromley’s plight was particularly resonating for me as I sat in the cinema next to my parents. I was reminded once again how fortunate I am to not have experienced the negative and detrimental impact of having parents who unable to accept their child’s sexuality. Although times have moved on, there is still a plethora of young people who struggle with coming out and never get that all-important acceptance from their families. I know Q:alliance help to tackle this issue through the HQMK youth group, but there are still so many who have no support network at all.

What was refreshing about this amazing film was the way it seamlessly switched between pure comedy (the ongoing lesbian cuisine discussion was one of my personal favourites) to poignant moments that sent goosebumps down your spine and set a little tear in your eye.

The film really demonstrated how issues of equality and discrimination shouldn’t be kept in silos, with all the many minority groups badgering away at their own cause. There are so many commonalities between us and although standing up for striking miners in a small village in Wales is an extreme example of this, the message remains the same.

Five stars! A must see for everyone, not just the LGBT community.

Blogger Ellie

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

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

How homo/transphobic are you?

This week saw the Oscars and the world’s most famous lesbian Ellen DeGeneres took to the stage to host this prestigious award ceremony. However Ellen made a faux pas and called Liza Minnelli a “drag queen, an impersonator and sir”. Although Ellen was probably alluding to the fact Liza looked a ’little different’ (New dress? New purse? ) from normal, the gag backfired. Tweets accusing transphobia followed but these were counteracted with “Ellen’s a lesbian, she can’t be transphobic!”

So can we, the LGBT community, be phobic to ourselves?

It’s weird, because about a week ago I probably was. There is a guy who works in my building who is “obviously gay”. What does “obviously gay” mean? Well, he does dress flamboyantly; he is very theatrical and throws some mean jazz hands when talking. On the day in question, he had a new hairstyle, which kind of finished off his overall look. I found myself chuckling and then instantly corrected myself. Surely me (internally) mocking someone about how gay they looked was wrong!

I’ll admit I felt a little ashamed.

It might have been that I was actually jealous of his hair. With the nic ‘thatbaldguyMK, my days of being “worth it” are over. My hair has sadly spread to my chest, shoulders, back and chin and last week, on twitter, I posted that I was contemplating going beard-free for the first time in about 10 years. This caused uproar! Why? Because beards are seen as manly and as gay men we must not look camp!

Around this time, Ellen Page came out as gay and a couple of straight people I know commented that it was “nice that a feminine lesbian had come out”. All they saw was, long hair = feminine. Roll forward to the Oscars and there was Ellen Page in her tuxedo and lots of tweets about her “lezzing it up”. Another point that made me ponder was reading an article on ‘femme lesbians’, although I could totally see it’s hard for a ‘girlie girl’ not to be seen as a ‘fag hag’ when socialising on the scene, and that not every ‘lipstick lesbian’ wants to drape themselves in a rainbow flag when they go out to maximise visibility, the article was quite harsh about gay women who looked like ‘dykes’.

So have we become a community that is blacklisting ‘camp’ men and ‘butch’ women as well as hinting at transphobia?  Are we readily doing to one another what some narrow minded heterosexuals do to us?  Should we be more aware?

The word ‘community’ is often overused and the spectrum of LGBT people is broad and that should be something that is celebrated and respected and we need to ensure that we don’t start that criticism from within.

I have to say Liza Minelli did look very different tho……

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

Sally’s October Blog

The other week after work I rushed down to Bethnal Green for the initial briefing on a new LGBT history project which is being undertaken by LGCM (see http://www.lgcm.org.uk/category/christian-voices-coming-out/ for more details). As part of the evening we had a talk on post-war LGBT history in England from Dr Sebastian Buckle.

Whilst I had an awareness of alot of the key dates such as the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the introduction of civil partnerships I was still struck by how much of our history is not generally known.

For example whilst female homosexuality was not criminalised there were restrictions placed on lesbians by society to make them conform.

Another piece of information which surprised me was that the first gay magazine in the UK, Arena Three, was produced by women during the 1960’s.

As I listened to how a large group of women had left the Gay Liberation Front in February 1972 due to gender oppression I wondered if that was part of the reason we tend to know more about homosexuality history than lesbian history.

Another explanation given was that women and BME people were more likely to identify with groups fighting oppression on the basis of gender or ethnicity whilst men were more likely to be fighting oppression linked to sexuality.

The talk also highlighted the role of Stonewall and all the good work they have done. Listening to that I was aware in the back of mind of the exclusion of trans people by Stonewall in England (Stonewall Scotland have been more inclusive).

Chatting to someone afterwards I was also aware of the exclusion of bi people in the story.

As I reflected on where we are today and the great gains we have achieved as a community I was perhaps more acutely aware of how uneven the playing field has been and continues to be.

I know part of this is because of the way trans and bi people and those gay and lesbians who are part of the BME community are less likely to choose to be involved. However, this history talk emphasised that it has been and may sometimes continue to be because of the comments they sometimes have to deal with from others who are seen as having more power.

