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I came out when I was 14 at comprehensive school. It was 1991. People say ‘that’s young’ but I say something else. 1/ #NationalComingOutDay
2/ It was old. 14 years too old. I did not choose the closet. No one does. It grows around you. It’s formed by our gay-shaming culture.
3/ And it suffocates. At the time, I was gasping for air, I’d known for 2 years I was gay – a long time at that age.
4/ Straight people do not understand what it means to conceal yourself from everyone. It means total isolation. Loneliness invisible to all.
5/ I was horribly depressed, I saw no future, and in 1991 that was a fairly accurate appraisal of what life had in store as a gay person.
6/ Coming out was the only option, a desperate gasp of oxygen. I knew then, as now, that it saved my life.
7/ That day, Dec 16 1991, I wrote in my diary, “I know that what I did was right and it was the first step towards happiness.”
8/ It was the smartest line I’ve ever written. At 14 you know so much more than you, or adults, realise.
9/ So when people say, ‘That’s so brave!’ when an LGBT person comes out, I say, no, let’s stop saying that.
10/ Staying in the closet is staying in hell. It’s much, much harder to stay in the closet. There is only life outside.
11/ The longer you’re in there, the more deprived of oxygen you become. The more it poisons and corrodes.
12) I’ve devoted my career to writing about LGBT people. I’ve conducted countless coming out interviewees and one things is clear:
13/ No one ever regrets coming out. No one thinks, ‘I wish I’d stayed in the closet longer. I wished I’d waited.’
14/ But 26 years after I came out, and after so much has changed, it appals me that young people are still suffering in the closet.
15/ And that it is still a big deal for people when they come out, no matter how apparently liberal things have become.
16/ Which reveals something: we haven’t come anywhere near being a genuinely liberal culture.
17/ We’ll know when we’ve arrived at one: when no one has to come out the closet. When the closet doesn’t form around people
18/ And when no terrified, miserable 14-year-old has to say ‘I’m gay’ just to stay alive.
