My family were just my whole world.  It
took a really long time for me to even
think about how I was going to tell them,
like literally sleepless nights for
years. Like, you'd wake up in the middle
of the night and just think, 'this is the
worst thing ever.'
There's nothing, nothing's worse than
this. This is what I used to think in my head.  I
didn't think there would be a life for
me so I moved away to become my own
person. I knew that I was doing it for a
reason, I knew I was doing it so that to
give myself a bit of time - I could just
say to them. "This is who I am, this is how
it is. I hope that you will accept it".
But at least I knew if they didn't, it
wasn't going to end up with me killing myself.
It's not a choice.
Growing up in school, about 12, 13 - I kind
of realised that I might have been
attracted to the same sex but I also
knew that I'm a Traveller so this can't
be right so I tried to go out with
Traveller girls and see girls and stuff
like that but then I would just be so
unhappy. I was at a real crossroads in my
life that I almost took my own life and
I think seeing my mum and dad cry was
the most hurtful thing because suicide
leaves a legacy of guilt for those that
don't understand it and I love my family
more than life itself but at the time
that was the only way I could see out.
Deep down my mum knew. She may not have
wanted to have accepted it but she knew
the day was going to come that I was
going to say that I was gay. My dad was
sat on a crate outside the back door
smoking a fag, coffee in his hand. He just
looked up and he said. "All right my son?" and
just winked like that. I just thought,
'Mum's told you and that's your reaction?' And I
then I spoke to Mum and she said, " Yeah, I told
your Dad and he just said,  "I knew
I knew this day was coming".
And they were accepting about it. We've
never spoken about it since and that's
the thing - my Dad's always been quite
open but we've never discussed the
'being gay'. It's not been discussed,
it's just been part of my life.
I've been lucky because I've not faced any real direct
discrimination or prejudice for being
gay from my own family. What I have
experienced is silence so people just don't talk about it
and I can sort of live with that because
you can  formulate another group
of people around you - work colleagues,
friends, non Travellers who you can talk
about issues with. It
wasn't the case that fifty years ago
there were no gay Travellers, there were
plenty of gay Travellers, they were just
too ashamed and too intimidated by
society as a whole to come out. That's
changing and it's got to change and
we're seeing that you know - we saw
Hughie Maughan win Big Brother and come
out as a gay Traveller virtually live on
TV. You know, that is groundbreaking and
we need more instances of that.
Now I'm confident and proud of my sexuality
but when I was 15, if I could have chosen
to not be the way that I am, I would have. I'd
watched my parents not really understand
gay people, never associate themselves
with gay people, in some regards say
homophobic remarks and I've listened to
that my whole life but I think because I had a
TV show to go away to for a certain
amount of time and I was also by then, I
was 21, nearly 22 and then when I
came home, my parents were absolutely
fine with it, over the moon and
happy that I was doing
things I wanted to do for my personal life.
My biggest fear was telling my
Daddy. He surprised me beyond anything I
can ever, ever have imagined. When he
found out and he rang me and he just
spoke to me, probably for the longest
conversation we've ever had in my life. He
just said, "I don't care what anyone says
about this, you'll be completely
protected if anyone ever says anything.
My sexuality is part of me. I have loads
of friends both Gorja and Traveller
friends. Nobody's ever negative about my
sexuality, yes we'll have the odd joke
you know, but it's never said in any
malice - no more than what I would say
something to them.
And whether it's
because of the influence of my parents
and my family or my friends, I do feel
comfortable in who I am.
I have no regrets really in my life. I've
lived a decent good life.
There's too much pressure on everyone in all of this,,
especially the young people in our community
to fit in to boxes. We just need to
start accepting maybe that we're
all a little bit different. We need to
stop worrying about what other people
say, we need to stop this taboo of we
can talk about relationships, we can't talk
about being gay, we can talk about
problems that were having.
The amount of services I've approached and I've just
hit a brick wall is unbelievable. I had
one person say there isn't no gays in
that community.
Like, are you for real? There's over
half a million Travellers in this country!
Shame is a big issue so safety is really
an issue. We don't have the counsellors,
the counselors that we place out in local
areas are not based in Traveller
organisations - they are based in a separate
location to Traveller organisations
because you don't want to be bumping
into one of your
relatives or somebody saying, "Oh what are
you doing here?" So you need to make it
safe for people to come to for starters.
Things are beginning to shift here where
certainly the groups, all the
Traveller groups trying to push on the
issue and open up spaces in the
community for them discussions to happen.
And that's the way change takes place,
you know - it's through awareness.
Report Racism GRT is a dedicated website for
Gypsies and Travellers
to report any incidence of hate crime. My
main message to my own community would
be to come out and support our LGBT
people, they've got to go through racism the
same way we do - double racism and they
need our support.
And I've tried to do the best for people because I always think, you know - we need to do to others
what we would hope they'd do to us.
Being LGBT and Catholic can most
definitely be be reconciled. I'm not
saying it's easy
but I think there certainly are some
wonderful examples of gay Catholics, not
so many yet of transgender Catholics but
I'm sure there will be so I would
definitely say that it's not only possible
but desirable that we have good
examples of people who accept both their
sexual orientation and are full members
of the church.
When I wake up each day, I
know that I'm loved. I'm popular at
University, I have so many good
people around me, an amazing family and
you know what?
I'm happy.
You can never push somebody to
come out because it's such a personal
thing. It shouldn't be the definition of
somebody or your judgement on them but
coming out is something that is a
person's own personal journey. They should do it
in their own time but you can't I suppose
force somebody to do it.
I'd just like
for there to be more conversations
around healthy relationships regardless
of whether it's same-sex relationships
or whatever is - just being in a position
where we can talk more openly about it
it's definitely something I feel needs
to happen.
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