Hello,
I worked on this piece to bring more attention to how expressive arts play a therapeutic role in a person's healing, especially those from the margins. It got published as a chapter in a book recently - Youth Entrepreneurship: A way to boost Indian Economy Competitiveness. I wanted to post here so that it can reach more people.
Introduction
"Queer" is used to identify oneself or as a community who differ themselves from heteronormative, monogamous people, in the orientations of gender, sexuality and relationally. It not only identifies gender, sexual and romantic identities as individuals but also the LGBTQIA+ as community (Sophie S T et al., 2022). From previous studies, it is noted that queer community face multifaceted struggles and abuses. Financial struggles are a given amongst other biopsychosocial issues such as - both physically and mentally like anxiety, depression, PTSD and substance abuse and social issues like not feeling a sense of safety anywhere starting from family and unable to fit in spaces like schools, colleges and workplaces (Wandrekar, J. R., & Nigudkar, A. S., 2020).
Evidence suggests, as they transition to their youth, minority stress builds up in ways of housing, identity crisis, workplace harassment, etc., coupled with poor support systems to meet their basic needs - financially, emotionally and physically. They experience stigma and abuse that makes it difficult to mingle with peers, from childhood through adolescence and especially in adulthood when most growth opportunities take place (Holman, E. G., 2018). Hence in a way they are socially excluded from the economic development as a society (Badgett, M. V., 2014). This case study has looked into the life of a queer youth who grew up in a metropolitan city, went through multiple abuses and suppression before blooming brightly in their career life.
"I purposefully hid my free expression…" - A confused queer boy in Indian society:
Kalyan is born as male sex, currently identifies themselves as queer as they are Nonbinary and Pansexual. They prefer pronouns of they/them/their. Even Though Kalyan's parents were from rural roots, Kalyan was the only child born and brought up in a metropolitan city and has been there for most of their life upto 26 years. They were born into lower socioeconomic status and was in a rental home with their parents. Father was working and mother was a housewife. Around their adolescence when stepping into 8th class, father was doing better with his business and they all moved to their own house when they had to change schools as well nearby to their house. During the same time, Kalyan became conscious and shameful of their effeminate behaviors in terms of - walking, talking and expressing themselves comfortably. These expressions were brought to discussions and turned as bullying by their family members, neighborhood, school friends and faculties. Manier times it turned to sexual abuses as well. These events constitute discriminating behavior by their family and peers which adds on as minority stress to an individual where in they are forced to conceal themselves (Kelleher, C., 2009)
"I started feeling different when I went to a new school and neighborhood. The environment told me my behavior, talking and walking are not like boys. I receive mean comments like any other queer person. People keenly notice me and make stigmatizing remarks. I take efforts to hide behaviors found faulty by others, still parents scold me. I couldn't understand at that time why I was feeling the way I was or why people around me were not fine with however I was"
In addition to realizing & facing varied and biased attentions from their surroundings, Kalyan was also experiencing attraction towards men which was highly distressing at that point. After a while there was attraction towards women also, so it felt even more confusing. They went through feelings of isolation as they could not really relate to someone else. There were more feelings of shame and need to conceal their true self for means of safety (McDonald, K., 2018).
"my attraction first started towards boys, I couldn't understand why I only felt this way. After a while I started feeling attracted towards girls too, it became confusing. because at that age I didn't know what I was going through, I did not know whom to talk about this or clarify my internal doubts. I started thinking the mistake is on me, didn't share about this with anyone, I will keep thinking about it. I purposefully hid my free expression, I went home and practiced how to walk and change my posture."
Feelings of isolation and pressure to conceal one's free expression for the means of safety puts anyone in vulnerable positions. Hence it becomes difficult to develop a self-concept that is positive enough to feel confident about oneself (Ranade, K., 2018). Thus structurally as part of human conditioning within society that dictates how a man and woman is supposed to behave and is not queer informed, naturally chooses to alienate and discriminate against those who do not fit in within these defined groups. This further leads to concealment and identity confusions that many other queer individuals go through. Emotional support or sense of belonging in a safe sense becomes a dubious concern especially when they are children or adolescents, which leads to social exclusion (Huerta, T., 2018).
"it was reassuring that there are people like me which gave me confidence…" - Queer developmental struggles:
Individuals who go through feelings of shame because of their nature, tend to be more isolated and have poor confidence in themselves as they are not able to relate with anyone, learn about self and develop positive reflected appraisals about themselves (Ranade, K., 2018). Thus developmentally - social, economic and emotional - it is not on par with their heteronormative peers. When stepping into adult life, confidence becomes the key to shine in one's career that serves as sustenance to life. Confidence is also a result of how self-aware the person is of their orientation in the society (Rofofsky, M., et al, 2016). Following verbatim talks about how Kalyan went on a path of integrating with their community as part of developing self-awareness and confidence.
