Sarah Harte: Tommy Fleming's difficulties show the tragic impact of homophobia

The singer's difficulties are a reminder many people in their 40s and older have never been able to overcome the intolerance we all grew up with

Tommy Fleming: Last week, he announced he had been 'living as lie' and came out as gay.

It’s sad to think of all those LGBTQ+ people in my generation and older who hid themselves in heterosexual marriages and bent themselves into a shape that society would accept. At what cost to them and to their families?

Last week, the singer Tommy Fleming announced he had been "living a lie" for years and publicly came out as gay. This must be incredibly hard on his wife and stepdaughter, who have asked for privacy at a difficult, hurtful time.

Fleming had attempted to take his own life and ended up in St Patrick's Mental Health Services. A private phone conversation between Fleming, his wife and stepdaughter was recorded and leaked online while he was in treatment, which bounced him into the announcement. An Garda Síochána is reportedly investigating.

What really struck me was how Fleming had struggled, finding unhealthy ways to lose himself.

"I had been living a lie for all my life, really, and the hardest part of that was the energy and the effort it took for this lie to be constantly covered and to be, I suppose, protected, and that lie was that I am gay." How many people have hidden who they are?

According to an Ipsos LGBT Pride Report 2025, more than three times more Generation Zers than Generation X identify as lesbian, gay, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, asexual, transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, genderfluid and other than male or female. 

Some of us may need to look up terms on the list, but it confirms what we know: that people in our generation felt greater pressure to conform.

Parts of the German Roman Catholic Church have understood you may be gay and a practising Catholic. Who can and cannot receive a blessing as a same sex couple is currently a case of croziers at dawn in the Roman Catholic Church.

In one corner, you have several German bishops and their influential lay umbrella body, ZdK, who, according to Catholic journal, The Pillar, previously decided partnerships that "are binding and loving… irrespective of a previous union or the gender of the two partners… must also find a convincing expression in the liturgy of the Church". In the other corner, you have Rome trying to put its foot down, backed by the African Catholic church, which is thriving.

Sex obviously has been a longstanding obsession in Christianity.

The Irish Catholic monomania with sexual rules led us to dark places. The clerical surveillance culture that once existed here, when it came to sex, was documented in literature, including by Edna O’Brien and John McGahern, who said in a 2000 interview there was something perverted about an attitude that thought killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody. And that was for heterosexual couples.

What can it have been like to have desired someone of your own sex? An older gay friend told me about his first time in an unofficial gay bar, painting a vivid picture. The terror of entering it, fearing he would be seen, viewing an older, drunken man with a sideways wig and thinking, ‘Is this my depressing fate?’ It was criminal to be gay. Plus, religion mattered to him. His story turned out happily as he has a lovely husband.

Of course, clubs have their rules, but when it comes to homosexuality, the Catholic Church should have a greater insight than most organisations into being closeted.

Obviously, because celibacy is a requirement to be a Catholic priest, there are no precise estimates on the clergy’s sexual orientation. It’s impossible to be definitive about how many priests are gay. Studies and estimates vary wildly, ranging from 10% to 60%. 

One French journalist, Frédéric Martel, suggested in his book, In the Closet of the Vatican, that this figure rises to 80% higher up the Vatican food chain, though he also pointed out that it is an unverifiable estimate.

A major regression is under way now with regard to LGBTQ+ rights.

Everywhere you look, in the UK, America, Hungary, and Portugal, to name just a few countries, there’s a measurable rise in explicit anti-gay bias in tandem with the rise of nationalist populist politics and anti-establishment social conservatism. 

Sexism is part of this broader cultural regression, too. Progress always incites a backlash, whether it is women’s rights or gay rights.

ILGA Europe is a huge non-governmental organisation that works on LGBTQ+ rights across Europe and Central Asia. It has warned LGBTQ+ human rights are being systematically dismantled, paving the way for "sweeping restrictions on fundamental freedoms, including the rights to protest and to political dissent".

And although 10 years ago it felt like we were on track towards eliminating homophobia, it has deep roots. Apart from a newly populist conservatism that centres on an authoritarian mindset that values hierarchy and conformity, social conditioning drives it. Religion obviously. Some people see sexuality through a purity and sanctity moral framework.

Tommy Fleming: Intolerance leaves the biggest bruises. Imagine having to love, pine and suffer in silence. It’s inhumane and unchristian.

Another possible cause is men with a fragile sense of masculinity whose homophobia acts as a defence mechanism.

There’s a controversial, famous piece of research in psychology, ‘Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?’ The study had a tiny sample size and it’s far from universally accepted. However, it concluded anti-gay men showed higher physiological arousal to gay erotic material than non-homophobic men.

Certainly, mainstream psychology suggests that for some men, intense homophobic attitudes might be linked to internal conflict about sexuality.

There’s a memorable scene in the movie American Beauty. Frank Fitts, a virulently homophobic former Marine who terrorises his family, mistakenly thinks the main character, Lester, his neighbour, is gay.

He breaks down tearfully and kisses Lester. Lester says: "I’m sorry, you got the wrong idea." The look on Frank’s face is haunting. But because his entire identity is built on denying his true feelings, terrified of exposure, he kills Lester shortly afterwards.

A former colleague of mine used to tell homophobic jokes. He was very senior, so at work, people took a deep breath and shuffled their feet uncomfortably. In an office of hundreds, nobody was out. This was in the early 2000s.

He was married with kids, but I remember thinking, "oh, okay, why are you regularly crow-barring these horrible jokes into conversation?" Those old-school slurs are back, and part of the Maga movement with its cartoonish masculinity and Christian Nationalism. 

Pastor Doug Wilson, who is flavour of the month with defence secretary Pete Hegseth and other conservatives, believes homosexuality is evil. He wants the rollback of same-sex marriage and for anti-sodomy laws to be restored. He seems fixated on homosexuality.

Intolerance leaves the biggest bruises. Imagine having to love, pine and suffer in silence. It’s inhumane and unchristian. I hope the German bishops stick to their guns.

I’ll leave you with Tommy Fleming’s words: "The only thing I can say is that I am absolutely remorseful and regretful for any of the hurt I have caused to the people I love in pursuing my truth. I don’t seek forgiveness, and I don’t expect it, but I would hope, if there is a god, I would hope and pray that there is acceptance."