59 year old male Managment Consultant from Scotland

Question 1. In what kind of place did you grow up? (e.g. village, small town, city) Do you still live there now?

Hamlet outside a north of England mill town. Moved away 1957 to a council housing estate when the hamlet houses were condemned due to having no inside toilet or bath. Moved to Dundee in 1974 re work.

Question 2. How would you describe your sexual orientation?

Gay man.

Question 3. What were the best and worst things to happen to you at school?

Isolation and bullying due to being fat. Best thing was leaving.

Question 4. Do you ever have to conceal any aspect of your personal life? Give an example.

Yes. To partner's family as they are Catholic so we pretend to be flatmates. To new acquaintances as I get fed up being corrected, lectured to, sympathised with or preached at.

Question 5. Do your friends and family know about your sexuality/gender? If you have come out, give an idea of when this was and of how people responded.

My siblings and their children know. Were overall quite accepting to brother, a church minister and his wife still see it as a sin. I was very involved in the church myself and the church cut me off completely when I came out. This was the AIDS era when the churches were celebrating God's vengeance. One good friend in the church was publicly denounced due to being gay and had a curse placed on him that he would be dead within five years. This was a Scottish evangelical church! These were the sort of experiences that made me come out publicly and abandon the church.

Question 6. Do you experience discrimination in everyday life? If so, give an example.

Not too much, mainly when arranging anything over the phone and the default position is that I will be heterosexual. Sometime having to make the point that I am gay leads to so frosty reception at the other end. Family do not know how to refer to us and never say William is my "partner",. but perhaps they do not have the language.

Question 7. Who is likely to be more hostile to you and who is the most supportive of you in your life?

Gay friends of course more supportive. Not experienced outright hostility tho the church clothes it as compassion and "loves the sinner but hates the sin"

Name

Dave