Identity 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Pride is not just about human rights. Pride is not all about the image we want to portray towards others. It is a statement that we are here to stay, and we are, finally, vocal enough to say it. But do we say it to others or ourselves?

I is for Identity

If you had the chance to say something to your teen self, what would you say?

I would say that you don’t need to open up a book about medical conditions to see that say that “homosexuality is a phase that you will grow out of.” I would say that it is OK to fall for your best friend in high school. I would say that you are not the only one who is gay.

I would say that it will take time for you to forge your own identity, and a part of forging your identity is really through roleplaying games with a group of people who will support you. And, I would say that it will take multiple twists and turns before your heart finds peace, and you can feel that you are finally your own person.

But what has Pride to do with forging your identity?

My teenage years were during the time when the Internet was a luxury, not a commodity. Using it would mean blocking a phone landline for as much time as you would be online. And that would cost by the minute. There were no social media, no dating apps, etc. You had to confront your fears of coming out of closet face-to-face.

So, when the above teenaged Khalil finally mustered enough courage to venture out and see a Pride, it was a massive thing. It made the whole scene real. It gave empowerment for me because I knew I wasn’t the only one who fancied people of their own sex.

From those years, when I first ventured to see a pride, it would still take some years before I started to have enough courage to come out of the closet. That has been a journey that still goes on. And it is also one of those things that our straight counterparts never think of.

Straight people don’t need to assess if they can talk about their boy or girlfriends, of their husbands and wives, but we LGBTQ people do. We are also, constantly, faced by the heteronormative bias where people make assumptions, forcing us to come out of the closet or lie. I still remember, vividly, when I was working at a hospital in 2003-2004 and the topic turned to holidays. My colleagues knew I wasn’t married, so they assumed instantly that I was single, as I had told them that I didn’t have a girlfriend. This assumption, in turn, meant that I wasn’t ‘eligible’ for having my summer holidays at the height of summer because “it is a time reserved for married people with children.”

What made it worse was the add-on: “And because you don’t even have a girlfriend, it looks like you have to wait for many more years.”

At that time, I had not even dared to dream of having children one day, I hadn’t even told my own mother that I would one day present her a son-in-law instead of a daughter-in-law.

Now, two decades later, things are, thankfully, different. Gay adoption is getting more recognised. Same-sex marriages are commonplace in the Western world. Accepting people who identify as LGBTQ people is mainstream.

At the same time, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t remember where I came from. However, Pride and LGBTQ identity are not the only parts of me. They form one segment that I am, but without that segment, I wouldn’t be whole. I have fought to get myself accepted, I have fought with myself to accept myself. That is why I will not take a step back when some people try to force their archaic views on me or my brothers and sisters. Because I have Pride in who I am, and I proudly wear the rainbow badge my employer has given me the opportunity to wear.

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