Bisexual men exist, p.16
Bisexual Men Exist, page 16
This cultivates a culture of shame. You often hear phrases like, ‘Don’t you have any shame?’ or, ‘What will people think?’ This is used to encourage people to follow the unwritten rules of the community and fall in line with expectations, or else risk bringing shame on their family and ruining their social standing. Certain topics or conversations become taboo and people will hide or even lie about certain personal details in order to not create a scandal and be shamed by the community for their behaviour.
There were numerous incidents where I bore witness to the culture of shame within my community, either directly aimed at my behaviour or at those around me. One example of this which really stands out was my inability to hang out with any of my school friends who were women, mostly after school but sometimes even during school hours.
There was a concern that if they were seen with me, other people in the community might see our relationship as something sexual or romantic, rather than just the friendly relationship we held. The fear was that this would become idle gossip in the community, which would bring shame to their family, and might get back to their parents, which would create tensions in the family.
This line of thinking meant that my friends would often tell me that they couldn’t hang out, or not hang out in certain areas where they might be seen by certain people prone to gossip. However, this could even come up in the school grounds, with their older brothers sometimes probing the nature of our friendship.
This culture of shame directly impacted me on numerous occasions, including when I came out. After coming out to my family, I recall my mum telling me that my dad was concerned about ‘other people finding out’. They wanted me to keep my sexuality a secret, hidden. To me this felt like remaining closeted and hiding my identity.
When I told her that I would be talking publicly about my sexuality by posting in on Facebook, my mum tried to dissuade me from doing so. She questioned why I felt the need to do that, told me that it was unnecessary and nobody’s business and I should just keep it to myself. This made me feel as if my sexuality was indeed something scandalous, something to be ashamed about. It followed the same pattern that is so often seen in our community.
Kamal is mixed race and while he is South Asian and the culture is quite conservative, his family have been known to push back against the norms, with the women in his family being incredibly successful and proudly feminist as far back as the 1940s and 50s.
The one thing he did notice was that his family were very much silent about LGBTQIA+ people. On a number of occasions, he was told by family members about certain LGBTQIA+ people they grew up with, but it was always in one-on-one conversations and said in hushed tones. Again, this brings us back to LGBTQIA+ identities being taboo and shameful, talked about in secret rather than something to be out and proud about.
Kamal also mentioned that he has a couple of family members who are gay but are ‘allowed’ to exist because they’re very successful artists and nobody mentions their sexuality overtly. So it seems that to Kamal, if you’re rich enough and silent enough, nobody cares.
Christianity
Kamal is also Black and said that the culture on this side of his family is incredibly homophobic, biphobic and transphobic, but he has been largely shielded from this due to his parent being estranged from his family.
He told me that the patriarchy and Christianity are very much linked to the culture and it means that the gender norms are fairly conservative and traditional, at least in theory. Kamal noted that there have been a number of transgressions from these gender norms on this side of his family, such as stay at home dads. This is partly people paying lip-service to traditionalism and religion without following it but also remnants of pre-colonial culture, where the gender power dynamic was less extreme and women played a more active part in public life.
Joseph and Blizzb3ar agreed with Kamal in that Christianity is intrinsically linked to their culture. Joseph said that instead of the ‘What will others say?’ that I often experienced in the British Indian community, he often heard, ‘What will God think?’ He said that the Bible is often brought up when people transgress the expectations of the community, in order to shame their behaviour and force them to change.
Joseph explained that has impacted his relationship with his mum, who believes that his behaviour is sinful. This attitude is hard to change as she believes that if the Bible says that it is wrong, then it’s wrong and there’s no changing that. Even when she is faced with information that contradicts her beliefs, she is stubborn and refuses to change her mind. This is also common in his culture, and Joseph feels that she will only change her mind if someone her age or older informs her otherwise, as his culture is also heavily steeped in ‘listen to and respect your elders’, which is something I see in my own community too.
Blizzb3ar had a similar experience to Joseph. Blizzb3ar told me that people in his community often put God before their family. He said that there is often a lack of compassion from the Christian community, who constantly repeat the rhetoric that being LGBTQIA+ is bad and that you’re going to Hell. He noticed that people in his church would refuse to acknowledge the identity of LGBTQIA+ people, but would still condemn them for it. He would hear phrases like ‘this isn’t you’ or ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’, and it almost felt as if they viewed LGBTQIA+ people as a project, where they could save them from their sin.
Blizzb3ar told me that coming out to his family didn’t go well. When he first told his mum she was incredibly negative towards him. She yelled at him, called him a sinner, questioned who he was and didn’t speak to him for an extended period. Eventually, she put it to the back of her mind as she thought it was all a phase and there was a chance he would end up with a woman.
