On gays, community and family...

Growing up as a baby gay there was one thing drummed into me by my elder peers, 'They may never let you get married, they'll tell you you can never have kids, but you'll always have the gay community, we're your new family now'. In many ways back in 1990 this was true: The homo-hating Tories were in power (so full circle there then), the age of consent for gay men was 21 (16 for hetties), Section 28 banned the 'promotion' of homosexuality in schools forcing LGB (there was no T back then, in fact they were in the process of adding the B and it was causing much debate) support groups to disband for fear of prosecution and AIDS was still known as God's Gay Plague, 'advertised' with large forboding tombstones forewarning our impending doom. For many young gay men in the late eighties and early nineties, the gay scene really was our family. It was a community that supported, educated and looked after its own.

I remember being told which books and plays to read (Radclyffe Hall's the Well of loneliness, Plato's Symposium, Larry Kramer's Faggots amongst many others), which clubs to go to, which bars to avoid, how to say no to someone without causing offence, skills and knowledge that would ease my transition through gay adolescence and enrich my life. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have such generous 'gay parents' in Simon and Ashley... Back then, there was still a palpable sense of belonging that went with coming out onto 'the scene', that you'd finally come home, that there was a tradition and a culture that you now belonged to.

Recently I was talking with friends about their plans for Pride this year. Half way through the discussion a friend stopped and said "Isn't it funny that everyone around the world throws Pride festivals at the same time..?" I stopped in my tracks. "Err surely, you're joking right?" Except he wasn't. Gay Pride festivals are thrown as close to June 27th as possible to commemorate the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement. More specifically, this was the night of Judy Garland's funeral, the night when a group of drag queens, hippies and street kids, sick and tired of police raids on their bars, stood up and fought back after a raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York. I'd expected my friend to know this, after all he's only a year or two younger than me, it took place in his country not mine and surely his Gay Parents would have taught him... Except he hadn't had any. In fact, most gay people of my age I know, didn't. Most of them came out in their early twenties during the late nineties (I came out at 16) and by this time the Gay Train was no longer underground but about to go mainstream, as such the need for a young gay guy to be taken under the wing of an older queen and shown the ropes was well and truly a thing of the past. So what happenned to cause this shift?

It's obvious I guess. The Labour government in the UK has repealed Maggie's Hateful Acts and given almost complete equality to the LGBT community (let's not forget, while we have Civil Unions, they're not marriages - all people are equal but some are more equal than others), society at large has become more tolerant. It's no longer the norm for parents to disown their children upon learning of their sexuality (though sadly it still happens - google gay teen suicide UK for tragic results), gay couples adopt or have children of their own, are voted into positions of power - (my mate Johnnie is now Camden's mayor - OK it's not supreme power, but here's a shout out anyway! http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=3069 )  I'm fortunate in that I never suffered the rejection of my family upon coming out. In fact, my Mother, Father, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all have been incredibly supportive. Yet I would say that my family consists not just of these blood relatives, but of friends I have met around the world, from the early days in Nottingham, to Sydney, Chicago, New York and of course London and the UK. I have a feeling that this is the same for a lot of my peers, but I wonder whether this general acceptance by society, the acceptance of gay children and siblings by their families is eradicating the need for and the reinforcement of a gay 'community'? And sadly taking our sense of history with it? Can we as a community take our place in greater society and yet maintain our sense of self, like the black community in the US with Black History month, or do we even want/need to? My fear is that when you look at history we see tolerance and liberalism wax and wane: If we forget our history, our struggles and achievements as a community, we will be in danger of taking our current liberties for granted, and then of course we will be forever one step away from losing them.