- When Dona came out as queer to her family, it was Shampa, her cousin, who took it upon herself to insist that Dona and her partner of many years, Sheena, be invited to her (Shampa’s) wedding. This was the first time ever that Sheena met Dona’s family. Secretly, Dona’s parents were grateful to Shampa for her show of support.
- Abhijit threw a fit when he found out that his sister Asha’s son, a young man in his 20s, was gay. He abused Asha and blamed her for his nephew’s ‘lack of manliness’. He stopped only when his own children stepped forward in support of their aunt and cousin, and apologized on behalf of their father.
- All hell broke loose when the extended family of Shweta, a young trans girl, discovered her gender identity at a family occasion. One of Shweta’s aunts was the most vocal in criticizing her parents for not bringing her up correctly, but to everyone’s surprise, the aunt’s daughter-in-law brought in a cake in the shape of a frock to celebrate Shweta’s birthday.
Our society is collectivistic. A study conducted in 2022 by Kantar, an international market research company, found that 50% of Indian households were nuclear, compared to 37% in 2008. The proportion of joint families where intergenerational members live together has been falling. However, even the nuclear families continue to have strong interdependence and emphasize family loyalty, integrity, and unity. Patriarchy, patrilocality and endogamy are alive and kicking. So, when it comes to conversations around LGBTIQA+ acceptance, we must consider the whole family, and not focus only on the parents of queer children.
The impact made by PFLAG in the US or Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in the UK, where the focus is on ‘individualism’, cannot be replicated here in India and we need to evolve a different strategy. With the lack of awareness and deep-rooted prejudices, it becomes extremely difficult for parents to come to terms with their child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics. While they may be deeply concerned about the child they have loved and raised, the stress of how to bring up the queerness of their child in the larger family without being ridiculed is huge. It causes the greatest anxiety and fear.
In a situation where some families still hold honour killings as acceptable, the ability to show unequivocal support for one’s queer child is almost strangled. The fear of ostracism looms large in the minds of the parents. Then there is the fear of the queer child’s siblings being put in the storm of public humiliation, where their chances of getting suitable marriage alliances may also be affected. The biggest threat felt is around family reputation – this usually raises the hackles of the male members of the family more than anyone else. We often see the brothers and uncles of a queer child perpetrating most of the violence on the child, as if the violence will set the child right. Parents often become mute spectators in such situations, and expect, even demand, that the child should conform to the heteronormative way of life.
Clearly, family acceptance interventions must be broad-based and seek to lessen the burden on the parents, who may be just as trapped as their queer child by societal norms. As the vignettes in the beginning show, there is nothing like allies emerging from within the family! Allies of not just the queer child, but also the parents. This could make it much easier for the parents to come to terms with their child’s reality.
I was part of a recent needs assessment supported by NGOs SAATHII and Varta Trust to plan a peer counselling training for parents who have accepted their queer children, and are willing to help other parents (the vignettes in the beginning are based on case studies from the needs assessment – identity markers have been changed to maintain confidentiality). We spoke to many parents of queer individuals in West Bengal and Assam, and found that it is the mother who is usually the biggest support for the queer child. Yet, it is she who hears accusations and taunts for having ‘encouraged’ or ‘made’ the child queer. This has been so common in all my interactions that I can say that this is almost a certainty in all cases. Fathers, except for a few, are slow to accept their queer child. Their sensitivity to the possibility of losing social capital is acute, and often only when the society accepts their child that they come around, if at all. Their social capital is restored to some degree only when the child achieves success or attains an earning potential.
Given that often mothers are low in the familial hierarchy, they must be supported from within and outside the family. The needs assessment interviews also brought out examples where the cousin of a queer individual spoke to the key members of their family to bring them around. In another case, a maternal aunt openly supported the queer individual and that helped the mother and the rest of the family to become comfortable.
We find queer support forums usually address only the parents of queer children. In my experience counselling parents, I have realized that they are looking for support from their own social spaces rather than from support groups. They approach a support group to get answers to their myriad questions and doubts. Once they gain a level of understanding and acceptance, they fall out of the support group. However, given our social structures, it will help the cause better if we design training programmes and support systems that involve other family members along with the parents.
The issue then is how to identify and bring the others in the family into the fold of such training programmes and systems. These others could even be neighbours or close family friends. We need to find ways to identify ‘allies within the larger family’, and this will require broad-based social awareness initiatives that connect with these allies.
In the meantime, the parents will continue to need a lot of support as they deal with the fear of social isolation, of being omitted from family occasions, or of their friends vanishing. They need to be given the wherewithal to handle snarky comments and vicious behaviours. They need counselling to accept the change in the family narrative that they have known all their lives. In turn, they may well become change agents themselves.
Read more articles by the author on support for parents of queer children in Varta here. Read article A Thought for Ma and Baba by Pawan Dhall in the February 2015 issue of Varta here – Editor.
Main photo credit: Alex Jackman on Unsplash.
