From bianet’s article series THE CHANGING JOURNEY OF THE STRUGGLES OF HIJAB
“I attended the Pride marches or the marches on May 1st and the people who see me say ‘Look, she has come to support.’ They look at me not as an individual who takes part in this struggle but as a person who was recruited from among the conservatives and converted.”
Source: “No one believes that there could be a Muslim, socialist, and homosexual woman.” (“Müslüman, Sosyalist ve Eşcinsel Bir Kadının Varlığına Kimse İnanmıyor”) Büşra Cebeci, Bianet, February 10, 2018 http://bianet.org/bianet/toplumsal-cinsiyet/194033-musluman-sosyalist-ve-escinsel-bir-kadinin-varligina-kimse-inanmiyor
“When they realize that I can be a homosexual, they get puzzled. They look at me like saying ‘What do you mean?’ and get baffled. Then, they laugh after saying ‘You gotta be kidding me’. They don’t believe it; the fact that I am a ‘dyke’ or that I am a Muslim.”
We have witnessed throughout this Bianet interview series that there are difficulties for women to wear a hijab or take off the hijab. In this interview, we witness the things that a woman wearing hijab will suffer when she outgrows the norms of a “woman who wears hijab”.
A socialist and homosexual woman with hijab shares her story with us; telling us about the rage conservative society feels towards her because they see her as a deviant coming from within their society and about the fact that the dissident society see her as someone converted from the other side, not as truly one of them, she narrates her struggle to be a free individual despite all this.
When and how did you decide to wear hijab?
I can say that my wish to wear hijab consciously came when I was at around my 20s. In the past, I did not go outside the house without covering my head, because of the society and family that I live in and the habits that I’d had since childhood. I covered my head outside of the school hours. At that time, wearing hijab at school was not allowed and this was a good thing for me because I didn’t want to wear it as a matter of fact. I was wearing it due to the fear of hearing “the daughter of what’s-his-name wanders around without covering her head.”
I grew up in a society that thinks “girls don’t go to school;” so, I was already alienated because I was constantly reading and studying. To be honest, I did not even dare to take off the hijab. Wearing it for a while becomes like a habit, I think. Unless you choose to wear it consciously, wearing hijab is nothing more than a habit. Otherwise, despite the fact that you disobey all the other rules of the religion: tell lies, slander someone, gossip, break hearts, and fail to share your meal with hungry people, you think you will go to heaven because you are a true Muslim for wearing the hijab. Is that possible?
You don’t hide you are an LGBTI activist wearing hijab on social media. What are the reactions that you receive from that?
Actually, not only on social media, but I don’t like hiding it in real life as well. Even at my place of work, some of the people know my sexual orientation. The majority of them show “toleration” or think they are showing “toleration.” The thing we call “toleration” is in fact just an attitude of people thinking to himself or herself that they are superior. I don’t think I did something like committing a crime, which needs to be tolerated. There are so many people who claim they are LGBTI supporters but they are actually homophobic.
“Toleration” means tolerating something and I don’t do anything that wanders at the borders of a person’s toleration. Needless to say, I don’t need to be tolerated, I need to be equal with other people. On the other hand, there are some people who straightforwardly spill out hatred against me. There are some saying “even the breath you take is a sin.” Some even threaten me by saying “this slut is just confused, come and let me help you.” Some try to lynch me. Basically, every LGBTI individual faces these kinds of sentiments. However, the situation gets carried into another dimension because I wear hijab. They see me as a deviant who was once a part of them and this is the point that they get angry about. They already attack LGBTI individuals. The fact that there is a religious person with hijab, someone who looks like them, among the LGBTI people whom they call “deviant” makes them much angrier. But there is not just one colour in this life. Unfortunately, those who don’t have rainbows inside of them don’t realize this.
What kinds of answers do you get from the people to whom you come out to about your sexual orientation?
They laugh at first. Then, when they realize this is real and they get puzzled. They look at me saying “What do you mean?” and get baffled. Then they laugh, saying “You gotta be kidding me.” They don’t believe it; the fact that I am a “dyke” or that I am a “Muslim.” People look at me like I am telling them a joke. So, I let things slide. Instead of coming out to them, I wait for them to realize by themselves. When they do, they become distant anyway and almost all of them leave me. Except for a few, even my closest friends stay away from me and think they are protecting themselves from me.
A female friend of mine, whom I had hugged and kissed and who had never hesitated to have a close touch with me in the previous years, pushed my arms away when I was about to hug her a day after I came out to her; she has never come close to me since then. I was friends with this person for years, we were so close, and I always considered her like a sister to me.
Another characteristic of yours that many see as contrarian is your political orientation. How do people react when you define yourself as a socialist?
I don’t worry about the reactions now, but no one accepts me. In the past, I was a member of a revolutionary — left wing organization. I used to go to the establishments of this organization and they used to see me as a person who is interested in the subject a little, but confused and in a paradoxical situation. When I went to LGBTI establishments, they shut the door in my face after saying “it seems like you came to the wrong address”. They have started to get used to it recently, or at least I think they have. For example, I go to the Pride marches and the people who see me say “look, she has come to support us,” they don’t accept that I am one of them or they don’t even regard it as possible. I go to the marches on May 1st and I hear them saying “Look, sisters with hijab are with us, they seem like they don’t believe in the government in power.” They look at me not as an individual who takes part in the struggle but as a person who was recruited from among the conservatives and converted.
At the exits of subways or at the stations of ferries where socialist leaflets are distributed, when I reach to take one, they draw back. This is completely because of their prejudices. I am perceived as if I am supporting or as if I have to support the conservative government. No, the religion that is exploited for political gain is my religion and I don’t have to defend this exploitation. In short, no one believes or can believe that there could be a woman who is an LGBTI individual, a socialist, and a Muslim.
Why? Seeing all this in one person is considered a paradox. They say that I understand nothing, that I lie in order to get attention, or that I suffer from contradictions in terms. No, the first one is my sexual orientation, the other one is my political opinion, and the last one is my religion.
To me, the Quran is a book that each person interprets individually and they shape themselves according to that interpretation after reading it. In real life, everybody practices what s/he understands from the Quran. I think it is wrong to use it as a vehicle to impose something religious after interpreting it with personal opinions and I cannot accept this attitude. Believe me, I have heard so many things about myself. So, I just gave up listening to them and expressing myself to them. After all, everyone believes in the things that they have in their minds. My family ignores my political standing. Yes, they just ignore it, as if it doesn’t exist or as if I am a joke. All my family and relatives are extremely conservative and they often tell me “you have been brainwashed.”
Is there any women who suffer from the same problems and contact you? What would you like to tell them?
There are few, not many. Most of us are afraid and hide ourselves. We can even face death after all. A person whom you have never meet can stab you as you walk around the corner, kidnap you, rape you so that “you can come to your senses,” kill you or beat you. They do all these things just because you are different from them and prefer walking a different path.
No one steps up and do something about it, because this is Turkey and we, women, are creatures who are seen as a second- or third-class citizen or we don’t even belong to a class.
We are raised and governed by people who do not accept our existence. So, we need to never give up on ourselves and who we are. It is not just about resisting against them. It is also about resisting against ourselves.
We need to resist even against ourselves in order to never give up despite all of our fears, sufferings, scars, and alienation.