The challeng of growg up gay 1980s Exeter - Devon Live

Contents:

• AS A GAY MAN, THE '80S CRIPPLED MY INTY
• THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S
• GAY THE 1980S: GROWG UP UNR THE SHADOW OF AIDS AND HOW GENERATN X CONMNED THE FUTURE TO DEATH
• GROWING UP GAY IN THE 80S: TWO VERY CLOSE IENDS ALG WH THE SAME SECRET VERY DIFFERENT WAYS, A GUT POST BY SEAN HAY, TODD MILLER, AND CARLYN GREENWALD
• THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S
• YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS YOUR RELIGN: GROWG UP GAY THE 80S AND 90S
• GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S
• GAYSPE #10: GROWG UP GAY THE 80’S AND 90’S
• GROWG UP GAY THE 1960S AND 70S
• THE CHALLENG OF GROWG UP GAY 1980S EXETERWRER AND PRODUCER BEN SANTAMARIA REFLECTS ON HIS TIME AS A TEENAGER DEVONVONLIVEBOOKMARKSHARECOMMENTSNEWSBYCHARLOTTE VOWLDEVONLIVE REPORTER21:15, 7 FEB 2021UPDATED09:58, 8 FEB 2021BOOKMARKBEN AT EXETER'S BIKHED THEATRE (IMAGE: RYAN PRICE)SIGN UP FOR OUR EXETER NEWSLETTER AND YOU'LL NEVER MISS A BIG STORY AGAMORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 SIGN UP FOR OUR EXETER NEWSLETTER AND YOU'LL NEVER MISS A BIG STORY AGAINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!
• 'THERE WERE NO MOLS': GROWG UP THE 70S WH AN OUT GAY DAD
• IN 1980S MIAMI, THE TRIPLE CRISIS OF GROWG UP BLACK, GAY AND POOR
• PRI AND PREJUDICE FOR GAY MEN
• 'IT'S A S' BRGS A LOST GENERATN OF GAY MEN TO LIFE

AS A GAY MAN, THE '80S CRIPPLED MY INTY

For example, the UK’s ernment add Sectn 28 to their Lol Government Act that ma illegal for lol thori to support anythg that promoted homosexual relatnships as an alternative to a heterosexual “fay life”. Bee no one really knew anythg about AIDS when spread like wildfire the 80s, many referred to as the “gay plague” and many wanted this to lead to a ban on homosexualy. Another was a Greek God of virily that ed his powers of bety and mcle to enchant both the guys and the girls… safely leveragg the nvenient tth that most of his peers wouldn’t be able to associate masculy wh homosexualy.

In the UK, the Thatcher ernment created Sectn 28 of the Lol Government Act, makg illegal for lol thori to support anythg that might promote homosexual relatnships as a viable alternative to heterosexual ‘fay life’. And even the US Army, who had clared homosexualy to be “patible wh ary service” 1982, were forced to adm 1989 that gay recs were “jt as good or better” than heterosexuals.

THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S

Beg gay amounted to a ath sentence, and I uld not pe wh forward four years and to the image of a teenage boy on his kne church, sperately prayg for dive terventn. Ultimately, I would e to believe that short of celtial tercsn, I would be forced to make a choice; to nceal my doomed te self or risk wdg up hell by livg as an openly gay man and therefore sufferg a protracted, paful mise.

Sectn 28, troduced 1988, ma school an exclively heteronormative environment, wh no avenue of advice or support, lt they fell foul of the ban on the 'promotn of homosexualy'.

Combe this wh an abject lack of 'out and proud' public figur and you found yourself antilly seekg shelter om a perfect storm of voic screamg at you that there was no 'pri' to be found beg gay. Certaly, for those young people growg up gay at the time, any cultural reference to issu such as gay parentg, dg e and discrimatn, n only have seemed like a stri forward.

GAY THE 1980S: GROWG UP UNR THE SHADOW OF AIDS AND HOW GENERATN X CONMNED THE FUTURE TO DEATH

At the age of 20 and wh the most character-buildg perd my journey to self-acceptance behd me, the dawn of gay reprentatn mastream media me a ltle too late to be of benef to me personally. In 1967, the Sexual Offenc Bill was passed, crimilisg homosexual acts between two long as they were over 21, both nsentg, and nductg any sexual acts wh the privacy of their own hom.

The Gay Black Group (formed 1981 by a number of Black and Asian gay and lbian people who found that most LGBTQ+ groups had a lack of mory members, makg hard for them to fd empathy and people to talk to who would unrstand) approached the Greater London Council 1982 to requt fundg. As the knowledge behd grew and people began to realise that was a vis that uld fect people through blood and sex, 1983, gay men were asked not to donate blood. Sectn 28 banned lol thori om ‘promotg homosexualy’ or ‘pretend fay relatnships’, and prohibed uncils om fundg tnal materials and projects perceived to ‘promote homosexualy’.

GROWING UP GAY IN THE 80S: TWO VERY CLOSE IENDS ALG WH THE SAME SECRET VERY DIFFERENT WAYS, A GUT POST BY SEAN HAY, TODD MILLER, AND CARLYN GREENWALD

In the same year, rponse to the Sectn 28 legislatn, actor and gay rights activist Sir Ian McKellen was speakg on BBC Rad 3 about the issu raised by the Act and publicly me out.

It was named after the 1969 Stonewall rts New York Cy’s Greenwich Village, and om the outset looked to prevent such attacks as Sectn 28 on lbians, gay and bi people om ever occurrg aga. In 2003, Stonewall was granted charable stat and has sce gone on to help achieve the equalisatn of the age of nsent, lift the ban on LGB people servg the ary, secure legislatn which allowed same-sex upl to adopt, helped secure civil partnerships and then same-sex marriage and ensured that the recent Equaly Act protected lbian, gay and bi people terms of goods and servic.

In 2015, Stonewall extend s rem to mpaign for trans equaly alongsi lbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) equaly, followg an extensive nsultatn wh over 700 trans people. Growg up the 1980s, as a boy thkg that you are gay, was often a day to day stggle wh a visn of homosexualy that went om humoro and reee, a flourishg the 1970s Dis culture materialized the well-mcled and tan boys of The Village People, that seemgly overnight went through a metamorphos to the emaciated and sweaty Aidan Qun “An Early Frost. As the 80s turned to the 90s, we all beme rather tired of AIDS; and, we tried to make go away our own heads: wh the reopeng of numero gay bathho around the Cy, after they were closed at the height of the crisis, and tried to force the llective nsc of the untry to other flated and prsg gay issu – for stance, the ridiculo replacement of the AIDS movie-of-the-week by the phenomena of weepy stori surroundg the tag-le “…I was thrown out of the ary, bee I am gay.

THATCHER, AIDS AND HOPELSNS: GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S AND 90S

” Later, when aths dramatilly cled, bee of antiviral cktails, AIDS slipped further back to the gay md – beg a sort of Dark Age epoch the history of homosexual eedom – that ugly perd between the triumphs of 60s and 70s acplishments, epomized by Stonewall and Harvey Milk, and this new era of renaissance eedom; for, they already had their ey on the prize – and was gay marriage. After that, when he would go to the book stor to get new magaz, he would ually pick up a gay one for me and I would pay him back wh the money I ma mowg lawns.

And one day, while tryg to figure out what our next TV show was gog to be, we started chattg about our different, but all too siar, experienc growg up gay small towns. What would happen if the #1 athlete the state me out as gay and how would that affect the team, the school, the town, the state, and most importantly, his personal relatnships?

The first openly trans stunt was my gra and our school had a GSA as well as a secret club where an openly gay teacher would meet wh queer-intified and closeted stunts before school on a if you need the ve, you get basis.

YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS YOUR RELIGN: GROWG UP GAY THE 80S AND 90S

So when I got the chance to jo the Time Out team, I not only nnected wh all the hilar, heartfelt, plex characters the ial pilot, but that acknowledgement of a gay stunt stgglg the face of a world that wants to believe ’s beyond bigotry.

GROWG UP GAY THE 1980S

Heartstopper meets Friday Night Lights  this keenly felt g-of-age story about a teen hometown hero who mt fd out who he is outsi of basketball when his g out as gay sts him his populary and place on the team. Sectn 28, troduced 1988, ma school an exclively heteronormative environment, wh no avenue of advice or support, lt they fell foul of the ban on the ‘promotn of homosexualy’. Combe this wh an abject lack of ‘out and proud’ public figur and you found yourself antilly seekg shelter om a perfect storm of voic screamg at you that there was no ‘pri’ to be found beg gay.

