M. A. FERDOUSH
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because it violates the normal norm of love making. Third the
society evaluates homosexual acts in terms of the relational sig-
nificance and the final category is that homosexuality is legiti-
mate by its own rights and is seen as not a problem at all (Gal-
lagher, 1979). But the last couple of attitudes are not the tradi-
tional society’s attitude; these are found more in the developed
world.
Sexual identity is also an important factor. How one’s sexual
identity is developed depends both on the social values and the
perception of the individual himself. Brekhus (1996) catego-
rizes six major dimensions of sexual identity. These are:
Quantity of Sex e.g. slut, whore, tease, stud and so on.
Timing of Sex e.g. too early, too late, pre-sexual and so on.
Level of Enjoyment e.g. frigid women, impotent men, sex-
ual compulsives a n d so on.
Degree of Consent e.g. exhibitionist, peeping tom and etc.
Orientation e.g. homosexuals, child molesters, zoophiliacs,
gerentophiles a nd etc.
Social Value of Agents e.g. rapist, virgin, perverse and many
more.
The sexual identity of the kotis can be categorized in the fifth
category which is termed as Orientation. The kotis are labeled
as what they are only because of their sexual orientation.
No study so far has been conducted in Bangladesh concern-
ing the stigma management and sexual identity of the kotis. The
real fact is that very few persons are aware of a different ho-
mosexual category called kotis in Bangladesh. There is a Non
Government Organization named Bandhu Social Welfare Soci-
ety (BSWS) which works toward the wellbeing of the stigma-
tized individuals and sexual minorities in Bangladesh. This is
the only reliable source from which one can come to know
about the kotis. A study conducted by the BSWS brought some
important data about the kotis in Bangladesh. The study was
conducted on 108 homosexuals of different categories among
whom 25 were kotis. It showed that about 18 out of the 25 kotis
had an income of less than 6000 BDT (US $ less than 100) per
month, 17 of them had studied less than or equal to H.S.C
(Twelve years of formal schooling), 20 out of 25 kotis were
aged between 20 to 30 years. On the other hand 10 of the re-
spondents reported police harassment over them in forms of
extortion, beating, blackmailing/threatening, restriction on move-
ments, sexual assaults and others. 22 of the respondents re-
ported sexual harassments over them. 23 of them also reported
harassment by the mastans (local muscle men) and goons
(Bondyopadhyay & Ahmed, 2011: pp. 21-29; Ahmed, 2011).
The current study focuses on the stigma management with
each of the stages of sexual identity development by the kotis in
Dhaka. These stages are adopted from the model of V. C. Cass
(1984). Cass’s model consists of six stages of identity devel-
opment, but here at this study the first four stages are discussed.
The final two stages are not elaborated as these were not found
relevant by the study for the discussions of stigma management.
All the respondents were found to say that they had to face lots
of problems from the society as well as from the family being a
koti and all the time they had to manage their stigmatized sex-
ual identity through different strategies.
Objective of the Study
The major objective of the study was to find out how the
kotis in Dhaka manage the stigma involved with their sexual
identity and what the strategies they adopted to do so were.
Methodology and Sources of Data
Data were collected from 18 kotis from Dhaka. Nine of the
kotis were selected from New Palton and the rest were selected
from Old Dhaka. Two types of nonprobability sampling were
used. First of all the respondents were selected purposively
from the branches of BSWS in the study areas. These respon-
dents were involved with BSWS either as employee or as reg-
istered members. Other respondents were selected using the
method of snowball sampling. Half the respondents were se-
lected purposively and the half was selected using snowball
sampling. All of them were first told about the purpose of the
study and the ethical issues considered by the researcher and
with their permission data have been collected. To ensure the
anonymity and privacy of the respondents no real name has
been used, all the names used in the research have been pseu-
donyms. An open ended checklist was developed to interview
the respondents and all the interviews were recorded with con-
sent of the respondents by an electronic recorder. On an aver-
age an interview took 93 minutes to be completed. Then the
whole interview was translated into English and was written
down with the original verbatim. Data have been analyzed
manually from the written interviews keeping the objectives in
mind. The checklist included 23 questions. All these questions
could be divided into seven major categories which included
general demographic questions, defining own sexual identity,
details about own sexual identity, reactions of others from the
society an d family, reacti on of own self af ter recei ving all these
reactions, relationship of them with their partners and finally
questions regarding the koti community. But only the questions
listed in the checklist were not asked, as all of the interviews
were open ended, numbers of questions were asked based on
the answers provided by the respondents and based on the ob-
jective of the study.
Stigma
This definition of stigma cited at the beginning is adopted by
the study to define homosexuality as a stigma. Thus a koti is a
stigmatized person in the society according to this definition.
Goffman (1963) categorized stigma into three major categories.
These are:
1) Abominations of the body or the various physical de-
formities.
2) Blemishes of individual character perceived as weak will,
domineering or unnatural passions, treacherous and rigid belief
and dishonesty, these being inferred from a known record.
3) Tribal stigma such as race, ethnicity, religious minority
and so on (Goffman, 1963).
Goffman’s analysis of stigma also showed four patterns of it
based on the process of socialization. According to Goffman:
“One pattern involves those with an inborn stigma who be-
come socialized into their disadvantageous situation even while
they are learning and incorporating the standards against
which they fall short. For example, an orphan learns that chil-
dren naturally and normally have parents, even while he is
learning what it means not to have any. After spending the first
sixteen years of his life in the institution he can later still feel
that he naturally knows how to be a father to his son.
A second pattern derives from the capacity of a family, and
to a much lesser extent a local neighborhood, to constitute itself
a protective capsule for its young. Within such a capsule a
congenitally stigmatized child can be carefully sustained by