ME, MY MUM, AND MY SEXUALITY.

Benn Moore speaks to his mother, Heather, about his coming out, the trauma of a homophobic acid attack, and how the bond between a son and his mum will always be unbreakable.

B: I think I was aware of it from around 14 or 15, when I realised I wasn’t the same as everyone else. I find it funny because I must have hidden it through nerves and I hid it so well that it became a bit of a problem because I didn’t speak to anyone until I came out. It wasn’t until I was 23 that anyone knew.

H: I do recall your brothers teasing you, but I think I was oblivious to what they were teasing about. It was just siblings teasing each other, to me.

B: In June 2014, I was part of a homophobic attack outside a nightclub – before I came out. Somebody threw bleach in my face, it blinded me, and the next day it was in the news, and that’s how most people found out about me being gay, even though I kind of denied it for a couple of weeks after and tried to dress it up as though I was just out with gay friends. After a week, I just thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to have to turn this into a good thing’, and eventually told everyone including friends and family.

H: I had a phone call you saying, ‘Don’t panic mum, I’m okay, but I was in an acid attack in the early hours of the morning’, and then it gets a bit fuzzy for me. Of course, as a mum, I asked if you were okay and you asked to come spend the day with me. You told me: ‘Mum, you know I’m gay?’. Being told by your son he’s gay, it’s like, ‘Well so what?’ He’s in front of me and I love him the same as I loved him before he told me he’s gay, and he’s the same person, so what does that label matter? B: It’s funny that I assumed that you knew. I assumed that my siblings knew, and I know that dad knew but didn’t said anything. He was also hyper-aware that when my brothers would take the piss out of me they’d go straight for the jugular, they’d go for my sexuality, and he actually pulled me up on it once and said, ‘You’re very calm and rational in most instances, but when that’s brought up, you lose your shit’. Now I was dating a girl at the time, and I was like, ‘Oh no, it’s fine, I’m seeing her and I’m happy’. So we just left it, but I was mortified that he even brought it up. That was years before I came out.

I wish I hadn’t now, but I did delay telling dad for a while, which looking back was probably a bit upsetting for him considering he was the only one who had tried to have that conversation with me, and had known for so long.

H: Was that because, as a father, you thought he’d be more disappointed?

B: Yeah. I wouldn’t even think about telling him because it used to terrify me what he’d think. The relationship with my dad is much, much better now, and we are very good friends, so it seems silly now, but at the time it was a terrifying idea to speak to him about it. Would you say that your feelings have changed about me since then?

H: I perhaps feel a bit more protective because there were months when you would phone me at two or three o’clock in the morning in floods of tears battling with the fact that you were gay, and you’d be in the middle of Brixton and I was living out in Bedfordshire thinking, ‘How on earth do I get to you and comfort you and tell you everything will be alright?’ There were many nights I walked around with the phone telling you, ‘It’ll be fine, it’ll all sort itself out’. To hear your son, no matter what age but especially when he’s older, sobbing and battling with ‘I don’t want to be like this, what can I do?’ and not knowing what to say, other than it’ll be alright, it’s hard. Now, you’re in a relationship and I’m quite calm and happy and content about everything, as much as I would be with your brothers.

B: If a magic wand existed and we could go back in time, what would you tell me knowing the journey that we’ve both been on?

H: Oh dear. It would be – get your violin out – that your closest friends will love you no matter what. If you turned pink or green tomorrow, they would still love you, and the same with your family, because you are still Benn. It makes no odds what you are, you are still the same person. If you were to become some dreadful mass murderer, perhaps you would have changed a bit, but you haven’t, so you’re still the same person. You love my Benn because he’s Benn, not because he’s anything else.

B: If we look at the way society and particularly parents treat their child if they’re LGBTQ, there are many times where it doesn’t go well. What would you say on the ways we can combat the reaction of fear to the LGBTQ community?

H: I would love to be able to be part of a movement that went round to parents’ houses with their son or their daughter, to break the news to the parents and be present and say to the parents, ‘But why? Don’t get upset. He or she is still your child, and they’re not different than they were five minutes ago.’ If you want to start thinking about them in bed with somebody, but if they were in a monogamous relationship you wouldn’t – unless you were a bit strange – think about them in bed with their partner, so why, as long as it’s a loving relationship, then why should you worry? I met a lovely young man when we went to Stonewall who my heart went out to, and he said, ‘I wish I could tell my mum’, and I said to him, ‘I’ll come with you and tell your mum’, and he said, ‘Oh no, I can’t, but when I do tell her, I’ll get in touch with you and you can come with me’.

B: What are your hopes for my future onwards from here?

H: Every parent wants their child to be happy, and I would say that I’d like you to be my friend. I’d like to see you in a relationship – married or not – and I’d like to see you in a permanent relationship, as permanent as relationships can be. You’ve said to me you’d like to have children, and you’d make a wonderful dad. You’re no different from my middle son who is very involved with a girlfriend and will eventually get engaged - you’re no different. Just because it might be a guy you get engaged to, what are the odds - what difference does that make? So that is what I wish, for Christmases with hundreds of people, and children with two dads or children with a mum and dad. There we are.

@bennethanmoore