![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gene and homosexuality
I've been thinking about Gene - no surprises there...
He's very homophobic, but this is 1973 and he's a policeman. Homosexuality was only legalised in the UK
in 1967. For most of Gene's working life, it has been extremely dangerous to be gay, especially a gay policeman. For a lot of gay men, the cloak of homophobia is the only safe one and it seems at least possible that Gene has taken that route with an added layer of making sexist comments about every attractive woman in sight (or he could be bi, many people are).
He doesn't have to be gay, but if he is, he's going to be very, very reluctant to let anyone find out. That particularly includes the people he works with. They've picked up his attitudes and I can't think of anything more likely to make him lose their respect. Sam might be an exception, except that Gene doesn't know about the more tolerent culture in Sam's time.
The front has become so much of a survival trait that I'm not sure he's capable of dropping it even if he wanted to. Even today, it's something of a scandal if a senior police officer is found to be gay - and this is 1973...
He's very homophobic, but this is 1973 and he's a policeman. Homosexuality was only legalised in the UK
in 1967. For most of Gene's working life, it has been extremely dangerous to be gay, especially a gay policeman. For a lot of gay men, the cloak of homophobia is the only safe one and it seems at least possible that Gene has taken that route with an added layer of making sexist comments about every attractive woman in sight (or he could be bi, many people are).
He doesn't have to be gay, but if he is, he's going to be very, very reluctant to let anyone find out. That particularly includes the people he works with. They've picked up his attitudes and I can't think of anything more likely to make him lose their respect. Sam might be an exception, except that Gene doesn't know about the more tolerent culture in Sam's time.
The front has become so much of a survival trait that I'm not sure he's capable of dropping it even if he wanted to. Even today, it's something of a scandal if a senior police officer is found to be gay - and this is 1973...