A Liverpool man has recalled what it was like to grow up gay in the 1970s - from tackling "daily insults" to finding acceptance.
Gerry Potter said between the ages of 8 and 16, his life was a “homophobic barbaric mess”. The 60-year-old said was used to being taunted by others, but claims after his sexuality was used as an insult "every day for a year", he was left feeling suicidal.
The poet, who now lives in Manchester, told the ECHO: “I'm from Scotland Road and there were a few people who didn't take it too kindly.
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"There was literally a bombardment of name-calling every day. It was Scotland Road [at the time] so everyone got hit and punched but the actual demeaning, devaluing and diminishing of who you are every day really took a toll on me. It got me suicidal because as a teenager, I didn’t know there was a world out there or a place out there for me as a gay man."
The former actor said he would fear for his life even when he was nipping out to the shop because he was told he was going to be killed - jokingly or not - by “lads on these streets”. He added: “That was the weight and the danger you lived through being gay at that time.” Wanting to escape those who made his life “hell”, Gerry found solace in The Masquerade - the first gay club he ever visited.
The author, who came out at 17, said: “From being surrounded by people who wanted to kill you, to here where this was this colourful circus of outsiders, it was the perfect place for me to be. For Liverpool to be once the worst place for me to be gay, it quickly became the best place for me to be gay with my chosen family. I had about two years of a gay scene [before the AIDS crisis] and that was fantastic. It was a joy to have experienced, even though it was underground and hidden it was just an Aladdin's cave of joy.”
Gerry first heard about the AIDS crisis through magazines - ones which warned readers not to “sleep with Africans or Americans”. It wasn’t long before Gerry realised there was more than just the two mentioned communities dying from the virus as he saw first-hand how it was impacting “fantastic” gay people he knew.
He said: “We just laughed it off at first and then suddenly a couple of friends died, young friends, and then that's when it hit us. There was this devastating darkness. We knew the crisis was here, and we knew it arrived. So it really hit home that this could get any of us and it did get lots of us.
“The underground scene then was very much an escape from the overground. It was a place for people to escape homophobic jokes and homophobic jobs. But, when people started dying it started to hit us underground.
“The tone had changed and we knew the crisis was coming and it wasn’t going to stop."
He added: "We didn't stop causing mayhem and doing all those things that Liverpool queens do. But we all instinctively knew something was out there to get us.”
Despite acknowledging society has progressed for the better for the LGBTQ+ community, Gerry still lives with “PTSD-like symptoms” and is “hyper-aware” when he is out and about - especially in unfamiliar territory.
He added: “The world is a better place now but it still isn’t the safest place to be LGBTQ+. You have to be careful and you still have to have at least three sets of eyes just to ensure your safety. My experiences (growing up) have made me hyperaware that something untoward could happen to me because of my sexuality."
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