Coming Out to...the Male Friend

My Thoughts

First of all, apologies for the odd title. In no way do I want to suggest that this particular friend's defining quality is the fact that he is male. It's just that in the context of this post his gender becomes very relevant. If you look at the timeline of friends and family I've come out to, it quickly becomes evident that most of the voices on my blog are female. 

There's a very specific reason for that: growing up I had this fear that male friends would reject me thinking that I wanted to have sex with them. Thus I shied away from discussing my sexuality with them and opted to speak to female friends instead. In my mind back then, even if my female friends did not react positively to my bisexuality, I thought that they wouldn't feel personally threatened by it. Of course, I've learned since then that many heterosexual women are quite insecure around bisexuality, and maybe I'll cover that in another post.

Coming back to this particular friend, I have to say that thankfully none of my fears ever materialised. I do try to pick my battles carefully, and when I came out to this friend I presupposed that he wouldn't react too negatively. He's calm and logical, and frankly he's also far too nice for hostility. Still, I've been lucky, as sadly I've met many others who's friends haven't reacted quite so well.

Opinion: Notes on Pride 2014

Pride in London

Visibility is important

I marched at London Pride again this year, with Imaan as usual. Rather than repeating least year's post, I wanted to write about a few things that were new this year.

We started the day with a heavy dose of rain and Islamophobia, the latter of the two courtesy of an official Pride In London steward. Said steward had decided to move Imaan away from behind a gay Catholic group called The Quest - our original marching position - in case there were problems. One of the Imaan committee members had to speak to the steward before we were allowed to march from our planned spot. I don't know if any apology was given, but I believe the committee will try to contact Pride In London themselves so I hope to find out more in the future. The Islamophobic insinuation was appalling, and generally a poor way to start the day.

Coming Out to...the Colleagues, Part 3

Challenges at a Multinational

I consider myself to be relatively safe within the UK. My sexuality (as perceived since I am bisexual) has only ever resulted in mild homophobic abuse from strangers in public when out with male partners. No case has been anything that I've not been able to brush off or glare away.

At work I've felt even safer - my immediate colleagues are all very accepting. However, they are all from the UK or have been based in the UK for quite some time, a country where LGBTQ acceptance levels are generally high. I often find myself wondering about the tolerance and acceptance I would encounter at my company's offices around the world, especially in countries where levels of LGBTQ acceptance are low. I often travel to these countries for work, and I wonder what kind of balance I should strike between my personal safety versus being open and giving people the benefit of doubt.

Opinion: Bangladeshis React to Gay Pride

Apparently the next march should be bombed

Update (20th April 2014): According to the Gay Star News article here, they spoke to the organisers and this was not a Pride march but rather a rally to celebrate diversity and friendship with LGBT and allied participation. Personally I think this is a good stance and a very good first step. I'm leaving this and my other blog posts as they originally were, but including this note for clarity - the assumptions about it being a Pride march were mine based on news and social media reactions.

Every year on the 14th of April we celebrate Pahela Boishakh in Bangladesh. This year was no exception, except for the short rainbow themed rally that took place right after the main New Year's march. Bystanders may not have exactly understood the nature of the rally at the time, but people soon realised what it was given the later media reaction. Priyo.com published an article on the march, and people - just like the commenter above - have since been reacting on Facebook, Twitter and various blogs. A translation of the article can be read here.

I am very grateful to the people behind the rally as what they did was incredibly brave. I've always wanted Bangladesh to make advances with respect to LGBTQ rights, but I didn't think I would see such an event so soon. However, there is still quite a long path ahead of us in terms of acceptance if people's reactions are anything to go by. Below are a set of thematically arranged comments, most popular in terms of likes, that people have made in response to the aforementioned article on the rally. 

Names and pictures are blacked out, and I'm only describing the gist of each comment as opposed to doing word by word translations. Feel free to get in touch if you want an exact translation of anything below. 

Religion and Islam 

As a queer Muslim one gets used to hearing the story of Prophet Lut

The above comment talks about the story of Lut, and has had the most likes on the site so far. People often like to remind queer Muslims about how God destroyed an entire population for the sin of homosexuality. But what everyone seems to forget is that (1) the context of that story is male homosexual rape, (2) the people in question had committed a number of other sins and were ultimately destroyed for denying God. People also forget or probably don't even realise that the Quran affirms the existence of men who have no desire for women without any negative connotations and talks about accepting diversity. 

মতামত: সমকামীদের প্রতি বাংলাদেশি মানুষের পতিক্রিয়া

আমাদেরকে নাকি বোমা ফাটিয়ে মেরে ফেলা উচিত

উপডেট (২০ এপ্রিল ২০১৪)ঃ গে স্টার নিউজ নামে একটি ইংরেজি অনলাইন সাইট রিপোর্ট করছে যে এটা ঠিক 'গে প্রাইড প্যারেড' ছিল না। আর্টিকেলটি পড়তে পারবেন এখানে। রূপবান, জারা এ প্যারেডের জন্য দায়ী, তারা বলেছে যে এটা মানুষের মধ্যে যে বৈচিত্রতা ও বন্ধুত্ব হতে পারে সেটা তুলে ধরার জন্য আয়োজিত করা হয়েছিল। আমার মতে এটা তাও খুব ভালো একটা পদক্ষেপ, বিশেষ করে আমাদের দেশের কথা চিন্তা করলে। আমি আমার এই এবং অন্যান্য ব্লগ পোস্টগুলো পাল্টাছি না তবে এ নোটটা উপড়ে দিয়ে রাখছি ইনফর্মেশনের জন্য। এ প্যারেডটা যে 'প্রাইড প্যারেড' ছিল তা আমি ভেবেছিলাম শুধুমাত্র নিউজ ও সোশাল মিডিয়ার পতিক্রিয়া দেখে।

