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| What the man 'turned' gay by a stroke can teach us about attitudes to sexuality | What the man 'turned' gay by a stroke can teach us about attitudes to sexuality |
| (2 days later) | |
| The story of Chris Birch, the Welshman who believes having a stroke at the age of 27 turned him gay, has resurfaced. Working as a counter to last week's bus farrago in which Christian groups attempted to place adverts suggesting that gay men and women could turn straight, Birch's story nonetheless feeds the same fears and prejudices. There is an uncomfortable glitch happening in the national gay dialogue. It is all about "turning", one way or another. | The story of Chris Birch, the Welshman who believes having a stroke at the age of 27 turned him gay, has resurfaced. Working as a counter to last week's bus farrago in which Christian groups attempted to place adverts suggesting that gay men and women could turn straight, Birch's story nonetheless feeds the same fears and prejudices. There is an uncomfortable glitch happening in the national gay dialogue. It is all about "turning", one way or another. |
| In 2012 we are still making heavy weather of variants on the subject of stepping in or out of the closet. Outing itself has "turned". What once was a personal, individual and emotional issue has become embroiled in misleading medical and psychological jargon. Bisexuality seems to have been erased from the national lexicon. I'm not sure that anyone – straight or gay – comes cleanly out of this. | In 2012 we are still making heavy weather of variants on the subject of stepping in or out of the closet. Outing itself has "turned". What once was a personal, individual and emotional issue has become embroiled in misleading medical and psychological jargon. Bisexuality seems to have been erased from the national lexicon. I'm not sure that anyone – straight or gay – comes cleanly out of this. |
| In the summer of 1987 I spent two months traipsing up the road to Ardwick Green in Manchester to participate in the precocious young actors' division of the Manchester Youth Theatre. What happened over the course of it, incrementally, was the most remarkable U-turn for a 16-year-old boy with theatrical pretentions. The MYT taught me how not to act. It gave me the first green light to be myself, not performing as someone else. | In the summer of 1987 I spent two months traipsing up the road to Ardwick Green in Manchester to participate in the precocious young actors' division of the Manchester Youth Theatre. What happened over the course of it, incrementally, was the most remarkable U-turn for a 16-year-old boy with theatrical pretentions. The MYT taught me how not to act. It gave me the first green light to be myself, not performing as someone else. |
| I met and became friends with gay people for the first time. Not just gay people, but outwardly happy, funny, clever, sad, sombre and ghastly gay people. The full panoply of human nature, I learned that summer, was not just contained in straight folk. | I met and became friends with gay people for the first time. Not just gay people, but outwardly happy, funny, clever, sad, sombre and ghastly gay people. The full panoply of human nature, I learned that summer, was not just contained in straight folk. |
| In a pre-digital age the only consumer access to gay representation was contained in a couple of red triangle films on Channel 4, a Communards album, books in the local library that you would have certainly had to know what to look for, and the doomed character Steven Carrington on Dynasty. | In a pre-digital age the only consumer access to gay representation was contained in a couple of red triangle films on Channel 4, a Communards album, books in the local library that you would have certainly had to know what to look for, and the doomed character Steven Carrington on Dynasty. |
| I can still distinctly remember the moment, standing at a bus stop on Oxford Road on my way home one evening, that I considered that being gay might not be not something I did (tentatively and illegally at that stage) but something I was. Now I had people I could talk about it with, who understood this fleeting, cacophonous mindset. A kindly, fraternal director took me aside one afternoon and said: "Nobody is going to hate you for being yourself." | I can still distinctly remember the moment, standing at a bus stop on Oxford Road on my way home one evening, that I considered that being gay might not be not something I did (tentatively and illegally at that stage) but something I was. Now I had people I could talk about it with, who understood this fleeting, cacophonous mindset. A kindly, fraternal director took me aside one afternoon and said: "Nobody is going to hate you for being yourself." |
| In effect, then, the Manchester Youth Theatre turned me gay, just as Birch's stroke turned him gay. Something monumental happened in our lives that allowed us the freedom to behave differently to before, with some communicable transparency. This is ripe for complication in terms of the vocabulary of "changing" and "turning", of being something then suddenly being something else. The turn is emotional, not medical. I was only ever straight before that summer in the sense that a piece of string is straight when you lay it out flat. | In effect, then, the Manchester Youth Theatre turned me gay, just as Birch's stroke turned him gay. Something monumental happened in our lives that allowed us the freedom to behave differently to before, with some communicable transparency. This is ripe for complication in terms of the vocabulary of "changing" and "turning", of being something then suddenly being something else. The turn is emotional, not medical. I was only ever straight before that summer in the sense that a piece of string is straight when you lay it out flat. |
| Birch's tale has its own fairytale, Road to Damascus element that is irresistible to storytellers. It is peppered with aesthetic detailing – the wild new haircut, the monolithic earring, the weight loss, losing his old rugby friends and beery lifestyle – that cement an "only gay in the village" caricature that still doggedly refuses to shift from the British mindset. Birch now looking gay is just a happy coincidence for picture editors as a gift to illustrate him allowing himself to be gay. Not everyone who looks it is, as any trip into a high street H&M of a Saturday afternoon will comfortably reassure you. In all his clippings I have not yet once seen someone reporting on Birch's tale asking him whether this was just about coming out. No, in a rolling, 24-hour news culture "turning" has the dramatic advantage of gravity and sensation. | Birch's tale has its own fairytale, Road to Damascus element that is irresistible to storytellers. It is peppered with aesthetic detailing – the wild new haircut, the monolithic earring, the weight loss, losing his old rugby friends and beery lifestyle – that cement an "only gay in the village" caricature that still doggedly refuses to shift from the British mindset. Birch now looking gay is just a happy coincidence for picture editors as a gift to illustrate him allowing himself to be gay. Not everyone who looks it is, as any trip into a high street H&M of a Saturday afternoon will comfortably reassure you. In all his clippings I have not yet once seen someone reporting on Birch's tale asking him whether this was just about coming out. No, in a rolling, 24-hour news culture "turning" has the dramatic advantage of gravity and sensation. |
| "I'm happier than I have ever been, why would I want to change," Birch told the BBC. His vocabulary is instructive. Perhaps he was unhappy before. Perhaps he did want to change the outward perception of himself, and this is what has most significantly contributed to his happiness since his stroke. Perhaps the interior monologue of self-acceptance that becomes exterior on verbalising your coming out sometimes necessitates a dramatic fanfare. Sincerely, I wish him the best of luck with his new life. | "I'm happier than I have ever been, why would I want to change," Birch told the BBC. His vocabulary is instructive. Perhaps he was unhappy before. Perhaps he did want to change the outward perception of himself, and this is what has most significantly contributed to his happiness since his stroke. Perhaps the interior monologue of self-acceptance that becomes exterior on verbalising your coming out sometimes necessitates a dramatic fanfare. Sincerely, I wish him the best of luck with his new life. |
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| • The headline and standfirst on this article were changed on 17 April 2012 because they did not accurately reflect the content |