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Stickers on Your Helmet? It Means I Matter

Craig Hanlon-Smith on the sports superstars stepping up for LGBTQ+ rights

I’ve often felt that progress for LGBTQ+ communities does rely upon the behaviours of our allies from the heteronormative tradition. As irritating as this may be to our emotional selves, minorities only progress when parts of the majority begin to listen and speak on our behalf. What is most surprising and perhaps unfairly so, is where the support has come from in 2021.

Most recently Euro 2020, delayed and played in 2021, is remembered for the violence which marred the pre-final festivities across London and most notably Wembley Stadium. But I will remember last summer’s football tournament for the pro-LGBTQ+ stance taken by heterosexual male football players from across the continent.

Some of the most vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ governments are geographically centred in and around the continent of Europe. Sporting teams and sporting presence is featured in international events from these countries run by authoritarian regimes who take great pride in introducing archaic legislation that the 1950s would be ashamed of.

Imprisoning those perceived to be gays and lesbians, refusing to acknowledge the existence of trans people, and ensuring the disappearance of those who have dared to be different. Hungary is one of these countries led by the aggressively backward Viktor Orbán, and the national football team of said country was beset with a range of positive statements from male heterosexual players and European teams that challenged anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

German captain Manuel Neuer, vocal throughout with his pro LGBTQ+ stance, our own captain Harry Kane wore a rainbow flag on his arm as he ran onto the field, and although UEFA (boo hiss) refused to allow a Munich Stadium to be illuminated in rainbow colours, while Hungary played inside it, the whole of Germany responded by illuminating every sizeable building it could find, including telecommunication masts, railway stations as well as alternative sporting buildings, in rainbow flags as the game in question played out. Boris? Now that’s what you call a libertarian democracy.

Harry Kane

Internationally renowned motorsports superstar and repeated world champion Lewis Hamilton delivered a damning indictment on anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the Middle East during the Formula One championship in the United Arab Emirates. He even wore a helmet adorned with rainbow colours, and if that subtle messaging wasn’t enough he was openly critical of middle eastern regimes which oppress LGBTQ+ communities.

Living in Brighton or swanning around London with our pink wine in a plastic glass, it may not feel as such, but we are minorities, there are parts of the United Kingdom where I dare not go for fear of standing out a little too much.

Lewis Hamilton

This sporting magnificence, at the height of their career, had nothing to gain from supporting us in this way. We are no longer trendy, I certainly feel that we are not the current box to tick, I see no reason why these individuals are supporting us for any other explanation other than they know that it is right. Our humanity equals their humanity. We know it, they know it and they have taken a decision to shine a light upon the plight of others who do not necessarily have the platform they do. We thank them.

As a gay man of an age, I am not ashamed to say there is something emotionally satisfying by the support of the LGBTQ+ cause by straight men. You could possibly write a thesis linked to the above sentence and the patriarchy, but I don’t care. I found the gestures, no they were not gestures they were statements of support, to be overwhelmingly supportive and culturally significant.

When Harry Kane ran onto that football pitch with a rainbow around his bicep, and Lewis Hamilton stuck a rainbow sticker on his helmet, I mattered.

Munich Stadium

I was also consumed with pride. Pride in belonging to a movement, pride in belonging to a journey of progression that has led to this. I am one of thousands who has helped develop a cultural shift that results in a heterosexual male sporting superstar promote equality and fairness for LGBTQ+ communities across the world.

The action of these sports people tells us that our work is working. The decades of writing, shouting, marching, posting, sitting, is changing how the next generations think and now speak. If you are reading this, and you are an 80-year-old former activist, you stuck that sticker on Lewis Hamilton’s helmet. If you’re a 50/60-something who kept faith in the 1980s and attended vigil after vigil amidst the smell and pain of death, you have wrapped the arm band around Harry Kane’s bicep. You know who you are. We know who we are. I know who I am.

There will have been years when progress felt slow, non-existent and our actions exhausting. There have been days in recent times when in this country it has felt as though developments were beginning to roll backwards. It is vital for our hope and sanity to survive to take these moments of pride and progress, and to thank ourselves and those around us or in far-off lands who have contributed to today.

And lest we forget while essential, it is not all about the straight support. You, me, we are the reason Tom Daley has the strength to compete in international competition as an out and proud gay man. Do not underestimate the power of his words at the post competition press conference at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. He knew exactly what he was doing when sat in between the bronze and silver competitors from China and Russia, he spoke of his sexuality and how proud he was to be a gay gold medallist. He is to be congratulated for that moment. We all are.

Keep the heat on. It’s working.

Born this binary, or am I an act of violence too?

“We’re all non-binary and pansexual beings at our core, identifying as ‘straight’ is an act of violence in itself.” I read and re-read the social media post several times, trying as best as I know how to understand it from a host of different psychological perspectives. Having walked a mile in an array of second-hand footwear I remained troubled. The full quotation began: “Being a ‘queer person’ is just being an honest person and acknowledging the spectrum of gender and sexuality without defining ourselves by a binary with a history of violence against open-minded beings on this planet.”

