SUMMARY KEYWORDS
parents, people, felt, feelings, queer, family, shame, growing, thought, gay, bit, high school, age, sister, speak, shaming, college, began, spanish, called

00:00
So I'm going to start recording. Perfect. So for some basic information, what are your name and pronouns?

00:06
So name is Rohan Anand, and I go by him.

00:09
Awesome. And do you identify as part of the LGBTQIA plus community?

00:13
I do identify as a gay male, and cisgender. Male.

00:16
Awesome. And when and where were you born?

00:19
I was born in Philadelphia. And I grew up mostly in Dallas, Texas, have lived in several Latin American countries through their study abroad or work. Okay, like which countries, Chile, Spain and Mexico. So awesome. Believe it or not Spanish was actually my first language really grew up speaking it in Texas, and I speak it today in Chicago. I use it in my job. And I had pursued a secondary major liberal arts major in college in Spanish, which is like being an English major to read texts and do analysis. So I consider myself multilingual. So my Spanish and my English are about the same progress and then I speak conversational Hindi and Punjabi. Awesome.

01:05
I also was born in Houston, but I unfortunately pick up the Spanish so you know, I wish I could speak Spanish. What is your ethnic background?

01:15
So my parents are from Punjab, as well as my grandparents, my three out of four, my grandparents were born in what is now Pakistan, so both Lahore and was done. And they were refugees during the partition of 47. They literally had to leave nothing but the clothes on their back. They were in their formative years in their early 20s. And they were in school figuring out their next steps. So they fled to Delhi. And that's where my parents were born. And were raised. And my parents is childhood homes that they grew up in since the 50s. Or were my grandparents, and cousins Stillman today. I should Tasha,

01:57
and so segwaying on to like family background. That was a great intro to that. When and where did you grow up? And what do you remember about it?

02:08
Yeah, so I grew up in Dallas, Texas, I think that having been a person that was of Indian origin, and also had this unique element and being born in a place like Philadelphia, and then landing in this big place called Texas, there was definitely an interesting upbringing that I had, in the sense that around my neighborhood, I noticed children of color, and I connected with them, my parents found some of the South Asian communities in the city of Dallas, I definitely connected with those individuals and their families, my parents are still friends with those individuals as well. When I did start going to school, I was basically taught that I had to master all my subjects and get good grades, parts and activities, model kid. And I also couldn't really rely on my parents or much help with that, because they didn't grow up here. So there was definitely a good amount of pressure growing up. And it was interesting that my teachers would tell my parents whenever they had parent teacher conferences that I put too much pressure on myself. And I was a star student. And yet that pressure was coming from home, right? So it was tough, because the concept of even relaxing you're taking time off, or you know, just kind of enjoying myself a lot, seemed like almost a guilty pleasure.

03:44
And so what were your dreams when you were younger? Do you remember what you want it to be? Or anything that inspired those dreams.

03:51
I've always had a passion for commercial aviation. So the airline industry, it was something that from a young age, I just was enthralled by. So naturally, I had a thought of being a pilot. I even thought being a flight attendant might be kind of cool to be able to go around the world and be in the air. But my parents and of course other people discourage that because they have their own sort of biased experiences from family members that pursue that. And then of course, there's that opinion as you get older that you should be a doctor or a lawyer for disappointment. I actually went to the technical engineering route. And so I was primarily a technology operations and analytics major and undergrad, and then the Spanish as a secondary thing.

04:49
Gotcha. And so, moving on to like, you know, growing up more so than, you know, family background. I know for me, I used to go to my friend's houses and you know, play with their Barbie dolls and do all those sort of things. Did you have any early signs about your later orientation?