In a similar way to my own community, in Blizzb3ar’s community pride and image are hugely important as everyone wants to be the model family, the one everyone looks up to. He said that when he brought up his identity again, his mum asked, ‘Why would you do this to me?’, as if he was tarnishing the family image. Blizzb3ar lived with his family for three years after college but found himself constantly put down and unable to be himself. After coming out for the third time to his family the conversation got very heated and, as a result, he moved out of home and now barely talks to his parents. He told his parents that if he gets married and has kids, they won’t be there.
Colonialization
It would be remiss of me to discuss these issues without considering the impact of colonialization.
In India, homosexuality was illegal for over 100 years. However the law, section 377, which made homosexuality illegal, was put in place by the British during their rule over India. While it didn’t explicitly include the word ‘homosexual’, it made sexual acts that were deemed against the natural order illegal. Therefore, this law was used to criminalize and prosecute homosexual activity.
India wasn’t alone in this. Various other countries, including Jamaica where Joseph’s family originate from, also had similar laws, often called buggery laws, which were put in place by the British when they ruled these countries. While the British Empire is over and most if not all of these countries have gained independence from the UK, these laws are still in place and have become entrenched in the culture of the country and the community.
However, prior to these laws being placed, there is evidence that these countries were a lot more accepting of LGBTQIA+ identities. In India, there are sculptures, texts and poetry that show that same-sex attraction was seen as acceptable. Joseph told me that what little he has seen has shown this to be true in Jamaica as well. Joseph also said that he has seen documents which show that in certain civilisations in Western Africa, it used to be acceptable for two men to hold hands even as friends. In fact, an article from Stonewall (Buckle 2020) highlights how numerous African countries were accepting of LGBTQIA+ identities prior to colonialization; for example Egypt, where two men were found buried together in a lovers’ embrace, or Angola, where men dressed in women’s apparel.
More and more of this history is being unearthed, showing that these countries did not criminalize or villainize LGBTQIA+ identities prior to British rule. In fact, the British likely saw these sexual acts and displays of gender expression in these countries and deemed them wrong, marked the people as savages and sought to civilize them by putting down these laws.
Christianity played a huge part in this. Christianity fuelled British views on the behaviour of those in the countries they were colonizing. Same-sex acts were seen as sinful, as we have already noted, which is why they saw these people as savages for engaging in such behaviour. As the British colonized different areas of the world, they exported Christianity and sought to bring these people into God’s light.
It should be noted that it was not the British alone who were responsible for colonialization and the spread of Western European Christianity. The French, Spanish and Portuguese, among others, all played a part in sending missionaries out to various countries, and each had their own empires.
So while colonial powers (e.g. the British in India) were responsible for the laws around the world that criminalized same-sex sexual acts and LGBTQIA+ identities, we cannot downplay the impact of the spread of Western European Christianity by these other powers and how it altered the views, perceptions and culture of these communities.
These views have impacted the culture of these communities greatly, including the diaspora communities. As people moved from their native country to countries in the western world, such as the UK and the US, they have brought these views over with them and this forms the bedrock of the culture of the diaspora communities. This is then reinforced by the deeply embedded structural heterosexism and heteronormativity in the UK and US.
Even as the culture in places like India, among others, shifts as they shed the laws and rules imposed by colonialization, in my personal opinion it often feels as if the culture in the diaspora has been slower to change (but of course different parts of a community can grow and change in different ways). My British Indian community often holds on to the toxic attitudes that existed within their native land when they left, refusing to critique, analyse or change their ideas. They believe that if they do so, they are letting go of their culture, losing their connection to their motherland and assimilating into whiteness.
I have often been called a coconut for straying away from what it means to be a South Asian man. Coconut is a term that means brown on the outside and white on the inside and is often used in a derogatory fashion to shame someone for their behaviours. If I indulged in anything seen to be ‘other’, from music to TV shows, to the way I spoke to people or dressed, it prompted people to call me a coconut – this is to say that I am not a ‘proper’ Indian, that I am out of touch with my culture, that I have been altered (for the worse) by being born in the UK.
This can also revolve around queerness. Joseph told me that his queerness often gets labelled as white behaviour. He said that people from his community state that they won’t be able to become free because of people like him doing what the white people tell them to do. He has been labelled an Oreo as a result, meaning, similar to coconut, black on the outside and white on the inside.
It is frustrating that our communities don’t seem to realize that the concept of being queer is not a white concept, but was part of our culture before white people interjected and changed it. In fact, being against LGBTQIA+ identities is upholding white supremacy.
Worse than this, these attitudes in our communities mean that white people, who have (at least in some ways) moved on from their objections to LGBTQIA+ identities, see people of colour as regressive. As places like the UK have removed their buggery laws, legalized same-sex marriage and started teaching about LGBTQIA+ identities in schools, they see themselves as progressive and other countries that are behind them in this regard as backwards.
