It’s funny. As a teenager and young man I was always adamant I would never end up living in the Welsh valleys. I grew up here and it always seemed boring, quiet, never anything going on. When I realised my sexual orientation there also saw the burning undercurrent of homophobia. I wanted to live somewhere much more exciting and much more accepting of gay people.
I started going to gay clubs in Cardiff when I was 16. I am sure I looked underage (and could never get into any other clubs) but I think it was just accepted and allowed that underage boys could come in. Of course, I wasn’t that naïve, and a friend of mine at college (a ‘sixth form’ college for those of you unfamiliar with the concept; it was not part of a school nor was there a uniform but you could take A-Levels there) had a harsh and cruel encounter with the darker side of this culture, when he woke up in a dark room above one of the clubs after a night out. He had been drugged and abused.
I lived in Cardiff for a bit, then Bristol, and I planned to move even further afield and somewhere much more exciting. I had my heart set on Manchester rather than London. All the same, I ended up back in Cardiff, then a few years ago right smack bang in the Welsh valleys. It’s funny how things turn out.
Not necessarily progress
In some ways the valleys haven’t changed that much. People are probably more accepting of having two gays next door than they would have been 20 years ago, but the progress here seems glacial compared to the big cities.
Of course, in Cardiff, the progression has been fast but not necessarily progressive. 20 years ago the gay bars were just that – gay bars. The now closed down ‘Club X’ was a favourite of mine. Wednesday was student night and if you had an NUS card you paid £5 on the door and it was open bar all night: only cheap bottled beers and alcopops were included, but still. The front room was super cheesy dance and pop (Kylie, Steps, Madonna etc.) and the back room was male strippers and drag queens performing – your traditional foul-mouthed British-style drag queens, an obvious grotesque parody of womanhood in gaudy dresses, cheap wigs and bad make up, singing badly to gay classics like Gloria Gaynor and Diana Ross, absolutely no miming – or ‘lip-synching’ as they now call it. The men at these bars were men.
And we were gay. That is – gay men. Men who unashamedly loved other men, men who were unashamedly sexually attracted to other men. Men who loved cock. Men who were male and who were uncontrollably desiring of other men who were male. It seems odd to have to use this qualifier doesn’t it? Of course men are male. Of course we all know men are male. But in any of the number of ‘LGBTQ bars’ (note: not gay bars) in Cardiff now, anyone who dares make such a bold statement will be turfed out Or should that be TERFed out.
Now
We hear a lot about the erasure of lesbian spaces and the way lesbians are not welcome at LGBTQ venues or events. The same is now true of gay men. Yes, many gay men are drunk on the gender identity ideology, and sadly this can often be driven by misogyny, an outlet to have a go at the ‘lezzers’.
These men will usually know the difference between men and women though when it comes to the bedroom. Woke in the streets, TERF in the sheets as the saying goes.
But there are those of us, a growing number of us, who are gay men who see the danger in gender identity theory, what it is doing to children, to women’s rights, and yes, to gay rights. I have gay friends who visit these ‘LGBTQ bars’; they do so knowing they have to keep their head down, and be careful when they are talking to others so they do not openly let slip that they are a ‘genital fetishist’. They must publicly declare ‘men can have vaginas, gay men can have vaginas, gay men with vaginas are valid’.
This is not just true of bars, but of apps allegedly aimed at gay men. Notoriously, on Grindr, a growing number of young women ‘identifying’ as gay men are now using it. The following will now get you banned from Grindr: saying you’re not attracted to female people. Homosexuality is not tolerated on app ostensibly created for homosexuals.
New tee-shirt: same old hate
Back to the valleys. Its crazy.
If I wanted to wear a t-shirt bearing the logo of ‘LGB Alliance Cymru’, I would walk around the streets of Newbridge and face good old fashioned homophobia. Queer, poof, shirt lifter, bender….. Same old, no change from the 90s.
But now something quite extraordinary can happen. I can get on the train at Newbridge, go a few stops along, get into Cardiff, and I will now face a new form of homophobia. TERF, Nazi, Genital fetishist… how dare you say gay people are homosexual! How dare you say same sex attraction exists! The so called LGBTQ community is now completely overtaken by straight people with identities, non binaries, agenders, polyamorous people, aromantics, furries, and even age-play fetishists. All welcome at ‘queer’ bars. All welcome at Cardiff Pride.
Not us homosexuals. We are not ‘valid’. We are ostracised, shunned, the same as straight people have always done to us. But now they do so after colonising our own community and gutting our society.
Real gay groups and gay spaces are underground in a way they have not been for decades.
And this is why LGB Alliance is so necessary. So important. But one thing that the straight queers have not counted on is as we grow in number we are getting angry, very, very angry – both at what has been done to us and the atrocities done in our name.
For personal safety reasons the author of this post unfortunately has to remain anonymous. He is well known to the core activists in LGBAC.
Photo by Thiago Barletta on Unsplash