Freddie's Story

Hi peeps, my name is Freddie/Fredster/Fred-dog/Frizzle to the nizzle …. Yeah.

I joined 2BU in September 2010 in my final year at college, and it is one of the best things I have ever done. The list of benefits is endless - you meet great people, learn new things, receive amazing advice and support from everyone, and basically just come out of it a happier, better person having had a lot of fun along the way.

Soooo …. A bit about me … well, I’ve known I was gay since I was about 12, but didn’t really accept it to myself until I was 16. I then starting coming out to my friends one at a time (until I got a bit drunk at various parties and sort of shouted it to everyone … yeah, wouldn’t recommend that unless you have really good friends which luckily I did).

If you’re reading this, you may have come out/be in the process of coming out/ be hoping to come out at some point, and let me tell you, from my experience, it’s amazing. The sense of release is incredible, and you basically never look back. It can be really hard - it took at least 10 minutes to actually come out with it after saying ‘I need to tell you something’ to some people - and it may take a while for you to be ready. But after you’ve got over and done with, you start talking with that person about being LGB. And after a while, you start laughing about it like it was any other funny little quirk that you have. And this whole world of fear that you had in your head about them treating you differently just disappears, and you realise you’ve actually become a lot closer with them, and it makes you very, very, very happy.

Anyways, enough of the life lectures. So I came out to my parents just after I joined 2BU, I was aware there would be some awkward silences, so I decided to tell my parents whilst I was practising the piano, so I could fill the silence with some nice Debussy. It was hard and awkward at first, but I’ve become much closer with them in the long term as a result. And then … I came to 2bu every week, and had an awesome time meeting people. I was quite literally the only out gay person at my school/college, as it was pretty small, so it was really liberating to meet people with similar experiences when it came to sexual orientation.

I don’t think I‘ve ever been in a more welcoming and helpful environment, because no matter what you’re going through, there’ll always be people who can draw on their own experiences to empathise and give you advice.

At Christmas I became a ‘peer support’ , and so got to work with the leaders and the other peer support people as an extra level of (you guessed it) support for the other members, which I enjoyed massively. I got some friends (all straight) to be models for the sports themed poster campaign about homophobia (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-13423651), and did a talk on BBC Radio Somerset promoting it.

Now comes the part about which I am most thankful to 2BU for - with the help of other 2BU members, I wrote an assembly about homophobia and homophobic bullying and did it at my school. As I’ve said, my school is quite small, and technically a faith school, so as you can imagine, homophobia was pretty taboo there. I had to ask various members of senior staff if I could do it, and at first, I wasn’t even allowed to! But I went to see the headmaster specifically, and thankfully he gave me permission.

Some incredible friends of mine (again all straight) agreed to read out various bits of it, and eventually we found ourselves standing in front of my entire school (about 450 people), with nothing but 5 sheets of paper … There was total silence throughout the whole thing, but at the end we got an absolutely huge round of applause, and as I walked down from where I’d been reading, I’d never felt so happy in my entire life. I got a letter from the headmaster and wonderful things said to me by staff and students alike. And best of all, a girl who I won't name came up to me and thanked me for it! It was without a doubt the best thing I’ve ever done, and 2BU helped me do it. I sadly left 2BU in September 2011 to come to uni in London, but I’m having a fantastic time I’m getting stuck into as much as possibly, including (of course) the LGBT group, and I’m very happy to report I’ve got myself a lovely boyfriend.

But I will definitely be dropping into 2BU in the holidays, as 2BU was and is a very important part of my life. If you’re reading this and haven’t joined yet, what the **** (that means ‘heck’ Andrew, don’t get your knickers in a twist) are you waiting for?!!!