I can’t tell you the amount of stress, anxiety and depression I have had to deal with

Interview | By Janet Trina Reana

Despite the Supreme Court of India recently decriminalising homosexuality and bisexuality in the country, promising perhaps a major shift in the sub-continent’s mentality towards the LGBT community in general, concerns over the LGBT community overall well-being across the rest of the continent still remains. If anything the situation has deteriorated significantly over the last few years as religious inflexibility, social malpractices coupled with shoddy political regimes continues to greatly affect the LGBT community in Asia. Bangladesh, which is our focus for today. We managed to catch up with Ms Taushnuva Fardousi, a Bangladeshi citizen by birth, who currently resides in the UK as a student, and is an openly bisexual woman. Our readers are perhaps already aware of the hostilities maintained towards the LGBT community in Bangladesh, a Muslim majority country no less. Today we speak with Ms Fardousi and ask her of the trials and tribulations of being a bisexual Muslim woman in a community designed to marginalise someone like her.

Q: For the benefit of our readers’ madam, start by telling us a bit about yourself.

A: I wanted to first of all thank you for having me. Readers, my name is Taushnuva Fardousi. I am originally from Bangladesh and I am an atheist. I first came to the UK as a student in 2007 and have been living here since then.

Q: And are you still studying, working or are perhaps involved in any community projects here in the UK?

A: Although I am not working at the moment, I have held various jobs over the years and have gathered a wealth of experience as a result. My previous job roles although largely across well-known retail chains, also included fulfilling duties in the admin and HR departments e.g. cash office, price control, payroll, store training etc. In short roles which are only reserved for the office and internal staff. I am humbled and very proud to be involved with The Labour party at the moment, The London Reiki Academy along with some other organizations. I have recently developed a wonderful relationship with an LGBT organisation called ‘Boys Love World’, along with as well as ELOP (East London Out Project). I am also a proactive human rights and LGBT activist, and maintain a personal blog. I have also had my writing published for quite a few other magazines.

Sadly because I was unable to complete my CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) course, even though I really wanted to. But despite that I have kept myself busy throughout the years, participating in a few short courses on ‘personal development’.

Q: And which magazines are you involved with? How did you come to know the editors there, the staff?

A: I am currently involved in projects with magazines like ‘Atheist in Bangladesh’, ‘Boys Love World’ and the ‘Biblog’. As for meeting my current colleagues across the aforementioned magazines, some I met at certain protest demonstrations, while others I met during different media excursions, attending events etc.

Q: Well sounds like you have a very a packed schedule! Do you go out much, participate in any extra-curricular activities?

A: Well you can say I manage to keep myself busy a lot! But of course, I like having some time to myself. Whenever I have that luxury, I try and watch a good movie, do some yoga and self-treatment with Reiki. Sometimes I attend the Reiki share events organised by our London Reiki Academy at Barnes Green Centre. I’ve also enjoyed watching various plays in theatres, including some musical and dance shows at Sadlers wells. I have had the good fortune of attending several exhibitions at Tate modern, V&A, museums, and art galleries. In my own time I really like to take long walks by the river, spend time reading books at libraries. I love going out for a meal and have a quiet drink inside a run-of-the mill British pub. But more than anything I like spending time with my loved ones.

Q: Ah, I see. And you say you are an atheist? Can you tell us why?

A: I became an atheist first and foremost in my failed attempts to demystify religion. The more I dug into it the ore impatient I grew. Religion in general I felt were based on fragile and unfounded statutes. It is not my intention to slander God, or whatever divine entity people believe in. But rather to invite everyone towards the path of radiance and rationality, something religion sadly has little room for in my humble opinion.

The other big contributing factor in my journey towards becoming an atheist was the Reiki, a complementary medication therapy course that I alluded to earlier. From the beginning of the course, learners are introduced to the ‘positive intention theory’. This theory quite simply suggests that in order to help someone, contribute to your society, your community, your country, all you need is to set your intent. Positive intent that is. As a result of which I felt that belief, religion, prayers, pilgrimage these are all superficial things designed to appear as if you need to adopt them in order then develop the urge to help yourself others. My exposure to that theory was part of what convinced me that I do not need religion to validate my desire and to works towards the welfare of others.

