Dawson writes for effect not accuracy. The argument here, is that not implementing GRA reform (an extension of rights) is akin to Section 28 (a removal of them). It reveals someone who doesn't understand what happened or doesn't care for accuracy. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/section-28_uk_5ec69d86c5b6715509a8fa44

Dawson was by admission just starting primary school when s.28 came into law. Born in 81, the young Dawson was only 7, not the out and proud gay man he'd become before transition. Citing the 1987 BSAS report of 75% believing homosexuality was always or mostly wrong as evidence ..

… of that which thwarted Dawson's generation is erroneous. Dawson is simply wrong. The rise in homophobia in the 80s matched the seeping of AIDS into consciousness, not Clause 28. 75% figure dropped in every report following, for full duration of the law's statutory existence.

From 75% a year before s.28 to 69% a year after; 64% four years after; 55% just 2 years after that; 40% by the time the section was finally repealed; A steadily increasing social acceptance of homosexuality, the first reversal signs of which are only just showing now.

We can leave aside why public attitudes are hardening again now, though I suggest Juno Dawson takes an even longer look in the mirror, but I can say it wasn't s.28 that thwarted Dawson's generation. On the contrary.

Section 28, with AIDS, galvanised my generation. We mobilise the biggest gay pride protests Britain had ever seen. Hundreds of thousands of us came out and marched, visibly. We 'recruited' Princess Diana as our ally, and we welcomed Elton John and Ian McKellen to the fold.

We made it better for young gay boys like James Dawson. Do you want to know what Old Compton Street looked like before Clause 28? Here it is in 1985. Apart from Patisserie Valerie and Comptons, you wouldn't know it. Same goes, even more so, for Canal Street.

If Dawson's teachers didn't mention HIV in condom lessons, that was down to Dawson's teachers. Section 28 didn't curtail health education. I shouldn't need to remind anyone who claims to be a rights activist that HIV and AIDS was not limited to the population of gay men.

But Dawson has form on making up a narrative to suit the agenda. Back in 2014, before transition, the Guardian interviewed Dawson. Then James, it is reported that he claimed that there were no gay role models in 'his' years as a gay teen, the years that were 'thwarted'.

Somehow, the young, proud gay man had missed Queer as Folk on Channel 4, in 1998, when 'he' was aged 18. And BAFTA winning My Beautiful Launderette in 1985, before going to school. As young James, Juno found no role models in the Brookside lesbians of 94, or Eastenders' gay ...

… couple from 1986-89. No-one to look up to in Bronski Beat, the Communards, Tom Robinson - all out and proud and riding high in the pop charts before the Clause - or Erasure, Ricky Martin, Elton John or any of the groups that came out and succeeded in Dawson's formative years.

There was nothing for Dawson about gay representations in Hollywood blockbusters La Cage aux Folles, Torch Song Trilogy, As Good As it Gets, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, My Own Private Idaho, Philadelphia, Desert Hearts or Longtime Companion. Nor in popular cartoon Jonny Bravo.

No, there can't have been because Dawson wants you to believe that Section 28 'thwarted' the generation that grew up with all those mainstream offerings.

It didn't.

The biggest problem for lots of young gay men is being a closeted, timid, scared, self hating young man, hiding away and distancing themselves from what good there is to offer. I'm not suggesting that was Dawson but it was lots of us. Mind you, read that Guardian interview again.

Dawson tells a story. Good at that. But it's a fiction.

Clause 28 wasn't as Dawson remembers.

And GRA reform is nothing like it.