The Only Gay in the Village
Finding connection & belonging as an LGBTQ+ person in the Cotswolds by Triss Adams
OK. You probably aren’t the only gay in the village, but I wonder if sometimes it might feel that way?
Perhaps you love living here in the Cotswolds. You know your neighbours, have friends nearby and wouldn’t swap the picturesque Gloucestershire countryside for city life. Yet you might still miss having people around who understand this part of your experience without you having to explain it. People with whom being LGBTQ+ feels entirely ordinary.
Feeling at home and feeling you belong
You can feel welcome somewhere and still feel that something is missing. This could be a changing sense of ‘home’ and belonging.
A recent study explored the experiences of gay men living in rural England and Ireland. Participants valued the tranquillity and slower pace of a more rural life, while also describing social isolation and the challenges of navigating predominantly heterosexual environments. Their accounts suggest that loving where you live and feeling fully able to belong there do not always go hand in hand (McKearney, 2021). This is something that I have heard first-hand with many clients, with some expressing that they feel they need to travel to big cities, like London or Brighton, to wear clothing that expresses them or to be open about their sexuality.
A separate study of 29 older lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in Wales highlighted the importance of connections with other LGB people, including those maintained across distances and online (Willis, Raithby and Maegusuku-Hewett, 2018). For this article, that raises a useful possibility: the place we call home does not have to provide every connection we need. We may feel rooted in our village while finding a sense of shared understanding elsewhere.
Finding the connections you need
Perhaps a useful place to start is asking what you miss. Is it friendship with other LGBTQ+ people? Somewhere to meet a partner? Or simply the freedom to mention who you love without wondering whether the conversation is about to change? I am aware of a lot of tension in the community. It feels to me like it is OK to be ‘you’ as long as you are following the rules of someone else.
You might have close friends and still want connections with people who share this part of your experience. That doesn’t diminish the friendships you already have. Different relationships give us different things.
Finding those connections might mean a regular LGBTQ+ social group in a nearby town, an online community or meeting people through a shared interest. Walking groups, book clubs or coffee mornings might feel more like you than a busy bar. There is no particular kind of ‘gay life’ you are supposed to want, despite what the stereotypes might tell us.
Choosing what you share
There can also be a question of how much of yourself you feel comfortable sharing locally. Maybe you talk freely about your partner with some neighbours and remain more guarded with others. You get to decide what feels safe and right for you. You don’t owe anyone visibility, an explanation or a coming-out conversation.
Writing this article as a straight man, I find it so difficult to get my head around the idea of ‘coming out’. It makes me angry. I have never come out as straight, and I suspect I never will, yet this pressure is seemingly put on others. That difference troubles me. Coming out can be a meaningful and positive choice, but it should belong to the person making it. Nobody should feel obliged to explain who they are simply because other people have assumed otherwise.
A space to explore belonging
If you notice yourself holding back more than you would like, it may help to talk about what makes that difficult. What reactions do you fear? What have previous experiences taught you to expect? What would feeling more at ease actually look like?
Counselling can offer space to explore those questions, although it cannot replace friendship or community. Sometimes the first step is allowing yourself to acknowledge that you want more connection, even when other parts of your life are good.
You may not be the only gay in the village. But if it sometimes feels that way, that feeling deserves to be heard.
References
McKearney, A. (2021) ‘Sexual citizenship: rhetoric or reality for Rural Gay Men in Ireland and England?’, Citizenship Studies, 25(5), pp. 678–693. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2021.1952930. [Accessed 31st October 2026]
Willis, P., Raithby, M. and Maegusuku-Hewett, T. (2018) ‘“It’s a nice country but it’s not mine”: Exploring the meanings attached to home, rurality and place for older lesbian, gay and bisexual adults’, Health & Social Care in the Community, 26(6), pp. 908–916. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12616. [Accessed 31st October 2026]
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