Learning to be Yourself – The Importance of Representation and Allyship

As we approach the date for Brighton Pride, and with Brighton & Hove Museums once again taking part in the parade, I wanted to write about something important to me, that has become increasingly relevant as I’ve gotten older and realised the impact it has had on me throughout my life – the importance of visible representation and allyship. This is not just specific to me either, as I imagine many LGBTQ+ people, and those from other minority groups, have similar feelings.

First of all, allow me to take you back a certain, mysterious, number of years, to my childhood and teenage years. Back then, around the turn of the millennium, I was in the process of figuring out who I was. Questioning and discovering things about myself that pretty much took me by surprise. Looking back now, I realise that I ‘was gay’ before I even moved to secondary school, but at the time didn’t really understand what was going on and honestly, didn’t even think about it. As I became a teenager and slowly, gradually, became exposed to all the things being a teenager involves, realisation began to dawn.

Another aspect to this time of my life that has become clearer and more obvious the more I’ve looked back is actually how difficult that whole realisation process was. In school, the primary place where you learn about all facets of life, there was not only no education around anything related to being an LGBTQ+ person (particularly a complete lack of any PSHE and sex education, both of which were entirely focused on being straight) but you were also not provided with any role models who identified as such; no artists, no scientists, no writers, no designers, no athletes. And if you were, the fact that they were LGBTQ+ was not discussed.

Outside of school, the places where you’d be exposed to other people outside of your friends, family and school, were primarily through popular culture – this was TV, film, music, books and video games for me. Can I think of a single LGBTQ+ man I looked up to at that time? Anyone famous on TV who was an out and proud gay man? Any characters in video games who reflected who I was? Maybe a famous and successful musician who was widely popular and not pigeonholed as a ‘gay artist’? I can answer a resounding ‘NO’ to every one of these questions.

Instead, what this absolute lack of LGBTQ+ representation and education meant, was that I felt like being gay was a problem – something to be ashamed of. People clearly did not want to talk about it or see it, and when they did it was shocking, controversial and was often, partially at least, met with ridicule (this, unfortunately, seems to be becoming increasingly common again now). I was forced to learn about myself by myself, and a lot of this development was taking place later than with my straight friends and from much more unreliable and even unsafe sources. As was the case very commonly back then, and I hope is less common now, everyone around me assumed I was straight, basically from the moment I was born. I’d be asked when I was in primary school if I’d got a girlfriend in my class. This assumption pervaded every aspect of society. It is the default still, and it shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be such a thing as a ‘default’.

It is for these reasons that I believe representation and allyship are incredibly important. Not just for LGBTQ+ teens either, as everyone has their own journey and at different stages of life. If I had had positive gay role models on TV shows back then, maybe I’d have found my own experience easier, knowing that other people like me exist. And not only exist, they can flourish and thrive. If I’d been taught in school that falling outside of that ‘default’ was also fine, maybe that would’ve helped too. By using representation and allyship you challenge those societal standards and this hopefully makes the lived experience of those from minority groups a bit easier by normalising it, not only for those individuals but also for the wider population – it would help minimise discrimination and homophobia. I’ve seen so much improvement with time and I really hope that young people, who’re discovering who they are now, find navigating it easier than I did, despite the current divisive political rhetoric trying to push things backward.

Being a visible ally, whether individually or as organisations is absolutely vital. It might not always feel vital to you, because maybe that representation isn’t for you, but it is for others. The importance is in standing up for those people, supporting them, and that they see it. These kinds of actions provide something to others that cannot be gained anywhere else and the impact on their mental health could literally be life saving.

I am very proud of the fact that the organisation I work for participates in Brighton Pride each year. I had never attended a Pride event before I moved to Brighton, despite the fact I was in my early 20s and the city I came from had its own Pride, because I didn’t have the confidence to go. Growing and finding my place in society, as well as recognising that being LGBTQ+ is something to be proud of, has given me that confidence. I hope that by us participating it helps others gain a little confidence too, in one way or another. Humanity is formed of a huge range of varying individual characteristics, reflected in our sexuality, gender, skin colour, disability, hair colour, whether we are left or right handed, whether we have freckles – we all exist and we should all be seen, respected and celebrated for our differences.