UK Gay Studies Published

There have been a couple of studies of gay people published this week and I wanted to go over them here on the blog. One was a study by the office of national statistics which for the first time asked a random sample of people their sexuality, the other was a consultation undertaken by the BBC to find out how it is doing on gay issues.

BBC told to be more realistic:

 

 

The BBC recently commissioned a wide ranging study into its own portrayal of gay people on the corporation's various media. The study followed a raft of controversies over its coverage of homosexuality. The best known of these was an online debate stupidly titled "Should homosexuals face execution?".

Who needs enemies....Gay Inc. In The U.K.

By: Craig Rigby
There has been a festering sore at the centre of gay politics in the UK for a while. This week was the party conference for the smaller of the two parties in the governing coalition and it seems to have brought the puss filled ulcer to a greasy, leaking head. Only time will tell if the boil can be lanced or if it will cause blood poisoning and death for the patient.

The patient in this case is the gay rights organisation Stonewall. Stonewall was founded in the 1980s to lobby the government for civil rights for lesbian and gay people. It has had a lot of success in its time. It successfully lobbied for gays in the military, employment protections, and the right of equal access to goods and services. Stonewall was also instrumental in gaining the very strong UK civil partnerships laws, laws which are different to marriage only by name.

But this is where the trouble began, while most gay people are happy with civil partnerships as they stand, most are also irritated by the lack of the word itself. Many people blame Stonewall for the situation. At the time of the consultation on gay partnership rights, Stonewall decided that pushing for every right associated with marriage was good enough. As long as gay people had equal legal entitlements, they were willing to let the word go. I for one think this was a mistake, it would have been far better to push for everything and be turned down than to roll over meekly.

Has The Negative Stigma Shifted To Being IN The Closet?

By: Craig Rigby
This week at work an interesting thing happened, one of the girls I work with fell out of the closet. The interesting thing was the reaction… most people in the office were angry with her, including me. We were angry because she had worked with us for two years and never said anything. In my department there are three other gay people and two bisexuals, there are countless in the business. As far as I am aware, there has never been a homophobic incident in my workplace. She told us she never said anything because she was embarrassed....but this just doesn’t wash.  I for one, feel that she has a problem with gay people. It's as if she is saying we should have something to be ashamed about.

The situation was more or less resolved. People talked it through with her, pointed out that her attitude and some of the things she was saying were homophobic and moved on. I think it will take a while for her friendships to recover, but she is fine for now. However, I should point out that she is in her mid thirties and in my opinion, has had plenty of time to work through her homophobic feelings. I know for a fact that her friends and family would have no problem with her homosexuality. The only person with a problem with gay people seems to be her.

Looking back, this all seemed like quite an extreme reaction. Had she been a teenager I am sure the reaction would have been different...the feelings of deception and homophobic judgement would not have been there. It made me think of several recent press outings and how they had been handled in the press. There seems to be a big divide between the incidents of people being honest and people being found or suspected of being in the closet.

The Pink Guide to Adoption

By: Craig Rigby

When I got home from work this week on my hall table I found, wrapped in somewhat excessive amazon packaging, "The Pink Guide to Adoption". Jake and I have joined a group called New Family Social. They support gay people through the adoption process in the UK and give help and advice to potential adopters at all stages of the process. They recommended to me this little pink book and now I am going to recommend it to you.

The book is, as you probably expect, a guide to adoption focused at gay people. It is published by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, who also publish other step by step guides to the legal process involved in adopting a child. The book sets expectations of the process and provides an outline of every hoop that needs to be jumped through. Its great strength is in how it points out the pitfalls peculiar to gay people, and provides advice and case studies from people who have already gone through the process.

 This isn't going to be a book review in the traditional sense; I find it impossible to read things about adoption objectively. Instead I am going to mix in a lot of what the book told me about the adoption process and how that affected my expectations of my own journey. Not always positively!

Catholic Britain

By: Craig Rigby
It is almost here! The Pope is coming! On Saturday the 18th of September he will be here, in all his splendour. It will be the first time since the 80's since a Pope has been to the UK. It will be the first state visit and only the second visit overall for hundreds of years. I, and several thousand other people, fully intend to remind the catholic church why they stopped coming.

There are two reasons I, and many other people, intend to protest his visit. Firstly this is a state visit. That means we, the British taxpayers, have to pay for the whole silly affair. Now, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a large religion the Pope should, of course be free to tour our country. But why the hell should we pay for the privilege?

Secondly while the Pope should be free to come here, he needs to realise that this is a free country and that many people are unhappy with his views. To me, many of these are vile, repugnant and evil. I think he needs to be confronted with this.

An End to Lesbianism....?

By: Craig Rigby
So it is all over the news, someone thinks they may have found a cure for lesbianism. All those conservatives can finally rest easy, just pop a load of pills when preggers and the baby will drop out with a Barbie in hand and a pink bow stuck to her little bald head.
The “wonder” drug is not supposed to be targeted at gay people... yet. Rather it is intended to reduce the incidence of an adrenal gland condition that can cause ambiguous genitals. Adrenal hyperplasia can lead to elevated masculinizing hormones that can affect foetal development and cause the genitalia of female newborns to be ambiguous in appearance. Although the vaginal opening and function remain unchanged the clitoris can be enlarged. In addition the person can grow up to be more masculine and androgynous.
I managed to find some reports of this being subscribed in New York by a doctor called Maria New who was has been prescribing the drug to expectant mothers claiming that it will prevent lesbianism and masculine behaviour in their daughters. Just sit and think about that for a second.