Furthermore, I also mentioned fragile claims on which religion is based upon. As I have mentioned earlier, those different courses I attended on personal development had helped me grow and enhance the knowledge to the level I always expected but never knew how to get there. The course that helped me to be myself after Reiki was NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).

Neuro refers to neurology, linguistic refers to language, programming refers to how that natural language functions. In other words, it is like learning the language of your mind Essentially how it works is that a certain amount of information was hammered continuously onto the back of our minds, which is intended to make us filter our entire world through the information initially provided to us. I had to ask myself so many questions through the learning process, starting from ‘how did I learn to learn? Now these so-called ‘words of God’ passed down by men who claim they were ‘messengers of God’, were drilled constantly into our subconscious. Which in turn then narrowed the horizon of our minds.

The consequence of that our brain is now incapable of considering facts, logic which contradicts what has been taught to us our entire lives. The more I learn, the more I reveal how the religious leaders were able to make us fools. How they had left their hypnotical influences by providing fictitious ideas as their brain instructed them, to set the standard upon the tribe they wanted to rule. To tell us what to do, how to behave and why? I find it incredibly amazing as it still has a great impact on humankind even after thousands of years. However, since I have been learning the language patterns and human behaviors, the religions and all the fictions have lost its impact on me. But let me clarify that NLP is not there to make people become atheist, they are there to help people be able to establish effective communication in any aspect of their life.

Q: That is quite a lot to take in Ms. Fardousi, and I am sure our readers will consider all that information you have presented to us. Now let’s shelve that discussion aside for a minute. I suppose the first question our readers would probably like to ask you is why do you consider yourself to be a bisexual woman?

A: What I would like to say first is that being bisexual or having such sexual preferences is a completely natural process. Every heterosexual man or a woman on this planet has had to go through puberty and experience growth, sexual awareness. I am no different, the transition was the same for me. The only differentiating factor in my case is that I am attracted to a broader gender base which includes men, women, and people who do not identify with either category. So, in essence, my sexual preferences are not confined to any given gender or its unique characteristics. So to answer your question, I never “considered” myself a bisexual woman, I naturally always was. My unique sexual preferences just had to develop over time as it does for everyone else.

Furthermore, I also want what many others seek in their potential partners, warmth, love, kindness. It is just that I do not discriminate based on whether my partner has ovaries, sports a beard or lacks a pedicure. What matters most to me is that they are bright, kind and respectful to me.

Q: When did you first realize you were attracted to women as well as men?

A: To answer that I would have to start with the very stressful and difficult childhood I had. During my pre-teens and early teenage years I couldn’t make that many friends and would often talk to myself most of the time. Yes, I would do that.

And then I met this girl in college, a new transfer student who started sitting next to me all the time. She was very polite and spoke kindly to me. Before I knew it we became very good friends to the point where she would share her food with me and do my hair, you know the kind of stuff girls do. It was her who got me through some difficult times, and I swear she was perhaps the only one during my college years, whom I actually managed to have a proper conversation with.

Yes…she was kind to me, very kind, I know she cared for me and loved me. She used to ask me all the time if I am okay. I wanted reciprocate those feelings and was scared to death if I had misinterpreted the ones she had for me. But her friendship did incite something deep within me. Something primal, something along the lines of desire. I started coveting her as a result and finally plucked enough courage to tell her that. You can imagine my delight when she accepted me, and thus begun a secret love affair which was doomed to fail from its beginning.

We became proper lovers and visited each other’s houses at every opportunity, secretly at times. I suppose in many ways I should consider myself lucky given how we eventually our separate ways in the most undramatic of fashions. Because believe me there are worse case scenarios, even more horrible social implications than the mildly abrupt parting of ways she and I experienced.

