What it has meant for me to be an ally
It is strange that despite having much to say, I am hesitating or maybe I’m pondering more than usual before actually getting to writing this article. This is going to be a very personal piece. So I will request you to bear with the pace of it. It might take many twists and turns much like my thoughts do. But I sincerely hope you will wait till the end of this journey. Maybe we will find something together at the end of it?
We are not raised to be allies – well, I would say most of us are not. If anything, we are raised to be guardians/gatekeepers of heteronormativity.
Ankita
You might have questions as to why I am choosing to write on this topic. Maybe it seems repetitive to some of you. If I could put it very simply, I am writing about allyship because I want to write about it. I want to write about how I have come to understand allyship. I see a lot of relevant content about being an ally, being a good ally and why we should be allies to the queer community. However, I notice a gap in this narrative. This gap is about how a person becomes an ally to the community. How they build their understanding and learn to accept diversity and then eventually advocate for the community. Because as I look at our heteronormative social context, I realise that most of us might not be allies right from the beginning. We have to learn to see and then unlearn homonegativity before we can become an ally. We are not raised to be allies – well, I would say most of us are not. If anything, we are raised to be guardians/gatekeepers of heteronormativity.
As I now think back to my childhood, I notice subtle instances of homonegativity. They were there in the erasure of possibilities.
Ankita
I was raised in a heteronormative environment. Pretty much everything about my family was (and still is) based in and represented heteronormative ideas. As I come from a semi-urban, ‘well educated’ environment, my family was (still is) considered to be ‘progressive’. While there were some departures from some heteronormative scripts (like having a working mother), the others were followed without question. From a young age, what I knew, understood and expected of families, love, relationships, attraction was based on the heteronormative expectations of what they should be. As I now think back to my childhood, I notice subtle instances of homonegativity. They were there in the erasure of possibilities. They were there in the assumed heterosexuality, in the colour biases (pink vs blue debate) and the clothes biases. But there were times that they were very noticeable. These were times when people were being discussed. People who didn’t fit into the neat (read as: restrictive) boxes of heterosexuality and the gender binary. These were celebrities, people seen on the way to work, distant relatives/acquaintances. Anyone or anything that did not fit into the boxes understood (and guarded) by them was noticed, spoken about, laughed at, ridiculed, and then eventually forgotten. Thus, my reference points growing up included these messages of homonegativity. I did not know you could exist outside these boxes and these ‘truths’. And how can I forget the role religion had to play in this regard. Because who are we if not the children of the creator who has everything planned out for us? I mean, as the single most powerful body of the universe, one would hope for the ‘creator’ to be more creative but I guess not. While I am saying this, I don’t intend to be disrespectful. I want to bring focus to how religion propagated and practiced today holds heterosexual, gendered expressions and how that safeguards heteronormativity and the systems it keeps in power. As a friend pointed out recently, there is emerging literature about the existence and acceptance of gender and sexual fluidity across religions. Fluidity that has been systematically erased in the name of ‘culture’ (albeit constructed artificially) to establish a stronghold of heterosexuality, the gender binary and patriarchy (the big three, if you will).
Let’s now talk about the singlemost, blatantly homonegative environment I have been a part of. School. I spent 14 years of my life in a school that upheld moralistic and religious ideas and in doing so was almost a living, breathing manifestation of heteronormativity. These ideas were being propagated as a natural order of things. One that is expected and hence cannot be questioned. Every stakeholder in the school and every ideal upheld by them came from heteronormativity. There are many examples I remember about this. The first one that comes to mind is around ‘creation’. How a (male) God created a man and a woman and how all living beings came from this man and woman. For people who might have similar experiences to mine, do you remember what that felt like? It felt like the ultimate, unshakeable truth. He created Adam and Eve and then they procreated. That is all we needed to know – a representation of all things ‘good’ and ‘holy’ and ‘natural’.
TW: mentions of institutional homonegativity
I am going to ask you to pause and reflect on something along with me. If you think about your school, what are some attempts at gatekeeping heteronormativity you can identify? Were there instances of people being shamed and ridiculed for shifting away from their assumed identities (read as: trying to stay true to themselves)? I remember a lot of these from my school. This looked like making boys and girls sit separately in class – thus dividing the class into a clear gender binary. This was also an attempt to curb students from getting into relationships. Do you notice the assumed heterosexuality in this decision? Making boys sit with boys and girls with girls meant that everything would be okay. Only friendships, no attraction or love or (gasp) a relationship!
This gatekeeping also looked like uniform policing – making sure that everything about the physical appearance of a person could also indicate their assumed gender identity.
“Can you please dress more like a boy/girl?”
“You look so weird in that skirt/pant.”
“Maybe you should just stand in the boys/ girls line.”
“You’re so good at this! Are you sure you’re not boy/ girl?”
“Oh my god she has a crush on Miss __________. That’s so weird.”
…this went on and on. The maybes, the shoulds, the shouldn’ts, the exclusion and the erasure. There was no other way you could exist. Any departure from the assumed path, would either be browbeaten into compliance or would entail embarrassment and guilt. I remember this one time when a teacher called upon me in class asking me to focus on the text if I was done ‘playing with and holding’ my (female) classmate’s hands. I remember my heart sinking with fear and the immediate attention on us. I also remember the anger and indignance within me. But most of all I remember the shift in seats we did just to avoid any further questions.