"I knew my sexuality being different in 8th standard, but the understanding and acceptance happened when I started integrating more with my community people when I was about to graduate…
…I saw people of lgbtqia+ community expressing themselves freely, comfortably and confidently. they were in attires that are not conventional to gender and sex. I felt freedom there. In that space I was very comfortable, whatever I am hiding inside they are expressing, I am not sure if they are at peace in this world, but it was reassuring that there are people like me which gave me confidence. I started bonding with more queer people and reading in detail about gender and sexuality, that enriched my perspectives and confidence to field questions from others. Over a period of time most of my friend’s circle were queer people."
Individuals who have gone through abuse and discrimination develop the tendency to repress the painful memories (Worrell, S., et al., 2022). Similar occurrences have been there in Kalyan's life as well. There have been incidences of sexual abuse by family member and a teaching faculty at school. There were no support systems to handle these negative life experiences, contributing to suppression of negative feelings and beliefs about self and society. These memories resurfaced during Covid lockdown. Childhood trauma outbreaks in adulthood require serious attention and careful handling, preferably with a trauma informed therapist. But in a country like India, it is not financially easy to find a resource like that to heal and participate in the contribution to society.
"I had repressed memories of abuses from childhood. but it started coming back during Covid time. and it will keep on playing in my head. as I had developed relations with queer community by that time I was slowly able to express and talk about these experiences and get support"
It is noted that although Kalyan has gone through significant struggles without emotional support, integrating with their community, developing trust and bonding with queers and queer friendly people have contributed positively by holding space for safe expression and exploration. This makes room for processing and healing their painful memories even when therapy is not accessible (Worrell, S., et al., 2022).
Cinema, Photography and Theater - Art and its forms in queer life
Kalyan was put into an engineering degree without their interest. They had to compete with many failures along the way, but Kalyan knew what they were going to do by the time of completion.
"I have been interested in media and cinema, I couldn't explore those parts. I was forced to do engineering. I made sure at least the college was much farther from family space. something I enjoyed from childhood is cinema. After 1 year of engg, I realized it wasn't for me, I asked my parents to change the field to vis com, which led to fights at home. I had to finish engineering with a lot of hurdles. By the time I was completing I started to learn about cinema. I worked for 2 years with a media team with behind the screen work. I also used to do photography for events that kept me financially stable at that point."
Despite interests towards a particular field, it requires some level of financial investment to access resources to learn and be part of the work (Badgett, M. V., 2014).
"There are many financial needs. I couldn't procure resources and equipment to learn like cameras and technology. Friends helped out in accessing these resources like laptops and basic cameras. I couldn't ask at home or buy myself. My friends have only bought me. even to think of travel. for the last 4 years, especially after covid it has been difficult for regular income. Before that I used to regularly take photographs for events and was able to manage. through these events I was exposed to theater and started learning about it"
Theater as Sustainable livelihood and Therapeutic intervention:
Kalyan has been in the theater field for 3 years. It started when they had to cover photography for theater based events and started becoming more interested in it as they see theater to be more sustainable.
"If I need to make a documentary, I have to take a team and go, take care of the expenses. it is not easy to do post production work as it takes skill, money and time. There are some pending works already like that. so I found writing and performing to be of less investment and can do without much apprehension."
They also find theater to be very therapeutic in nature, thus providing space to integrate with self and feel rejuvenated. This equates to real life gains, despite ongoing stressors around (Huerta, T., 2018).
"We have created a queer play 'Victims' talking about abuse stories of queer. Playing out real life traumatic experiences through theater was a painful process initially. it took almost 10 days just to talk through and battle with myself, having flashes of repressed memories from past became very disturbing, I even decided to back out from playing the role. but with some support from team I took some time and practiced controlled emotional involvement when playing character. by the end of the process I felt lighter and liberated"
Queer Theater
Kalyan says, even within theater groups, there have been challenges in creating content that are humanistic, valuing women and vulnerable populations. Sometimes contents are degrading with chauvinistic characteristics or stigmatizing in nature. Although "Oppressed Theater" is bringing content for women and dalit, there has not been any theater dedicated to work on queer based themes. When Kalyan tries to voice out their opinion, instead of reasoning, they get left out of the process and work within their theater groups. Within social institutions that are predominantly conventional, patriarchal and heteronormative, it is rare to find people who can try to step out of their comfort zones, understand the world is filled with beautiful varieties of people who go through different experiences of social exclusion because of nonconformity to conventional gender norms.