“My truth is to be a gay man. These are binary statements of my gender and sexual identity, and they are true”

The auteur of this social and sexual enlightenment is NEO 10Y, a self-defined spiritual revolutionary, artist and musician. Having perused the respective social media accounts and Youtube videos I really like what I see and will absolutely seek this artist out for the full live experience. NEO 10Y’s performance work looks genuinely exciting. These references above were spoken a year ago but have come to light today through the recent re-reposting across a range of accounts, many of which have thousands of followers and claim to be representative groups and organisations of all LGBTQ+ people. Reposts along with statements such as “AMEN to every word of this”.

First, to say, I respectfully acknowledge and support the right of all humans to self-identify and express themselves as they see fit. This, of course, extends to NEO 10Y and people of all gender and binary or not definitions… I also acknowledge there are parts of the world where we are not free to speak with such openness. Whichever way it is, we are all born like it and have should have the right to say so. The thing is that includes ‘straight’ people. I was struck here by the idea that only a ‘queer person’ is honest. The origins of the adjective ‘straight’ from the 1500s is one who is true, direct and honest. To ‘play it straight’ in a vaudeville sense was to avoid the immediate comedy and ‘be the straight (man)’ to the comedic fool of a theatrical pairing. To ‘straighten up’ or ‘go straight’ is reference from the criminal underworld, first used post-World War I, to leave a life of crime and become honest. ‘Straight’ as we now know it first emerged in the 1950s as the opposite of a person who is bent in the sexual sense.

“Self-definition is not the preserve of a small minority of queer people, it is either the right for all or the right for none”

Agreed, it is a blunt adjective and, like many queer, gay, LGBTQ+ people, I have been subject to violence at the hands of a small number of ‘straight’ people emboldened by a cultural norm. I have also been subjected to some pretty unpleasant verbal assaults from people who claim to live under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. There are individuals living in same-sex pairings who are subjected to domestic violence. Aggression and violence are not the preserve of straight people in the same way that sexual promiscuity does not belong to gay men.

On that note, I am a gay man and proud to be so. Proud of the journey that has brought me to this point of pride and truth. My truth is to be a gay man. These are binary statements of my gender and sexual identity, and they are true.

I appreciate we live in changing times and, according to a recent survey published in Gay Times, 25% of young LGBTQ+ people identify as non-binary. I celebrate that we live in this open and developing climate and respect the individuals who self-define as they see fit. Self-definition is not the preserve of a small minority of queer people, it is either the right for all or the right for none. Of course, we can have our cake and eat it, otherwise what is the point of the cake? There is also enough cake to share.

Human rights activist Peter Tatchell campaigned hard for Civil Partnerships to be made available to ‘straight’ people as well as same-sex couples. He argued, rightly, that if same-sex pairings could have either a civil- partnership or get married, yet our heterosexual equivalents could only do the latter, this was discrimination. We cannot justify discriminating laws or comments aimed at the majority because we were oppressed by them for centuries. We move forward together or we don’t move at all.

I cannot speak for straight people, nor can I speak for the non-binary population as I am neither, and yet I do believe sexuality to be on a spectrum or matrix and most individuals floating around it somewhere. I appreciate for some this is the same with gender. For diversity to exist in a community there are also starting points and polar opposites. To float around the middle claiming righteousness and point at another describing their identity as an act of violence is not only inflammatory it is the beginning of the end. If to be straight is violent, what is gay? What is lesbian? I fundamentally challenge the idea that we are all non-binary pansexual beings at our core and can think of many lesbians who would not want to get all pansexual with me on account of our respectful identities. Some people are gay, some people are lesbian, get over it.

I embrace, respect and celebrate change, I know what it takes to find and then to live a truth at one time thought impossible. I fought to speak my truth and have been wounded along the way. I will also fight to keep it. If the LGBTQ+ community starts to eat itself, no one will come to our aid. Never forget, progress is fragile.

COMMENT: Do not dismiss or explain away the rise in recorded homophobia

Please do not dismiss or explain away the rise in recorded homophobia as “more people are now reporting these crimes”. I experienced three serious incidents within the space of just over a year in 2017-2018 and following the public service and legal response to the first, I did not report the other two.

In 2019 there were almost three dozen serious physical assaults on people in Brighton’s gay village late at night within the space of two months. Only one in three of these was reported to the police.

These official statistics are a fraction of the reality for LGBTQ+ people living in the UK post the EU membership referendum.

We have to do more and we have to do it better and it starts in places of education and in the workplace. We need more LGBTQ+ networks in our places of employment and study, and networks that embrace all other diversities within the LGBTQ+ broad community.

There can not be a space for suppressed or explicit racism or misogyny within any aspect of the the LGBTQ+ communities, and we cannot allow space for homophobia within other marginalised groups. It is decisive and ultimately destructive. Call it out.

We are better together, and it starts with me.

