Often the attitude,
the old-fashioned attitude was suppress the sexuality.
It's OK to live your life privately, but don't
put it anywhere
near the public eye because people will only
see you as one thing,
which is something I really, really struggled with.
Hi, Fra Fee here.
I'm going to be talking
about my Pride experiences
with Attitude magazine.
I joined the MCU last year playing a character
Kazi in the Disney series
'Hawkeye' and
feel unbelievably
proud of the fact that I achieved that
as an openly gay actor.
Whenever I was studying
and seeking advice from
what I deemed to be very, very learned, experienced people
often the attitude,
the old-fashioned attitude, was suppress the sexuality.
It's OK to live your life privately, but don't
put it anywhere near the public eye
because people will only see you as one thing,
which is something I really, really struggled with.
So, to be able to be living
authentically and very, very openly about who I am
and yet still be given an opportunity like that,
I don't don't take lightly the importance
and the significance of that at all
because I hope that
other young queer actors
that are coming through the ranks
can see that it's possible to be anything
that you want to be.
I think what initially
drew me to acting in the first place
was the sense of
putting on different armour, putting on different
clothes, becoming someone else and hiding from myself.
That's why a lot of actors get into it.
You know, it's make-believe, it's play.
But there was a deeper importance for me,
which was literally becoming someone else.
But when I moved to London and started acting
in musicals, particularly in the West End,
I found people that grew up in a different part of
the world, in a different part
of Britain or a different part of Ireland,
had such similar life experiences and challenges
and had found home in London
doing the thing that they love.
That included, you know,
many straight people, lots of queer people and
I felt as though then I was able to live more
comfortably in my own skin and not the skin
or the clothes of a character.
So that was vastly, vastly important
and hugely significant
in finding pride to myself,
not a version of myself, but just me.
I grew up in Northern Ireland in a little rural
place in County Tyrone
and the idea of being proud of myself
was just such a far stretch.
At the very, very most it would have been coming
to some form of acceptance for who I was.
I don't want to
demonise any institution or anything, or
do I?
But there are certain things that I
look back on and feel such sadness and frustration and
yeah, a bit of anger at.
I remember in religious studies class
having to write an essay about how homosexuality was
just blanket wrong.
And if I hadn't done that,
I would have got a low grade because the correct answer
was to say that it was a sin.
And then I can't quite believe that that happened
to me. And to so many others,
so many other LGBT
people growing up in that place at that time.
It means a certain level of shame follows
you for such a long, long time,
and you've had that level of indoctrination.
But I believe that the waves that have been made
in the last five, ten years have been so, so massive.
The referendum in the Republic of Ireland
was huge for marriage equality.
And, you know,
Northern Ireland followed suit eventually.
So I take such
pride and comfort from the fact
that the young queer people at home
are able to live their true, authentic selves now
and are potentially able to come out
to their friends at school.
It's so, so beautiful and quite overwhelming
to think about
because it was just such a wholly different experience
whenever I was growing up.
I believe the first Pride festival in County Tyrone
took place last year in Omagh.
The idea of that happening whenever I was a teenager
was just so unbelievably unfathomable
and it would have made such a huge difference.
I didn't have any...
I certainly don't recall any visible
gay people in the media, on TV, that I could relate to.
Certainly anything that had a necessarily positive spin on it.
You know, I recall very vividly
a kiss taking place between
two men in one of the soaps,
I think it was 'Coronation Street', and the papers
were making such a huge deal of this
kiss that is not a very big deal.
And I just thought, if they're
reacting to this, what is going on here?
So if I was a kid and I read in the papers
that actually there's a Pride
festival taking place in my county, in my home.
I would have thought, oh, well, maybe I'm OK.
You know, maybe actually,
I'm not so unlike everyone else.
And maybe there is a place
for me in this world,
and maybe I can achieve happiness as well.
My first ever Pride experience
ashamedly wasn't terribly long ago.
The idea of being
proud of who I was wasn't something that sort of
came into play until much later on in my life.
It was more
the idea of accepting who I was.
I
watched the movie 'Pride', I think I was at
Manchester University,
and subsequently then went to my first Pride Festival
after watching that
because I recognised the importance of it
as a political standpoint,
and also something that I desperately needed
to do as an individual - and finding pride in myself
as opposed to just acceptance.
And it's now one of the most important
times in the calendar year for me.
Unfortunately, we're always going to be privy to hate
because it quite simply exists
and it's always something that you have to combat
and to somewhat suppress because it always hurts.
But ultimately,
this is why events like Pride are so, so important,
because you can see literally, visibly,
the amount of support that you have
and the amount of love that you can fall back on.
There's the most beautiful
new series on Netflix called 'Heartstopper'
that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago.
And if I had watched that
whenever I was a kid and
the way in which it completely
normalises young gay love
and young
gender identity and queer
love and friendship
it would have been the most incredible thing.
Which is why it's so, so important.
It's beautiful and it's gorgeous
and it's a lovely drama.
But it's really, really important for that reason.
And I would encourage any
young queer person that feels as though they are
missing out on a sense
of community and a sense of friendship
and feeling a little bit other
and a little bit separate to watch that and
be encouraged and to feel the connection from it.
It's amazing.