Tip Toe is wrong about progress against homophobia in Britain

Beneath all the division, it’s been tricky to pick out positive, unifying, modern national characteristics that define being British. I’ve travelled overseas a lot in the last three years; almost every time the country has made international news, my heart has sunk.

So it was a surprise when I discovered what has actually made me proud to be British: our extraordinary progress on gay equality.

The trigger was a British TV show, exported to places like Australia, where I watched it. However good its intentions, it portrays the country, and its inhabitants, in a way I feel is damaging, unfair and inaccurate.

Tip Toe, by Russell T Davies, is summed up when a gay character says he used to enter a room and say “ta da!” Now, he says, he tip toes. The show posits that we’ve massively regressed on gay equality. As I watched, I found myself becoming unexpectedly defensive.

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It isn’t a spoiler to say that the programme opens with the shocking mob-led lynching of a gay man and explains what led to it.

When Davies claims in interviews this dystopian scene is entirely possible and likely just around the corner, I bristle. I believe the majority of Brits are better than this and have been largely persuaded away from such extreme homophobia. 

Suddenly, there it was: a modern British characteristic of which I could be proud.

It’s ironic that it’s Russell T Davies who unearthed my improbable patriotism. 

When, 27 years ago, Queer As Folk, also by him, came out, it instilled in 16-year-old-me life-saving optimism during my darkest, loneliest closeted days. It showed me I could be treated as human, in gay villages like Manchester’s Canal Street. 

Tip Toe is partially set in the same gay village, but with none of that Cool Britannia Blair, Britpop and Ginger Spice-era of optimism. His characterisation of modern Britain’s attitude towards gay people feels like catastrophising.

While things aren’t perfect, and I must of course check my privilege, there’s never been a better time to be a gay man in Britain today. Those who insist otherwise are talking down one of our country’s rare fine achievements of recent years: winning both left and right to the cause of gay equality.

They’re also forgetting just how far we’ve come.

Gay equality is no longer the political football it was. Whoever thought it’d be the ‘nasty’ Tories who’d introduce same-sex marriage. 

I allowed myself some excitement when, before Andy Burnham emerged as prime minister in waiting, the country was pondering the prospect of our first ever openly gay PM, and hardly any of the discourse was about Wes Streeting’s sexual orientation. Nobody really cares. That’s exactly what we wanted.

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I’m the same age as Streeting – 43. Aged 17, my boyfriend could’ve been arrested under the unequal age of consent. I was barred from serving in the armed forces, could never get married and rarely saw positive depictions of gay futures. My school was legally gagged by Section 28 from challenging the homophobia that ran through it like an oil spillage. 

There was no Heartstopper, Tom Daley or Rylan. Gay content was post-watershed, taboo, scandalous. 

Growing up being gay, it wasn’t only other schoolkids who made me feel ashamed. The prime minister, the Pope, most of the House of Lords and every journalist I read in my dad’s Daily Mail made me so appalled by my gayness, if conversion therapy were offered, I’d have accepted.

British society is nowhere near those days now. Homophobic hate still exists, but campaigning charity Stonewall, whose media office I managed 2007 – 2011, didn’t just change the law. They changed hearts and minds.

Sadly, today’s biggest targets are asylum seekers, immigrants and trans people. But this show is claiming gay men are the ones under attacks so grave, homophobic lynchings aren’t far off. That feels unfair to these actual targets, and to the British people, gay campaigners took on a journey towards acceptance.

This type of victimhood is dangerous. It leads to ‘unhinged woke’ accusations, which drives more voters to the extreme right when they sense we’re claiming tyranny in every tainted breeze.

It’s right that we challenge Reform’s councillors when they remove pride flags from council buildings or LGBTQI books from libraries, but I’d urge caution in the slippery slope argument. Some of the left claimed Trump would revoke same-sex marriage; it seems far from his agenda. They now look alarmist. Predictably, he went after trans people instead. Neither is to be condoned, but it’s important we’re precise and proportional with our warnings if we’re to be taken seriously. 

Whilst he’s responsible for some odious things, Farage says he openly welcomes gay voters, and research, while small in sample size, suggests there’s evidence of LGBTQI support for Reform. Imagine Thatcher ever saying such a thing. 

As I write this from a UK cafe, London’s gearing up for its annual pride parade; progress flags are popping up in double the number of places I saw them 15 Julys ago. 

When, this Saturday, I encounter thousands of well-wishers, I’ll know: we might not share views on immigration or multiculturalism, but more Brits than ever see my inalienable right to be gay as an intrinsic part of British culture.

Tip Toe is streaming on Channel 4. Gary Nunn is a freelance writer. His Instagram is: @garynunn11