Stephen

People who have lost their jobs, people have lost their families, people who have lost their lives by being their true authentic selves. Those the people I consider to be brave those the people whose shoulders I stand on, the people who went to riot, the people went to make law changes. The people who went on gay who were banned off television, who weren't given opportunities on television, who were ostracised from their workplace. Those break people.

Alex

Welcome to stories of men beneath the surface. I'm Alex Melia. Join me as we discover what it means to be a man in the modern era.

Today's story is about finding our tribe and knowing when to trust our own instincts, not what other people might think of us. Steven grew up in a time when the AIDS epidemic had ravaged the UK a time when it was illegal to discuss same sex relationships in schools. Stephen was left struggling with his identity, figuring out his own sexuality. By the time he was in his early 20s. In the 90s, he knew that he needed to connect with people who looks like him and shared his experience.

Stephen

For me, the decision I made was to venture into central London and go to my first ever gay bar. I did find out that there was a pub by Trafalgar Square called the brief encounter. Sounds like the movie brief encounter. quite sexy, quite, quite exciting. So I plucked up the courage. I felt like a spy. I felt like I was going to get into this place, and then suddenly, a whole new world will open up for me and embrace me. But I was still paralysed with fear. I thought no, I'm gonna go I'm gonna do this for myself. I dressed up I was very tall and a gangly young man. And I had a smart jacket. I had jeans and they were turned up at the bottom and had a tight black T shirt. And I had these hoop earrings. My wrist was full of weird, wonderful bangles wore suits. I thought I looked amazing. So I got on the tube looking quite fly. And it was the longest journey of my life. I could feel the beads of sweat coming down my forehead thinking, what am I going to find when I get there. I eventually found St. Martins lane, and I was on the opposite side of the road from where I could see the sign in neon, the brief encounter, I didn't even focus on the people going in, what I was focusing on, was whether there was anybody on the street, who recognise me, that would mean I could not go in the thought of looking over my shoulder and being spotted and being out there that were paralyzed me with fear, and walked around the building about six 810 times just to make sure I wasn't being followed. And then the final time I walked around the building, I looked at the door, and I just made up bolt for it. I just went bang. I was like Usain Bolt on steroids. I went straight for the door and I opened it. There was a plume of smoke that hit me like like the matrix as I opened the door, bang. And then I stood in the doorway as the door closed, firmly shut behind me. And I just saw people, men standing around this bar, and it was quite dark and dingy a few steps to go down. The music was loud in there. It was pumping, and I just didn't know what to do. And I was just stood there looking around. And as the mist of smoke cleared, eyes are on me. Suddenly, I was this new kid on the block. I must have stood there it felt like another 25 minutes, and the stress was still up to 100 heightened and then I found myself gliding towards the bar, because I don't know how I've walked because my legs were paralyzed. I remember asking for a pint of something or other but then looking around the room. I didn't see many people of color. A gentleman who was probably about 60 or 65 walked up to me smiled and I thought wow, my first conversation with a gay person. And then out of his mouth came the immortal words and he was a white chap by the way. He said this. I really fancy black guys. And that just kind of hit me I thought is this meant to be a compliment? Is this meant to be a chant upline, and I must have known I was quite funny back then, because my immediate response was, so do I, which didn't really go down that very well. And then I've found myself talking to a group of younger people. And then I thought, wow, I found kindred spirits. They were very encouraging to me. And now I had my second dilemma, how to now leave that building, without being seen. Suddenly, I felt trapped. Eventually, I plucked up the courage and I left a brief encounter. I bolted down the road, and I disappeared into the crowd of Trafalgar Square.

The Journey Home was a mixture of triumphs and relief because I'd done it giggling to myself on the tube going on. I did that. But the other side was like, What have I actually accomplished? I've met these people, no way to contact them. I didn't see people who looked like me a little bit of triumph, a little bit of relief, and a little bit of disappointment all rolled into one.

Alex

After you've had this triumphant and relief-filled night out, where did you go after that in terms of did you go to more pubs more, more nightclubs? Did you embrace your sexuality more. So

