Be gay in Bangladesh. Invisible to sunlight

Julie Lallouet Geoffroy article published in the monthly Tétu (France) of January 2015, pag 71-73, free translation by Marco Galvagno

In Bangladesh, Muslim country and conservative, homosexuality remains punishable with life imprisonment, but this certainly does not discourage militant homosexual people. The country's first LGBT newspaper came out last year and now the gay community intends to come out.
The pages are still fresh from the press, Roopbaan has just come out. We are in January 2014, the first gay newspaper was just born in Bangladesh without accidents. Everything hurts quickly. Starting from the next number, the first threats are felt. The newspaper article gives the alert: "Roopbaan editors would be part of an international conspiracy, which attentive to Islamic costumes. The government is looking for them to arrest them".
The news sows panic in editing the quarterly. It was last June, the chief editor Rasel Ahmed has a precise memory: "Starting from that moment we started to be very afraid. I had the impression of being followed, when someone knocked on the door I was afraid that the police were arrested me or even worse to kill me".
In Bangladesh it is not nice to be gay. According to article 377 of the criminal code, relationships between people of the same sex, in particular between men, are punishable with life imprisonment. This law is from 1860, an era in which Bangladesh and India were still under British domination. Today Bangladesh is a Muslim and particularly conservative country on moral issues. Hundreds of people disappear every year, among them many homosexuals. Some families reject gay children, others make them even kill.

Love message

For twenty years the Bandhu association has been struggling against this state of affairs and leads prevention actions against HIV. But it is the Internet that gave a new momentum to the LGBT community. The Boys of Bangladesh association launched a chat on the Internet in 2002. The flight three years later stands out. A real breath of oxygen for all those who live hidden without ever being able to show what they are.
Many people have connected to the site to meet, to tell what they live day by day: the sides of the hurry, the insults, the threats, sometimes the barrels. As the community is built and two parks of Dacca (the capital of Bangladesh) have become places of meeting. Last April, for the first time the homosexuals of the Bengali capital took to the street.
"With this event we did not want to make a gay pride, slamming that we are homosexuals, but simply passing a message of love and diversity!, Says Xulhaz, the editor of the magazine. That day Bangladesh celebrated the new year, everyone was on the street and we too. We were dressed in different colors to form a rainbow, the LGBT colors, but you know here no one knows this symbol.

That time everything went well, the reactions were enthusiastic about the sight of many colors. The release of the magazine instead caused several problems. Messages of insults on the internet and threats: "You have to burn you, kill you on the public square". Fear penetrates so slowly in the spirits. Rasel Ahmed, chief editor decides to contact an association fighting for the defense of human rights to report the situation: "I was afraid, a lot of fear for my life".
Today the situation seems more calm, the tension has come down and Rasel is more determined than ever. "I am not ashamed, on the contrary I am proud of this magazine, it is our girl. Before we were invisible, hidden and this was very comfortable, now we are in the spotlight, the situation is much more difficult. But I will not give up, Roopbaan asked us to work, it is not really the case to abandon everything now".
It will take a year in Rasel and Xulhaz to constitute a team of volunteers, models, photographers and designers, above all to find a printing house that dared to engage in such a controversial publication.
Two thousand, those who accept themselves

For many homosexuals, the magazine's appearance is a good thing. In the end they speak of us, we can express ourselves and make ourselves known, Annara rejoices, a twenty -two -year -old lesbian. He explains "In Bangladesh nobody knows who we are, people are not informed, they consider us sick. Thanks to the magazine things will begin to change. But the road is still long".
For Xulhaz, the editor of Roopbaan many homosexuals do not show themselves and have a double life. According to estimates, the gays declared in the Bengali capital would be around 2000, but returning to the statistics about 10% of the Bengali would be homosexual, that is, 15 million. For him you have to help these people express themselves, accept themselves and this requires a lot of work. Family silence is one of the main brakes. Muslim and conservative culture most parents do not accept the homosexuality of their children.

For example, Nazia tried to talk about her mother, 5 years ago, when she was 17 years old: "She didn't understand, she told me she was sick and she sent me to the doctor to make me cure. She gave me medicines that made me sleep, but today I am still a lesbian", smiles, "I later tried to talk about it again, but it is better than no. I have to marry by the winter of 2015, or I reject my parents, and chin ".
Leading a double life is not only complicated, but also a source of a deep malaise, and that is what Shavon is experiencing. This twenty -year -old boy is terrified of the idea of ​​talking to his parents. "If I told him they would kidnap me or even kill, for them I would be a monster, before their son, I am sure. Then the fact of telling him is out of the question."
In the family Shavon recites the part, he returns to being himself with few friends. But the malaise is constant. "I tried to commit suicide a year ago, drinking toxic substances. I was really bad. The fact of being in contact with associations like Bandhu allows me to meet other people like me and it really does me. But unfortunately I still can't be happy. I go to the parks of Dacca in the evening, but it is only sex, there is no love".

Better trans than gay

Homosexuals are rejected in Bangladesh, but the company accepts hiras, that is the trans. These are men who wear female clothes, change sex and have relationships with men. Last November the Transgender category even appeared in the Bengali passport. "It is an important stop that can benefit everyone, but it is only the beginning" explains Anamika, a young hira of twenty years who has just finished the transition. Today in Bangladesh it is better to be hira than gay. "We are recognized, even if not really accepted, but at least we are not invisible".
Sometimes it happens that gays choose to become hira to be able to live their sexuality, to forget their identity, is a means of being a little less refused. But you don't have to get the illusions to be hira is not a walk.
On the street he tells Anamika "people team me. I have friends who have been beaten. But the great diversity is that my family accepts me as they are, which rarely happens to gays".
Most of the hira ask for alms and prostitutes, it is with this money that the young woman has been able to afford a vaginoplasty intervention, an increase in breast and a hormonal treatment. Although Anamika is now a woman, marriage, corner stone of social integration, she remains precluded.

Face to face

The LGBT community wants to structure itself, get out of simple sex relationships to form a nucleus, a cocoon. A Dacca are the parks, but above all the apartments, it is there that gays can meet without fearing hostile looks and threats. Xulhaz's apartment is open. The bell sounds incessantly. Guys enter, move to a room to discuss, drink tea to meet.
A context, more pleasant and intimate than a park, a more propitious place for the exchange.
"The chat on the internet is fine, but it is not real", explains Xulhaz, "you have to meet face to face to be able to build a relationship and get to know each other, when I see many people in my house, I feel happy".
Xulhaz was lucky enough to have a very tolerant family, a situation that perhaps is not extraneous to his "western education". "Since I was a child I behaved in a different way. My parents have accepted it. Today when I do parties, they also come, it seems incredible. It is unthinkable for most of the Bengali gays. I only have a life and I refuse to split it in two in the name of good manners. I am as they are".

Zaman would like to do the same thing, at 19 years old he dreams of fully living his life, but as Shavon or Nice cannot talk about it to parents, nor friends. For the law it is a criminal, for religion, a sinner. Thus responds to the criticisms of the bigots: "Love cannot be a shame. While hatred yes. Those who hate me because I love, even if it is a boy, are the real sinners, not me".

Original text: Bangladesh: Des Invisibles Au Grand Jour