01x04 - Coming Out

[bunniefuu]

My name is Mark Ludford. I'm 18 years old. I make videos on the internet for other people's entertainment because I think I'm well funny. I am a YouTuber. I have been making videos since I was 11, so like seven years and, for some reason, people watch them. I have 23,000 subscribers which is terrifying because, although I share a considerable portion of my life with the internet... Day 3 of vlog week!

Fact of the day, I can't play guitar that well.

I'm selling a poster with my face on it.

Hey, Jack! You're getting one of these. Would you like some ketchup?

I am done. Goodbye.

... there is one big portion that I've kind of left out and pretty soon I'm going to be telling 23,000 people that I'm gay, which is terrifying.

23,000 people is a lot of people to be coming out to.

They say people come out.

You come out quiet or you come out loud.

I, most probably, done the loud.

I came out to my parents five times. It was really confusing growing up because there was so little information.

I grew up before the internet was as popular as it is, where you had to go into a library and, like, get physical books to look at stuff.

It was near the end of...

Towards high school when I ended up getting drunk.

It was on the night that High School Musical 2 came out on Disney Channel.

I told my mum that I was the b-word, that we won't say out loud, because it's a stepping stone, usually.

I'm not saying people can't be bisexual.

I think it was pretty easy for me.

I told my mom and it was no big deal.

I mean, I, obviously, started off saying I was bisexual because, at that moment, I did have sex with girls and boys.

I told my mum, first, when I went back home, after I'd done an Attitude sh**t.

It was my coming-out article.

I came out one day when I was like 28.

I just thought, "Oh, God! I just don't want to bullshit any more."

I just went into my mum's room at three in the morning and just cried.

I was just like, "I'm gay!"

I felt this great big weight come off.

I broke down and I was like, "Look, I'm gay!"

And my mum and my sister just looked at me and went, "Yeah, we know!"

And she was just like, "We always thought you were bisexual."

And I just thought, "Bisexual?

"My first, second and third albums were Kylie Minogue!"

I wanted a little bit of fight. I wanted a bit of resistance!

I was like, "Are you sure you're OK with it? You don't have to be OK with it. Just tell me now!"

We're here like five years later and she's still like, "So, you're gay, right?" And I'm like, "Mom, on this again, really?"

"Are you gay still?" That's what I get at family parties.

"Are you still gay?" "Yeah, still gay."

I definitely think I have become more accustomed to saying it.

I'm more used to actually saying the words, "I'm gay."

Still feels weird, like, that I'm saying it because it still feels like a taboo.

It's funny when people do the whole, "Is she a lesbian?"

It's like they can't say it out loud.

It has to be, like, suffocated, like in a little container.

"Is she a lesbian?"

When I was, like, 13, I genuinely preferred calling myself a f*gg*t than I did... than saying, "I'm gay."

It's a bit more light-hearted than how weighty the word "Gay" is.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a f*g. Yeah, it's great."

"Gay" feels too earnest somehow.

Yeah, it feels too much.

I grew up in the '80s when the word "f*gg*t" meant AIDS. It meant gay, q*eer, but in a really bad sense.

And I know that some people have taken that word on and they've tried to own it, but I still associate it with that playground hurt.

I made the stupid decision of telling a few friends at school, when I was about 12, and I went to a minor Surrey public school where I was the only out q*eer kid for the next four or five years, so, yeah, it was tricky, but I also kind of owned it.

In a way, I was like, "Right, well, you're going to have to f*cking deal with it."

It was hard. It was really hard because, obviously, I got massively bullied for that and also having a lisp and whatever other reasons they decided that I was going to be one of the...

Victims.

Yeah.

I just went, "Right, well, OK, if I come out as trans, "then it means that everything that I've been told in the press is absolutely true. I'm going to lose all of my friends, all of my family, no-one's going to ever want to have anything to do with me again, so I've got to hide that and I've got to try and live this life that isn't really me but is the one which will cause the least trouble for everyone else around me."

Do you watch other people's coming out videos?

Yeah.

It's pretty much all I did when I was 13.

Like, as soon as I kind of figured it out for myself, I just went straight on YouTube and was like, "I need to make sure that other people got through it OK."

I can't imagine what people like us two would actually be like if we weren't allowed to be open.

I really don't know.

I'd probably be wearing his hair, you'd be wearing this hair.

You'd probably be married with kids by now.

Oh!

It's a different world today and I know that and I speak to people and I talk to teenagers who are going through some of the things that I went through and, because of the internet, which is just the most amazing tool. It can be awful, you know? You only need to go and Google your own name to find out how awful the world can be.

It is a great tool for being able to meet people like you, to know that you're not alone, something that I didn't have growing up.

Cut there!

Oh, my God! My f*cking legs are k*lling!

You can make your stupid video now!

Oh! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Oh, God!

Not looking forward to it?

No.

I think it is very brave.

Thank you.

It's your choice.

You can't have someone else do that for you.

I couldn't be that open with that many people.

