Physician heal thyself:

Homophobia, like a thick wall, has separated many of us from our authentic Gay Self. Homophobia has driven many gay and lesbian youth to commit suicide. Homophobia has kept many of us in the closet and prevented us from living an authentic life. It is time to expose the demon of homophobia and make a commitment to utilize our skills as health care providers to challenge homophobia within ourselves and in our profession. We, as a group of gay Iranian health care providers, have a unique position to educate the Iranian community about the devastating impact of homophobia on the lives of gay and lesbian people.

One of our tasks as health care providers is to diagnose our patients and based on that diagnosis provide treatment. We have applied the same principle here and identified homophobia as a primary causes of gay and lesbian people's suffering; Not only external homophobia, but also internalized homophobia as well. We do not have to go too far to prove this. By looking at our own painful process of growing up gay in heterosexual families, we can see how we were not seen as who we truly are. Instead, we were raised to deny our true nature. As young boys or girls we felt different and did not know why we felt different. Most of us did not have anyone to help us to make sense of the confusion we were feeling. We were very alone with our "differentness", and sometimes horrified by it.

Every kid's nightmare is to be called faggot (kooni). Many of us grow up living with that label almost every day. Daily abuses are experienced at home or in school when suspected of being gay. The trauma of growing up gay in a homophobic culture shattered our self-esteem. Some of us tried to compensate for our feelings of toxic shame and inner inferiority by getting good grades and becoming highly educated, and others took the "depressed road" by becoming junkies or long-term alcoholics.

Internalized homophobia is the toxic shame, some of us feel for having come out to our friends and families. We think we have brought shame onto our Iranian families for coming out. We all have heard or know of gay Iranians who committed suicide over extreme rejections they experienced after coming out to their friends and families. Many gay Iranians who are dominated by the demon of internalized homophobia get married and pretend they are something they are not and deny themselves the chance of living an authentic life; A life that is based on silencing our true voice and murdering our genuine homoerotic feelings.

Many gay physicians have been using their surgical knife to cut themselves off from their gay feelings, and letting the cancer of inner homophobia grow. Because many of us were made to believe that we are less for being gay and have no right to express who we are nor deserve to have love, we act out the rage we have for being treated less than. This rage, due to years of mistreatment and abuse, is expressed unconsciously and can take the form of drug abuse, bareback sex, or suicide attempts.

We are committed to utilizing our health care provider skills to challenge homophobia on every level. There is a need for us to come together and to work cooperatively to illuminate homophobia in order to liberate ourselves and our community from its toxic effects. By forming Iranian Gay and Lesbian Healthcare Providers and creating this website, we have taken an important step toward promoting health and unity in our community and challenging homophobia.

Please send your comments to: info@iraniangaydoctors.com

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