Stephen Dee: Gay life, LGBT, Loafers Bar, Coming Out.

Stephen Dee: Gay life, LGBT, Loafers Bar, Coming Out.

Stories and memories of LGBT life in Cork City and County.

Stephen talks about first becoming aware of feeling that he was gay, and the difficulty of acknowledging his realisation. He tells a story about seeing his dead grandmother, who told him everything would be okay. He points out that as a gay man he will have to continue to come out in new social and work situations.
He describes beginning to socialise in Cork’s gay scene and gives examples of its benefits and disadvantages. He contrasts his generation’s attitude to gay life with that of younger generations, favourably and unfavourably. He doubts the existence of a cohesive gay community and points out that groups within it often have little shared purpose.

Stephen was a researcher for the Cork Folklore Project,

27 August 2014

CFP_SR00518_dee_2014

Cork, Ireland, 1980s-2010s

CFP_SR00502_kay_2014;
CFP_SR00516_browne_2014;
CFP_SR00518_dee_2014;
CFP_SR00519_casey_2014;
CFP_SR00521_mccarthy_2014;
CFP_SR00532_davis_2014;
CFP_SR00534_kiely_2014;
CFP_SR00547_curtin_2015;
CFP_SR00548_mcallister_2015;
CFP_SR00549_neville_2015;
CFP_SR00555_whelan_2015;
CFP_SR00556_lynch_2015;
CFP_SR00558_doherty_2015;
CFP_SR00561_kerrigan_2015;
CFP_SR00576_odonnabhain_2016;

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

English

Sound

1 .wav File

57min 55sec

Cork Folklore Project, Farranferris, Cork

.wav

24bit / 48kHz

DC Can you describe, I don’t want to focus too much on negative stuff but maybe the most outstanding negative experience of homophobia that happened to you in Cork?

SD Em, you see I suppose my more negative was just been bullied when I was young as apposed to direct homophobia, I had things shouted from cars you know at me, or usually when I was with a certain friend who is a lot more obvious to look at that he is gay, em, but I never, I was never physically assaulted for being gay, it was just name calling, I had some problems in work, in a place I worked em but only the one place where I would come into a room and all the men would start talking about gay jokes, did you hear the latest gay joke, so they were directly throwing it  in my face it was more a passive aggressive way of doing it em, but eh, I’ve never really suffered its really the only type of homophobia I suffered is my own homophobia in that I have tried so hard to fit in to a straight world where people do the whole hand signal thing that I hate where they throw their hand at a curve, you know bend it and you’re a faggott because of that, I’ve always tried to hold my hands a certain way so that when I am gesturing or whatever I would never hold it that way so I guess we all have a bit of internalised homophobia in us.

DC But is that just social conventions then the way people dress and everything is so gendered…

SD Yeah gender specific, yeah I mean, I would have loved like I remember when I was much younger and slimmer I had bought this top when I was in America and it was a, it was nearly see-through, it was all netting and I used to wear that going out and the amount of people that would just stare at me as if to this what the hell this because you know Cork is such a small, I know its come along way but there are still certain conventions when it comes to clothes that you are not supposed to pass, you know and em if you do your either gay or you know em…

DC Do you think Cork is a good place to dress how you want?

SD I think statistically Cork has a very low rate of Homophobia attacks so I think you know Cork is a good place for a gay person to grow up, you know to be gay in, em, eh, …

DC I suppose yeah it’s a small city so.

SD Yeah