Because I’m a lesbian
For 24 years, the horror of lesbianism haunted me. No, I don’t belong to an anti-religion, mod squad, liberal family. My family is as normal as any middle-class and religious family could be. After my teens, I grew up questioning my sexual orientation and my doubts turned into guilty trepidation when I realized this was not “just the phase” I was going through. This was the my life which I had been constantly denying. Being a lesbian in Pakistan where one is eloquently declared a sinner or deemed to have a psychological disorder, is like committing a crime. You are considered as disgusting ...
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It’s not easy being gay
I am a male. I am a Muslim. I am a Pakistani and I am gay. I come from a deeply religious family, where everyone prays five times a day and reads the Qur’an every day. I came to the realization when I was eighteen-years-old, while I was in a relationship with my first girlfriend. Even though I was with her, I did not feel any sort of attraction towards her. The only feeling that I felt for her was of a friendly affection, nothing more and nothing less. I say realization, but deep down I suppose I always knew that I ...
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We’re here, we’re queer, deal with it!
In 2003, Brazil brought the case for homosexual rights on the United Nations table, only to be derailed at the last minute by Muslim and African countries. Instead, amendments were introduced and approved for the removal of any reference to discrimination based on sexual orientation. My country, Pakistan, was the captain of Team Homophobe. It distributed a memo to the member states declaring that the approval of the recommendation would be: “A direct insult to 1.2 billion Muslims around the world.” This year, thanks to three abstentions, China being absent, Libya’s suspension and the efforts of South Africa to table the resolution again, it was ...
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Is it time for gay rights in Pakistan?
Earlier this month, for the first time in its history, the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution to protect and uphold gay rights universally. The US Department of State successfully lobbied to bring under the banner of universal declaration of human rights, equal rights for lesbians, gays, and transgender people. The resolution was passed with 23 affirmations against 19 disavowals. While some of us celebrate this momentous turn in attitudes, it is sobering to note that it took the UN this long to recognise the oppressive violence faced by homosexuals everybody and to finally declare that yes, gays are human ...
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Huma Abedin: Refusing to be humiliated
Generally, the world loves to side with famous women whose celebrity husbands’ extramarital escapades are chronicled by scandalous headlines. Judging by the smorgasbord of sympathetic magazine covers, TV chatter and internet buzz that supported the marital tribulations of Maria Shriver-Kennedy-Schwarznegger (her ‘Governorator’ husband’s affair with their housekeeper that resulted in a ten-year-old son), Elin Nordegren-Woods (whose golfer husband Tiger’d it out with countless prostitutes) and, of course, Jennifer Aniston-Pitt (who continues to get public sympathy six years after the Brangelina coupling), Huma Abedin-Weiner should be the public’s darling by now. Instead, she seems to be bearing the brunt of the ...
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