There was a time when every columnist wished they were Julie Burchill and even a character in Brookside uttered her name in the early 90s. But the controversial celebrity writer offended many, not least of all gays, with her uncompromising views. Now that she has tasted Sapphic love and written a successful gay novel, is the lady of letters with a mouth that can render whiplash, finally forgiven?

The Queen of barbed wit and acerbic putdowns has just seen Sugar Rush, her high octane teenage lesbian novel, televised on Channel Four. It wasn’t all that long ago that Julie herself was grabbing headlines with her girl-on-girl bunk-up with former Modern Review colleague Charlotte Raven.

Now, even though the cultural commentator’s lifestyle appears to be as heterosexual as a day out in Cleethorpes, Ms Burchill has still garnered plaudits from the gay community for her contribution to teenage coming out angst.

But Julie’s appreciation of gay liberation wasn’t always the case. In the late 80s and early 90s the maverick scribbler with a penchant for getting people’s backs up wasn’t so sensitive to gay issues, causes and gay men in particular. Self penned articles for the Mail on Sunday and The Face revealed a younger, skinnier Burchill who was about as gay friendly as a BNP member in a white smock and coned hat.

So has Ms Burchill really changed her spots and become an honouree member of the Friends of Dorothy club? Or, like the Church of England, has she simply surrendered her uncompromising opinions in the desperation not to become irrelevant?

For some gay people the jury is still out:

“I haven’t quite forgiven her for some of the vile things she said about gay people in her articles. There was one that referred to AIDS that particularly stuck with me. Maybe she’s grown up a bit more, but I feel she abused her position as an influential writer putting the boot into vulnerable people. She’d have never got away with castigating an ethnic group in the way she did homosexuals. Funny how she then became one herself for a while.”
Shaun Blakley, West Yorkshire

“I was a big fan in the 80s. Reading her stuff and thinking who the hell is this girl? Julie seemed to verbalise everything that I thought about the world in such a funny way too. Then I bought her book, Sex and Sensibilities and I’ll never forget the feeling of being betrayed when I read some of the stuff she said about homosexuality. I admit I stopped reading her from then on. I thought she was bigoted and protested when there was a retrospective on her at the ICA.”
Terry Coll, Shoreditch, London

So what did she say?

Just to recap, here’s a taste of the less than flattering views Ms Burchill espoused about gay men and the AIDS charity bandwagon during the early 90s.

“Let a homosexual only stub his toe and he will come to find the Princess (Lady Di) snivelling beside his bed as if her heart would break.”

“It does seem only fair to point out that if gay men had agonized about condoms a little more, they wouldn’t be up to their capped teeth in trouble now.”

“I’ve always thought that the definitive difference which marks the good humour of dykes and the essential bad humour of fags is that dykes can handle being called dykes and even relish referring to themselves as such where as fags are very censorious and arrogant – very male - about what they wish to call themselves.”
(Sex and Sensibility, Grafton Books)

On gay liberation:

“When male homosexuals turned they turned not on straight male society – whose love of uniforms, boastful sexuality and enthusiasm for exploiting Third World people in the sex industry – but on women.”

“With an idiot narcissism previously only found in male homosexualists.”
(Damaged Gods, Arrow books 1986)

On Robert Mapplethorpe’s pictures of women:

“These women are walking Art Fag jokes, fashioned to confirm all fags’ worst fears about women – grotesque, castrating – and thus justify their odd sex preferences – justifiable homicide.”
(Damaged Gods, Arrow books 1986)

Stone throwing

Julie’s previous brick bat throwing - particularly the above - appears to have been influenced by a feminist tract that viewed all gay men as being the essence of patriarchy and that muscle bound, moustached Clones represented the norm. Neither Burchill nor the original advocator of such generalised tripe appeared to understand the irony of Muscle Marys and the macho uniform of sexual fetishism.

One would have thought better time would have been spent putting the steel capped boot into heterosexual machismo - with its views of women as kitchen bound and baby making chattel -  which in reality was, and is still today, far more insidious and insulting to women than a few gay men dressing up in leather chaps.

Someone should have pointed out at the time to Burchill et all that it’s not usually gay men that rape, kill women and restrict their freedoms. That said, not all people share the view that Burchill has been particularly damaging to the gay cause especially after her own personal revelations of falling in love with a woman and writing a ‘gay’ teenage novel.

Your thoughts: atonement

“I think she’s atoned for the past. Sugar Rush is truly inspirational to all young gay teenagers, not just girls. We have so few positive images, even today and I just wish that they had a male version of the book and TV show. I’m not aware too much about what she said in the past. Does it really matter now?”
Lisa Sykes, Crouch End, London

“I used to be a fan, then I hated her but now I like her again. She’s apologised for what she said in the past and I think that takes bottle. She’s a brilliant writer because she thinks and I think we need someone like her in this world, telling it as it is.”
Gary King, Brighton

Well, even Daniel Day Lewis’ gay skinhead in My Beautiful Launderette was given a second chance, so why not Burchill? Then again being a part time lesbian and homophobe would even to her appear just a little too hypocritical for comfort.  Still, there are many gay people who love her work and have forgiven her indiscretions but perhaps haven’t quite forgotten the vitriolic attacks.

So Julie, it appears some of us have finally let you off the hook! Now perhaps you can pen a no-holds barred love story between two young, working class miners or black rappers who just happen to be a tad ginger beer?

Read our reviews of the books Sugar Rush and Julie Burchill: Guardian Columns 1998-2000 and our Dykon on Julie Burchill. Plus, don't forget our interview with the producer of Sugar Rush, Johhnny Capps and our dykon on Sugar!

The DVD of Sugar Rush has just been released. Buy the DVD online and save some money to put towards the original book, The Guardian Columns and Damaged Gods: Cults and Heroes Reappraised.