10 Years On: What National Coming Out Day Means to Me

By myGwork's Head of Social Media, George Wright, for National Coming Out Day.

This National Coming Out Day marks 10 years since I first said the words “I’m gay” out loud: to a group of my friends, gathered on a cold playground in a moment - then unbeknownst to me - that would shape the next decade of my life up to this point. After months of privately coming to terms with my identity, 13-year-old George had finally crossed the point of no return: I was out, and there was no going back.

It hadn’t been a success story up until that point. I had been picked on at primary school for being perceived as gay - long before I myself had even considered it - and had gone as far as to decline to study at an all-boys school after my SATs due to personal concerns about what the teasing and torture would look like in such an environment. With long blonde curly hair, the unconscious reflex of walking on the tips of my toes, and a nasal voice, my peers had decided for me that I must be “different”. It still amuses me that for as much as we hear people insisting that primary school children are too young to learn that people can be gay, there were my fellow students at a small Catholic school in South Essex who at the age of six had not only understood what “gay” meant, but also that I apparently fit the description. Being this “outsider” led to me becoming a people pleaser without realising it: I simply realised that if people liked you, they were less likely to make fun of you.

By the time I arrived at secondary school, I had developed a quick (and perhaps, if I may say so, a particularly withering) wit and a self-deprecating sense of humour as a defence mechanism. The rule was simple and I still hold true to this day: if you can laugh at yourself, or at least make your opponent uncomfortable, you hold most of the cards in a verbal battle. For the first year or so, I managed to put “the rumours” to bed this way, until puberty hit us all one by one and I woke up to the realisation that I might in fact be gay. It would be typical of me to be the last person to know, but what followed was an intensely private period of trying to figure out whether or not I was indeed gay, and then having to come to terms with that fact. There being no other LGBTQ+ pupils in my year or seemingly the rest of the school that I knew of, meant that I had no reference points in my life: this eventually forced me onto the internet for answers. I discovered groups for gay teens where I could share my fears, thoughts, and hopes; in return, I could take advice, and consider their opinions. Many of them still count amongst some of my best friends (and to whom I must apologise for being just as messy now at garden parties as I was all those years ago on internet forums), and without that network, I’m not sure I would have made the decisions I made. The day eventually came: with a renewed sense of self-identity, surrounded by people I felt I could trust, I finally said out loud the words I had repeated in my head every day for weeks: that I was gay.

(People often ask me what I'd tell my younger self. My answer? Avoid this haircut.)

It was firing the proverbial starter pistol. Fortunately, gossip travels far and travels quickly: I didn’t have to “come out” to many other people as they heard from friends and in turn told others. I simply had to confirm what they had heard, which took much of the pressure off me. Overnight, I had reinvented myself. Suddenly, the girls wanted a gay best friend; the boys wanted relationship advice (a fact which still makes me laugh, considering that up until that point I had not in fact been in a relationship of any sort). I had survived what I thought was going to be the roughest hurdle. I told my parents a few months later, and they were - and continue to be - very supportive. My teachers were in most cases supportive (and this is a loving shoutout to my Biology and English teachers respectively, who were both wonderful mentors and confidantes to the struggles that adolescence presents, least of all when you’re gay), with the exception of one member of senior leadership who took me out of class one morning to shout at me over a table and threatening to out me to my parents before I had sat them down to tell them. This was admittedly traumatising; a fact which won me much support from my peers who may have been undecided, and something that made me realise that I either had to be entirely unapologetically myself or risk being subdued by other people.

By the time I arrived at a sixth form that was attached to an all-boys school, I was a lot more public - less charitable spectators may say “militant” - about my identity. I wore rainbow pins on my blazer, I had harassed my MP on just about every gay rights issue to pass through parliament in the last five or so years and went as far as to write my EPQ paper on establishing a gay state. I worked with other sixth formers to create an LGBTQ+ group at the school so that the boys in the lower school had the visibility and safe space from their peer’s behaviour which had put me off of an all-boys school in the first place. Throughout university, there was no question of how identified, and I threw myself enthusiastically into the LGBTQ+ society. People I had gone to school, sixth form, and now university were coming to me to talk about their own struggles with sexuality and seeking advice. I could finally give back, and be what I had wanted to see when I went through the same experience.

Now, I work at myGwork - and have for almost four years now. Celebrating National Coming Out Day is just part of the work we do, as we strive to create better workplaces for marginalised communities, as part of a push for a better society. Growing up LGBTQ+ - especially at a young age - can be an isolating experience, calculating each step to either protect yourself or minimise any abuse. I’m taking today to recognise the journey I’ve been on, how every step has shaped the path I’m walking, and committing to spend the rest of my life refusing to change for other people.