The long and winding road
Joyful scenes outside Dublin Castle on 22 May 2015 as the referendum on same-sex marriage is passed
IT’S ONLY when we look back over history that we come to realise that queer identity has always been a part of Ireland. Did you know that some scholars have suggested that Cúchulainn, one of Ancient Ireland’s most famous heroes, was bisexual and romantically involved with his friend and rival, Ferdia? It could easily be true, considering that the Celts used to practise homosexuality, and were commended for it by the Greeks and the Romans.
Homosexuality was also accepted under Brehon Law and only became illegal when Henry VIII criminalised it in the 16th century. My fellow bookworms reading this might call to mind Oscar Wilde, one of our greatest writers, and how he was prosecuted under Irish law for ‘gross indecency’ with other men in the dying years of the 19th century.
But let’s step back into the modern day. Following the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Dublin’s Pride Festival began in 1974.
The murder of Declan Flynn in 1982 catalysed the gay rights movement in Ireland. Eleven years on, in 1993, homosexuality was finally decriminalised in this country, thanks to the efforts of civil rights activist, academic and senator David Norris. Twenty-five years later, we became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote, with a majority of 62% voting ‘yes’.
It’s almost like a broken record now to say that our little country has come a long way on the road to acceptance, but we might as well keep saying it because it truly is such an accomplishment. But at what point in all these years did attitudes begin to change towards same-sex relationships? Where did this ‘tipping point’ of acceptance come about?
Before I investigate, I’m going to address one question that’s usually on everyone’s minds when it comes to sexuality: is it a choice?
No matter what your sexuality is, we’ve all found ourselves at some point or other asking ourselves, “why this person?” I can say with some confidence that there are three certainties in the life of a queer woman: death, taxes and a crush on a straight person. It’s all part and parcel of the experience; it’s a learning curve. I’ve never known a queer person to choose to fall for a straight person voluntarily. It’s in those situations that you realise sexuality and attraction are far from being a choice for any of us.
How could anyone say that a person is choosing to be gay or bisexual when there is scientific evidence to show that it’s not a choice at all? As cold and clinical as it may sound, attraction is driven by brain chemistry – or so the University of Washington found. Larry Zweifel, a neuroscientist for the University of Washington, said: “Love is the result of chemical changes that happen in the brain when we meet someone and feel that connection.”
For this exercise, I’ll need you to put on your white coats and goggles, and step into the lab with me for a moment. There are three chemicals I’m going to show you: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine (I know, that last one is a right tongue twister). Serotonin is called our ‘feel-good’ chemical because it regulates our moods and is what makes us feel happy. Dopamine acts as a ‘reward centre’, giving us feelings of pleasure, motivation and satisfaction. Norepinephrine is almost like adrenaline: it increases our blood pressure and makes us more alert.
When we become attracted to someone, all three kick into high gear. Our hearts start racing, our blood pressure goes through the roof, and we suddenly feel as high as a kite. What the poets call ‘love at first sight’ is nothing more than a chemical reaction. You might think putting it like that takes the romance out of it, but I’d argue that it makes the whole process sound more natural, more real.
The point of the matter here is that you can’t control who you feel drawn to, no matter what your sexuality is. Attraction (and by extension, love) is not a choice. The choice lies in whether a person decides to pursue these feelings or not.
For those who experience feelings for someone of the same sex, that choice can be a lot more difficult to make. As accepting as society has become, there are still those who struggle to come to terms with their sexuality.
Nathan (18) is a student at an all-boys school in Kilkenny. He always knew in the back of his mind growing up that he was gay, but he struggled with the idea that his future would not be a heteronormative one: “It was in primary school that I first started realising, but it took a while to accept the fact that I was gay. I grew up with this picture-perfect future in my head. I’d get married to a pretty woman, have a family, and all would be well. So, realising that my real future wouldn’t look the same was a rocky road.
“I desperately hoped it was a little phase or that those feelings would go away, but deep down I knew they wouldn’t. After a couple of years, I finally accepted that this was just a part of me.”
