Growing up gay in RI easier than it used was

Growing up gay in RI easier than it used was

Arziel C.B., Contributor, Jakarta

One of the most frequently asked questions I get when people find
out I am gay is, "when did you come out?"

I usually shoot back with, "what is your definition of coming
out?" In the technical sense of the phrase -- that is, the first
time you tell another person about your sexual orientation -- my
answer would be when I was 12, to which people usually gawk at me
in disbelief.

It's not as perverse as it sounds, really. Long before I was
aware of the concept of homosexuality, long before my mind was
polluted with the academic debate of essentialism versus social
construction as the answer to what causes homosexuality, I
innocently told a friend that I had a crush on a boy classmate.

But I always think that I really came out at the age of 19. It
was when I had fully acknowledged my sexuality, and gained the
courage to tell my best friends.

So, what had I been doing in the seven years in between? The
answer is a word I'm sure every gay man in the world has come to
know only too well: conformity. When I graduated from elementary
school, I moved to a junior high school that none of my grade
schoolmates attended. There, I thought I could start a new life.

I dated girls, I pretended to have a favorite soccer team and
I even thought I was in love with this girl only because I was so
excited that she liked the same musicals as I did. My homosexual
urge was buried deep under my desperate need to belong in this
world.

It was hard to grow up as a gay man in Indonesia at a time
when there were so many fallacies and confusions about
homosexuality that shaped people's perceptions, when the
definition of a homosexual act was narrowed down to the
prostitution in Lapangan Banten, and when representations of
homosexuals in the media were dwarfed as cases in consultation
columns in women magazines.

The only role models you saw were effeminate characters in
films or TV shows whose lone function was to be a laughing stock
or object of pity. Parents would tell their children to stay away
from "people like that" because they feared we were "contagious".

Thus, young boys who feel even the tiniest streak of
attraction toward other boys cannot help thinking that they are
destined to dress like women and work in beauty parlors; that
everywhere they go they would have kids trailing behind them and
calling them bencong (transvestite).

These labels and stereotypes are not exactly a healthy diet
for our self-esteem. The impact of the gay liberation movement in
Western cultures never reached us. The already-existing local gay
organizations could not do much under the stifling power of the
regime. In a nutshell, I, and many other young gay Indonesians,
I'm sure, was totally alone.

However, I got lucky. When I was in high school, I stumbled
onto two books by people whom I later discovered were two of
America's renowned gay writers, Larry Kramer and Christopher
Bram. The books changed the way I looked at homosexuality, and
thus, at myself.

I came to realize that there were thousands of others like me
in this world, and our sexual orientation does not make us bad
people. I tried to find what harm my homosexuality would do to
society, and could not find any. We are hated simply because we
are different, just as African-Americans used to be ostracized
because they were black.

Gradually I regained my self-confidence and learned to accept
my sexuality. A few years later I told my friends, and the number
of people who know about my being gay has increased.

My family was the last to know, of course. Not so much because
I feared the impact their reactions would have on me, but rather
because of what kind of impact my coming out would have on them.
In Indonesia's close-knit society, where image can mean
everything, having a gay son in a family means facing the music
from relatives, neighbors, colleagues, you name it.

The myth that homosexuality means the failure of parents in
bringing up their children still prevails. My family would have
had to go through so much worse than I went through growing up as
a gay man.

However, things are starting to brighten up in gay life in
Indonesia, especially in big cities. The Internet has done a lot
to increase the self-esteem of young, confused homosexuals. Local
gay chatrooms help them find a community and see that they are
not alone. The increasing visibility of the gay community has
encouraged some nightclubs to have gay nights, during which we
can see the world in reverse -- if just for one night -- where,
for once, we are in the majority.

Nonetheless, homosexuals are still a long way from gaining
recognition and respect from society. Still, it's so much better
here than it used to be.