Is It OK To Be Gay?

Richard  0:10  
Hello, everybody, welcome to the therapy natters podcast. A another episode where myself, Richard Nicholls and my co host, Fiona Biddle attempt to try and unravel the mysteries of what makes us tick. And everything in between that and why we do what we do, why we feel what we feel, and lots of other questions as well. I'm rambling now. So I shall pass you over to my co host, Fiona Biddle, who's got some wise words, I'm sure to start the episode with today. No pressure.

Fiona  0:43  
No pressure in terms of our aims, either. I didn't know that's what I'm doing. I thought we were nattering about therapy.

Richard  0:50  
But yeah, a lot of pressure on us doesn't it

Fiona  0:54  
Solve the world. That's okay. And thinking of, is it Okay. We've had a question, haven't we? And the question starts with, is it okay to be gay? From David? I believe it's from David

Richard  1:09  
David from Southsea. Yes, he wrote in. Yeah.

Fiona  1:12  
He continues with, I guess I asked, because I'm still struggling with this at nearly 66 years of age, conventional family and church and local community and national values, have all made me feel that I am inherently unacceptable, in myself, sad face.

Richard  1:34  
I felt quite sad. Reading that, when he sent that through, because obviously, we're here to try and help people. And we asked them to send us questions. And we'll do our best to, to help them. And that's one of those times were when a client sits in front of us and says things like that, that our heart breaks. A little bit. 

Fiona  1:55  
The phrase inherently unacceptable. Is it is heart wrenching.  The idea that anybody is

Richard  2:04  
Those words. Is it okay to be gay? I mean, we can. We're going to spend a bit of time talking about this. But to cut a long story short, yes, it's okay to be gay. The issue is, David is 66 years of age, and still doesn't quite believe that. Even though we live in a society that tries to tell him that it is.

Fiona  2:28  
And of course, not everywhere in the world agrees with us. Because I looked it up. And at the time of recording, there are 71 countries in the world that criminalise consensual same sex activity. And in 11, it is punishable by death. 

Richard
Jeez!

Fiona
Yeah, so we can sit here comfortably in our nice, 

Richard  3:01  
what we might call educated Western world. 

Fiona
Yes, with our nice comfort. 

Richard
Yeah. But in 11 countries around the world, it's punishable by death to begin. 

Fiona  3:12  
So yeah, we can say it's okay to be gay. But then it's followed by an "It depends." And I didn't look too much into the where it's illegal, but one was Singapore. And

Richard
What? I've been to Singapore. 

Fiona
Yes. I love Singapore. Or I did. 

Richard
Yeah. I'm going off it now.

Fiona
Yes. It's, it's, it's scary. It's, it's truly scary. And the idea of having that level of judgement hanging over you, as we said, even if it's okay here to know that in some places, it's not. I mean, this does apply to other things. Of course, there are things in the world, places in the world where I'm not allowed to do certain things, because I'm a woman. But sadly, 

Richard
some of those same countries,

Fiona
indeed, there will be some of the same countries. But that doesn't feel like it's hanging over me, because I just won't go there. But I don't know if there's anything I'm not allowed to do in Singapore that a man is allowed to do. I don't think so.

Richard  4:15  
It's incredible that before somebody goes on holiday, depending on obviously, where they want to go, a married couple, two men might have to make some decisions before they go that says, you know, we're not allowed to hold hands. And women as well. We're not going to be allowed to hold hands as we go through the airport. We if we get separated, I'm not allowed to say, can I just go and meet my wife? I'm sorry, your what? is the question they're gonna get? That's in 2022. 

Fiona  4:45  
And even in countries, and even in some places within our own country, I know that some hotels and B&B's and so on, will discriminate even if it's just by a look, but it could be an awful lot more than that.  And the idea of having to think about that, and we'll be concerned about that and see whether you feel that you would be okay to go to a certain place.

