Category: LGBT

Off With Their Heads!

Off With Their Heads!
Circa 1640

Our loft aspirations turned to dust. Someone else reached the finishing line before us and we were back to square one. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. This is what happens when dreamy loft lodgings are offered to several letting agents simultaneously: chaos and disappointment run amok. Still, at least our reservation fee was promptly refunded. Decent billets were flying off the shelves at a rate of knots so we rose early to catch the elusive worm, zipping back up the A11 in our borrowed Renault Megane at the crack of dawn. It was a fruitful tour. On our first viewing we bagged ourselves a genuine 17th Century weaver’s cottage at the edge of Norwich’s medieval quarter just a short sashay from the action. So, instead of a writer’s garret, I shall be weaving my words in a converted artisan’s flint and brick dwelling dating from the 1640s. Just think, the original weaver first moved into his brand new designer hovel (no mod-cons at the time) when the humourless Protestant Taliban chopped off Charlie Stuart’s head, established the English republic, banned music, closed down the play houses and outlawed Christmas (and let’s not even talk of the unspeakable things they did to the Irish). It’s no wonder the Commonwealth didn’t last; it was so boring. I wonder what Killjoy Cromwell would have made of us? Off with their heads?

Lofty Pretentions

After viewings that ranged from the dreary to the dreadful, we found our Norwich city centre loft in appropriately named Queen’s Street. It’s a newly converted top-floor, top drawer flat with skylights, down lights and grey appliances with real feel-appeal. Yes, we are that shallow. The apartment is above a trendy bar with a student clientele. We’d rather hoped it would be a seedy clip joint to cement the sanitised neo-Bohemian garret theme we were looking for. Back at the letting agents, we paid our fee for our credit assessment. Without being prompted, the nice young man processed our application as a married couple which gave us a bit of a discount.

On the last evening of our exploratory week, we celebrated our continued good fortune at the Premier Inn restaurant where the fare was surprisingly good and wine surprisingly fine. As we raised our glasses, we watched the smart suits with smart phones file in two by two. It sent a visible shudder down Liam’s spine as he was rudely reminded of his old laboured life. “Never again,” he muttered. Our young waiter was a busy walker who darted about dispensing friendly but unobtrusive service to his charges. Now we’ve left Turkish airspace, my gaydar is fully-functional and we exchanged sly we-both-know-what-we-are glances. At the end of his shift, he joined us for a large glass of red and a little casual conversation. He’d recently moved from Devon to Norwich to be with his new partner and gave us the low down on the low life of the Norwich gay scene. Apparently, times were tough when he first got off the bus. It took him three months to find a job. He said:

“I was the assistant manager of a motorway service station. It had a Burger King and a Costa Coffee. I was trained in both. They said I was over-qualified.”

Letter of Hope to LGBT Teens

Letter of Hope

This is my letter of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens.

Dear 15 Year Old Me,

That was Then…

Jack, what the hell are you doing? She’s a nice girl and all that but, really, you know you’ll never get beyond heavy petting. Come on, be true to yourself. You’re leading her down the garden path to frustration and disappointment; she deserves better. Just admit that you don’t like ‘it’. Her pretty bits are all in the wrong places, aren’t they? Okay, it’s 1975, it’s the decade that fashion forgot and you’re only fifteen, but you know you know. It’s not just a phase.

London may well have swung through the Sixties when androgynous men wore makeup and liberated ladies burnt their bras, but it’s not stopped you thinking you’re the only one. Yes, trendy Chelsea is just across the river but it might as well be on a different planet. Pick up a newspaper, any paper, and it’ll scream ‘pervert’ at you. ‘Paedophile’ even. The thing is, you don’t feel like a pervert and you’re certainly not interested in pre-pubescent boys. You’re just different from your brothers and the other boys in your class. Stop beating yourself up and get a grip. It’s okay to be different. Your parents will love you regardless, though I admit the conversation might be awkward, perhaps painful. They won’t like it. There may be tears and recriminations. No parent wants their child to stand out from the crowd for all the wrong reasons. It might be dangerous taking centre stage in a hostile world but you’re strong enough to take the flak. Come on, Jack. You learned real pride and you learned it at your father’s knee.

This is Now…

Jack, what the hell are you doing? Turkey’s a nice place and all that but, really, it’s a Muslim country and you and your partner are living openly as a gay couple. You are 51 and resolutely ‘out’ to everyone, take it or leave it. I hear you got ‘married’ back in 2008, a splendid fanfare of friends and family. So, they came round then? You’ve had a life full of peaks and troughs, good times and bad. This is life as it should be. So, your sexuality is only one of the things that define you but it is one of the important things. You’re a happy, rounded individual. You don’t compromise. You change attitudes just by being you. You see? You did it.

Jack Scott

As it turned out, I wasn’t so different from quite a few of the boys from the class of 75 after all. Do you have a letter of hope?

Check out the Facebook page.

