Re/calibrating

Karachi, Pakistan—1997

“How many times have I said—don’t put spices in the food!”

My father’s voice ignited my nervous system, scorching through the oppressively humid atmosphere. My mother, who had cooked the food, stared silently at her plate.

He pointed at my eldest sister and asked, “Do you like spices?” 

“No,” she responded.

He pointed at my second sister and asked, “Do you like spices?”

“No,” she responded.

He then pointed at me and asked, “Do you like spices?” 

“Yes.”

He stared back at me as if I had slapped him across the face. 

“What did you say?”

“I don’t mind spices.”

He took me into a separate room.

“Slap yourself.”

I did as I was told.

“Harder.”

I increased the force. 

“Harder!”

When we were done, he took me to my sisters and instructed me to share what I had learned from the evening.

I sobbed, “If Mom says go left and Dad says go right—go right.”

 

Karachi, Pakistan—2001

The doorbell rang.

Living in Karachi had necessitated safety routines for such situations. I went to the kitchen window and asked, “Who is it?”

“It’s the postman. I have a package for you.”

“Can you pass it through the grill?”

“No. It’s too big. You’ll have to open the door.”

I checked with my mother and opened the door. I watched him step toward me, felt his arm around my shoulders, and sensed something poking at my stomach.

“If you listen to everything I say, I’ll treat you all like family. No need to worry—just quietly lead me to your mother.”

I realized that the object poking at my stomach was a gun. In nodding silently and leading him toward my mother, I turned right. Despite the material losses, we survived. On the way out, they warned us against filing a police report. They were “well connected” and would come after us.

A few months later, my mother came home from the police station after choosing not to identify these men despite having recognized them. As she sobbed at the same table where I had dared to say yes a few years ago, I felt the distinct urge to slap myself.

 

New York City—2015

We were seated across a table from our medical school dean, months after Black students had organized a die-in expressing solidarity with Black Lives Matter, following the police murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. BIPOC students, particularly Black students, had been raising concerns about racism in our medical school for years. Queer students had simultaneously been raising concerns about queer- and transphobia. I was coleading what we called the Anti-Racism Coalition and representing BIPOC students with one of my Black friends.

“It’s just interesting—the LGBTQ students have taken a far more collegial and collaborative approach to working with us. And look how much they have accomplished. It’s different from the Anti-Racism Coalition’s approach. I’m not making a value judgment—it’s just an observation. You can get a lot more done if you’re willing to work with us rather than seeing us as the enemy.”

I stared back at him, confused, knowing that queer students were also frustrated with the administration. 

“I’m queer and also work with the LGBTQ students.”

“Oh,” he said, seeming genuinely surprised. “I didn’t realize that. I haven’t seen you at those meetings.”

I appreciated his honesty. I had been left out of several of these meetings. It likely didn’t matter that I had been there for some of them—he still hadn’t seen me. Now that he did see me, I got the impression he didn’t like what he was seeing.

He was not alone.

I developed a reputation in medical school for being “disrespectful,” “arrogant,” “angry,” “aggressive,” and “militant.” I was simultaneously seen as “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” and “too naive.” I was pulled into several individual meetings and instructed to focus more on my schoolwork. When I challenged professors on oppressive material, I was reported to the administration by fellow students as creating a “hostile learning environment.”

I had worked incredibly hard to leave Pakistan to pursue freedom in the United States—the freedom to choose movement in any direction with safety, love, and solidarity. After 9/11, I wasn’t naive enough to think going left would be safe in airports, streets, or online. Still, experiencing the cruelty of students and faculty with access to every possible educational resource, extinguished something in me—hope. I slapped myself by going left. I endangered my loved ones and communities by going right. I had no good options left, and I did nothing right.

 

New York City—2016

I chose to spend my second year in medical school sitting at the front and to the right of the podium. This position allowed me to tune out the eye-rolls and sighs that would inevitably follow if I ever dared to engage in class. In a session on physicians and human rights, the white speaker discussed physician participation in torture in Guantánamo Bay. She compared it to physician participation in anti-Semitic torture during the Holocaust. A white peer raised her hand.

“I think it’s really problematic that this is being compared to the Holocaust. Unlike these prisoners, the victims of the Holocaust did nothing to deserve how they were treated.”