Stephen

what that did give me was the impetus to go and find other like minded people, it was a challenge myself, because I just knew that I could not pretend and present as someone I wasn't. And it was very easy to avoid and dodge questions, it was very easy to just allow people to make their own assumptions. And that's what people do, and have done with me, my entire life and career, they see you, they make an assumption about who you are. Even in comedy, I'm a six to Batman, quite a big guy. And I wear what is traditionally known as a wedding ring. People make assumptions all the time without me having to divulge anything. And I've never felt myself that I'm in the closet. But for many years, I would never correct people, because it was easier not to have that conversation. So I found myself throwing myself headfirst into club land. And that's when I started to know about, you know, the different fractions, but then the gay community, you know, the bears, that the twinks, the all sorts of different people, it was quite exciting, because you felt like you were on the edges of the mainstream, you felt like you were part of a subculture of clubbing and nightlife that other people were not privy to. But the downside of that is that I didn't have anyone in my personal life, my circle of real friends that I can share that experience with. So I was kind of thought intents and purposes, leading a double life, those kinds of feelings do lead to self-loathing, and, and questioning about who you are, and honesty and integrity, one of the most interesting things was bumping into people that I knew. And then how we bonded over that. We were friends, like the couple of people from school, a cousin I bumped into, and it was like, we never knew. But then because of that social element, we became really close. Because we had a secret.

Alex

In the self-help books he talked about you are the average of the five people you spend the most amount of time with. And it sounded like when you were trying to forge this identity, you didn't have those people. But when you started to see people that you knew, like your cousin on nights out, you started to build your, your people, your your network, your community.

Stephen

That's why it's really important to find your tribe. When I first started doing comedy, I was just doing all sorts of stuff. And people used to say to me, you know, experience comics, it will just take time to find your voice. And that's exactly the same thing. In this journey.

Alex

It seems to me that you've had to overcome a lot of fear as well along the journey to be who you are, who you wanted to be. Because if you hadn't gone to a brief encounter in all these clubs, and met all the people you knew, and also new people as well, you could have ended up going down at a double life and not being the authentic Steven that you want it to be.

Stephen

That's a really good point. I thank you for making that. I don't know how people heterosexual, bisexual, LGBTQ plus how you find yourself, because that's a journey that you can only do yourself. I don't even know if I'd be here, to be honest, because the stress and the expectations of society are far too great. Watching TV at home for example. with my friends, and we'd see a program with a very camp character, how the hilarity in the room would ensue, and how I would not be able to say anything and, and even though that character was not anything like me, but that was what was represented, they are laughing at me. And they're, they're taking the piss and they're saying things, and I couldn't say anything, we all want to be part of something, and to feel ostracized, and to feel like you don't belong, especially when you're a young person that's devastating.

Alex

I've got gay friends who have always lived an authentic life and always been true to who they are, I think because of people like yourself, who, you know, two, three decades before, overcame fears, it must be a lot easier now for those people, as opposed to, like people like yourself in the early 90s. And obviously, 80s and 70s, and so on, who did it before?

Stephen

Well, I would say that fear did play an amazing role, but not not in a good way. Because we talk about mental health now, like a common thing. But back then we didn't define it, as you know, mental health situations, or whatever. But people struggled, particularly when you I grew up in an era where, yes, there were people fighting for rights, there were there were activists, but I didn't particularly see them, you know, that there was, you know, the Pride March, which I never went on the theatre out of fear, not because I wouldn't, didn't want to be in solidarity with these people. But I was scared, I, frankly, stand on the shoulders of people who've gone before me, who have paved the way. But I will not ever accept that. It's easy now. Because there are still people putting young people who who are suffering, and who will self harm and who have committed suicide, because they feel trapped, they feel alone. And I know two cases personally, where that's happened. And it's devastating. And, you know, you do try and, and kind of give people your own experience and show your lived experience. But sometimes when they go to their real world, that's not enough.

Alex

Did you feel like the fear was bigger for you than a gay guy who's who's white, for example, because of that, because of the times it was early 90s?

Stephen

I would absolutely say so. Because I would say for the first, the first, maybe three or four years of me actually getting immersed into the scene as it were, I could count the number of black people I saw on, you know, two hands on a regular basis, when you feel that there's nobody likes you. That's another layer. And also, because in terms of what a black man putting in London is seen as you know, strong fit macho masculinity, you know, was I was, I wasn't that. And who am I disappointing by not being that, but it's easy to pretend to be that just for a simple life. But then, as you get older, you start thinking to yourself, you know, what, what is the meaning of life, the only got one chance at it. So why not live your best life?

Alex

Yeah, I've had experiences in my life where I've tried to be something I'm not and it's very, it's very tiring, you know, to to have to do that. And it does take it out of you, and you feel this incongruence inside your body. And then when you it's almost a case of surrendering, I suppose being vulnerable. Because for a lot of years, I've had mental health issues myself and pretending that everything's okay and pretending to be this masculine man, just caused me a lot of upset and the more I surrendered and more I leaned into the traditional forms of femininity, the more of a man I became, Don't Have you have you had the similar experience to that?

