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00:00I'm Andrew, I'm 28, I'm cisgender and bisexual.
00:08My name's Ro, I'm 18, my pronouns are they, them, and I'm queer and non-binary.
00:17I'm Gavin, my pronouns are he, him, I'm 30, and I'm a cisgendered gay man.
00:27My name's Julia, I'm 79, and I don't use pronouns.
00:35I'm Simon, I'm 50, I'm a cisgendered gay man, and I use pronouns he, him.
00:42So the first thing that I was going to throw out to everybody, and I don't know if this
00:45is going to be a surprise or not, how was your coming out?
00:49I know it's a pretty big topic for LGBTQ plus people, so I feel like that's an important
00:54place for us to start.
00:57Does anybody want to kick us off with that?
01:00Very much just throwing it out there.
01:02Go Julia?
01:04Because the word that comes to mind, coming out, is very gradual.
01:08It's very gradual because transitioning from being a piano teacher wearing trousers to
01:18being a volunteer with the sexual health charity Reach Out Highland meant a very confusing
01:26day.
01:29It was gradual, it was challenging.
01:31So I came out, but I came out at university, which felt like a relatively safe amount of
01:39distance between home life and where I was, and a reflection very much on the fact that
01:46university felt like an environment where all this was possible.
01:50But it was actually forced because somebody in my student halls had started to victimise
01:57me, and another friend had quite manfully stepped in to defend my honour, not quite
02:03realising that he was sort of defending the wrong bit.
02:07It would have been better perhaps if he'd known in advance, and then he could just have
02:11been my mate.
02:12Anyway, so that came out quite quickly because it sort of had to.
02:21But I came out to my family as bisexual because I thought it would be better.
02:26I thought somehow if I liked both then there was still skin in the game in terms of normal
02:33relationships and that would be fine.
02:35Very strange logic now I reflect on that, and certainly not the way I live my life anymore.
02:42You asked the question, what was it like coming out?
02:47And the answer is, at that time, very uncertain.
02:51Of course, I actually come out all the time now, and that's something that I don't think
02:57many people realise, is that you come out every time you meet somebody new, potentially,
03:02and certainly in the work context that can be quite a do or die moment, you know.
03:09But it's never really crossed my mind to keep myself to myself.
03:12I just might not lead with it, or sometimes for fun I will, but coming out is actually
03:18with you every day, I think.
03:20And that's something that I don't think many people realise, is that you come out every
03:25time you meet somebody new, potentially, and certainly in the work context that can be
03:29quite a do or die moment, you know.
03:34But it's never really crossed my mind to keep myself to myself.
03:37I just might not lead with it, or sometimes for fun I will, but coming out is actually
03:43with you every day, I think.
03:45There is a big difference between, say, a gay man coming out and somebody who identifies
03:56as transgender.
03:57It's kind of like the worst time in my life was the six months before I first came out,
04:06and then suddenly everything got better.
04:08And it might have been to do with other things that happened in my life, but yeah, it was
04:14even though there's other things that have happened since then, like pandemics and stuff
04:17like that, I still think of that hiding part of yourself as being quite a bad experience.
04:24I often sometimes feel that I will try and do everything in my power to make it visible
04:28to people, so that I don't have to explicitly say, I am non-binary or I am this, because
04:34not that I don't want to say those things, I'm very proud of my identity, but I just
04:38feel like in a world where straight cis people don't have to say that outright because it
04:44is the automatically assumed thing.
04:47When I was coming out, I think times were very different.
04:55The consequences of coming out were much more serious.
05:01You could lose your job, instant divorce, and it was okay for people to physically and
05:10verbally abuse you in the street.
05:14That's what it was like.
05:16So coming out was, yes, it was gradual as the years went by, but it was also very secretive
05:28in many ways, that you really only came out to people you felt safe with, because everything
05:39else had an element of risk and danger to it.
05:43I met someone new at a new job, and it was the first time that someone asked about my
05:47partner and said, is it he, she, what do they do?
05:53And they just led with that question and gave me all the options to answer with.
05:57So that's a really nice experience, that the other person, who isn't even a part of
06:03the LGBT community, they had that foresight to think, you know, maybe this person, they
06:12could be anything.
06:13So they gave me all the options.
06:15My school particularly did have a lot of things in place to recognise LGBT history and recognise
06:22Section 28 and sort of looking at how we can prevent that from happening again and
06:27what was happening, because people my generation didn't have to live through that.
06:32About five years after I'd left school, I remember walking past and I could see the
06:37senior common room window, and there was a pride flag hanging in it, which when I was
06:42at school, I would never have imagined there being a pride flag in our common room without
06:47it being torn down or whoever put it up there being ridiculed for it, you know.
