homophobia – Page 4 – Hearts Still Care

Albus Dumbledore and the Convenient Closet

Published on January 3, 2020November 29, 2024 by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

I have always been a fan of fantasy. Before I began my journey with the books of Tolkien, Rowling, Paolini, Guin, Pullman, I devoured Enid Blyton, Tintin, Asterix and then historical romances. Yep, I am a sucker for a happy ending and knights in shining armour. Then you have Strider, blazing through the North and rescuing Frodo. Gandalf the Grey standing at the bridge of Khazad-dum and yelling, well, you know. And then when I turned 23, at the pinnacle of heart break, a friend gifts me my first Harry Potter. In it, he inscribes, “to magic your pessimism away.”

I will never forget that. Twenty-two years later we still reminisce on that moment. But twenty-two years later, Rowling tweets, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?” With this she declared herself firmly on the side of a transphobe who refuses to acknowledge that people born as men can transition into women and vice versa.

There are so many things wrong with the world today. Too many to count. I have been disillusioned and crestfallen at the plight of humanity. Through the years, though I have been allowed to build certain notions about certain people. People who otherwise seem woke. I mention this because I have people whom I love and cherish, who love me in return, but who have blinded themselves to certain political stances that abuse basic human rights. These are people I live with and break bread with.

So, I understand that everyone has a right to their own opinion. But some opinions are just – so against open-minded thought. How can I not say that the opinion is wrong? One of my friends, who is well-versed in mythic structures, tells me how the west, rooted in Abrahamic thought, sees things as absolutes. These are black and white pillars, with not a shred of grey in between. And I would argue with him about Tolkien and Rowling…

Irrespective of the fact that Sauron is all evil, I point out that Gollum is an amalgamation of grey. Irrespective of the fact that Voldemort is purely black, I point out how Harry and Ron both show tendencies of the negative. For the sake of what I am feeling, I will restrict this piece to Rowling. She helped me leave the world that seemed so bleak, at a time when my heart broke by the shattering of a first love. She took me into a flight of fantasy that I had not felt since I understood Tolkien. I loved Hedwig and I loved Hermione and I loved Dumbledore.

I have been effeminate growing up. I have been ridiculed and harassed and bullied. I have been beaten and terrorised by my own father, for being a boy who was understanding a different sexuality. I learnt to behave in a certain way through fear and conditioning by my peers. I never thought that I needed to transition. I was asked this once by a very dear aunt. I knew I liked boys then, I knew I was gay and I did not want to transition into a woman. But I followed all stories of any alternate sexuality and I felt a bond with them, like most of us who are searching for camaraderie and similarity, in a world that doesn’t make sense and that is bent on rejection, instead of acceptance. I learnt that the world is built from many, many colours and mine could be my own and I could allow it to be different, at different times.

Life is fluid.

When I read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, I wondered why this stark differentiation between Slytherin and the rest of the houses? Would all Slytherins prove to be negative? When I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I identified with Remus Lupin. But Rowling had other plans for him with Tonks. Then I realised something unexpected was afoot, when Dumbledore takes Fawkes and disappears from his office in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. “He’s got style” could be said of so many queer people, after all. The hints of his relationship with Grindelwald made me squirm with joy. But nothing was ever – ever – overtly mentioned. I made arguments on the reason for this. I stood up for her writing.

As I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I was so consumed by the brilliance of Snape, I avoided the horror that was the portrayal of Voldemort. The dark in the villain let in not a shred of light. He became Palpatine, he became Sauron. There was nothing fluid there. It was just a void. That was the only book of the series that I read only once.

After the series ended, after the Deathly Hallows broke its records, after the hoopla died down, she calmly mentioned that Dumbledore was gay, in 2007. When I heard the news, I was over the moon. Gradually, I heard the arguments of how she had kept Dumbledore in a closet according to convenience and how she outed him as per similar suitability… of course, I once again had my arguments ready. She didn’t need to explain his sexuality when she had hardly mentioned anything much about his past in the first place. And Dumbledore was hardly a happy character, he was manipulative, a recovering fascist, a person who believed in ultimate sacrifices from those who could only be conceived as ‘casualties of war’. Although there was one question, I never really asked –

Would it have made a difference to me, as an out, proud, gay man? All those years ago, while getting over a heart break, and worrying about society, and coming out and father figures letting me down… would it have made any difference to read if someone I admired in a fictional work, that was breaking records all over the world, that was bringing children back to the written word? Would it have? Would it have made a difference knowing that the Dumbledore, I grew with in the course of a decade, was gay? That Dumbledore who had a twinkle in his eyes, who wore outlandish clothes and said the most bizarre and beautiful things, who helped the main three at every turn, who so, so many looked up to, was gay?

