[Reader-list] Third Posting - Interviews With Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgendered Women

[Sappho for Equality]

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UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS WITH LESBIAN, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED WOMEN


Sappho, the support group for women with same sex preference, was not embraced open-armly with a homosocial atmosphere during its emergence and even afterwards. The process by which Sappho came into being itself remains a breath-taking episode. The social, cultural and political atmosphere of Kolkata was so homophobic and heterosexist that finding out a single like-minded person for a woman with same sex preference seemed next to impossible. The founder members themselves had confronted innumerous problems and difficulties before they just came to know each other. 

A social gathering of a hot April noon in 1999, the charm and spell of which remains magical and luring even today, soon turned into a serious endeavor of setting up an organization first of its kind in Kolkata and eastern India. As a result Sappho emerged, not only as a support group but also as a positive intervention into the repressed silence of lesbian existence. Within a year and half (January15, 2001) Sappho started its helpline services (with the help of an NGO) and it is highly necessary to mention here with grave concern that till date no newspaper house in West Bengal has published any advertisement of this helpline in a proper way, though “supportive” and “progressive” articles were quite recurrent in most of the leading news papers.  Consequently, the process of outreach to more and more women with same sex preference was duly hindered. Thanks to the few supports coming from both personal and organizational level, which spread the fact that Sappho exists for lesbian, bisexual and transgendered women who are oppressed, humiliated and isolated for being so. 

Today Sappho has a regular number of more than fifty members and a fluid membership of more than hundred, coming from the heart of the city, from outskirts, from suburbs, from rural Bengal and even from the far northeast part of India. The age group varies between eighteen to mid-forties. Though it is a perfect cross section of present socio-economic structure there is a slight tilt towards non-elitist, middle and lower middle-income groups from the suburbs. (This is itself a very important fact that nullifies the much discussed argument of lesbianism being a urbane, elitist and upper-class phenomenon and thus having nothing to do with the common Indian life and lifestyle.) Sappho has always prioritized economic independence as the pre-condition for a life of dignity, grace, and power and obviously of free choice and devoid of all sorts of control, confinement, indignity and disgrace. While Malobika and Akanksha are the only members who lead a conjugal life and have a comparatively smooth life for their well placed services, most of the other members are trying their level best to be more and more economically sound and lead a life of their own preference and practice. 

A day long monthly meeting, usually scheduled on the fourth Sundays, is generally the space where members come and share their personal experiences within the family and outside, their problems and crises, their dreams and desires.  The initial meetings of Sappho were full of joyous excitements of finding out like-minded women. Differences were there but it was more or less the same story of immense pain both physical and mental from and outside the family that has a very important role in present Indian social structure.  

Members have shared their various experiences numerous times and discussed their problems within groups with a view that in future all these experiences may be used as references while resolving different facets of same-sex relationships among women and combating homophobia at different levels. Most of the cases described various traumatic events from their lives and majority of violence that came in the form of forcing them to marry, perpetrated by their parents and or family members.

Nina, aged twenty-five stated how she was forced by her parents to leave the city and her relationship with her girlfriend and compelled to dwell at her maternal uncle’s home nearly 300 miles away from Kolkata. She underwent several attempts of rape by her uncle but her parents took her repeated cries for help as a trick to come back and meet her lover and henceforth did not respond in any way. She had to runaway all alone in almost a penniless condition just to survive and presently resides in a shelter home after totally disowned by her family.

Bhaswati, painfully stated how she was also humiliated and harassed at its worst by her family and how as a act of punitive measure for being homosexual, her orientation was exposed to her work place by her parents time and again, which eventually terminated her job.
Roon, another member stated about her horrified memories of hostel days (Master’s Degree in Physical Education).  She was tremendously humiliated and harassed by her male classmates who even threw shit in her room and teased her in the classroom by calling ‘homo-homo’ from the backseats. Even the teachers once insulted her openly hinting her relationship with her lover. She almost decided to leave the course but completed it by compromising with her detractors and did not show any inclination toward her lover openly. Her results suffered and she still cannot forget those days. 

