I am gay and grew up in the same time.

I remember in the UK being gay was still not widely accepted. It was still seen as something novel and different. In school people were bullied for being gay, and f*g was a common insult. Even "that's gay" was a common playground insult.

In university a lot of people were not out. There were LGBT societies and people were out but they were a minority and I remember they were seen as "different". There was a sense that society was more accepting of being gay, but still a fear about prejudice from faculty and fellow students. I certainly wasn't out in University in the early 2000s. In particular it seemed you couldn't be "normal" and gay, you seemingly had to be a bit "quirky" and make clear you were gay. Otherwise you were treated with suspicion - it wasn't "normal" to be gay.

I even know someone who was severely assaulted at that time walking through a gay part of Manchester just for looking gay. Beaten black and blue, and it was just dismissed as part of the normal crime happening at the time rather than a hate crime.

On TV there were gay storyline like Dawson's creek, and gay people appearing on reality TV and even gay TV shows like Queer as Folk. But all of these things were regarded as ground breaking; we take for granted gay representation on TV now but it was new even in the UK back then.

I also remember hearing about the US reaction with death threats and so on from Christian right wing extremes. But the US also had more gay representation generally on TV and in public life.

In the UK we didn't have mainstream political violence or aggression. But those of us like me who grew up in religious families (I was raised Catholic) were more exposed to the anti-gay rhetoric and feeling of Christians. I personally never felt physically threatened but I certainly did not come out of the closet.

So basically things were getting better back then, but it was not an easy time to be gay.

Also as a gay man, I travelled to the US in the early 2000s - I felt safer and more accepted in US cities like San Francisco or New York than I'd ever felt in London or Manchester. I'm not saying there was more hate in the UK but there was certainly felt like there was more openness and acceptance of being gay in the big US cities. So in some ways we were actually behind in the UK.