Family, Society and the Individual

I spoke with a gay man in his late 30s, and it was the short but important discussion I had with him that prompted me to write this article. He had an intense argument with his greater family during a gathering for the 15^th of August holiday after they insisted on him explaining to them why he was not married yet, and why he had no intentions to do so. He ended up coming out amongst shouting and yelling, was ridiculed, called a disgrace and kicked out of the family. As described in a previous article on gay life in Cyprus, families here are very close, and are always interested in their family members lives, trying to get them to do what the family thinks is the ‘right’ thing to do. Unfortunately for many gay, lesbian and transgender people in Cyprus, being gay is often not the ‘right’ thing, and there is only a fine line between being interested and being nosey. Sooner or later, a family will figure things out, and all too often people’s coming out takes place with an argument involving the whole family and beginning with the question ‘Why aren’t you married yet?’

Clearly, this is not the way things should end up, but to blame only the family for the situation is incorrect. It takes two to make a fight, but in this case three factors are to blame: family, society and the individual.

Family should learn that sometimes what they think is correct is not right for all the members of the family. Instead of accusing and ostracising their own family members, they should try to help them to seek a better life in the way they want to live it. Living life as a gay man or woman is only one of the things they reject. There are too many cases where parents force their children to live the lives they dreamt for them, instead of allowing them to pursue their own goals, whether these are personal or occupational. Parents must understand that although they might have their child’s best interest at heart, they may actually be making their child unhappy. Certain stereotypes, a fear of what the neighbours, family and friends will think, denial, a sense of family pride or shame, religious beliefs but also genuine interest for their child may lead to actions which bring great misery to their offspring. Sometimes, their own misconceptions may lead to them actually trying to harm their children once they come out. Where do these misconceptions come from though? This brings us onto our next factor: society.

Every society has a set of rules which define ‘right’ from ‘wrong’. In Cypriot society, there are certain rules which each sex must abide by in order to do the ‘right’ thing. Men are expected to be strong, get a good job, marry and have children and provide for the family. Women are expected to marry, have children, look after the children, clean, cook and now days also have a job. So what happens if a man or woman decides not to do the expected thing and get married with a person of the opposite sex, but instead reveal that they are homosexual and do not even like the opposite sex? Society remains shocked, because its expectations are destroyed and so it rebels. It tries to rectify things by forcing the person in question to get married so everything will be ok. The problem here is that according to society, a person’s duty to get married outweighs the right of the person to be happy with his or her own life, as well as the right of control over who they will have relations with. Homosexuality is seen as a bad choice, and a deviance from the norm. It is also seen as something that can be ‘fixed’. The reason this theory prevails is understandable. The media often presents gay issues in a shocking or mocking way, and the church is outspoken about its condemnation of homosexuality to the point where it does not just say that it is incompatible with the religion, but attacks it using words such as ‘disgusting’, ‘vile’, ‘abnormal’, ‘sinful’ and ‘perverted’. Priests have been heard saying that by giving rights to homosexuals ‘will open the floodgates of sin’. Although these attacks are clearly anti-christian, the media supports and advertises them, without any opposing view being given. It is only logical for people believe what they are told and hear on the news. An example is a front page article in a monthly paper which described how two homosexuals in Paphos were seen kissing and how this action ‘shocked’ the public who where there. Publications which present homosexuality as ‘shocking’ and ‘bad’, or news broadcasts which present gay prides in their novelty news slots with a hint of mockery give the general public the impression that this is what homosexuality is. Something shocking and worthy of mockery. The problem is that in Cyprus there is no organised gay community to fight back against these stereotypes, so they just prevail. When a TV station cuts a scene in a movie where two men kiss, no one gets up to contest it and call it discrimination, even when the same TV stations may show programmes bordering on light straight porn during daytime television. Why then do gay men and women not complain against this bias. After all, it is a bias which works against them, preventing them from leading normal lives and feeding misconceptions about them which lead to further discrimination, violence and ridicule.

The answer has to do with the third factor, the individual. Most people just want to live their lives the way they want in as much a peaceful and non-confrontational manner as possible. They do not want to be discriminated against, looked down upon, ridiculed, shunned by family and friends or marginalised by society. Gay men and women thus tend to go about their lives, hiding their orientations from friends, family and the workplace and living their personal lives in secret. Many even choose to date members of the opposite sex in order to cover up their sexuality so no one will find them out. The main problem is that in hiding their sexuality from others, no one dares to speak up for fear of being found out with subsequent rejection or backlash. These people are hiding from the prejudices of society, yet do nothing to fight those same prejudices. A problem also exists with gays who 'out' other members of their community, and say nasty things about gay people in general in order to cover their own sexuality or complexes. This habit puts the fight for gay rights back decades, as a lot of the time the prejudices gay people in Cyprus face come from within and are enforced by such members of the gay community. As mentioned before, without a voice representing the gay community to counter the anti-gay sentiment that permeates Cypriot society today, nothing will change, and the prejudices will exist to overshadow future generations of gays and lesbians in Cyprus. It is up to each individual to take a stance against homophobia. Once people begin to take this stance and fight homophobia, once they begin to show society at large that being gay is none of the nasty things it is presented to be, only then will society begin to change its views on the matter. Once society changes its views, families will do so as well and then things will become easier for gays and lesbians all over Cyprus. They will no longer have to hide from their family, they will no longer feel they have to be ashamed of who they are. Hopefully then, people will feel free to come out to friends and family  without having arguments, able to live their lives out in the open, no longer hiding, but proud of who they are.