By Topher Gen:
I’m 16-years-old and I’m patiently slumped on an L-shaped sofa after successfully managing to put the two kids I am babysitting to sleep.
I haven’t a parental bone in my body, so my babysitting skills must have made the children think I was an alien given lessons in humanity by a robot.
Nevertheless, they are asleep and now all I need to do is sit and wait on the parents coming home.
The clock announces it’s midnight and by the chime of 12 the mother walks in. She asks politely if I could hold off another 30 minutes until her husband gets home: he has the wallet with cash in it.
I oblige and collapse back into the shape my body formed in the sofa. True to her word, 30 minutes later her husband walks in. Thankful, and a little drunk, he hands me £20.
Before I have the chance to leave he sits next to me and skipping past the conversation, he winds up running his hand up my leg, before telling me that he has been with guys when he was younger – but it was a phase.
A phase.
Older now, I see the world for what it really is and I’ve spat out the cartoon fib I was once spoon fed. It’s not a phase, or a choice – or, for that matter, something you can cure.
Following the interview yesterday on Good Morning Britain, which saw Piers Morgan interview Dr Michael Davidson on to the show – a man who claims that gay conversation therapy is a legitimate medical practice – I have been well and truly triggered.
And here is why. Normally I like to tear bigots down by dismantling their arguments but when you’ve got someone, like Dr Davidson, who cannot be argued with, then sometimes you just have to be blunt.
Dr Davidson hasn’t denounced his homosexuality but rather rammed it back into the closet. He is spouting nonsense that implies homosexuality is a choice, an illness, something that can be cured. Who is he trying to convince? Himself or us?
If that was me interviewing him then, yeah, I wouldn’t entertain it either. I wouldn’t want to hear what he is saying. It’s bigoted arguments that have been directed at the LGBT community for years and I am done entertaining it.
We have proven it is not a choice. Preaching otherwise is essentially dribble and as dumb as a dodgem full of monkeys.
The more we entertain bigots, the more we let deluded mad-scientist types parade around our screens and ‘express’ their beliefs, the more we are stopping equality and understanding that homosexuality is not a choice.
Davidson says that he is has been married for 35 years and has two children. I’m from a small town, and I can assure you I’ve met my fair share of married fathers who have long-repressed their sexuality; so much so that in their mid-40 it’s reached boiling point and started spilling out.
I’ve seen them on Grindr and I’ve had them make moves on me when I was a teenager after babysitting their children for the evening.
I understand that times were different then. Heck, the change from when I was teenager to what teens experience now is insane. I can’t fathom the pressure homosexual men back then had thrust on their shoulders to be ‘normal.’
But times have changed. We have grown as a society. Yet still we have Dr Davidson, an anachronism in a time of equality: someone whose medical practices are little more than archaic.
You can suppress your homosexuality, you can deny it, you can ignore the big ol’ pink elephant in the room, but it doesn’t go away. Why? Because it’s part of who you are. Being made to feel as though you cannot be yourself; that you cannot love who you want to love – that’s the real sin. That’s the real abomination.
Let’s say you’re an insecure gay man. One whose parents perhaps mimic the beliefs of Dr Delusional here. When you hear that you are sick, that your sexuality is a curse, and that someone can rid you of it – then that’s going to screw you up. Royally.
We should be focusing on telling gay men and women that who they are is not their sexuality, but rather their sexuality is only a part of them. If we’re going by the theory that we can cure homosexuality then surely the reversible is also achievable? Surely, we can ‘fix’ heterosexuals too? I mean if that’s the case then great; I’ll send a list of potential patients right over, Dr Davidson. You’ll be in business for years.
But of course, that’s not how it works. It never has been and it never will be.
Being gay is like your hair color. You can suppress, change it, cover it up, or even shave it off. But it’ll come back as it is a part of who you are and you cannot change that. It’s part of your make up.
You can’t cure homosexuality because there is nothing to cure. Don’t fight it, accept people for who they are and let them love who they are going to love.
Some people have expressed unhappiness at Good Morning Britain for even having Davidson on the show. I think it’s important to remind the world that these people exist and peddling their trade to vulnerable LGBT people. Bravo, Morgan. I don’t normally applaud your interview style but in this case? Well done.’
No comments:
Post a Comment