My Letter

On the 27th May 2011, I came home from University. I was home for a specific reason that weekend: I was going to come out to my parents.

That evening, I sat them down in the living room, gave them their reading glasses and each a copy of a letter, sealed in an envelope. I told them to read the letter, then find me in my room where I waited.

Thankfully, they took my news very well and have continued to be as supportive as ever. 

Here is the letter. I share something so personal because I hope it can help others. It took a long time, and many versions, to write.

Dear Mum and Dad,

Please read this very carefully, because it is probably the most difficult letter I’ve had to write. I’m gay. I’ve known for a long time, but it is only in the last few months that I’ve finally come to terms with it. The journey I’ve been on to reach this point in my life has been tough, and one I had to make alone. 

I was about 12 when I first became aware of same-sex feelings / attractions. They were immature and undeveloped at the time, but I was incredibly ashamed of them and I put them down to being ‘silly’ and needing to grow up more. So I suppressed them.

As I grew up, these feelings didn’t go away. At some point in my mid teens, I consciously acknowledged that they were real, but decided to carry on suppressing them. I did this because it was something that I really didn’t want at the time. I’ve always been one for tradition, and saw myself carrying on the family, with pride, into the next generation as done generations before me. I didn’t think this expectation could be achieved if I was gay. I thought that I could just suppress my feelings, act my part as a heterosexual male and I would live happily ever after.

My teenage years were one hell of an internal struggle. As I grew up, most of what I heard about being gay was not good: At school ‘gay’ was an insult, and used as an adjective for something bad. It was insinuated to me that being gay was unnatural and disgusting. ‘Homosexuals are just confused.’  Whenever a conversation featuring a gay relationship came up, it always seemed controversial. I always saw a stereotype: gays are camp, promiscuous, flamboyant and into fashion. I saw this stereotype of a gay man and didn’t identify with it; I wasn’t camp, I wasn’t promiscuous, I wasn’t flamboyant or into fashion. 

It is known that rates of depression and suicide are significantly higher in gay teenagers, and I can understand why. I shudder to think how horrible it is to be a gay teenager who is bullied and ostracised because of their sexuality; being a teenager who feels they need to hide their sexuality is difficult and lonely enough. I struggled with my own image and the image of a gay life painted all around me. How could I be gay? My teenage world was telling me it was a shameful life to lead, but I found it more and more distressing to suppress. I used to wish over and over again that I was normal. I even once did a silly ritual in the hope that it would excise the homosexual feelings out of me!

For a long time I hoped I was bisexual, and could just suppress the one side of my sexuality. However, I became more and more aware that I wasn’t attracted to women. I pretended to myself that this wasn’t true and overemphasised any feelings I had that could be attributable to being attracted to a girl. I found it very difficult when people asked me which girls I fancied because, honestly, I fancied none! A heterosexual woman knows that certain looks are attractive in another woman, and that is all I knew. 

I also realised that I just couldn’t cope with having a girlfriend. When you don’t find someone attractive, it is immensely hard to pretend you do. It feels like a constant, unrelenting lie. Lying has never come naturally to me, so I hated it. I also realised that it is a horrible thing to do to someone. During my 3rd year, I talked to a woman in her 60s who had been married to a man who turned out to be gay and left her. She recounted the story to me, which had ended many years ago, and yet still found it upsetting to talk about. She made it clear that her hurt wasn’t because he had left her, but because the very foundation of her decades long marriage was based on a lie.

Having said how difficult it was, I am lucky that I was never truly unhappy. I had a privileged upbringing and I have wonderful parents. I was able to detach myself from shame and loneliness enough, thankfully, that I was generally upbeat. Imagine a summer party overshadowed by a dark thundercloud; that is how I felt. 

At university I slowly, but very slowly, started to accept who I was. I have done a lot of reading, observing, and self-reflection, and now realise over and over again that I should have done it sooner. I was ashamed of myself for too long, and that’s a very destructive thing. So how do I view my sexuality now? Here’s a little summary.

Medicine made me realise that one of the most marvellous things about living creatures, and particularly about humans, is variation. No two humans are exactly the same. People who fit exactly into a stereotype are rare; they are not the norm. 

