INDIA
Mekhala, who has just turned 17, pleaded with teary eyes. “You must tell Baba to say ‘yes’. He trusts you.” I knew I was getting into a difficult zone or, more honestly, an ethical minefield. I had been seeing Mekhala for more than three years. Initially, the concerns with which parents brought her were the usual bread-and-butter stuff mental health professionals are used to dealing with. They were adolescent behavioural issues which hovered around testing boundaries of parental permission, defiance, academic underperformance and so on. They are usually sorted out with a patient listening and acting as a ‘benevolent elder’ with the opposing parties to broker truce and generate greater understanding where each person is coming from.
With Mekhala, things did not settle easily. Her persistent non-conforming behaviour coupled with an enormous faith and affection on part of her parents and teachers, that she is destined to “achieve a lot more” and needs to alter her lifestyle, kept her and what Mekhala termed as “intruders” in her life, at loggerheads.
The task assigned to me on that day was to convince her father that he must allow his 17-year-old daughter to go on a date to a coffee shop. There were, however, twists in the tale.
Mekhala had come out as lesbian about a year back. I had spent a significant amount of time ‘holding’ the family together during this turbulent period. Both parents had gracefully, albeit sadly, accepted their daughter’s preference. During my conversations, Mekhala had told me about an app called Moovz, which was like Tinder, but exclusively for gay people. She had befriended a girl, 16 years old, with whom she had been video chatting. Mekhala wanted to meet this girl for the first time in a coffee shop. Her father had explained why he felt he could not say ‘yes’. My job was to convince him and allow his daughter to go and meet this girl, whom he or Mekhala hardly ‘knew’’. Neither did I. Yet, Mekhala trusted me to convince her father to let her go and meet this girl.
As a clinician used to seeing adolescents and young people who are coming out as lesbian, gay or transgender, this specific task assigned to me by Mekhala was novel. Between my colleagues and me, we usually see about six-eight adolescents in a year who themselves or their carers have sought help to address issues arising out of their sexual orientation.
While listening to Mekhala, I was scanning my own biases and thoughts. What would have been my attitude if she wanted to date a boy? Was my hesitation related to the fact that she was under 18 years and had met someone through a dating app? Is it appropriate for adults to facilitate dating of two minors who have been acquainted through a dating app? Are the parents of the other adolescent at all aware that their child was video chatting through a gay dating app? Do I need to discuss about the legality or rather the illegality of sexual relationship between two 17-year-olds as per the POCSO Act (POCSO is Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act, 2012, which criminalises sexual activity in under-18s)? There was a perplexing array of doubts.
The attitude towards sexuality and gender has evolved to a more inclusive and humane perspective compared to what it was perhaps a decade ago. The young people, usually, are a lot more accepting of these changes than their parents. This often gives rise to a culture clash, as was being unfolded in front of me in my consultation room. Mekhala’s parents, like me, have been “taught” to believe in the gender binary and heterosexual relationship template as the only socially acceptable relationship model.
For many of us, accepting that gender is a non-binary concept and all relationships deserve acceptance, privacy and dignity, irrespective of the sexual orientation of the people involved, has been daunting. One of my colleagues, a clinical psychologist, had asked me once regarding how she would talk to her child about the non-binary gender identities, expressions and the concept of gender fluidity. She said for her (and for most of us) the script of gender and sexuality is the traditional and the dominant one; the one which is dominated by the binaries of gender and is non-inclusive, and prejudiced.
So, I asked Mekhala, that before I convey her message to her father, what message she, as a lesbian adolescent, would have for us? What message she would have for the adults in her world and in the world of the likes of her, to achieve a greater understanding and acceptance? The following are the thoughts she asked me to convey to all of us:
1. Please understand that gender and sexuality are separate. They need to be viewed separately.
2. Non-binary/gender-fluid people do exist, and they are not aliens on this planet.
3. Names, pronouns and gender markers are important. When you call me by the wrong name or pronoun, it can feel like an insult.
4. Please do not force treatment on us (to change sexual orientation and gender expression). It violates human and civil rights.
“So, you are on my team, aren’t you?” Mekhala asked me just before I was ushering in her father to discuss the issue of her dating. I nervously smiled, not knowing for sure where the next part of our consultation was headed.
By J.R. Ram
8 April 2018