Our silence murders them twice

Craig Hanlon-Smith rages against the response to the Reading murders

On Sunday three members of the LGBTQ communities were murdered in a park in Reading.

What are their names?  Why don’t you know?

We know them to be members of our communities because Reading Pride has reached out in their memory, and an LGBTQ venue in Reading they frequented has done the same.

In Old Money this observation would have started as follows:

On Sunday three gay men were murdered in a park in Reading. We cannot be sure they identified as gay men and I cannot ask them because they have been murdered, but we do know they had same sex relationships and were active in the LGBTQ communities in Reading. Other people in their company were stabbed and injured.

What are their names? Why don’t you know?

In 2016 when 49 people were murdered in an Orlando nightclub we couldn’t vigil quick enough. Within 24 hours there were 10,000 of us packed into SOHO alongside gay choirs, drag queens and national television crews to stand firm in the face of this atrocity for our LGBTQ community brothers and sisters thousands of miles away.

So what happened? Gay boys from Reading not cute enough? Not gym-ripped enough? Too geeky and dull looking? WTAF gays? Where are you? And don’t give me any “we can’t there’s a pandemic” nonsense. We’ve been gathering in thousands for the Black Lives Matter protests and have you seen the beach? Risking your health for an evening getting trashed on Aperol straight from the bottle in the THOUSANDS. Classy Brighton classy.

We are not the only ones ignoring them. There has been no mention of their community base by the politicians. No acknowledgement of the LGBTQ community’s grief and concerns.  In fact, the Home Secretary’s focus was entirely on the police who risked their lives to apprehend the perpetrator armed with a deadly weapon. Not a word  about the gay men who risked their lives sitting in a park on a summer’s evening minding their own business. Watch her deliver that statement here.

We are told the alleged murderer is being held on terrorism charges, which means one of two things. It’s not true but the police are using that as they can question him for longer, or it is true and he is a ‘lone-wolf’ extremist driven by a manipulative and misguided ideology. We are also reliably informed by a lazy media that the murderer may have had mental health problems. Not good enough. How many people are living with complex mental health problems in this country who do not murder gay people? Hundreds of thousands.

It is true to say that as yet we do not know that these men were singled out because they were gay. We do not know if they were wearing or doing something that signalled to the world they were part of our community. It could be that this murderer just wanted to kill people and he got gay lucky. But they were gay and we as a community have ignored it. The absence of our rage is in itself an outrage and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

The lone-wolf will be an extremist for one of two reasons. He is either a right-wing extremist driven by a will to destroy difference, or his purpose has its base in a religion. If his extremism is religious then it is natural to be concerned for the safety of LGBTQ people as all major religions promote violence towards gay men within their doctrine. The Old Testament, which is the foundation of both Judaism and Christianity, and The Quran, the holy book of Islam, both state that if a man lies with a man as a woman (he’s gay) he must be put to death. They also share the same idea that in place of a man, the marauding homo should be offered a 12-year-old virgin daughter for sexual gratification. Gay murder and the rape of a child to boot. What could possibly go wrong?

Well three gay men in Reading were murdered on Sunday and probably in the name of a literal interpretation of a religious doctrine and NO ONE IS SAYING IT. Our politicians are not saying it, our religious leaders are not saying it and the LGBTQ community is not saying it. Our apologetic silence murders these men all over again and it is shameful, we are an embarrassment. Where is our challenge? Where is our rage? Where is our voice?

We are cowering in the name of over-sensitivity and those who mean to do us harm will see our fear and do it again. We will only have ourselves to blame.

David Wails, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and James Furlong were murdered in a park on Sunday evening while they relaxed with friends. And you don’t care.

 

Remember the victims of Forbury Gardens, Donate here to raise  funds to help support the families for funeral costs

 

 

 

Craig updates us on his 2020 THT Challenge run.

Gscene writer Craig is running the  144.4 miles of his ‘old commute’ from Brighton to London as part of the THT 2020 Challenge. Here’s his update and remember you can donate to Craig here: 

And so at the beginning of the final week we’re 110.4 miles in which is as the crow flies more than to London and back, but as my poor mathematical and technical skills led me to promise 144.4 I have 30 miles to run before the weekend to meet the 2020 Terrence Higgins Trust challenge.

I’ve largely been pounding the seafront between the hours of 04:30 and 06:30 but as I returned to work in London for the day last week, I stomped around Hyde Park for 10 miles and shall do the same this coming Wednesday.

A friend has promised to double her sponsorship commitment if I wear fishnets for one of my runs and so we’re calling Friday the fishnet challenge and aim to complete the 144.4 mile extravaganza in Preston Park on Friday evening.

Thoughts and prayers for my left knee and right hip please, 30 miles is still a long way!

