This Book is Gay by James Dawson

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    LAVENDER MARRIAGE (noun)
    A fake marriage designed to make husband, wife or both appear heterosexual in the public eye. Popular in Hollywood with the likes of NAMES REDACTED, in seemingly happy marriages.
    Both of these institutions deprive young LGBT* people of high-profile role models within Hollywood.
PARANOIA
    Some would argue that both homophobia and transphobia have roots in suspicion and paranoia. The less we understand a group in society – the less we bother to learn – the more misconceptions and worries we have. For a long time, LGBT* people were relatively secretive, thus adding to the suspicion.

    There was another major turning point, historically, that contributed to fear and paranoia, particularly about gay men, and that was the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
    Let’s have a history lesson:
    The precise origin of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) isn’t known, although we can probably assume that the HIV infection, which attacks the immune system, jumped from apes to humans in Africa in the early twentieth century. Somehow, an unknown carrier of the virus travelled to the United States in the late 1970s, and the epidemic – and later pandemic – took hold.
    For a time, HIV/AIDS was called GRID (gay-related immune deficiency), and by the time the medical world cottoned on to the fact that the illness could affect anyone – gay or not – the damage was already done. HIV/AIDS had become a ‘gay disease’.
    The reputation rose out of large gay communities in New York and California, where gay and bi men, who previously had no pressing need to use condoms, spread the infection at an alarming rate. Thousands of men died before clinicians could properly understand the disease.
    Carriers of HIV were infected for years before becoming ill, and they infected others before they even realised they were carrying the virus. As they travelled the world, AIDS became a truly global problem, affecting EVERYONE, but the reputation of its being a ‘gay thing’ stuck.
    Ask ANY gay person who grew up in the 1980s, and they will tell you about a terrifying TV advert that featured people being squashed by a giant AIDS gravestone. It caused national panic. The problem was that people didn’t properly understand the disease. Some people thought that you could be infected by sharing mugs or toilet seats with carriers of the virus. You can’t, obviously – the virus is transmitted mostly through blood and semen – but ignoramuses became very wary of gay people. This wasn’t just about, ‘they might try to trick me into bum sex,’ any more, it was more, ‘this person could kill me’.
    It has taken thirty years to better educate people about HIV/ AIDS, and there are now effective treatments but the stigma remains. Many out and proud gay men (and in this case, it IS mostly gay or bi men, not lesbians) will happily come out as gay but not as HIV positive for fear of judgement.
    So for many awful, small-minded people, fear of gay people and fear of HIV/AIDS are permanently linked. Even if you’re a child of the nineties, your parents will vividly remember the AIDS crisis. It’s knowing their parents may still worry about HIV/ AIDS that keeps a lot of young gay men, in particular, trapped at the back of the closet with a mouldy cagoule and some mothballs.
HOMOPHOBIC/TRANSPHOBIC BULLYING
    Bullying is systematic abuse – verbal, physical or mental. Homophobia (as discussed) is the irrational fear of LGB* people. Put them together, and you have people being bullied for their sexuality. Transphobic bullying is aimed at people perceived to be transgender.
    If we’re being picky, someone screaming, ‘Oi, woofter!’ at you in a street isn’t homophobic bullying, it’s homophobic abuse. There’s a key difference – bullying suggests a repeated campaign against an individual or