05:06
Yeah, no, for sure, I think it was kind of a little bit traumatizing even to think back on for a while. And a lot of shame was induced because indeed my Barbies, and I thought, you know, the hairstyles are kind of cool. And in terms of rough video games, and street fighting and stuff, I didn't find that stuff. Interesting. I love bill. I love blocks, and Legos, and even playing outside I thought was fun running around blowing off steam. My parents were so horrified. When I asked for a Kitty Surprise, at age five, I was basically shamed into not ever wanting to go near anything that could be perceived as feminine or feminine. When it came to clothing or style, or even TV shows, I mean, my mother would smack me if I did something like Fidel and expressed interest in something that was perceived as non masculine. And so I spent a lot of my childhood and she really didn't feel like I fit in, I definitely thought that I was different and unique. And I thought I was fun and cool. In my own amassment way, I didn't have anyone around me that could have made me feel better about myself, either within my own family, or even around me, it would only be when some visitors from seem to really see to me would come through the house. And they would make a note about my imagination, or my creativity or my energy or my, you know, my, my demeanor. And I was also a middle child. And once my younger brother was born, I was only five mentioned really did I hate to say this, I kind of became that middle child, and still have that today where my sister, you know, was bossy role model wanted to do kind of a micro mini version of my parents. And then my younger brother was just a spoiled brat. And I was just kind of stuck in the middle. And I felt alone my childhood. It wasn't, it wasn't a horrible touted by any means. But it was prompt with a lot of loneliness and fear, and rejection and shame and guilt and repression. So I spent a lot of my first 18 years, just trying to keep a low profile and trying to make sense of what I was doing and try to please my parents as much as I could by doing what they asked me to do. And it was never enough. And I certainly felt like no matter what I was not good enough myself.

07:47
Did you find any way to express those feelings that you're repressing or sort of outlets to, you know, counter some of that depression and loneliness? A true feeling?

07:56
Yeah, I mean, I threw myself into my studies, I threw myself into sports. We would spend a lot of time in the beginning painting model planes or trying to build things that would be fun. But then after a while, I was told no, you're too old for that. I didn't have a chance to do much painting, but I really loved art. And I love music, and I loved being able to write. Fortunately, though, because I was expected to do sports, I didn't have time to be in the band. I didn't. Theater, I didn't have time to do acting, I didn't have time to dance, or continue that I just had to be a sports guy. And then I had to get straight A's take the toughest classes, and do whatever extracurriculars I could fit in. The only artistic thing and the only outlet that I really had was writing for the school paper. Obviously, the athletics were more fun in terms of you know, getting stronger, and then being out there and getting a sense of team mates. And rather than that fashion, which has served me well for life. I did Boy Scouts, and I was an Eagle Scout, which I got at age 14. So by the time I was in high school, I wasn't doing camping or hiking or any of the fun stuff that I used to do with the scouts. So high school for me it was just a pact four years of just working.

09:17
And do you think as a you know, senior in high school, did you feel like that angle paid off in any way?

09:24
It did to an extent but when I realized that I might be indelibly gay, it was around the age of 17. And my motivation tanked my feelings of guilt and shame and fear and embarrassment and humiliation were so deep, that it made it harder and harder to focus on getting a great SATs score or getting a great AP exam score. And so I felt that, largely speaking, by the time my junior and senior year hit, I started to really struggle. In fact, I was probably the most depressed Rest, my junior year in didn't really climb out of that depression until midway senior year when I got admitted to universities. And then, you know, the depression would be a little bit more cyclical for the remaining years after that.

10:19
And before we go into, you know, like coming out and realizing sexuality in that kind of, you know, path. I do have one question about that sort of thing that you were just talking about. So, you were, you mentioned that you felt a lot of, you know, shame from repressing that personality and things of that vein, were your parents ever? Did they ever use the word gay? Or did they just like, you know, discouraging any feminine action? Or was it just sort of an understood thing? Can you tell me more about that?