Plain and simple, we were discovered. Or rather it was her family that suspected something was going on between us, and they were a very, very conservative bunch. They took her away from college and transferred her somewhere else. I never saw her or spoke to her again after that.

Q: In the interest of drawing a full disclosure from you, are you or have you been equally attracted to men in your life?

A: Ah…You know I really can’t say for sure. Women I think are the first ones in a relationship who are lot more interested in finding out what their partners like and try and emulate that for you. Though I am not saying that there are not men like that as well. Now the men I have experienced relationships with turned out to be rather vain, and seemed a lot more bothered about themselves than me. It was truly difficult for me to establish any form of intimacy with them. Although I have been unsuccessful so far, that is not to say all hope is lost for everyone else. There are good men in this world.

Q: Have been keeping abreast of the situation back in Bangladesh, in terms of the current circumstances of the LGBT community there? For instance are you aware of members of the LGBT communities in Bangladesh dealing with discrimination?

A: Yes of course I have and it is appalling to come across some of this stuff as an LGBT activist, who actively conducts research on these things. They form a large part of my routine. I can tell you about the pair of lesbian couples who were recently arrested, one for marrying in secret another the latter for maintaining a relationship. I can tell you about Aronno Haque, a young man in his early twenties I think in Bangladesh, who recently committed suicide after his parents came to know that he was a gay then opted to put him through psychiatric counselling. It amazing and at the same time repulsive to me just how many people still have not come to the realisation that mere counselling will not coax someone to readily change his or her sexual preferences. I reiterate, being bisexual or homosexual is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Just as it was for Aronno’s parents and poor Aronno after them. He, just like many of hi particulars community couldn’t handle the social pressures and simply ‘gave up’. And who can forget about about Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy Mahbub? Islamic fundamentalists broke into their house and hacked them to death. All because they declared themselves as gay and were running the only LGBT magazine in Bangladesh called ‘Rupbaan’.

Q: Can you tell us how the situation back home has affected you?

A: They are amongst the millions, abused, scarred, and persecuted within the LGBT community who are still waiting for justice. These are the fears I have as well. Back home in Bangladesh, I can easily be identified as a bisexual woman. Because, forgive me, how can you expect me to hide who I truly am, or even if I am successful in miraculously doing so, what kind of a life will I be looking at? A lifetime of running, looking over my shoulder? Fearing persecution at the hands of the society, the government or worse torture and death? Truth is even in the UK I have to be careful because of the community I hail from and my blissfully oblivious relatives. I can’t tell you the amount of stress, anxiety and depression I have had to deal with as a result. I even contemplated self-harming from time to time, barely containing myself. I had to undergo therapeutic recovery programmes at the hands of the IAPT.

Q: That is quite unfortunate. Not to pry but why would you want to harm yourself?

A: To answer the first part of your question, I felt deeply insecure and for a time didn’t know what to do with myself or with my life. I loathed the idea of living with fear and in unwarranted misery, just because of my sexual orientation. There was also the incident with Rashid Ali a well-known local goon back home in Bangladesh who used to harass me quite a lot. Basically he wanted to marry me, by force of course. I declined and he subsequently made it his life’s mission to make my life a living hell. He left no stone unturned in badgering me, zealously pursuing me and strong-arming me and at times my family to cave in to his demands of marriage. I suppose it was my body and my mind’s own way of coping with with my tribulations as a bisexual woman, on top of course the pain and embarrassment Rashed Ali has put me through so far.

I also suffered from chronic depression as my parents chose to completely abandon me, as I embarrassed them on the day I refused to get married to the person of their choice, and have received constant life threats from the stalker. It is funny just how people can just forget entire lifetime of over and just end everything, every connection they have with someone or something in a trice. I realise it was a lot to take in but they shed me quicker than a snake sheds its skin in winter, leaving me completely defenceless against the adversities that were to come my way, and still do to this day. I contemplated suicide during that terrible period of emotional upheaval. Again I suppose all those suicidal tendencies, the self-harming were means for my broken mind to maintain sort of equilibrium.

