Samuel Riggs | Opinion Editor
The first time I experienced homophobia was when a firework was thrown at my head; I was 16 years old. I had just finished an evening of study, and I was walking from the front gates of the school to a park about half an hour away, where my stepfather was waiting to pick me up. As I turned the corner on to a road I took daily on my route, there was a flash in the corner of my eye, followed by a loud bang. I remember heat, dazzling lights and a massive pressure that was enough to throw me to the floor, where I landed with a crash in a drain.
As I began to get to my feet, I heard a peal of harsh laughter through the ringing in my ears, a girl and some boys, followed by a shout of “faggots out!”, and the sound of their speedy departure. I took a moment to collect myself, before getting to my feet, collecting my bag and my books, and going on my way. I sustained no physical injuries from the attack thankfully, which is bad aim on behalf of the pitcher, but it does make the lyrics to Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ ring a tad hollow.
I never spoke of the incident again; not to my parents, and not to anyone but the closest of friends. The reason? There was a shame in it somehow. The worst part was that, deep down, there was a feeling that I deserved it somehow; how dare I be born different and disrupt the status quo of a place where people are so uniformly the same. It wasn’t the last time I experienced it either – while this may have been the most violent attack, being egged from a car was definitely the most humiliating.
The reason I didn’t tell anyone wasn’t out of fear of confronting whoever did it – it was a fear that I wouldn’t be believed. Or worse, that I would be believed, but that it wouldn’t be taken seriously. But whenever it was taken to authorities, be it teachers or shop-owners or, really, any kind of adult in charge, the response was always the same – ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘they’re just havin’ the craic’ were regular responses used to placate me, and thus, I felt as though there was no point in letting anyone know about this one – it would just be Sam, ‘complaining again’.
We have the opportunity to set an example for the world, and become a frontrunner in the field of LGBT* equality. Let’s not waste it.
Life moved on for me, college happened, and the world opened up to me; but every now and then I return to this incident in my memory. I feel as though sometimes we’re sequestered away inside of the TriniBubble – that strange phenomena that you find only in our university, where the outside world somehow seems to operate on a plane that exists parallel but separate to our own. We forget in this college, where most of the people are refreshingly liberal (at least to this once-small-town boy), that we don’t have to step far from our front door to find experiences of people who have had disturbing and worrying encounters with people who seem to think of equality as some kind of joke; people who think that because of someone’s sexual orientation, it legitimises your decision to throw an explosive at their head.
That’s not to say that the problem doesn’t stretch worldwide, of course. In Uganda, being gay is punishable by death – that said, this year, a group of brave souls held the very first Pride Parade in this hostile environment. Just last month in Egypt, fourteen men were arrested, being suspected of having engaged in ‘homosexual acts’ in a ‘gay friendly’ bar. In Turkey, where military service between the ages of 18 and 40 is enforced, engaging in homosexual acts is deemed as a ‘psychosexual’ illness, and anyone who IS gay or bisexual may be required by law to provide proof of their sexual orientation before they complete their military service, a degrading and completely needless exercise in humiliation.
In a country where the question of marriage equality is scheduled to come before the population in less than 2 years, it’s important not to forget that it is this that we are fighting against – this awful idea that somehow, the person we choose to love makes us less of a human being. That somehow our sexuality, or our gender identity, or our gender expression somehow belittles us in the eyes of others. That among all the qualities that make us who we are, somehow what we do in bed is what defines us. This is an issue that crosses borders and clashes heads, but we can’t afford to stick our heads in the sand about it any longer. In Ireland, which has modernised so rapidly within the past 20 years, it’s an issue we must confront and strive for – we have the opportunity to set an example for the world, and become a frontrunner in the field of LGBT* equality. Let’s not waste it.