Simply put, yes.

On a blog, a writer stated, Rowling “has fetishized Dumbledore’s gay pain so much that she is unwilling to write any healing for him.” Which is a complete fact. Both the homosexuals, in the series, suffer and probably, justifiably, but there you have it – crime and punishment. Where is the rising above? Where is the buoyancy of spirit? Where is the resurrection? Where is the coming out – if not of sexuality, of love? Queer identity, by its history, finds momentum by acts of bravery and expression. But I forget, that happens in the real world, in my world.

On 19th December, 2019, I read Rowling’s tweet. At first, I thought I mistook the meaning behind what was written. Then I searched for context. I found it. I understood it. Then read the tweet again. I was shaken. At that point in time, I understood that she did not understand. She, like so many others in life, did not comprehend the beauty of difference, of diversity and the spectrum of existence. None of us can know it all. Most of us try. She was not one of those. Hermione Granger would probably look at her creator and cringe … because irrespective of the fact that Harry Potter and J K Rowling share the same birthday, to my chagrin, I find that Rowling has more in common with James Potter.

That being said, a writer I value a lot, a mentor, realised how I was feeling. He appreciated my perspective and tried to help me align world views. He quietly sent me a WhatsApp message: “Someone who hates Nazis can be awkward with homosexuals. We don’t have to punish her. Why does she have to carry a flag for gay people, when it’s not her lived experience. She did her best. We can’t love people when they do ‘approved’ behaviour.” He ended, “The jackfruit does not bear grapes.” And I felt as though I was Harry, at the end of one book, in the series, and he was Dumbledore, (a confident, wise, out gay man) talking to me of the lessons I needed to learn after experience.

I have wondered what the ones with alternate sexuality who are also fans of the series are feeling. When someone with a voice as big as Rowling’s speaks out against one’s identity, how does one consign to the fact that hers is just one voice? But that is just what we have to remember! No matter how big or dynamic it is, another voice should have no impact on who you are or who you wish to become. It is a voice, with great power, but we have to understand, it speaks from its own limitations and experiences. Every human being is flawed. Dumbledore is flawed. Rowling is flawed. And so, ultimately, the voice that you have to listen to must always come from within you and based on your own experiences.

Edited: 29 November, 2024

What Then Is Homophobia?

Published on January 23, 2017July 18, 2024 by Harpreet Chhachhia2 Comments

I am gay. I knew what to call myself at the age of thirteen. How? I was teased in school. Before that I knew that I liked guys. Sexually. My sexual awakening happened when I saw Christopher Reeve fly through the sky in 1980 as Superman. He was and still remains a fantasy for me. I didn’t know why I liked him. I just did. Now of course, I know plenty of reasons why I did. Daddy issues, idol issues, the need to be protected by someone larger that life who was male, a plethora of reasons, actually. Almost ascribing to all the clichés one can think of.

No, I found out what to call myself by a boy in school who wanted me. When I didn’t really understand what he was after, he didn’t have the guts to actually voice it out himself, and what followed was him name calling. One of the names being ‘gay’. I began to read about it and what followed was a journey of self discovery. I read and I read and I read. I devoured everything that came my way in book form. The book that really was an eye-opener was Nancy Friday’s “Men in Love” – gosh, that book was really something. I learnt how to notice my body, how men would think, what different kinds of sexual thought pervaded the human mind. I realised early that sexuality is fluid and I wasn’t the only one who fantasized – and that my fantasies were pretty ‘vanilla’.

Through my teens, I was awkward, a book worm, a geek, a nerd, a momma’s boy. Name a derogatory word, in the likes of ‘pansy’, ‘sissy’ and I have been called it. It was difficult growing into someone who wasn’t afraid of the world. I didn’t know I had it in me when I was mocked in front of an entire Economics class, during high school, in what was termed as ‘Icy Day’, a day where boys and girls sent out anonymous mint candies to people they liked. Someone, presumably a secret male admirer, had sent me scores of them and each of them had messages that were read out before the entire class. Pithy messages in Hindi declaring infatuation – and of course, I smiled through it all. Intuitively, I knew I was the butt of a joke. The class laughed and I smiled. Inwardly, I was frozen.

When I left, the class representative, his name was Shiamak, came up to me and asked me, ‘are you gay?’ I looked up at him and said, coolly, ‘why? Are you asking me out on a date?’ Post that burn, he never said anything to me and no one ever teased me in that year.

I learned to walk differently, I dressed differently, I moved out of a zone and into another. Much later, I realised something. Throughout my formative years, I had no real male figure to look up to, I was surrounded by these amazingly accomplished women, who I wished to emulate and be like. So I adopted their mannerisms and affectations. Moreover, I was under the impression that to attract a man one needed to be like a woman.