Richard  5:13  
I mean, I'm in a very fortunate position, I'm a straight white man. And that gives me some level of privilege before anything else, and I can't ignore that, that those that aren't in his privileged  a position as me, aren't afforded some of those opportunities and chances that make us happy. And David has clearly been suffering for many, many, many, many years. Things have changed. But things were different in the past,

Fiona  5:45  
I looked at the situation. In the UK, most listeners will probably know, at least vaguely, but homosexuality, male homosexuality was decriminalised in England in 1967. But it was 1980 in Scotland and 1982 for Northern Ireland. And even then it was the age of 21, rather than the age of consent for straight people. And David is from Southsea. Yes? So that's in England, I believe, was last time I checked. In 67. David would have been 12. So I don't know, David, but I strongly suspect that he at least suspected, that he was gay. And he would have heard about this change of the law. And he would have known that there were questions about whether this was okay, because it was hotly debated. And I found a quote, this was in the times in 1967, in July 1967, from a parliamentary debate, where they said that most proponents of the bill did not condone homosexuality, but instead argued that it was not within the responsibility of the criminal law to penalise homosexual men, who were already the object of ridicule and derision. Roy Jenkins captured the government's attitude by saying those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives. 

Richard
Goodness, me. 

Fiona
And David would have known about this. So it's no wonder, David, that you've been carrying this.

Richard  7:25  
What a stigma. Yeah.

Fiona  7:28  
And I've also got a quote from Peter Tatchell who most people will know as a gay activist. And he said, In Home Office archives, I found that there were 1718 convictions and cautions for gross indecency in 1989. So that's 22 years after decriminalisation. The 2022, recorded offences of gross indecency that year, were almost as many as the 2034 recorded in 1954 when it was totally illegal, which sort of suggests that certainly police attitudes didn't really change and the decriminalisation didn't do all that we might presume, would do.

Richard  8:17  
It starts there, though, I would have liked that things would have moved on a lot quicker. But it starts with those policies. And there was a time and I think it might even around the same sort of time, that being gay was taken out of the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical manuals, etc. 

Fiona
1974 

Richard
1974. But actually, that's an American one, isn't it? The DSM? So there's the IDC. Is that what it's called

Fiona
ICD

Richard
 The international one. Yeah, yeah.

Fiona  8:52  
But in the DSM in 1974, homosexuality as a disorder, was replaced with a new code for individuals distressed by their homosexuality. And that remained in the manual under different names until 2013.

Richard  9:12  
Distresses is distress, whatever it is, that's distressing you so but I understand there's a transition to go through there, isn't there?

Fiona  9:19  
Yes. And we can all be distressed about anything that we choose to be distressed about. 

Richard
And David is distressed.

Fiona
Or not choose to be distressed.

Richard  9:27  
And this is this is the problem that I think went on in the 40s 50s 60s that because of the stigma of being gay, and the the mental health problems that that caused, not being gay caused, but that society caused that's going to create anxiety and depression. And those people are going to consult a psychiatrist or psychologist and ask for help and go Ah ha ha, all of these gay people have anxiety and depression. It's clearly a disorder. No, it is the it is society. it's our culture, that was the problem. And I'd like to think since those policies started to change, things are different. And they are, we don't judge as much. But people still do, don't they? So it's easy for us to say, David, it's okay to be gay, and all the other David's and everybody out there that is gay, and he's worried about coming out. Which reminds me of a quote, I forget where I read this. And it was a surefire way of making sure that your kid never comes out of the closet. You don't put them in there in the first place. 

Fiona
Brilliant. 

Richard
Yeah. I thought, can we create a society with that attitude? We can, but it's gonna be slow. Are we getting there? We are getting there. We have made some changes. 

Fiona  10:54  
We definitely are as a society, but of course, as individuals in society, and I think it was just to bring in the idea about these laws that have been talking about we've been talking about all about men, being a lesbian has not been a criminal offence. And the reason apparently, is that Queen Victoria did not think it was possible. So it was never put onto the statute books as being a crime.

Richard  11:18  
There's an element of, of sexism and patriarchy there, I think, as well, that if men were to look at it and go, oh, so we've got gay men here. That's a no, that's abhorrent. But gay women? Well, women are attractive. So it's understandable if they want to touch each other and fancy each other. Of course, that's understandable. They're only human. Oh, I'm sure those conversations would have happened.

Fiona  11:39  
I'm sure they did. And that just reminded me of something as to talking to a person I know, rather, elderly woman, shall I say, I won't go into more details to who this person is. But said person mentioned, no idea how the conversation came round to it, but mentioned that she had never known a gay man. But she has known over her life, lots of lesbians, but she isn't. So it's not that she's been in that sector of society. But the statement was, I've never known a gay man. What does that tell you about society? is absolutely fascinating, isn't it?