Stephen

When you're beaten down so much. I think that's the key when you're beaten down when you're having to pretend and and present is this. And then you've got to make those people not not monitors for yourself, you think it's for yourself, but you're making other people happy, don't upset the status quo. When your parents say, oh, when you're gonna get married, you've got it all. Or when you're gonna have kids, oh, all that stuff. And then you're just acting and acting. And then that is exhausting. And for you to finally acknowledge who you are. That means you've got to trust that you'll be able to deal with whatever's coming. Because it's one thing having to back things away and be on on on guard all the time. Once you put those backs down, you're going to be vulnerable. So you've got to be ready at that stage. For me, for example, I thought I was ready. I got to a stage where, you know, I didn't pretend to my friends or family. I didn't say anything publicly because it's nobody else's business. But I didn't hide and then something really major happened. But that gave me the impetus to write a show about somebody I knew who was killed in a homophobic attack. And at that point in that show, I said, and by the way, I'm attracted to men and this, I've been going for maybe 1015 years at this point. But unbeknownst to me, I didn't even think about it. It became a story of me coming out. The way that progress was that from being described earlier, as black comic deliver, I now had the moniker of gay black comic, Jeremy, it was like, wow, white heterosexual comedians in in the UK, I don't think any of them have been described as white heterosexual comedian, gentlemen. So it's like, you're still trying to put me in some sort of box. If you add those adjectives to who I am, you're just defining my comedy by that, where if anyone has seen my stuff, it's a lot more than that.

Alex

The problem you've got as well nowadays, you know, if your show is an hour, an hour and a half, but someone takes a 10 to 15 second snippet, puts it on Instagram, tick tock and things like that. And there's no context there. There's no, there's no real depth to what's, you know, the whole joke is not there. But some will take that and say, Ah, Stephen said this, or Stephen believes that and people can really go down a rabbit hole.

Stephen

Yeah. And I think perhaps one of the contributing factors to that is that we live in a world where it's about immediacy, and that gratification you can get when you see something on TV, or no, get onto Twitter, it's immediate, taking stock, having a moment to think I'm pretty confident that if you anyone was to trawl through my timeline of any of my socials, I've never slag anybody off. I it's just not in my nature. And I'm always one of these people. And so Angel, I have got emails and text messages from 15-20 years ago, on my phone, it's just a habit. And I think now, I'm keeping that because I need to have a defence just in case bullshit happened, gentleman. And that's just habit. Like, I've seen stories about people, either someone being ill or did it before I put anything online at all. And so I would check first, it doesn't cost anything it does. It takes a little bit of time, maybe but fine, I'd rather do that than to be spectacularly wrong. And then we now have this thing where all people are allowed allowed to make mistakes. Are you really, yeah, your age, you can't do as you say, due diligence, before you pile in, and you start saying shit, you know, maybe I just would like, people, maybe I'm being too harsh in terms of judging people by my own standards. Or maybe it's because a lot of people haven't suffered in the way that I struggled before they found who they were, you know, in this world that has, you know, let's be honest, it has been geared in the main to straight white men. But for someone like me, who literally for the first 18 years, 20 years of my life, was hiding who I was, and what we now comfortably identify as mental health issues. Those what I was struggling with, and who knows what that does to one's young, forming brain. But what I did know is that I'm going to use whatever boys I have to be open to be proud to say what I want and to assist people if I can in some way. What I won't do is engage in in ridiculous, nonsensical arguments. I will not throw myself into a debate where I'm not required or asked about, I know what it's like to have struggled not just as a member of the LGBTQ plus community, but also as a black man. Growing up in this country, I know, I don't want parents struggles have been, so I don't have the energy to be fighting people for what I can deliver to me. But really,

Alex

if you were to speak to the 21, or 22 year old Steven No, in in 2022, who's confused? It doesn't know what his identity is, doesn't know which path to go down in life. What would you say to him?

Stephen

Wow, I would say, Oh, I would say keep asking questions. keep true to your authentic self. And one day it will be all right.

Alex

Well said. I think I think the authenticity thing is, is is massive, isn't it because people are living lives of in authenticity, gay men who get married and And, but they know they're living a lie. I thought of someone like Michael Barrymore to have to live like that for so many years. Yeah, when really deep down, you know that you're living the wrong life.

