To make a point

This year's Pride Parade in Oslo this summer was a huge success. Even leadership figures from parties that previously used homophobia to win voters were involved. It was a parade I saw in the distance. As a disabled person I have some bad days, parade day was one of these.

I'm immediately 39 years old, and when I was 20, I emerged as a homse. I was still in high school, I was still living in my childhood home outside Brumunddal. The social cost of having a visible disability was made even greater by the school counselors recommending me to spend several years completing high school. This is to prevent me from having too much absence on the diploma.

I felt trapped in a place I was about to move on. What kept me there were the disabilities.

This was six years after Brumunddal had become known as a land worm for racists and neo-Nazis, where it all culminated with the so-called Brumunddal battle in the autumn of 1991. Here blitzers and other radishes from Oslo were hunted from the town by a complex group of locals, immigration opponents, racists, Nazis and hooligans.

So in this place I chose to stand as a homse. And I did it activist – I rolled, I handed out brochures. I dressed gay. I did everything wrong, in retrospect. I had no idea how threatening my behavior would be in a school culture built around compliance, competition, regulatory compliance and an intense fear of falling outside. A culture and competition I had fallen out of because of my disabilities.

Shame. My homo activism in the small town was an attempt to establish a social role that I could fit in. What I was too young to understand was that this social role at the same time defined me from the larger community that I wanted to enter.

The reaction was waiting. I considered this a tacit acceptance. In retrospect, this stupidity is easy to laugh at. Storms build up in silence. I was to receive the punishment for my stupidity a few weeks later.

I went to school with fresh courage. Every day I passed the gang on mechanical subjects, I got shit thrown at me. But I went there, proud! I was curious, participated socially, I finally had to be Russian.

When a number of boys in my class, and in the field of general subjects in general, had invested in matching t-shirts with the text "Together we are strong", I also wanted such a t-shirt. I was told that the sentences in the text should stand for "beer, ladies and football". But no one wanted to tell me where to buy these t-shirts.

A few weeks went by. I got a note from a girl for an hour. "I know you've heard about the t-shirts, I just want you to know that not everyone is as homophobic as them." I didn't understand. Someone had to do the calculation for me: The boys' T-shirts were against me. The periods in the text were "straight". An internal uniform for the boys to highlight their heterophilia and distance to me. They were strong together – towards me.

I sank together. A hollow darkness opened in me. Everyone had known. Main teacher. Principal. Classmates. Friends. For weeks. The case was tried to be settled in without being told. The boys received no punishment. They continued their straight path in society. I felt like a crap. I quickly realized what a shame it is.

Conformity. I got an absence that must be one of the highest in Norwegian history. As I approached the entrance to the school, I noticed a voice in a group of 30 students shouting: "Now comes the Hatterud gay, now I dare not be here anymore". And everyone went in. People were sick of me, I heard. In the Russian train, where I went to sell newspapers, I was called. Asked to go to hell. About removing me. They didn't have to pray twice. I moved from Brumunddal not long after.

The boys with the t-shirts never apologized. They continued, as I said, their way up and forward. In politics. In business. In conformity and competition. Today, when it hardly costs anything to be a gay friend, they probably cheer for the Pride Parade in Oslo.