10:52
Yeah. So sexuality in general, and gender expression was a taboo subject in our family as it is in most families. Mine too. Yeah. And even the overview of what sex is and what sexuality is and what consent is. Never ever discussed people, human Desi families, like you'll learn all that you need to learn about that in school. Because most curriculum of sexual nature in schools is all about procreation, and sex is 99.9%. About pleasure. So that wasn't missed. In then, in addition to that, you learn about STI as and as an adolescent, the concept of what's it called the the sexual deviancy bulls, you know, abstinence only education. So when I was in seventh grade, even though I was the oldest that in my class, I was one of the last to go through puberty. So it was small. And I was weak, and I got called a faggot a lot, I got called a queer a lot, and I didn't even those words meant. And so the concept of homosexuality, and in just the labeling of queer people wasn't known to be continued. And when I would come home and tell my parents this, they would dismiss it as Oh, this is something that's part of what kids do. And even to this day, they're like, this is what kids do, you know, and deal with it. And yet, I said, Well, they're calling me a faggot, because they believe it. And they also want to hurt me. These people want to hurt me, they actually think that I am doing something that makes me look like something that is disliked. And so there was that feeling for those years. And then puberty rolled around. And so when that took place, and all the nasty crap that happens in puberty, just to begin with took place. I was like, Okay, so there's this aspect of me. All these guys that are calling me faggot and queer and whatnot. They talked about how much they love women, and they talk about breasts, and they talk about porn and jerking off and all these other things. Like I said, sections about I don't relate to that at all. Like I didn't, I was like, what are they feeling? How are they feeling it? And then it wasn't until I was in high school, and I'm attending an all boys High School at this point. It's a Catholic school at the Jesuit school just tossed around all around you. And that, of course, started to bring up this whole new thought process in my head, where I'm like, girls don't like me, because they call me names, guys like heterosexual burly guys. You know, they don't really want to have anything to do with me. And here I am. I don't know how to even attract a girl. But do I even feel attracted to a girl? And of everything? What are these feelings and I'm starting to develop towards other guys. Under all of this, none of these things seem to be connecting and all of it seems wrong. Yeah. So I was just completely possible. In around that time, I would say in high school, my parents began to speak up about their feelings on homosexuality a lot more. And having co workers that were gay, very, were very homophobic from the start the comments that they would make the othering the shaming, the belief that it's not natural, the belief that marriage equality was not something that they would support. And just generally speaking, how someone who could possibly be attracted and same sex must be.

14:36
So do you think that was a cultural thing or religious thing? What do you think that those ideas stem from

14:41
all the above? I think of our families, especially the ones that left the Motherland countries that were raised in an environment that was high pressure and poor trauma and full of look, yaka hangover what other people say well, there's an obsession that three things As in life or to be achieved, number one is money or job. Number two is marriage. And number three is children. So there is naturally that feeling that everyone has to be this mobile to play, that's the same for everyone else, not for that individual. And their feelings of that were no different than their feelings towards black people towards, towards people who are plus size towards people who might be gender neutral, like all sorts of otherness. Yeah, how other illnesses are wrong thing was there. And I also believe that a lot of these families, and this is something that came about last year when the focus shifted on stop API hate is a lot of Asian American families don't realize that our skin type wasn't permitted until the 60s. And people came over here, because there was an incentive program attached to it that would allow them to be able to actually find relative success in this country. And as long as the white man looked at them, even if it was less than or equal, as long as the Whiteman looked at them, as above black people, or brown people, or immigrants than the AAPI person was, okay. They just their whole thing, model minority, whatever. So I think that a lot of that mothering and shaming of othering came about because my parents fit into that category of people who had the privilege of immigrating to this country with guaranteed jobs and salaries. On the other side, they weren't part of an indigenous community that was taken to this country during this period. That kind of baggage.

16:47
Yeah, for sure. We're gonna talk a lot more about race and ethnicity and those kinds of things. In the second, I want to circle back to, you know, the coming out experience in that kind of process. And so, can you tell me a little bit more about your coming out process when you were 17? And what influenced it? And some of those more details?

17:05
Yeah, no, for sure. So while I was 17, I finally learned how to masturbate for the first time and it was to gain more. So I immediately was like, whoa, this thing is awesome. As well as whoa, this thing is terrible. Yeah. And so I didn't come out. In fact, for many more years after that, and I even dated a woman in my senior year of high school, you know, we explored sexually together. And that was fun, I guess, for both of us. Then I went to college. And immediately I went into an environment that was again, super Catholic, religious, single sex, dormitory, sexual repression, and lots of testosterone in a small isolated place. So anyways, it felt like high school, part two, however, now you're in college, right? So you're away from your family or away from your home, or ability to follow an unstructured day in life and month in whatever you want. Plus, there's alcohol and now you are building camaraderie. And so since I was starting afresh in that environment, I began to really try to lean into a more burrow life. And in that regard, I became so much more obsessed with building friendships that appeared as strong, intimate, romantic, and healthy. And so, when that took place, I was basically recreating an environment around me, that would make my parents happy, or that would make the heterosexual community that I was trying to impress, you know, look at me with some sort of regard and respect. And sexually, I did not even experiment with a guy until I was 21 years old. And I did that while I was studying abroad in London. And even though I was with a community of people from college, I intentionally flew out to Buenos itis for a weekend with the desire of going to a gay club, and at least getting a chance to kiss a guy. I did, and again, unlocked this whole new sort of thing for me. And then I went back to college, and then in the spring semester, while I was back home in Dallas, I was now 22 I would sneak out sometimes and go to a gay bar by myself just to see what would happen. And only every so often I would get, you know, lucky and meeting someone, but I was just so hungry for any sort of, like not attention but relatability with somebody. And so, that again, was a Very tough period to try to explore my sexuality but completely on my own terms. And I did tell my sister, drunkenly one night around the time that I was a junior in college. And her reaction was very poor. She basically had a meltdown, she started crying. And at I mean, I sort of expected it to be like that. I didn't regret telling her because I had been carrying it around for a while. Yeah. But in that moment, I felt that this is going to be tough, just like I expected, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

