THEGAYUK APRIL/MAY ISSUE 3
2014
INTERVIEW
What made you want to
investigate these gaycures in the first place?
It was genuinely because I
had a young gay patient
come to see me and ask for
help to make himself
straight. I pride myself on
being able to deal with most
things and not look terribly
shocked but this really
rattled me personally. I
didn’t show him, but inside I
was slightly offended
because someone saying
they dislike being gay is
almost an indirect attack on
your own sexuality. I
thought this doesn’t go on in
this day and age, when
actually of course it does.
This is what really sparked
off the documentary of
looking into these gay cures
and there are lots of them
going on, lots of open
practitioners taking people
on to try to cure them of
their homosexuality. I
thought is there any medical
basis for this? There were
two main questions. One, do
they exist are they still going
on and two, do they work?
Did you at any point
throughout the making
of the programme feel
ashamed to be gay?
Honestly not once. I think
the person who affirmed it
for me, in the most beautiful
way, was my father. I came
back from America having
heard all horrible things and
I face my father who said,
‘we’re absolutely fine you’re
gay, It’s not a problem.’ It’s a
106
wonderful affirming
moment in the documentary
and for me, if there were any
doubts from America they
were completely blown away
by the simplicity of my
father’s comments. I think
it’s important for people to
see that and he wasn’t
briefed or scripted or paid!
One of the cures looks at
what you wear. Is their
any scientific proof that
wearing hideous clothes
makes you straight?
Ha ha, you know what was
funny? Of all the things that
we filmed that was the worst
bit for me. I literally had
these little strops with my
director saying ‘I’m not
wearing this. I’m not going
out in this. I won’t do it’. It
really is stripping you of who
you are and forcing you to
be someone else. It’s kind of
what all the therapies do,
sort of putting you in the
costume of a straight man
which was just so trite but
also so unpleasant so
dehumanising.
In Action, [American camp
set up to cure
homosexuality] He has since
turned his back on this and
is now happily gay, living
with a man. I turn up at his
house and he goes through
my bag and removes all my
‘gay’ clothes. Of course It’s
entirely dependant on
culture. In America anything
European is gay, so my
Abercrombie tops, which in
the UK we’d all consider
pretty gay, were absolutely
fine but my Italian brogues,
of course those effeminate
Italians, not. It was just
utter nonsense but what was
so sad is they built a whole
camp and therapeutic
system around this process
in which young people,
teenage boys would be sent
by their parents to go
through this and were
literally stripped of their
dignity, of who they were.
Although there are lighter
sides when you think
actually about the sinister
intentions behind it, it
becomes a lot more chi lling.
Are these therapies in
some way actually
‘Heterophobic’ as they
suggest straight men
and women only listen
to certain music or wear
certain clothes?
Totally. They’re both
homophobic and
heterophobic and pander to
these ridiculous stereotypes.
I go to see a chap called
John Smid who used to run
a famous camp called Love
Apart from same sex
attraction, is the gay
brain any different to a
heterosexual brain?
I think it’s very interesting.
There will be subtle
differences that may not be
anatomically measurable,
but certainly we function
and behave differently.
Sexual orientation is a
spectrum and all of us fit
somewhere along that
spectrum. I go to investigate