Ep 11 Changing Perceptions-A Pride Special-aup
[00:00:00] Enid Otun: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the 11th episode of if women, women to fly the sky would be pink, changing perceptions. And this is a pride special. I'm Enid Otun.  For this episode and in celebration of pride, I would like to share my experiences as a black gay woman, who just so happens to be a pilot
[00:00:53] I had reached the next level in my life, now that I was a commercial pilot and doing what I loved to do, I was [00:01:00] lucky and I knew it, it had been both a mental and physical challenge, but there was much more to come. The great thing about being 57 and looking back over your life, is that you can do so with a sense of perspective.
[00:01:15] At the time, you have no idea what is about to happen. What decisions you will make? What happens to you outside of your control and how you are the person for the most part who maps out your own life as you trundled through it? Now I can see that this next stage in my life was about understanding myself and what made me me.
[00:01:38] I know I was only 25, but I'd achieved a fair amount by then. I felt comfortable. I was moving on with my career and I was building my hours. So facing a lot of criticism, but only because in the eighties and nineties, some people still didn't understand women who aspire to do a man's job. [00:02:00] I was starting to realize the many ways in which other people saw me as different.
[00:02:05] I straddled two races, white and black. I was actually a lot darker than other mixed race children, I knew, and I had a full Afro rather than the more relaxed curls that some mixed race people have, which I envied terribly. This meant that I could pass as full Nigerian until people saw my mum. At school I was too black to be considered white, but not black enough to be considered black. Many children at my school didn't know how to cope with that. Are you adopted? The kids would ask. I'd tell them I wasn't and they'd reply in an accusatory way, you must be, you look nothing like your mother, she's white. I'd protest and tell them my dad was Nigerian, but they still didn't understand. It wasn't great, and there was bullying because of it, but probably because I was dealing with far worse issues in my own home.
[00:02:56] I hadn't really had time to sit down and think about it or [00:03:00] how it impacted me in my life. I was in the middle of something and everything else was happening around me. Now, though, free from the oppressive environment of the home, I had the head space to think more freely. I was starting to understand that I wasn't your standard girl or your standard woman.
[00:03:20] One of the things that I'd always promised myself was that I would never, never allow society to dictate what I did with my life, whether they liked it or not. I had one shot at this. I was going to do what I wanted to do. I was going to forge ahead and I was going to fight. And sometimes, it takes you almost a lifetime to realize that you have to pick your battles, but I think I did okay. I pushed boundaries, I guess, but I really, was just being myself. I look back and I think, wow, some of those decisions I made, if I had had the knowledge now that I didn't have, then I probably wouldn't have done it that way, but [00:04:00] you know, it happened and it worked out okay for me or sometimes it didn't, but obviously I lived to tell the tale.
[00:04:07] I was busy. I had to work that much harder in many respects to prove that I could still do the same job as a man could, and that's just the way it was. It still happens of course, it just depends where you are, what region you're in and who you have around you. It, it depends on a lot of things, but at that time I had fought some battles and now I was just sitting back and enjoying what I did and learning, learning for me was the most important thing.
[00:04:34] Building my hours, becoming the best pilot that I could be, doing things right, and playing by the rules. In my career, I was surrounded by haves and have nots, and I started to understand that there was a stark split between rich and poor. I was well paid and I had a roof over my head. I had all of the things that I needed and I didn't have to worry where my next meal was coming from.
[00:04:58] But I was working with [00:05:00] operations staff and people who cleaned our airplanes and engineers who are right at the bottom of the economic ladder. I was working with people with whom I identified with and whom I had forged a relationship with. These people without fear or favor, helped me, assisted me, supported and protected me, as my career progressed.
[00:05:20] And I was determined to repay those people for doing just that. One of those wonderful people was a young man called Boniface. He had worked with me as an office assistant making tea and coffee and cleaning. And when I had the opportunity, I promoted him to junior operations assistant, which enabled him to earn a lot more.
[00:05:40] I bought him a huge bag of rice every month and I bought his kids' school uniforms and books. I'm not trying to come across as some Jesus like figure here. I think many people would also find it very difficult to feel good about the excellent salary I was earning, and at the same time to ignore the hardworking people who enabled me to do my [00:06:00] job by keeping things running smoothly.
[00:06:03] I was starting to question myself and the way I responded to others. Though, I didn't understand kindness because I'd rarely experienced it. Sometimes I didn't understand why people would do things that they did for me. I was always on alert and I would never turn my back on anybody. I was always suspicious of people who came up to me or who wanted something.
