LGBT+ History Month: The Ian Effect and Body, Mind, Spirit
Gary Hearne | he/him
I originally wrote this blog post in February 2019. Then, I was viewing the ominous event of my 60th birthday (still 18 months away) with very mixed feelings. Partly, I was amazed I’d made it this far, but partly… “IT’S SIXTY! (Expletives deleted)”.
Well 60 came and went. And in the grand scheme of things, it was hardly the most traumatic event of the last year. The planned joint socially-distanced birthday picnic in the grounds of Kenwood House were abandoned in favour of a Zoom meeting (Lockdown 2.0 was due to start two days later). Still, I was in good company — Glastonbury’s 50th, the Olympics and Paralympics, Eurovision, the next James Bond film — twice!
I am a gay man “of a certain age” (that’s a euphemism for old) — without being too precise, I’m knocking sixty. And the knocks are getting louder!
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, realising I was gay around the age of 12, and this was not a good time to be gay. I knew from the things people said, from what I read and watched on TV, that this was not considered a good thing — coming out was not an option.
Probably the most formative experience of my teenage life was watching the film Victim. It was made in 1961, six years before male homosexuality was decriminalised, and when being caught having sex meant jail.
The subject matter — a closeted barrister being blackmailed over an affair with a young man who subsequently commits suicide — and the stark black and white photography highlighted a truly bleak and terrifying world.
At the age of 18 I found myself living in the vicarage of an evangelical Anglican church — an unusual situation for a Jewish boy. I needed to find somewhere to live at very short notice while I was still doing my A levels, and a school friend, Jonathan, invited me to live with him and his parents. His dad was a vicar.
Jonathan was pretty much the first person I came out to, aged 17, and always was (and still is) a wonderfully supportive friend, even back then, more than 30 years before a GBF was “a thing”. But despite this friendship, and a generally loving and supportive environment of the church, this was not an environment in which I felt I could be open about my sexuality.
Then the 80s brought its own fun little bundle. This was a time when the horror of AIDS was starting to emerge, and the age of consent for gay men was 21 (pretty much every man I had sex with before I was 21 could have gone to prison — surely a case of adding insult to injury). At this point, I had still told only a handful of people.
But in the mid-80s, three important things happened. First, I got my own flat. Second, I got a job working in a West End-based TV post-production company. And third, prime minister Margaret Thatcher tried to destroy any sense of gay community with what eventually became known as section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. Ultimately, it had the opposite effect.
In the late 80s, there was so much anger, it prompted gay people to make a stand — for the first time, I considered coming out to everyone, not just a few close friends. This was still a difficult decision. I had very little in the way of support, no close gay friends, and still had a strong attachment to the church I’d been attending for ten years. So who or what gave me that final push?
It was Ian McKellen (before he was a “Sir”). I went to the local newsagent to get my copy of Gay Times, and there, on the front cover was a picture of him, beaming and holding his fists in a pose that suggested triumph. The strapline said: “Making a stand — Ian McKellen — out of the closet and fighting.”
This was the first time I’d seen someone so well-known (and not for “playing gay” while still hiding their real life from the world) make such a bold public statement.
He was out, and was absolutely not going back in! Yes, he was known more for working in the theatre than films and television at that time, and this was widely considered to be a “gay environment” — but apparently not enough for it to bring out a lot of other famous people who remained firmly closeted for many years.
For me, that was it. If he could do it, then so could I. And I did.
And I’ve never regretted it.
Sir Ian has gone on to become one of the most outspoken and effective LGBTQ+ activists — and a major star — something that was by no means certain given the situation at that time. But I am personally grateful to him for the positive effect he had on my life.
And that’s why it’s so important to me to be out and open about who I am.
Body, Mind, Spirit
The category is… Body, Mind, Spirit (this only works if you say it dramatically, in the style of Billy Porter in POSE).
Body — I definitely started gaining that around December. Despite my best efforts to keep on top of my weight, the lack of gym and any other meaningful exercise, and the irresistible call of cheese and chocolate to combat the cold Winter months has led to a definite increased roundness in the belly area.
Mind — I think I started losing mine around mid-September. It’s difficult to be sure, but that was when the certainty of the first lockdown had given way to the relaxation that led to the second one. I like certainty.
Spirit — my mind instantly turns to the shelf of (largely unopened) bottles of booze over my right shoulder that elicited comments at every Zoom meeting. Until I bought an external camera that I can aim away from the offending space. At least it distracted from the peeling wallpaper behind it that was also visible.
(I wish to point out that while I like the occasional drink, it isn’t my go to source of solace — hence “largely unopened”. I am more likely to bury myself in work or food. This makes me a massive lightweight, but a very cheap date!)
So the last 12 months have been a combination of misery, mixed with awfulness, and topped off with a distressing garnish of loss. And I know that mine (a dear and elderly friend who died of Covid in the same week the government announced the approval of the first vaccine) is totally eclipsed by those who have lost multiple family members.
Finding the positives from the pandemic
But I don’t want to dwell on that. I want to look at some of the positive things that have happened over the last year.
