MBH (my better half) and I were recently discussing our respective childhoods when Sally Field’s name came up in the conversation. Sally had just made a speech about her gay son while accepting the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality Award. Her words had stuck in my mind.
“Nature made Sam, it wasn’t a choice,” Field said. “Sam was different, and his journey to allow himself to be what nature intended him to be was not an easy one.”
Field’s statement reminded me of my own journey. At school, I was quite shy and not particularly good at team sports – ok, I was terrible and once even scored a goal for my opponents’ team.
Like many kids, I struggled with self-esteem issues. Being overweight, gay, dyslexic and saddled with a stutter didn’t help. You could say I was a hexagonal peg trying to fit into a square hole.
Hoping my confidence would grow, my parents enrolled me in the cub scouts. I took the pledge, learned new skills and fell in love with an older boy scout. When, as a seven-year-old, I announced to my mother that I was going to marry him, she sat me down and lovingly explained the boy-girl dynamics. But, never did she make me feel bad about myself. Nor did she play down my boy crush.
My parents were very accepting. They even indulged me one Christmas when I asked Santa for a doll that could pee when fed with a bottle. On receiving the toy, I was the happiest toddler on the block and made sure the doll never went thirsty. So much so that it was suddenly able to go potty through its head when held upside down
Back in the 1970s, we didn’t have gay support groups to turn to. Nowadays, there are places such as Twenty10 that offer same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people a safe environment to hang out and be themselves. Anyone under the age of 26 can benefit from free and confidential services including counselling, assistance with housing, conflict resolution and legal problems.
There are so many gay children who don’t get the opportunities I had to explore and understand their sexuality. Some face prejudice from parents fixated on the notion that being gay is a choice. Others get tossed to the street because their families abandon them. Whether society accepts it or not, there will always be little boys and girls who realise somewhere along the way they’re different from their other brothers and sisters. As Sally Field puts it so eloquently in her speech: “… and so the f**k what?!”
Follow Luke Brighty on Twitter via @brightlights_66