20:35
Did you find that relatability inside those bars? Where did you learn that that wasn't the right place that you should try to chase that?

20:42
It's a good question to ask. Because I think that in the queer bars, sometimes it's just always going to be hit or miss. Act in queer spaces. In general, there's always a risk factor, right? When you meet someone online, or in a bar, or in a house party or at the gym. It's really kind of learning about how to meet strangers, and then really understand what level of trust you want to establish, and what kind of boundaries can be set. And if things escalate sexually how, you know, those individuals are in that situation. I will say that, for the most part, those experiences were positive in the bars. Later on, when I moved to Chicago, as a 23, year old, fresh out of college, I kind of had to do that, again, with going to bars in Chicago and establishing a network. And you might find your best friend for life, you might find your first partner, or you might find yourself in the midst of a really horrible, toxic relationship with other people you just don't know. And again, because I was working off very little information that I had, you know, my only option was to just see what happened. Yeah, for

21:55
sure. Um, and so going back to your sister and your family, and that kind of conversation. Do you think that your ethnic background, as you know, a South Asian presented any unique challenges besides just that upbringing factor? Or, you know, can you tell me some more about you know, your feelings with that?

22:17
Yeah, for sure. There was definitely no representation in which 1000s of queer South Asian people, or at least very little. And so with that, I thought, how could this even be possible? This doesn't add up. And even, you know, Russell Peters had a bit about how his dad was watching the gay pride parade, or he was watching the TV with his dad and the gay pride parade in New York came on and some Indians were randomly they're like, we're proud and Indians. And then Russell Peters dad's like, what they're Indian, they can't be gay. That's wrong. So there was there's just that. And so of course, the answer to that is yes. Then the other thing was, I felt that there was also an element of just the otherness that my parents had always grown up with as a mentality, and how they superimpose that onto their kids. Their philosophy was, we are here, we have given up everything for you guys. You three are the only assets that we have. We are widening the permissibility of things you can do by letting we play sports. I letting you guys go out and maybe stay out a little later than midnight. Right. But you cannot fall outside of those walls. Yeah. So I felt that in that thing. Because I was subscribed to that model, because my sister would subscribe to that model. Everyone would take on this kind of information with a very cumbersome mentality, as if they would have to explain it for everyone, and how would it affected them? No one thought about how it affected me. They thought about how it affected them in the family. And that was hard. At that point, I hadn't separated myself from that thought process. And so while I was certainly expecting the process to be very challenging to come out, I definitely didn't anticipate the Telouet of shame that I would have to inherit. And so much of that shame was not mine. It was theirs.

24:46
And I don't I have a twin brother, and he's like the straightest person ever and I remember growing up, there was always a comparison between how I acted and how he acted, whether it came you know, externally or from my parents, too. Do you ever feel like your parents were contrasting your behavior with that of your younger brother or your sister even? And how did that make you feel

