“But you have equal marriage now? Whats there to fight for?”

This statement really makes me mad. As a gay man living in London, I have it rather lucky. London in comparison to other places in the world is very accepting of the gay scene and LGBTQ culture. We were granted equal marriage in 2013, after years and years of fighting and its great! However, when in certain situations, I find myself bringing up the subject of equal rights for the LGBTQ community and getting the title of this post as a normal response from whoever I talk to.

Now this is partially true. Equal marriage is a very big part to securing equal rights and its a very positive move (Now I just wanna squeeze in a congrats to Australia! One step forward to getting equal marriage! Keep up the fight!). However, this is also at the same time a very narrow minded argument.

I still face some stick for being a gay man in London. There is still a lot of hate thrown around, online and in the streets. Fortunately I haven’t been subject to direct abuse either online or on the street however I have faced negative responses for being gay, and I still think its largely a foreign topic to many people who are not gay, so find it hard to understand that we are just normal human beings like everyone else. I have my cereal every morning. Lock my front door. Wash my hair (Should swap those but oh well). Go to Uni. Come home. Cook. Eat. Watch TV Shows (Hey Netflix). Then sleep. Being gay is no different however I feel it is still viewed as different by many people and this is what needs to be tackled.

Education of how we live, what the different terms are (Gay, Pansexual, Bi Sexual, Gender Fluid/Neutral and so on).

We may have gay marriage, which is something that countries like Australia have not got (Yet!!) but the fight is not over. Far far far away from over. LGBTQ indivuduals are still being prosecuted in some countries, and in many countries still executed and killed as a result of being gay. Russia, China, the Middle East. Being Gay is seen as a dirty ‘way of life’ and if you are gay, you are forced to live a false life to evade capture. This is no way anyone on Earth should live.

Many people also have a bad perspective on what being gay is about. A high profile Indian Religious leader this week, said to a audience of graduates, after being questioned about how someone who is gay can live a good life while studying, he said that being gay was a ‘tendency’ and you would grow to be ‘normal’ in the end. Being Gay is not like that at all.

You are, in the words of Mother Monster, Born this way! Being gay is not a craze, a trending fad, a phase during puberty. Its not a rebellious under culture. Its life. Its in your DNA. I have always felt different, and have always known that I was gay.

So again, yes we have gay marriage, but the fights not over at all.

The fight continues on many other fronts that are still stuck in old ways and old thinking, and the fight wont be over for decades to come, until the whole world is a wonderful, accepting and peaceful utopia.

In other words. A very very very long time!

 

🙂

B x o x