377. The Law on which the Sun Never Set

SUSANA: “I wanted to be the girl; I did not want to marry someone else”

In front of a mirror in her bedroom in Colombo, after turning off the hairdryer and making her eyes up with the skills that she learned from YouTube tutorials, Susana explains that when she retired as an accountant, she put the suit and tie in a closet, talked to her wife and came out as a trans woman. She had been struggling with her identity for nearly 70 years. Susana, 72, came out as a trans woman when she retired. She is still married to her wife, a Muslim woman.

Susana, who was raised in a Sri Lankan Muslim family, remembers that when she was three or four years old, she always wanted to be with women, “and I stand in my little cloths acting like a woman, so my mom and all my relatives used to call me “pissu lama” (“mad child” in Sinhalese),” she reminds.

The only conversation about her identity at home came as a teenager when her mother found a bra on the bed, and her father asked her: "Are you gay?" It was the first time that Susana heard that word. “Gay?, I said; what do you mean by gay? Until then, I thought the word  ‘gay’ meant ‘happy’,but I knew my father meant something different,” she explains.

Then, she grew up, passed the exam as an accountant, and got a good job.“And as in other Sri Lankan or Asian families, when you get a job, we all say that we are available in the marriage market,” she explains. Thus, her parents began to look for a girl for her to marry. “I said: I am not ready, I am not ready, I am not ready… because I wanted to be the girl, I did not want to marry someone else,” she remembers.

But then, her parents forced her to marry, and it was a very difficult marriage. They had a daughter, they got divorced, and she remarried. Just only now, after retirement, she took the step and she came out, and “I decided that this would be my life”. 

NGOs have reported numerous cases from LGBTIQ+ individuals in Sri Lanka forced into heterosexual marriages, usually by their family members. Susana says Sections 365 and 365A did not directly affect her, "but since the law is there, people are afraid."

SHERMAN & MANJU: “They can just come here and talk safely”

On the second floor, above a hairdresser, there is a rainbow flag on the wall. Outside you can hear the melody of motorcycles, tuk-tuks and the chirping of the birds. Sherman de Rose opens the door of a drop-in centre for the LGBT community in Colombo.

Sherman de Rose founded the first LGBTQ organization in Sri Lanka, Companions on a Journey, in 1995 and is considered the first gay man who publicly came out in Sri Lanka.  Raised in a Christian family in Colombo, he wanted to become a priest as a young man.

De Rose keeps in an album some newspaper clippings from a decades-long struggle. Companions on a Journey was created to fight for the decriminalization of homosexuality on the island. In addition, they organized meeting spaces for the community, a monthly magazine and a drag beauty contest, daring in the 90s and in the context of a criminalized country. He remembers that they received support but also insults and threats.

In 2012, the organization had to close.  They had been accused in media as a group of “promoting homosexuality”. De Rose remembers that police searched the office, and some activists were questioned for hours. He left the country for some years.

Manju, an activist, who works in the organization, explains that they offer several services for the community, “we have HIV testing, but we also offer an informal atmosphere where they can just come and talk safely, speak to each other, so it is a very friendly place.”  They also screen movies and borrow books. In the library an orange book stands out: “Funny Boy”, which is a famous novel about a gay boy in a Tamil family in Colombo who explore his identity during the civil war of the country.

As in other interviews, Manju explains that he suffered a lot of pressure from his family, particularly his elder brother, who wanted to force him to marry a woman.

AZAD: “If we were an open society, we could have saved that boy”

“In the last few years, so many gay people have died in Sri Lanka, they can’t handle the pressure, the pressure of life, the pressure of the society against the culture, so many, young people,” says Azad Moulana, 45, while drinking a tea in a café in Colombo.

Azad is a Sri Lankan Muslim man working in the creative industry. He explains that recently a friend told him about a young gay man, “apparently he was a really nice guy, there was nothing wrong and one day, just before going to work, he hanged himself and he has died.” “But if it was an open society, we could have helped that boy,” he adds.

He says there are a lot of gay people in Sri Lanka, suffocated by society, in sham marriages or who just can't handle the pressure. Azad feels lucky because his family always supported him. He came out to his father when he was 21: “It was a small bonus because my father is a doctor,” he adds. “I felt he needed to tell it.” In his opinion, the conversation “was ok, but the acceptance only happened later on.”

We met Azad's father, Dr Aleem Moulana, in Colombo on a warm afternoon in his house. He is sitting in a wicker chair next to a shelf full of books on medicine, history, religion, and a family portrait. There is a yellow rosary on the table. He is a medical doctor, a grandfather and a Muslim, "very religious but not fanatical," he puts it.

