I guess I was the cookie cutter straight, white, successful male.
Probably people would look at me and think, "Well, I'm probably like them
and therefore a little bit homophobic as well."
And then I made the really difficult decision to come out.
You know, I met a man that I fell in love with
when I was nearly 40 and then I realised I was gay.
Mr Mawby, do you think homosexuals should be sent to prison?
Yes. Of course if they are... - Surrounded by other men or...
Unbelievable.
When I think about why people are homophobic,
I think about a workshop that I ran in the city a couple of years ago.
It was really good, apart from this one guy
who literally said nothing and he had his arms folded,
clearly really uncomfortable about being there.
So I stopped the conversation and I looked at him
and I said, "I notice you are not engaging with this.
You are not part of the conversation."
And I said, "I suspect there are three things
that I find a lot of people struggle to engage in this conversation with
and the first one is...
Lots of straight men find it very, very uncomfortable
to think about how men have sex with men.
But we have to park that. We're not having a conversation around sex,
we're having a conversation about inclusivity
and making people feel welcome."
And then I said, "The second thing I think lots of people like you think
is that, you know, that..."
And I said, "You're just not my type."
And he started to smile and I said, "But there's the third thing."
And I said, "This is often a problem,
is that, 'If I engage in this conversation..."
There is now a deadly virus which anyone can catch
from sex with an infected person.
So protect yourself.
It's safer if you use a condom.
So I think that crisis had a huge impact on
or reinforced the fact that gay people are different
and there was a lot of terrible language around
"gay people spread diseases"
and it was just ghastly at the time
and I think that's influenced a whole generation
in terms of the way they think about homosexuality.
Russia has got anti-gay legislation,
Chechnya you find pogroms against gay people. - Oh my god, yeah.
If you could speak to Vladimir Putin right now, what would you say to him?
I would love to sit down and talk to him face-to-face
because only face-to-face with people do you get any progress.
So the thing I particularly like about what Elton says there...
I do think we have repressed a lot -
so people have just put it in a box saying,
"Oh god I'm not allowed to say..."
whatever it may be, but if you allow people time to say it
and to say words that they might be a bit clumsy about...
It's fantastic when I talk to young people
who are declaring whatever spectrum of sexuality they are on
without thinking about it, I think of my own children.
They don't think about this in the way that
those of us born in the 60s and 70s and the influences that we had do.
...it really is, and a few simple things can help.
You know what? They're quite nice to talk to.
And listen and we use something called reverse mentoring.
You know, if you're senior, go and find someone that's not like you
that is in the organisation and listen.
Not for you to tell them, for you to listen to their story
and who they are, because it might feel a bit uncomfortable
but trust me, that works brilliantly well
and I have seen people completely transformed.
Their mind is opened.
Being a straight ally, I know that word gets used a lot now,
really matters.
...and say that you are a supporter of the LGBT+ community.
Just do it and you know what, people won't think worse for you
they will think a lot more of you.
Because it's even more powerful if a straight ally talks about
being inclusive and being welcoming of all forms of diversity -
that works really well.