Why I am proud to be Gay

In a moment of Cocktail induced euphoria (aided and abetted by Sun and too much Lady GaGa) I 'tweeted' that I was proud to be gay, and now I am wondering how many people have tweeted 'I'm proud to be straight’. - not many I'll wager ya'

So, if I am searching for acceptance and equality, why am I 'proud to be gay' and not just content with ‘happy’?

There are many reason but one must be solidarity with my 'tribe' and our history, against all odds our society has developed from dictatorship to limited democracy, the universal suffrage and within the past 40 years (and I am talking about Europe) through to some form of gay equality.  I am proud of my history, not what I have done, but for what others have done for me, even in my lifetime.

The history of gay repression started with the enlightenment of society and the dawn of the 'scientific age' of the 1900's, social scientist wanting, as scientists are want to do, to label everything, everything must be explained and so the homosexual was born.  All of sudden we became a sub-class not fitting into the 'norms' of the nuclear family we were outsiders - the gay brothels of London in the 1800's quietly disappeared along with the gay man and woman.

By the time I was born in the sixties, amid the sexual revolution, it seemed time for a complete sexual revolution and time for Stonewall to kick start the fight back, by the time I was at school in the 70's a prototypical sub-culture had developed, by the time I had left school in the 80's we had had our first heroes, Quentin Crisp, Peter Tatchell, Tom Robinson (who strangely turned 'straight'), by the mid 80's we had AIDS and the battle to educate and refute the tide of anti-sentiment (and I remember the jokes, and the headlines - 5 Million to die o AIDS in the UK by 1990) and take our role as educators.  By the 90's we were becoming very public, a few politicians raised their heads above the parapet - with Chris Smith (Labour MP) coming out with the quote 'I am a Gay MP, now let’s talk politics' - throwing away the gay label to be accepted for he was elected to do.

In the 90's I came out at work, even though I could still be sacked for being gay, I wasn't sacked and accepted for being myself - a privilege I have experienced throughout my working life -and then came the 21st Century.

The 21st Century has given us acceptance, and its dawn Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter, an openly gay candidate ousted an openly homophobic Tory - more than that on becoming a Foreign Minister on a trip to Indonesia he insisted his partner be treated equally against the protests of the Indonesian government.
I am proud not of my own achievements but of the scattered and indistinct and diverse community I belong to, being gay does not define me as a person as it did my those who protested in the 70's, but I am proud to be able to have such a rich heritage, and I am proud to stand alongside though gay people in Zimbabwe who have been facing violent discrimination, and proud to have seen the proposed death penalty for being gay in Zimbabwe rescinded, I am proud of my heritage.

As a Gay Civil Rights campaigner said in the 60's 'the only difference between Black and Gay is that you don't to tell your mother your're Black'

Please like me, I want to be your friend ...

Looking at my daily Twitter stats I get dismayed when I get unfollowed, sometimes even when it is a 'spambot', it as if I am being rejected, that I am not popular anymore; the same with Facebook when I look at the 'De-Friended' App on my iPhone - I am less loved, I am less interesting, I am devalued.
But why?

It seems to me that we live increasingly by what others think of us, and derive our value from others opinions of us, the juxtaposition is that the people I admire did not, and do not, outwardly give a tinkers curse about what others thought of them, other than that they had sense of 'doing right' and being true to themselves.  This global and technological insecurity is further articulated by the advertising, the slimming plans, the 'lifestyle' models we are given; our identity is more and more mediated by capitalism and by social networking rather than an sense of individual identity.

Being an openly gay man, from South Yorkshire there are all sorts of tensions going on in my head, my political beliefs about social justice, and doing what is right (thanks to my Grandmother the Church I went to!) and also about taking a stand - well in 'my day' being gay was a political statement and not a lifestyle choice. Being a socialist and gay do inform each other, we should judge less, forgive more, and tolerate and embrace culture, but this is being constantly mediated by how many Facebook friends I have, or have not.

It's true we all derive, and strive for, affirmation from our peer group, but with Facebook and Twitter (and I suppose all other social network sites) our peer group is now extended, not unlike an extended networked family, in an age when the biological family is contracting - no more 300 guests (and the village) at the wedding now - or are we trying to recreate that familial extension with strangers.

My goal, which I seem to have relented on, is to create my own identity; being gay is part of my identity but not a big part, being a socialist is more part of it now, and now I am trying to adapt into all this being a 'partner' and with the savage cuts being a little more political (which so far as amounted to drinking Cocktails with friends on Hoxton!); there is no ready made identity for me, for any of use, and I must contintually construct it under the spotlight of the internet (if I so choose).  Somehow I am going to have to accept that not everyone is going to like that the construction, c'est la vie!

To end, abruptly I know, I want to leave you with something Woodie Guthrie said 'the problem is that you are too old, too young, too fat, too thin ...'