Guest column: Gay pride and prejudice

How this guy fought against his own femmephobia, and how you can overcome it too with when you open your mind to it!

When I was young, I struggled with femmephobia. I was never effeminate and even though my mind told me there is nothing wrong with being effeminate, I instinctively steered clear of effeminate gay people, and those who dressed like women.

“I am a gay man,” I thought. “I want to be with real men.”

As I grew older, I decided I needed to consciously overcome this irrational fear.

Society says so…

First, I worked on getting over the social aversion. During my time living in London, I was a part of Dost, the South Asian LGBT social group connected to NAZ Project London and curated by the inimitable Asifa Lahore.

At the time, Asifa identified as a (very effeminate) gay man who went by the name Asif. Asifa eventually came out as trans and began the process of gender reassignment surgery.

They don’t know this, but Asifa and many others at Dost were instrumental in helping me overcome the social aversion.

The sexual aversion was more difficult. I started consciously not avoiding sexual partners who were effeminate, by forcefully overriding that instinct. I didn’t find very much of a difference in bed and was surprised. Eventually, the instinct disappeared.

End of the bias

Drag doesn’t come naturally to me, but when Sridhar Rangayan approached me about hosting the opening ceremony of the 2015 Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival together with Faredoon Bhujwala and Sushant Divgikr, I took it up, in part to ‘complete the circle’.

To completely embrace the femme in me was, in a way, proving to myself that I had overcome the phobia. And it was amazing! Dodo (Faredoon) and Sushant were much more experienced at drag and helped the newbie in me fully blossom into a drag artist.

Looking inward

The LGBTQ+ community seeks acceptance from others. Yet, in many ways, we harbour the same kinds of prejudices we expect the rest of the world to overcome. We discriminate, consciously and subconsciously, against people who behave or dress differently, and against people of different, races, social classes and religions. All too often these prejudices are passed off as ‘preferences’.

As LGBTQ+ community members, each one of us needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and overcome our own prejudices, before expecting the rest of the world to do so.

Delhi boy Saattvic describes himself as an economist, tabla player, singer, playwright, director and actor, amongst other things. He now lives with his partner in Vancouver, Canada.

From HT Brunch, April 25, 2021

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