You Don’t Have to Hate Being Gay to Carry Gay Shame

Pansy. Poof. Poofter. Bender. Bum boy. Batty boy. Battyman. Fruit. Nancy boy. Homo. Gayboy. Gaylord. Fairy. Shirtlifter. Pillow-biter. Chutney ferret. Arse bandit. Bum chum. Sausage jockey. Knob jockey. Butt pirate. Woofter. Brown-hatter. Marmite miner. Fudgepacker. Shitstabber. Cocksucker. Faggot. Queer.

I imagine many of you have had one or more of these hurled at you at some point. I certainly have, and the memory is etched - guys driving past in a car, calling out “Queer” at me.

But I know all the slurs, even if I haven’t been called all of them. I’m sure you do, too. We heard them before we had any notion of what they meant or any language for why we felt or had picked up that we were different to the other boys. They were in school corridors, changing rooms, family conversations, television, newspapers, jokes, arguments. They were thrown at boys who were too soft, too feminine, too different, too interested in the wrong things. Sometimes at boys who were not gay at all. The point wasn’t accuracy, it was humiliation.

And so as children we learn that if we’re too soft, too feminine, too different, we run the risk of becoming a target as we move through the world. And so we start to adapt and to hide, changing things before we even know why we’re changing them or aware that we “should” change them. The way we speak, walk or what we admit to liking. Who we look at and for how long we look. Whether we let ourselves be excited about something. . Whether we touch another boy or whether we just seem too close to one. Whether we cry.

And when we hit puberty, it almost becomes more painful. We see our peers talking about their crushes, we see boys and girls holding hands…kissing…touching…exploring. And we yearn for the same, but daren’t risk revealing ourselves, because by this time we’ve realised that we are one of those despicable slurs we heard and that we’ll be rejected by the people we care about if they learnt the truth.

Coming out does not undo that history.

A man can be out for decades and still hear the old rules. He can feel embarrassed by his voice. Ashamed of wanting another man. Relieved when somebody tells him he does not “seem gay”. Uncomfortable around men who are more feminine or more visibly queer. He can dislike those reactions in himself and still have them.

He may have built a life he is proud of and still find shame waiting in places he thought he had dealt with years ago.

That is internalised homophobia.