If you would like donate you can learn more and donate here:

‘The Shrinking Bunch’ – Gscene speaks to local anti-stigma campaigner Alan Spink

Alan Spink works with a number of local HIV agencies across Brighton & Hove and further afield across the south east, supporting those living and often isolated with HIV. He trained as an HIV peer mentor with the Sussex Beacon and now works with it as an HIV caseworker funded by the Big Lottery Fund. He is 63 and has been living with HIV for 17 years. I asked him to map out what he considers to be the challenges facing those ageing with HIV, both in terms of those he works with and in his own circumstances. Alan is also the brains and creative behind the local anti-stigma campaign featuring Stigmasaur with the Martin Fisher Foundation.

Can you map out the challenges faced by those living and ageing with HIV?

‘In general terms there’s a marked different between what are known as ‘long-term survivors’ and those diagnosed after the advent of commonly used anti-retrovirals in 1996, so I would say for those diagnosed post 1998/99 their lives are, in most cases, likely to be more straightforward. For the longer-term survivors, their bodies are crumbling. They suffer with osteoporosis, some with crumbling spines, have hips replaced sometimes twice and many are in constant pain.

‘Then there are the mental health issues. Many have experienced rejection on multiple levels, often as a direct result of being HIV+, many rely on benefits and it’s an indescribable struggle to survive on the state. The boundaries for disability benefits shift every few years and our clients find that everything has to be reassessed again. It’s the simple things. An individual may qualify for a disability bus pass and then five years later have to re-prove they qualify again.

‘A lot of these people are surviving on charity. In Brighton & Hove we’re fortunate because of all the different charities involved that we have, the most in such a concentrated area in the country, and it’s still difficult here. It isn’t like this all across Sussex. For example, Hastings, the HIV clinic is great, very supportive, but that is all they have. You don’t imagine that poverty of resource in somewhere as wealthy as Sussex.

‘Many of those relying on such services live in poor quality social housing. HIV+ ageing people are low on the council’s priorities, access to GPs is difficult and with appointment ‘rules’ such as you can only talk about one thing at an appointment – these patients have multiple health complaints. In some parts of the country there isn’t a local HIV clinic in the way that we have them, all of their services are through the GP and GPs are stretched.

‘The Lawson Unit [local HIV clinic as part of the Royal Sussex Country Hospital] is quite remarkable. If it’s concerned about a patient it will work with charities and other agencies to support the individual. It’s incredible.’

And your own challenges in ageing with HIV?

‘I’m fortunate in that I was diagnosed in 2003. My viral load rocketed immediately and therefore I was on a drug trial within months and this has probably saved me from physical issues as I grow older.

In 2017 THT reported that 60% of those ageing with HIV were either at or below the poverty line – why would that be?

‘In London and Brighton it’s expensive to live anyway. If you’re accessing the benefits I’ve described then it’s next to impossible. Many long-term survivors have poor financial management skills – unpaid bills and the debts mount up. This comes from being diagnosed at a time when they didn’t expect to live. HIV was a death sentence.’

And of course in those days the stigma of that diagnosis was even greater than today.

‘Yes and stigmatised people shy away, they don’t make demands or ask for help. They’re also very grateful for anything that people do for them, the slightest thing. There isn’t at all a culture of expectation.’

Can we turn this poverty trap around?

‘Probably not. Ageing people living with HIV rely on charities but we’re also a shrinking bunch. These people are dying. The percentage of older people living with HIV is expanding but the actual number is smaller. As the cohort shrinks the services will disappear and no one will pump money into disappearing services, certainly not the government.

‘Charities need better funding. The Brighton Rainbow Fund is a fabulous umbrella organisation and we’re very fortunate that it’s there, but look at what’s happening now. There is barely any fundraising during lockdown and the state does sweet f*** all.’

Days before Alan and I speak, Public Health England (PHE) was accused of sending out alarming text messages to thousands of healthy HIV+ people, incorrectly telling them they were on the most vulnerable list and to stay indoors for 12 weeks. I ask Alan what the consequences of such an error are for those he works with. He doesn’t hold back.

‘Well first to say is that it hasn’t admitted the error. It’s possible IT have texted thousands using the NHS Flu-Jab list but not everyone on that list has had a message and not everyone living with HIV has a suppressed immune system, so we don’t know exactly who it has contacted and it’s a mess. All the way through the HIV chain, PHE and the government before it have been f***ing stupid. Idiots with a terrible record on HIV. It was very good with its doomsday advertisement in 1987/88 but very little after that. It gave some money to the Martin Fisher Foundation for the anti-stigma campaign, 70k through which we developed anti-stigma films, but it wouldn’t then take action to share the message.

‘We see its failings now with Covid-19. It’s ineffective, weak. These social distancing rules are completely wrong. Is it really okay for us to go on our one daily walk past runners and cyclists spluttering out their breath on us?

‘The damage from this text message to our HIV+ clients is huge. Some got letters, some got texts, some got both and the challenge we have is to say ‘no you’re fine, ignore the letter from PHE’. Why would they believe us? In Brighton there are 2,500 people living with HIV, many of whom who are now unnecessarily scared thanks to the incompetence of PHE, their anxiety is off the scale.’

Pop Star Heroes by Craig Hanlon-Smith

Craig Hanlon-Smith in praise of the gay music artists who broke the stereotypes and the rules to help forge a new path.

