Being Gay and Sikh in the UK - a personal perspective
Testimony of DS - 26 year old man originally from London, now living
abroad
23rd
April 2008
I knew I was into
men when I was around 12. At this time I was living in Southall in
west London.
I was a Sikh who wore a turban, and I was living with my parents who
had very strong religious beliefs.
My life was kind
of planned out for me, due to the society and culture that I lived in.
I never saw myself ‘coming out’ to embrace my sexuality because I knew
my folks would not accept this. We were a very close family and I was
a bit of a ‘mummy's boy’, so I did not want anything to come between
us. So just like everyone else did, I started going out with
girls…lots of girls. I was trying hard to embrace being straight so
that I would be able to get married and have a family of my own one
day.
It’s not the best
of feelings to have when you can’t be who you are for the people that
are the most important to you in your life. All I wanted to do was to
please them and to keep their respect. Back then I thought that I
would be disgracing the family name if I even spoke about any such
feelings. Back then, the only thing that my folks thought about was
"community, community, community", to the extent that the community
ruled our lives. A lot of us actually started to believe that the
rules within our community came from our religion (I know, how bad is
that) but it is the misconception that a lot of kids grew up with.
This was very harsh on us. It also made a lot of us rebel. And I guess
it was when I took being a rebel to the next step that I ended up
going on a gay chat line.
I went on to chat
to others and see what it was like. How it was for them being out and
living lives as openly gay. Whilst I was doing that, I started
chatting to a guy on a website who I kept in contact with for a few
months. I told him I would just chat and that we could never meet up,
but as one always does I ended up giving in to him. He lived in
another city which was good for me as I could make up an excuse and
get out of my home for the weekend to go to see him. I was still very
reluctant for him to touch me when I went to see him. Even in normal
conversation when he was flirting with me it felt so uncomfortable and
wrong because of the way I had been bought up. I was in my mid teens
at the time, and it was all new to me.
It was after him
that I told one of my college friends that I was this way inclined but
I felt that my religion and my community were meant to rule my life
and thoughts. I cried many times with her. She was Spanish, so she did
not understand my specific situation very well but she did understand
it to a certain extent as the culture and community aspects are quite
similar.
I told her of a guy I went to school with who
came out after we had left school and how everyone took the mickey
out of him because they didn’t understand what it meant to be gay. My
friend told me to get in touch with him to ask him as he would be my
closest bet to helping me decide whether or not to come out as gay.
When I told him I
was gay, his initial response was "I'm not surprised!" When I asked
him about my insecurities with regards to coming out within such a
difficult community environment, he just said “Well as for society,
it’s only our generation that would know. They won’t tell the older
generation and anybody else just doesn't have to know. As for
religion, what exactly has it given us apart from division and
boredom?”
I was very
impressionable at that time and I didn’t know a lot about my religion.
I had long hair, and went and got all my hair cut off because I felt
that if I didn’t wear a turban anymore then I wasn’t really a part of
being Sikh and so I wouldn’t feel any guilt for going out on the gay
scene and meeting guys. At this point, I started living two separate
lives. On one hand I was living the life of a Sikh boy living at home
and being everything my parents wanted me to be. On the other hand,
when I was away from home and from my family, I was a completely
different person, free from religion, free from community, free from
it all.
The first time I
went to a South Asian gay nightclub, I had the biggest heart attack
going because I could not believe that there were so many Indian
Muslims out there! Apart from that, I felt like I was at an Indian
wedding and the drag queens there all looked like some very
‘interesting’ brides! It felt good to be there, though. It felt safe,
secure. As I was still not too sure about going out on the mainstream
gay scene in the UK, when I went to the nightclub I knew that I was
not the only one going through the issues and difficulties that I was,
and I knew I was not alone. I also got involved in a support group for
South Asian gay men; we would meet up once a month or so and discuss
various issues that concerned us.
Looking back on
things, I feel that I am a lot more secure with my sexuality now as
I’m not in the hiding anymore. All the people I love around me know
about me. It has been a difficult journey but I’ve had some very good
friends to help me out.
I still don’t know
if I am doing than right thing or not by living the lifestyle that I
do, but what I do know is that I am being true to myself and that my
God will accept that. I will not ruin a woman’s life by saying that I
will marry her and have ten kids just to keep my family and my
community happy. Instead, I’m going to wait for my Prince to come by
and sweep me off my feet!
