I wasn’t much for Pride when I first came out. My understanding was that you came out, people accepted it (or didn’t), you accepted that and then you got on with stuff as normal.
It was a few straight friends from university who introduced me to Pride. They lived in Brighton and had grown up with it – going every year and loving it. I felt shy going with them, as if my gayness was more on display as a result of being around other gay people in front of them.
We were all sat up on the hillside under the clock tower, a few drinks in, warm in the tree dappled August sunshine when my friend Mary proposed a toast to me. “To Tom… of whom we are all very proud”. I tried to shrug it off… “come on guys…” but she was proud. They all were, and it felt pretty good.
Looking back now, I realise I didn’t accept Pride because I had no real understanding of the deepness of my shame.
I didn’t grow up when it was illegal to be gay. I missed the worst of the HIV epidemic, my family didn’t kick me out when I told them.
In fact, I turned 15 when the age of consent was equalised and had no interest in getting married before I did (it has sometimes felt like the law has been changing for me personally!).
People have told me how lucky I am to live in an age of such enlightenment. And… perhaps I am. But life doesn’t work like that and we don’t choose our era any more than we choose our parents or our sexuality.
The culture around gay people in the UK was really different in the ’90s where “gay” was an acceptable insult (it isn’t FYI), the biggest shame for a character on TV sitcom was ”kissing a guy” and sex between men was seen as disgusting.
For those fragile teenage years, I was a big personality trapped in crisis-denial-mode, and then I came out and had a reactionary impulse to not be defined by my sexuality.
People today pat themselves on the back for living in a tolerant society and it definitely seems a whole lot better growing up gay now than it was (I found out recently that there are LGBT+ networks in schools which is such a huge leap from my experience of no one being out and section 28 still in force.) But there is still a huge amount of shame out there. I have less of it, but still carry some. I also see it in my LGBT+ friends and colleagues.
Tolerance isn’t enough to overcome shame. Having to be tolerated suggests a degree of shame is acceptable. And anyway, what is it that has be tolerated? And who is actually doing all of the tolerating?
That is where Pride comes in and once I tried it on all those years ago, and got used to it, let me tell you: it fits good and feels even better.
Bolt Burdon Kemp has a head start with LGBT+ inclusivity – our managing partner (Jonathan Wheeler) is out and proud which makes acceptance the starting point. Other places I have worked have not been so accepting.
We started our LGBT+ network a few years ago and I have chaired it from the start. Leading the quarterly firm meeting to introduce the network and talk about my own personal experiences – from realising I was gay to the queer-bashing I have experienced – was harder than I thought. Though I have received nothing but support and encouragement from the firm as a whole, I guess the personal shame persists.
Our network is growing and I am proud of the connections we forged and the events we have held. The conversation I led with Master Victoria McCloud – the first and only trans judge in the UK has been my favourite. The whole firm showed up to hear an incredibly successful trans woman discuss her experiences coming out as trans and making it to the top of the profession at a time where the trans community is being mercilessly persecuted in the press (she is an incredible person – look her up if you haven’t heard of her).
Having the group in the firm has definitely encouraged me to feel more proud and sure of myself at work. I think it has done the same for my queer colleagues. It is a fairly informal group but you build conviction when you have a supportive framework to bounce off.
We are always stronger and prouder together.
Perhaps being proud is always going to be something to practice at – you have to keep making the effort to overcome that innate shame by expressing pride, whether through talking about your experiences in front of your colleagues, marching in a parade or even simply committing to casually refer to your husband as “my husband” in everyday conversation.
While I am, in part, still practicing at being proud, I have come a long way since that sunny August afternoon in Brighton. I am going to be reflecting on that this August when we take our collective pride to another level and take Bolt Burdon Kemp to its first Pride event in Margate.
Tom Lax is a senior associate at Bolt Burdon Kemp.