25:09
terrible when I was five, actually, so my mom and dad, surprisingly, for DC family, they had each one sibling. And my dad's sister never had children. And my mom's brother had to, and one of them was nine months younger than I. He's also like, one of the straight is, you know, he's married with a kid, but really laid back guy. He's nine months younger than I am big into sports. And my mom would always say, girl would be dying to play this game group would be, you know, all over the soccer field group knows how to do that. And she would just compare me to him, but he was living in Delhi. So there wasn't as much. There wasn't as many opportunities to compare me to him around each other that much, and then sort of went through a phase where everyone shamed him for being chunky. So made it harder for everyone to compare me to him. My younger brother has a lot of feminine characteristics himself. And yet, no one really seemed to have a problem with that. My sister was a little bit more of a tomboy. But she was also so pretty, that everyone kind of gave her a pass. So then there was just me in the middle. And, you know, I also went through a little bit of a chubby phase. So stay tuned for that, telling me that I was waiting, hunched over for that my, you know, acne was really bad. And, you know, I think my mother, you know, I've had to learn how to really work with this. But she was one of those classic people that was hurt, a lot growing up by her. The trauma and the control factor, and the temper and the flare up very Punjabi. And, quite frankly, borderline narcissistic, and just, again, very difficult to articulate into words, in our culture, without making it seem like you're shaming them. So if my mother even to this day, if she sees me, you know, shaking my leg a little bit while I'm sitting down, she'll scold me and tell me to stop and all this stuff. And so, generally speaking, every time she would see me, and even now she's the same way for me about my appearance, my hair, my clothes, my body, or my gear. My facial hair has been a huge point of contention for my friends, saying how it makes me look ugly. How it makes me look swarthy how it makes me look Arab, like terrorist. I mean, like, all of these things that they say, that don't seem to them. Like they're hurtful. They're actually a death by 1000. Cuts. Yeah. And so it really comes down to me saying, Do I want to let this cycle continue? Or do I want to have it stopped at me. And it's a tough, tough thing to do. Now, I don't have children. But I also know better than to feel like I should be that way towards people. Yeah. So it has been one of those things that I think on top of the cultural baggage, on top of the shame of sexuality, and on top of your own internalized feelings, as well as externalize internalize feelings of not good enough, not pretty enough, not cute enough, take all that and marry that with the gay scene, where a lot of it is about superficial things like your body, your face, your income, your assets, how many parties you can go to how many friends you have, how many partners you've had, and the learning all about that, it just having that thrown into your face with all this other baggage that you have, and really understanding how to navigate everything all at once. And so again, it's like there's there's no playbook, right? And so the playbook has to be created during these kind of projects that you're doing. It's one of those things to where I think there is something to be said about the journey through queerness in your, you know, your your early years, your teenage years, your 20s 30s 40s and even as each generation shifts, there still is some level of commonality and how that evolves with your own development maturity, you know, in the coming of age.

29:53
Yeah, for sure. And so, you were talking a lot about, like the navigation of like, queer spaces just now an earlier how have you experienced the you know, interactions within the LGBTQ plus community with yourself? Did you experience any rejection or acceptance? Because you were brown, for example, I know that's how it has been, for me a lot. I know kids my age who you know, are, you know, gay men, whatever, like that kind of thing. Most of them are white, right. So it does feel a little bit alienating sometimes to occupy the same space as them. And you know, they each have their own preconceptions, which is a little annoying, but have you you know, can you tell me some of your experiences in that

30:33
lens? Yeah, I was definitely in denial of it for a lot of my early years, just because the conversations around race weren't even as big as they are now. Five years ago, right? I really think that it wasn't until the Trayvon Martin incident that in 2012, that the the narrative began to shift towards, you know, race based behavior and injustice and biases. And certainly, yes, that is something that I found would take place people would say, I'm not into ground guys, I'm not into darker types. I'm not into Asians, I'm not into Harry, I'm not into. And it was one of those things where you would not only hear it, but you would see it on the online apps, you would experience it at the bars. And for the most part, what I tried to do is, again, that de facto lean into whiteness, just make sure the white people like you, even if they like you more than they like the other brown and black and Asian or whatever, people. That is a destructive mentality. Yeah, it basically is a reflection of your own internalized racial biases and opinions, whether they were taught learned or observed. It's a reflection of your own internalized dislike of yourself and your skin tone. And your I think for a lot of it, for me, I felt like it was because I was told growing up that I was ugly, right. And so I'm like the ugly brown person that no hot guy wants to sleep with. And so you better just take what you can get. And I have to say that I was definitely not thinking about these things as much as I ought to have until around 2019 When I began to become closer to queer Desi people. And then ever since then, just really revamping my friendships, a lot more around POCs gender non conforming individuals, people who are of all different backgrounds and ethnicities and you know, also you know,