Coming Out

LGBTQ

Chapter One

TWO DAYS AGO ( 8 January 2014) the international footballer Thomas Hitlzlsperger publicly came out and gave a moving and eloquent media interview.

Many people have done what he has done. Many more remain in the closet but will be inspired to consider afresh, by this example. Others, still, will remain closeted for life.

It is a question of choice, and also a question of what is best in one’s personal circumstances.

In some societies, right down to some local communities, it is anything but a choice of one's own freewill. It is a matter of survival.

Chapter Two

Why should people be forced to live double lives?

Why should people, by sheer willpower and self-discipline, form a relationship that is, for many, as unnatural and cold to them as making love to a cabbage, and then forcing themselves to have an orgasm? And here, I am not automatically speaking of bisexuality, which is a completely different, very natural and normal subject.

Hell on earth!

Why?!?

Chapter Three

Someone, somewhere down the line of humanity, many thousands of years ago, decided to define ‘natural’, ‘normal’, ‘beautiful’. That done, they decreed that anything opposite was , therefore, abnormal, unnatural and ugly. 

And so the idea catches on.

But isn’t that just his view?

Shut up. Sit down!

Suddenly, it is the will of Someone we are told is called God, this mystical, mythical being up in the sky, way above the clouds.

Moreover, since this, so say, Intelligent Being is unquestionably correct, then it requires the most ruthless response to purge society. Or as one lady put it one Sunday morning to all who were gathered, having sort of clambered up onto a classroom table, she was not exactly what one would call lythe …

I see God.

He is a lovely old man

with a long white beard

sitting on a white cloud

and grinning from ear to ear.

Then everyone raised their hands in the air around her and started babbling and cheering.

Bedlam!

Said vision on moi?

A desire to stick two fingers down my throat.

But I decided against that, and the much easier reaction ; to head straight for the doors and away from those odd-benighted wierd fundamentalist christians.

Chapter Four

Already, there are some criticizing Thomas Hitzlsperger for not having declared himself earlier when he was actually playing football; demanding to know why he had not followed Tom Daley's example of coming out at the beginning of his career, and thereby becoming a ‘real’ ambassador for gays within sport.

I understand the argument, but it leaves me impatient with those who proffer it.

Thomas Hitzlsperger has more courage than most of us combined. Sexuality is like a chameleon. It moves and shifts and changes. I know numerous people whose sexuality is not defined until well into their twenties and even thirties. Some, even later.

Ever changing

Sexuality is like a chameleon.

It moves and shifts and changes.

I know numerous people

whose sexuality is not defined

until well into their twenties

and even thirties.

Some, even later.

Chapter Five

Coming Out ~ In the Boardroom of all places

It took me until 2007 to formally come out, in a board room of all places, because of a rather stupid middle-aged trainer-consulltant making a comment that my suggestion - that we, as a law practice, should ensure that we are fully conversant with the incoming Civil Partnership Act that was just being enacted by Parliament - should be put in what he called his classroom wally box on account of it beinga silly and irrelevant suggestion.

We actually had quite a laugh. Then I challenged him. Let’s call this trainer David. Let’s eavesdrop.

Well it's not really relevant to what we're talking about today, Ken

But it is David!

A client that I referred to our conveyancing department
in the joint purchase of a flat together,
has now ended their relationship;
and he wants advice,
which means I'm referring him
to Richard, the matrimonial lawyer
sitting opposite.

at which point Richard kindly waved his hand
just in case David wasn’t quite sure which solicitor
I was referring to.

I mean, come one, give David a break reader,
a boardroom full of partners, solicitors and legal executives
can be quite daunting,
especially as we men were all in pin stripes
and the women looking like they’d
just walked off some very, very fancy set …

Okay?

'Well. Ermmm I still don't think...'

Okay.
Look everyone.
Oh dear… … …
I really didn't expect to be dealing with this today.
Anyway
- looking straight at David -
I happen to speak with authority on the matter.

'What do you mean?'

