Diversy agriculture: Matt Naylor on beg a gay farmer | Eat Farm Now

Contents:

• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• IS MATTHEW GAY
• A GAY FARMER ON LOVE, ISOLATN, AND DISPTG THE MEAT INDTRY ATRALIA
• THIS STORY OF GAY FARMERS KICKS OFF A DOCERI ABOUT DIVERSE HERO AGRICULTURE

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

I n remember, I was about 10 years old, beg at my grandparents hoe when an em me on the news about gay rights. I left school to go to work wh my gay-dog-hatg grandad and my father on a 120 acre farm a populated and unprospero b of South Llnshire the Uned Kgdom. I ped wh the circumstanc by listeng to the Smhs pretty much non-stop on a CD Walkman for five years, before pluckg up the urage to tell my bt iend, Melanie, that I was gay when I was 20.

When I first me out, I had never actually met another gay person, certaly no one who intified themselv as gay. I hadn’t even seen a credible or posive gay character on the televisn. The joyo thg is that once you e out, all those dly homophobic remarks that you endured at social gathergs stop beg ma ont of you.

IS MATTHEW GAY

Growg up gay a straight world gave me a strong sire to prove myself and bs has been my foc.

A GAY FARMER ON LOVE, ISOLATN, AND DISPTG THE MEAT INDTRY ATRALIA

HomeNewsYorkshire farmer argu homosexualy is natural 1810 diary disvery. In a newly-disvered passage om a private diary, a Yorkshire farmer argu 1810 that homosexualy is nate and should not be punished by ath. The diary entry by Matthew Tomlson suggts that regnisably morn unrstandgs of homosexualy were beg discsed by ordary people earlier than is monly Tomlson was a farmer at Dog Hoe Farm, which is on the se where a golf urse now stands near Wakefield Wt Yorkshire.

Although historians have wrten about other parts of the Tomlson diary, this passage has not prevly been brought to O’Keeffe said: 'In this diary we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that should not be punished by ath. Matthew Tomlson’s diary illtrat that, by 1810, even an ordary Yorkshire farmer uld serly enterta the ia that homosexualy was not a horrible perversn that served the ath penalty, but simply a natural, dively ordaed human qualy. 'Dr Rictor Norton, an expert on the history of homosexualy this perd, said “the view that homosexualy was a natural clatn was rarely so clearly exprsed” as Tomlson’s wrgs.

THIS STORY OF GAY FARMERS KICKS OFF A DOCERI ABOUT DIVERSE HERO AGRICULTURE

'Tomlson's diary reflectns on homosexualy are unique for their time. Newspapers Bra and Ireland published acunts of the se, remdg rears of the dranian state penalti for homosexual O’Keeffe add: 'Contemporary media reportg on sodomy s, often uched the language of moral panic, both reflected and rerced social stigma agast same-sex timacy, but Tomlson’s wrgs suggt that not all rears uncrilly accepted the homophobic assumptns they enuntered the prs.

Although the diarist serly nsired the proposn that sexual orientatn was nate, he nohels allowed for the possibily that homosexualy might be a choice and therefore ( his view) servg of punishment. In 1885, all male homosexual acts were clared illegal, even private.