One of the first things was that, for pretty much the first time ever, I was able to go to the LGBT+ Network coffee mornings. They have always clashed with my teaching schedule, or been on days that I don’t come onto campus. Of course, this all happened on Zoom. But remember when Zoom was a novelty? When it was an enabling technology, rather than the (hopefully temporary) replacement for real life, real meetings with real people, drinking real coffee, eating real biscuits…?
For me, the greatest joy was being with people I usually don’t get to meet or talk to. Even when I go out to more diverse places (Duckie, always Duckie!), I end up talking to the same sort of people — mostly gay, white, male, and usually past the first flush of youth. It’s not deliberate, and says something about my own lack of confidence in such situations — but I can see that that is the case. So to have conversations with people who are different — and identify as such — was a refreshing and very necessary change.
I got to talk to people with a quite different perspective on gender and identity, on terminology (and why I am still uncomfortable with the word “queer”) and the best places to go to for a good night out once lockdown is over. I can’t wait to spend a Saturday night at Duckie with some of them.
Showing solidarity with your pronouns in your email signature
One of the things that has come out of these has been noting a number of people include their pronouns on their Zoom names, and on their email signatures. And not just LGBTQ+ people.
This led me think about whether it’s something I should do — would it be a positive thing, is it necessary etc? What does it say about me if I do? What does it say about me if I don’t?
The end result, after several conversations, was I decided that I should include my pronouns I changed my signature on the day I started writing this post, so it’s too early to say what effect or reaction it will have — if any.
However, a lot of these conversations felt, in some way, academic. The issues didn’t always feel like they really affected me, except in the sense of being more aware of how to talk to and about people with more sensitivity and care.
That changed a couple of weeks ago when a dormant WhatsApp group chat to organise a Eurovision 2020 party suddenly sprang into unexpected life.
Such parties involve a group of friends based around Morden, most of whom I met around four years ago through the long-time friend who hosts them. For those who don’t know, Morden is at the butt end of the Northern line — it isn’t even London. But I consider it worth the hour-and-a-half tube journey to get there because they are lovely people, and the hostess is a truly fantastic cook whose Pavlova is legendary.
One of these friends, N, would usually be there with her two teenage children, L and his younger sister R. Now given that I am not a particularly child-friendly person, I have to say that they were great — proper personalities without being unbearably annoying. (Some context here. My views were largely informed and cemented by a year training to be a secondary maths teacher. I view the statement “always keep away from children” at the end of the Ariel ad as a life choice, rather than a child safety warning.)
R was like a whirlwind. The second time we met, she couldn’t wait to show me her “favourite thing ever”, a video clip from some American fantasy series in which a prince has his wedding interrupted by his boyfriend declaring his love, and persuading him to ditch the bride.
The last time we met before the world turned upside down, she declared that the end of the table where we and another guest were sitting was the LGBTQ+ corner. I took this at face value, smiled and said something inconsequential. I assumed she was coming out as gay, which wasn’t a total surprise, to be honest, but I really didn’t know how to start that conversation with a teenager. But I was happy for her, and her family and friends were delightfully supportive.
Then, a couple of weeks ago in a message that awoke memories of Eurovision, Pavlova and the sort of gathering that seems like I may have just made it up in my head, I received this post from N.
“Good morning. And happy LGBTQ+ month.
Me and the kids made this to celebrate from junk round the house.I say me and the kids. It was mostly me and J while L played Xbox. Some things never change. But some stuff has. For those that don’t know. I now have two sons. J and L.”
(Obviously I’ve edited it a bit, but this is the important stuff.)
And so, N told us about J in the most beautiful way I can imagine.
Suddenly it all made complete sense. Of course he is J. He had always been J. It just took a while to notice.
And J is very lucky. He has a fantastically caring and supportive family and group of friends, and I’m looking forward to the resumption of normal life so I can meet him properly. I know he has a long road ahead of him — four years’ wait to be seen at the gender clinic — really? — but then a lifetime to be who he really is.
But of course, I have questions, and now the answers matter to me in a way they didn’t before.
Questions like:
- is it okay to refer to him as he? It feels disrespectful to switch to they without having the conversation (so I’ll stick to male pronouns until I know otherwise). Maybe he hasn’t decided yet;
- was it okay to refer to him in the past when he was known as R? I can’t think of another way of explain the situation — this is my first personal experience of someone coming out as trans;
- is he still totally obsessed with dinosaurs? (That’s not an LGBTQ thing — at least, I don’t think it is).
Please don’t feel you have to answer any of these questions. And I know there are people involved with the Network who would be willing to answer them in a friendly and safe space. But J is my friend’s son, and I want to know how he feels. I know that J is more than capable of answering them for himself — and I’m pretty sure he will!
Gary Hearne is Senior Lecturer in Statistics & Operational Research at Middlesex University
- Our LGBT+ Network coffee mornings are usually scheduled for the last Wednesday of each month. Joining details can be found on the Middlesex staff intranet, and we also publicise them on our Facebook group and our Twitter.
- Co-chair of the Middlesex Gender Network, Bel Bale, whose pronouns are they and them, has written a brilliant blog post about how you can be an effective ally to trans and non-binary people