Much is said about the portrayal of gay characters on TV in the 1970s and ’80s being tokenistic, patronising or downright offensive, with John Inman’s Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served? oft cited as an example of the worst of it. Such an assessment, though, undermines the infiltrating power of these characters. Right under our repressive, mundane noses, gay people peppered our most relaxing moments and were our living room companions for years.

They presented our chat shows and prime-time Saturday night family entertainment. They were light, silly and apparently superficial, but they were mistakenly not recognised as part of the social change which was still, at that time, some years away. But for some a quiet waiting game was simply not good enough.

In a parallel 1970s London, emerging punk musician Tom Robinson became involved in the developing gay scene and soon embraced the politics of gay liberation which linked gay rights to wider concerns of social justice. Inspired by the Sex Pistols, who Robinson had recently seen live, he formed The Tom Robinson Band and within a year the group released the single 2-4-6-8 Motorway and scored a top five hit. The song somewhat cryptically tells the tale of a gay lorry driver on his daily travels, although Robinson’s subsequent efforts would be much less oblique. Glad To Be Gay was the lead track from the EP Rising Free and scored Robinson a top 20 chart position, despite the track being banned by the BBC. Glad To Be Gay takes a cynical swipe across the double standards of British life in the 1970s from the perspective of the gay community: “Pictures of naked young women are fun in Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun. There’s no nudes in Gay News, our one magazine, but they still find excuses to call it obscene”.

Robinson realised he was gay at the age of 13, when he fell in love with another boy at school. By the time he was 16 he had had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. His head teacher had him transferred to a therapeutic community for teens with emotional difficulties in Kent, where he spent six years. It was these early experiences which shaped his lyrical activism: “Lie to your workmates, lie to your folks, put down the queens and tell anti-queer jokes…. Don’t try to kid us that if you’re discreet you’re perfectly safe as you walk down the street”.

Five years later, three gay flatmates in Brixton who were unhappy with the polite, inoffensive nature of gay performers set about taking a more open and outspoken approach. Steve Bronski and Jimmy Somerville, both from Glasgow, along with Larry Steinbachek from Essex, formed Bronski Beat in 1983 and released their seminal album, Age of Consent, in the autumn of 1984. The album cover emblazoned with the provocative title and the politically charged pink triangle set out the band’s stall without a hint of ambiguity.

The lead single, Smalltown Boy, tells the tale of a young man who leaves his hostile hometown for the friendlier city. This was direct reportage of Somerville’s own experience moving to London in 1980, and his portrayal of the ‘lonely boy’ in the accompanying video depicted a clear narrative of life in 1980s Britain for gay men similar to that Robinson had shared in Glad To Be Gay. Smalltown Boy was a top three smash hit and Bronski Beat, Jimmy Somerville and their gay message was now out in the mainstream.

The album also made the top five of the UK charts and was successful across Europe. The first track on the collection, Why?, was released as the second single and was another top ten hit: “Contempt in your eyes as I turn to kiss his lips, broken I lie all my feelings denied, blood on your fist. Can you tell me why?”.

We’re now used to ‘out’ LGBTQ+ actors and pop musicians, but this was 1984. Stories were emerging from the US about a newly discovered ‘gay cancer’, soon renamed Gay Related Immune Deficiency, or GRID. These were not easy times for the gay community and here we had Bronski Beat in the spirit of Tom Robinson before them not only saying “we are gay and we are here”, but look at the damage and unfairness you are inflicting upon us. The final single released from Age of Consent was a cover of the Gershwin standard Ain’t Necessarily So“The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so”.

There was no let up from their message and delivered with Somerville’s unmistakable machismo shattering falsetto, their protest was clear.

Within another year Somerville would leave Bronski Beat and, along with Richard Coles, form The Communards. Somerville continued to celebrate and live his sexuality openly through his music. Some of The Communards’ biggest hits were cover versions of disco classics and Somerville would openly sing of his love for ‘him’ and the man of the moment. Their second album, released in 1987 at the height of the government’s national HIV/Aids awareness campaign, was titled Red and included the songs Victims and For A Friend, both of which addressed the human impact and gay experience of the plague directly:“He knows he’s not alone, he knows he’s not to blame… indignant words from hypocrites to them it’s God’s revenge” and “Another man has lost a  friend, I bet he feels the way I do.”

Twenty years before legislation was introduced to protect LGBTQ+ people at work, and 30 years before same-sex marriage became legal, these artists were heroes on the front-line, using the creative platform they had to press ahead with these open and visible messages, and for that we thank them.

From For A Friend: “As I watch the sun go down watching the world fade away, all the memories of you come rushing back to me.”

