In one such place in Norwich, I returned from the performance to find several boarders chatting in the lounge; they told me they had seen the play and the conversation turned on actors in general. One of them said, âof course theyâre all queers, arenât they?â and began a dissertation about the corrupting influence of homosexuals. It was so unexpected and so aggressive that I didnât do much to gainsay him. I went to the kitchen, where we were allowed to make tea, and to my surprise he joined me in preparing cups and saucers. âHope my little outburst didnât offend you, but I had to talk like that in front of my mates. I always run down the poofs in company âcos it diverts attention from myself. I am queer you see ⊠but I expect you saw through all that, didnât you?â
In fact I had seen through nothing. I had assumed his censure was genuine. It was only one of many arguments about deviants that I was to go on hearing over the years. Lines like âI canât stand queersâ is as daft as âI canât stand heterosexualsâ, but people will go on saying them. Whether it is sexual, religious or racial, discrimination will occur in one way or another in most societies, and eradicating efforts are futile because the prejudice is born of ignorance. Bernard Shaw wrote that the only thing to do about ignorance is to enlighten it, and a lot of idealists think that education can achieve that enlightenment. Legislators think that laws can do it, and trendsetters think fashion can do it. They are wrong because they start from a false premise. Theyâre like the doctor who once told me that smoking cigarettes would shorten my life: he made the erroneous assumption that I craved longevity.
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