A Single Man

By:Craig Rigby
I am not particularly fond of gay cinema. I find that gay themed films fall into two categories, tragedy or campery. If Hollywood is to be believed we gays are either rejected and miserable or party time drag queens.


A lot of people like “Brokeback Mountain”, I can’t think of a better example of what is wrong with the Hollywood approach to homosexuality. The characters have horrible lives filled with hiding and rejection. They end up unhappy and dying a violent death. What a lovely image of the life we homosexuals lead. In addition what the hell is with the sex scene? What an inaccurate depiction of sex between men! Has the man never heard of foreplay? Poor old Jake Gyllenhall....

The other category is campery. “Pricilla Queen of the Desert” is a good one. I liked the film, at least it was fun, but it was also about as unbalanced a view of gay people as you can get. At least this sort of film usually ends happy.

I was bored last Saturday, Jake was at work all day and it was raining. I spent a few hours cleaning and then decided to bite the bullet and watch “A Single Man”. I had heard it was good, but from the same sort of people who told me “Brokeback Mountain” was good…

U.K. Pride Week Politics

By: Craig Rigby
Gay marriage has been in the news this week in the UK. Politicians from both sides of the aisle are being asked about it so I wanted to go through what they are all saying, and what it may mean for the future.

Most of them seem well meaning, but a lot of them are confused. As an example take Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. When asked about gay marriage in 2000, before he was a serious politician, he wrote that if you were to allow gay marriage you may as well let a man marry his dog. This week while at a gay pride march (nothing like pride for sucking up to the gay vote) he told gay rights campaigners that he thought the conservative party should support gay marriage. Later, when asked for more information he stated that he fully supports civil partnerships. He doesn't know the difference between the two. How well informed our leaders are...

Also take comments by the Prime Minister. Writing in The Independent newspaper about what he wants to do for gay people, he stated:

“I know there is one other subject that the gay community is particularly interested in: marriage. As someone who believes in commitment, in marriage and in civil partnerships, my view is that if religious organisations want to have civil partnerships registered at their places of worship that should be able to happen.”

Here you can see the Prime Minister seems confused as well. He takes a point about marriage and answers it with a policy on civil partnerships. So before we move onto the other politicians lets set him straight, what exactly are the differences between civil partnerships and marriages?

Being Friends with Christians

By: Craig Rigby

For most of my adult life I haven't really known any Christians. I am sure that some people at work believe in some sort of god and afterlife but they don't really buy the whole bible and Jesus thing. I know because we have talked about it. There is only one person who calls himself “Christian”, but he never goes to church and knows less about the bible than I do. I didn't go to college with any Christians either. There just aren't that many around.


Bryan and Jay have a lot of trouble with anti-Christian feeling, being both gay and God squadders. Many people who ask me about them feel uncomfortable with their religion. I know quite a few people who don’t like to watch their videos in which they mention God. I thought I would try to explain how I, as a judgemental atheist, manage to get along with the Christians in my life.

United Kingdom a Haven For Persecuted Gays

By: Craig Rigby
There is a long tradition of offering asylum in the UK. People who are persecuted or threatened with violence or death in the own countries are offered leave to live and work in the UK as long as they can prove they were actually being persecuted. They are housed and fed by the government until they can find their feet.


This is a political hot topic. Bogus asylum seekers...who are in reality economic migrants, are often accused of trying to hijack the asylum system to live off the UK state. Unlike some liberal people I am absolutely sure that this is not quite all hot air. Some asylum seekers do take the mickey out of the system; a particularly bad example lives next door to my grandmother. However I do believe the system has value and that genuine asylum seekers should continue to be helped.

It was against this backdrop that the previous government denied sexuality was a valid reason for asylum.

Guest Post: U.K. Conservatives Reaching Out to Gays?

By: Craig Rigby

(Hello everyone. Bryan here. today we have something special for you. A guest post from a long time...and very thoughtfull commentor to this blog Craig Rigby(orangegoblin82). This blog was never intended to be my voice alone so I am very excited to have new blood on GFV and hope this will continue to be a weekly installment. Craig will bring  will bring a U.K. perspective and his own unique voice. Please also check out his Youtube channel to watch our U.K. counterparts, Craig and his partner Jake. But without further ado todays post it brought to you....)

Hello world. I had a few ideas of what to write today, for my inaugural blog, but have settled on a UK topic. I decided it would make me seem more exotic, not something I can often pull off.

As you may or may not be aware just six weeks ago there was a general election in the UK. For the first time in thirteen years and for only the second time in my life, the government changed. We now have a Conservative Prime Minister.

Whatever else can be said about the outgoing Labour government they were good for gay people. They introduced equal employment law, anti discrimination law, strong civil partnership laws, legalised gay adoption, equalised the age of consent and a whole list of other things. I was very thankful for all of this so I rewarded them with my vote. I live in a safe seat anyway.

However, the new government is a strange new hybrid we don't often see here. It is a coalition between the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party. Traditionally the conservative party has been bad for gay people and the Liberal Democrats have been good... but out of power. I want to examine what this period of regime change could mean for we gays of these little old islands.

The End Of A Great Trip, A Toast To Absent Friends, And A Return To Blogging

Hello Dear Readers,

As you have gathered, there have not been any updates to this blog in a while. Some of you may know from our Youtube channel that the reason for this was that we met a handfull of our Youtube friends and took off for a vacation in the Yosemite Valley with a group of other Youtubers that we had only known through their Youtube work. "What would they be like in real life?" I wondered. Whenever you meet people you've only ever known from the internet there is always a 50/50 chance that the person you get along with quite well online won't turn out to be the same in person in real life.