In Azerbaijan: Is it harder to be a woman or to be a lesbian?

Azerbaijanis view anything ‘liberal’ in Azerbaijan as perverted, including being a lesbian. For any woman who is clawing her rights to live a life as she wants, she has to achieve much smaller freedoms first until she gets to bite a full size of being openly a ‘girl kisser’. Ironically, in order to become a lesbian, an Azerbaijani woman should not be afraid to be caught alone in a room with another man first. You cannot skip to the big freedom without first surviving the small, ordinary ones.

I always felt like in Azerbaijan, I am first and foremost a woman, no matter the sexual orientation. The latter can be concealed, but the former not really. When I was a teenager, for a brief moment I caught myself fantasizing about being a man. But don’t be quick to call me trans-curious, and it wasn’t because I was feeling a distinct sexual attraction to women. Let me explain.

I was born a younger sister to an older brother in a traditional family which suffered from an extreme case of ‘qaqa mentaliteti’ [ed: lad mentality]. I was a good girl on the surface, but deep down i hated meekness, softness, goodiness of femininity, cooking, cleaning, ironing - all the things i already had to do for the family, when two other grown men - my dad and my brother - got to just chill just by virtue of being men. I was too terrified to rebel  and lose the good girl status, so the only way my brain could imagine having all the freedoms my brother enjoyed - and actively denied me - was by being a man, therefore creating this insecurity somewhat similar to what trans people experience. Only years later I learned that it was gender envy, rather than dysphoria, and it is quite common in Azerbaijan among girls who grow up in restrictive households. 

This is where the smaller freedoms come in. Years after socializing with Azerbaijani women who openly enjoy a liberal lifestyle - dating with no end goal of marriage, clubbing, prioritizing career over family - I found a common denominator between them. They all rebelled at a very young age, building a reputation as bad or difficult daughters, in other words setting the bar low by bulldozing over any societal expectations placed on them. Your neighbor Aide, who drunkenly got out of a cab at 1 am in a tiny skirt at the ripe age of 16, certainly does not surprise anybody at 30 by being unmarried and unbothered. A goody girl like Nigar, who was always 'mamasinin gul-balasi', cannot even get a text message from her male colleague without her honor being questioned. Start rebelling young, and you get to claim your freedoms as a woman early. Don't, and every freedom has to be smuggled in later, concealed as something smaller.

That difference between the woman who has already spent her reputation and the one still guarding hers is what determines how hard it is to be a lesbian on top of being a woman. Unlike some gay men in Azerbaijan, lesbian women get to be invisible, for good or bad. A good girl like Nigar, if she happens to be a lesbian, will not raise a brow having a sleepover with a female friend, or holding her hand in public, or showing her affection — because nobody is looking for that in a woman who has already proven herself good. Erasure works as protection, which is exactly why lesbians in Azerbaijan are scattered and struggle to form a community (see my article on lesbian visibility in Azerbaijan).

So which is harder - being a woman or being a lesbian in Azerbaijan? I reckon, being a woman is a visible fight. Everyone has an opinion on it, everyone's watching, and outside Baku, everyone's watching harder. Being openly a lesbian is the secondary fight, achieved only after a streak of smaller victories and disappointed family members. It's no surprise that a woman denied most of her rights in Azerbaijan will look for a way out of both fights at once - through lavender marriage, emigration, or sophisticated lies, in order to live freely. Woman or lesbian, the visa she's applying for doesn't ask which.

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