Lanka lesbians find a new home

[Ulhas Joglekar]

6 December 1999 :
Lanka lesbians find a new home
By Charu Lata Joshi
The Times of India News Service
COLOMBO: Five years after Sri Lankan men decided to shed their inhibitions
and launch the country's first organisation for people with `alternate
sexualities', women have decided to follow suit.
Forty women from diverse backgrounds gathered Sunday at the `Drop-in Centre'
at the capital's head office for gay men to launch the society's first
formal lesbian organisation. It is indeed a big day in the lives of these
women, who have till now been objects of social ostracism and ridicule with
no support structure to rely on. ``We feel we now have a home,'' said
22-year-old Ujjwala.
Her sentiments are echoed by nearly a dozen other young women, who recount
hair-raising tales of harassment and physical abuse when they come out in
the open. According to Sri Lanka's leading gay activist, Sherman De Rose,
women have borne the worst of social discrimination. ``While male
homosexuality is becoming a slowly accepted fact in Sri Lankan society,
women had nowhere to go to,'' he said. The organisation, also called
`Companions' like its male counterpart, is now expected to fulfil that role.
Apart from working as a meeting ground for a steadily-growing number of
women who are getting more vocal about their sexual preferences, the
organisation will provide medical and HIV/AIDS counselling, protection and
even residential facilities for displaced women. It will comprise of an
administrative committee and within the next week, the members will nominate
their chairperson. For now, a sum of Rs 1.2 lakh has been set aside for this
exclusive women's organisation -- part of which comes from a Danish grant.
The problems that lesbian women undergo had been simmering for sometime now.
But the immediate provocation came from a recent episode, which put the
country's gay activists on a fast track to resolve the issue. In an
extremely bizarre incident, a lesbian couple, Upeksha and Jaya (names
changed on request) were not only forced out of their homes but also faced a
death threat for their aberrant behaviour. The two fled and sought refuge in
the `Drop-in-Centre'.
``We knew then that something more formalised had to be worked out, so that
such women have a nodal point of contact when faced with such
circumstances,'' said De Rose. In a society battling between conventional,
South Asian societal codes and western cultural influences, acceptability
alternative sexual orientations is proving to be an uphill task.
``Difficult, not impossible,'' says Jaya, with a smile. Quite.

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