Last night UnderAge And Gay aired on Channel 4, and has been trending on Twitter since then. The documentary follows the lives of five LGBT teens who show us just how difficult it still is being gay in 2015.
You fall a bit in love with all of them as you follow their journeys, so we decided to celebrate our favourite f*ck yeah moments on the show.
First, we meet Beckham (14) who lives with his mum in Bradford. Despite his strong community of colleagues from his part-time job (‘Beckham is too nice for anyone to disrespect him’), we see him deal with anonymous bullies who text him non-stop threatening to ‘murder’ him.
We also see the positive side of his relationship with his boyfriend Josh, even though he has to meet up with him in a field in secret, so that his haters don’t see him.
Michaela (14) is a lesbian from Birmingham and proud. She’s also pretty sanguine about all the hate she’s getting – ‘I think the girls bullied me because I had a better relationship with the boys.’
When asked if there’s a ‘right age’ for coming out as gay, she replied: ‘I don’t think 14 is too young to come out – you start to develop your personality and who you are. I was 13.’
She explains that it’s hard to find other gay people at her age because they’ve been too scared to come out. Then we watch her join an LGBT group where they go on a canal boat trip. Finally, she gets to be around people who don’t make her feel like an outsider.
Like Michaela, Tamika (15) is a lesbian who finds it hard to be herself. She admits to keeping a low profile and laughs along when her mates said things like, ‘Lesbians don’t have real sex, do they?’ Even though she knew she was hurting herself by joining in, she felt it was easier to just blend in.
However, we follow Tamika’s journey to self-discovery as she says she doesn’t want to blend in any more: ‘I’m gonna embrace my gayness. Embrace my inner unicorn!’
Alex, (17) is a trans-male living on his own after becoming estranged from his parents, who he says gave him no emotional support. We see how Alex has come through the other side of a period of serious confusion and he shares the poetry that he wrote while he worked through those issues.
It’s a total inspiration to watch him create a new life by himself after all he’s been through. He talks about having suicidal thoughts: ‘Over 50% of trans people without a support system attempt suicide, which is an horrendous statistic.’ But then rather upliftingly, he concludes, ‘I’m still here.’
Cariad, a lesbian from Cardiff, had to deal with bullies asking her personal questions about her sexuality. People would also question her choice to come out: ‘Are you sure you’re gay, though?’ to which she’d respond: ‘YES I’M SURE.’
She also defies the stereotypes that lesbians can’t go shopping and dress in a remotely feminine way. We watch Cariad go through a transformation where she reinvents her look – which she can’t wait to unveil at school.
You can catch Underage and Gay on Channel 4 On Demand.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.