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I started the first session a year ago of what would be called Communi-T with a speech which included Martin Luther King and peaceful protest.
Today I want to expand that further and think about how progress towards equality has come about.
A long time ago, from ports not very far away, ships sailed south to Africa and traded goods for people. These men, women and children were taken against their will, in overcrowded and terrible conditions, on ships to America and sold as slaves. Now we know that this was terrible but nobody at the time could possibly have dreamt that many years later there would have been a black American president in Obama.
Now think about the role of women through more recent history. I am honestly amazed that women used to believe that they had to stay at home, to not have a job, and to make sure there was a dinner ready for their husbands for their return from work. Would any woman from 100 years ago have believed that they would have the right to vote, and that they could follow their dreams and pursue the careers they wanted to?
Would anyone from the people so far mentioned have believed that the richest person in America is not only a woman, but also black?
Do you think that those people did nothing and had equality rewarded to them? There was a lot of work involved before change happened.
What we do now will shape what happens in the next five to ten years.
Recent years have also had women as the lead role in movies and men as the secondary/ minor roles. Wonder Woman springs to mind; I think she stole the lime light in the Batman vs Superman film. Even the next Doctor Who will be a woman.
Equality. Finally. Mostly.
One of the things that surprised me looking at LGBT equality was that it used to be illegal to be gay in the U.K. before 1967. This was only 50 years ago. After a bill was passed the age of consent for gay men was 21.
Being gay is not a new thing; it is mentioned in Ancient Greek and Roman times. Perhaps strong and widespread religious beliefs had made it taboo. Perhaps this is why it has come to the attention of more and more people as interest in religion wanes.
Equality and acceptance has become more visible in recent years.
Even so, growing up gay in the 90s was not easy. Nothing was mentioned about being gay nor was there any gay sex-education at school in PSHE lessons. I don't know about other schools, but maybe they were afraid to talk about it because of Section 28.
I remember watching Children's BBC's Byker Grove (yes from where Ant and Dec came) in 1994, I was 13 and the episode showed an unrequited gay kiss between two male teens. I do remember thinking “Oh that's cool.”, but there was a lot of negativity from the press and on the news. I remember that the BBC got criticised to such an extent that I didn't want that hate, or that negativity, to be directed at me.
By the time the internet was available at school I was 17 and had come out as gay in the all-boys grammar school that I had attended since I was 11. I was verbally abused for the rest of my time there. I did all I could to make it through this time. I was determined to show that I was still the same person as I always had been; I continued to play football at lunchtimes and play cards in the sixth form common room. As I said recently to a close friend, "I'm gay but only in bed," I tried to show the homophobes at school how normal being gay was and it wasn't my only defining characteristic. I didn't rise to the verbal abuse but words do hurt and they do leave scars. Not everyone bullied me but no-one (to my knowledge) stood up for me either. Those that didn't bully me went along with the bullies. They picked on the person who was different- another recurring action throughout history.
Growing up I didn't see any positive role models in the media or on TV that I could identify or relate to. A few people spring to mind; Julian Clary, George Michael, Stephen Gately, but I didn't want to be like these people and I had nothing in common with these people. I wasn't camp, I wasn't interested in dressing up or cross dressing or having one night stands. Was this what it was to be gay?! If so I didn't want this.
However, I did become fascinated with superhero cartoons that started to be shown on TV in the early to mid-90s. Marvel's X-Men portrayed a group of people who were hated because they were different through no fault of their own. One particular favourite was, and still is, Spider-man. I really related to him, he couldn't share the knowledge of his superpower with anyone as he was scared it could put him in danger. Peter Parker has to navigate high school at the same time as having this massive secret on his shoulders.
I wanted someone to tell and for them to accept my secret and to be accepting, to be cool, and that happened for me when I went to university. Again, once I was comfortable around my newly made friends I came out all over again and was accepted and befriended, to my relief! It was during university that Channel 4 started to show called Queer As Folk which mostly battled being gay in Manchester. It was more widely accepted by the general public, times were changing for the better! For me though it still didn't show a great image of being gay and what was, in theory, in store for me, because that was all that was all I knew about. One night stands with strangers, drugs, so much alcohol, and what was it all for? I wanted to date a guy, fall in love, have a relationship.
It was around this time that I had heard about London Pride. I knew that it was all about being proud to be gay and it looked like it was a massive party. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I was brave enough to go to one. For me, Pride turned out to be something not for myself, but it was in fact to help others, to show people younger than me that it was ok to be LGBT and to be confident enough to show it, something that had taken over ten years for me to do.
The theme of Pride this year in my town was superheroes. It was amazing to go to Pride this year with so many members of Communi-T, to be surrounded by amazing people. I can honestly say they are the LGBT friends that I never had when growing up. People say you cannot choose your family, they're wrong. They're my new family.
I want to end this by saying to the members of Communi-T, and to the people reading this who might be LGBT- you are all superheroes. Whether it is writing a blog, making a vlog, standing up against the bullies, telling your friends or family your secret, or turning up worried or scared to your first ever Pride, you have helped someone else become a bit more confident and brave enough to be who they want to be. Don't change who you are because someone wants you to. Don't change based on what other people say. Be who you are and be proud to be you. If you're not willing to be who you are nothing will ever change.