Lesbian teen Michelle (not her real name) says all she wants is to be allowed to live her life free of hate and discrimination and not be constantly labelled as “mentally unstable.”
It has been less than a year since she made her sexuality known but the daily struggles she has faced since have made her think constantly about ending her life, but she continues to wake up every morning with new determination to not only live her life to make life easier for the next girl or boy who may face similar challenges.
Michelle, 17, has been alienated by most of her relatives. Her declaration to her immediate relatives that she was gay was not only greeted with verbal abuse, but she was twice beaten badly by a male relative who wanted to “beat the gayness out of her.” She can no longer interact with female relatives her age or younger as her relatives are afraid that she would influence them and she has since been told that she would have to support herself. A female relative went as far as cyberbullying her, informing the world of what the female relative called her “nasty” lifestyle.
With the support of a few who still support her, Michelle finds the strength to overcome the daily challenges and to survive without putting up a fight. However, fight she did when just a few months before she wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams, the school’s administration attempted to expel her, because according to the Headmistress, she was “infecting” the other girls in the school.
She moved from being a model student (she was head prefect of the school) to being one that the teachers felt should be banished because she made it known that she was gay.
“All of a sudden I became this bad child. I did not fight or break any school rules but they just wanted me out of the school. Some of my teachers started telling me that I am mentally ill and I need counselling and I would tell them nothing is wrong with me, my sexuality is just different,” the teenager told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
When the school gave her a letter of suspension for “no reason,” the teenager said, she was advised to approach the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD)—an organisation she had never heard of—for assistance and she did. SASOD not only intervened at the school level but arranged for her to be counselled and in the end she was allowed to write the CSEC exams even though it was not an easy road.
“I don’t know why people just have to see me as different and think that something is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong me and I just want to be allowed to live my life. I am not troubling anybody,” the teenager lamented.
‘Youth matters’
Michelle is one many teenagers who turn to SASOD for assistance and because of this Managing Director of the organisation Joel Simpson said they have created a LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Youth Matters programme which caters for LGBT youth.
The programme works with persons from 16 years and older but Simpson said the organisation is exploring working with younger adolescents in the future.
“SASOD only used to work with adults (persons who are 18 and over) but we recognize LGBT youth are being neglected and have started to cater directly for LGBT youth,” Simpson explained adding that the youth programme caters for self-acceptance, empowerment and promoting good mental and sexual health.
He pointed out that like Michelle, LGBT youths often feel isolated, suffer depression and other mental health challenges due to homophobic and transphobic bullying and discrimination in schools, and familial violence and abuse in their homes.
In the youth programme, SASOD works with partners—like the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA)—to provide “psycho-social support for LGBT youth, and youth who are questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Asked pointedly about the accusation by some that the organization might be “grooming” confused youths to become gays, Simpson said, “There is no such thing as grooming when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“Our programme and our work with partners help youth to find their true selves – whatever that may be. There is no pressure or undue influence from SASOD or any of our partners that these youth must decide to identify one way or another.”
According to Simpson, young people who are finding themselves and figuring out what their authentic sexual orientation and gender identity are often need counselling and psychosocial support. However, he pointed out that the form of counselling and psychosocial support they receive should not demonize LGBT identities. “All forms of sexual orientation and gender identity are valid, healthy and normal,” he said.
As a result he is of the opinion that youths should not be counselled to “pray the gay away” or otherwise reject their authentic sexual orientation or gender identity as this can have “deleterious consequences in the long term.
“In Guyana, we see many persons in the forefront of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches who demonize LGBT people on the pulpit, but engage in same-sex practices ‘on the down low’,” Simpson asserted.
Further, he said there are even churches and church leaders who cover up this kind of behaviour when it’s exposed and unsuspecting heterosexual partners and sometimes children from these partnerships also suffer from this denial, self-stigma and internalized homophobia. “This also causes these LGBT people themselves to suffer from depression and other mental health challenges, which can lead to suicide,” he said.
‘Public kiss’
For Michelle, it was kissing another girl in public that was her undoing in the home environment, since someone saw this act and informed her relatives.
“For me, I always knew that I was different because even as a child when we would play dolly house I would always want to be the father and when I grew older I never felt attracted to a boy. When my friends would talk about wanting to have a handsome husband that was never me…,” she said.
But she also knew that it was not something she wanted to discuss with others as she was brought up in a religious environment and knew how those around her viewed homosexuality.
The night she was confronted about that public kiss, Michelle said, she initially denied it. But later, she informed her relatives that it was all true and that she was gay.
Immediately, things changed in her household and Michelle said she was always looked at in a strange manner as if something was wrong with her; her closest female relative went into a state of depression. Her phone was taken away and her relatives attempted to bar her from all forms of communication but she continued to live her life as normally as possible.
“One day he [male relative] just look at me and then start beating me. He throw me to the ground and start beating me so bad that my entire skin was mark up,” Michelle said lowering her voice as she described the experience.
Shortly after this, the issue came to a head at school when a male classmate started spreading a rumour that he was intimate with her. Michelle said she then publicly declared that she was a lesbian and had no interest in boys. From that day her school life became a ‘living hell.’
“I was told something was mentally wrong with me and while I know nothing was wrong with me, I felt depressed because most of my teachers were treating me differently,” she said.
The letter of suspension was given to her and before informing her guardian she reached out to SASOD for help. But the initial meeting at the school was with her guardian who questioned why the child was being suspended when she broke no school rules.
“The Headmistress said she wanted me out of the school because I was infecting the school so my [female relative] turned and asked her if I had AIDS or something; how am I infecting the school and she just stopped talking.”
Many of her female friends were also targeted in the process and at least one was removed from the school. She was also told that as the head prefect she was not setting the right example and because of this she relinquished the title.
Eventually representatives from SASOD met school officials and again Michelle was labelled as being mentally unstable and it was advised that she got counselling. SASOD arranged for a counsellor from another organisation to visit the school and work with the teenager.
However, Michelle said she continued to be targeted by the teachers some of whom insisted that she started wearing ribbons, when most of the girls in fifth form were no longer wearing ribbons. She rebelled. “I had long flowing hair and I just went home and cut it off and my relative had to take me to a salon to have it cut properly. And even though it was very short they kept telling me to pin a ribbon in it, but because of the texture the ribbon kept falling out. So it would be like they were pulling me out of class, sending me out in the yard and I was just so stressed out. Some teachers did not even want me in their class,” she said.
Michelle is no longer in school but she is completing work study at an organization where she said she is not being treated differently but she is unsure as to what her future plans are.
Her relatives continue to harass her and she is being told to go to church to change. She is unsure as to how much longer she would be allowed to remain at home even though she isolates herself as much as she can.
“They are telling me that I will become nobody in life if I don’t change. But I am telling them my sexuality is just one part of me and nothing is wrong with me I am just like everyone else.”
She is telling her story—though anonymously—because she wants persons to know that people like her do exist and nothing is wrong with them.
“I want people to know that we don’t live an easy life. Every day is a battle and we always have to be fighting for survival… And I also want people to know that I am not confused and that I will not change when I meet about 20 like what some people saying. I know who I am. Just let me live my life.”
