Does London have a homophobia problem within the gay community?

A gaggle of muscled men in tiny briefs parades past, followed by a procession of Leather Daddies, complete with truncheons. Minutes later, a group of guys in dog masks fills their space, along with a human horse, angling his pleather hooves at the crowd. It can only be Pride in London. But despite the colourful costumes — and bare buttocks — on display, it’s an altogether tamer sight that prompts the man in a check shirt and chino shorts in front of me to grimace. He nudges his friend as a guy in Dorothy drag skips past, followed by a skinny, body-painted teenager in angel wings. The pair snigger.

For an outsider looking in, there’s never been a better time to be gay. Sure, at this year’s Pride celebrations there was the usual homophobic picketing, but those voices are growing fainter and less relevant compared with the widespread acceptance of LGBT people. The introduction of gay marriage in Ireland and the US appears further proof that, by and large, the war against bigotry has been won. Scratch the surface, however, and there are more pernicious battles being waged. Because while prejudice from straight people continues to dwindle, homophobia among gay men means that the community is in danger of eating itself from the inside out.

Gay men’s homophobia may sound oxymoronic, but it’s increasingly apparent in a culture that prizes masculinity and derides campness. You can see it when gay men who conform to stereotypes by worshipping Beyoncé, quoting RuPaul or dressing flamboyantly are met with a wince or said to be letting the side down. It’s there when effeminate men are accused of ‘putting it on’ — as if being a ‘sissy’ ever made anyone’s life easier (as any camp child who’s been through the school system will testify, it does not). Increasingly, it appears that the divide is no longer between heteros and homos, but gay men who separate into ‘camp’ and ‘straight-acting’, a term that implies a degree of posturing.

Take Giorgio Armani’s recent comments. The designer, who was in a long-term relationship with architect Sergio Galeotti until the latter’s death from AIDS in 1985, said in an interview in April that ‘a man has to be a man’ and gay men ‘do not need to dress homo-sexual’. As critics were quick to point out, it rather flies in the face of his own creations, which are often dizzyingly camp. In March, design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana prompted a boycott by labelling children conceived through artificial insemination ‘synthetic’.

Two weeks earlier, the gay actor Russell Tovey had caused a similar furore when he spoke of his relief at attending a tough school that allowed him to escape his destiny as a ‘really effeminate, tap-dancing freak’. ‘If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now,’ he said, although he has since apologised for any offence caused. Graham Norton has admitted: ‘Being gay is easy. Being camp is difficult in that it comes with judgement all round.’ Comedian Alan Carr has said that ‘the most homophobia I get is from gays’.

Camp-shaming isn’t reserved for celebrities. I have a friend, Daniel, a 34-year-old teacher from Hackney, who says he’s had men approach him in bars, only to ‘tell me that I’m too camp as soon as I open my mouth’: ‘It’s depressing to see gay men attacking each other, when we should be allies.’ Queer performance artist Scottee — who hosted a variety showcase called Camp (Live!) — admits to feeling shunned by the gay scene. ‘Have I ever been a victim of camp-shaming? Yes! All the f***ing time. The strapline for the gay scene is “no fats, no femmes”. Where does that leave me?’ The Tumblr site, douchebagsofgrindr.com, chronicles the myriad charming Grindr profiles insisting on ‘no femmes’, ‘masc only’ and ‘masc for masc’. Comments such as ‘If I wanted to go out with a girl, I’d date women’ abound within gay circles and feed the notion that to be camp is to be intrinsically unsexy.

What’s behind the phenomenon? Next year, Matthew Todd, editor of Attitude, the UK’s best-selling gay magazine, will publish Straight Jacket, examining issues surrounding gay shame. He suggests that such prejudices have a similar root when expressed by gay people as straight: ‘Gay people grow up hearing the same messages that straight people who end up being homophobic hear,’ he says. ‘There aren’t magical ear plugs that gay kids are given to stop them absorbing society’s homophobia, so naturally they internalise it.’