Blogger Sally

‘Where Faith, Arts and Justice Meet’

I was recently at an arts festival where I got to listen to Clare Balding in conversation with Richard Coles (the bloke out of the Communards who wasn’t Jimmy Somerville and occasionally crops up on Radio 4 and tv shows like QI).

As they spent an hour chatting and answering a few questions from the audience there were odd points when, quite naturally, the conversation included reference to their sexuality (both being gay). There was also reflection on the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Russia and Balding’s feelings about it, (particularly as she is an open lesbian going as part of the BBC team to cover it).

Later at the same festival I went to hear Rachel Mann, a trans, lesbian, Anglican priest, talk about her experience and her book Dazzling Darkness (which is well worth a read – find it here). Whilst aspects of the talk were more focused on her LGBT identity/ identities the talk went wider and reflected on aspects of her wider life too.

In both talks it was clear that whilst their gender identities and sexual orientations were important to them they were mixed in there with the rest of life.

This was something which my own involvement with a story telling event at the festival reflected too. I was one of 9 “ordinary” people who told their love stories, (love in this case reflecting a range of meanings and including both queer and straight stories). My story was told in the form of a fairytale and within it I referred to my own identity as a lesbian and the way that it was complicated when my partner came out as a trans guy, but it went beyond that to include more mundane aspects of our journey relating to being separated by distance and the experience of having a teenager not overjoyed with mum having a new partner.

The singer songwriter Grace Petrie (website) was also on the festival bill singing her political lyrics and love songs which both, at times, make reference to her being a lesbian but which don’t focus on this.

The festival which has in the past had Peter Tatchell speaking at it on human rights issues amongst other things is quite pink in nature and many LGBT people are amongst the 20,000 or so who head to it each year as an alternative to Reading or Leeds.

It is a space where LGBT people and their allies as well as people who wouldn’t regard themselves in that way come together for a great weekend of music and talks and LGBT issues are mixed in with everything else, no big deal it’s that simple.

The thing which might surprise people about this festival is it is essentially a Christian festival. Greenbelt has the tag line of being where faith, arts and justice meet.

Blogger Sally

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

Equality in schools, and personal issues education

Tell me; as a child, how many of you remember ever sitting in PSHE lesson or Citizenship lesson where LGBT issues were brought up? Did you ever tackle eating disorders, or self harm? How about disability awareness? There is a shocking lack of education when it comes to these issues in schools. Children and young people are taught how to put a condom on, or how to help old people across the road… but never what to do if they question their sexuality, how to practise safe non hetero sex or what to do if they feel like harming themselves.

At the age of 18, I have experienced life in 2 different secondary schools, 2 academies (one aged 11-19 and the other appprenticeship based) and 3 colleges. Four of these places, I worked at.  If we disregard these for now, and just focus on my experiences as a student, I’ll tell you now, they were not all good. Generally, I didn’t experience much homophobic/anti-queer behaviour within these places, which is great… but I also received little to none support regarding any of the above issues. They were never addressed.  Ignorance is ripe within secondary schools; there is racism, there is sexism, there is homophobia. That list is not exhaustive. The irony of it is, it’s not always students… teachers can be just as bad. What’s sad is that  half of the perpetrators don’t even realise that they’re being discriminatory. PSHE and teacher training both cater primarily to the need of heterosexual, gender normative young people that the government seem to expect, and people are left to assume that stereotypes and rumours that they hear are true.

All disabled people are stupid. All dyslexic people can’t read. All gay people like glitter. All people with eating disorders are greedy. All people that self harm are attention seekers. All trans people are paedophiles. None of these people are normal. If people are left to believe what they hear in playgrounds and on facebook, things will never get easier for vulnerable young people at schools.  Schools are supposed to educate. What use are 11 GCSEs or 5 fantastic A levels if you do not know how to function in the real world? If you do not understand the differences that make up the population, and the importance of acceptance (or at the least, tolerance). Why is it that Religious Education is compulsory to a certain age, but it is not compulsory to cover other protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act?

Following a conversation with a fellow member of an LGBTQ+ group that I attend, and some crazily misinformed peers of his, I realise that this is getting no better. How can queer people, disabled people, people outside that little box of ‘normal teenager’ expect to achieve their potential in education with schools allowing students to be so ignorant as to think that awareness is not even necessary? Something needs to be done about the quality of PSHE in schools. Something needs to be done about the ignorance that some students not directly affected by these matters show. Something needs to be done to show people that they are not alone; that somebody cares, and is willing to help them if they need it. Young people need to feel accepted at school. Not only by their peers, but also by their schools.  I am making it my mission to make a change. No matter how little, it shall be huge.  It’s time to step off the treadmill and stop moving on the spot, never going forward. It’s time to make a difference.

Keep tuned for details of my endeavors. Mark my word, schools will not know what’s hit them.

Blogger Bernie