Coming out in Tehran: One Lesbian’s Story

For years, Mitra Aban lived a lie. But when she finally plucked up the courage to let her secret out, she was pleasantly surprised.

I was perhaps 12 or 13 when I began to realize. I noticed that my heart started beating faster when I saw women’s naked breasts on satellite television or computer games. My classmates in high school all liked men: singers, actors, a neighborhood boy. But I liked the girl who sat next to me. It was a secret, a huge secret. Still, I hoped to find a boy that I would find attractive. To cover up my secret, I told friends I was in love with boy I passed every day at seven in the morning. But the truth was I was not curious about men and had no interest in them. Like many others, when I guessed that I was a lesbian, it felt like the end of the world. I was faced with a dead end, and nothing more.

When I was 18 I decided to get myself a boyfriend. My boyfriend was a wonderful person, but I did not desire him. I felt like an emotionless refrigerator, so I ended the relationship.

Then, during my first semester at college, I met a girl who made my heart jump whenever I saw her. I could not quite understand just what was going on inside me, or why I was so eager to touch her or even look at her. By the time I was in my second semester, this girl had become my best friend.

My temperature rose when I sat next to her and when I held her hand. I paid so much attention to her that many of my classmates noticed my affection for her. On a trip for one of our classes, I went to great lengths to make sure she would be my roommate. I stayed awake for two nights watching her as she slept. I remember well how I yearned to touch her, but could not.

I was in total denial about my love for her. I told myself over and over that we were just friends, and that I had no sexual desire for her. I almost believed it. But whenever she became interested in a boy, it felt like somebody was pushing a fistful of thorns into my heart. It became unbearable. One day I decided to tear down the barrier that I had erected for myself.

I set aside school work, sat at my computer and typed the word “homosexuality” into the search engine. In just a few minutes, I discovered a new world. I found out that such emotions exist, and that it is not necessary to deny them. I read and discovered that there were people like me, that they fell in love and lived normal lives.

I accepted that I was a lesbian. Contrary to what I imagined, it was not the end of the world. I started blogging under pseudonyms — and, of course, that was the beginning of approval, insults, and nightmares.

When I told one of my friends I was a lesbian, she said, “I don’t dislike you, but I do dislike this feeling of yours.” We tried to stay friends, but little by little, because I lost my temper and could not control my emotions, and because her patience turned to anger, we started to drift apart. Eventually we drifted apart so much that it has been years since I have seen her now.

All that time I lived a nightmare because I was so afraid my family would find out my secret. For years, I cried out in my sleep, dreaming that they would throw me out of the house when they found out. I had nightmares about escaping, getting lost and being killed. I was horrified that somebody might discover my inner secret.

But this period in my life also taught me the value of being human. It taught me to turn my back on religious, racial and ethnic divisions and reach a new understanding of human beings. It taught me to discard old and inherited beliefs and, most important of all, understand that there are differences between human beings, but that I could still love people despite this.

Strange and Wonderful Moments

After a while I decided to reveal my secret — or, as they say, come out of the closet. I needed a lot of courage to tell my friends that I was a lesbian, and much more to tell my family. But one day I drummed up enough. I needed to live a life of respect and freedom, and my mind was made up. And it was so strange that almost no one I told rejected me.

I remember the day I first told someone. I told a friend I was attracted to a woman I knew from a class. The next week, when my friend saw the woman I liked, she whispered to me, “Damn, you have good taste!” I was overwhelmed with joy. I felt like somebody who had lived alone on a desert island for years and was now looking at a rescue ship coming in from far away. I had to swim with all my might to reach that ship.

After I told my close friends, it was time to tell my family. My father was the last family member I told. He had always prayed at the mosque, and he still does. I was very distressed, expecting him to be angry and perhaps disappointed. But when I told him about the secret — which was perhaps a glimpse of hell for him — he understood. He told me, “live with anybody who makes you happy.”

His response, his fatherly love, was one of the strangest and most wonderful moments in my life.

I have always loved human beings and respected them. Now I see that people close to me love me exactly the way I am — not less or more because I am a lesbian. Maybe I am one of the very few LGBT people in Iran who has not been rejected by any friend or family member. For me, coming out of the closet was so much simpler than I had imagined. Perhaps my educational and professional success had something to do with it, but all I asked for was for people to accept me, to accept all of me. And I was so fortunate that they did.

Now I live in the heart of Tehran and most people in my life are aware of my sexual orientation. I find life in this small circle quite ordinary. I wish the circle could grow bigger and the boundaries would disappear. I enjoy a relative and rare calm in Iran. I fall in love like everybody else does. Sometimes I have a good day, sometimes my love is unrequited, and sometimes the relationship ends.

Now I hope to go abroad to continue my education and to be myself. I am no different from anybody else. Well, perhaps a little different, since I am more fortunate than people who have not had to fight to just be themselves.