No Gays Allowed. Still. Or: The Beautiful Game (for some)

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 the former Norwich and Nottingham Forest striker Justin Fashanu was inducted into the National Football Museum‘s Hall of Fame. As part of the LGBT+ History Month celebrations, the event also coincided with what would have been his 59th birthday. Justin Fashanu was Britain’s first £1m black footballer and won the BBC’s Goal Of The Season award for a memorable game against Liverpool in 1980. He was also the first male English professional footballer to come out as gay while still playing high level competitive football in 1990. No top-level player has come out during their career since. 1990. Thirty years ago. So why didn’t Fashanu’s landmark decision pave the way for others to follow suit?

Fashanu’s niece, Amal, has been instrumental in campaigning against LGBTQ+ discrimination in football. She helped set up the Justin Fashanu Foundation and both produced and presented the BBC Three documentary Britain’s Gay Footballers in 2012. Of her uncle’s legacy, she said in February: “I don’t understand, even today, how Justin did it – he’s one of the bravest men I’ve ever come across.”

She accepted the Hall of Fame Award on his behalf at the National Football Museum in Manchester and said of the landmark moment: “He’s here now [in the Hall of Fame], you guys have acknowledged him, we all respect him, he’s been given the position he deserves, and for me, that’s all I’ve ever wanted for Justin.” In his day, however, Fashanu had no such advocate. As recently as 2012, his brother, legendary player John Fashanu, father of Amal, said: “My brother wasn’t gay he was just an attention seeker.”

In 1990 the media was firmly gripped in its Aids hysteria and Justin Fashanu told his coming out story to The Sun. They in turn typically sensationalised the narrative citing scandalous gay affairs with sitting MPs, stories Fashanu stated two years later to have been untrue or at least exaggerated. And although he didn’t come out publicly until 1990, it was known throughout the 1980s by professional football clubs that Fashanu was gay. He had little success as a player after 1981 and his transfer fee of £1m from Norwich City to Nottingham Forest was often described by pundits as a waste of money and poor investment.

One week after The Sun broke his exclusive, brother John gave an interview in The Voice criticising his brother’s move and describing Justin as “an outcast”.

Justin was also the subject of an early internet campaign in 1996 when the BBC opened its poll for the Sports Personality of the Year award to email votes for the first time. The online campaign was organised among supporters in an attempt to enable him to win the title but citing the campaign as unfair and ‘against the rules’ the BBC production team excluded votes for Fashanu from the process. He didn’t win.

In 1998 Fashanu was questioned by police in Maryland, USA when a 17-year-old boy accused him of a sexual assault. Although Fashanu stated that the sex had been consensual, he was 20 years older than his accuser and at that time in Maryland, homosexual acts were illegal whether consensual or not. Fashanu had returned to the UK when an arrest warrant was issued in Howard County and although no extradition proceedings were sought, in May of that year Fashanu was found hanged in a garage.

Fashanu left a suicide note that stated although the sex had been consensual, he didn’t believe he would receive a fair trial on account of his homosexuality: “I realised that I had already been presumed guilty. I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family.”

An inquest held in London on September 9 heard evidence from a Scotland Yard detective that the US made no request for Fashanu to be found or arrested, and the Coroner stated as a matter of court record that he was not a wanted man at the time he hanged himself. The inquest recorded a verdict of suicide.

In 2020 there are still no openly gay male footballers in England’s top four divisions. Speaking to The Independent in 2006, Peter Clayton, then chief executive of the Middlesex FA and a long-serving FA councillor, said on the issue: “The main difficulty at the moment is that players are assets. They have a market value, which clubs might feel could be affected [by coming out]. I think there’s a concern too about the wider price, in terms of negative effects on business. This is my personal view, but there are clubs who think it’s in their interests to counsel players not to come out.”

Despite progressive social change for gay people over the past 20 years this is an industry where challenges clearly remain. For the March issue of Gscene, two straight football players were photographed for the LGBTQ+ Allies cover. When one of the players informed his agent that he’d be on the cover, his agent pulled the images citing “breach of contract”. Is this coincidence or is it reasonable to suggest that an association with the LGBTQ+ community as an ally is too commercially toxic for the player’s future? If this is homophobia, how desperately sad and impossible it is to see a clear path out of such a mire. However much positive and engaging community work a local club instigates, whether non-league or Premier, the industry itself has never embraced the issue as a whole and it seems as though it never will.

I have no doubt that Brighton & Hove Albion will one day appear in the Stonewall Top 100 employers index, a process that requires any organisation to pay Stonewall thousands of pounds to fill in the form. Evidence of LGBTQ+ diversity and awareness will be collated, presented and assessed by Stonewall box-tickers. But what real change has that made for gay people in the sport itself? The evidence speaks for itself.

After coming out, Justin Fashanu was vilified by the press and football going public alike. He was taunted in the tabloids and on the terraces for years. He admitted that he hadn’t been fully prepared for the backlash from both his cultural community and of football, not to mention his family. He said his career has suffered “heavy damage” and although fully fit, no club offered him a full-time contract after the story broke.

Football is homophobic. It was then and is now. Fashanu still remains our only hero from this multi billion pound industry. The one the only.

