I am a queer/bisexual/pansexual woman. I haven’t chosen a label – I’m only a few years in, so I’m still learning all the big gay ropes. I live with my six-year-old son and my girlfriend. We’re engaged but “fiancee” doesn’t sit right with me – I find it impossible to say without doing a funny voice. So we refer to each other as “nearly wife”. My son also has his excellent dad, who co-parents the absolute socks off him.
Something rewired in my early 30s: I went from blissfully uncomplicated straightness to getting crushes on womxn. A few years on and I’m due to marry one. I’m wildly lucky.
I’ve yet to be verbally abused, ever. It helps that I’m a proud resident of Lewisham, south-east London, one of the biggest, brightest and most brilliant diversity jumble sales on the planet. My son’s “express your culture” day at school looked like an unrealistically utopian Argos advert. There was everything from saris, kimonos and Ankara churchwear to Romanian football kit and, in great news for everyone, even a tiny Dutch milkmaid. It’s a right old mashup and it’s beautiful.
Also, I’m old. Not usually a coup but I really believe not being straight must be harder when you’re a child (ie under 30). Children’s self-worth hinges on how they are perceived by others, whereas at my age you care far less what anyone makes of you. Disown me if you like, Auntie Karen: I couldn’t give a monkey’s.
So far I’ve largely been able to ride on the coattails of the activism and sacrifice of historical warriors for LGBT+ equality. I could have been forgiven for thinking we had arrived at the promised land. Spoiler alert: we haven’t.
This week a leaflet for the local mayoral election landed on my doorstep. Which is also the doorstep of my son, who can read. One of the candidates, Maureen, has a six-point plan. Five of the points are quite bog standard. She has had enough of fly-tipping. Haven’t we all, Maureen, haven’t we all? And she would love a tax cut or two. Each to their own, Maureen, each to their own. But casually nestled between these two proposals is this:
Marriage: I pledge to cut through political correctness and simply state the truth that natural marriage between a man and a woman is the fundamental building block for a successful society, and the safest environment for raising children.
Then she’s back into explaining that if we only upcycled more, we could all save a few quid. Wow, Maureen. I think there’s quite a sharp needle in your haystack there, babe.
It took me a while to realise how upset I was. It’s the implication that my son isn’t safe with me, because of my lack of straightness. What if he reads that? What if someone relays that to him in the playground? That same glorious playground full of pint-sized thobes, yarmulkes and Yankees baseball caps. That breaks my heart and terrifies me. And in 2022, it’s shocking. I would put it to you, Maureen, that the only children who aren’t safe in this scenario are the queer ones born into families with your hate-laden views.
It raises the practical question: are we allowed to post those opinions through a letterbox?
My partner and I asked the internet, via social media. A small storm ensued, so spicy that my partner deleted her tweet. It was too all-consuming. I’m, however, cracking on. The 2% saying it’s freedom of speech: surely, not when it’s hate speech? Through a door directly, inevitably, to the children of queer families? Maureen thinks she’s protecting children, but she’s harming some.
Lewisham council replied, in effect, that candidates can state whatever opinions they like. Which I get. But really, with zero boundaries?
There’s freedom of speech, and there’s freedom of hate speech, and there has to be some demarcation between the two. It’s the difference between shaking hands and punching. No freedoms are absolute because we’re bound by standards of basic respectfulness.
It’s a shame, actually, because I really would have loved something to be done about the fly-tipping.
Jessica Fostekew is a comedian, actor and writer
