Conflicts between one’s internal reality and the way the world is, can be a source of major distress. The issues start when one is quite young, of course, and can feel the difference or have their differences pointed out, most times harshly by mean people.
We met Satya as a 14-year-old who was very depressed and had been self-harming. In talking to Satya, it became apparent that figuring out gender and sexuality was not as crystal clear for Satya as it seemed to be for most other teenagers. It was a very confusing and traumatizing time to begin with, and when Satya began talking to their mother, the resistance and outright rejection came as a shock. Satya was extremely distressed. We worked with the family to help keep a safe space, and with Satya to gently explore and normalize their growing sense of their own identity, and thankfully, Satya and Satya’s family have been able to come around. But not all stories end well—many LGBT youth try very hard at the cost of their own comfort to somehow fit-in and ‘pass’ but even with one’s best efforts to stay within the norm, and even more so when one just cannot, the differences have a way of being found out, leading to bullying, ostracizing and worse.
Take Arvind, for example. As a student in a premier engineering college in India, he expected to be treated with respect and dignity but found himself the target of ‘jokes’, which included his classmates sending pictures of male-on-male sex acts to the college group, writing explicit messages on his backpack and so on. He survived the hostility, but it left scars on him that he could overcome only with great effort and support.
It is harder still when a person is gender-fluid, or in transition. When Suresh, a trans-man, after joining a large MNC, began to let people know about the transition, the hope was for acceptance, given the non-discrimination policies on paper. At first, things didn’t seem too bad – even if there wasn’t a warm welcome, nobody made things difficult, or so Suresh thought…until the team gifted a box of bangles and other feminine accessories as a ‘gift’ for Suresh’s birthday. That single act was brutal in its impact and emotionally scarring.
The minority stress, or the experience of prejudice, oppression and discrimination is all too real. There are a number of limiting experiences an LGBT person faces in society: Rejection and bullying, often starting from home and school
These experiences can lead to an ongoing, unconscious erosion of self-worth, while others might have major traumatic events that can be scarring, leading to alienation, unhealthy risk-taking and for some others, even suicide.