Don’t Drop Bombs – The quirks and weirdnesses of Harry Clayton-Wright by Craig Hanlon-Smith

Our big long meaty Saturday read is a thrilling face to face interview with our delightful Cover Boy for this months Gscene – Harry Clayton-Wright

Harry is an entertainer, performance artist, international mischief maker, internet provocateur and some time exhibitionist from Blackpool. Hailing from a town synonymous with traditional end of the pier showbusiness, trashy gay bars and drag shows, has clearly left its mark and it is then of no surprise that when not touring the world Harry often makes Brighton his home. Many first became acquainted with Harry performing in Briefs: Close Encounters, which had two sold-out runs in London and has toured all over the world.Sex Education, Harry’s first solo theatre and multi-media piece, debuted at Brighton Fringe, winning the LGBTQ Award, and it’s this show he has already this year taken to Sydney Mardi Gras and is now touring the UK following its successful Edinburgh Fringe premiere in August 2019. At the Brighton Fringe last year he premiered his series of 14 individual eight-hour performances, The Fortnight – a veritable sequined toolkit of drag, dance, lip sync, live tattooing and a Liza Minelli homage. Of course.

How does it feel to be Harry Clayton-Wright at the moment?
I’m not going to lie, it feels incredibly awesome. I’m so thrilled that there’s been such love, support and interest in my work and the projects I’ve been part of. I put a lot of time, energy and dedication into my craft, but I love what I’m doing so it doesn’t feel like work. I can only hope that the opportunities keeping coming and I can continue to work with people I respect and admire.

How does it feel to be thought of as an LGBTQ+ icon?
I’m beyond thrilled to be thought of that way. I mean, I try to be as iconic as possible with my work so I’m glad it’s translating. But I’m definitely a baby icon, because the trail has been blazed by some incredible people who’ve gone before me and are truly Icons with a capital I.

Who are your queer/LGBTQ+ heroes?
Artistically, John Waters and Divine are huge inspirations. Marsha P Johnson, Liza Minnelli, Freddie Mercury, Sylvester, kd lang, Janelle Monáe, Keith Haring, Elizabeth Taylor… You may have to stop me as the list goes on.

I’m here on the shoulders of those who have gone before and will continue to push forwards and be the shoulders for those after. I’d say there’s been a boom [in queer performance], especially the increased visibility of trans and non-binary performers, which is so necessary. Social media has widened access to independent queer performers, which isn’t controlled by mainstream media and gatekeepers who decide what they think is or isn’t popular. This has allowed for way more voices to be heard. As an aside, certain major cultural institutions could do with programming queer work year- round and not just during Pride seasons.

Sex Education draws upon relationships with your family and past self. What would Harry 2020 say to Harry 2010 and 2000?
Your weirdnesses and quirks will be things that are celebrated when you truly own your power. You are not compatible with hardcore partying – sobriety will be the best thing that ever happens to you. As much as you love your work and career, make time for a personal life and meaningful relationships. Get rid of shame as soon as you can. Don’t wait for the permission to be an artist, take that control and run with your vision – people will catch on eventually. Be kind to yourself, you deserve it.

You’ve spoken openly about your own journey with alcohol use and you’ve now been sober for some years. Alcohol seems to be an ever-growing part of our LGBTQ+ scenes. What would you say to those LGBTQ+ Pride organisations who seek out and promote alcohol sponsorship?
I think it’s about Prides acknowledging their wider responsibility to the community, and being aware that if an event or organisation has alcohol sponsorship, do they provide sober spaces as well? Because that would be awesome and I’d love to see it happen. LGBTQ+ people need to be given those choices and that alcohol isn’t just the only way of having a good time. These spaces can be quite full on for people in recovery and who abstain from drinking but still want to protest and celebrate.

There has been a significant expansion in sponsorship for Pride events with some criticism from LGBTQ+ groups? What say you?
Rainbow capitalism is dangerous when brands or sponsors are riding on the coattails of the LGBTQ+ community but not backing up their words with actions. It’s important for Pride events to be making sure that sponsors are doing the work and avoiding ones that actively harm some of the most marginalised members of our community.

In Sex Education, you speak both movingly and almost practically about a range of experiences from an upsetting and traumatic sexual encounter to a self- directed approach to sex education. How have these experiences shaped you?
Sex positivity is incredibly liberating and it’s been such a massive part of my work. The show features an interview with my mum where we finally have the chat about sex, which has unquestionably brought us closer together. I’m so grateful for that. Posting my nudes online has relinquished a lot of the shame I had in relation to my body. Talking about my trauma has been cathartic and important and allowed me to really connect with others. Making sex positive and explicit performance work has provided incredible opportunities, meaningful conversations and empowered and inspired such freedom. Throw sobriety into the mix and I’d say I’m a much better lover too.

MORE INFO

Keep an eye on Harry’s social media for news of when the Sex Education tour resumes.

Web: http://hcw.horse; Facebook: harry.claytonwright; Twitter @HClaytonWright; Instagram: hclaytonwright.

Who’d Be A Woman? Misogyny; Our Ugly Shame.