[00:06:23] Everything was a trial for me, and whether I knew it then or not, it just took so much energy for me to actually be that way. But I didn't know how to be any other way. I was a fighter and I was never going to run away from anything. I was going to face it, head on whether I won or lost. I'm still a bit like this now.
[00:06:43] And although I'm a friendly person who loves to joke around, I do have my moments. My wife and daughter laughed nervously when I recently suggested training as a police community support officer. How could I put this? my wife said delicately. What? I replied feeling slightly hurt. [00:07:00] I have a really strong sense of right and wrong, and I love to be helpful to others.
[00:07:04] Yes you do my daughter interrupted, but you also assume full Hulk  if someone is so much as cycling on the pavement or contravening the streets parking restrictions. I fear for the people of Norwich. Now, we all knew she was right. Norfolk just wasn't ready for the Nigerian version of rough justice.
[00:07:35] So back then, I was starting to grapple with the big questions. What am I, who am I? I never used the word gay and I never used the word homosexual. I had no issue with those words in themselves, I just had never thought about them relating to me. I realized that something inside me was saying that I was perhaps drawn more to women than I was to men.
[00:07:56] I certainly wasn't in the right location for that to be happening. [00:08:00] In Nigeria, being gay is not well received and that's putting it mildly. It could literally be a question of life or death. And even if it wasn't that bad, there were plenty of fanatics in my local community who would be only too pleased to mow down a suspected lesbian.
[00:08:16] I realized that at that time in the eighties and nineties, you could not afford to be out and proud if you wanted to survive, not in Africa,  but at the same time, I certainly wouldn't pretend to be straight to appease my community. So I tried living my best life until things changed for the better. It was a strange feeling.
[00:08:37] On a personal level,I was completely okay about being attracted to women, but on a practical level, I realized it could be a disaster. So I spent quite a long time locked in that dilemma with my love life, basically going nowhere. Eventually I met a woman who is mixed race like me and we had slowly started a relationship.
[00:08:56] It was complicated to say the least, and I will only touch [00:09:00] on some things, so as not to expose the other person's privacy. It happened the way most things happened for me at that time, just by accident. I didn't question it nor did I try to avoid it. It felt right. And that was that. All of our liaisons were clandestine and we lived in permanent fear of our relationship being exposed.
[00:09:19] My mother had become aware of this and was not happy to say the very least. I wasn't bothered by her disapproval. I was determined to live my own life. Unbeknownst to me though, she had made contact with a cousin who was big in her circle at that time. She decided to ask my cousin to meet me at the tennis club drink, which I, duly did.
[00:09:43] I knew her fairly well. She had made an appearance when my father died, as they all did hoping they'd be in the will. Other than that, I knew she was married and had six children. I walked in and full uniform, and before I could get a word in edgeways, she proceeded to lay out my life in front of me along the following [00:10:00] lines.
[00:10:00] So well done. I can see you have reached what you needed to do. Good job. Good job. So now you are not in boarding school anymore. All this playing with girls is fine in the school, but now you are 26, and you need to stop all this girl nonsense, get married, you settle down and you have children. You hear me? Oh, I heard her.
[00:10:20] Interestingly, I haven't played as she had put it with girls. I'd only just started that at 26. Red rag to a bull. I lean forward slightly so that she could see me in full view epaulets, and all Cousin, thank you for your invitation. I assume you're referring to me being gay and yes, I'll confirm that for you now. I have always been and always will be gay. As for my  achievements. They were hard fought for and I give them up for no one. As for you, I notice you appear at certain times in my life, but where were you? when my father was beating me to a pulp for over 10 years. Never think that you have the power to tell [00:11:00] me how to live my life or with whom to live my life.
[00:11:04] I will never allow you or any of my family to dictate how I live my life. The clue for you in there is, my life. You can all fuck off. And with that statement, I walked out never to see her again. It was at that point that I reached the next level of my journey. 
[00:11:23] Thank you for listening, as always, your reviews and comments are very much appreciated.
[00:11:28] Thank you also to Lucy Ashby for the editing of this episode. If you want to ask a question or make a comment you can do so at any of our social media sites. Also remember that we have Ask Enid today, Sunday, the 26th of July at 6:00 PM on Instagram live stream. Or you can reach us on our email. theskyispinkpilot@gmail.com.  That's theskyispink pilot@gmail.com.
[00:11:55] In the next episode, how one more Stripe makes me feel. I have to show, I [00:12:00] can make the decisions where it matters most, and I say goodbye to colleagues all too often. 
[00:12:06] Thank you, and goodbye.