EDITOR'S LETTER

Welcome to our September Style issue. We like to feature new talent at Attitude and this month is a prime example. We couldn’t help but notice the handsome BBC Business reporter Ben Thompson reading the news and being all clever and stomping across the BBC news set much like the Hulk with an ear piece. (He’s 6ft 6, you know) And then like a bolt from above, it came to our attention that he is in fact one of the family. Yes, he sits on our side of the church, drives on our side of the road, bats for our team. In other words, he’s an actual gay. Can you believe it? We met him, we fell in love with him, we felt slight disappointment when we heard he had a boyfriend, but we got over it and decided to bring him to you like the cast of King Kong carrying the giant to New York. (Ours is cuter) Head to page 114 for the full interview.

This is the part where I say it’s great how different things are from how they were in my day. *Cue violin*. Do you know what? It’s great how different things are from how they were in my day. There are gays on TV that aren’t Larry Grayson and who don’t pretend they’re straight. Who’d a thought it, eh? Ben is one of them. Behold.

Talking of friends old and new – as the editor of a gay magazine I have met many people in the business of show that enjoy the support of gay people but don’t give anything back. I’m very happy to say we have an exclusive gay press interview with one of the singers who has shown an immense and genuinely heartfelt commitment to helping LGBT people that goes far beyond the call of duty. That is the one and only Cyndi Lauper, whose musical Kinky Boots opens this month in London. Her songs clearly touched a chord for us from the off, but Cyndi, as she says herself, is actual family: her sister Ellen is gay and she has thrown herself into the cause and done a huge amount to help LGBT youth in particular, more than pretty much any other star I can think of. (Lady Gaga comes a close second) Enjoy the interview starting on page 102 and support the woman’s work. I always think it’s good to return the love back to people who really shine it in our direction. Take a tip and download these three albums: The Greatest Hits, The Body Acoustic and Bring Ya to the Brink, her contemporary pop album which is really far better than you might imagine.

Also, in this issue we have a really intense but ultimately uplifting story about a young man, Benn Moore, who was the victim of an attack in Vauxhall outside a gay bar last June, where he had concentrated ammonia (the press reported it as acid) sprayed in his face. You may have heard about it in the news at the time. What was even more tragic was that both he and his friend, who was also attacked, were not out at the time. The reporting effectively outed them. A year later Benn exclusively tells us about what happened and how it set off a chain of events that has changed his life. It’s also of particular interest as there is a narrative that being gay is very simple these days, especially if you live in a major city like London, and that people come skipping out of the closet without a second thought. Benn’s story shows that things are not yet that simple. He had a hard time accepting his sexuality and coming out – even before the attack – and that’s something we still need to talk about (page 108).