Q: Very sad to hear that, and I hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel for you, certainly our readers will pray that there is. Now Ms Fardousi back to these killings in Bangladesh. This systematic persecution of members of the LGBT community be it at the hands of religious extremists, the society, or in extreme case even you own parents… do you think this unfortunate circle will ever break? Do you think Bangladesh will ever change their stance on the LGBT community?

A: I think I have been asked that question many times during my ventures as an activist and my answer is always the same. What you must understand is that people in our country think that they will secure a place in heaven after life and will be rewarded if they can purge Bangladesh of the supposed unholiness that homosexual, bisexual men or women carry with them. Muslims being majority in Bangladesh, Islamic fundamentalism on the rise there, radicals Islamists, militants have jumped at the opportunity and according to them cleansed the country. And some of the heaviest casualties hail from the LGBT community, and the government in truth offers no support. To be honest, why would they? They have an entire population backing them, full of people who have developed a mutual distaste for the LGBT community over the course of the country relatively short history. Be it because of how religion, the legal system or other contributing factors shape the. Not to mention how the same murderers, culprits have been slowly eradicating the people who would have probably been amongst the first advocates of the LGBT community, namely secular bloggers, writers, free thinking spirits such as Abhijit Roy, Niladri Neel and the like. And of course there is the Bangladesh Penal Code 377. Bangladesh will never accept the LGBT communities within it, as one of its own, as long as that abomination of a law continues to be in effect. This law was established during the British Indian Government back in 1860, which, later was inherited by the countries after the partitions and liberation war. Given how like the most resilient of viruses, it has survived the test of time, modernisation, and liberalism for nearly two centuries now, I don’t see any hope that it will change anytime soon.

Q: That is quite a daunting picture you have painted there, but I am sure our readers will sympathise with you. Well.. anyone who is aware of the circumstances, or what they are in reality. Our conversation is rather bleak at this point isn’t it, quite grim. To perk things up can you tell us briefly about a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person who has had some influenced in your life?

A: I realise that the situation is hopeless and rather unpromising but I am working hard every day to change that, and I won’t lose hope. In order to do that of course I have had some inspiration in my life and the first name that comes to mind is my Reiki teacher who attuned Reiki in me. His name ‘Torsten Alexander Lange’. He is and openly gay man. I have known him for the past 5 years now and he is one those very few people, who know how to inspire when you are feeling down and motivate you enough so that you look forwards in hope that necessary change will come about. That you are capable of contributing towards that.

Q: Your neighbours India have recently made great strides in recognizing the LGBT community in their country, and allot them with the dignity and respect they deserve? How would it feel to see your country pass a non-discrimination law that explicitly protects LGBT people from discrimination?

A: That would be a phenomenon which would go down as a one of the most historical moments in the history of human rights, forget Bangladesh. It would be the equivalent of hitting a six of the last ball of the innings to win a cricket game, so to speak. But as I have said it looks extremely unlikely. Our nation’s mentality has to change radically, and in truth they would have to discard everything that they think is right. LGBT communities have suffered because of Bangladesh’s typical social norms and they continue to suffer. That my friend is the foreseeable future. A bleak one I’m afraid.

To conclude I would honestly not attempt to compare ourselves with our Indian counterparts. Many might think that we are two sides of the same coin, but in truth, they are several leagues, generations ahead of us. Their incremental evolution and ability to accommodate change proved decisive in the Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalise homosexuality and bisexuality in India. Their society is susceptible to change, to fruitful development, can you say the same about Bangladesh’s in comparison?

Q: Sadly I think even the shrewdest optimists cannot. People I think will find it hard not to agree with you. Well Ms Fardousi it has been a very informative experience speaking with you and very nice to have you with us.

A: Thank you for having me, and I am glad I was able to hold a frank and honest conversation with you.