Questioning: Cultivating a Mindset of Full Openness

By Shahana Dattagupta

Homosexuality has been a feature of human culture and expression since earliest history. In East Asian history (e.g., China) it has been recorded since 600 BCE; in ancient Greece certain forms of erotic attraction and sexual pleasure between males were often an ingrained, accepted part of the cultural norm, and homosexual expression in native Africa took a variety of forms. Homosexual and transgender individuals were common among other pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America such as the Aztecs, Quechas, Moches, Zapotecs, and the Tupinamba of Brazil, while among indigenous people of the Americas (prior to European colonization), the most common form of same-sex sexuality centered around the figure of the Two-Spirit individual*. In South Asia, ancient texts such as the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Kamasutra, the Panchatantra, as well as medieval texts in Persian, Turkish and Punjabi are replete with references to same-sex love.** That so many centuries after the rise of the Abrahamic religions condemning homosexuality there continues to be this much angst and need for political debate on something so intrinsic to human nature is, at the very least, confounding to me. Moreover, we are 8 years into the 21st century, and religion still remains intertwined with politics!

This year’s ISAFF is exploring the politics of love, and in this course, LGBTQ issues in the South Asian context naturally occupy center stage. In spite of the universality of gender and sexuality issues, there are specific cultural, familial, religious and political aspects to their South Asian context, and relatively few safe spaces to talk about them openly. As a community-based organization, Tasveer is seizing the opportunity to spark dialogue, consciousness-raising, and skill-building around queer issues within the South Asian community. The ISAFF program includes a free workshop on Friday, September 26th at 6:00pm, entitled Queer and Desi: Exploring LGBTQ Issues in the South Asian Community (pre-registration required). As stated in the festival program, “The focus of this workshop will be to provide a space for participants to engage with basic training and dialogue regarding issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in a South Asian context.” The workshop will be facilitated by Gita Mehrotra, who is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Welfare at the University of Washington, and has been involved with community-based work in various parts of the U.S. for the past 12 years, with a focus on social justice in South Asian, API communities, and queer communities.

Last Sunday, a pre-festival version of this workshop was offered by Gita to all Tasveer and ISAFF volunteers. Although I have thus far found myself to be highly open and all-encompassing about issues of sexuality, participating in this workshop provided me an unexpectedly expansive experience. Through the various exercises in the workshop, 20-odd Tasveer volunteers involved themselves in critical self-reflection about early impressions, expectations and language regarding gender and sexuality. We were asked to ponder rather simple questions such as:

When did you first learn you were expected to be heterosexual? How did you learn it? From whom?

When have you given someone else the message that you expected them to be heterosexual? How did you communicate this?

What did you learn growing up about what it meant to be to be a boy or girl? How did you learn it? From whom?

Through the couple of hours of exercises and discussion, I had an epiphany: tolerance, acceptance or support do not equate to full openness. A simple but significant nuance to underscore this: despite political movements in support of homosexuality and the rights of people of same-sex orientation, much of the debate is still rooted in a fundamental premise, that being heterosexual is the “norm,” and those “others” outside the norm need to be “given” equal rights. This prevalent attitude of normativeness of heterosexuality gives rise to terms such as “alternative lifestyle,” signaling rightaway that homosexuality is other-than-normal. So, as long as someone offers, “I support the alternative lifestyles of gay people,” this kind of “support” is still based in considering heterosexuality the only normal way to be, as if someone who is normal, has generously granted someone who is abnormal a seat in society that was not rightfully his in the first place! (There can be varying degrees of such normative thinking; I was reminded of my otherwise unusually open-minded, progressive parents telling me in my late teens that homosexuality could be temporary behavior that can be “normalized” with the right psychological help!)

Early on in the workshop, I asked Gita what the term “Questioning” meant in the expansion of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning). She requested that I hold this query until later in the workshop. Soon, however, I did not need Gita to answer my question explicitly. As we worked through the exercises, I began to understand that in the language of gender and sexuality “Questioning” could mean, on the one end, a state of uncertainty about one’s gender identity, sexuality or sexual preferences, while on the other end, it could signify an openness to a constant state of exploration within the full spectrums of gender and sexuality. At its best, Questioning is a mindset, not simply a state of mind at any given moment in time.

Full openness requires a constant, questioning mindset in all areas of life. Questioning is not an ambivalence or a lack of commitment to opinions or convictions. It is an active, responsible process of remaining open towards all possibilities at all times, while presently holding the most enlightened position possible to guide thought, speech and action. It takes hard work - critical introspection and an unfailing commitment to abolishing one’s own ignorance at every turn. Every unquestioned, default and normative position bears with it a dark other-side of possible hatred towards and resulting oppression of somebody. So, until there is conscious cultivation of a mindset of questioning by all individuals in society, full openness will not exist, and oppression of all types and forms will continue to thrive insidiously.

Please let there be no more ignorance! I encourage all in the greater Seattle community to engage in this wonderful opportunity Tasveer has provided us for open dialogue in a safe, caring space. You don’t have to be queer or straight to participate. You don’t have to agree or disagree with anything. You only need to respectfully and responsibly engage in questioning, in an effort to create a mindset of full openness in our community and society.


*See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality for a good historic overview.
**For those curious to understand more deeply, recommended reading is Same-Sex Love in India by Ruth Vanita and Salim Kidwai

Shahana Dattagupta is a Seattle-based architectural designer, visual artist, classical vocalist, stage actor and writer. She has written and performed in Tasveer’s production of Yoni ki Baat in 2007 and 2008.