The impact of being outed

This picture used to haunt me. It was taken in 1970 and published in the county-wide Kent Messenger newspaper. I am the child caught in a game of Oranges and Lemons at a Christmas party for the children of staff. My dad was the boss, so I was selected to be in the paper, whether I liked it or not. I despised everything about my appearance; the pale pink dress, the long thick grey socks, the sensible brown sandals, the haircut done by my mum, the absence of a discernible neck. Most of all I hated my face. Because I thought that I was fat, I sucked in my cheeks, making me look very odd. But it's the eyes that are the real giveaway, with that rabbit in the headlight look about them. That photo captured the real, frightened anxious little me, and I hated this exposure.

Throughout my childhood and early adult life, I thought everyone was blighted with great balls of anxiety all the time, and that they were all much better at dealing with them than I was. These adrenaline-driven balls of anxiety have learnt to morph from intense butterflies into severe panic attacks which I have suffered with all my life. I also have depression; for me the anxiety and the meltdowns are worse, and less understood. Before I came clean that I have mental health issues, I was variously labelled as unstable, volatile, evil, unpredictable, paranoid, over-sensitive, awful and shameful. When you say these things to someone who is already bursting with angst and self-loathing, it can tip the balance. I was desperately trying to hide my anxiety, and it felt like every time someone called me these names, they could see the real vulnerable me. I have lost a few people over the years who didn't have the patience to try and understand, to ask if I was ok, to be kind. My anxiety level is rising as I write this, but it needs to be said. I was bullied and called names because of my mental health issues. I still am. I now accept who I am; I can't say I embrace it as it's bloody horrible having a panic attack, but it's part of me.

In some ways, the struggles I had to accept myself mirror the struggles that LGBT+ people have in accepting themselves and in being accepted. As a straight person, I have never had to think about whether or not to come out to family and friends, and my sexuality has never been the subject of unwanted quizzing or criticism. This has not been the case for many of the LGBT+ people whose stories I tell in my book. When Peter came out to me in 1981, I agreed to pretend to be his girlfriend. I was in love with him, which helped. I had an important role to play as his "fag hag" and as his beard, protecting him from being outed. As soon as I was introduced to his loving and well-meaning parents as his girlfriend, they stopped worrying about him, and they stopped sending him to a psychiatrist for 'treatment' for his sexuality. Ours was not a conventional relationship, but it worked for us at the time; it was illegal for gay men under 21 to have sex, so any activity he did had to be in complete secret, and our arrangement gave him the cover he needed. By contrast, my friend Douglas was outed in the most horrible way - his parents received various anonymous letters claiming that he was molesting little boys. This was of course rubbish, but when they confronted him about it, he felt forced him to come out to them at seventeen years old, before he was ready.

I got to know Frankie after my book was published. He bought the book and we have kept in touch since. He told me how his own sisters outed him to others behind his back when he was a teenager in the 1990s. "I'm estranged from much of my family, due to my sexuality which they never accepted. When I was aged just nineteen I attended my birth father's funeral, to be met with comments about my differences, my lifestyle, my appearance, my supposed health status etc, and all from people I hardly or never knew, but whom all had been informed of my queerness by my zealously religious sisters. I've no idea why they might do such a cruel thing to me - or why anyone might do such a thing to another human being. As a gay man, growing up in Glasgow when I did, I can honestly say that there are some people in this world who are truly evil, and I consider outing others to be an act of sheer malice." As a youngster, Frankie was always careful to avoid attracting attention to himself, and was shocked and scared by the actions of his sisters, as they were potentially putting him in danger from verbal abuse or worse. The way he was treated at his father's funeral left him feeling threatened and cornered like a scared animal. He tried to stand up for himself, then left along with his two queer cousins. He has never spoken to his family again but still feels acute pain and anger when he thinks about them, and how they treated him.

During the mid-twentieth century, young gay men were labelled as sinners by the church, illegal by the state and ill by the medical fraternity. The sad truth for many was that their families were either hostile or showed little understanding. Max's father once burnt all of his clothes, and he was one of several gay men I interviewed who had very difficult relationships with their fathers. Max is now in his seventies and was mercilessly bullied as a boy. He was called, amongst other things, Sissy, Homo, Gay, Nancy Boy, Nance, Queer, Oscar and Poof. As a result he doesn't like the words gay or queer, both of which have been reclaimed by some LGBT+ people. Max was also subjected to severe physical and sexual abuse. Tragically, this was the case for a few people I interviewed for my book.

Frankie commented that as he read my book, he couldn't help but wince with pain because he was called wicked names too. "Not a single day, not one day, did I grow up in my house not being called nancy boy, queer, a fucking homo, a poof, a fairy, a fat fairy, a "Teeny From Troon" (no idea what the hell that meant!), bender, arse bandit, gay boy, faggot, etc etc. I heard these slights at home, I was named them at high school too." Frankie now recognises that he grew up in "a massively abusive environment," as did many others he knew, subjected to awful slurs from the very people who were supposed to love and care for them. The actions of Frankie's own family, calling him names and outing him, left him feeling emasculated, disempowered, humiliated and embarrassed.

Many of the older men I interviewed never came out to their families, although some believe that they knew. Greg’s father was visiting and witnessed him and his lifelong partner Mike having a little spat, just a teensy domestic, while they were making dinner. Greg turned round to look at his father sitting at the table, and saw him smiling back with tears running down his face – he had clocked. Nothing was said but that moment was so precious to Greg, as he realised that his father could see that this spat meant nothing compared to the love that he and Mike shared.

Those who do decide to come out to family have thought about it a lot beforehand, and the right time to do so varies enormously. It took John until he was in his seventies. John is seventy-three and when we spoke, was engaged to be married to his partner (they have since married). John had been very happy with a long-term partner who died a few years ago, and although his family all knew this partner, it was never acknowledged that they were a couple. He decided to come out to one of his brothers in 2023, finally plucking up the courage to stop the secrecy. John laughed as he recalled his brother’s response.

“Yeah,” he said. “We all know.”

He needn’t have worried after all; his family had all worked it out, but had just respected his privacy.

All of the women and some of the men I interviewed for my book have been quizzed about their sexuality like they are some sort of fairground attraction. May has been asked male-gazey questions from strangers in bars, who find the idea of lesbian sex titillating, and Mary has been asked who wears the dildo, and been told that she isn't ugly enough to be a lesbian. Dominic finds it challenging sometimes when people talk to him like he's their pet budgie, saying things like “I love gay people, you’re all so funny.” He explains that he has been in situations where people think they know his sexuality: "You’re being pigeonholed, not visible for being a human being.”

Unfortunately we still live in a society where being outed is newsworthy. It has happened recently to Phillip Schofield. I wonder if his would have been in the news and his career destroyed if he was having an affair with a young woman as opposed to a young man?

British actor Andrew Scott has recently made the headlines by suggesting that we should drop the term "openly gay," which has sparked a media debate. I think that the media should, like the rest of society, respect the terminology that each of us chooses to describe ourselves. We all have the right to privacy. We all have the right to choose when we come out and to whom we come out. We should also have the right not to come out. Our sexuality, like our mental health, belongs to us, not to anyone else.

This blog is based partly on excerpts from my book Bent Is Not Broken. Buy the eBook (various platforms) or get the paperback on Amazon via:

www.books2read.com/BentIsNotBroken

To read more about LGBT+ culture and history, and find out more about the author, head to www.bentisnotbroken.com