LGBTQ+: The perspective of the estranged.

Since time immemorial, or roughly about the age of ten, I have internalised my homophobia- to a visceral degree. As soon as I discovered what I often refer to incessantly as my ‘aberrant proclivities’, I began to repress them aggressively. I would speak out vituperatively against gayness, ‘gay culture’ and LGBT issues to shore up my own straightness. A reluctant laddish veneer underpinned by a Kenneth Williams-esque self-hating gay; homosexuality is, to me, an aberration. What a performance that was, and still is.

Indeed, throughout my entire school career, and well beyond, I have carried a sort of 1960s level guilt about my own homosexuality whithersoever I’ve gone in the world. Yet, this, unsurprisingly by and large, does not match the paradigmatic shift in attitudes that has since occurred and continues to. What, to me, has hitherto been unspoken, is, for most, hardly unspeakable. They should never have let me near Edward II.

I’ve viscerally recoiled from almost every homosexual experience, deliberately distanced myself from mainstream LGBT societies- not there were many at my school- and otherwise taken a profound level of self-hatred out on both myself and those who seem au fait or even comfortable in their expressions of queerness; something, I suspect, I shall never be.

Stick something like this- moi- through a West of Scotland school that breeds negativity and low self-worth and poor mental health, rear it in a culture desirous of masculinity, laddishness geared towards the procurement of the true model of heterosexual ontological security to which all lads must aspire and suddenly you’ve got a bit of a problem. Yet, to accept it would pose other difficulties. Grandfather would brand me a poof, Father might disown me, I’ve already disowned myself. The solution e’er shall be: powerfully disavow homosexuality. Reject your humanity at every turn and hiss at the rest of those growing in the comfort of human relationships till it wears you down. Privately, however, listen exclusively to Hi-NRG records such as Tapp’s ‘Forbidden Lover’ and Jimmy Somerville’s shrill, falsetto vocal tones in Smalltown Boy ad infinitum and let that simmer underneath all that you are.

Now, it is customary for a ‘West-of-Scotland-man-Victorian-Prig-Mental-Health-Doesnae-Exist Granda’, never to countenance the seeking of help. this would be to admit weakness, of course- and that simply won’t do. I am made of stronger stuff- like marshmallow flumps and halva. Welcome to the University of Glasgow and with it all the problematic psychological holdovers. I soldiered on alone through my degree, it wearing me down, little by little as that aspect of self- a holdover from school- continued to be denied. My social energies waned; my friends continued to live as I regressed. I began to conceive of myself as something between Elizabeth I in her final appearance before the English parliament with a lead-based face paint eroding her skin and Queen Anne being trundled about in a wheelchair. Eventually, all that was left was, I hope you’ll excuse me, was a poof.

After cruising through the British system- getting whacked back and forth by institutions of Higher learning- I was in no mood to accept anything or so much as address it. My big gay awakening- not that it will ever be truly awake- was slaving for Sainsbury’s and being approached by some punter in a hat and asked on a date my cold blackened-south-side-of-Glasgow-roll-and-sausage-heart had been awaiting and abhorring for all time. Of course, a person deep fried in anxiety, West of Scotland repression and unhappiness isn’t bound to get very far in a fast-moving dating culture.

Many homosexual men have long since embraced what I call ‘aberrant sexual proclivities’ actualised themselves and profligately embraced the new culture of commodification that seems to accompany University campuses and sexual liaisons these days. Well-funded, globe-trotting and global in outlook as well as personages worked through. For someone who has craved affirmation on monogamous terms and unable for social and personal reasons so to claim, in an age of laissez faire promiscuity, there are bound to be some difficulties. Reticent, lacking self-confidence, pale, and self-hating- one-night stands, Grindr Hook-ups and sexual profligacy repel my soul.

The damage, both self-inflicted, and institutional is great. But I’m still here. Powering on and addressing it on my own terms. For me, it is still immensely cathartic to dress as I do now- away from my southside home- in my frilly shirt, zebra print brogues and Queen Anne pendant on full display. With Divine’s You Think You’re a Man constantly blaring in the recesses of my mind and every term for derogatory term for homosexual since the tenth century bombinating in my head. Nevertheless, despite tapping into some form of Queerness, I am not always the most natural ally of the Queer community or, indeed, of LGBT societies.

I have been taken to task before by them, hauled over the coals. Accused of homophobia, accused of being offensive or crass towards other members of the community. How dare they or anyone for that matter attempt to minimise my experience. Something as engrained and as personal to me such as this is not a political matter in the slightest. It is one that should be understood rather than censured. I will not be hectored to by some middle class twit who hasn’t had to face any of the institutional, familial or general societal objection all their lives and borne it out like the sensitive soul they are.

For societies seemingly dedicated to understanding queerness, its permutations and how being LGBT can affect mental health, they are often a trifle lacking in empathy or toleration. Internalising self-hatred for so many years has a profound effect on someone’s psychology. The language I use to describe myself- and strictly myself- need not diminish the experience of others who may have had it easier in this department. For me the use of the terms ‘gay’, ‘poofter’, ‘wully-woofter’, is cathartic and freeing- and, respectfully, through trying lived experience I fully believe I’ve earned the right. I won’t kowtow to some monochromatic culture of drag-race-yass-queen-make-up pish. For some people, such as me, it isn’t and cannot ever be normal. I’ve often felt a greater sense of identification with Catholic Society than them.

It’s been tough for me. I will not have my entire personal story denigrated and undermined by those more concerned to generate social kudos by lynching the surface level- what they imagine is homophobia in the highest- rather than asking why this is? Why don’t you buy a social conscience whilst you’re browsing a list of your sex toys? For some, sex is disorienting, abnormal and distressing.

What is truly a more complex expression and stilted first expression of self and chapter of personal healing- one man that is coming to terms with itself its own way- is flagrantly smacked down as it was in the schools which raised it here.

This is performativity that I have been denied for many years finally surfacing and all part of actualisation many of them will have achieved years prior. If I want to address my homophobia in this way, given my unique formative experiences, this is matter for me. I mean no genuine harm- anyone with a slither of sense surely grasps this. I get on with it now after all these years. Hypersensitivity to terms that are ‘problematic’ contradictorily leads to a prosecution of members of the community, further estranging them. I can chant on about ‘poofs’ ad infinitum- I’ve bloody earnt that right.

To be unequivocal, I am not agitating for the legitimation of such terms or co-optation by members outwith the community. This is not to grant a pass to anyone who wishes to perpetuate casual homophobia. I condemn such abuse outright. However, seizing on someone like me, heading on warpath and denying the weight of my experiences by telling me to ‘shut up’ and ‘how daring me’ out of the discourse is unhelpful and intolerant. If the sheer richness of the irony of a Cherub faced man, with a pearl-dropped earring, gaudy necklaces, an effete disposition, and a leopard print coat declaiming how ‘he hates the gays’, every manner of stereotype sublimated into one queer little man is something folks are unwilling to appreciate, they ought to pull up their breeches and get a grip. It would be a betrayal of my ‘lived’ experience to see it otherwise.