This Book is Gay (2 page)

The assumption goes that all babies are born both straight and locked into their birth gender unless something goes awry. This is NOT the case.

• In the UK, a 2010 study showed that five per cent of people did not identify as heterosexual. So about one in twenty people is likely to be ‘not-straight'.
  
• There are an estimated nine million LGBT* people in the US as of 2011.
  
• A 2009 study estimates there are over ten thousand transgender people living in the UK.
  

And yet we're all automatically born ‘straight' and ‘cis' (the gender we're assigned at birth).

Let's do sexuality first. You are told you're straight and assume you're straight for almost all of your childhood, despite quite compelling feelings to the contrary. You believe yourself to be straight (because isn't everyone?) until sexual desire kicks in (assuming it does). I like to call this desire SEXTHOUGHTS.

Because most of us spend our childhood identifying as straight, even though we may or may not actually feel straight, we don't always identify these sexthoughts. But it seems highly likely that from a very young age we, as LGB* people, were attracted to members of the same sex, be it people we know or shiny TV people. (Well, they are pretty fit, right?)

I wanted to know at what stage LGBT* people first had questioning thoughts regarding their sexuality OR gender. So I surveyed hundreds of them.

See figure 1. (Who said statistics had to be boring? Look how pretty that pie chart is!)

As you can see, a quarter of the sample were having same-sex sexthoughts and/or thoughts regarding their gender before puberty, with over half at puberty.

This makes sense, because puberty is the time at which great changes occur. One big change is the hormonal shift that drives us towards sexual relationships. It is at this point that many of us realise the cheeky little thoughts we're having late at night might be about people with the same bits as us. ESCÁNDALO.

For me it was Dean Cain. Dean Cain, as if you don't know, is the very handsome actor who played Clark Kent in
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
. Up until Cain came into my life, I had been convinced I was going to marry a girl in my class called Kelly (whose name I have changed for her protection) because she was kind, friendly and blonde.

However, what I felt for Dean Cain (whose name I did
not
change for this book – I mean, I think IT'S TIME HE KNEW OF MY LOVE) was VERY different to what I felt for Kelly.

My interest in spandex-clad arms was far more pressing than being
fond
of Kelly, and when Clark got together with Lois, I felt the most intense jealousy of my life. (I TOTALLY get how One Directioners feel on Twitter.)

Later, after a massive crush on a male teacher, I had to acknowledge that these feelings went beyond mere appreciation of the male form and were, in fact, sexthoughts.

When first faced with same-sex sexthoughts or sexthoughts about your gender, your first reaction may well be the above. After all, society, films, television, newspapers and books have told you your whole life that

STRAIGHT = NORMAL

NOT STRAIGHT = NOT NORMAL.

You have suddenly identified a sexthought that is different. And most people don't like different so, therefore, you're slapped with the NOT NORMAL label.

Just because LGBT* people are in a minority doesn't mean they are not NORMAL. People with blue eyes are in the minority too, but we don't think of them as abnormal, do we? We don't look at Jake Gyllenhaal and say, LOOK AT THAT MASSIVE BLUE-EYED FREAK! No, we only look at him and weep that we cannot have him. Anyway, who gets to decide what's ‘normal' and what isn't? What a horrid, excluding word that is.

You may have grown up not only in the absence of gay or trans role models, but also encountering actual homophobia or transphobia. These things can be hugely worrying – especially at a time when you rely on familial support. You may also be one of the thousands of people born with same-sex sexthoughts in a country where it is illegal to have sexual activity with same-sex partners. (Some people believe same-sex activity is against their religion. More on that in
chapter 6
.)

You probably have questions. I had LOADS of questions. I'd heard RUMOURS about what two men did together. You may have misunderstood things – my early concept of lesbian sex was way off. (I basically thought it was like sanding the boobs off two Barbie dolls by rubbing them together.) You may have seen odd bits on TV and now don't know what to think. It seems highly likely that any sex ed you had at school taught you only how men and women make babies together and didn't mention transgender people at all.

You are right to ask this. ‘Lesbian', ‘gay', ‘bisexual' and the other orientations we talk about in this book are about sexuality. Being transgender has nothing to do with who you want to do sexytime with – it's about gender.

Trans people and non-straight people are subject to a lot of the same discrimination, misunderstanding and mistreatment, because many people think of us as all being part of the same group. In a way, we are – and that's why many people use ‘LGBT' as shorthand for our whole community. That initialism is inclusive of ‘trans', so this manual should be too.

What's more, if we wanted to, we all could spend our lives hiding. Whether I liked it or not, I fancied blokes, but I could have SO EASILY lied and pretended to like girls. I could have married a girl like Kelly and been utterly miserable, but instead I accepted an identity and did something about it. So do all proud lesbians, gay men, bi, curious and queer people.
And so do transgender people
. As with sexual diversity, trans people
could
say, ‘This is too scary,' and spend life stuck with the wrong gender identity.

So whether it's LGB* or T, we're all seeking membership to this awesome club that exists outside the majority. And that's why we're all in this (book) together.

So, you may have SEXTHOUGHTS about people of the same gender as you, OR you may have questions regarding your own gender. Loads of people – even people who end up identifying as straight and cis – have these thoughts and questions. I think it's far odder to have NEVER thought about it. I'm a gay man, but I've considered having sexyfuntime with women plenty of times. Funnily enough, it's yet to ‘turn me'.

This is all fine. The fact that you've identified your sexthoughts is probably the hardest part, so reward yourself with a delicious bun or cake.

BUT now we get to the bit where you actually have to make a choice.

1. You can choose to do nothing. You can sit on these feelings and hope they go away.
   
2. You can acknowledge them and act on them – do the sex you wanna do or wear the clothes you wanna wear – but choose not to define yourself.
   
3. You can act on them AND adopt an identity to define yourself. This is the bit where you'd get the membership card and become part of a community.
   

Wowsers, this whole gay thing is a lot more complicated than
Glee
led us to believe.

People with same-sex sexthoughts or uncertainty about their gender sometimes stop at option one, but I think these people are probably very sad and angry. (I also think a lot of bonkers homophobes are lingering perilously close to option one, and this is what makes them so hateful. Freud called it ‘transference'. This basically means that you hate in others what you hate about yourself.)

More people choose option two – you can
totally
have sex with people who are the same gender as you and not be ‘gay' or ‘lesbian' or ‘bi'. This is why a lot of forms (especially medical ones) you fill in may refer to ‘men who have sex with men', etc.

You have very little choice about your sexual preference or gender, but you can decide whether to make it a lifestyle. This is option three: you get to be out and proud and open about your relationships or gender. Living with stress and secrets is both stressful and secretive.

It's human nature to label things, and if you're having some confusing thoughts, giving a name to the situation may make you feel better because you can be part of something – a bigger support network – the International Haus of Gay, if you will. I present the identity machine. Start at the top and see where it takes you!

Before we go any further, you'll note I use the word prefer. Sexuality and gender identity are very much about preference. I think we all CONSIDER sex with both men and women. Like I said, why wouldn't we? We're surrounded by sexy images in magazines and on TV. People who say they haven't thought about it are probably fibbers. Therefore, it's all about what we prefer sexually. We need to be open minded at all times.

It's also worth noting that there are stacks of folks who don't like any of the above sexuality options. There are loads of pigeonholes to stuff people into, but not everyone fits into them so easily.