- Stories from the Jaffna queer community
By Paramie Jayakody
Scenery flashes by the window like lightning as the train picks up speed; glimpses of Jaffna welcome me to the peninsula. Among the other vegetation stand the palmyrah trees, strong against the battering winds and harsh Jaffna sun, braving the harsh conditions to survive and thrive in the northern areas of Sri Lanka.
PHOTO © JAFFNA PRIDE
Jaffna’s people also resemble the palmyrah tree so central to their culture – they stand strong in the face of challenges and show resilience in the face of the harshest conditions, thriving in an area where many others would have failed. With the 30-year war, the subsequent militarisation, and the lack of attention given to many of the people’s issues, life hasn’t been easy. This is especially true in the case of the Tamil-speaking LGBTQ+ community there.
Celebrating pride
I met Kasro Ponnuthurai in a cafe, where we had a long conversation over coffee. A veterinary surgeon and a Co-Founder of Jaffna Sangam, Kasro is one of the pioneers behind establishing the Tamil-speaking Jaffna queer community.
“A lot of people ask me why we need to have that distinction; why we feel the need to say ‘Tamil-speaking’. They ask why we need to discriminate like that,” Kasro noted, adding: “But for us, it’s not something we use in a discriminatory way. It’s the way we show that this community has a different culture from the Colombo one – Tamil culture.”
The need for this distinction was a strong one, he explained. Unlike functioning as a subsect of the queer community across the island (Colombo in particular), Jaffna’s queer community and its culture reflected that of the north, which is quite different to anywhere else.
Kasro noted many times its members would go to Colombo, attend workshops and programmes – the majority of which was conducted in English – and come back without much knowledge gained or differences made. The exercise felt unfruitful, he shared. Kasro felt that the
Jaffna community – one built from the ground up, of individuals of all social classes and backgrounds – seemed very different to the Colombo queer community, which largely seemed to comprise of elites from the well-to-do social classes.
Before Jaffna Sangam was established, Kasro reminisced, Jaffna did not have a queer community to speak of, and only the Jaffna Transgender Network existed by that point.
Pioneering acceptance
Under the scorching Jaffna sun, I ducked into the shade of the Kalaithuthu College of Aesthetics with Jaffna Transgender Network (JTN) Founder Angel Queentus. Angel told me how, prior to any queer-friendly organisation existing in the north, she and her friends had a very turbulent time coming to terms with their identities.
With no guidance by individuals or organisations, Angel and her friends had nowhere to begin their search on the myriad questions they had concerning themselves and what they were feeling. Eventually, they managed to figure it out through a number of painstaking Google searches and reading English articles with some difficulty. The lack of resources in Tamil and the lack of a local organisation to cater to transgender persons in the area was what prompted Angel to start JTN.
Since its establishment, JTN has expanded to many members, mostly transgender women, although there are quite a few transgender men as well. I had the chance to meet a few of them, including a young woman from Batticaloa who was residing in Jaffna with the help of the JTN after being shunned by her local community.
JTN has accomplished many things since its inception, including drawing members from a wide range of social and ethnic backgrounds. Regardless of the background they come from, the hardships they face are the same, Angel told me. These challenges bond the community together.
As one: Harmonious resilience
Despite Jaffna Sangam being less than five years old, the community around it has grown by leaps and bounds, Kasro joyfully told me. “We’ve always had a queer community. It’s just that there was no way for them to be seen or accepted before,” he noted, adding that he was quite surprised at how easily accepting the larger community of Jaffna also was.
However, caste was a problem within the queer community in particular, he explained. He delved into a story where a young boy he knew had come out to his parents. The parents in question had been more mortified by the fact that this boy was in a relationship with a boy of a lesser caste rather than the gender of the partner.
This obstacle, one very specific to the Jaffna region, was one they were working to resolve, he added. Fortunately, the community itself seemed uncaring of the social divisions among them, and functioned as one unified unit.
The road to acceptance is not without its bumps and potholes. While there were, obviously, some challenges, Kasro told me that he and the other Jaffna Sangam Co-Founders had expected a lot more resistance than they faced.
The transgender community in particular had fared better, he also noted. Due to the presence of the ‘nachchi’ culture in the region, the greater community was already familiar with the concepts of cross-dressing and transgender individuals. However, this made concepts like genderqueer and non-binary harder to explain, he said with a chuckle.
However, the presence of the nachchi community was not something that had aided them to a great extent, stated Angel, elaborating that the community lived on the fringes of society and that there was a difference in perception between them and the transgender community.
Unlike the majority of the queer community, caste was no huge barrier here, but the reason was sombre; since many in the transgender network were shunned by their families, they built up their lives on their own. Transgender-friendly employers were also scarce, which meant that most of the community were financially unstable.
Despite the challenges, the community does help each other out frequently, Angel said. “We have a few of our members working in companies that treat transgender employees well. When there are vacancies open, they let the network know and try to get others into the companies as well,” she explained.
Safety was a big concern in the JTN, especially for the women, who were more vulnerable coming and going from work as well as out on the streets. Angel shared that many did not feel safe to openly be themselves in public.
Looking to tomorrow
However, the community remains resilient and tight-knit. Crossing any social and societal barriers, they work together to make their tomorrow a better one. This year, under the banner of Jaffna Pride, they organised Jaffna’s first pride march. According to reports, despite heavy military presence, the march took place with great participation for a new milestone for the Jaffna queer community.
We finished our conversation and headed down the street, me in jeans, and Angel in a dress – the first time she has been able to walk down the streets of her own town wearing one, she told me.