Stephen

It's quite interesting. You mentioned Michael Barrymore because, you know, unfortunate for him, he then had a situation where some awful events happen in his house. This puts her in poor and that tarnished everything. And people don't know, the real story. Fast forward a good number of years. Phillip Schofield, you know, is another example. But the difference is hailed as a hero for and brave, and I was like, what, not one bag bragging anybody else. But my definition of brave in terms of the LGBTQ plus community is someone who does put themselves on the line, put your neck above the parapet and never have to look over your shoulder. However, if you work in an industry, like entertainment industry, where you're kind of embraced anyway if you're a member of the LGBT community, and you are presenting someone, you're not earning all this money, interviewing people who was the same situation as you, and you're still scared to come out? That says a lot about you. I think, you know, people who come out whenever they want, absolutely, I'm not saying that at all. But in terms of the message, you're sending out in your position. I know, I'm not saying people should be role models. But for me, people, people who have lost their jobs, people have lost their families, people who have lost their lives by being their true authentic selves, those the people I consider to be brave, those the people whose shoulders, I stand on, the people who went to riot, the people went to make law changes, the people who went I'm gay, who were banned off television, who weren't given opportunities on television, who were ostracised from their workplace, those brave people.

Alex

100%, when you were telling your story before, and you were talking about walking into this pub solo, I had many examples of like that when I was younger, and I would almost do it as a fear busting exercise as well, because you have this thing where you walk in solo, and you think everyone's gonna think I'm a loser. I've got no friends with me. And, you know, even though you know that not to be true, you still think you still have these irrational thoughts. But actually, you know, I always felt like sometimes I was pumping myself up, like I was having some sort of fight or some boxing match. I'm like, come on, you can do it. And you just go in there. And as long as you just embrace whatever happens in terms of going up to people just chatting. No one ever ever says, Why are you Where are you friends? Why are you here alone? It and that never happened. But it was something like an irrational fear that came up. And it seemed like you had a lot of irrational fears as well.

Stephen

I think you're right, we all do we because as I said earlier, it's that thing about not having not finding your tribe yet, and used and because you've been through, maybe abuse yourself, but people saying awful things about people that you identify with people who do not embrace a gay people. And then you set yourself up because you don't want to go into that space. And, yes, you're new in that space. But you could always be a target. It's all in your head. But you've got to get over that. And the only way you can get over that is by doing it. And during it. You know, I know people who move to London to get away from their families. And then they had a different life in London. But once they go back home, they've got to compartmentalise all that and then become Miss again, that's not good for one's brain one's mind. And that can lead to all sorts of all tragic events, for one to a better word. In the same way that I was, like, I was, I had this armor around me was expecting to to defend myself, you know, my first step into brief encounter was, it was just like, Oh, all right. Okay. All right. Oh, within five minutes, I've been chatted up by some person who said maybe who said the wrong thing. And then 10 minutes later, I meet these people, but no one has gone. Oh, look at that loser. You're right. But but you don't know that until you do it.

Alex

I don't know about you. But I find find things more exciting and more fulfilling once it's tinged with a bit of fear that you must even though you've been a comedian for you know, decades now, you must still have this feeling of of fear or nervousness, but afterwards you know, when you've absolutely when you feel it, you've absolutely nailed the show and the audience has gone away. Happy you must go off stage Absolutely. buzzing.

Stephen

Yeah. But I think also it's that fine line between fear and adrenaline. You know, that's, that's thing you get in your stomach, which is like fight or flight? You know, it's not No, I wouldn't say it's fear. Because if I was scared, if I was genuinely fearful of dumping, I probably would not do it. But if I had this impetus and this adrenaline that was given pumping me up, as you say, then I would do it. And I would overcome. What I would, people may say, is fear. But in terms of realism, and that's why when I do this job, people say to me all the time, people from all walks of life, or, Oh, I couldn't do couldn't do comedy. It's the hardest job in the world. Or it's sad, be so scared, and I go, What is the worst that can happen? What's the worst as you get up on stage and to make and tell jokes? What's the worst that can happen? People don't laugh. I could never be a social worker. I can never be a doctor. I can never be a policeman. I can never be a politician. Because all those jobs affect people's lives, and you make the wrong decision. You have fucked up people's lives. Me, I do a joke. You don't laugh. There's always tomorrow. There's always another comedian who gives a shit.

Alex

It's clear from my conversation with Stephen that finding his tribe was really important for him to reflect his different identities. And surrounding yourself with a community of people that you want to be around can be very empowering. After years of feeling isolated. Steven was able to acknowledge and reflect on the fear that he felt at that time. It got me thinking, how would his mental health had been different if that thing would have happened today with the fact that we have made some small, progressive steps forward. But as Steven says, even though we've made some small progress, there's still a huge amount that needs to be done to lift the stigma of mental health. I feel like highlighting stories like Stephens can be that starting point for change. Steven has undoubtedly paved the way for gay people and comics to have multiple identities and live freely