Small thread (1) When I left home in 1990, as plenty of other gay men my age will attest, the world was pretty different. At 16, I was still five years below the age of consent, which was lowered to 18 in 1994 & finally to 16 at the turn of this new century... https://twitter.com/miffythegamer/status/1297417485516525568
(2) The spectre of HIV/AIDS was omnipresent & the outcomes for many who contracted the virus were awful. Myself & many other gay men went to a lot of funerals in those years.

As a gay man in a relationship, your rights were limited. The idea of marriage or civil partnership...
(3) ...was a total fantasy & the idea of those things ever being available for gay folks seemed absurd. You didn’t even have the right to visit your partner in hospital without sometimes having to jump through hoops. The financial benefits conferred on married couples...
(4) ...were also unavailable to gay people in relationships. Civil partnerships came to be in 2005 but it would take another eight years for same sex marriage to be introduced. There were no discrimination protections in the workplace for LGBT folks until 2003...
(5) So this is why the current political & social climate of rightwing populism & intolerance we live in right now frightens me so much & why it’s worth reminding ourselves that these hard won rights can be very easily taken away - unless we continue to defend & protect them.
You can follow @miffythegamer.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: