The Anglican pastor Stanley Underhill has caused a stir on the internet: at 91 years old, he recently came out in public as gay through an autobiographical book. The information is from BBC News Brazil.
Em Coming out of the Black Country, the British man tells his story – unfortunately, very marked by homophobia and traumatic experiences. When the pastor was born in 1918, in England being gay was prohibited by law.
“I grew up in a hostile, bigoted and ignorant world, full of prejudice, poverty and class distinctions.”
Underhill had a difficult relationship with her parents and spent most of her life hiding her true sexual orientation. Although he fell in love – an unrequited love – with a friend and had relationships with other men, he never found a partner with whom he could be truly happy.
His professional life was also damaged by homophobia: as an adult, he stopped being a partner at an accounting firm because of the poor treatment he received from his colleagues. That was when he decided to fulfill his dream of becoming a pastor.
Today, he lives in a care home in London. “Freedom at last,” he told the BBC.
