Be brave and be yourself is the recommendation from 32-year-old Gareth Patterson who is leading a happy and content life in Belfast as a proud member of the LGBTQI+ community.
his is the uplifting message he will be delivering in an inspiring TEDxStormont talk which goes live on Friday.
Gareth’s story is the first in a series of ‘Spotlight’ themed videos highlighting some of the important topics making the news agenda at present.
As we ease out of pandemic lockdown Gareth has been kept busy responding to the public’s health needs, refurbishing his first home, and doing cross-fit classes to keep fit.
At 32 he says he finally feels content.
He is dating, happy in his career, and enjoying a passion for good coffee through his NI Coffee Maps project, a pop-up guide to our best coffee shops.
But life wasn’t always so good.
Gareth realised, as a young boy, growing up in a conservative, Presbyterian, Christian, evangelical environment in Annahilt, Co Down, that he felt “different and other”.
On reaching his mid-teens Gareth was “quiet, well-behaved and conforming”.
Feelings about sexuality became very clear to him but through “fear and shame” he “played along” and “pretended to be attracted to women”.
Church doctrine around sexuality, relationships, marriage and family, and hearing words like “sinner, unnatural, and broken spoken from the pulpit” did him great harm, he says.
“When gay was used as a pejorative my stomach would sink, my heart would race and my face would flush,” he said.
“I was hiding my true self and terrified to tell anyone I was gay so I prayed, ‘Lord, please change me’.”
Throwing himself into sports and academia he was accepted to study medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, aged 18.
Student years should be fun and happy but instead he didn’t feel like he could be himself and existed with deep feelings of “great sadness and bitter loneliness”.
Feelings of shame led to fear of vulnerability, anxiety, low mood, depression, and suicidal ideation.
In 2009, by this stage in his early 20s, Gareth felt so overwhelmed by his emotions he contacted a US-based “ex-gay Christian organisation” he had heard about through church activities and online.
The group was making assertions that ‘sexual reorientation’ was possible, and put him in touch was its Northern Ireland-based service and from there a psychiatrist, and the doomed process of trying to alter his sexuality began.
Gareth says he knows now it was “abnormal to expose myself to such an unnatural practice”.
“It comes from conservative evangelical ideology,” he said.
“They can fluff it up whatever way they want but ultimately it’s all about making people feel what they are isn’t right and that they need to change.”
Gareth says men like him, who have been through ‘conversion therapy’, refer to those who claim to be “ex-gay” as ‘the Paisleyites’, a name which flows from the surname of late former First Minister, DUP leader and firebrand preacher Ian Paisley.
“We call the ‘ex-gays’, who seem to be mainly older men, ‘the Paisleyistes’ because they all believed the sodomy preaching,” he said.
In his mid 20s Gareth had a short-lived relationship with a man and at 25, beyond a few people who knew he was gay in strictest confidence, he started to slowly ‘come out’ to friends and then family.
There was a mixed response to his news. Some people reacted with concern, some condemned him and others supported him.
He has great love and respect for those who “stuck by me” and over the years also developed other friendships with broad-minded people.
Telling his story in 2020 to respected investigative journalist Mandy McAuley for her eye-opening BBC Spotlight documentary on ‘conversion therapy’ has given him confidence and changed his life.
“It is really only in the last year or two I have really become comfortable and accepted myself.
“There was an overwhelming wave of support after I spoke to BBC Spotlight. Work colleagues were immensely supportive.
“I had strangers writing letters to me and patients calling the practice to offer support.
“I have so much hope for Northern Ireland.”
Despite some of the damaging public and political discourse from certain quarters Gareth believes Northern Ireland is changing dramatically and people will no longer tolerate having their lives dictated to them.
“Northern Ireland is unique,” he said.
“So much of our social fabric and politics is influenced by faith and Christian doctrine and beliefs.
“The public is demanding change. People have moved so far from where they were even a few years ago.
“You can see conservative factions act quite aggressively because the influence they once had is becoming quite diluted.”
He wants church institutions to “wake up” to that.
Gareth no longer identifies as a Christian in the way he used to.
“I describe myself now as spiritual but I still have a lot of respect for the Christian faith.
“I believe in something beyond ourselves.”
Gareth wants church communities to acknowledge the role he says some of them have in “creating a space making it difficult to be gay”.
“Hopefully in that there can be healing for those hurt by the church and maybe we can get to the place where people can freely be part of a church community and not have to change.”
Gareth wants all oppressed people to combine efforts to make change in society including backing the Ban Conversion Therapy NI campaign.
“Conversion therapy is damaging, painful, lonely, abnormal, inappropriate, and inhumane,” he said.
The Evangelical Alliance has suggested proposals under consideration by UK governments “could pose a direct threat to religious liberty and restrict personal freedoms”.
In April, the Stormont Assembly endorsed a motion, brought by the UUP’s Doug Beattie, calling for an urgent ban on conversion therapy by a significant majority.
It was supported by Sinn Fein, the Alliance Party, the SDLP, the Green Party, PBP MLA Gerry Carroll and independent MLAs.
TUV leader Jim Allister and 23 DUP MLAs voted against the motion. Five DUP MLAs, including Arlene Foster, abstained on the vote.
“To see the Stormont Assembly debate and then pass a motion in favour of a ban gives me hope,” Gareth said.
“It was moving. I felt proud and hopeful about an inclusive, caring and tolerant Northern Ireland.”
He believes “a thread of oppression in Northern Ireland and Ireland has been there for so long it has empowered people to have a stronger voice and not tolerate it any longer”.
If what Gareth is saying in this interview and his TedXStormont talk chimes with you he is asking you to be “be brave”.
“Tell those who are worthy to hear your story,” he adds.
“When I think back to my teenage years and early 20s a lot of memories are of fear and sadness. I was so afraid.
“Being myself now, I feel incredible.
“It is the way any human being should feel.”
It may not be easy but ultimately being yourself will be worth it.
“Know that even though it feels that nobody will support you there will be many more people who will love you.
“And you will love yourself more.”
To watch Gareth’s TedXStormont video visit http://tedxstormont.com/
For more about Ban Conversion Therapy NI visit https://twitter.com/BanConversionNI
If you would like support for any of the issues raised in this interview, contact your GP, Samaritans, Life Line or The Rainbow Project