গত মঙ্গলবার ১৪ এপ্রিল আমরা ১৪২১ সালের পহেলা বৈশাখ উদজাপন করলাম, যেমন আমরা করি প্রতি বছর। কিন্তু এ বছর মঙ্গল শোভাযাত্রার পরে কিছু মানুষ রংধনুর রঙে রাঙানো ছোট্ট একটি মিছিল বের করেছিল। ঠিক ওই মুহুর্তে জনসাধারণ বুঝতে না পারলেও পরে সবাই ঠিক বুঝতে পারে যে এটা একটি 'সমকামী র‍্যালি' ছিল।এ নিয়ে priyo.com এ একটি লেখাও চাপা হয়েছে। এ লেখা, ফেসবুক, টুইটার ও বিভন্ন ব্লগে অনেক বাংলাদেশী মানুষের বিভিন্ন পতিক্রিয়া প্রকাশ হয়েছে - উপরের ছবির মানুষটির কমেন্টের মতন।

এই কারনেই যারা এ মিছিলের আয়োজন করেছে, তাতে অংশ গ্রহণ করেছে তাদের কাছে আমি কৃতজ্ঞ। এরখম একটা কাজ করা সাহসের ব্যাপার। আমার আশা ছিল যেয়ে আমার জীবনে দেশকে এ বিষয়ে অগ্রগতি করতে দেখে জাব। এতো তাড়াতাড়ি এরখম জিনিস দেখবো তা ভাবিনি। তবে সাধারণ মানুষের আমাদেরকে গ্রহণ করতে এখনো অনেক দিন বাকি। মানুষজনের কিছু প্রসঙ্গ অনুযায় বেশি 'লাইক' পাওয়া কমেন্ট আমি নিচে (নাম মুছে দিয়ে) ছাপছি - তারা আমাদেরকে নিয়ে কি ভাবে তা দেখানোর জন্যে, এবং তা নিয়ে কিছু কথা বলার জন্য। উপরের কমেন্টি ছাড়া সব কমেন্ট প্রথম পারাতে লিংক দিয়া আর্টিকেল থেকে। 

ধর্ম ও ইসলাম 

মসুলমান হিসেবে আমার হজরত লুতের গল্প অনেক শুনতে হয় 

এ কমেন্টটা এ পর্যন্ত সবচেয়ে বেশি লাইক পেয়েছে। কোরানএ হজরত লুতের কথা লেখা আছে, এবং অনেকেই আমাদের মনে করিয়ে দিতে পছন্দ করে কিভাবে পুরা এক জাতিকে ধংশ করে দেওয়া হয়েছিল সমকামিতার জন্য। কিন্তু সবাই একই সাথে ভুলে যায় যে (১) এখানে পুরুষদের সমকামী ধর্ষণ নিয়ে কথা হয়েছে আর (২) লুতের মানুষের আরো অনেক পাপ ছিল, এবং তাদের শেষ পর্যন্ত শাস্তি হয় এ সব পাপ গুলোর জন্য, এবং আল্লাহর কথা নিন্দা করার জন্য। মানুষ আরো ভুলে যায় যে কোরানের অন্য অংশে এমন লোকেরও কথা লেখা আছে যাদের মহিলাদের প্রতি কোনো আকর্ষণ নাই। এবং এখানে তো সুধু পুরুষদের নিয়ে কথা হচ্ছে - মহিলা সমকামীদের তাহলে কিভাবে এ সুরা দিয়ে অশিকার করা যায়?

Opinion: Pride Colours in Dhaka

The parade - image taken from Gay for Girls

Update (20th April 2014): According to the Gay Star News article here, they spoke to the organisers and this was not a Pride march but rather a rally to celebrate diversity and friendship with LGBT and allied participation. Personally I think this is a good stance and a very good first step. I'm leaving this and my other blog posts as they originally were, but including this note for clarity - the assumptions about it being a Pride march were mine based on news and social media reactions.

Update (19th April 2014): I've translated some of the social media reactions to this here.

Apparently there was a Pride parade in Dhaka on Tuesday 14th April during the city's Pahela Boishakh (or Bengali New Year) celebrations. I don't have any concrete details right now, including the identity of the organisers or what their intent was. I've come across a lot of comments on Twitter and Facebook from LGBTQ themed pages and links to mainstream media reports. However, these have all been in Bengali so below is a translation of an article from priyo.com. I have the text clipped in case the article is removed. I will also update with any details as I come across them.

Comments have been mostly negative, but there is some positivity there too. Comments are social, religious as well as political. Some are in English. I may do a follow post translating some of the Bengali comments soon. It is interesting to note that the Roopbaan group mentioned below is now no longer on Facebook. I wonder why - too much homophobia, a hack or the government?