am for most of my life I would never
dreamed that I could stand up in public
can make a statement like that i was
born in 1955 into a briton that was
hostile and oppressive for gay men I was
conceived about the same time as the
suicide of Alan Turing the war hero and
his story is very well known you’re
probably aware of it he was convicted of
a sexual offense with another man he was
often the option of prison or chemical
castration who chose the latter and
through depression he killed himself
like cheering and many other gay men of
my generation and older I’ve committed a
sexual offense I have experienced
homophobic bullying what we now call
reparative therapy and struggles with
anxiety depression and alcohol which led
me to hit rock bottom when I was 45 I
hope that sharing my journey might help
heterosexual people to understand
there’s a little better and also help
gay men maybe a younger gay men to have
happier more fulfilling lives I remember
1967 very well I just joined senior
school and made friends with another boy
but at some point for reasons I really
couldn’t understand he started calling
me names queer mummys boy didn’t really
understand this at all and then one day
I spotted a sick former in the shower
and suddenly understood word queer
seemed fit me wasn’t good feeling very
shortly afterwards I saw a television
documentary with my parents old man
alive broadcasters you see in june
nineteen sixty seven this was a bleak
and desolate piece of documentary
writing the people interviewed were a
lady whose husband had committed suicide
just before appearing in court for a
sexual offense with another man in a
laboratory a promiscuous hairdresser
whose frequent forays into various
for furtive sex he said were a really
hope in search for love he was beaten up
in a public toilet a gay GP whose
professional life he said was unaffected
but who effectively lived in isolation
without contact with others simply by
virtue of the fact that people said so
many horrible things his words about
homos the only example of a couple
movies gentlemen at the top here had
been living together for 26 years
happily well there’s no mention of love
they said that neither of them really
have felt porn name to love that they
never fall in love with each other they
were simply living together and doing
the best they could and in common with
many other people in the documentary
they said that they would have liked to
have been normal and that they then they
tried to disassociate themselves with
other homosexuals who were shallow
finally this most enigmatic interviewee
who never faced the camera was a
gentleman from a market town somewhere
outside of London who used to come into
London frequently in the hope of meeting
gay people he used to go to the debtor
hope that if he bought a spare ticket
somebody might be available to take it
up never work for him he spent a fortune
one day in real desperation in wishing
to meet somebody in a real sense of
loneliness he went into the public
lavatory he was arrested and as a
consequence of his arrest he was put on
probation he said in his defense in
court well I was just trying to deal
with my loneliness and when he was 15
his mother told him that she really
better pack his things and leave four
years later I furtively bought this book
homosexuality from the school bookshop I
say furtively I spent weeks trying to
build up enough money to buy half a
dozen copies of different books I didn’t
want in order to put this month stone
and I still remember the moment of fear
and the English teacher who ran the
bookshop turned the book over and just
do it haha
this is written by psychiatrist and
criminologists Dom Donald West and I
really bought the book because even at
the age of 16 I thought I might find a
solution to my problem I might found
find out how I could get fixed what sort
of treatment was available for me but
all Wes told me was that being gay was a
mental condition without an effective
cure and on that basis or he could argue
for was tolerance I learned a lot more
from the book until 1835 buggery which
is anal sex or sex with animals if you
needed to know that incurred the death
sentence we put hang for it in 1885
legislation was passed to add a new
offense to the law to the statute books
gross indecency which was just described
as sexual activity between men short of
anal penetration in other words anything
else that gay men might want to do it
legislation in 1956 classified such acts
as an unnatural offences and they it
also made it a crime for men I have to
quote this persistently to solicit or
impa tune in a public place for immoral
purposes thus giving the police can’t
launch to arrest people just for
chatting each other up or having a
conversation and arrest like that
continuing until the 1990s Alan Turing
and Oscar Wilde from both victims of the
gross indecency caused by the way okay
in 1967 same year we had the sexual
offences act led to a television
documentary was rendered on as a public
service facility by the BBC to help
people to think about what needed to be
done and this was eventually pass
through Parliament so decriminalization
not really because these are the
restrictions of the app it didn’t apply
to Northern Ireland or to Scotland it
was just England and Wales he had to be
over the age of 21 you had to commit the
act I think it’s the expression in
private which in practice didn’t just
mean behind closed doors it meant you
couldn’t use a hotel you couldn’t use a