I will also be very honest here. For a while these homonegative ideas were all I knew. It is only now that I have the ability to call this out for what it was. Queer lives and queer people were categorically invisibilised for me and I was told to be afraid of them and stay away from them. Most of all, I was shown that queer lives could become the butt of jokes. I am not setting this up as an excuse for myself. I am trying, to the best of my abilities, to call myself out. I realise now that I was being trained by the system (sounds sinister?) and until a couple of years back I contributed to its effectiveness and continuity. It took me time before I could bring myself to question these ideas and the people propagating them. A lot of my questioning was fueled by the wish to understand. But the wish to know and unlearn wasn’t strong. I attempted to understand that ‘Love is love’ but did not progress beyond. I had become the person who claimed to be ‘absolutely okay’ with queer people (read as: absolutely okay with queer people as long as I did not have to actually interact with them). As much as it pains to put down these words, I don’t want to gloss over any aspect of my journey. This is what it has looked like for me.
Let’s travel along another line of thought of mine, shall we? I wonder if you have a clear memory of a moment when you realised your homonegativity and decided that it needs to be unlearned? I do have one. This happened for me when I was in college. I was in conversation with a group of friends and I made a homonegative statement in a very light-hearted manner. Following that, my friend called me out immediately for the same. I remember how I felt in that moment and the…fear that settled within me for getting called out. But in shaking me up like so, this incident also allowed me to finally want to ask the uncomfortable questions and find answers. It made me want to ask and actually listen to people, to communities and know of their unique experiences. As the questioning and learning progressed, I also looked to the systemic structures for answers to their heteronormative beliefs. It didn’t take me long to notice the lack of a meaningful answer. Or well, an answer that wasn’t steeped in privilege and a desire to maintain the status quo.
Strangely enough, my journey into allyship began with me getting called out for my homonegative beliefs. I am also not going to tie it all up in a bow and tell you that my journey was a cake walk. It wasn’t. It was hard, confusing and uncomfortable. More so because it was difficult to look for sources/people I could interact with. For the first time, I was trying to see the system for what it actually was and my efforts were met with resistance. A resistance that stemmed from a need to hold on to power and the usual, ‘natural’ ways of being. A turning point for me was the time I spent at TISS. In being a campus with a diverse set of people, TISS opened up dimensions for me. I could finally see diverse expressions and identities of people. I could see the possibility of people just existing the way they wanted to. This is not to say that there were no struggles for said people. There definitely were. Yet, there was the freedom to express and a sense of…comfort maybe. As a person trying to be an ally, I finally heard first hand accounts, I shared in experiences of joy and experiences of pain and erasure. Above all, I experienced people. The living, breathing, people who constantly had to struggle to breathe and live the way they wanted to. You might want to know if there were further hiccups in my journey. Of course there were. I did not understand, I avoided, I was scared of not knowing enough, I made assumptions and I felt tired. But I persisted, and I found support in the warmest bunch of people who helped me learn, who questioned me and kept me grounded (I hope you know who you are).
Do you know another reason why I also stayed on the journey of allyship through all that discomfort? I stayed because I wanted to be a safe person for people. I stayed because I was tired of being indoctrinated into value systems that were not even my own. I stayed because I wanted to be part of a world that doesn’t strive to put people in boxes. But most of all, I stayed because I rediscovered parts of myself (maybe that’s a story for another day). It has been and continues to be a long journey into allyship. I am never going to say that I know everything there is to know about the LGBTQIA+ community. I am not the perfect ally. But I do know that I am here to stay. I am here for the joy and the struggles and the moments of exhaustion. I am here for all of it and I hope that gets translated into my practice as an affirmative practitioner.
I hold on to the mistakes as well as the journey forward that I have taken. I hold on to the idea that I am here, that I have made an attempt and that I can continue to build on this.
Ankita
I have often wondered how I should feel about my younger self and how she held onto homonegative ideas. I have been angry at her. I have wondered what made it so hard for her to start seeing things for what they are. I have been appalled by the role she had to play in the heteronormative system. I still feel all of these things. But I also remember a conversation I had with a friend about these feelings. I remember her pointing out the effectiveness of the system, how easy it is to follow the system and how equally hard it is to break away. She also asked me to be kinder to my younger self – to be kind even in calling her out. But finally she asked me to not stray away from the rest of the journey. So that’s what I hold on to. I hold on to the mistakes as well as the journey forward that I have taken. I hold on to the idea that I am here, that I have made an attempt and that I can continue to build on this. And this is exactly what it has meant for me to be an ally – staying with people in the journeys they make and being a safe space. I hope my journey as an ally has made you think about yours. I hope you choose to stay here. And everytime someone asks you ‘But what makes you want to be an ally?’ I hope you answer with ‘Everything’.
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– Ankita
Hello there! I am Ankita from the Tangent MHI team and I am back again to dump another set of thoughts and feelings on you! I am a person who kinda like(s) staying up till morning under candle light (please tell me you got this song reference). I rely a lot on words (really, I have note of my favourite quotes), use a lot of words and at the same time I am also the person who forgets the words she is looking for. This pride month, I decided to set down some of my thoughts around a topic I feel very strongly about and also something that has been an important part of my journey and has defined who I am as a person and as a professional. So I invite you to join me and I hope you find something you can hold on to. Thank you!
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