“I feel really conflicted about it now – even though I’m absolutely over the bullying, I always feel like I was the victim of homophobic bullying,” Callum tells me. Now, discussing homophobia in the context of straight men may seem like a distraction. That didn’t matter to his assailants – most of Callum’s friends were girls or those also treated as “outcasts”, some of whom were “exploring their sexuality” as teenagers he hated sport, and loved performing arts. But the thing is, Callum isn’t actually gay at all: he’s a straight man. “Gay”, “bender” and “faggot” were spat at him by classmates with abandon beaten up in the changing rooms before PE, he was forced to change in the cleaner’s cupboard instead. H omophobia cast a long shadow over Callum’s childhood.
