In and out of closet

I consider many years of my life that I was in the closet as solitary confinement. I was living in Europe, in a large city with only one Iranian gay man, namely myself. Even during those days, I had a dream of having an Iranian boy friend. I had the wish, that some day he would come and help me to come out of the closet. I had too many expectations from him. He was supposed to replace the family that I left in Iran, take care of my loneliness, help me accept and find myself, and take care of all the other small or big problems that I had. I was waiting for my savior. Of course he never came along.

I survived those years of mere existence. It was like being trapped in a swamp. I couldn’t move forward or backward. Every day brought a new depth of depression. I used to ask myself and God thousands of times a day “ Why me?” At some point I was so isolated that I wouldn’t speak to anybody for days. I used to keep track of the number of the days that I had not talked to anyone

The word “Closet” matches very well, the condition I was in. A closet is a small and dark place where you can hardly move or breath. You sit there and hope, that nobody finds you. I used to ask myself, what was going to happen if I came out or stay in closet? What would my parents do if they found out? I used to feel sorry for them for having a gay son. Now I realize that I didn’t have a sense of self at that time. I was feeling my parent’s feelings. That feeling of shame in me has changed to anger at my parents, the culture that was forced on me and my society. When I was a young kid, every 5 year old in my street, the neighbors' sons, all my cousins at my age, they all knew that I was different. I was the subject of their ridicule, for not wanting to play soccer, preferring more creative and artistic games. Everybody knew that I was different, except my parents. My father used to get angry any time I wanted to dance. They were blinded by the culture and traditions. Maybe they knew but decided to ignore it. I am angry at them for making my childhood such a constant hell. For not being there for me when I had to hide and cry because somebody again made some draconian remark about me. The shame and fear has changed now to anger at the entire society for their homophobia. In Indian families in the continent of America before the invasion by Europeans, if a young boy showed no interest for so-called masculine activities, he wouldn’t be sent with his father for hunting or horse-back riding, they would allow him to stay home to help with the chores around the house. These boys were never forced to marry when they grew up. As a gay adult, they used to become healers or medicine men. Something compatible with their nature.

Being born as a gay child in an Iranian family means, being ignored and ridiculed for the first twenty or thirty years of your life. The constant injection of the shame, “after all that we have done for you” that means the food and shelter, they provided, something you could have gotten in any orphanage. Then the gilt about financing your education. Something they did mostly for their own failure’s in life, they wanted you to become something they never could have become, ignoring your wishes. Now they want you to thank them for living a life that is not yours. The worst is the pressure to get married. They used every measure, including their health, “ Your father will die if you don’t marry soon”. The constant talk about some neighbors son whose newly wedded wife is pregnant and they are such a lovely couple. The pressure could become so unbearable that many succumb to it and surrender. Forcing a gay adult to marry a woman equals psychological mutilation. After ruining my childhood, forcing me to pursue a career, I didn’t want, now they have to make sure that every single moment of the rest of my life is in misery and agony. I am not heterophobic, but I rather die than live the rest of my life with a Persian woman, lay down with her in the same bed and come up every night with some excuse why I am not sleeping with her.

When I was in the closet, I didn’t exist psychologically. I didn’t ever feel my own pain and loneliness. I rather was feeling every body else’s possible pain. I was so shut down that I didn’t even feel the pain of going through medical school. Something that I can now only laugh about was my concerns about my sister. If I come out no decent Iranian man will ever marry her. I thought, maybe I should wait until she gets married then come out, but what if she never gets married. What if her future husband forbids her to see me if I come out. Now I realize that the major problem with this logic is that I don’t see myself as an equal to my sister. She had the right to have a happy family with a husband. But did she recognize my right for the same, meaning having a loving and caring man in my life. Would she wait until I found my lover then get married; I am the older one after all. Why do I want a homophobic Iranian man as my brother in law anyway. Homophobia is usually not a single disorder, it is usually associated with sexism, machoism, why do I want my sister to get married with such a guy.

The worrying about neighbors and relatives, so called “Mardom” (people).
An average Iranian family lives for the “Mardom”. They don’t have an individual life, everything is designed to satisfy the opinion of the “Mardom”. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, the parties you celebrate, your life and soul, everything for Mardom. When it comes to the happiness of young gay boy, the typical Iranian family would want their son rather dead than gay. It might sound unbelievable but I have a friend who was put under lots of psychological pressure by his parents to attempt suicide. They frankly were asking him to either become normal or to kill himself. That didn’t work but they managed to send him somewhere very far so none of the Mardom would recognize him. They are willing to loose their son, just for the Mardom.

The average Iranian family is the result of a forced marriage. I am talking about the generation of our parents. I don’t know how things are these days. The very logical result of that kind of arrangement are husbands and wives that are together for everything else than romantic feelings, let alone love. They usually covertly dislike or openly hate each other. Now you are trying to tell them that you want to be with somebody because you love or like him. I am sure heterosexual young men or women have the same problems with the previous generation. How can you make your old-fashioned parents understand that. This is a very difficult task, but not impossible. It requires lots of learning from their site. If they really love their gay son, they would try to understand him. That is why many Iranian gay men decide to hide their true self from their parents, cutting them out from their lives.

Despite all the visible and invisible pressure, I finally reached a point, that I couldn’t go on anymore. I saw only two options for myself. Either I end my depressive closeted existence or I accept my self and deal with the consequenses. Your guess is right, I came out sometime in the end of June in 1989, when I went to my first Gay Pride holding a hand of another man.

© This article is copyrighted by Ali, July 18, 2003.

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