Amadeus

We were listening to Classic FM. Up popped Mozart’s Symphony No 41 in C Major (the ‘Jupiter’). Magic memories came flooding back of Liam’s long past days when he played oboe in minor league orchestras. He gushed about how he was plucked from obscurity to fly solo oboe for the Amadeus masterpiece at Chelsea Town Hall in 1997.  While he was practising his art in the grand Victorian hall on the ground floor, I was practising my trade in the Social Services Department in the basement. We never passed on the stairs and I didn’t get the chance to finger his instrument until 2006.

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Second Time Around

Quentin Crisp

Mentioning Quentin Crisp in a recent post compelled me to re-watch the Naked Civil Servant, Crisp’s TV biopic first broadcast in 1975. The incomparable John Hurt played the equally incomparable Crisp (or Dennis Pratt, to give him his real name). The film made stars of them both. It was an overnight sensation and catapulted Crisp to centre stage and a new career at 67. I watched the original broadcast as a spell-bound 15 year old. The Edwardian dandy’s resolute insistence that he would be what he wanted to be, despite the considerable odds stacked against him, was an inspiration to this post-pubescent boy coming to terms with his sexuality. Looking back, it was a major miracle that he survived the ordeal to tell the tale.

The film had a profound effect on me. I wanted to be him. Not the makeup and mince but the mettle and pluck. It’s no exaggeration to say that the film gave me the courage to leap out of the closet a year later. I did so without fear or regret. Just like Quentin, I was uncompromisingly out to everyone. Take it or leave it. Just like Quentin, I was offered money but, unlike Quentin, I never took it. I had choices that he didn’t. I always worked and the coppers in my pocket were legally earned. I’d learned self-reliance, I’d learned real pride, and I’d learned both at my father’s knee. Like Quentin, I was a civil servant. Unlike Quentin, I kept my clothes on at work (except for one drunken Christmas party, but that’s another story).

I didn’t always agree with Quentin’s more outrageous pronouncements. His public faux pas that AIDS was ‘a fad’ was completely stupid and something he never fully recovered from. But, in the final analysis, he was a pansy pioneer who burst through the barriers and made the world a little safer for the rest of us. For that I honour him.

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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Eurovision 2012

The campest cabaret has come to town. This year, the good burghers of Baku are proud hosts to the financially crippling annual Eurovision Song-fest. At least the well-oiled Azeris can afford to stage the ritzy affair without going cap in hand to the IMF. Various tone-deaf bottle blond painted divas with floaty hair, mincing pretty-boys in tight white lycra and hairy ruritanians in ethnic pantomime drag have parachuted into town to compete for the most infamous music prize on the planet. The Azeri autocrats are rubbing their hands in glee. As usual, votes will be cast along political and ethnic fault lines regardless of the quality (or otherwise) of the compositions, most of which will be badly sung in banal single-syllable pop English. It’s music, Jim, but not as we know it. Expect plenty of back slapping Balkan bonhomie between recently befriended old foes, top marks from the Turkish jury to their Azeri pals, the usual love-in between Athens and Nicosia and friendly hands across the Baltic. Pity poor Engelbert, he hasn’t got a hope in Hell. To not come last will be a decent achievement. Regardless of the shameless predictability of it all, we’ll be popping our euro-corks courtesy of a lovely Bitez Babe. We’ve promised not to trash the joint as Engelbert’s nul points come rolling in.

The glitzy shindig has caused quite a ruckus in the Caucasus. A couple of Eurovision websites have been hacked by anti-gay cyber attacks, leaving the catchy slogan “here is no place to immoral gays in Azerbaijan. Leave our country, no place to stay in Azerbaijan for gays who look like animals.”  Now, who are they calling an old dog? The Iranians have thrown a hissy fit at the prospect of all that decadent fun and frolics from the sexually suspect just across the border. The Iranian ambassador has been withdrawn in protest, there’ve been riots by the great unwashed and a fatwa or two from the mad mullahs. Like the Puritans of old, it seems the Iranians have forgotten what is it is to have a little glittery fun. These days, what passes for Saturday night entertainment on state-controlled TV is ‘Lynch the Queers, Live”.  Now, where did I put my knitting needles?

While I’m looking for them, check out the Russian entry from the singing grannies.

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Singing For His Pension

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Donna Summer’s Last Dance

Donna Summer, the original disco diva, died yesterday from cancer. She was only 63. I bopped to her tunes during the decadent days of my misspent youth. For me, she was much cooler than the likes of Diana Ross. “Love to Love You Baby” launched Donna Summer’s international career. It was a track designed to court controversy with lots of orgasmic moans and groans to get the knickers of the moral minority in a collective twist. The BBC refused to play it, a sure fire way to empty the shelves. After a string of massive worldwide hits, Donna Summer committed career suicide by allegedly claiming that AIDS was divine retribution, a faux pas of epic proportions given that dancing queens represented the bedrock of her fan base. At the time, AIDS stalked the gay community like the grim reaper. I was one of the lucky ones. Many of my contemporaries were not. It was no surprise that Donna Summer’s career nosedived. Her belated denial of the allegation did nothing to stem the tide and she withdrew from the spotlight to lick her wounds. After a couple of years waiting in the wings, all was forgiven and Miss Summer stepped back in the light with a successful comeback and some classy jingles.