06:52I remember always being aware that I was different, but when I was at school, I didn't know what
07:02different was.
07:03Yeah, that was, that's how much it's changed.
07:16So I was at school when Section 28 was introduced, and in fact school wasn't terribly supportive
07:23before it was introduced.
07:25There was very definitely an atmosphere.
07:28I think I actually got a random Facebook message the other month, about a month ago.
07:35It was someone from my school who apologised for the insults and the jokes, the gay jokes
07:41when we were at school, because he didn't know I was gay then, and he does now, and
07:46he hasn't seen me since, so he apologised.
07:49I wasn't expecting an apology, because I think a lot of the people who are using those insults
07:55and jokes are not really thinking about what they're saying, and they're just not educated
08:03enough on how it comes across.
08:06Nowadays, perhaps, if people are saying those words like, oh, that's so gay, blah, blah,
08:16it may be with more malice, because they should know better.
08:19They really should, unless they're very, very young, or they're stupid.
08:23They should know better, and I don't think there's an excuse now for that, and sometimes
08:30when I was in school and I was a bit younger, I would educate someone, even if it's not
08:35another sort of slur against neurodiverse people or other people, and I would say, you
08:41can't say that, what are you saying, and they would go, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't
08:45know that, that's just what my friends have been saying, and in that case it's like, well,
08:50they've apologised now and they'll hopefully not say that again, but you can't always go
08:56around educating people, they have to educate themselves to better themselves.
09:02To me, it's clear that what matters is the intention behind the words, it's not the word
09:08themselves, it's just the word, it's the intention behind it.
09:12I'm all for an easy life, and if I give myself a hard time every time somebody sees me as
09:22a man, why would I want that?
09:28So it's a tricky path to walk, because words can hurt, but we can educate ourselves to
09:40understand what's actually going on here, and instead of reacting, we can choose a response.
09:51Somebody gets overly defensive and then someone else, and then that's how, sort of, this hate
09:57festers, and it's really negative, and I think it doesn't need to be like that at all.
10:02I think we are facing the same challenge as before, and that is the granulisation or the
10:13division of the community into smaller groups, so that those smaller groups can be held in
10:21place or even diminished in some way.
10:24The only thing that's changed is the language, really, and that's not even changed that much,
10:27it's more so the group of who they're attacking.
10:32We've seen it back in the 80s, it was with the AIDS crisis and with gay as being the
10:37big bad, and now it's trans being the big bad, and it's so crazy how people are not
10:47recognising, well, some people aren't recognising these patterns and seeing that it's just the
10:52exact same thing that's happening.
10:54So when you can't change how somebody relates to you, all that's left to you is to change
11:07how you perceive yourself in the world, and that's where you find your power.
11:16I've recently spoken to a young gay man who has experienced physical attacks on the bus
11:22because everyone in their community recognises them as an openly gay person, and in those
11:30small communities you can't just sort of blend in, because everyone knows everything again.
11:37This might sound really cheesy and really corny, but it genuinely has made me who I
11:41am, both personally and professionally, and I would not have it any other way.
11:46I always find it sort of strange when some people would say, like, oh, I wish I wasn't
11:52trans or I wish I wasn't gay.
11:54Why would you wish that?
11:55It's a wonderful thing to be who you are, and although we have that sort of extra struggle
12:00in the world, I also think that it's a really amazing thing to have, to already be perceived
12:07as different allows for doors to open where you can express yourself fully, because for
12:14me at least, I know that if I'm going to be perceived as different, why not just embrace
12:19that fully and do what I want, because I have no fear in that anymore.
12:25I can't say that I've always not wished that I wasn't gay, but now I definitely do not.
12:32There was a lot of double negatives there, does that make sense?
12:36So I think being a part of the community and engaging with other people in the community
12:44is something that maybe I probably didn't have when I was younger, I didn't really have
12:50so much of an option for.
12:53But it's just nice to be able to have people to chat to about shared experiences, and it
12:58doesn't always have to be about these heavy topics we've touched on today, you know, sometimes
13:02it is just having a bit of banter with another gay man.
13:07You mentioned the word connection, and I think that's such an important part of the human
13:14spirit, that sense of connection, and I think possibly the LGBTQ plus community appreciate
13:23that feeling of connection more because so often it's been denied to us.
13:31I have never seen being a gay man as permission to accept my difference or my place in the
13:37world, but I'm going to borrow a little bit of what you've said and try it on and see
13:43if I can do a bit of healing of a younger self, because I just think that's a lovely,
13:47beautiful way to look at where we find ourselves as individuals.