Tough talking on equal rights needs matched by action
Stanley Baxter, the legendary entertainer, was part of my childhood.
Those were the days when families gathered around the TV on a Saturday night for spectaculars drawing in audiences of 20 million.
My rather strait-laced dad appeared proprietorial of the man in the sequinstudded ballgowns.
He’d been a slightly younger boy at his school. One of a stellar generation at Hillhead High, including the author Alistair MacLean and Gordon Jackson – who was to find fame as Upstairs Downstairs perjink Mr Hudson, a butler who, one feels, would not have been comfortable with men in tutus.
Stanley has just come out as gay at the age of 95.
I sometimes think being in the closet is a bit like having a comb-over. The follicly challenged leaves his house convinced the world sees a man with a full head of hair.
Now, even my granny (who thought Liberace was just waiting for the right girl) would probably have guessed the truth about Stanley.
But Stanley believed his sexuality was a secret. And it seems to have tortured him. He told his biographer that, had the public known, he’d have lost everything.
But, recognising Scotland has changed, rather than take his“secret”to the grave, he’s recently authorised a candid biography.
I sometimes have to pinch myself when I realise how much Scotland has changed.
When I came out – while presenting BBC Breakfast 20 years ago – I was the first BBC One network presenter to do so.
Clause 28, which banned teachers from talking positively to gay kids about their orientation, was still in place.
You could be sacked just for being gay. Military police officers spied on servicemen and servicewomen to find out whether they’d same-sex partners.
Gay marriage was inconceivable. Indeed, when it was proposed, some folk said it would destroy the institution of marriage itself.
And yet, all those areas of law have been reformed and countless families – and society itself – is the happier for it.
However, just when you think ancient prejudices have been defeated, up pops a new variant.
In Scotland, that issue has been trans rights. Specifically, whether trans people should be able to self-declare and change their birth certificate without unwanted medical examinations and intrusive interviews.
I think they should. Some have shouted“it’s an attack on real women”, wheeling out all the old tropes about predators and lavatories from the Clause 28 debate.
The‘debate’has become especially heated in my own party, with the First Minister declaring her loathing for transphobia.
Her words were powerful, but they’ll need to be matched by action if the young trans kids and their parents who have written to me as their MP are to be reassured.
Back to Stanley. You’re probably wondering how he’s coping with being in the spotlight once more. His biographer tells me he’s overwhelmed by the outpouring of love. There is talk of TV specials. And he’s to receive a lifetime achievement BAFTA.
Bravo, Stanley. Encore.