Being gay ..

[tinkerbell23]

In earlier years...

Programme im watching was just talking about 1960s and how the world "gay" didnt really refer to homosexuality but rather "gay" as in happy...

Said that if you were seen dancing with someone of the same sex you could be arrested in some states or have the light turned on at you in a disco!?

That is SO alien to me - i was born in 80s and have been aware of gay people for years and i am totaly fine with it!! I do remember once saying something about someone being gay and my gran saying how at my age she didnt even know anyone who was gay or what gay even was!!! X

[paddywak]

10 or 11 years ago a guy I worked with came out and left his wife and family and disappeared from the area. Last year Trish and I were in the Brunswick Hotel in Bridlington and one of a group of women who looked vaguely familiar eventually came over and said it's Paddy isn't it I replied yes and she introduced herself as "Marie, but you used to know me I was called *****". It was really weird at first talking to a women who I thought of as a man but as he/she said she'd never "felt" right but since she'd left and the full change she'd never felt happier, all her new friends knew the story and accepted her as a woman her only regret being that while some of his/her family had accepted things some just pretended he/she didn't exist for instance while his two sons were quite happy with the situation his daughter didn't want to know. Any way after rather strange hour or so off he/she went with her company and even now I don't really know what to think hence the he/she but I do know that when I told people who knew and worked with him as a man there's been very mixed reactions, my own feeling tend to be influenced by Trish who I've always found to be a very good judge of people and her opinion was that "what a nice women she was"

[jno]

i don't know if it was ever very uncommon in the navy, what with being at sea for long periods. When Churchill was asked about the importance of naval traditions, he said the only ones the navy had were "rum, sodomy and the lash".

And George Melly (who spent time in the navy) called his autobiography "Rum, Bum and Concertina", which he reckoned were the naval equivalents of wine, women and song.