Humans are incredibly complex. Why do we laugh, why do we cry? Why have we invented music, dance, theatre and fictional stories delivered through books and films? Through all of the reading I have done on my own to try and make sense of my ‘predicament,’ I have come to the conclusion that human sexuality is not black and white, right and wrong. In typical human style it is immensely complex. Being gay is a natural human variation and a decidedly common one at that. I think of the analogy of being a 6 foot 2 inch high woman. They are unusual, and probably more unusual than gay people. As most women are a lot shorter, the world these tall women live in is not designed for them. For example, most shoes and clothes available will be too small. In fact, any consumer product advertised as ‘ladies size’ will probably be the wrong size. However, no one would argue that these women are ‘unnatural’ or ‘ill’ just because they 6’2”. No one would say being tall was their choice. They would say both genetic and environmental factors, which they had little control over, made them that height. It is viewed as an unusual but natural form of human variation.

In fact, many of our human traits are not so exclusively human. Some social characteristics, which we think of being unique to our species, have analogues in other animals. So in fact has homosexuality. People may argue that these apparently homosexual behaviours in animals must not be the same thing, and therefore it is a poor argument for making human homosexuality seem natural. However, by using that counter argument, how can any of our higher, more complex behaviour be seen as the ‘same thing’ and therefore natural? How do you define natural? Most of our behaviour is very different from what is seen in animals, and some behaviour seems downright bizarre; take crying for example!

Having said all of this, telling someone you’re gay still often comes as bad news. Society is still not completely accepting. Homosexuality is still controversial, but things are improving. My generation seems particularly promising. To a growing majority of people my age, it doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is, just like it doesn’t matter if you are tall or short.

Some people may associate acceptance of homosexuality with the so-called moral degradation of western society. I see changes in modern society as a little more complex than that. Modern society may have its problems, but homosexuality is not one of them. It is beyond obvious that human society has been changing since as far back as we can trace our history, because without change we would still be hunter-gatherers living in small groups in caves! Our society has changed as we have found out more about the world and ourselves.  For example, it would seem ludicrous now to force a left-handed person to write with the other hand because of the belief that being left-handed is sinful. Also, believing the earth orbits the sun, and not that the sun orbits the earth, was seriously culturally unacceptable in Galileo’s time, but it now known to be correct. As we have modernised we have learnt so much about ourselves, including about human homosexuality. This is from the American Psychological Association: 

‘The longstanding consensus of the behavioural and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation’ 

I realised that there are successful, good-natured, well-balanced individuals living out there who also happen to be gay. You would never dream of using adjectives such as ‘deviant’ ‘criminal’ or ‘freak’ when describing them. They are happy. People could look at their lives and be jealous! 

Everything I want to achieve I can still achieve. Being gay doesn’t stop me from being a good son, a good brother, a good doctor or even just a nice person. I can even have kids, although I acknowledge that it will be more difficult. I’m not scared of the challenge, though. 

I have already mentioned you can’t sort humans into neat little boxes. I realised that being attracted to the same sex did not mean I had to be camp, and suddenly become a fashion expert. I don’t fit a stereotype, like many other gay guys! I know who I am, how I act, and what my interests are. 

Being gay is just one part of a complex human being; it does not define me. It is as simple as this: what I find attractive is just different from the majority of men. I could even joke that it just like saying I don’t like chicken, but love oysters! I am still the same Charles you have ever known, and I don’t want to be treated differently. I still keep my emotions close to my chest; I still don’t like massages; I still love medicine and science and I’m still full of random facts. The list could go on, but you know who I am. Some people may think of me differently now, but why- a preconceived idea, such as a stereotype, perhaps? I’ve only ever been gay; my personality doesn’t suddenly change as soon as you know I am. Just as there are people who think only ‘indigenous Britons’ should be allowed to live in the UK, some will have a problem with my sexuality.  It is their problem though. There is no reason why they should make me hate myself or make you ashamed of me.

I wrote this letter because I love my family a lot. I’m giving you this much in writing to help you understand, because I want your support. I know that you won’t stop loving me, but I want you to accept me and not be ashamed when you tell people I’m gay. I want you to be proud of me for who I am.