Abdeali Saherwala | Staff Writer
Featured image: The shifting ideologies surrounding queerness and marital expectations for first- and second-generation South Asian-Canadian queers. | Courtesy of Unsplash
The South Asian population is one of the largest on the planet, with 1.3 billion people in India alone. However, many members of these communities are often shocked to learn someone they know is LGBTQ+.
The topic of sex, sexuality, sexual intercourse, sexual relationships, and intimacy are still a taboo and indecent subject of discussion within South Asian cultures, education systems, and religions, and is rarely given national attention in those respective countries.
With a society so intimidated by topics surrounding sociallyacceptable, heteronormative forms of sexual intercourse and relationships, how can a queer individual bring up the topic of homosexuality?
Homosexuality is considered immoral and unnatural to many in these respective countries, due to the cultural and religious ideologies that have been embedded within them. Nevertheless, even if the discussion of homosexuality is censored or forbidden, the fact remains that people within and from these respective countries are part of the LGBTQ+ community, whether those countries’ citizens approve of it or not.
High levels of pressure from within families of queer youth often push them into marrying the opposite sex and starting a nuclear family, which forces them to remain closeted and go through with these arrangements, in order to avoid the shame that they would inevitably face from their community and immediate family.
Additionally, while South Asian governments are all democracies, they still do not protect LGBTQ+ members from physical, sexual, verbal, or mental abuse. Instead, governing officials may actively promote the suppression of the queer community.
Many Canadians assume that because South Asian LGBTQ+ individuals are living in Canada, they will be free from the bondages and pressures of society that they would have to endure in South Asian countries.
Despite Canada’s legal protection system for the LGBTQ+ community, South Asian LGBTQ+ people still endure hostility for their sexual and/or gender identity, due to their social, religious, cultural, and communal bonds, and are often still arranged into opposite-sex marriages. It could be argued that there is even more pressure than ever for parents to arrange heterosexual marriage in Canada, as South Asian communities often fear becoming assimilated into Western culture.
However, some first- and second-generation South Asian LGBTQ+ individuals are coming out to their parents and communities, because unlike in their native countries, there are support systems in place by government and non-government organizations to support LGBTQ+ people, including those who are also people of colour.
Having these organizations can make individuals and couples feel safe, due to Canada’s larger acceptance of the queer community.
Additionally, in Canada, there is no defined religious or cultural ideology that everyone is socially, religiously, or legally forced to follow, thus relieving parents and queer individuals from being frowned upon—or worse, shunned—by the larger community.
Dawn Isley, a third-year Philosophy student, who was able to speak about her experience of coming out, says: “I identify as a non-binary, panromantic, and asexual. I also identify as an Indian Muslim. I came out to my best friends; they accepted me. I came out to some of my younger cousins; they accepted me. I came out to my younger brother; he said that he was fine with it, that it was my life and I could live however I wanted to.
“A few years ago, before I came out to the above mentioned people, I tried coming out to my parents. They tried to convince me ‘it is only a phase’—boy, were they wrong. Now, I feel like yelling to the entire world that I’m queer. I used to wonder why I never fit in with my peers at school or my family—now I know why. It was my queerness.”
Despite the struggles of South Asian LGBTQ+ communities in Canada and around the world, the mentality and understanding of non-heteronormative identities is rapidly changing within younger generations.
As youth are now exposed to more information, media content, and social connectivity, there is an increasing shift in the acceptance rate of the queer community.
While old stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people were held firmly by previous generations, they are now are quickly eroding with successive generations.
Alexander Liathan Moore, a first-year Environmental Studies student, says: “In my experience, I’ve noticed that the older generations, like my aunts and uncles, are more likely to refuse to accept my queer identity. They tend to ridicule it or ask me why I’m like this, and some even blame my parents for not being traditionally religious.
“I’ve been confronted about it at family gatherings and rudely asked why I’m like this, it always seems to be a topic of conversation when I’m around. But on the flip side, my cousins and family members that are closer to my age for the most part all seem to just accept me and treat me like a normal person; I don’t feel alienated or different.
“Discussions of how I identify never come up in a bad manner. I think it’s a generation thing, where older people still have their old ways of thinking, while younger individuals are more open-minded and accepting.”
One resolution for today’s global society is to remove our old ideologies and understanding of queerness from our minds and from our hearts, in order to fully support the LGBTQ+ community, ensuring that no person, regardless of descent, is being oppressed or repressed—especially those in South Asian communities.
It does not matter if you are a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist, and it does not matter if you are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka—we need to bind together to ensure that all South Asian people—no matter their orientation—can thrive in our society.
Being part of the LGBTQ+ community is often perceived as a “disease” or an “infection” in our community—but in reality, it’s something that you are born with, and thus cannot change.
No matter what you do to change it or to suppress it, you will be who you are for the rest of your life.
It’s better for you and the world to accept your differences as a strength, which could be utilized to better our planet, children, and future as a whole.
