THEGAYUK FEB/MARCH
2014
INTERVIEW
Most brothers couldn’t live together
but you both seem very happy. Have
you always had a close bond?
Jon: We were very close growing up because
we were very different to a lot of the other
boys in our school. I think we were different
to everyone and faced the same kind of
rejection, so that brought us together a lot.
It must have been a relief coming out?
Jon: We were very much aware that once
we’d said it out loud to each other that we
would have to talk about telling our Mum and
Dad. We were really afraid of telling our dad
because we had grown up with lots of LGBT
phobic messages from him and that side of
the family...
Mat: Maybe this wasn’t true but our
perception of it was that his part of our family
would prefer us to be drug dealers. So we
grew up with really blatant negative messages
about being gay. Even the subtle messages,
Jon: I always knew Mat was gay and we both
where homophobia in the family isn’t
knew individually that we were gay from a
challenged or when there’s nothing in the
really young age.
children’s books about gay people or same sex
couples or trans people. All of those messages
Mat: It’s hard when your younger, especially
together, I think, would be very difficult for
not being educated about anything other than any child or young person to grow up and not
what society considered, at that time, as
internalise. Without really knowing it, we
normal. So we’re scrabbling around trying to
grew up into young adults that hated
find out why we’re different. In terms of being ourselves for being gay. It was a natural part
out, neither one of us came out until we were of who we were yet it was something to
eighteen.
apologise for, something to be ashamed of.
Obviously Proud2Be, the name, is our
Jon: While I was living away I came back
campaign, our statement to say actually we’re
home and Mat had said to me, ‘Oh I went out not ashamed anymore and we were for a long
to the Nightingale’ which is a big gay club in
time.
Birmingham, (Find your way there with
TheGayUK free bar finder App). We hadn’t
Why is the Proud2Be project so
come out to each other at this point but that
important to you both?
was kinda Mat’s way of coming out to me. He
was like, ‘have you been to the Nightingale
Jon: We love what we do with Proud2Be
too?’ I would have been shocked if Mat had
because we’re really able to empower other
said, ‘I have a girlfriend’.
individuals, but actually Proud2Be first and
foremost was for us and we used it to not feel
Did you both know each other was gay
or did one of you come out to the other
first?
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