Adam Coish
May 23, 2018
'What I love about being queer'
âI wanted to kill myself when I was 11.â As a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist with countless honours, several albums, films and books,  first line in her latest short film  may come as a bit of surprise.
But after growing up queer in a world wrought with discrimination, the UCalgary assistant professor in the  has no qualms about using art to speak out about her experiences with sexual identity and mental health.Â
Simply put, sexual identity refers to an individualâs sexual desire. While we often assume there is an inevitable link between LGBTQ+ identities and mental health, Shraya, who identifies as queer or bisexual, is quick to set the record straight.
âMental health and sexual identity donât really intersect,â she says. âItâs not my queerness or my bisexuality that affect my mental health, but homophobia, biphobia, and peopleâs inability to support, accept, or celebrate who I am.â
Adding weight to Shrayaâs view, the federal government reports that people who self-identify as homosexual or bisexual are three times more likely to be victims of violence, compared to heterosexuals. More alarmingly, hate crimes targeting sexual orientation are more violent than all other forms of hate crimes nationwide according to Statistics Canada reports starting in  and continuing through the latest report in .ÌęÌę
With such shocking levels of violence plaguing the LGBTQ+ community, thereâs no wonder that members experience , including mood and anxiety disorders.  Â
âMost queer people grow up in a world where weâre told we arenât loved. That weâre abnormal. Weâre taught that queerness is never something of value â itâs something to denounce,â Shraya explains. âWhen you receive constant messages telling you that your identity is wrong, of course you feel awful about yourself.â
Recognizing a need to flip the script, Shraya used her artistic talents to start celebrating queerness through , her internationally renowned project which shows how being queer is beautiful, while reminding the world that heterosexuality isnât the best and only way to be.
âMy experience of queerness, especially growing up, was inextricably tied to other peopleâs responses,â Shraya says. âI often conflated wanting to kill myself and feeling depressed with queerness, but had I grown up in an environment where gender non-conformity was celebrated rather than attacked, I donât think I would feel that way.â
 was on May 17. Shraya reminds us that the battle for equality is far from over. âOne of the challenges we face in more liberal environments like post-secondary is the idea that forms of oppression like homophobia donât exist anymore,â says Shraya.
âThey may not exist in the ways I experienced as a student, like being called âfagâ every day, but even something as innocuous as thinking that we need to learn to accept queerness is oppressive.â
While seeking help from on-campus resources is a good first step for anyone experiencing mental health challenges related to sexual identity, Shraya urges the campus community as a whole to stop staring and start talking.
âWe have to work together, have conversations and create an environment on campus where queer people donât need to access services to feel safe, comfortable, seen and respected,â she says. âWe talk a lot about acceptance and tolerance, but acceptance and tolerance set the bar so low for what we can aspire to. We need to start celebrating.â