“Being gay isn’t about being white,” says Aisha, one of the founders of DIAM (Diversity of Identities and Acceptance of All Minds), an Edmonton group that brings together people who are both sexual and visible minorities. Aisha, a second-generation Canadian lesbian whose family maintains a strong relationship with its Filipino roots, sees a lot of value in bringing together her experiences of being sexually, visibly and culturally different from the homogenous white majority of Edmonton—but getting to this point hasn’t been without its struggles.
Living in a visual age where gay is seen by many as the white man or western man’s sickness and is typified by white, physically fit people being outed by Perez Hilton and bamboozling themselves on TV and in the movies doesn’t leave a lot of room for a butch/fem (depending on her mood) lady lover who wants to dance at the gay bar while not having to sacrifice a healthy open relationship with her mother.
Aisha, who prefers not to use her last name out of respect for her family, describes not only having to carve out a place that allows her room to express all parts of herself, but also relays the pressure she feels from her family to conform, be respectful and not erode the traditions they have fought so hard to keep up in a country that would just as soon see them assimilated. It is an experience of being squeezed on all fronts, not to mention from within.
Part of the pressure comes from the narrow way society views sexuality. “We still talk about being gay in a North American way,” Aisha says, and she’s right. This year at the International AIDS conference in Mexico City Shivananda Khan, executive director of the Naz Foundation International urged caution when doing LGBTT advocacy in other countries, since labelling someone gay in a society that denies that homosexuality exists can have fatal consequences.
Growing up understanding that she was different, Aisha saw no examples and was provided no templates to help guide her. Gay was either what was portrayed in Hollywood movies—white, sex-addicted, funny—or what she could gather from the limited examples she saw in Filipino culture—swishy men wearing lady’s dresses. It was from that experience that she began to understand it was going to be hard to define who she was in a society obsessed with simple labels. Compounding it all was her admirable refusal to relinquish parts of herself, like her cultural background, just to make life easier.
It is this inability to turn their backs on family and culture that provides the greatest strife for gay visible minorities. It is also the strong connection to family that in some cases makes being gay OK. Aisha’s friend and DIAM co-founder had for the longest time not told his parents that he was gay, but their only concern when he finally did was that he still maintain his duties as a son and take care of his family. For him this was a good scenario—he was able to take care of himself and his family.
For a group of guys from Team Edmonton, being gay and coming from a non-white background provided them with an opportunity to think differently and examine everything that had been passed down to them. “It gave me a reason to be different,” says Kwok, who is Chinese, “because I already knew I was different.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Norman and Jackie, who are also Chinese and gay, which led to a discussion on how being gay relates to the transnational issue of being CBC (Canadian-born Chinese) and the experience of lost identity—not being seen as Canadian by Canadians, and not seen as Chinese by people in China. In a way, being gay gave them an escape route and allowed them to consider what it was to be outside of labels altogether.
All three, along with Carlos, who comes from El Salvador, say that the majority of issues came not from being gay in their families, but from being a visible minority in Edmonton’s gay culture. While they all agree that things are getting better, each has their own stories of ignorance, fetishization and discrimination that came from within Edmonton’s gay community. Norman pointed to generalizations like someone who is Asian and gay automatically being seen as passive, as a bottom or only into white guys. He remembers once being told at a bar in the city to “stick to your own kind.” Jackie recalls how being Chinese seems to rule out in other people’s minds the possibility that he might also be gay. “They see me as Chinese first and can’t even conceive that there is more to me than that.”
Carlos has a slightly different experience, and uses being visibly different as his competitive edge at the bars. As someone who grew up not really relating to his Salvadoran roots, Carlos now plays it up to his advantage at the gay bars. “When a Latin song comes on I am front and centre on the dance floor. I know that this is my time.” He doesn’t mind that some guys would be into him just because he is Latin. For others, being seen first as Latin, Chinese or Black can be an issue. Aisha has a friend in the DIAM group, a black gay man, who is tired of being seen as a conquest by white guys who want to fulfill the fantasy of being with a black man.
Another member of DIAM is a Muslim lesbian who wears a hijab. For her to go out and be a part of Edmonton’s gay scene is almost impossible. Even if she can get up the nerve to go to a gay bar, there is the reality that once she gets in she is seen first and foremost as a Muslim, rather than a woman looking to dance and have a good time. Nothing kills the mood more than being seen as a terrorist when you’re just trying to dance to a Madonna song.
These stories, which blend ethnic and sexual identities together, are not readily available in mainstream media, in school curriculum or heard over holiday dinner. That, says Aisha, is why DIAM exists.
“We couldn’t find ourselves in the queer community and no one talks about these things in our homes, so we come together and illuminate for each other what it is to be gay and ourselves.”
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