Prsure to keep up: stat imbalance a major factor strs gay men | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?
• THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
• PRSURE TO KEEP UP: STAT IMBALANCE A MAJOR FACTOR STRS GAY MEN

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

Part of realizg you're gay, or bi, or trans, or non-bary, or anythg other than cisgenr and heterosexual is acceptg you’re different—and somewhat separated—om the majory. At the time, there were no real gay role mols except for Graham Norton and Jack om Dawson's Creek—and I certaly didn't intify wh him bee I wasn't a football player.

IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?

Like, for example, when we are 10 or 11 years old and velop a csh on our male gym you fally do e out as an adult and fd other gay men, you may notice that that the gay bar scene or the gay datg app experience isn't always so warm, iendly, and acceptg. That's a further recipe for lonels and men do not show up at my office sayg "I feel bad about myself bee I have been margalized as gay person growg up my fay and muny.

THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

There's a lot we n 's the very bt tip to overe gay lonels once you ci you are ready to tackle this challenge:I want to ask you to jo a gay group that meets once per week. Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.

”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre.

PRSURE TO KEEP UP: STAT IMBALANCE A MAJOR FACTOR STRS GAY MEN

The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter. The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark.

The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy. It was a powerful and rarely told tersectn – and one that, even more rarely, ends rather happily, wh a betiful scene of fiance and acceptance played to a Mama Cass waltz on the sk I disvered that I wasn’t the only wi-eyed baby gay my boyiend had been chasg through those ancient chtnuts that summer. For me, the plaque honours that private moment as well as the shared history of the LGBTQ+ ’s the msage I’d impart to anyone who thks such symbols are meangls, as the unique social history of the UK’s gay bars is endangered by gentrifitn, hook-up apps, the st of livg crisis and even assiatn.