GAYSPE #10: GROWG UP GAY THE 80’S AND 90’S

I rell the word 'poof' beg ed a lot, but would be tertg to hear om gay people who were their teens to twenti back then, and personal ttimoni om that time. In once scene, Jim Carrey’s buddi are tryg to check his ner thigh for be marks the high school shower, and when appears to the other showerg jocks that some gay sh is gog down, someone yells “Fags the showers!

It was like a warng to all gay kids: better go kill yourself now, or learn to hi your sexualy as well as you n, bee life om high school on is gog to be a livg hell for the flip si of movi and televisn, though, there was the mic world of the 80’s, as fed by MTV. Dire Stras had a huge h song wh Money For Nothg wh lyrics that epomized what regular straight-middle-Ameri thought of all the homos sellg lns of albums:See the ltle faggot wh the earrg and the makp? Yeah buddy that’s his own hairThat ltle faggot got his own jet airplaneThat ltle faggot he’s a lnaireSo I suppose as a ltle gay, the closet kid, I had a choice to make; listen to the Hollywood movie makg mache, who was tellg me I was visible or a pariah, or listen to the mic world, which told me to embrace who I was and show off and be proud.

Eher bee of the sympathy created by the AIDS epimic, or simply bee more and more gay people all over were g out of the closet and beg accepted, Hollywood began to change s tune.

GROWG UP GAY THE 1960S AND 70S

While we were still a long way off om lead characters beg gay (much ls showg gay timacy on screen) was no longer kosher to drop the word fag as a sual sult film.

Dpe my feelgs about MTV and realy televisn general, I have to adm: The Real World did more to show the average Amerin kid that gay people their own age were jt like them than anythg else pop culture did up to that pot.

Unls was a black and whe die book, good luck seeg very many visible gay or lbians ics at the time In the world of popular mic, long gone were the days of genr bendg superstars. In this we’ve had more gay visibily film and televisn than ever before, and the world of mic seems slightly ls homophobic than did the prev , if only slightly. Major hip hop stars like Kanye Wt have publicly spoken agast the homophobia hip hop culture, and pop punk stars like Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy have gone on rerd several tim about how he wish he was gay and lik to kiss boys.

THE CHALLENG OF GROWG UP GAY 1980S EXETERWRER AND PRODUCER BEN SANTAMARIA REFLECTS ON HIS TIME AS A TEENAGER DEVONVONLIVEBOOKMARKSHARECOMMENTSNEWSBYCHARLOTTE VOWLDEVONLIVE REPORTER21:15, 7 FEB 2021UPDATED09:58, 8 FEB 2021BOOKMARKBEN AT EXETER'S BIKHED THEATRE (IMAGE: RYAN PRICE)SIGN UP FOR OUR EXETER NEWSLETTER AND YOU'LL NEVER MISS A BIG STORY AGAMORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 SIGN UP FOR OUR EXETER NEWSLETTER AND YOU'LL NEVER MISS A BIG STORY AGAINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!

) On TV, Ellen is a fixture, and Will & Grace was on for what seemed like twenty I n’t help but wonr what the gay kids of today are gog to turn out to be like. ) In many more ways than we ever had the 80’s, popular culture is givg gay kids a more empowerg msage to be te to themselv and to be proud of who and what they are (at least at this particular moment time). “I thk that’s the bety of , that ’s jt up to the dience’s terpretatn, if ’s Will kd of jt refg to grow up and growg up slower than his iends, or if he is really gay.

LGBT+ people really want to be workg towards a world where no one needs to e out — but we’re not there yet, ” Noyce others have shared their siar mdset on social media, wh one person retweetg Noah’s ments about the “bety” of Will’s sexualy beg how open to terpretatn is and addg: “Only straight ppl would thk 's betiful to never acknowledge gayns. #StrangerThgs401:19 PM - 01 Jul 2022But others have leaped to the show’s fense, potg out that is set ral Indiana the 1980s — when g out as gay uld be credibly dangero.

“In the 80s beg gay was not like is now - the AIDS epimic was a huge al, there were very few gay characters or role mols to look up to, and many more people were closeted.

