A moment that changed me: I told my dad I was queer and he said he found it hard to love me

"I was always the pretty little boy in the corner of the playground, plaiting girls' hair, dreaming of spotlights. My flamboyance didn't seem to have an off switch. Dad tried his best to steer me into his version of a proper boyhood: football boots, muddy knees, the whole shebang. He'd tap my limp wrists into place and drag me to self-defence lessons in an attempt to turn them into karate chops."

"When I was 15, London became like sticky flypaper to me. I'd get the train from Kent, fake ID in my pocket, to wallow in a fug of sweat, smoke and pulsing bass. I began to live a double life, blissfully shielded from what society and my father expected me to be. I found booze and party drugs, and tethered myself to a motley crew of older friends. I was on an adventure."

A father wrote a letter in 2000 saying he found it hard to love his son, slipping it under the son's bedroom door at a low point. The son had been a flamboyant child who plaited girls' hair and dreamed of spotlights, while the father pushed for a stereotypical masculine upbringing with football and self-defence lessons. At 15 the son escaped into London nightlife with fake ID, drugs and older friends, living a double life. School truancy prompted concerned calls home and an effective outing, prompting a blunt parental question: "Are you queer?"

Read at www.theguardian.com