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All for love and love for all

29 Sep 2021

  • Yellow Dot launches campaign showcasing local queer love stories
From a selfish crusade to an empowering queer community organisation, Yellow Dot has come a long way from their roots. Founded on the principles of empowerment, inclusivity, justice, reconciliation, and peaceful co-existence, Zeinab Hassan took it upon herself to provide Sri Lanka’s queer community with feelings of hope and positivity. As a queer, Muslim women herself, Hassan felt the need to fight for her rights, and eventually translated that idea into something more tangible with Yellow Dot. Currently, the organisation is made of a bunch of consultants, varying in age, that are employed in organisations like UNFPA, ministries, and such. Due to the constraints and restrictions of the bureaucracy of it all, they wanted a space where they could implement programmes that they truly believe in. Their aim with Yellow Dot is to create a space for understanding where they can actually make changes; despite advocating for policy and legal reforms as well as advocating for organisations to include inclusive structures, for we can only see true change if we can change toxic ideas propagated by the general community. “When you walk out of your house as a queer person, you never know when you’ll be discriminated by the Police, by the healthcare system, by your own community, or even your family,” Hassan added, explaining that most people would simply think that it’s not right, but will not work towards accepting or understanding, which is what Yellow Dot hopes to change. Project Learn Project Learn, conducted by Yellow Dot, is all about unlearning, relearning, and learning, as well as challenging norms, biases, prejudices, archaic teachings, and toxic traditions of yesteryear that have no place in a truly accepting and peaceful society. Sharing the inspiration behind it, Hassan commented: “The last decade has been a test of our ability to embrace change, adapt, and advance as a global collective whilst leaving behind the archaic teachings and toxic traditions of yesteryear.” Project Learn contributes to unlearning things that we thought were the right things, or even something deeper as realising that we are subconsciously wired into acting or thinking a certain way. In fact, Hassan added that many forms of oppression begin with moments of unconscious bias. “Unconscious biases are learned stereotypes that are automatic, unintentional, and deeply rooted in ideas about a specific group – which may dictate how we treat other people,” she explained, adding that knowing and understanding how unconscious biases and blatant ignorant prejudices affect the work we do and the world around us could be the key to a more understanding and sustainably progressive world. A queer love story Yellow Dot’s latest campaign, as part of Project Learn, a compilation of local queer love stories, was launched in hopes to highlight the beauty and existence of queer love stories in the community. Hassan explained that they noticed they were focusing a lot on issues that were depressing and realised that is not the image they want to portray for the community. “We want people to see the community in normalised lives where love and happiness are very achievable, and not something to be shunned,” she commented. She further added that all this while, they had been talking about discrimination, police harassment, rape and torture, and social stigma, with the hope of bridging that gap and highlighting the other side. She commented: “The stories are very nuanced and simple, but powerful and incredibly moving. We want to create a platform that is merely a messenger for all these amazing stories.” On the topic of the inspiration behind this campaign, Hassan commented: “As a queer, Muslim women myself, I haven’t seen representation of love that I could relate to or experiences I could look up to or look forward too in the mainstream media narrative and that’s why I really push for it.” The campaign, launched yesterday (29 September), will dedicate a week each; this week’s focus is on lesbian love stories, the next will be on gay love stories, and so on. The stories submitted were all kept anonymous to protect the identities of the submitors but the stories shared were all heartwarming and really shed light on the fact that love is love. Yellow Dot has plans to make these stories into a book, and later a documentary, in order to normalise and mainstream these stories into the media narrative. “We also hope to launch a photo exhibition, where we take full photos of the couple’s that sent in their submissions in a way where it doesn’t divulge their identities but speak on their stories,” she added. When talking about queer love stories, Hassan noted that dating is such a big issue for the community. “When you go on dating apps, you rarely get honest interactions; rather, everyone wants to ‘get down to business’. There are no meaningful relationships happening.” She noted that she is in no way disregarding sex, but added that for anyone that wants something more, it’s very hard to find. She also added that she can’t imagine meeting someone and going on a date outside, unless it’s in the comfort of her own home because it’s not safe for them. Having programmes and support group for people of the queer community gives them that aspect of safety and helps them meet like minded people that they can engage with. Working towards an inclusive future Their vision for Yellow Dot is to alleviate some pain and try in their own way to bring change to the queer community. “We want to push for people to be able to have better experiences and have their inherent, basic rights to be met in Sri Lanka as we don’t see that in the queer, disabled, and marginalised communities,” Hassan stated. They are also creating support groups for queer youth and victims of domestic abuse in collaboration with Shantimargam. Yellow Dot hopes to soon bridge legal action systems and healthcare for these communities where they can freely discuss their issues. Yellow Dot is also looking into documents that they are doing in exposing or understanding queer issues like happiness, resistance, and other challenges they face. Anyone who wishes to submit their queer love stories can email them to yellowdotorg@gmail.com if they wish to be featured. Anonymous submissions are also welcome. All that is required is a photo and three lines of your queer love story. Instagram: @yellowdotorg

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