As I grew and educated myself on the gay subculture, I realised that I could choose to be who I am and I had to act like no specific gender in order to be liked. I read and books like ‘The Persian Boy’, ‘Men in Love’, ‘Maurice’, and movies like ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’, ‘Get Real’, ‘Victor Victoria’, made me appreciate who I could be, and I became me. The three years of degree college, immersing myself in Literature and Psychology, molded me into someone who had no reservations of being effeminate and no remorse about being manly. I understood that there was no such word as ‘normal’ and one needs to just be true to himself.

I came out to my mother at the age of sixteen. My first step to being out as a gay man. The process wasn’t a painful one, but the anxiety that formed its prologue was agony. The fear of a boy trying desperately not to allow the love his mother has for him change, on account of something he cannot change, is always filled with such pathos and such trepidation. Someone asked me why do gay guys celebrate pride – in my head, there are a million reasons, but the most important one is this: A homosexual child has years of either fear, or resilience, or anxiety, or loss, or merciless browbeating, or sacrifice, or pain, or confusion, or pressure, or regret or all of it together until that moment when he recognises who he is, and takes the step out of a dark closet. That step, to me, is why we have Pride.

Over the years, I have struggled, not greatly, but in the countless, little moments, when a student pokes fun, or when a family member smirks at another, or when the doorman gives you an all-knowing look, or a straight friend makes a casual remark that is hurtful… and these are many… but in effect, these mean little when I expect two entities to appreciate the fact that I have rights just as any straight man. The first being my family and the second being my country.

I have been proud of both, throughout my life. My family is fantastic, anyone who has met them knows this to be true. My country is mine – the place where I was born, the climate I love, the people who recognise me as a part of the earth I played on. I refused to give it up for a land of opportunity. I fell in love with someone who wanted me to move with him to a foreign land… and I gave that up because of these two entities. I do not regret that move. Never have.

Until the Supreme Court verdict upholding Section 377 in 2013. It broke my heart. Then in 2014, my family supported a rise to power that spoke clearly against homosexuality. That shook my belief in the support system I had. It wasn’t cataclysmic, it was insidious and it was there. I didn’t understand the logic behind it. My faith was shaken.

The second time that happened was from the only other safe ground I have left to me. The Community. I have always looked to the gay subculture as my second family. I got into the ‘circuit’ when I was recovering from the heartbreak of a first love. I could never gain complete succour from people who loved me but were straight. Somehow in my mind, they didn’t really understand what had happened. They blamed the boy I was in love with as having a bad character, but it was deeper that that. He wanted to be famous and his career wouldn’t make any concession for his being gay. He was scared, true, but he was scared because he was gay. He had something to lose, something he wanted desperately. Only another gay person could relate to this feeling of seclusion, and yet of being one. It is a paradox.

So I found my place to be, at twenty-two, at a meeting I was randomly invited to. You know the feeling where you hear people speak a language and you instantly recognise it as your own? That was what happened. I revelled at finding this safe zone. This place where I could talk and be heard and more importantly, be understood, because of the advantage of common experience. It felt liberating.

Over the years, I realised that human beings do not think collectively. Which is fine. But they also do not like to think about a thought opposed to their own. In the past few months, I have realised this to be glaringly apparent. On gay dating apps, there are words like ‘straight-acting’, ‘no fems’, ‘no sissies’… these transport me back into that corridor outside that classroom with that boy whose sole purpose at that point in time was to belittle my spirit, to hollow out something that he would never understand. I am instantly transported back to that time when a gay friend of mine says that walking the Pride is unnecessary but he will be there at the party that happens post it.

But of late, that corridor seems to be the world, including the one in which I thought I was safe and secure. The term internalised homophobia has more than one meaning. It’s not necessarily self-hate because of being queer, it could just as easily be hate towards the other, because the rainbow flag apparently has begun to discriminate from within. People see what they want to see, blinders can also be rainbow coloured. The plight of common experience is not enough anymore to bind people together. We are caught up with our own petty grievances. This is what enrages me.

I have been cheated. Over and over and over.

Where is this united front that we talk about? We smile at each other, the way I smiled so long ago, on that day of those icy declarations that froze my heart. People say I love you and go and vote for someone who agrees with the fact that I am a criminal. We decide to walk hand in hand in Pride, but cannot wait to accuse the other for personal gain, when the gain basically is for part of the larger community any which way. We cannot see beyond the circles of what we consider Right. Common experience has no value. A common enemy has no prestige. Different though is irrelevant. But one’s own differences should be appreciated?

I will walk the Pride. I will continue to love my families, the straight and the gay. But this year, I will do this with a part of me dead.