Who’d Be A Woman. Misogyny; Our Ugly Shame.

 

It is of little surprise that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have decided to depart these shores and set up camp on Vancouver Island. A quick flick through Meghan related tabloid headlines throws up an immediate dislike of the woman from the moment we discovered she was shacking up with our beloved rebel Prince Harry. Our unpleasant distrust for her, however, should not have been the surprise some commentators are exclaiming it to be in over exaggerated exasperation. We did the same to Fergie in 1986 ahead of her marriage to Prince Andrew. A prince who some thirty years later we have forgiven for his paedo rapist past within what feels like a fortnight because, well, Meghan is apparently much worse. Diana we loved. In 1981, shy, demure, delightful Diana who would be fortunate enough to marry our future King. Loved her until of course we discovered she had escaped her horrendous marriage to the philandering Prince by shagging men she actually fancied, how dare she. We forgave and loved her again once she was all but decapitated in a car accident and killed. What a journey to redemption. And so with future Queen Kate. Shy, demure, delightful Catherine who wins the prize of our future King and we still love her because she behaves as we expect. Keeps quiet, hides her cleavage and bakes cakes with Mary Berry.

 

Fergie was marrying the spare and from the off was nothing but trouble. Meghan the same. Not in line for the top job so what’s the point of them. Both women causing mischief and embarrassment for our Royal Family from the off whether it be toe-sucking the accountant or inviting non-white people into family photographs. Both seemingly distasteful. Just who do they think they are? And let us not forget the Duchess of Windsor who stole our rightful King in 1936 and without whom none of the above would ever have been. And what do they all have in common? Why their gender of course. And our open loathing? A good old-fashioned dollop of misogyny.

 

Our collective inability to identify, challenge and tackle misogyny is possibly our greatest social ill and one we all, across whatever gender we wish to align ourselves with fail to address. The majority of our contemporary social phobias can be linked directly to misogyny and our continued enthusiastic tendencies to revel in it.

 

Verbal and physical violence towards gay men is misogynistic. The referral to batty men, benders, faggots whatever derogatory slur that is hurled our way comes from the belly of not a real man, practically a woman. The tragedy is that some gay men have even adopted this rerouted self-loathing internalised misogynistic homophobia with which to decorate our own communities. In response to flamboyant out gay celebrities we see an influx of social media commentaries of how these types of gays bring shame upon our community. Shame heaped upon gay men who are real men, not faggoty female types. So what if a gay man presents as an effeminate creation of camp? Furthermore the bottom shaming language that has permeated our banter, there are even categories of bottom that separate the men from the girls. The power bottom is considered fierce and aside from acting like a duracel bunny penis receptacle, much more of man than the limp lady boy who just lays back and takes it like a girl. Misogynistic language concealing our own inability to address our father’s disappointment that his son is a Mary-Ann.

Transphobia is inherently misogynistic. More than 330 trans women were murdered worldwide in 2019, over 130 of these in South America, 63 in Mexico, 30 in the US and 10 across the EU including the United Kingdom. These figures only account for the violence that resulted in the death of the murdered victim and in November 2019 CNN reported that the figures in the US could be much higher. Many families, law enforcement authorities and local government departments in the US record the death of the individual using the gender defined on their birth certificate, irrespective of the gender they were living by.

 

Misogyny is of course not limited to the role that men play. Many women fall in line with the long since defined patriarchal structures, and alongside their male counterparts take an active role in taking down other women on account of their beliefs, politics, social behaviours and dress codes.

Examine the recent BBC Dramatisation The Trial of Christine Keeler. In the early 1960s, Ms Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies aged 18 and 16 respectively were befriended by society Osteopath Stephen Ward who at age 50 introduced them to several high-profile male politicians, most notably Jack Profumo. The sex scandals that ensued almost brought down the government and certainly was seen as a contributing factor in the election defeat of 1964. For decades it is the teenage girls in this story who have been vilified and cheapened by the official patriarchal narratives. Previous tellings of this story have focused upon the fall of man, whether Profumo or Ward. This new BBC adaptation on the young women. These were two teenage girls, groomed and manipulated by men both close to and in government and yet they were painted at the time as prostitutes and society sluts. The inability of Prince Andrew to engage with the FBI investigation into the alleged procurement of a young woman for his physical pleasure tells us that almost 60 years on from the Profumo affair, we have learned and changed nothing.

 

As gay men we have a responsibility towards women. Throughout our own personal and collective community history women have been our allies. Yes, the obvious high-profile famous ones but moreover the unsung heroes. The girls who befriended us at school when we could neither relate to nor be welcomed into the boys’ club. The nurses who cared for us during the AIDS epidemic, the receptionists at the clinics today who greet us like sons of their own. The lesbians who stepped up at the height of it all and ran support groups and community information services when we were too sick or stricken to care for ourselves. The radicals who ran the GLF and paved the way for the freedoms we have today. In the light this it is misogyny itself which is the source of our true shame and it is time, for payback.

 

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