Andrew Heslop: “I came out at 21. Some wait until they're 60."

When I started to write this piece one week ago it was off the back of the Network Ten announcement that Ian Thorpe had sat down to do an exclusive interview with Sir Michael Parkinson.

Parky had come out of retirement and was quoted as saying who wouldn’t jump at the chance to have a one-on-one with the best swimmer of all time.

In it, we were promised, ‘nothing’ would be off-limits.

Here we go again, I wrote, another overhyped feature in which the chat will tantalisingly touch on his sexual identity and he will, again, state  that he is not same-sex attracted.

I’d written that as a gay man I was beginning to feel that my own identity was being targeted, that constantly pushing adults to disclose who they preferred to have sex with was invasive and tiring.

And inappropriate.

Then I went on to say that what this amounted to in Ian’s case was bullying and harassment. Behaviour, by others, which can lead to so many adverse consequences for the person, or people, who are the subject.

But today it is a whole new story.

Within the past 24 hours a Channel Seven football commentator, Brian Taylor, has been roundly condemned for calling star Geelong player Harry Taylor ‘a big poofter’.

I said on Twitter and Facebook last night that network owner Kerry Stokes AC should immediately sack him.

Brian Taylor did issue an apology, saying “In the pre-game show I said something that I regret, and I sincerely apologise in regard to Harry Taylor and anyone — and particularly Harry and any of his friends — that were offended by my remark,” he said.

“I apologise for that and I sincerely regret any harm that I have caused. So, sorry for that.”

It’s just not good enough, Brian. Apologising to those offended by the remark is not the same as apologising for making it and admitting it was wrong under any circumstances. There’s a big difference.

Not only were the words discriminatory and inappropriate but they continue an enmeshed culture of homophobia that the AFL, and other sports, are actively trying to end.

All thanks to a grassroots campaign started by beyondblue Ambassador and gay footballer Jason Ball which led to the AFL Players Association participating in the International Day Against Homophobia, ahead of the proposed AFL Pride round next year.

Worse, the comments were made by a highly paid celebrity on Australia’s leading television network which employs many GLBTI people and has policies against such workplace discrimination and harassment.

Last month Grandstand commentator Warren Ryan resigned after five decades when the ABC launched an investigation into racist comments made by him in a broadcast with David Morrow during a NRL game. Listeners complained and the ABC took action, suspending both. Morrow was sidelined in 2013 for making a racist joke, too.

But back to Ian Thorpe.

Since NewsCorp Australia released the preview on social media for the Sunday papers around 10.30pm on Saturday night Twitter and Facebook have erupted.

My words ‘Ian Thorpe has identified that he is #gay – I hope he gets the respect and support he deserves’ were retweeted and favourited.

This morning there has been more robust online discussion of his decision and media reporting of the reporting using the words ‘denied’, ‘claimed’ and lines which go close to suggesting he has lied all along.

I have written in the past about the bullying and harassment he has endured. Circumstances which led to him stating, then, that he wasn’t gay despite the rumours.

So now, aged 31, what has changed?

Well it seems that Ian has changed. As many adult men and women do.

What was true and correct once just isn’t now.

It is a huge step for anyone – made more difficult if you are a person in public life.

Sexual identity is a complex matter and it is made more complex when you are different to the seeming majority around you.

We all have to take responsibility for who we are yet many of us are denied the opportunity to be that person. When we’re constantly subjected to the expectations of the people around us it causes confusion, denial and guilt.

If there’s no one around to support you, no one available who you can rely on and trust, it is traumatic and can, and does, lead to more serious problems.

This morning the highly regarded child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg published statistics from the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre which said 16% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and queer youth have attempted suicide.

A concerning 33% have attempted self-harm as a result of homophobia.

Young women and men who felt so isolated that the only way out was to die.

Daughters and sons.

Sisters and brothers.

Aunts and uncles.

Cousins.

These are the kids in your living room right now. Next door or across the street. At the train station or tram stop. The young person making your coffee or passing your McBreakfast through the drive through window.

When I was grappling with my sexual identity I was 15 and fortunate to be working in the media for John Fairfax Limited. At 5DN, and across the road at Channel Nine, there were other same-sex attracted people and while I didn’t then identify as gay I could see how they lived their lives and managed their careers.

But when I was 18, one of our executives didn’t come in to work on Monday morning. On Friday I had been in his office where there was a length of plastic hose that he’d bought at lunchtime from the hardware shop just up the street.

When I asked him what it was for, he said there was some cleaning up he needed to do at home that weekend.

It was the last time I saw him.

He was young and married. He’d also recently recognised he was gay and had told his wife.

In the late 80s the stigma of being gay was still enormous in the wider community even though it was easier in our industry. Despite the earlier reforms by Premier Don Dunstan in South Australia, it wasn’t legal to be gay in NSW until Premier Neville Wran announced in 1984 changes to the law in our most populous state.

He was Premier in 1978 when NSW Police had arrested women and men protesting for homosexual law reform. Those arrests led to Mardi Gras.

The sudden death of my colleague prompted the people I worked with to reach out to me. They suspected I might be gay, as I was beginning to, and they surrounded me with love and support.

Now almost 45, my relationship with those people who helped guide and care for me is still strong 30 years later.

I was 21 when I finally recognised that I was gay. For many people it’s a quick and simple revelation yet for others it can take time. Sometimes almost their entire life.

A man I went to school with, just 50, is a grandfather. And gay.

Another great uncle of a friend waited until he was 60 to come out to his wife and their four children. His wife, who had long suspected he was having an affair, was devastated. She blamed herself, fearing that she hadn’t been feminine enough in their marriage.

That she had somehow turned him gay.

Now they are great friends, linked by the bonds of their family, and live on the hills on opposite sides of the country town where they both moved after leaving the city. Joined by one of their daughters, a lesbian.

A quick count and I can think of at least ten men I know who are gay and fathers. Married because that was what their families, and society, expected of them.

Most are around my age.

That great uncle, and his gay friends of the same age, were brought up in a different era. An era without choice. An era marked with mostly sexless marriages because while the husband loved his wife he just wasn’t sexually attracted to her.

Or her to him.

Like Ian Thorpe, I have been lucky.

Lucky to have grown up at a time when community acceptance has enabled me to be open about who I am.

Lucky to have had the choice. Lucky not to have lived at a time when consenting sexual activity between same-sex partners would have been breaking the law.

Lucky not to have been put in jail in Australia.

Like other same-sex attracted men and women my experience in accepting who I am has been painful and lonely and stressful and sad.

Yet each and every one of us can make a difference. Today.

And that difference starts at home.

We have to stop automatically expecting that our daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, granddaughters and grandsons will grow up and have children.

We have to stop automatically expecting they will exactly replicate the family unit they have been brought up in.

We have to stop automatically expecting they will be straight.

When we do, we will automatically remove some of the expectations which cause confusion, denial and guilt.

In the interview Ian discusses the challenges of dealing with severe depression.

Australians love Ian Thorpe and we’ll be there to support and encourage him, no matter what.

It’s what we do for winners.

This post was originally published on Andrew Heslop’s Facebook page, and is republished here with full permission. 

Andrew Heslop is a social entrepreneur, commentator and community advocate. He is an Ambassador and Australia Neighbour Day founder, and an Australia Day Ambassador, as well as the 2012 NSW Volunteer of the Year. You can follow him on Twitter at @AndrewHeslop. 

Have you been impressed by the public reaction to Ian Thorpe coming out as gay? Did you expect it would be different? How do you think we can make it easier for anyone in the future to come out as gay?