It's quite a big thing. You're inviting like, you know,

20,000 people into like your private life.

I've never really seen it as my private life.

I remember talking to my dad about it and he said it's one of those things that should be personal.

I was like, "Why should it?" f*cking hell! I'm shaking.

Hi, there! My name is Mark Ludford.

I'm 18 years old and I make videos on the internet and have done for like seven years or something and, in that time, I've made quite a lot of videos that share different parts of my life with the internet, but there is one part that I left out.

I'm just going to say it which is surprisingly difficult, but I'm gay!

Jesus!

God!

If anyone was to say anything bad to Mark just for that...

You've always got people to like, you know, back you up.

Tell me and I'll f*cking batter them!

I sort of like realised that I was gay when I was about 11 or something and I kind of thought to myself,

"Oh, my God! You're not actually that kid?"

That's what everyone's been calling me for the last ten years!

I'd always, at school, had people shouting out,

"Are you gay? Are you gay?"

And, at primary school, I'd had people calling me poof and stuff, from the age of six, seven, so I'd always thought that there was something different about me.

We all always knew, from him being this big.

Except me.

Well, yeah, except him.

Because, before I got to high school and the bullying started, I never knew gayness existed.

I don't know, but I feel like I was always gay, because you look back and go, "All my friends were female and I found it really hard to talk to boys."

I remember being very young and knowing that there was something about my He-Man doll.

Like the figure, the action figure.

I was, like, six years old.

I can think of moments in my childhood where I declared that I was going to be a boy today or something and now I'm looking back on the rest of my life and going,

"I should have realised sooner."

I remember being the same about wrestlers, WWF wrestlers.

I've got a thing for muscles, Ben!

Obviously, a lot of trans people will say that they knew from day dot.

They were three-years-old and they were putting on the other clothes that they weren't supposed to be wearing and I wasn't like...

It took me until I was 15 to realise that.

When did you transition?

I transitioned in... I started transitioning in 2006, so seven to eight years ago.

So I lived the first 43 years of my life in the wrong body.

From that through to sort of like reaching about 26, 27, and going, "Yeah, not only am I trans, I'm also a lesbian, and I'm also a butch lesbian at that," so I spent most of my teenage years sort of wishing that I was just a gay man because that would have made it much easier.

How do you feel having done that?

I'm still struggling to breathe.

Was it harder than you thought?

Easier than I thought.

I was kind of surprised that I didn't somehow break down crying.

You look physically exhausted.

I am physically exhausted. That took so much out of me.

I wasn't prepared for that enough, I don't think.

Time to edit, upload and, then, the internet finds out.

It's not over, even though I've turned off the cameras.

It's not over yet.

No-one's going to care.

When you come out, it's the biggest thing in the world right now.

It's the biggest thing in your head. You think it's going to destroy you and it's going to be the end of you, but it isn't.

It's the thing which makes you and it's going to be the thing which gives you more perspective on life and puts you in a better place to deal with everything else that's in life.

It was the best thing that ever happened in my life.

I've always said to trans people, and I do work to encourage people to go through things.

Anyone. Of being yourself.

It's hard to put into words, but it was just f*cking bliss, to be quite honest.

f*cking amazing.

We need people to stand up and say that this is the way I am because, then, everyone else realises that these people in the world exist and it makes it easier for teenagers to come out.

Oh, seeing my face in flashback there.

To other people who are me-aged-13, kind of dealing with themselves, I think it'll be important to them.

The only people who go, "It shouldn't matter," tend to be straight people because they have no idea how important it is.

If you're going through a similar thing to what I have in the past, good luck!

Thanks for watching.

I'm very proud, actually!

I couldn't have done it.

You know, I think it's a very brave thing to do.

You've been reading all the comments?

Yeah, every single one.

I'm kind of surprised at the fact that the majority is, like, overwhelmingly positive.

And those who can't deal with it, well, it's not their lives.

But I think you coming out is going to give other people...

Think, "God, if he can do it, I can do it."

That's kind of what I wanted, really.

I don't want you to live a double life, I don't want you to live a life that you're not happy in because the one thing I never want you to do is hurt someone by living a lie.

You should be yourself.

Honesty is always the best policy.

You kind of retain some sense of control over how you're perceived.

You're going to come across people calling you Gay, you're going to get all the Bumboy, you're going to get,

"Oh, you fancy me," and all that. I said, "Can you take that?"

He said, "I've already took it on, Mum."

You know, "I've had all that, Mum. I've had it for years," because you got bullied at school, didn't you?

You know, his mates used to say, "He's going to be gay."

"He's gay," and all this, and I said, "You know what? So what?"

If you are honest and open and talk to people you'll find that this thing that has been burying away at you, boring away at you and making you feel like you're alone or making you feel like you're somehow less than and less worthy than, when you start talking to people about it, people will surprise you.

Do what you love and f*ck the rest!

You don't need to swear in front of me.

Sorry, Mum. I'm very sorry.

Testing! Testing! One, two, three!

I am hella gay! Great!