What every George Michael obituary is missing.

Not wanting to burst any bubbles here, but there’s a bit of a rewriting of history going on. I know obituaries are meant to be all “rainbows and puppy-dogs” but an important part of George Michael’s life (for me anyway) is being overlooked. I didn’t know George Michael was gay when I first heard “Wake me up before you go-go” but I loved his voice, his catchy song, his gorgeous looks, his hairy chest and although not as gender bending as Marilyn, Boy George or Frankie, he still confused us with his hoopy earrings.

Personally, I hesitated to wear white tee shirts with bold statements…initially too bold for a ‘not-yet-out’ young gay man. When brave enough to wear “Choose life”, I was rewarded with shouts of “hey, queer-boy” “bum-bandit” and the promise of verbal and physical abuse. Where I grew up (as in most British towns) liking ‘Wham!’ was something few teenage men would admit to. In the era of the early 80’s just the mention of liking “George Michael” or a bold tee-shirt was an invitation for abuse, justified in the name of AIDS.

But, wear the shirt I did. Dance exuberantly to Wham, I did. And, although it seems odd to say it now, it was a rebellion… a rebellion against a homophobic majority that was out to get George Michael (and the rest of us who were like him). George’s rebellion wasn’t only about being gay, we were united in a fight for the recognition of a disease; a fight against the Catholic church and politicians over condoms; a fight against the medical establishment to do something about an epidemic that was being politicized and being used to turn the ‘straights’ against the ‘gays’. George Michael did a lot for the community secretly, because his record company and the public would have shunned him if he had come out in that era. George Michael wasn’t given a chance to ‘come out’ in his own time. He was forced ‘out’ by the entrapment of an undercover policeman in a public bathroom in LA.

As a young, soon-to-be gay man, it was George Michael that alerted me to the fact that I had to learn survival in a society that was more willing to spend tax-payers money ‘honey-trapping’ queers than giving out condoms and providing medical support for a health epidemic. As the years went on, I came to love George Michael more and more, because he alone showed strength against overwhelming social adversity. He did not give-in to bullying… he stood up to it. He wrote songs that celebrated sex in the outdoors (‘Outside’), in response to the paparazzi stalking him around the cruising grounds of Hampstead Heath. All of this has been forgotten in the last few days of media’s obituaries. But we’ll never forget… They wanted to destroy him… They wanted to destroy us. They dedicated endless resources to finding him in another compromising position. They dedicated their column inches, not to his upcoming tour or new album but to ‘catching him at it!’… And all the while, young gay men watched and learned what we should to expect from society and how to respond to it.

Which is why, when I see these obituaries; when I see all these celebrations of his talent, of his voice, of his songs, that I wish, with all my heart, that it had been like this for George Michael from day one… BUT IT WAS NOT LIKE THIS! We treated him as we treated all gay men in the 80’s — really badly. He lived with and stood up to our homophobic bullying more than any other artist. He taught a whole generation of young gay men who were ‘picked-on’ and ‘picked-out’, not to be apologetic for their sexuality or to hide, even if that felt like the easiest, least painful route.

Viva the revolution George… We owe you so much.