As a gay man, I'm so disappointed Kevin Spacey conflated child abuse with homosexuality when he came out

Following accusations from Star Trek: Discovery's Anthony Rapp that Kevin Spacey came on to him in 1986, when Rapp was 14, Spacey has released a short response on Twitter in which he claims not to remember the alleged incident.

In a devastatingly lumbering segue, he elaborates on the fact that he has "loved and had romantic encounters with men" throughout his life, and that he "chooses now to live as a gay man".

There's not much to be gained from looking too closely at the language Spacey uses around "choosing", which some would find quite troubling, but the way in which he has chosen this particular moment, and this particular context, in which to come out is at best catastrophically ill-advised and at worst downright cynical.

Spacey has conflated an allegation of underage sexual assault with longstanding rumours regarding his sexuality. By doing this he is drawing a parallel – even implying moral equivalence – between homosexuality and sexual activity with children. The fact that a gay man with this kind of profile would put out this statement makes it hard to swallow.

The conflation of homosexuality and child abuse in the context of male sexuality is problematic. Connecting the two issues is a time-honoured technique that has been leveraged against gay men like me over decades, and is to this day perpetuated by our staunchest opponents.

Only a couple of months ago, the Dads4Kids campaigner Warwick Marsh, in the context of the upcoming public plebiscite on same-sex marriage in Australia, asserted that the "risk of child abuse is also significantly increased" if gay people raise children.

You might too remember BBC Sports Personality Of The Year 2015 contender Tyson Fury, who detailed in an interview his belief that paedophilia and homosexuality were two of the three things that will ultimately lead to the apocalypse (the other is abortion, in case you were wondering). It didn't stop him remaining on the shortlist.

These examples serve to propagate a damaging myth – that gay men are more likely to be child abusers. I'm not talking about damage to the "movement" or to any particular "agenda", I'm talking about damage to gay people just trying to go about our lives.

I know gay men who are primary school teachers, many of whom are not out at work simply because they are anxious about having to manage the prejudice, be it from parents or teachers, around them working with children. They feel the pressure that goes with being in the closet, but are also racked with guilt because they know that their being in the closet is potentially depriving a young gay person in their school of an important role model.

I have straight friends who in the past have made off-the-cuff comments about gay men adopting. "I don't know why but I just feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of two men looking after a small child" is actually something that has been said to me a few times. I hope that knowing these kinds of views exist wouldn't stop me from one day becoming a father if I wanted to, but the fact that we even have to consider them is hugely destructive. In most cases they are just hangover views; remnants of an era where the press was much more proactively anti-gay and rhetoric around gay people and child abuse was rife, but they will keep echoing on into the 21st century until they are scrutinised and rejected.

It seems to me a sad indictment on our society that Spacey has deemed it necessary, in response to an allegation of sexual assault on a minor, to not only address the age of his accuser but also their gender. He has clearly anticipated that the "gay" question would be just as much a talking point as the fact that the person was underage, and in a world of divisively speculative headlines I can understand.

Regardless, it was wrong to use this particular context – that of sexual assault of a minor – to address rumours around his sexuality.

Someone with Spacey's platform has an opportunity to be a role model to gay people in every corner of what is often a very hostile world. That he would attempt to deflect allegations of sexual assault by militarising his sexuality in this way is to me a crushing disappointment.