But the reaction from the community wasn’t all positive. Stories like that were ubiquitous at the time. After meeting him on the dancefloor at Heaven later that year, he told me that the reason he’d broken off his engagement with a woman and come out as gay was a direct result of watching Queer As Folk. I also got my first boyfriend, a hunky but tender demolition man, as a result of the show. Completely hooked, the rest of the series became weekly Tuesday evening appointment viewing. We were surprised, delighted, confronted, and loved every moment of it. I can vividly remember sitting on the floor of my university flatmate Lisa’s bedroom, along with all of our other flatmates (London rents were never cheap), on Tuesday, February 23rd 1999, gathered around the television tuned into Channel 4 to watch the first episode of the much-anticipated Queer As Folk.