Queer theater has been globally spoken only over last 2 decades (Page, C. A., 2021). Motive for Queer Theater is to register experiences of people from queer community. There has not been much theater work on queer people, there has been some exploration with the trans community, but not those of other gender and sexual minorities especially in South India. There are some works and dialogues minimally in Mumbai and Pune over the last two years.
It isn't easy to even access spaces to work on these in terms of theater production. They are in the efforts of connecting with queers and likeminded queer informed, queer friendly people, community and safe spaces under the umbrella of "Queer Theatre", dedicated to producing performances amplifying the voices of LGBTQIA+ community in Tamilnadu. Through these ways they along with their friends have put up 3 shows of "Victims" a queer play which portrays 3 stories about the struggle of queer people in contemporary society. Queer Theater will be a safe and comfortable space for all queer artists to come together to create and showcase their own stories and narratives to a public dialogue and understanding of vulnerable communities and people who live amongst us.
Currently, Kalyan is working on framing activities for sustainable income generation through "Gender and Sexuality theater workshops" and Queer based theater shows to be more financially stable.
Social Worker Implications
This study gives an in-depth perspective of the various setbacks and hurdles a queer individual goes through from childhood and how socially, economically, psychologically and physically impacted their life turns out as they are expected to make a living for themselves in their adulthood. In addition to the fact that they develop psychosocially very different from heteronormative sections of society. As a Social Worker our priorities should lean towards inclusive societies and social justice for vulnerable communities. To work with them it is imperative that we learn, understand and accept as they are, applying principles of individuality, acceptance and non-judgmental behavior.
Limitations
Queer based studies are emerging recently in India but slowly and as it is a case study the findings can't be generalized to all queer persons.
Future recommendations
We need research and field activities to advocate on overall health and livelihood promotion of LGBTQIA+ people in ways that are nurturing safety and growth. Marriage and adoption rights of queer community is also important to be worked on. Creating awareness among the different sections of society and creating safe spaces for queer community is essential.
Conclusion
The case study has looked into how a queer youth born and brought up in a metropolitan city in South India has tackled many obstacles socioeconomically and is on a journey to bring queer artists together under the umbrella of "Queer theater" as part of building their career.
Reference
- Sophie S T et al., (2022). What Does the Word “Queer” Actually Mean? Experts Explain Its History
- Wandrekar, J. R., & Nigudkar, A. S. (2020). What do we know about LGBTQIA+ mental health in India? A review of research from 2009 to 2019. Journal of Psychosexual Health, 2(1), 26-36.
- Holman, E. G. (2018). Theoretical extensions of minority stress theory for sexual minority individuals in the workplace: A cross‐contextual understanding of minority stress processes. Journal of family theory & review, 10(1), 165-180.
- Kelleher, C. (2009). Minority stress and health: Implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. Counselling psychology quarterly, 22(4), 373-379.
- Huerta, T. (2018). Use of the creative arts therapies and creative interventions with LGBTQ individuals: Speaking out from silence a literature review.
- Rofofsky, M., Kalyanam, A., Berwald, A., & Krishnakumar, A. (2016). LGBTQ adolescents. In Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy (pp. 475-486). Routledge.
- Ranade, K. (2018). Exploring Identity Development and the Symbolic Meaning/s of ‘Coming Out’ in the Process of Identity Work. In Growing Up Gay in Urban India (pp. 97-116). Springer, Singapore.
- McDonald, K. (2018). Social support and mental health in LGBTQ adolescents: A review of the literature. Issues in mental health nursing, 39(1), 16-29.
- Worrell, S., Waling, A., Anderson, J., Lyons, A., Fairchild, J., & Bourne, A. (2022). Coping with the stress of providing mental health-related informal support to peers in an LGBTQ context. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 1-16.
- Pitoňák, M. (2017). Mental health in non-heterosexuals: Minority stress theory and related explanation frameworks review. Mental Health & Prevention, 5, 63-73.
- Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden–and–build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical transactions of the royal society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 359(1449), 1367-1377.
- Badgett, M. V. (2014). The economic cost of stigma and the exclusion of LGBT people: A case study of India.
- Page, C. A. (2021). Toward the Horizon: Contemporary Queer Theatre as Utopic Activism. Bowling Green State University.
Featured Image credits: Love Matters India