We asked the author Simon Smalley to write about experiencing the gay scene as a disabled teenager in 1981. Simon is the author of ‘That boy of yours wants looking at,’ a memoir about growing up in Nottingham. He shares his experiences as LGBT+ History Month comes to an end, highlighting the importance of recognising stories like his all year around.
1981 was the International Year of Disabled Persons, and during the blazing summer, our sweating postman delivered a buff envelope.
Inside it was a green certificate declaring that I was now officially registered disabled.*
This categorisation had been organised by a Job Centre employee who, with a self-congratulatory white grin, informed me that it would provide my liberation.
Frowning at his curious choice of words, I just had to ask.
“How?”
“As a registered disabled person, you can travel free on the city buses during off-peak times.”
Big deal. Okay, it would get me to the hospital for my grueling physiotherapy sessions five days each week, but it wouldn’t change how I hated my disability. My hatred was primarily due to the local doctor failing to recognise the dislocation of my right hip when I was fifteen. Instead, he’d attributed the cause of my painful, laborious limp to rheumatoid arthritis of the knee. My condition had deteriorated until the next year when an orthopaedic consultant made a correct diagnosis. Although I was immediately hospitalised for corrective surgery, irretrievable damage was already done.
The slip of green paper didn’t provide the liberation that I yearned for as an isolated, frustrated nineteen-year-old gay man. I wanted to meet others like me but faced many self-imposed restrictions about achieving this. I gradually retreated into my psychological shell, still scarred from the beatings administered to me by bullies at school because of my sexuality. Their ammunition was doubled when they added my disability as further justification for attacking me, and ultimately, this unbearable campaign resulted in my suicide attempt.
In my later teenage years, the glossy gay magazines I bought depicted handsome hunks grinning confidently, no doubt at ease with their gym-trim bodies. But none of the tanned Adonises had an atrophied leg four inches shorter than its counterpart, thus necessitating the wearing of an ugly, built-up orthopaedic boot to maintain balance. A copy of the American gay magazine, Blueboy, featured an article about being gay and disabled, but it held no answers for me. I didn’t hate being gay; I only hated that I had allowed my disability to dominate my life and prevent me from meeting other gay men.
My simmering resentment finally boiled over. I phoned Gay Switchboard and explained my predicament. The man on the phone informed me that there were informal twice-weekly social gatherings, which would be a gentle way to ease myself onto the scene. My determination was so overpowering that I went the next evening, yet upon my arrival, I baulked that I had to navigate two flights of steep, narrow stairs to attain my real liberation. Later that evening, I continued my journey by visiting a gay pub and club. Probably because of the secretive aspect of gay life that still prevailed in those days, the scene required venues that were unintentionally inaccessible to lower-body disabled patrons, thus precluding their participation.
To exemplify this, the gay bar in The Hearty Goodfellow was in the cellar and was reached by a switch-back stairway. Whispers nightclub occupied the ground floor of an old factory, with stairs leading to the vibrant subterranean disco. What was to become my absolute favourite nightclub, Part Two, had a street-level disco and cruise area, but its bar was at the top of several wide steps, and the quieter lounge was up on the first floor. None of these venues contained disabled toilets and were not wheelchair friendly.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, the accessibility to pubs and clubs for nightlife-loving disabled people improved, as did the attitudes of staff towards those customers, with new build venues factoring accessibility into the design.
Although there are improvements and positive awareness of the disabled population, old stigmas remain. I once challenged a man who felt it acceptable to point at me and loudly complain to his friends about disabled people being allowed into a gay club. I told him that although my disability was evident, there are disabilities that are not immediately noticeable, such as his.
His outrage was instant. “I haven’t got a disability.”
My retaliation was calm. “Yes, you have. Your ignorance and prejudice are your disability.”
As his friends laughed at him, I knew that I’d attained a kind of liberation not intended by my receiving the slip of green paper.
*Please note: This green card and registration are from the disabled person’s Employment Act of 1944. The Government set up a Disabled Persons Employment Register. It was known as the ‘green card scheme’ because certificates were given to disabled people on green cards. This got repealed when the disability discrimination act 1995 and subsequently the Equality Act 2010 came into place.
You can read more of Simon’s work by visiting his website.
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