The speaker paused. She looked around the room. She then responded, “Okay…I guess that’s one opinion.”

As I turned my head to face the wall on my right, class continued.

 

Lahore, Pakistan—2018

“I wish we had more time. I’d really love to hold your hand.”

I had returned to Pakistan for a close friend’s wedding. This Pakistan was slightly different from the one I knew. I was on a date with a man I had met through Grindr. 

“I’d love that too.”

“I live with my family and don’t have any other private, indoor spaces I can think of.”

“Are there any private, outdoor spaces?”

He smiled back at me and drove to a park in a residential neighborhood. We got out and walked around in the pitch dark. Having found a bench where we thought we couldn’t be seen, we sat down. He gingerly took my hand in his. While I had been out in the US for a few years, it was unlike any other tender, queer moment I had experienced.

Hardly a minute passed before he said, “I think someone’s watching—we should probably go.”

As we were sitting back in his car, I heard a rumble drawing closer. Two motorbikes, each carrying two men,  pulled up to our left and our right. My date seemed calm.

“My friend is visiting from America,” he told the police as he placed his hands behind his head. “No need to worry, Murad. Just do as they say. They’re here to protect us.”

They eventually left, and we got back into the car. In Pakistan, the passenger seat is on the left side of the car, so I looked to my right.

“I guess that’s enough excitement for one night. Let’s get you home.”

 

New Haven, CT—March 29, 2023

I woke up to an email from the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) Committee on Gender and Sexuality (CoGS) cochair, informing us that leadership had denied our request for support amid the wave of domestic and global anti-trans legislation. His email also mentioned a situation with APsA, Dr. Lara Sheehi, and the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis. Not having access to the APsA listserv, I was confused. Just two days prior, I had learned through another listserv that she had been cleared from an investigation for alleged anti-Semitism at George Washington University.

I met Lara briefly over Zoom in 2022, after a mentor introduced us. I had already been inspired by her courageous solidarity with oppressed groups, particularly Palestinians, and was eager to connect. I shared my anxieties about starting psychoanalytic training without having connections to BIPOC mentors. She compassionately listened, validated my experiences, and offered her support. She welcomed me to the BIPOCanalysis Collective. Witnessing the Collective mobilizing amid the allegations she was subsequently cleared from reignited something in me—hope. A friend in CoGS forwarded me some of the listserv posts that summarized the situation our cochair was referring to.

I attended the following CoGS meeting, my second ever. I joined a couple of other members in expressing a desire to show solidarity with Lara and the Holmes Commission. Several expressed concerns about alienating ourselves, “inflaming” the situation, and “joining a chorus of angry voices.” They wanted to focus on collaborating with leadership. I heard this as wanting to take a “collegial and collaborative approach.”

Much has happened since this initial discussion. CoGS eventually pulled out of the upcoming APsA meeting and expressed solidarity with Lara and the Holmes Commission. Working through different perspectives, in this instance, CoGS eventually went left.

 

New Haven, CT—April 16, 2023

As I continue to navigate spaces, be they within APsA or not, I am caught in discourse that is not new to me. I witness people I admire being punished for going left. I witness others’ submission to and complicity in violence for going right. I confront assumptions from others that I don’t know what it means to go right. Ironically, I would not be in the privileged position I am in today if I hadn’t repeatedly done so. We are all caught in a three-dimensional matrix, under forces that push us in different directions depending on the context we’re in at any given moment. If you disagree with another’s chosen direction, I ask you to consider—maybe both of you have been pressured to go in more similar directions than you think. And maybe the consequences, for you and this other, are different for doing so—regardless of the direction you end up choosing.

 

New York City—April 29, 2023

The APA Division 39 Spring Symposium was the first professional setting in which I had publicly expressed my nonbinary gender in clothing, clad with jewelry and South Asian accessories. It was raining when I stepped out of the hotel. The E train was not running, cabs weren’t stopping, and Uber prices were high. I decided to walk. I placed my shawl over my head to protect myself from the rain. While I was walking south on the west side of Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, a white man passed by my left. I caught a glimpse of the expression on his face as he walked away. His rage was so striking that it took me a few seconds to realize he had shoved me into the wall—gayborhood, daylight, and passersby unperturbed. Can you guess in which direction?