Like many LGBT+ folk who came of age in the Eighties, I worked out a tough lesson young — that any sort of future happiness would probably be lived partially outside of the establishment. Religion called us sinners, schools behaved as if we didn’t exist, the police treated us as a criminal menace, Governments legislated against us, the press demonised us and comedy ridiculed us.
These things stick with you. At the time, I didn’t think about the laws I was unwittingly breaking at 16, when everybody else was legally allowed to have sex but us.