Shree, had all the same kind of experience as Nina, but much more severe due to a strong orthodox non-urbane family background. She had to suffer from an intense emotional blackmailing by all her family members, which ended up in forcing her into a marriage ritual. Vehemently opposing to which she had to leave her house at the midnight without any least preparations. Bursting out into tears Shree stated how her mother even wished her death than accepting her being a homosexual.

Priyanka, a NIIT topper and senior faculty of Computer Course in a reputed school in Kolkata stated how she was literally slapped by her father with sleepers in front of other flat members for her sexual orientation. Other emotional black-mailing were also very common, worst of which was not taking the regular prescribed medicines for hypertension and blaming Priyanka for all the eventual consequences. 
Molly also came out with similar kind of experiences in her family, mainly her mother, who even being a heart patient used to refuse medicines and intentionally worsen her physical condition, which ultimately told on Molly’s nerve so badly that she herself was at the verge of nervous breakdown. She also stated another situation where her ex-employer, just guessing about her sexual orientation and her relationship with her girlfriend, tried to blackmail her and take undue advantage of the whole situation.

While sharing their story, Soma and Ira, two girls from a distant suburb town, told how they flew away to Nepal, failing to negotiate with their respective families about their relation and future planning and not consenting to forcible marriage. But unfortunately both the families discovered them through a letter and actually dragged them home with the help of police and presently are kept under a strong vigilance. 

Jasmine’s story, though somewhat similar with others regarding familial problems had a different dimension. Her orthodox Muslim family background alarmed her quite in advance about the deadly consequences of her decade long relation with a Hindu girl, if exposed. Without further delay they determined about settling abroad and Jasmine herself strived her level best to overcome her mediocre academic career and succeeded. Presently both are well placed and happily settled abroad. This will forever remain as an instance of determination and hardworking to champion an affair otherwise unaccepted and looked down. 
 
In the domain of domestic violence, which is one of the rallying points of feminists, good number of cases go unreported where the woman has been tortured for her same-sex preference, for example, two girls, now members of Sappho, one of them married, left their respective houses when the torture of the husband became unbearable. Their families filed a ‘missing’ case after which they contacted Sappho. Sappho turned up for a negotiation with an NGO working on violence on women. The NGO said this is a clear case of domestic violence. Husband cannot perpetrate physical violence to his wife; the question of sexual preference never became the crucial issue, which was the reason for violence. Even the woman Sub-Inspector virtually scolded us that how could we support such bad things which society does not accept? This Sub-Inspector constantly told one of the girl to go back to her ‘widowed’ mother stressing emotionally on the ‘widowhood’ with utter sympathy and told us to convince the other woman to go back to her children and the (torturing) husband. But this pathetic ‘widowed’ mother only had held tight the throat of her lean and thin daughter so aggressively that we had to literally struggle to rescue her! Although the NGO deliberately sidelined the issue of lesbian relationship, to Sappho it was an achievement that the said  NGO rushed for their help and saved two women’s lives. 

Whether it is the story of Sonali, a postgraduate student or 29 year old Rina, all these narratives repeatedly mark marginalization by the power of heterosexuality, and lesbianism treated as deviancy. All of them found that their sexual preference was not treated as a personal thing rather it frequently became the issue of public exposure of ‘abnormality.’

Their discussion revealed their consciousness how the so-called ‘private’ issue of their sexuality is actually linked to larger issues like biological family, private property and governance. Many of them said that most of the everyday traumas are produced from the ignorance and accepting heterosexuality as something ‘normal’ and all they want is a negotiated space of dignity and self respect for their sexual identity in the movement. All of them felt the urgent need to aware the public about lesbianism. ‘Even close persons like parents or family members fail to understand what we are, how we think differently on sexual preferences and why’.