A gay teenager from Somerset who suffered homophobic bullying from his schoolmates has spoken out about the pressures of coming out.
The 17-year-old says gays and lesbians at his school were subjected to ignorant comments and suspicion, according to a report on BBC Somerset.
The youth feels that part of the problem is the lack of education in schools. “You don’t learn about it in sex education, you learn about basic straight sex - none about homosexual sex and I don’t think I learnt about homosexuals at all; about why people are gay or straight.”
He was attacked on a bus by a complete stranger who shouted homophobic abuse while others stood by and watched. He and his partner are even fearful of holding hands in public because of the reaction they might get.
John, not his real name, came out when he was 15. His friends and parents were supportive but the reality was different in school.
“I got quite a good reaction as they were my close friends and when I came out fully I didn’t get bad reactions to my face but I heard there were some comments behind my back.”
He says part of the problem was that some pupils were friendly to his face, but would make jokes about his sexuality behind his back.
“It’s not nice knowing that you can’t do all the coupley things like holding hands in the street without getting weird looks. I was going on the Duke of Edinburgh expedition and one of the boys in my group said behind my back that he didn’t want to be in my tent as I would obviously try to do something in the night as I obviously fancied him.”
“It wasn’t nice knowing that and I didn’t want to speak to him at all. The most annoying thing is that to my face he was nice but behind my back he was bitching about me so you don’t know where you stand with them.”
As a young, gay teenager coping on his own, without support from school or through other networks, has now made John feel isolated and eventually led to an eating disorder.
“I was anorexic for a bit but that stopped because my best friend was anorexic as well and she went to hospital. It was because of all the pressure to fit into the ideal gay person - the stereotypical one - you can’t be fat and gay ‘cos that’s weird apparently.”
His situation has improved since then. John is now at college where there is no homophobia but he remains careful about giving away anything about his sexuality, like public displays of affection with his partner.
“It’s not nice knowing that you can’t do all the coupley things like holding hands in the street without getting weird looks, or kissing in public without getting stared at because I’ve done that at a bus station and the amount of stares we got wasn’t nice.”
He also added that he and his partner were always fearful of how others might react, ‘’because they might get aggressive and you don’t want to get beaten up”.
“I also got punched on a bus just because I looked at someone, ‘cause he thought I was gay, and he screamed [abusive words and], ‘if I see you again, I’m going to beat you up’, just because I looked at him.
“Everyone was just staring and the only thing that stopped him from coming back was that someone put his hand out to stop him. No-one asked to see if I was okay.”