Where have all the gay people gone?

[Balderdasha]

I was chatting to a friend recently and realised that this is the first time in my life that I don't know any gay people locally. My town is diverse in other ways, but not this one. I've had gay and lesbian friends all my life (well, since age 11 at least. I'm not sure many people know their orientation or feel comfortable sharing it with friends much before then). I even knew two gay guys in China and Chongqing had drag queen evenings at one of the bars. One of the mums in the mother and baby unit with me was a lesbian.

So where have they all gone in the town I'm in now? Is it because I'm mostly hanging out with mums and babies? But surely there are gay couples reproducing here too? In Clapham, my daughter had swimming lessons with a little boy who had two dads. Is this town wildly homophobic and I haven't noticed, or has everyone emigrated to London or Brighton?

[Guy Profumo]

Which "town" is that?

[Amor de Cosmos]

TBF Hitchin has never been watcha'd call urbane and multicultural

Is this town wildly homophobic and I haven't noticed, or has everyone emigrated to London or Brighton?

No but very small 'c' conservative, and the surrounding villages much larger 'C'

[treibeis]

About 50% of my all-year regulars are gay/lesbian. That's about 30 people.

[Gerontophile]

I'm a "Kinsey 5.9".

Also, I am bored.

[Gerontophile]

About 50% of my all-year regulars are gay/lesbian. That's about 30 people.

...

[Gerontophile]

There's a line in a silly TV show which I liked a lot called "Burn Notice", and it's when the lovely woman just says...

"Shall we shoot them?"

No-one in the world, alive, is gay. We are just trying to make your tragedy, a little less... insane.

[WOM]

Gerontophile....100% as Gerontophile as ever.

[Patrick Thistle]

I know where one of them's gone. My best mate moved to Birmingham because he wanted more money and a promotion the selfish so and so.

[treibeis]

...

What are these three dots about? I just did a fact, nothing more, nothing less.

[Gerontophile]

It wasn't 'what', it was 'how'.

[Gerontophile]

Gerontophile....100% as Gerontophile as ever.

There's got to be a T-shirt in there, eh?

[Balderdasha]

I realise that there could be loads of gay / lesbian people walking past me every day and I wouldn't know, it's not exactly a visible difference. But I'm still surprised that I don't know any 'out' people.

[WOM]

Get a "Who here is gay?" t-shirt made.

[treibeis]

It wasn't 'what', it was 'how'.

Because they turn up as couples. They're all a load of poofters.

[Balderdasha]

The population is 33,350 and according to Wikipedia 6% of the UK identify as LGBT. So that should be almost exactly 2,000 LGBT here. Nearest support group seems to be St. Alban's or Cambridge. There's one post on Mumsnet asking about interest in setting up a group back in 2010 and no-one responded to it for nine months. I'm starting to think there was some sort of purge here.

[Gerontophile]

Nah. They just don't want to talk to you.

[Gerontophile]

Because they turn up as couples. They're all a load of poofters.

Especially the pool-playing women. (Fuck. That was 4 stereotypes for the price of one.)

[Gerontophile]

Balders, I remember you from old, and I like you loads, but ... why are you asking?

[treibeis]

Balders, I remember you from old, and I like you loads, but ... why are you asking?

Good point.

[Balderdasha]

I don't know. It just suddenly occurred to me the other day and the more I thought about it, the more the absence seemed weird. When I first moved here, I worried about taking my children away from a very diverse environment (Clapham) and to a less diverse one. I want my children to grow up with people from all different backgrounds, partly so that they don't end up blinkered, and partly because I don't want them to feel like the odd ones out with their dual heritage. So far in their schools / nurseries they are meeting children with a variety of backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, nationality, religion or home language. Sexuality hasn't really raised its head yet (my oldest is only five), but if my kids end up going through school meeting only heterosexual peers, I would feel like they weren't really getting to know the whole spectrum of humanity. Does that make any sense?

[Balderdasha]

Nah. They just don't want to talk to you.

This is, of course, a possibility.

[Balderdasha]

Also, what if one of my kids is gay? I wouldn't want them to be 'the only gay in the village'. I'd want them to have role models and local sources of support.

[Balderdasha]

It's late and I think I'm veering into uncharted waters here. I might delete this thread tomorrow.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

About 50% of my all-year regulars are gay/lesbian. That's about 30 people.

my mam does self catering accommodation in connemara, and she has four units, and for years now, between a quarter and a third of the people she gets for the 2 person apartment are northern french, dutch or belgian lesbian couples in their forties and fifties. She thinks this is great but is at a loss to explain it, but the best that we can do is that most of the people who stay with her are basically in that age group and from that area, and if you have kids with you, you would choose one of the other units, at which point it becomes more a case that about a quarter to a third of the middle aged couples without kids who book, are gay and suddenly it's not so bizarre. Though why it's mostly women rather than men is a bit of a mystery. Is hiking in the mild summer rain through beautiful scenery that you can't quite make out, a big thing in the lesbian community?