There’s plenty of anti-LGBTQ+ talk (and now legislation) across so-called democratic countries but one promoted (flawed) theme is that if you remove LGBTQ+ literature and support for children / young adults then they are less likely to be self questioning? However I was born in the 60s, before mass media (three UK TV channels) and started school in 1970. Before I left primary school in the mid 70s I had questions but I didn’t know how to ask them and I didn’t know where to get ‘help’?
I made it through secondary school somehow but by now I knew there was something ‘girly’ in me. I couldn’t quantify it. I still didn’t know how to ask the questions that might resolve my inward doubts.
It was the early 90s when I was connected to the fledgling internet. I dived into Usenet and that led me down the proverbial rabbit hole. I finally knew how to label myself but I had no clue what to do about it – only that I still couldn’t tell anyone. By the time I had resolved my own questioning I was in my late 20s and was working for the UK Government. If ever there was a need to keep my mouth shut, that was it. But, it had taken 20 years for me to find out who I was. That affected my juvenile mental health.
It means that my family don’t understand why, as I approach 60yo, I am expressing myself this way. But I have had 50 years of suppression because I had no way to resolve my own questioning. I had no LGBTQ+ mass media as a kid or young adult.
Picture this: a child sees LGBTQ+ mass media content and is able to self-identify before they leave school, but there’s no resources available and a threat of social services involvement if they speak out. An MH disaster in waiting?
Because I don’t share your experience I can’t begin to understand how difficult this was for you. As someone who first met you before you went down that rabbit hole I’m just happy to know that you eventually were able to find answers to your questions and that you have found yourself. Everyone deserves happiness.
Back then I was completely blind to your struggle. That you felt you had to hide your thoughts was terrible, but you did it well. I honestly didn’t have the slightest clue, and I guess that would be true of almost everyone else around you. It seems shameful to me now: a lack of information in the media and in education meant that those around you who could and should have supported you, friends and family, were so badly informed that we were incapable of even beginning to have an understanding of what you were going through so we could not help you. Friends, family and society as a whole all let you down, largely because we were (kept) clueless.
It can only be a good thing if everyone has access to information which can help them, or which can help them to help others. We need to be more open, not less. I know that many people still struggle with these issues and I know that society in general as well as people’s families are not always understanding or supportive, but I think that education is the key to resolving this. Change always takes time, of course, but those who continue to want to hide information are harming people by making this change take longer.