[The reason is that
while the notion of homosexuality may be taboo, homosocial, and even
homosexual, behavior is common enough. Pakistani society is sharply segregated
on gender lines, with taboos about extramarital sex that make it almost harder
to conduct a secret heterosexual romance than a homosexual one. Displays of
affection between men in public, like hugging and holding hands, are common. “A
guy can be with a guy anytime, anywhere, and no one will raise an eyebrow,” the
journalist said.]
By Meghan Davidson Ladly
 |
Max Becherer for the International Herald Tribune
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT Ali, a gay man who lives in Lahore, is in a support
group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Pakistanis. “
The gay scene here is very hush-hush,” he says.
|
LAHORE, Pakistan — The group meets irregularly in a simple building among a row of
shops here that close in the evening. Drapes cover the windows. Sometimes
members watch movies or read poetry. Occasionally, they give a party, dance and
drink and let off steam.
The group is invitation
only, by word of mouth. Members communicate through an e-mail list and are
careful not to jeopardize the location of their meetings. One room is reserved
for “crisis situations,” when someone may need a place to hide, most often from
her own family. This is their safe space — a support group for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender Pakistanis.
“The gay scene here is
very hush-hush,” said Ali, a member who did not want his full name used. “I
wish it was a bit more open, but you make do with what you have.”
That is slowly changing
as a relative handful of younger gays and lesbians, many educated in the West,
seek to foster more acceptance of their sexuality and to carve out an identity,
even in a climate of religious conservatism.
Homosexual acts remain
illegal in Pakistan, based on laws constructed by the British during colonial
rule. No civil rights legislation exists to protect gays and lesbians from
discrimination.
But the reality is far
more complex, more akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell” than
a state-sponsored witch hunt. For a long time, the state’s willful blindness
has provided space enough for gays and lesbians. They socialize, organize, date
and even live together as couples, though discreetly.
One journalist, in his
early 40s, has been living as a gay man in Pakistan for almost two decades.
“It’s very easy being gay here, to be honest,” he said, though he and several
others interviewed did not want their names used for fear of the social and
legal repercussions. “You can live without being hassled about it,” he said,
“as long as you are not wearing a pink tutu and running down the street
carrying a rainbow flag.”
The reason is that while
the notion of homosexuality may be taboo, homosocial, and even homosexual,
behavior is common enough. Pakistani society is sharply segregated on gender lines,
with taboos about extramarital sex that make it almost harder to conduct a
secret heterosexual romance than a homosexual one. Displays of affection
between men in public, like hugging and holding hands, are common. “A guy can
be with a guy anytime, anywhere, and no one will raise an eyebrow,” the
journalist said.
For many in his and
previous generations, he said, same-sex attraction was not necessarily an issue
because it did not involve questions of identity. Many Pakistani men who have
sex with men do not think of themselves as gay. Some do it regularly, when they
need a break from their wives, they say, and some for money.
But all the examples of
homosexual relations — in Sufi poetry, Urdu literature or discreet sexual
conduct — occur within the private sphere, said Hina Jilani, a human rights
lawyer and activist for women’s and minority rights. Homoeroticism can be
expressed but not named.
“The biggest hurdle,”
Ms. Jilani said, “is finding the proper context in which to bring this issue
out into the open.”
That is what the gay and
lesbian support group in Lahore is slowly seeking to do, even if it still meets
in what amounts to near secrecy.
The driving force behind
the group comes from two women, ages 30 and 33. They are keenly aware of the
oddity that two women, partners no less, have become architects of the modern
gay scene in Lahore; if gay and bisexual men barely register in the collective
societal consciousness of Pakistan, their female counterparts are even less
visible.
“The organizing came
from my personal experience of extreme isolation, the sense of being alone and
different,” the 30-year-old said.
She decided that she
needed to find others like her in Pakistan. Eight people, mostly the couple’s
friends, attended the first meeting in January 2009.
Two months later, the
two women formed an activist group they call O. They asked for its full name
not to be published because it is registered as a nongovernmental organization
with the government, with its true purpose concealed because of the laws
against homosexual acts.
O conducts research into
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, provides legal advice and has
helped remove people from difficult family situations, and in one case a
foreign-operated prostitution ring. The group has made a conscious decision to
focus its efforts on the dynamic of family and building social acceptance and
awareness rather than directly tackling legal discrimination.
Their current fight is
not to overturn Article 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code, on “Unnatural
Offenses,” but to influence parents’ deciding whether or not to shun their gay
child. They see this approach as ultimately more productive.
“If you talk about space
in Pakistan in terms of milestones that happen in the other parts of the world
like pride parades or legal reform or whatever, that’s not going to happen for
a long time,” the 33-year-old organizer, who identifies as bisexual, said.
“Families making space — that’s what’s important to us right now.” Both women
say their families have accepted them, though it was a process.
There are distinct class
differences at work here, particularly when it comes to self-definition. Most
of those actively involved in fostering the gay and lesbian community in
Pakistan, even if they have not been educated abroad, are usually college
graduates and are familiar with the evolution of Western thought concerning
sexuality. Mostly city-dwellers, they come from families whose parents can
afford to send their children to school.
Those who identify
themselves as gay here are usually middle and upper middle class, the
33-year-old woman said. “You will get lower middle class or working-class women
refusing to call themselves lesbian because that to them is an insult, so
they’ll say ‘woman loving woman.’ ”
While the journalist
lives relatively openly as a gay man, and says his immediate family accepts it,
he understands that older gays have separated sexuality from identity, and he
also recognizes that this approach is changing.
Still, he sees the
potential for serious conflict for younger Pakistanis who are growing up with a
more westernized sense of sexual identity.
“They’ve got all the
access to content coming from a Western space, but they don’t have the outlets
for expression that exist over there,” he said. “Inevitably they will feel a
much greater sense of frustration and express it in ways that my generation
wouldn’t have.”
That clash of ideologies
was evident last year on June 26, when the American Embassy in Islamabad held
its first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride celebration. The display
of support for gay rights prompted a backlash, setting off demonstrations in
Karachi and Lahore, and protesters clashing with the police outside the
diplomatic enclave in Islamabad. This year, the embassy said, it held a similar
event but did not issue a news release about it.
“It is the policy of the
United States government to support and promote equal rights for all human
beings,” an embassy spokeswoman, Rian Harris, said by e-mail when asked about
the backlash. “We are committed to standing up for these values around the
world, including here in Pakistan.”
Well intended as it may
have been, the event was seen by many in Pakistan’s gay community as
detrimental to their cause. The 33-year-old activist strongly believes it was a
mistake.
“The damage that the
U.S. pride event has done is colossal,” she said, “just in terms of creating an
atmosphere of fear that was not there before. The public eye is not what we
need right now.”
Despite the hostile
climate, both the support group and O continue their work. O is currently
researching violence against lesbian, bisexual and transgender Pakistanis.
“In a way, we are just
role models for each other,” the 30-year-old said. When she was growing up, she
said, she did not know anyone who was gay and she could not imagine such a
life.
“For me the whole
activism is to create that space in which we can imagine a future for
ourselves, and not even imagine but live that future,” she said. “And we are
living it. I’m living my own impossibility.”
