“You know how after you have a really big cry you feel relieved, like a weight’s been taken off?” Olly Alexander asks me, “I feel a bit like that.”
We’ve just sat down in a now-deserted cinema in east London, moments after a screening of the Years & Years singer’s first venture into documentary presenting.
“Do you mind if I have some of this?” He asks, pointing to a bag of popcorn that’s sitting on the floor between us.
He is still smiling, energised from speaking about his film, but I can sense the onset of that adrenaline comedown that comes after you’ve exposed a vulnerable side of yourself.
His documentary, Growing up Gay, is about mental health in the LGBTQ+ community. Olly is part of a multi-award winning band, and has a successful acting (and, now, presenting) career – but he’s also struggled with his own mental health issues.
He has self-harmed and suffered from bulimia in the past, and still has regular therapy and medication to manage anxiety and depression.
Growing up Gay dives into all of this.
“I don’t feel like I have any kind of authority on anything, but what I can do is speak about my own personal experiences,” he tells me. “If that’s helpful to anybody else, then I feel like it’s something I should do.”
A lot of people think things have never been better for us LGBTQ+ folk: both this month and next, thousands of people have/will be attending Pride events which are taking place throughout the country; we’ve earned the same marriage rights as straight couples; and later this month will mark the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised homosexuality in England and Wales.
But, according to a recent report, a lot of us might not be feeling too great.
“I think as queer people we’re kind of forced to come across like we’re happy and we’re proud,” Olly says. “We are. But we also need to talk about how we’re feeling.”
In February, the London Assembly Health Committee found that around 40% of LGBTQ+ people, external experience mental health issues.
Stop to think about that for a minute: almost half of all LGBTQ+ people are battling poor mental health. That’s a shocking reality.
“I, personally, have yet to meet an LGBT person that has grown up unscathed by being LGBT,” Olly says in the documentary.
In one scene, Olly opens up to his mum Vicki about how badly he was bullied at school, partly because of his sexuality. It’s an emotional watch as Vicki admits she had been in denial about Olly’s sexuality, fearful of what impact homophobia might have on his life.
Olly breaks down crying in front of his mum, in an exchange that will no doubt strike a chord with other LGBTQ+ people. It reminded me of the painful relationship I’ve had with my own parents with regard to my sexuality, and how much I’ve longed to have a similar conversation with my mum.
“I’d never considered things from her point of view before,” Olly tells me. “It was a real epiphany for me. It did bring us closer.”
Olly meets other people for whom growing up gay has challenged their mental health, from a 15-year-old schoolboy, bullied so badly he started self-harming and considered suicide, to people with drug problems and eating disorders.
As Olly notes, every LGBTQ+ viewer will know what it’s like to feel the 'shame' of growing up gay, and many of us have heard similar stories from friends in the community.
I’ve long wondered if stereotypical expectations of what 'gay life' should be make these problems worse.
There’s an idea that being gay means indulging in a lifestyle of excessive drug and alcohol use. When it comes to relationships, it sometimes seems like we should revel in our sexual freedom, free from the heteronormative pressures of settling down into monogamy and parenthood.
But that lifestyle’s not for everyone, and you could argue that these more “open-minded” ways of living are actually just ways of coping with deep-rooted emotional trauma.
“It can be really difficult to figure out who you’re supposed to be,” Olly says, when I put this to him. “I think that’s a real problem with lots of queer people. You feel like you don’t fit into the majority of society, but then you don’t know where you fit into this minority community either.”
Olly explains that one of his biggest fears filming Growing Up Gay was that "it would be too much of a negative portrayal of the queer experience”.
But, at least to me, it is a refreshingly honest portrayal of what living life as an LGBTQ+ person is actually like. As Olly notes, it is not a reality that speaks for everyone, but it undeniably resonates with many of us.
Olly tells me, “I never thought I’d make something like this, but the whole experience has been life changing. It feels like we’re at the start of a conversation that is happening around mental health. I want people to talk about it. I want people to engage, and be honest, and, most of all, continue the conversation.”
If you have been affected by issues raised above, there's information and support available.
Now watch BBC Three's Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay on iPlayer.
Originally published 18 July 2017.
