Katie Baskerville interrogates the resurgence of hypervigilance around sexual identity after watching Overcompensating, and finds out if anything has changed for Gen-Z folks coming out today.

WORDS BY KATIE BASKERVILLE

Overcompensating is a raucous show that has had me in stitches and deep in my feelings from the get-go, from its relatable moments to its bi representation (yay!). However, the undertones of those laugh-out-loud moments have an unmistakably sobering effect for someone like me. 

Being a teenager in the era of the low-rise jeans, the Motorola flip phone and, who could forget, the blow-up, see-through backpack, (Google it), meant growing up with an ingrained sense of hypervigilance.

Despite Section 28 being repealed in 2003, when I was about 12 years old, the vacuum left by a lack of education on expansive sexualities was quickly filled by an overt homophobia and inherent, inescapable sexualisation of queer women. Especially in the rural areas of North Wales, where I grew up.