by K Raheen
Time is a strange phenomena. Moments slip through our fingers so fast we barely get the time to commit them to our memories. One minute you are eighteen years old, lost and confused, the next minute you’re twenty-eight, just as lost and confused as ever. Seconds tick away, minutes pass, and years fade into the background; time simply keeps moving, whether you are ready or not. Even when you feel like you’re stuck in limbo, even when you think nothing has changed at all, you can’t help but notice how much you change with the passage of time.
It’s 2024, nearly a decade since I embarked on the tumultuous journey of self discovery, and with time, I have learned to embrace multitudinous self. It’s been nine years since I began to question the heteronormative world. Nine years of self doubt; nine years of love and loss.
Time flies by so fast, sometimes I feel like I’m simply standing still while the earth keeps spinning in its axis. The world around me has changed so much, so fast, I have barely gotten the chance to catch a breath. And I’ve changed as well. The shift occurs gradually, ever so subtly that before you know it, you’re a different person than you were at 18, at 15, at 10, or at 20. It’s a disconcerting realization, accompanied by a profound sense of loss.
Over the past decade, all the experiences I’ve accumulated, all the trauma I’ve been through have molded me into who I am. Inhibiting space as a queer individual in an intolerant world has deeply impacted the way I interact with the world and who I see myself as. Learning to embrace my queerness while negotiating with a heteronormative society has been challenging, to say the least.
It feels like it was only yesterday that I learnt what the word lesbian meant. I still remember the naive 14-year old teenager, wide-eyed and shocked when her younger cousin whispered to her what it means to be a lesbian. I didn’t think much of it at first. It was new information for me of course, but I didn’t see it as a sin or something to frown over; it was just a faraway concept, with no connection to me. Little did I know how wrong I would be.
My introduction to queerness happened through hushed whispers and snide remarks. It was soon followed by the use of the word “lesbian,” and “gay” as insults at school. I wonder where the hatred, the disdain stems from. I wonder where children learn to discriminate against those who are different. I don’t believe it’s inherently human, rather, it is a learned behaviour we internalize. Hatred I believe is taught at home, at school, and through every interaction we have in our childhoods. We learn to hate from the people who are supposed to teach us to love. Isn’t that ironic?
As a weird, non conventional child, bullying was a constant part of my life. From being mocked for my weight to my quirks, I was used to most insults, that is until highschool. In the 9th grade, my so-called friends starting teasing me and calling me a “lesbian.” One day, during lunch, I looked towards my female best friend, and suddenly all the other friends started to call me a “lesbian. They claimed I began to blush when I was staring at her, longingly. And for a whole year, they kept mocking me as a lesbian, and their taunts bothered me. The more I refuted being gay, the more they insisted on my “pervasion.” And back then, I genuinely didn’t consider that I could even be queer.
In the tenth grade, after enduring and fighting bullies my whole life, I developed a new defense mechanism – self deprecatory humor. Whenever someone attempted to insult me, I would say something way worse about myself, and I noticed how that ruined the fun for them. And one day, I had an idea, when friend tried to tease me as a lesbian, I looked directly in their eyes, and I said, “oh no, you got thar wrong. I’m not a lesbian, I am actually bisexual.” I still remember the stunned silence that permeated the air. They didn’t know what to say, neither did the other friends who tried to get me riled up at different times. I had finally found a way to get them to stop. I can’t get over the irony still,
Sometimes I wonder, if I had known about the LGBTQI+ community when I was younger, if I had grown up in a society that did not criminalize them, would I have realised I was sexually fluid ….
I think I would have
It was when I became friends with openly queer individuals during my exchange year in Sitka, that I began to question my identity.
I still vividly recall the cozy island nestled in the folds of luscious green mountains. The 10 months I spent in Sitka broadened my perspectives and the experiences I had have been a formative part of my life. I became friends with four people who were openly queer, and I found myself curious to learn more about the community. I started researching online, and I wanted to find out about the community in Bangladesh. I looked up “lgbt community in Bangladesh, and came across the Wikipedia article about Section 377, and I was utterly shocked. People are criminalized for being gay in my country? That is insane.
The naive 18 year old could not believe that people could be persecuted for being queer and understanding the level of hatred queer individuals face in the world began to chip away at me. But I could not help wondering, why something that does not affect me in any way bothered me so much. Of course, I am what people disdainfully call a “bleeding heart.” I have always been affected by violence against marginalised groups; I always felt this deep sense of injustice and anger. But this time it was different. This time it felt personal. And I began to question my identity. Maybe it feels personal because it is?