'THERE WERE NO MOLS': GROWG UP THE 70S WH AN OUT GAY DAD

’ His iends have no ncept of what gay is or what means, and -world most everyone is so preoccupied by survivg the Upsi Down they (and Will himself) have no chance to procs Wills own sexualy. ”“Even if this wasn’t the 80s ’s ok for a 14 or 15 year old boy to not pletely unrstand his sexualy, ” one more Will’s sexualy has not been directly addrsed on the show, Maya Hawke’s character, Rob, me out as a lbian Season 3, while unr the effects of tth the poignant scene, Rob told Steve that she is not terted him romantilly bee she’s actually attracted to their female was shown to stantly accept Rob, but she has not e out to any of the other characters on the on this“Stranger Thgs” Star Noah Schnapp Confirmed That His Character Will Byers “Is Gay And He Do Love Mike” Jt Weeks After Praisg The “Bety” Of His Sexualy Not Beg AddrsedLeyla Mohammed · July 15, 2022“Stranger Thgs” Star Noah Schnapp Jt Used Doja Cat’s Song In A TikTok And Insisted There Are “No Hard Feelgs” After He “Apologized” For Leakg Her DMsStephanie Soteru · July 14, 2022Metalli Had The Perfect Rponse After Someone Dragged “Fake” Fans For Only Listeng To Their Mic After It Featured On “Stranger Thgs” And It’s Sparked A Conversatn About GatekeepgStephanie Soteru · July 13, 2022“Stranger Thgs” Star Joseph Qun Broke Down In Tears When Someone Thanked Him For Sharg His Time After He Was “Yelled At” By Comic Con Staff For Takg Too Long Wh FansStephanie Soteru · July 12, 2022.

Although Ben said there's more rmatn available now, he said the lack of rmatn available to him as a young gay person - and ed to others at the time - was a real issue. "I would've been very succsful as a straight boy as I had a lot of female iends who wanted to have a relatnship wh me, but there was no sense of 'that's jt one optn, of urse, you may be gay. "It wasn't like there was a gaggle of gay kids- as you see a b more the days - who would be bullied but intify themselv and accept that intify - however nervoly - was lerally somethg you'd have to ny bee was so obscene, so unimagable.

IN 1980S MIAMI, THE TRIPLE CRISIS OF GROWG UP BLACK, GAY AND POOR

Sign up to our newsletters here Bee Ben remembers the experienc Devon as a particular time perd wh his life and he later moved to London, he's not sure how gay people their twenti found livg Exeter. "I know there was one pub, The Arn, that we ed to joke about as beg 'The Gayrn' that was near South Street and that was talked about as beg a gay pub, so there was some gay muny there, " he said.

Jt months to his marriage, Steve had publicly e out a stunt paper's lumn at Emory Universy, where he was an anizer for Atlanta's Gay Liberatn Front and the gay lib edor at the unrground paper The Great Speckled Bird.

PRI AND PREJUDICE FOR GAY MEN

Alysia Abbot's new book, Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, is the story of Steve Abbott's place gay rights history and his role as a sgle gay father—one who found himself entirely unfaiar was like to be the Haight 1974?

Also, men who were dishonorably discharged, often om the Navy, were left at the port of San Francis—so there was already a gay muny North Beach and the Haight, too.

You uld live on general assistance and food stamps and n a poetry a lot of people gay culture, the Wizard of Oz is important—fdg your fay wh people who are somehow imperfect, who are missg somethg.

'IT'S A S' BRGS A LOST GENERATN OF GAY MEN TO LIFE

My father did a lot of readgs for the first 's fascatg that your dad me out as gay publicly jt months after he and your mom were 's hard to nceive of today, but I thk that moment time, my parents had a radil stance on fay. It was a batn of not havg a mother, not havg siblgs, havg a gay father, and livg wh roommat a kd of bohemian liftyle, whereas all my classmat were om normal fai and pretty nice hom.

Then, most children of gay parents were the children of straight unns, where one of the parents was closeted, or me out after the child was born and divorced, or stayed closeted.

I would've liked if he married a woman and had a really stable home, but after everythg that he'd been through, I don't thk he uld've been te to himself and done gay marriage wasn't an optn ia of gay marriage, that he uld even meet someone and marry him and have societal approval was pletely foreign, pletely out of the qutn. But so much of the foc on the gay rights movement has been on gay marriage or "don't ask, don't tell, " which are noble efforts, but foc on nservative goals: to get married and jo the army. The open gay celebri on TV and the movi wouldn't be here if weren't for the people who were willg to risk their reputatns and their liv to be what was nsired viant.