Phillip Schofield’s Coming Out Will Help Many Others To Do The Same

The first thing I’d like to say to Phillip Schofield is 'well done' for coming out.

Coming out is incredibly difficult whether you're 17 – as I was when I told my mum I was gay – or 57, like This Morning's co-presenter. It’s also a deeply personal process that presents slightly different challenges for everyone. As a middle-class white man with a well paid job in the media, Schofield doesn’t have to worry about being made homeless or getting ostracised by his peers. We've already seen his longtime co-presenter, Holly Willoughby, show him tremendous empathy and tenderness on today's episode of This Morning. But as a man who’s been married to a woman for nearly 27 years, reconciling his past as an ostensibly heterosexual husband and father of two with his new life is going to be intense, emotional and messy. To an extent, he’s going to have to grieve for his former self at the same time as he gets to grip with his burgeoning identity as a gay man.

Schofield already knows this. He says in his coming-out statement that he’s 'feeling pain and confusion' which 'comes only from the hurt that I am causing to my family'. He now has to navigate this assault course of conflicting emotions – liberation, guilt, fear and excitement – with the public looking on and in some ways, judging. One newspaper has already apologised for callously describing his Instagram statement (which most of us would call candid and carefully worded) as 'bizarre'.

Phillip Schofield is still the same Phillip Schofield we’ve been watching on TV since the late ‘80s, so he probably won't be booking an Uber to Old Compton Street in Soho this afternoon. But if and when he does begin to connect with the LGBTQ+ community, this will be scrutinised in the media.

For Schofield, this scrutiny will almost certainly feel intrusive. But he should draw strength from the knowledge that his coming out will help many others to do the same. It will, I imagine, be particularly comforting to closeted middle-aged gay people and closeted gay people living in heterosexual relationships. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of Schofield’s statement today.

Thanks to household names like Graham Norton, Sandi Toksvig and Alan Carr, and queer characters in soaps such as Coronation Street and EastEnders, LGBTQ+ representation has definitely improved. Indeed, Rylan Clark-Neal and his husband Dan Neal became the first gay couple to host an episode of This Morning back in 2016. But having a gay man regularly co-host the UK’s top daytime show will make a massive difference, especially in communities and parts of the country where queerness isn’t spoken about freely or positively. If 'nice, wholesome Phillip Schofield' can be gay, why can't the person next door, down the pub or in front of you at Sainsbury’s?

This kind of high-profile normalisation remains incredibly beneficial to members of the LGBTQ community, which is why I was also proud when Jameela Jamil came out as queer earlier this week. Home Office figures published in October show that homophobic, biphobic and above all transphobic hate crimes are on the rise. Equal marriage legislation has only just been passed in Northern Ireland – the first same-sex marriages in the province will take place on Tuesday. LGBTQ+ people in their thirties, forties and fifties grew up in the shadow of Section 28, a barbaric piece of legislation, finally repealed in 2003, that allowed anti-gay sentiments to fester in schools by prohibiting teachers from 'promoting' homosexuality. Many of us grew up being called a 'fag', 'dyke' or worse in the playground. Life has improved a lot for LGBTQ people in recent years, but it’s important to remember that there are still fights to be won.

It’s also vital to acknowledge that there’s no right or wrong way to be gay, queer or however you want to describe yourself. You can be gay if you never go to gay bars, celebrate Pride or even have sex with other men. Phillip Schofield has lived for 57 years without fully exploring his sexuality but he now has chance to embrace it in a way that suits him and his family. That’s a fundamentally positive and enriching thing that will in time improve all of his personal and professional relationships. When you’re hiding a big part of yourself, it’s so much harder to connect with others in a completely authentic way.

So I guess the last thing I’d like to say to Phillip Schofield is 'good luck'. Being able to say who you are is the first step to accepting it and in time, getting to enjoy it.

READ MORE: LGBT+ History Month: Coming Out Across The Decades

READ MORE: What Does It Mean To Be Queer?

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