It took me too long.

When the story came out that two women had been violently attacked on a London bus after refusing to kiss for the entertainment of others, I didn’t open it. I saw the headline, I saw the bloody faces. And I didn’t want to look any further.

I was in London two weeks earlier. I went to a very trendy/expensive pizza place. I won the ticket lottery to go see Book of Mormon. I stayed in the Z Hotel in Soho because they do free cheese and wine from 5pm until 8pm for guests. I sat in a Danish cafe and wrote a blog about Independence in Scotland. I filled a bag at the M&Ms store and then hid it because I just wanted to see what turning the handle on the dispenser was like without paying £10 for two bits of chocolate. Some of those places were easier to relax in than others.

I am no stranger to the heightened level of vigilance that comes with being myself in public.

I am from a relatively small town and when I was a teenager, out gay people were a real novelty. Lots of people found a way for me to be a commodity.

Some would shout “POOF” out of a passing car. Some moved up the train to make sure I could hear them laughing amongst themselves about how ridiculous I was. Others told me how much they wanted a gay pal to go to nightclubs with. I know the last one doesn’t feel as sharp to read, I remember at the time thinking that they were just really open minded and to be fair, I’m an excellent dancer. But just because it doesn’t feel sharp, doesn’t mean it’s good.

My first proper full time job was in a travel agent. I was really going for it in terms of stereotype. After I had worked there for six months, a vacancy arose and a gay man came in to hand his CV in to the manager. Within seconds of him leaving, the manager told me she wasn’t sure about giving him an interview because “You two might end up clashing.” I remember I thought “Right enough, two gay people, we might.”

I didn’t know any gay people growing up. I couldn’t see anyone like me in my community. And my teachers were not allowed to acknowledge that gay people exist. So in my late teens, having already been out for a number of years, I had solidified my place as a novelty amongst everyone that knew me. I was THE gay. In some ways, other gay people were a threat to my position.

That makes me so sad.

In the background, I desperately wanted to just see a version of myself somewhere. I wanted to connect with someone who could validate that I wasn’t a freak and that what was happening for me wasn’t just par for the course.

I used to steal the fifty pences and pound coins from the savings jar in my dad’s house and go to a phone box at the top of the road. I’d call the gay chat numbers in the back of the newspaper, just to hear what other gay people sounded like.

I’d cover the glass panel on my bedroom door so that it didn’t emit light from my TV when I was up at 10pm watching Queer As Folk. That way no one in the house would ask what I was watching.

And I’d apply to, get in to, go to and drop out of university in London when I was sixteen because I knew if I could get there for just a while, I’d meet other people like me.

My context meant that I experienced personal abuse, lived in a society that reserved the right to sanction me for existing and lived under laws that denied me the ability to get married or have my existence recognised in school.

Some of this has changed, much of it has not. It’s why Pride exists and why “Straight Pride” is an abhorrence.

For as long as I live, someone will be able to call out any one of the names that were used to abuse me and take a little bit of my power. I will never be able to do that to someone because they’re straight. There is no slur for being straight and no amount of jokes about shit fashion or basic taste in music will ever come close to redressing the balance that saw men before me be castrated by the state and have bits of their brain cut out by doctors.

I am so grateful to Melania and Chris for sharing their experience public and at the same time, I’m devastated. I hope they’re okay and I hate that getting on a bus and refusing to do what men tell them was an act of defiance that people thought was punishible with violence.

The people arrested for doing this were teenagers. Meanwhile, parents protest children and young people being given age appropriate relationships and sex education that recognises that gay people exist. These two things are surely not isolated.

I’m devastated that for some people, it takes seeing a woman’s face bloodied and bruised to say enough is enough. I’m angry that the catalyst for this story was gay women refusing to be a commodity for entertainment. And I’m sad that for me, this was a story that took too long to engage with because it exposes wounds within me that maybe won’t ever be completely closed.