‘We’re not bad, we are what we are’

As the gay community here gets ready to let down their hair and raise awareness regarding their rights at Colombo Pride 2007, gay activist Rosanna Flamer- Caldera shares her views

By Smriti Daniel

For the second year running, the city is gearing to host ‘Colombo Pride 2007’ – a week-long festival arranged by Equal Ground, an organisation dedicated to serving the interests of Sri Lanka’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community. The festival may promise much in the way of light hearted fun, but it is also a determined, outspoken expression of Gay pride at a time when homosexuality is still a point of controversy for many, says Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, Executive Director of Equal Ground.

Rosanna: “We have to get the law changed”

Colombo Pride, like other Pride festivals around the world, is inspired by the Stonewall Riots in the early 1960s in New York. “Stonewall was a gay bar in the village which would get raided by the police constantly,” explains Rosanna, adding how the drag queens were subjected to harassment, violence and even imprisonment. “When it became too much to bear, a whole bunch of drag queens held the New York police at bay with high heels and tiaras – and that became known as the Stonewall Riots.” For Rosanna, and others in the gay community, Stonewall is an inspiration to stand up and declare themselves.

Several decades later, homosexuals are still struggling to be accepted by the heterosexual majority. Time and again, detractors have called on everything from religious beliefs to the tenets of the law to label gays “perverted” or “unnatural”. However, being gay is as natural as being straight,” Rosanna states matter-of-factly. Homosexuality is not a choice and never has been. “If it was a choice do you really think we would choose to wake up every morning and face the barrage of insults and laws that criminalise us? If I had the choice I’d go straight, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” she says ruefully.

Outlining Equal Ground’s three-pronged objectives, Rosanna says that “the first is to form a community and family for the LGBTIQ people of Sri Lanka.” Explaining that for many the worst betrayal is not when they are ostracised by society at large, but when they are condemned by their own families.

Rosanna says sometimes they are left with no one to turn to. By offering them a safe space, and the support of a community of likeminded people, she hopes that homosexuals across the island will no longer feel quite so alone.

Equal Ground is also focused on eradicating the stigma that is attached to homosexuality. Someone who is homosexual is just like anyone else – lovable, admirable and worthy of respect, says Rosanna.

In due course, Equal Ground hopes to join other organisations in lobbying for changes to the current law where homosexuality is a criminal activity. When Sri Lankan authorities eventually address the subject, we will be joining a long line of institutions and governments that have struggled to answer the question – ‘Is sexual orientation a fundamental human right?’ Unsurprisingly, for Rosanna, the answer is a clear cut ‘Yes!’

In the face of all of this, Rosanna and others like her have chosen to be entirely open and vocal about themselves. “We are who we are, we are proud of who we are, and we are not going to back down because you tell us that we are bad, or unnatural or deviant or whatever,” says Rosanna, adding that fittingly, Colombo Pride this year will run back to back with the International Day Against Homophobia.