My name is Leon, I’m a 4th year Journalism student at TU Dublin. I was a reporter and Chief-Sub Editor for this year’s major project magazine, which won the 2024 Smedia’s award for Magazine of the year. My 2nd article was also nominated for Journalism relating to health. In my personal life, I still love to write. I have six poems published in a poetry collection of 25 other LGBTQ+ poets from Ireland. It’s called Glas na Gile (Green carnations). I hope to keep writing and eventually publish my own book or collection soon.
In a TikTok video seen by over 200,000 TikTok users, Jack was walking home, tears pouring and his voice shaking as he condemned a verbal attack he experienced after being followed in Crumlin by a group of 16-year-old lads. “The thing is when you are yourself it can be so dangerous especially like with…our country, yeah— we voted for the legalisation of gay marriage, but I think there needs to be more awareness brought to homophobic attacks because there’s been a few close encounters for me,” Jack said.
Born in Coolock and growing up has been tricky. “In terms of me and my sexuality and being who I was there was a lot of homophobic bullies,” said Jack. “But, I suppose you get that in every area of life.” His Pandora bracelet glides along the desk as he gestures.
“People have often put the finger on me saying that it’s my fault for being who I am, but I mean I shouldn’t have to change…what we should be looking at is changing the mindsets of why people attack people not because of what I choose to wear.”
By gay slaying the day, a term Jack always says in his videos, he opened up about how this catchphrase helped his confidence. “When I was in school, I was the little boy in the canteen alone and I would actually pay people to be my friends…I would actually give people €2 saying ‘Please be my friend, please talk to me, acknowledge me!’ Now in my adult life I’m learning all those people never mattered at all…I’m not saying I’m the most successful person…I just like to say I’ve done better for myself due to the past I’ve been through and I’m proud of that in and of itself.”
Jack’s explanation of the unfairness impressively reflects a part of his admirable resilience to any hatred. “I’ve had one time in St. Stephens Green when a youngfella launched a bottle of Coke at me because I was wearing a bodysuit and I don’t think I should be silenced,” said Jack. “I don’t think it’s my fault…what we should be doing as a country is protecting our young LGBTQ+ youth instead of victim-blaming.”
The glimpse of Jack through TikTok doesn’t always reflect the continuous self-work being done to guide him through his past troubles that still pop up. “There were times when I was binge-eating, binge-drinking and I just was getting flashbacks of my past all the time… but you can’t cod yourself. When you’re depressed the first thing you need to do is nip that in the bud,” said Jack.
In late September, Jack began an eight-week day hospital programme in Ballyfermot. “I thought to myself that this is never going to end. I often had thoughts…and I’m sorry if this is triggering for anyone…I’ve had thoughts of suicide. I was living in constant pain from being attacked just for being who I am. It’s the worst experience that literally anybody could go through.”
Jack has received a copious amount of hate messages and comments and more seriously threats to his life. “I have gotten a few death threats and I think that’s the dark side of social media,” said Jack. “But I suppose I am doing a good thing because I’m using my platform to spread awareness…this is an ongoing issue for young gay people.”
Jack finds the culprits of the death threats even more distressing, “I’ve even had death threats from men and women in their forties and fifties which is quite disgusting…even some people on social media would be parents and their bios would say ‘I’m a mother of four’ or ‘I’m a father of two’ but yet they would be bullying me. It’s so funny like I just think people should practice what they preach.”
Jack said, “if I hadn’t have gone through what I went through I wouldn’t have had this resilience.”
A fraction of that resilience is evoking confidence in people through Jack’s online presence and viral phrases such as ‘Gay Slay the Day’, a catchphrase Swift coined for his TikTok videos.
Encouraging his audience and anybody else who is interested in ‘Gay slaying the day’ Jack believes, “The embodiment of ‘Gay slaying the day’ is being a head turner in the room and having the love for yourself that you don’t give a shit if 300 people are looking at you in the room…just have a twirl, just have a shimmy and just be who you are…be memorable. It’s worth it because we have fear in our minds…nine times out of ten when you ‘Gay slay the day’ you’re just being optimistic about yourself.”
“One time while using Grindr, I thought I was going to hook-up with a guy on his own and there was no mention of drugs. But when I arrived there was roughly ten guys in the house and there was…it sounds mad to say it but there was a plate of drugs put in front of me at the front door,” said Brian*. This was Brian’s first experience with chemsex.
Chemsex is defined as a specific form of use that involves using one or more drugs, in any combination, to facilitate or enhance sex. The most commonly used drugs are Crystal Meth, GHB and mephedrone. Chemsex often refers to parties where people engage in both drug use and sex for a prolonged period, sometimes days.
“It sounds dramatic for me to say a plate of drugs, but it would’ve been fairly normal for me to go to parties [like this] Brian said, adding that, “You wouldn’t even necessarily know what it was” that you were taking.
Brian has had a long history of addiction, and although his story is only representative of his personal experiences; this insight into chemsex parties' sheds light on the potential risks that people, more specifically gay men, might not have considered or been aware of.
Ten years ago, Brian became involved with chemsex. He said when he initially first started going to chemsex parties, “the drugs were supplied to me…and that would be older guys giving it to the younger guys for free to get them to have sex with them which is extremely common.”
Brian relates when he came to Dublin it could’ve taken three days to find somebody selling crystal meth. “Whereas now I could find it in 30 minutes,” he said.
With Chemsex becoming more normalised within the gay community, Ignacio Labayen de Inza, an expert in chemsex substance abuse, through his work at London sexual health clinic is trying to spread awareness and support for people currently involved in chemsex.
With the help of his colleague from Dean Street, David Stuart, Labayen de Inza wrote a first-aid booklet (which includes dissimilar information such as what to do if crystal meth triggers psychosis or a raft of advice about what to do in the event of a sexual assault and more.) At the start of 2019, he began creating profiles on Grindr to signpost his booklet only to people who contacted him first. Despite receiving messages from 407 men looking for varied types of support within the first month, Grindr banned his account without any warning
Grindr sent an automated response reserving the right to suspend users for any reason without warning. The message “Grindr reserves the right to refuse or suspend access to any user, for any reason or no reason, and without any notice,” was visible on Labayen de Inza’s phone.
Grindr, the world’s largest location-based social networking app for LGBTQ people, provide a platform to millions of people and have yet to take Labayen de Inza’s following advice into consideration. He said, “Grindr is not very open to talking with charities or organisations…
Labayen de Inza emailed a staff member at Grindr saying Grindr “is making millions and millions” from gay people and therefore “has a responsibility for what happens in the app”. In another email sent to Grindr, Labayen de Inza offered several proposals of what could be offered to Grindr users, to help those dealing with a chemsex drug problem, one proposal involved creating a permenant account on the app that offers harm reduction, relapse prevention and first-aid information like he had previously been doing.
“The Grindr account we make always gets removed. Grindr don’t want to admit there is a lot going on in their platform,” said Labayen de Inza. “It’s sad because once they have blocked an account it takes an hour to get a new one…I was on Grindr once, offering support to a man who said he had a serious sense of abandonment his whole life, and my account was banned, but from that man’s perspective it just looked like I had blocked him. I was desperate trying to create a new profile, to try to help him, but I never found that man again.”
Brian believes younger gay men using Grindr fail to fully grasp how addicting the app can be, “gaymen who don’t take drugs but stay up half the night chatting to men on Grindr or meeting them for a hook-up just because it’s not on the extreme end of the scale doesn’t mean it’s not still a sex addiction.”
Currently reached out to Grindr, but they did not offer comment. Grindr has made it clear in the past, however, that they are “deeply committed to creating a safe online environment,” and they’ve made an effort to put chemsex information on their website. However, Labayen de Inza said, “Grindr is the biggest platform and the fact they do not want to help, or be involved in helping to stop this, is upsetting.” Grindr may see things differently, but Labayen de Inza is totally convinced in his view that more can be done.