I mean, oh god here goes
- giggling slightly -
I'm gay!

Outside on Lord Street the mile long Promenade seemed to freeze
Was that a bumper crunch I just heard?
I jest, of course.

David went ashen.

Room went silent, VERY silent.

Senior partner, several seats from me, leans very slowly forward,
looking along the boardroom table straight at me with that passive poker face that never flinched,
but whose eyes spoke volumes …
Ken, did I just hear you right?

Then the conveyancing lawyer - I still remember her lipstick - sitting opposite me - mouthing the words with a lovely wink, 'we knew anyway!' and the commercial partner sitting next to me, god bless her, leaning in and whispering 'Well done. Good on you!' And the matrimonial lawyer, shuffling with that Oooooh! I can't wait to text the Mrs! look.

It was all quite amusing and I cannot emphasise enough how it felt to be well and truly out for the first time.

Chapter Six

But it belied the hell on earth of living as a police officer, a member of the armed forces at a time when it was a criminal offence in the latter to not declare one's sexuality. Not to mention being in a church that saw my ‘condition’ as evidence of demonic possession.

Reader, that might invite a wry giggle, until one sees how it played out. Two and two equal five. I had epilepsy. So let’s get the quick flight to Israel.

Chapter Seven

In Jerusalem, seizures did not have paramedics in attendance. Should have. But No. Stupid fundamentalist christians rushed in to pray over me, and to deliver me of (a) demonic possession of epilepsy and (b) ‘and the other thing’.

Only when they sensed that God wasn’t actually listening, or indeed anywhere about for that matter, and after having a third seizure, did the penny drop!

This is serious. I think he needs hospital!!

Living a lifetime like that certainly brought problems and grief. And let me add at this point … I had it easy. My family, once they worked things out, were absolutely with me. Because I experienced unconditional love and affection, I bristle with rage when I read about what father and mothers do to their children.

Chapter Eight

Imagine - those of you who are straight - being suddenly told that you are abnormal and unnatural because you happen to be attracted to the opposite sex!

Imagine how people felt when the Anglican Church in its infinite-other-world-wisdom, and for reasons best known only to itself, suddenly declares its arrival into the 21st Century … and that clergy who have entered into a civil partnership can of course do so, and, moreover, can retain their office … … … … … then a quick flip back to the hallowed cloisters of Medieval England … …

provided,
of course,
they remain celibate!

What sort of twisted logic is that?

What on earth were they thinking last year?

Imagine someone walking up the driveway of the Bishopric and reminding the bishop and his wife that they must now cease having sexual relations, god forbid! 

And this is not so far from reality.

Chapter Nine

It is what happened in the 1930s and 1940s in Europe when the Nazis walked up to people's doors and brought terror to households, whole communities, just because of 'what' they were. Mentally handicapped; physically handicapped; religious people; gypsies, homosexuals … and the Jews.

And we saw this same enslavement to ritual and religious dogma acted out between the four nations of the Balkans in the 1990s - a war as ferocious, cruel and vicious as World War II, a war whose central policy was two-fold - lebensraum (yet again) [i] and ethnic cleansing. 

It is why I stand by the piece I wrote a year ago He Dared  unapologetically.

Chapter Ten

Coming out at any age takes courage.

There will be a time when our descendants will look back and wonder how it is that we could have been so blind to reality, just as we look back now with equal wonder at the ducking stool mentality.

But in the meantime, there is work to be done. And we do it peacefully.

We do it as befits the manner in which that Great Man two millennia ago instructed and advised us to do ~ to have compassion and mercy ~ a principle echoed in our lifetime by another great man, President Nelson Mandela.

Chapter Eleven

Let us catch up with the times.

Let us live and let live.

Let us cease promoting fairy tales to the status of science and physics.

Let us cease relegating science and physics to the status of fairy tales.

And just to put minds at rest …

no I haven't lost my faith. 


It's stronger than ever!

30 November 2020
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

[i] living space

The striking Image chosen for Ever Changing is a Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash