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Society & Culture

Most Ridiculous Censorship Stories, Iranian Style: Lies and Sexual Identity

April 9, 2014
Elham Malekpour
5 min read
Most Ridiculous Censorship Stories, Iranian Style: Lies and Sexual Identity

“There are no homosexuals in Iran.” With these words, spoken to a crowd at Columbia University in 2007, former Iranian President Ahmadinejad not only let the world know what he believed, he presented Iran’s sexual minorities with a gift. Before then, for many gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) people, there had simply been no mention of any kind of life outside the relationship between a man and a woman. At least Ahmadinejad’s denial, in some strange way, brought the topic into the open. LGBT and heterosexual people alike shared a joke question: “What is homosexuality?”

As in many countries, Iran’s sexual minorities must practice self-censorship on a daily basis. They are required to play a role – in addition to the other roles Iranian society demands. They live on the margins and must hide their identities.

Sometimes, among the bitter, unpleasant experiences, there is a touch of irony.

The Six Colors website describes itself as the “Iranian Transgender and Lesbian Network”. People share their experiences of intimidation, of exclusion, of downright absurdity. They tell stories of what it’s like to live as a LGBT Iranian both inside and outside the country – and how a culture of silence continues to take a toll on how they view themselves and their sexual identities.

Maryam, who now lives in Toronto, tells of how she and her partner Shirin hid their relationship from an Iranian heterosexual couple they met at a party, without really knowing why. At the end of the evening, their secret was out and the heterosexual couple responded first with laughter and, soon after, with stunned anger. The experience was profoundly strange, and left Maryam questioning why they had all acted as they did.

Noor recounts her gradual discovery that she was a lesbian. “At 13, I fell in love with my library teacher. Later, it was Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, and afterwards, Ava Gardner, Leila Forouhar and the beloved Iranian actress Farimah Fardjami.”

“I always asked myself: ‘what did I love about her, or her?’ Later I discovered that I was in love with cinema. And then I discovered I was in love with both cinema and women.”

She experienced her first lesbian experience at 19, in Iran. Though she describes it as a bitter memory, she says it helped her find out who she was and what she wanted to do. She had a string of sexual experiences with women, and often introduced her lovers to each other. She admits that she had an idea in her head that things could be as they are in the movies, with everyone being open and natural.

When trying to discuss the reality of women actually sharing their lives together and not just playing a part, she often met with disapproval and anger from women who were having relationships with other women. One of her lovers, Shahla, threatened to tell her brother about the kinds of things Noor said, about what it was like to be, as Shahla termed it, a “dirty homosexual”. As far as she knows, however, Shahla is currently in a lesbian relationship, even if she might not call it that.

Noor looks back on her relationship and admits she’s learned a lot – and that she has revealed to many women their own potential. And, she adds, she has learned not to imitate movies. Life has enough tricks and dramas, she says.

Sheida is bisexual woman who lives with her female partner in Iran. In trying to deal with being a bisexual woman in Iran, she adopts one of her father’s mottos, a catch-all phrase he has always used to dismiss something he doesn’t want to think about when it comes to his daughter: “Whatever works for you,” she tells herself, thinking of him.

“I wanted to go to America. I wanted to tell my father that I had fallen in love and wanted to live with my girlfriend. I thought of how to do it so that he would repeat his catchphrase, ‘Whatever works for you’. I went through many scenarios in my head. One of them was that I would ring the bell and tell him to go to the balcony. Then I would say ‘Daddy, do you see the Milad Tower? Can you see something dangling from the tower? Daddy, I want to go and live with Mehri. If you don’t let me, I will be the dangling thing on the tower, and I’ll jump.’ In my mind, he would say, ‘Okay, sweetheart. Whatever works for you’.”

Talking to these women, who have such different experiences, but who all seem to have something in common, it’s clear that not a lot has changed since Ahmadinejad’s comments of seven years ago. LGBT people must continue to hide, in most cases, who they really are. And even if they live in the relative openness of a Western country, it’s hard to shake the habits of where you come from; it’s hard to shake the urge to self-censor. After all, that’s the most common censorship, and it has a role in almost every society and community – whether Iranian or not, whether LGBT or heterosexual. And like so many types of silence, people have very different ways of coping. But maybe, even by mentioning something that, for him, didn't exist, Ahmadinejad, without meaning to, started the dialogue. 

 

 

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