As a 33-year-old single mum, I had fallen in (totally unrequited) love with a female friend. It mirrored other experiences in my past, it was too strong to ignore and to cope with. I crept around the local library, borrowing books to read in secret. So much of the material was gloomy and so many lesbians met a tragic end…. like forced marriage to a man, or death, sometimes both. Protecting one’s name seemed paramount. I realised that the experience must be fantastic to risk all that, and I began to take risks of my own.
I started a new career in education during Section 28, finding that I was unprotected from homophobic bullying by another member of staff. Meanwhile I was fighting as a lesbian mum to retain custody of my son, facing down heterosexist and homophobic attitudes in the legal system as best I could, ill-equipped, unsupported and exhausted. During this time my son came back from his father’s swishing a plastic sword chanting “kill the lesbians” and contact with his father was stopped again. My son was understandably upset, again. It all made the closet look positively cosy, but I never wanted to go back.
My adventures in lesbiana continued far more through art and literature than in person. My LGBTIQ+ community took forever to find, given the constraints of childcare and negligible disposable income in pre-www days. Women’s night at the Fallen Angel pub was one of my first outings. It was memorable because I was quizzed about my past and dubbed a ‘tourist’ – a straight woman looking for lesbian sex, and screamed at by men in the night on the street, for holding hands with another woman. It was five years before I felt comfortable in lesbian community and ten before I held hands in public again.
Eventually after many years, I met Angie, the love of my life. My four year old niece could not figure out, “two ladies together” so we had a big commitment ceremony at Tower Bridge as a way of explaining it. My uncle declined his invitation on the basis that “such things should be kept private”. My mother came to the ceremony but remained tight-lipped and silent on the matter…….really silent. I wrote to my uncle asking if he thought I should be denied the same comfort and pleasures he had enjoyed all his life? I received no reply. When same-sex marriage became law, my mother replaced “Love, Mum xx ” with “Love to you and Angie xx” in her emails but otherwise nothing much has changed in 18 years.
It is easy to write about now but it was very confusing and painful then. The same people, who taught me to tell the truth and stand up for justice, wanted me to lie and accept injustice. They were afraid for me and thought that their advice would keep me safe, and not to follow it was “bringing it on yourself.” I could no longer share anything important about my life with them. It was a profound loss of family; I became uncertain of my foundations, my place or my future.
Because of my past experiences, I have high expectations of the lesbian, gay men, bi-sexual and transgender characters in films. I’m looking for their back story as much as their current narrative – how did they get here? That’s not to say that I want their whole life story but glimpses of significant moments or greater insight into their relationships. It is why I love the short film form best. In the short film Happy Valentine’s Day, queer audiences gasp and put their hands to their faces during a pause. This is when the mum realises her young daughter is sending a Valentine’s card to another girl. Instinctively we feel the danger, from the mum’s point of view and the daughter’s point of view and we know that what happens next will shape everything about them. We know this because of everything that has happened to us. Happy Valentine’s Day is in the FAMILY programme of short films. Watch the trailer for the Family Programme.