student will of resin
it couldn’t happen in somebody’s home if
somebody was in another one of the rooms
at the time and finally the armed forces
and merchant navy were excluded from the
decriminalization and there were far
more arrests after the 1967 act than
there were before it 1971 saw the
publication of the Gay Liberation Front
manifesto which examined the oppression
of gay people families in schools have
considered responsible refreshing like
young people into gender conformist
behavior and in doctrine doctrine a team
into a patriarchal set of values the
media the church and the employees were
also accused of reinforcing lead than
using and supporting both public bigotry
gay people experience shame with their
fat within their families many of them
weren’t out to their parents soon as
we’ve heard already some of them were
actually thrown out for being gay gays
user absent from the school curriculum
including sex education and sources of
oppression also identified as homophobic
language and homophobic violence which
in those days were referred to as queer
bashing the manifesto envisioned a world
where sex same sex attraction is
considered normal and valid and not as a
sexual deviation or a perversion the
authors argued for a broadening of sex
education and an equal age of consent
and the society free of police
harassment so that people will be able
to kiss or hold hands with the same-sex
partner as recently the seventies
publications were prosecuted for
carrying gay personal ads and simply on
the basis they conspired to corrupt
public morals and the manifesto demanded
an end to this when I was 19 I had a
relationship with a boy my own age in
heterosexual terms and sexual activities
were limited to heavy petting but
because we were men they constituted
gross indecency the acts took place in a
student hall of residence and in a
shared flat not in private we were both
below the age of consent of course and
when I subsequently sought medical help
for depression or is advised that I
committed a crime a psychiatrist and
then a hypnotherapist tried
unsuccessfully to
me of my homosexuality I got off lightly
because other people who saw the same
psychiatrists were referred for aversion
therapy I’m this hour from that all I
gained from therapy was a reinforced
believe that I was a pervert and
incurable the World Health Organization
only Declassified homosexuality of
mental illness in 1992 by the way I
began teaching in 1977 in a boys school
where all the teachers were men many of
them gay there was a feeling of safety
in numbers so I became cautiously more
open about my sexuality to a small
number of colleagues and occasionally
where appropriate to pupil to have their
own questions about their sexual
orientation I was very careful never to
proselytize about that but one of the
peoples who’s recently celebrated its
50th 30 has written to me especially say
how much this has helped in but
attitudes deteriorated towards gay
people in the 1980s with the Asteria
around aids not helped by the
government’s scaremongering
controversial public service
advertisements which appeared on
television and in the papers there’s a
massive storm about the same time about
the use in one state school of a book
telling story of a little girl who had
two fathers there’s a picture in there
which showed the three of them in bed
the two father sitting either side in
the little girl reading a story book of
them highly offensive stuff so in 1988
margaret thatcher’s took the government
succeeded in passing section 28 of the
local government act forbidding the
promotion of homosexuality I was like
that idea of promoting homosexuality buy
one get one free and also going on to
make other clients prescriptive
statements such as not promoting the
acceptability of homosexuality as a
pretended family relationship but just
in case you thought aids wouldn’t get a
mention nothing in that section above
should be taken to prohibit wasn’t doing
anything from the purpose of treating or
preventing the spread of disease so it
seemed to me the message was pretty
clear being gabes a lifestyle choice
could lead to AIDS and gay relationships
were a sham I change schools the
following year although I took part in a
public demonstration against section 28
I confess that i re-entered the closet
until section 28 was repealed in 2003
game people had no employment protection
that time and as a teacher in a boys
school a male teacher in a boys school I
felt too vulnerable to be out so just
going back about bit this is me as a
happy four year old I know cute in 1959
not a care in the world but how did
things change by the mid-1970s I learned
that I was incurable and immoral and
condemned to a life of loneliness and
despair I’d internalize the negativity
of anti-gay legislation and the
hostility of the government the media
and public this understandably cause
shame which led to anxiety depression
and severe abuse of alcohol and this
photograph was taken first january two
thousand which is my last binge and
pleased to tell you i just didn’t want
to live so moving on thanks to
campaigning by various groups such as
stone wall and individual activists
there were significant changes to
legislation from 2000 making a very
positive change to the lives of many gay
people and these are probably from an
issue gay people can marry get you can
adopt we could have pretty much
everything that everybody else can do so
love is illegal now but does that mean
