'Now I'm Finally Home': Rayyan Monkey Talks On Positive Representation, Mental Health, & Queers Of Indian History

Rayyan Monkey, a surname she has given to herself with the courtesy of the nickname "Monkey" that was awarded to her by her closest friends, is someone who tries to make the world a better place to live in.

She is someone who dared to step out of the binary at an age she believes to be a "little late" but was able to find a community that she could finally resonate with. Creating content and telling stories for over a decade now, she has been able to create a space for positive representation that breaks down the stereotypical tropes about the trans community.

The Phase Before Learning To Love Herself

Growing up in a country like Dubai, which has until recently been a lot conservative in its way of thinking, Rayyan had absolutely no exposure to the queer community. Added along with that, she was born to a conservative Muslim family that had stayed glued to the binary view of gender for the longest time.

With little to zero representation around her, she had submerged her identity for about thirty years. What that also led to was a dependency on substances starting from the young age of 14 and the slowly crippling depression that consumed her for a good long time.

It was in high school that she experienced that one moment of realisation that stuck with her. A director had visited their class, and there was something really peculiar about him, the way he spoke, how he carried himself, and just everything about him that screams effeminate. Not many students respected the director as he fell beyond the binaries that were taught to them since birth.

However, in that entire class, Rayyan sat there with eyes full of admiration for the person that stood in front of the class. There was admiration for his talent, his works, but most importantly for the way he dared to carry himself as a man not ashamed of his identity.

For a high schooler, this moment was all that was needed to let her know that there were more people out there like her. Even today, Rayyan believes that her life would have been entirely different if only someone would've come by during her school years and conducted a gender sensitisation class where they would say

"Hey, listen I know you don't see too many of us, but we exist, we are out there, some of us are having a good life, find out about us, look us up, it's all fine".

That one session would've made all the difference, and that is the difference Rayyan now hopes to bring into the lives of many. After having come to Bombay in 2013 and having embraced her true self, she began collaborating with other folks and organisations to create a more gender-sensitive space. She became the very positive representation that she hoped her younger self would have been exposed to, and that created all the difference.

Introduced To The Term Hijra

She was first introduced to the term "Hijra" in the form of an insult thrown her way by someone in the family. The term was reserved as an insult of higher intensity, and she assumed it meant something really bad.

AAt the age of 11, her mother showed her what a hijra actually is when they spotted one at a traffic signal in Bombay. Getting to see the person that was being associated with this insult, left her mind in such a mess. Because deep down, she knew that she wanted to be a woman despite being assigned male at birth.

However, this was all it took for her younger self to internalise emotions of homophobia and transphobia. Fuelled further by misrepresentations of the trans community in popular culture.

It took years of learning and exposure to positive representation, to finally step out of this and view the queer community as humans. Even when she had finally accepted her identity, for the longest time, she had a "gaydar" that she says was so on point, that she could identify a queer instantly when she saw them. This, however, is also something that she believes to be a common aspect of her internalised homophobia, as she was able to see people through the lens of what she had closeted.

After getting to know the community and interacting with a whole bunch of trans people, she understood that there are so many different types of folks that it would be impossible to limit them to a vague umbrella term. Gradually her gaydar deactivated, and there have been instances where she met fellow trans women and did not "clock" them as transwomen. The trans lens was set aside, and she viewed people for what they were - a human who defines themselves with their name and the things they love doing. Joking about her now dying gaydar, she added that "Now everyone is queer to me".

Narrating Stories Today

Today Rayyan is a successful content creator who has worked in the space of digital marketing for over a decade, curated content for innumerable brands, and consistently works toward a better tomorrow. This, of course, was not built overnight since she has always known her knack for storytelling and consistently worked on it.

Watching the documentary 'Disclosure' in 2020 and the positive representation in it helped her revisit the memories that she had suppressed for over 14 years. That single piece of creative work with the right representation brought her to tears and was enough to inspire her to create more content and build awareness through positive representation.

Growing up, she cocooned away from her identity by telling herself that she would be a happily married man by the age of 21, a father of loving children by the age of 30, and would've long forgotten her desire to be a woman. Now, at the age of 30, she has long forgotten the regressive binary ideas she hid behind and is finally happy to have found herself.

She credits a good amount of it to therapy, which has enabled her to undo a tight knot in her mind. After having masked emotions for years through substances and people, she was able to process a lot of things happening around her and with her, through therapy. For the same reason, she also advocates for mental health and attempts to break the notion that therapy is solely for mental health issues.

Working through it all, she was able to build a sensitive space around her and for many others. She now calls herself the co-chieftess of the Fatsmeagol collective, an employee-owned organization founded by her that has done some brilliant works over time. These are also the people whom she calls her "chosen family" and hopes to own a house with and chill for the rest of her life. Aside from the collective, she has also built platforms for her ideas, including Rayyan Monkey and many other leading brands.

You Always Find Queers When You Look For Them

As someone who is on a constant loop of learning and unlearning many things, she has begun to understand that there's a lot more about the community than what is generally perceived. Among the many such things is that people don't necessarily have to use the context of western concepts and thinking to educate the Indian community about the transfolk and the LGBTQIA+.

There are many examples within Indian culture in itself, and what is required is to simply look into our own culture and make it visible. Every history of every civilisation has had trans folks, and they have been all across Indian history and mythology as well. One would always be able to identify a queer person instantly when seen. In India, in particular, they held many positions of power within the Mughal courts, Hindu royalty, and goes on the list. She believes it necessary to make them seen and create awareness in the context of our own history and culture.

Doing her part in creating this awareness, she often puts herself in the position where she is able to answer as many cis curiosities as possible. While that is the position she places herself in, she also makes it a point to convey that there are limitations to this as well. She gives just one note of advice to those who are so curious about the community - Would you ask a cisgender or heteronormative person the same question?

Always find the parallels and respect the other individual's privacy. One would never go parading to a straight person asking them if they are taking birth control pills, have PCOS, take any medications, or similarly absurd questions. So making it a norm to send across these curiosities to a trans person does not make sense either.

However, she is often seen kindly and patiently answering or educating people regarding the community as much as she can. As a trained diversity and inclusion specialist from the Muslim community, she believes it to be the position she has chosen to put herself in, and it comes with a lot of responsibility, especially in today's climate.

As someone who was finally able to accept who she is and be a part of a community that she always secretly found to be cool, she has found her home where she feels like she truly belongs. And she hopes a lot more people are enabled to love themself for who they truly are.

Also Read: Towards Equality! Singapore Decriminalises Gay Sex, Still Excludes Them From Constitution Definition Of Marriage