Richard  12:20  
It is because have you looked at the statistics of the population gay vs straight versus bi

Fiona  12:28  
Not lately, do enlighten us.

Richard  12:30  
I would, but I didn't either. So let's have a very quick Google live and make sure this is from a reputable source. Gay statistics. Canada, no, I do have it as the first drop down.

Fiona
I do have a statistic later, but that's not on that sexual orientation 

Richard
from the Office of National Statistics. The proportion of the UK population aged 16, and over identifying as heterosexual or straight decreased from 94% in 2018 to 93% in 2019. Okay, so an estimated 2.7% of UK population aged 16 and over identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual in 2019, an increase from 2.2% in 2018. So I'm always suspicious of statistics like this. So that's around 3% that are out of the closet and telling people about it. That's still three people in every 100. I know, 100 people, three of them are gay. I wonder if it's Colin.

Fiona  13:34  
It seems that seems low. To me. 

Richard
It does doesn't it 

Fiona
It does seem low,

Richard  13:39  
as it was reading that I thought that can't be right. Only 3% No. More work needs to be done.

Fiona  13:46  
Maybe my elderly friend has only met 97 people.

Richard  13:52  
And all of them were straight.

Fiona  13:54  
That that will be a perception, it will be that that it wasn't something that she considered. And if I think back to my school days, I mean, I will own up to being 60 Scary, but I am so I can claim to be. Sexuality was not something that I certainly thought about when I was at school. I went to an all girls Grammar School. And I vaguely have some idea that there was some discussion about one girl in all that time I was there. My brother went to the all boys school over the road. I do not recall any discussion about anybody there. Maybe I was terribly naive. It has been said, but it just didn't seem to be something that we talked about. So this is in the 70s. I'm sure that, you know, there were about 90 people in each year group. So there would have been two or three, according to your statistics in each group, but they certainly weren't out. Well. I can't say certainly, but it didn't seem to be

Richard  14:58  
 and because of that it creates an idea that there's something wrong with you, when you get to a point where I do feel differently to everybody else's descriptions, but all the stress, all the all the other gay people are keeping it to themselves as well. And it's having a, an impact on everything about the way that person thinks about themselves and the world. And so they hide it. That's painful.

Fiona  15:22  
Yeah, completely understand why it wouldn't feel safe, especially in those sorts of environments where it's all one gender, you know, somehow, if you're in a mixed gender, then it feels like it wouldn't be so scary. I don't know, I can't really say, just going back to one of the things that David said was about church. Obviously, different religions have different views, and different people within different religions have different views. But David is in England, we are both in England, as we're talking about this. And we do have an established church here, there is no separation of church and state. So the Church of England does not allow, at time of recording, same sex marriage in church. And they do allow their clergy to have a same sex partner, but only if they're celibate. Hmm. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Richard  16:20  
I know that the UK particularly is becoming slightly more atheist, as the generations have gone on, there was a study that the humanist society conducted a few years ago now, which was the tipping point where it's become just over 50%, don't believe in in the supernatural, don't believe in a particular God. And less than half did. And they've been campaigning for a long time to say, This is what the public thinks. So this is where our policies in government need to be aimed at because these, these are your voters. But we still have a lot of people who have studied the Bible, and the Torah, and the Koran, and many other religious texts that were written and translated, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not 1000s, of years ago. And it's in a different time where we didn't understand. There's more than likely something in some religious texts about there being a problem with somebody who's left handed wouldn't surprise me.

Fiona  17:27  
I'm pretty sure there is yes. And all sorts of things. I mean, there's so many contradictions in the Bible as well. I cannot comment about the Torah or the Koran, but there certainly are in the Bible as one place it says one thing and the other it says completely the opposite. And then you've got things like that famous passage from Leviticus, where it talks about all sorts of things which was brilliantly parodied in the West Wing. If you've ever seen that show. Not sure if parody is the right word. But if you haven't seen it, go on to YouTube, and search for Jed Bartlet. Leviticus, and you'll find his speech about it where he challenges somebody from the church. It's brilliant. Well, it's brilliant, from the point of view of looking for inconsistencies in the Bible. If you are a fundamentalist Christian, I don't think you'd find it that amusing. 

