PAUL FLYNN
Long-forgotten instances of homophobia can come back to haunt us
“HE’D SCOWL WITH UNMITIGATED RAGE AND REVULSION AT ME”
IT’S BECOME a familiar kind of gay tradition to group homophobia in one of several ways we recognise from experience. From being called names at school to being beaten up in the street, homophobia is a kind of #metoo experience so ubiquitous it hardly needs hashtag verification.
Whenever some seemingly confident adult gay man says, “Oh, I’ve never experienced homophobia”, you know that he’s one surface scratch away from cradling down in a puddle of tearful recollection over something an auntie said about him wearing a bow tie, when he was five years old, to make a mundane event more interesting.