Mick Hartley

"Professional Judy", writing in Lesbian and Gay News (via), describes the horrors of the homophobia he experienced at school in the late Eighties. The endless bullying from his classmates, though, was nothing compared to a taunt from his chemistry teacher: “Why are you wearing a boy’s uniform?” He was just 13 years old. The humiliation was devastating. As he grew older, though, he was inspired by Stonewall, and their message that there was nothing wrong with him and that he was just fine as he was – gay and proud.

How times change.

The way that gender ideology has metastasised into every area of public life means that things for children today struggling with sexuality has gotten worse in recent years. It’s Stonewall now asking: “Why are you wearing a boy’s uniform?” I wonder if Stonewall would congratulate my chemistry teacher for being progressive and inclusive? It is Stonewall after all who now seem to look down on homosexuality as something to be ashamed of, something to be belittled, to be redefined, to be brushed under the carpet as an inconvenience to their gender identity homophobic pseudoscience.  

So, what now for the 13-year-old boys who no longer seem to have a community of strong adult LGB people looking out for them? Adults who are there to reassure them that they may grow up to be straight, they may grow up to be gay men, or they may grow up to be bisexual; it doesn’t matter because whatever they discover is their sexual orientation they’re perfect just as they are.

No, now the message to the boys like I used to be is: “Why are you wearing a boys uniform?”

I can’t help but feel that just like we lost an entire generation to the horrors of HIV we are in danger of losing another to the horrors of gender identity and the institutionalised homophobia that’s grown up around it, while it’s been given a sprinkle of glitter and painted with our rainbow flag. All this happening while high profile gay men clap, cheer it on, and are sometimes even given awards, safe in the knowledge that they’ve pulled the ladder up behind them, leaving the boys like we used to be to fend for themselves.