Richard  18:22  
But it goes to show that if you're brought up in a particular culture, and because religion has played a part in our culture for many, many generations, and certainly David growing up and and many, many others growing up, they were told those words were were the gospel truth. You had to live by those rules. And to hear that week after week, month, after month, year after year, throughout your life, that this is the way you're supposed to be. And if you don't, you'll go to hell. That's terrifying. absolutely terrifying for people so unfair. Because it is it's tantamount to brainwashing, isn't it? It's almost like abuse. Being told on a daily basis, something that can lower your self esteem. It's cruel, cruel.

Fiona  19:12  
Absolutely. And it then brings me on to thinking about the suggestion within that is that people have a choice. So they're being told, don't be like that don't be you. And I think there are still people around who do believe that homosexuality is a choice. But this is where I got another statistic, a paper just from 2020. In theology and sexuality. It's an interesting journal, 

Richard  19:44  
I would imagine, wow. Didn't even know that existed. That's amazing,

Fiona  19:47  
by Professor Christopher Cook from Durham University. And his paper concludes that whilst acknowledging that there is still much that is not known, the peer reviewed science specific literature clearly shows that a combination of genetic and environmental factors contribute to sexual orientation. With approximately 1/3 of variants currently attributed to the former, much of the known environmental influence appears to be intrauterine, and there is currently no convincing evidence that social environment plays a significant part.

Richard  20:25  
So its nature not nurture. 

Fiona
Its nature, not nurture, 

Richard
Like being left handed or having brown eyes, you're born with it. And you can't change. It doesn't matter how many times the Church says, you need to change, or an establishment says there's something wrong with you, you need to go to therapy, and learn how to get that out of you. And although we don't prescribe so much to that in the UK, conversion therapy isn't illegal in the UK yet. But it's it's frowned upon. I think one of the reasons in the UK it's not been made illegal is because a lot of people just think is ridiculous. What's the what's the point nobody prescribes to it? But in other countries like America, they do.

Fiona  21:07  
Yeah, there is a consultation going on, at time of recording as to whether conversion therapy should be made illegal in the UK, some people are worried about that, in terms of whether it would risk people being criminalised if they were to help somebody come to terms with which was very different. It's very different, but some people do fear it. But going back to the idea about causes one of the things that was criticised about the change in legislation back in 67, in England, and the age of it being 21 was some suggestion that men between the ages of 16 and 20 could be seduced into being gay. So that's clearly been disproven now. But that was there wasn't it? And in all sorts of things about if you're, too if you're too close to your mother, you'll turn out gay, all those sorts of suggestions that have been part of life, we only just moving on from them, if indeed we really are.

Richard  22:13  
I still think there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And these conversations I think, are important. And I'm glad David asked the question, sad as it is that it's still on his mind that he's inherently broken in some way because of his sexuality. In the same way that somebody doesn't choose to be straight. You don't choose to be gay. And then if anybody wants to say, well, you must have made a decision about being gay when you were a teenager. It's all it's all the people it's all the nancy boys in in your environment that have turned you that way. Well, did all the straight people around you turn you straight? No. And I do hear these arguments from people that say I don't mind people being gay. I just don't want to see it on the telly. Well, why? We need that it needs to be normalised I don't want, I just don't want to see it shoved down my throat. But heterosexuality has been shoved in everybody's faces for generations, every TV show has got straight people in it, even if it is as low as as 3%. And I'm pretty sure that's too low of figure. But let me say more studies clearly need to be done to verify all that. Even if it is only 3%. That's still a significant amount of people in the 70 million people that are in the UK. And for there to not be any gay representatives in TV shows is just going to make people feel more and more broken, and alien, I'm getting very passionate.

Fiona  23:43  
what you're saying then just made me think about the word homophobia. So fascinating word because obviously, phobia means an irrational fear of. So the word in usage tends to mean hatred off. But the real word is fear of so what does that potentially tell you about people who are homophobic? 