Despite knowing about the disenfranchisement of the queer community, I did not struggle to accept that I am queer. To me, being queer was not a sin. It was simply another way of being, just as natural as being straight. Though I did suffer, and sometimes still do, from the imposter system. Am I queer enough? Am I just mistaken? – are thoughts that still flitter through my mind. But never once have I felt like something is wrong with me because I’m queer, and that speaks volumes about my privileged and sheltered upbringing.
If I had grown up in a family that hated those who are different, if I didn’t have a mother who taught me to respect Hijra women, I don’t think I would have accepted my identity so easily. Similarly, my diverse experience during the exchange year also contributed to the ease of my journey. Most of my friends, both, deshi and exchange year, were supportive and accepting of my identity. One of my friends from Bangladesh even helped me figure out what terminology would be suitable for me when I didn’t feel like bisexuality captured my true essence. He was the one who informed me about sexual fluidity, and it fit like a glove.
The support and love I received was instrumental in my journey of self acceptance. Of course, I still had to face comments like “you’re just confused,” “you just haven’t found the right man yet,” and such comments. But my closest friends accepted me without any hesitation, most of my deshi school friends weren’t even surprised. And it’s sad that I feel lucky to have had that welcoming experience.
Many of the Bangladeshi community members I’ve spoken to did not have as welcoming a journey of self discovery and acceptance, and that is due to the way our queerphobia in our culture and society that was influenced by the 200 year colonial rule.
Majority of us grew up not knowing about the existence of LGBTQIA+ identities, and those who did, were exposed to negative perceptions. We did not have the knowledge to understand why we always felt different. We did not have the words to express ourselves. Many of us wondered if something was wrong with us, and it was having access to the internet, or watching the very few queer representation in western media, that allowed many deshi individuals to learn about the community. And so many of us had an isolating journey. I believe all of these issues we are facing are manufactured to create divisions among us, to distract us from identifying the real problem – capitalist colonial systems of power.
Before British colonization, queer identities in South Asia were “accommodated if not accepted.” Portrayal of non normative gender identities can be seen in Hindu scriptures dating back to 200-300 B.C.E. Homoerotic sculptures adorn the walls of temples like Khajuraho, built in 9th century C.E. From homoerotic Sufi ghazals to rekhti poetry from 13th to 16th century C.E. represent a society that did not completely shun diverse queer identities. The hijra community was seen as auspicious to people of the Sonaton religion. Even during the Mughal Raj, Hijra women were well respected, holding administrative positions in the Mughal court. However, during the 200 year colonial rule, the British Raj systematically destroyed our culture, and sowed the seeds of division that continue to plague us. By implementing laws such as section 377 in 1871, and the Criminal Tribes Act in 1861 targeting the Hijra community, they criminalized non normative identities. Educational and social reforms also played an instrumental role in hegemonizing the “colonial subjects” to accept Victorian puritanical values. We cannot talk about the disenfranchisement of the queer communities in the developing countries without acknowledging the impact of colonial oppression. The more I read and learn about our pre colonial art, culture and history, the more enraged I feel at the colonial violence we experienced.
The current state of the world, impacted by the influence of western imperialism, keeps me up at night. Even the community based organisations we have now need to rely on foreign funds to work for our people, and oftentimes we have to abide by their standards, their restrictions to be able to work for the LGBTQIA+ community, and to me the irony of the situation is utterly depressing.
The recent rise of queerphobia in Bangladesh, especially following the protest against Ho Chi Min, a trans woman, activist and nurse, speaking at a women’s career event at North South in 2023 have been concerning. The popularity some outspoken queerphobic are gaining has become a bigger threat to us. I think it’s important for the community to come together and discuss how we can navigate this situation without risking our safety further. If we do not find a way to push back against their intolerance, their voices will only get louder, they will become more audacious.
It is imperative that we continue to foster our connection to one other and strengthen our community. To survive the oppressive capitalist systems, solidarity and collective liberation are the way forward. “None of us are free until all of us are.”
—————————————————————————————————
This piece is part of Political & Personal: An Anthology of Gender & Sexuality Issues in Bangladesh, a weekly series by the Bangladesh Feminist Archives. To read all contributions and view submission guidelines, click here.
Bangladesh Feminist Archives 