At eight, he realises he fancies Bobby Ewing on Dallas. The book begins in early childhood, when Young learned quickly he didn’t conform to the “usual gender norms”. The first chapter’s first line says it all: “Imagine being born into a world where, from the beginning, your true nature is under attack and ridiculed from the second you enter life.” As you read, you realise what a tough subject that must have been to approach, as well as to explore.
To Be a Gay Man is a book about gay shame, Young explains, in his chatty introduction, and his journey to try and rid himself of it. This allowed me to see that a gay man could be accepted as a person not some kind of monster.”
“His being gay was not always the main topic of conversation. “Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone,” Young writes. Dowling’s win was also a big thing for Young. It was a landmark revelation at the time, coming only six months after the openly gay Brian Dowling had won Big Brother pop culture was vital in changing attitudes to homosexuality in the early 2000s. “Those fuckers must have been furious,” he adds, with palpable pleasure. But the Mail on Sunday didn’t succeed: Young spoke out on his own terms to the News of the World, a day before the other paper’s “scoop”. These were the horrendous conundrums people in his position had to deal with then. 'Imagine being born into a world where, from the beginning, your true nature is under attack'