Rainbow Balls

The marching season will soon be upon us. I’m not referring to the archaic and socially corrosive pipe and drum marches in Northern Ireland. No, I mean the collective act of uninhibited worship by LGBT communities in towns and cities up and down the realm. He-men in heels, lads in lycra, dames in dungarees and enough gingham to supply every Doris Day film ever made will be parading through the streets chanting the pink anthem, “We’re here, we’re queer, we go shopping.” All are welcome. It’s a glorious celebration of diversity without the slightest risk of disturbance by fascist thugs. Blighty isn’t Russia. The only skinheads on view will be in frocks. It wasn’t always like this. The Sceptred Isle has come along way in a few short years. According to The European International Lesbian and Gay Association Europe, Blighty is the best place in Europe to be gay. From what I’ve read and experienced, I would agree. Who’d be openly gay in Moldova?

Sadly, the dancing days of mega-prides are almost behind us. Most of them operated on a wing and a prayer at the best of times: a single bad weather day would financial cripple the lavish parties in the park with their huge overheads, top billing acts and decadent consumption of alcohol and recreational drugs. The cost of the clean-up operation alone was enough to bail out the Greeks. Brighton Pride is the lone survivor. Last year, for the first time, it was pay-on-the-gate affair. I fear its days are numbered.

We’ve been following the preparations for Norwich Pride with keen interest. Money is tight but the dedicated volunteers are doing all they can to ensure the festival remains both fun for all the family and solvent. The fundraising efforts that have caught my eager eye include ‘Ping Pong for Pride,’ a table tennis knockabout at a local primary school (with rainbow balls) and a Eurovision Song Contest party at Cinema City (proceeds to be split between Norwich Pride and the BBC’s Children in Need). On the 28th July, the gayest day of the year, Norwich will be awash with an ocean of fluttering rainbow flags, including over Hellesdon Hospital, Aviva Insurance, the Norwich Puppet Theatre, City College, Norwich City Council, Norfolk County Council, the Castle Museum and the Fire Service Head Quarters. We’ll be there to cheer on the drag queens, soak up the gaiety and to dance to diversity at Norwich’s very own family-friendly rainbow ball.

Obama Endorses Gay Marriage

Whether we like it or not, what the President of the United States says matters and resonates across the globe. After sitting on the fence for years and dipping his toes in the water to test the electoral temperature, President Obama has finally come out in support of marriage equality. In an interview with ABC News, the President said:

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

It’s a simple but powerful statement. Despite self-righteous firebrands flooding the airwaves with their messages of hell and damnation, and battalions of bigots storm-trooping shopping malls, support for marriage equality across America has been steadily rising for years. According to some recent polls, it now exceeds 50%. The President will have followed the polls very carefully. It’s an election year after all. Did President Obama nail his colours to the mast at this delicate stage of the (very) long American election cycle in a cynical attempt to garner extra liberal votes? Perhaps, but what’s said cannot be unsaid.

In Blighty, expect the Government to back-paddle furiously on the proposal to legalise civil marriage for same sex couples in the ridiculous belief that it contributed to their disastrous showing in recent local elections. Sure, this will have lost them a few votes among the (electorally insignificant) religious right and blue-rinse brigade. Let’s get real. To quote Bill Clinton’s famous line, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

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A Brief Lesson in Sex, Sexuality and Gender

It seems that the man on the Clapham omnibus often gets his Calvins in a coil when trying to work out the difference between sex, sexuality and transexuality. Put simply (simplistically, even), sex is what you do, sexuality is who you fancy and transexuality is when you are born the wrong gender. A sex change does not alter an individual’s sexuality. Therefore, a woman born as a man who fancies men will still fancy men after the op. Likewise, a woman born as a man who fancies women will still fancy women. Got it?

The reason I’m labouring this point is because my good friend and new kid on the blogging block over at Back to Bodrum sent me an article about two gay men, Aras Güngör and Barış Sulu. They intend to marry in Turkey. Impossible, I hear you collectively cry. Under ordinary circumstances you would be correct but these are not ordinary circumstances. You see, Aras is a transexual born female and now living as a man. Therefore, he carries a ‘pink’ identity. Barış carries a ‘blue’ identity so, under Turkish law, they are permitted to marry with all the rights and duties that entails. They intend to use their matrimony to campaign for marriage equality. I wish them the best of luck and I hope they can stay safe from those who will seek to bring them down.

You can read their courageous story here.

Despite a long tradition of transexuality in Turkey, transexuals have a rough time. With the exception of a few at the top of the entertainment heap, most are marginalised and reviled. Some end up leading brutal lives and resort to prostitution to bring home the daily bread. I saw this first hand during my inaugural trip to Istanbul in 2003 when street ladies in Laura Ashley frocks would leap out from behind parked cars in the dingy side roads along Tarlabaşi Bulvari. It scared the life out of me.

Just for the record, transvestites are people who cross dress, often, but not always, for sexual gratification. Most transvestites, like most people, are straight. Drag queens are not transvestites. They are female impersonators and entertainers (though not always convincing or entertaining). It’s all part of the rich tapestry of humanity, I’m pleased to say.

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