Section 28 was repealed more than twenty years ago, but its impact didn’t end when the law disappeared. For many LGBTQ+ people, it shaped how we saw ourselves, our relationships, and our place in the world.
LGBTQ+ IDENTITY & MINORITY STRESS
Articles exploring LGBTQ+ minority stress, identity, discrimination, internalised shame, conditional acceptance, microaggressions, visibility, and the emotional impact of growing up in a heteronormative world.
Coming Out As LGBTQ+: Coming Home To Yourself
Coming out is often portrayed as a single conversation, but for many LGBTQ+ people it is a lifelong journey shaped by shame, belonging, identity, rejection, resilience and self acceptance. Drawing on personal experience, therapeutic insight and LGBTQ+ research, this essay explores what coming out really means and why the journey is different for everyone.
The New EHRC Guidance, Gender Policing, And Why Many Trans People Are Feeling Unsafe
The new EHRC guidance has left many trans, non binary, and gender non conforming people feeling frightened, exhausted, and increasingly unsafe in public life. In this video, I reflect on the emotional and psychological impact this may be having on LGBTQ+ communities, including fear, shame, hypervigilance, and the policing of gender expression.
Healing Your Relationship With Masculinity: Shame, Authenticity And Intra Minority Stress In LGBTQ+ Communities
Many LGBTQ+ people grow up learning that certain ways of speaking, dressing, expressing emotion, or existing are somehow “wrong.” Over time, these messages can create shame, self monitoring, and pressure to perform masculinity in order to feel accepted or safe. This essay explores hegemonic masculinity, intra minority stress within LGBTQ+ communities, and the journey towards authenticity, self acceptance, and healing your relationship with masculinity.
Minority Stress: The Hidden Emotional Cost Of Growing Up LGBTQ+
As a gay man growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I learned very early on that being visibly different could attract attention, ridicule, rejection, or shame. I remember being called “Gay Gavin” at school from around the age of seven, years before I even properly understood what being gay meant. Even then though, I understood enough to know it was being used as something negative. Something humiliating.
Growing Up Gay in a Heteronormative World Can Shape Mental Health and Identity
As a gay man who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, I often reflect on how growing up in a heteronormative world shaped my sense of self. Looking back, many of the struggles I carried into adulthood weren’t signs that something was wrong with me, but understandable adaptations to shame, bullying, invisibility, and the need to belong.
Why We Need To Stop Calling It Conversion Therapy
Many LGBTQ+ people have spent years hearing promises that conversion practices would finally be banned, only for governments to delay, consult, and ultimately fail to act. Following the recent announcement in The King’s Speech of plans for a trans inclusive ban on...
Conditional Acceptance In LGBTQ+ Families: When Love Doesn’t Feel Fully Accepting
A lot of LGBTQ+ people do important work around healing, confidence, self acceptance, and emotional growth. But one of the harder truths is that relationships can only deepen if the other person is also willing to reflect on their own beliefs, discomfort, biases, and fears. We can communicate, set boundaries, and invite understanding, but we cannot force somebody to fully see or accept us.
Gender Identity Isn’t Binary: Understanding Gender Beyond Western ideas
Gender identity is something many people still misunderstand. Often, people assume biological sex, sex assigned at birth, gender, and gender identity are all the same thing, but they are very different. Gender identity is not something that can be seen on a scan or...
Gender Isn’t Binary: Understanding Gender Norms & Stereotypes
Gender norms and stereotypes shape much more of our lives than many people realise. From childhood, we’re often taught there are certain ways men and women are “supposed” to behave, express emotion, dress, communicate, or move through the world. Over time, these...