Iceland review - 2016, Page 80

78 ICELAND REVIEW ICELAND REVIEW 79
ied geology. During her studies she went for a month to the
Himalayas as a research assistant and fell for India. She vowed
to return after her degree, and to prepare, studied Hindi for
two years before returning to India to attend a summer course.
That time, she fell for an Indian woman and entered her most
serious relationship up to that point, winding up living in India
for two years. “It wasn’t always easy. It took me a while to adapt
to the culture over there. I of course was brought up talking
differently of these matters and developed different values, but
in India the relationship culture is very different. Everything
is measured up against heterosexual marriages; merely being
a single woman gives you a marginal position in society—it
means that you have lesser respect and power compared to
single men on one hand, and married women on the other.
It was an eye-opening experience to live there and reconsider
my own frame of reference and what makes a healthy com-
munication and balanced authority; to realize that what was
customary to me wasn’t always appropriate, and not always the
better or the entitled way, was extremely rewarding.”
María Helga says she and her partner had to watch their
backs the entire time they were together. At one point they had
to move house when some people who were hostile towards
the gay community discovered their relationship, simply
because their wellbeing and safety could have been under
threat. So when their relationship ended and María Helga
moved back to Iceland in 2013, some aspects of life improved,
she admits. “Not having to consciously lead a double life was a
relief. In that sense, living here is much better. But I don’t want
to fall into the trap of declaring some countries as utopia and
others as hell. Being queer in India is really hard, I won’t lie to
you, but there are all sorts of historical and social reasons for
that, and it’s not my place as someone from another culture to
condemn or criticize.”
DIFFERENT PREJUDICE IN ICELAND
Even though she finds herself much freer to be herself in
Iceland, María Helga says that prejudice against queer people
still exists here. “There are different angles to it and there’s a
lack of understanding of so many things; these days it seems
to be aimed a lot at transgender people. It’s interesting to see
and hear what sort of lack of understanding and prejudice
thrive now; sometimes it surfaces in such an ugly way but more
often than not it materializes as weird nosiness into people’s
private matters and an entitlement—a right to know about
people’s private lives just because they don’t fit the stereotypes
that society has created.” As an example, María Helga tells of
incidents where feminine-looking lesbians have been told they
couldn’t possibly be a couple and been asked to prove it by
kissing in front of those enquiring. She says it’s also common
for queer people to be questioned about their sex lives, or
transgender people being asked specific questions about their
genitals, what surgeries they’ve had, how their bodies function
and so on.
“They are basically being reduced to some sort of specimens
that need to prove how they fit society’s predefined molds.
Of course, part of it is lack of knowledge and information
and it’s understandable that people want to know more, but
it’s far from appropriate to seek the knowledge by targeting
an individual and invading their privacy. So prejudice doesn’t
always show itself as a direct attack. Very often it’s what is
called ‘micro-aggression,’ where an individual is constantly
being jolted with light offenses that individually are not serious
enough to be seen as an attack but still, being on the receiving
end of constant, accumulated stimulus is extremely draining,
even if the perpetrators don’t realize that their behavior is an
expression of prejudice.”
P R O F I L E
From Reykjavík Pride Parade in downtown Reykjavík.