Richard  24:07  
Are you familiar with a particular study that was done in the 90s Oh Fiona you'll love it. Well, David, you'll find this incredible in fact that I'm not sure if David is a listener to my other podcasts. He might have heard me talk about this in the past. There was a study done I think mid 90s early to mid 90s. I think. It was in the states where they did some surveys to find out what they wanted was to find the most homophobic people they could so they did lots of big questionnaires on a scale of one to 10 how unhappy would you be if you found out your son was gay? And they whittled it down to well in those that then found out how many of them would be angry with him would not go to his wedding? How many of them would disown him and agree all the way down to a couple of dozen people probably, let's say so it was a decent size that's a decent sample size. So the got the really these are all men got the really Most anti gay men they could. And they connected them up to some machines that monitored blood flow around their body, including their penis. So it measured blood flow in their penis. And they did the same with the control group. And what they found when they showed them gay porn, the ones that would that would the most angry the most anti gay were the ones that had the most amount of blood change in their penis when they watch gay porn. Hilarious, just proving exactly what you were saying there that those that are homophobic that are fearful of the gays. It's probably a defence mechanism that has been created by their culture, law, David went one way. And it turned into fear, oh, my God, this is what's going on with me. Whereas there are other people who went on repressing that on burying that, and they went in a different direction, but probably all suffering the same amount of pain, just in different ways. Just a little sorry for the guys who are having the penis tests.

Fiona  26:05  
Doesn't sound uncomfortable. But that just that does make me think though, I think it's important to say that you can fear being something that you're not. So whilst that statistic, that trial showed that you can fear being something you're not so it doesn't necessarily it doesn't necessarily mean you are not. Not 100%. But obviously statistics. Yes, no, statistically. So I think that's important. But another thing that's important, which this podcast is called therapy natters. we've chatted a lot about the question, Is it okay to be gay, but what can therapy do to help David?

Richard  26:46  
Because it can, in exploring the origins of the self esteem problems that it can cause in being accepted by a therapist and understood and listened to, and maybe hearing other people's stories and examples and to learn. I'm okay being me, will be wonderful. I wish we didn't people didn't need therapy for that. I wish our culture our society was therapeutic enough. But maybe it's not. What would you say therapy would do

Fiona  27:17  
all of the above, also to look at the beliefs that are held by the person. So in this case, in the beliefs that David is holding about himself and about other people about the world, and to reevaluate those beliefs. And if they're not his to hand them back to whoever he got them from, and to learn to make his own judgments. I would imagine that he does that a lot anyway, but there's obviously something residual that he's holding on to, from what he's been taught in the past.

Richard  27:55  
Yeah. If you hear something enough times you believe it. If you are given this, no matter how subtle it is, no matter how indirect or direct it is to be told, in one way, shape, or form, that there's something wrong with you. And to have that there all the time. It's going to become a deep, deep belief that it feels unshakable. It's like trying to convince a Jehovah's Witness that there's no such thing as God. I've tried, believe me, it's unshakable. It's an argument you're just not going to win. It takes action from their part to learn how to think differently. And that takes practice and that might take therapy. Gosh, Fiona. This is a subject that could probably take up an entire podcast series all by itself and David and lots of other David's about the place, feel free to find them because believe me, they are there. If there's there's probably even an entire genre in the podcast, headings just for LGBT stuff. No, it's yes, definitely. Yeah, explore it. Learn. Listen, soak it up. And and learn to be okay being you. 

Fiona  29:03  
Absolutely. You are okay being you. 

Richard  29:05  
Yeah. 

Fiona  29:06  
Yeah.

Richard  29:06  
That's what we all we all need to recognise that in ourselves and in each other. 

Fiona  29:10  
You couldn't be anybody else. And nobody else is you.

Richard  29:13  
That's nice. Yeah, I like that. That's a lovely note to finish on. Because we've come to time, would you believe Fiona? We're gonna have to end it here. But I expect we're not going anywhere. There'll be other episodes around similar topics and these sorts of nattering things will come up from time to time and we will continue to explore all these different things that make us tick. And if you have any questions, do please let us know there's going to be a link in the show notes with where to go to submit some questions. Feel free to fire off as many as you like. You can say your real name, you can make up a name. You can be anonymous really doesn't matter. But please do keep in touch and please let us all know how you're getting on as well. So let's love you and leave you for today. If you need anything You know where we'll be next time Take care guys and girls and everybody in between

Fiona
Bye everybody.