It feels as if the savages narrative has been flipped. Where we were once labelled savages for our so-called sexual deviancy, allowing same-sex acts to occur without restriction, we are now being labelled as such for outlawing such behaviour. This misses the fact that we never technically outlawed this behaviour; it was a restriction placed on us by British rule and these countries are still trying to undo the harm of colonialization.
This is an important conversation to have. So often when we discuss the struggles LGBTQIA+ people of colour face due to the queerphobic discrimination within our own community, we don’t talk about the root cause of this. This can mean we play into this narrative that people of colour are regressive or backwards. The context here is necessary to explain how this culture has been formed and the work our community is doing to try to separate our culture from the colonial mindset.
In POC communities
All of this means that many queer people of colour, such as myself, do not feel safe within their cultural community. They fear that if they were to be visibly queer in this space, they may experience discrimination.
I often feel out of place in my British Indian community. I often get looks or have people make comments about me and the way I look, my lack of masculinity. I don’t think I would feel very safe being open about my bisexuality in these spaces. I have walked around Southall with my boyfriend and while I didn’t experience any discrimination when I was there, I did feel somewhat on edge as I was fearful of what could happen.
Joseph told me that while he doesn’t hide his identity on the occasion he attends Black, non-queer community events (often with family), he also doesn’t showcase his identity in this space. He said that he wouldn’t bring his partners to this space and loudly out himself as he wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so. He fears if he did, he would garner a lot of judgemental looks and people would tell him to stop or leave.
In the LGBTQIA+ community
Entering LGBTQIA+ spaces was a big step for me in owning my sexuality and identity. But I learned pretty quickly that I wouldn’t be fully accepted in these spaces. LGBTQIA+ spaces are often very white dominated, and this can make them quite unsettling places for a queer person of colour such as myself.
I found that while people in this space could relate to me on some level in regard to my experiences with my sexuality, there was a lot that they didn’t quite understand. They didn’t get how my race played a factor in my experiences when it came to my sexuality. They didn’t understand the experience of being both bi and a person of colour. I struggled with feeling seen in these spaces. It felt lonely when I didn’t have people who could empathize with my situation or understand the complexities surrounding it.
Worse than this, I found that I wasn’t always welcome in LGBTQIA+ spaces. I would often get looks when entering these spaces, unwelcoming ones. It felt as if I was something foreign, unexpected and unwanted.
On apps, I would see both racism and fetishization. ‘No fats, no femmes, no Asians’ was a common thing people would put in their profiles on apps like Grindr, along with others like ‘no rice’ or people looking for a ‘big black cock’. These sorts of comments made me feel objectified and commodified, and gave me a feeling of being unsafe in these spaces. And I know I’m not alone in feeling like this.
I also realized that my views were unwelcome in LGBTQIA+ spaces. I found I could no longer bring up topics around race without people trying to silence me. Topics such as institutional racism, cultural appropriation and reverse racism were often met with defensiveness, criticism, white fragility and silencing.
Joseph also experienced issues in the LGBTQIA+ community. He often found himself fetishized, both in person and on dating and hook-up apps. He saw people seeking a ‘big black cock’ or ‘BBC’ as it is often known, and was even asked outright if he had one. He found that people saw him as masculine, dominant and aggressive because of his Blackness, and fetishized that.
Blizzb3ar experienced similar issues on apps such as Grindr. He told me that in the LGBTQIA+ community, white people were often favoured and this damaged his self-esteem as he didn’t see himself as preferable. When he did get attention on Grindr, he often felt as if it was his only opportunity, but these were often cases of fetishization. He, like Joseph, also experienced instances of people asking if he had a ‘BBC’ or ‘big Black cock’ and once got a message where someone said ‘Give me that monkey cock’. Blizzb3ar told me that Grindr and similar apps ruined his mental health and if he could go back, he would have stopped himself from using them.
This issue isn’t only present in the LGBTQIA+ community. Joseph experienced this from cisallohet people too, especially white cisallohet women. There are women who call themselves ‘Queen of Spades’ and sometimes get this, or a black spade, tattooed on them. These are women who sleep exclusively with Black men, even when they have a husband who is white or non-Black. They call the Black men ‘bulls’, to define them as the alpha male.
This whole subculture is extremely fetishizing, incredibly objectifying and rooted in racism and anti-Blackness. While these issues aren’t restricted to the LGBTQIA+ community alone, it shows that the LGBTQIA+ community is just a microcosm of society as a whole. Racism doesn’t disappear just because the community is marginalized. White LGBTQIA+ people are still white and can and do uphold racism and white supremacy.
In fact, statistics from Stonewall (2018) show that 51 per cent of LGBT people of colour experienced racism within their local LGBT community. And when looking specifically at Black people, 61 per cent of Black LGBT people experienced racism in their local LGBT community.
Being M-spec and POC
