This column does not generally go in much for personal revelations. But, following discussions with friends and family, I am now proud to inform you that I am a straight man. From this day forward, feel free to describe me as an openly heterosexual columnist.
If that sounds peculiar, consider events over the past week from the world of politics. First, reports in the international media of the recent appointment of France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, while focused firstly on his irritating youthfulness (he was born in 1989), invariably went on to describe him as the first “openly gay” occupant of the role.
The phrase seems increasingly jarring, not to mention anachronistic. Over the past 20 years in European politics, Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Serbia and, of course, Ireland have been led by “openly” gay or lesbian politicians. It has become a commonplace, so must it remain newsworthy?
Why do we put ‘openly’ in front of ‘gay’? You don’t say you’re openly Irish, you don’t say you’re openly left-handed. There’s something in it that’s a little near ‘shamelessly’
Apparently so. Pretty much every Irish media organisation, including The Irish Times, dutifully reported the news when Jack Chambers, Fianna Fáil Minister of State, declared on Instagram that he was “proud to say that I am gay”.
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“As a politician it can sometimes be difficult to speak about my own personal life and that can lead to things drifting,” he wrote. “However, It’s important for me to be true to myself firstly – and to you all in my public service role. As a politician and citizen I want to share this today as part of who I am. Having shared it with many of my close family and friends, their support and love has given me the confidence and courage to share this publicly today.”
When Leo Varadkar first became taoiseach, almost seven years ago, international media led with the “openly gay” line. It seems to have become embedded as a lazy journalistic go-to, although it does have a meaningful history. Heroes of the struggle for LGBT rights, from Martina Navratilova to David Norris, have put the phrase to good use. But, as the Irish national treasure Andrew Scott has suggested, it may be time to retire it.
In a Hollywood Reporter awards-season round-table interview with five actors published last week, Scott pushed back when its moderator, Scott Feinberg, singled him out with Colman Domingo for their performances in, respectively, All of Us Strangers and Rustin as “openly gay actors playing openly gay characters who are at the centre of important films”.
“I’m going to make a pitch for getting rid of the expression ‘openly gay’,” Scott responded. “It’s an expression that we only ever hear in the media. You are never at a party and you say ‘This is my openly gay [friend]’. You never say it. Why do we put ‘openly’ in front of that adjective? You don’t say you’re openly Irish, you don’t say you’re openly left-handed. There’s something in it that’s a little near ‘shamelessly’. ‘You’re open about it?’ You know what I’m saying?” He proposed that “it’s time to just sort of park it”.
The term ‘openly’ implies that many LGBT people remain in hiding. There are no ‘openly gay’ players in the top two divisions of men’s soccer in England, which seems statistically implausible
You don’t need to know your Rock Hudsons from your Montgomery Clifts to be aware that the celluloid closet casts a long shadow over the history of the acting profession. Scott acknowledged as much in an interview last November, describing his own experience as a young actor. “I was encouraged, by people in the industry who I really admired and who had my best interests at heart, to keep that [to myself],” he told GQ. “I understand why they gave that advice, but I’m also glad that I eventually ignored it.”
That, surely, is one of the objections to “openly”; whether in politics, in acting or anywhere else, it implies that many LGBT people remain in hiding. That is almost certainly true, of course, in many parts of the world, and in certain professions. (There are no “openly gay” players in the top two divisions of men’s soccer in England, which seems statistically implausible.)
Chambers describes himself as fortunate to live a country where the “sharing of this information is becoming increasingly unremarkable”. The reaction to his original social-media post seemed to be a mixture of support and “so what?” Some miserable souls will think less of him as a result of this, just as some object to gay actors playing hot priests. But the visibility of LGBT people in the public sphere is among the most profound social transformations of our lifetimes. Surely we’ve arrived at the stage where “openness” is just as unremarkable.