“To be frank, at that time, when my son, my only son, suddenly said something like this, it came to me as a surprise, a shock, but not sadness,” he remembers. “My wife was not so concerned either, she said this is his destiny, so we are going to take the cooperation with him, that’s all, we can fight with him.” “But as far as our community concern, the Muslim community, it is a little difficult because not all the parents are like us, they have a lot of restrictions,” he continues.

Dr Moulana believes those moral standards that did not correspond to their culture were imposed on the island during the British rule: “Actually, before European came, this country was very natural, everything was so broad-minded. Not only here but even in India, and after the British came, they restricted everything, they did everything legal and illegal,” he adds.

He thinks it is time for religious groups, politicians, organizations, and the LGBTIQ+ community to “sit and talk.”

JOSH: “I wanted to be Batman”

In October 2017, Josh had suicidal thoughts and called his brother. Some weeks before, he had checked his “parent mindset asking them if it was a sin to be a trans person”. “Because my mother is very religious and my family is very conservative,” he explains.

Then he called his brother:

--“I am calling to tell you that I am not the person you think. I am a man”, Josh said on the phone.
--"What are you saying?” his brother replied.
--“I am saying that I am a man, I am not the person you think, and I have these suicidal thoughts. I want to do something.”

Josh switched off, and after some minutes, he had five calls from her mom. “Initially, she did not understand it, but she always supported me,” Josh remembers in a café in Colombo.

In a world where everything needs a name, Josh is a 33-year-old Christian Tamil man, a non-cisnormative man who does activism for transgender people rights and has recently become the first trans lawyer in Sri Lanka.

Josh explains that in his childhood, as he only had two brothers, he had no problem with his clothes because he wore what they had, and they were dressed similarly.

The first incident Josh remembers causing him pain was when he was five years old and was playing Batman. "My brother wanted to be Batman, and I wanted to be Batman too, but he said that I had to be Batwoman, and I didn't want to."

He also had difficulties at school because he studied in a Colombo girls-only school: "I always thought I had been put in the wrong place." “I was always angry, with a very strong temper. Always alone. Much later, I understood why.”

After studying three years in London, “where I had a terrible time and attempted to take my own life,” he returned to Sri Lanka and searched for a word on Youtube - “transformation.”

A student from the college in London was the first person to talk to him about trans people.

"I had seen transsexuals before but never thought it was me." “I didn't dare to write the word 'transgender' or 'trans' on the Internet, I was ashamed, so I wrote 'transformation', he explains.

He still remembers the video that helped him begin to understand each other. It was called "My Turner", and in it a young Canadian told his story.

After fighting many personal and social battles and surviving several suicide attempts, Josh became a lawyer. What about the future?

Josh believes that the next step to fight stigma is education: “In Sri Lanka, we don’t have proper sexual education.” He mentions the rural areas, where few people know about these laws, but there is a lot of stigma. “Education is the starting point, then we can start to talk about the legal changes,” he concludes.

SEVERUS

Severus explains that the section 145 of the Ugandan Penal Code Act is quite similar to the 377 section of the Indian Penal Code on “unnatural offences” that was introduced by the British in 1860 and has been used for over a century to normalize several injustices against LGBTI people and the hostile rhetoric around them.

Owamparo Severus is a psychologist and Director of The Taala Foundation.  His work over the past seven years has focused on access to mental health care and the promotion of the right to health, well-being, and dignity for sexual and gender minorities in Uganda and Africa broadly.

He is a trans man, scholar and published author. More recently, his interests have piqued around research into eco-functional systemic development, technology and human optimisation.

When not consumed by the flames of his passions, he enjoys teas, delicious healthy cuisine, the arts, exploration, spending quality time with his partner and being a proud guardian of their dog Suubi.

AMANDA

As a transgender person in Uganda, Amanda explains that they are “subject to blackmail, media outing and all forms of violence.” In 2017, her family found her sexual identity as a transgender person, and she was sent to a prison facility and submitted to police brutality - since then, she is afraid.

Kamanda Bosco (alias Amanda) is a transgender activist and human rights defender advocating for gender, LGBTIQ+ rights, sexual and reproductive health rights. Working in these areas, she reaches out to grassroots communities, particularly critical young populations, through the African Queer Youth Initiative. Kamanda is the co-chair of inclusion and diversity with the Society of Gender Professionals.

Kamanda is currently finishing an undergraduate degree in Business administration and working at Transgender Equality Uganda as a programs assistant. Kamanda is a civic graduate of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) and part of the Commonwealth Youth council on a special interest group committee. Kamanda has also worked with the youth coalition for sexual and reproductive Rights and Lancet standing commission on adolescent health and well-being.