Queer as Folk: A Time Capsule of being gay in the 90s
Life under Section 28
Content Warning: Homophobia, Sex, Statutory Rape
I’m not a gay man and I was a literal baby at the time this show was both set and released. As a trans woman, I grew up after Section 28 had been repealled, but Thatcher’s anti-gay policy cast a long shadow over all LGTBQ+ people. Even when I was in school, all that had really changed was the introduction of a yearly assembly about not being homophobic while much of the rest of curriculum was maintained from a period where discussions of queerness were illegal in British schools.
Most of my peers who did turn out to be queer stayed in the closet, while those who didn’t were subject to ridicule much in the same way as the show. With the institutional power TERFs have gained in this country in the media and policy making, I fear very much a return to Section 28 for trans people.
So, how does Russiel T. Davies’ Queer as Folk (1999-2000) depict gay life in the 90s?
Our main cast of gay characters live double lives. By day they work in a supermarket, an office, attend school, and “fit in” with the rest of the society. Essentially, they live with one foot in the closet as homophobia is rampant in every corner of British society that not doing so risks social ostracization, exclusion, and even violence.
But by night, Manchester’s bustling Canal Street is a place to be free. As the heart of the Gay Village, it houses the bulk of the city’s gay nightlife, where everyone is free to be who they are. Free to love who you love, to fuck who you want to fuck, to be surrounded by everyone who sees you for who you are without judgement.
I feel a part of that is a little bit lost nowadays. That’s not to say places like the Gay Village aren’t thriving, far from it, but the “gay scene” has largely become inhabited with a lot of cishet “tourists” who come for the drinks and the music, but won’t stand with you when the time comes.
This is not to say that Canal Street is some kind of gay paradise in Queer as Folk.
For each of our characters, it represents many things. For Vince it’s a place where he connects to his gay identity, is able to be himself with his peers, and escape the drudgery of his life at the supermarket.
For Stuart, it’s his Kingdom. On Canal Street, Gillan’s character is in his element, it’s a place where he can have anyone he wants. While the others often wonder if tonight will be one where they “cop off”, or have another dry spell, Stuart is the envy of all. Hell, he’s had most everyone on Canal Street already. Most of these are meaningless sexual encounters. A quick fuck and forget. There’s nothing wrong with sexual freedom, of course, but Stuart as a character tends to treat those he hooks up with callous disregard, a fact that comes back to bite him time and again.
The two are best friends and the show constantly depicts a “will they, won’t they?” type stituation. Vince seeks some kind of meaningful, deeper connection with Stuart. The King of Canal Street has had almost every guy there except him. Why not him? What’s wrong with him? Living in Stuart’s shadow is no easy feat.
This brings us to the character of Nathan.
I’ll be honest, I almost stopped watching in the first episode because of Nathan. We first see him as a young man loitering in Canal Street who catches Stuart’s attention. The two of them shack up together at Stuart’s place. All normal so far. However, we learn at the end of the night that Nathan is 15. This is statutory rape and something hugely inappropriate to do a minor, especially as Stuart seems to keenly suspect he is not an adult.
Most of the main cast seem to regard Stuart as being a bit irresponsible rather than fully predatory.
While I’m not going to fully defend the show for this, the more I watched, the more I understood the point of Nathan’s inclusion in the show.
As I mentioned before, this is Britain under Section 28. In 1988, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced a set of education laws that prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools, lest kids learning being gay is okay may turn them gay or something. Yet as Queer as Folk wants us to see, people are gay whether you tell them they’re allowed to be or not.
For Nathan, living in an environment where being known to be gay could result in mistreatment at school from his peers, bullying from both pupils and teachers, and a homophobic father…well, there’s not exactly much of an avennue for him to be himself. No one will teach him about gay life, gay relationships, safe sex practices, or anything that would help him safely navigate life as a gay teenager. He feels alone. Isolated.
There’s only one avennue for him to be free in his mind. It’s Canal Street.