I asked Nathan how his peers responded to his coming out: “I’ve never had anyone react negatively to me when I’ve told them. When a couple of lads in my year found out, they had conversations with me to say that they respected it and if anyone ever gave me hassle, I was to let them know.”
My first instinct, especially after speaking with Nathan, would be to say that Gen-Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) was the tipping point of acceptance in Ireland. In my personal experience, peer attitudes towards same-sex relationships began to change around late 2014. I would have been going into transition year; for me, there was almost a juxtaposition in attitudes between the two halves of secondary school.
For the first three years, you’d be afraid to confide in your friends about struggling with your sexuality, maybe because of a few off-colour remarks that had been thrown around at the time. In the final three years, everyone had begun to grow up a bit. Remarks were less off-colour and much more thoughtful. You suddenly felt it was safe to confide in your friends.
Along the way, you might have come to find that you weren’t the only one who struggled with their sexuality, and that fostered a new-found sense of community. Maybe some friends didn’t completely understand or believe it was right, but they still loved and respected you enough to try and support you. Over time, they learned to accept you and became much more open-minded.
Having said all that, most of Gen-Z weren’t old enough to vote in the 2015 referendum, so it might be more fitting to say that Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) championed this tipping point.
I spoke with Emma (30), a manager from Carlow who attended an all-girls secondary school between 2007 and 2013, about when she felt this change in attitude.
“Up until about sixth year, being queer was always viewed as a bad thing,” she told me. “I wouldn’t have told many people [about my sexuality] at the time because I would have been the talk of the town.” She described how situations would become more intense once everyone was in a changing room together.
“You’d have other girls warning you about someone: ‘oh, don’t change in front of her, she’s gay’. It was all down to a complete lack of knowledge, this assumption that queer people were predatory. Everything started to calm down when more girls began to come out.”
Between Emma’s experience and my own, prejudice against queerness in younger people seemed to be born of a lack of knowledge on the matter, which in turn came from a lack of familiarity. Back in the day, when only one person was out, it was much easier to put it down as something ‘wrong’ and ‘weird’, because its isolation made it look more different. Of course, there’s nothing wrong or weird about it; that was all perception.
As more people began to come out, the mind began to see it as normal – after years of being tricked into believing it wasn’t. That could be said for all generations, which brings me to my next point.
Crediting everything to the younger generations feels like a disservice to the ones who came before us. Some 62% of voters legalised same-sex marriage, and that number couldn’t have been entirely made up of Millennials (and those of Gen-Z who were old enough to vote), so credit where credit is due. We would not be in this position today if not for the hard work of people like David Norris and his peers.
There are also the parents, grandparents and other family members who had a loved one come out to them and took it in their stride, and those who came to terms with it after an initial struggle. There’s no point in pretending that it’s not a culture shock for some of the older generations, especially those who grew up in Catholic Ireland. I spoke with two such parents who have experienced a child coming out to them.
Alice (47) from Waterford, told me: “So long as she was happy, then nothing else mattered. She was still my daughter, who I’ve loved from the moment she was born, and her sexuality was never going to change how I felt about her. Her happiness was all I was concerned about at that moment. To think of how nervous or anxious she must have felt to tell me, in the months before she did tell me, upset me more.”
Sean (48) from Carlow, had this to say: “From a parent’s point of view, it never mattered to me what choices my son made once he was making the right decision for himself. It’s always easier to follow the crowd, but being true to yourself is what’s important. Once you do what’s right for you and that leads to happiness, then that’s what ultimately matters, and isn’t that what we all want for our children and ourselves?”
So, after everything, I’ve come to realise that I would have been wrong to credit this tipping point of acceptance solely to Gen-Z. It was, in fact, a result of combined efforts from every generation; efforts to learn, accept and change our views, no matter who we are.
Queer acceptance in Ireland has been a wave, cresting higher and higher over time, and finally washing over us on 22 May 2015. In many ways, we’ve brought each other to this point; for every younger person willing to teach, an older person was willing to learn. The magic number tying them all together? 62.