that we created utopia that was helped
hoped for in the glf manifesto are we
actually yeah glad to be gay June saw
the publication of this book my Matthew
toward a brilliant book called
straitjacket Matthew was the editor
attitude magazine which is a gay glossy
magazine and very much knows the gay
scene younger than me in his early
forties and this was endorsed the other
day in article in The Guardian by Owen
Smith hi Joan sorry burne-jones and
Matthew Todd I’m afraid to say even as
much young young of me as a life story
which is very similar to my own there’s
nothing special about me
so what’s the problem so but both of
them argue that wildlife has improved
substantially for many gay people for
too many this is not so in a society
that remains deeply homophobic
homophobic bullying continues to be rife
in many schools and homophobic hate
crime is common young gay people
internalized this is shame coming out it
means a traumatic experience for many
many feel lonely and isolated many
self-harm many gay men who are HIV
positive or undiagnosed so having unsafe
sex presents a serious risk anxiety
depression suicide and addictive drug
and alcohol use as a farmer wide strip
of spread in the gay community than in
society at large drugs and alcohol are
off news none unpalatable feelings and
to make people feel more in disinhibited
the most visible option for meeting
others is the gay scene much of it
highly sexualized and the only way some
people can deal with that is to drink or
to use drugs a new extremely dangerous
phenomenon the gay scene is kem sex
which the use of recreational drugs to
have extended sex parties with numerous
partners and this can carry on for days
and of course it carries the risks of
risk of unsafe sex addiction dependency
or accidental death the mobile dating
apps and hook at a hookup apps such as
such as blinder provide anonymity for
people who prefer that but those who
have that intimacy needs met in that way
often expressed frustration because they
easily find sex while tenderness and
love remain elusive such encounters
could be even more dangerous than public
sex in cruising grounds because they
often take place in strangers homes and
can lead to murders as recent cases
confirm what about the world situation
not so good all the 10 countries labeled
in red still carry the death penalty for
same sex act those that are highlighted
in pink 72 of those carry heavy
sentences of course sex acts between
people and same sex so all of this
sounds really dismal but there is some
hope a 2015 yougov survey revealed a
shift in how young people aged 18 to 24
described the sexual orientation more
than half identified as other than
exclusively heterosexual this seems to
reflect a recognition that sexual
orientation is not a simple binary
choice of gay or straight or a sign a
book but indeed it’s design a better
acceptance of diversity when my life
fell apart one way I raised my
self-esteem was by campaign campaigning
for gay equality I became those involved
with Stonewall which had initially been
formed to campaign against section 28 I
worked in schools with quotes and
students to tackle bullying including
homophobic bullying and I’m pleased to
say that while I’m still on a journey I
now feel happier than ever before with
the love and support of wonderful
friends and amazing family when I some
of the confidence to come out to my
parents eventually they were entirely
supportive and I hope this might give
some supports or some help to poke to
others so finally what needs to be done
the NHS must improve support for lesbian
gay bisexual and trans people especially
young people all schools should have a
robust policy that tackles bullying
based on sexual orientation or gender
identity and they can get excellent
support from that pull that from
Stonewall a friend and I have just
finished running an eight-week secular
course for lesbian gay bisexual and
trans group this causes designed by the
charity action for happiness and it’s
called exploring what matters we found a
tremendously powerful and hope the
program can now be made more widely
available the gay community should
release reach out to the isolated or
lonely in Kingston we plan to implement
a buddy system to help lonely and
isolated people to become part of the
gay community there’s need for more
youth groups we must raise away in some
alternatives to the scene and make
people aware of various gays to up
12-step groups that can help you to
tackle addictions and we also need to be
proactively internet with the
international scene by supporting
organizations such as stone wall and
Amnesty International so finally what
would you do about this whether or not
you’re gay
just as you don’t have to be an animal
to support animal rights you don’t have
to be gay too small gay rights if your
head for a sexual don’t assume that your
colleagues friends and family including
children share your sexual orientation
be open to other possibilities and be
ready to accept and support people you
care about I also encourage everyone to
support charities such as stone wall
through donation or volunteering or both
gay liberation is about people feeling
free to be themselves the lead happy
lives it has broader implications for
our society in helping to create a
certain height in free of bigotry
prejudice and demand that discrimination
so be proactive in challenging injustice
discrimination and harassment don’t just
be a bystander thank you [Applause]