In the UK, the age of consent is 16 for everyone regardless of sexuality. At this point in time. Homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967. Prior to this, famous gay icons such as Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing faced criminal punishment for being themselves. Wilde was famously jailed for refusing to be forced in the closet, while British code breaker Alan Turing faced chemical castration when he was outed after the Second World War.
Until 1994, the age of consent for homosexuality was 21. Then it was 18. All this time, the age for heterosexuals was and remained to be 16.
Even as a young man on the verge of turning 16, being gay was effectively still illegal for Nathan while similar restrictions for his heterosexual peers were nonsexistant. None of this makes Stuart knowingly continue to have sex with him okay, but with this context it becomes deeply understandable that the show is trying to tell you this is all he has. Making it illegal and impossible to be freely gay does not stop people being gay. It’s like abstinance-only sex education. Lack of awareness and education doesn’t stop people having sex, it only mystifies it and makes it alluring to those without the knowledge to do it safely.
When seeking age appropriate love from his peers is impossible, all he has a gay man is older men. This can be seen somewhat cyclically as Stuart at the beginning of the show mentions his first sexual experience was with an older male teacher.
This should be in no way used to conflate being gay with being predatory. Being a bisexual woman myself, I know that right now our community is constantly under attack by the likes of Chaya Raichik’s “Libs of TikTok” and other similar individuals who accuse us all of being groomers daily. They use dog whistles to insinuate attacking us violently is morally righteous. That’s why I’m careful to stress this point. Lack of education on sex and relationships leaves any teen open to predation regardless of sexuality or gender.
After his family discover his sexuality and his relationship with Stuart, he finds himself in a situation that many queer youth to this day find themselves in. Running away from home. According to the LGBTQ charity, Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT), 24% of the UK’s homeless are LGBTQ+ with 77% of those being directly because of the treatment they faced from their parents.
This only compounds with the fact that Nathan finds himself constantly chasing Stuart, seeking his approval endlessly, while Stuart mistreats him to use and discard as he sees fit.
Nathan’s saving grace is Hazel. Vince’s mum is an open-minded woman who very much seems to be every queer person on Canal Street’s surrogate mother. She looks out for those who have no one else and takes in Nathan to her home while starting a genuine friendship with his mother. Hazel provides a safe space for Nathan, helping his mother to learn how to care for a gay child. At first there is a great deal of animosity that Nathan feels towards his mother trying to interfere with his life, but the two of them become close and caring of one another towards the end of the show.
However, Nathan’s father never accepts him. This creates a rift in the family, which splits it apart, but this is not Nathan’s fault and it is made clear. His mother and little sister support and love him. If his father cannot, then he has no place in their life.
I’ve focused mostly on Nathan in this post, because I had the most I wanted to say about him. In the series, Vince comes to terms with his feelings towards Stuart and living in his shadow. Stuart himself comes to feel himself getting older as he approaches 30, realising that Canal Street and chasing people who are becoming increasingly more like children to him is not his life anymore.
Vince himself has a plot revolving around conformity and his relationship to Cameron, an Australian man who finds himself put off by aspects of Vince’s live on Canal Street. Stuart, much like Nathan, has his own story surrounding the homophobia in his family. I could have covered those here, but I feel those are whole essays in of themself.
Vince and Stuart leave Manchester together at the end of the series, having outgrown their safe haven and looking to explore the world together openly and free. With Nathan turning 16 at the end of the series, they leave Canal Street to him and the new generation of young gay men to forge their own queer way of living.
To say that there are some problematic ideas in this television show from 1999 is correct, but I believe its flaws have a point and that it still holds up well as a piece of queer media today.
Russel T. Davies, a gay man himself, shows gay life in all its forms both good and bad. While the show itself never addresses HIV/AIDS outside of a few subtle references to it, I feel that’s done with a purpose to show that there is hope and a future in being gay. Davies and many queer people through the 80s lost countless people close to them because of this horrific illness and the callous disregard government and medical institutions held towards gayness. We deserve a future. We deserve better. We deserve more great gay media from people like Davies and less of the next “first gay Disney character”.
I feel like this show helped me connect with my community from a time before I was really a part of it. I enjoyed watching it. You should watch it too.