Pride against prejudice

This pride month, the celebrations for the LGBTQ community are at an altogether high level keeping in toes with the historic judgement of decriminalizing homosexuality by the Supreme Court of India. Unless you're gay and you've lived in one of the 72 countries where homosexuality is still illegal, you wouldn't understand what it would mean for the people of LGBTQ community of the country. Summing up her judgement, Justice Indu Malhotra, one of the judges of the bench who gave this momentous judgement of 495 pages said, “History owes an apology to the members of the community for the delay in providing redressal for ignominy and the ostracism that they have suffered through centuries”. By challenging Section 377 and ruling against this colonial era law, the Supreme Court delivered a strong retortion against the institutionalised disgust aimed at the LGBTQ community in India.

An 1884 case, where a court in North India on prosecution of a Hijra commended the police's desire to ‘check these disgusting practices’, a 1934 case where a judge in Sindh (now in Pakistan) called a man who had consensual sex with another man 'a despicable specimen of humanity’ and a statement by the government in 2003 that decriminalizing homosexuality would open the floodgates of delinquent behaviour. All this shows that the disgust and contempt have been the central theme of section 377 since its inception.

While the fight for the rights of the LGBTQ community has been won legally and the majority of the country's youth accepts homosexuality and queer identity, the acceptance of their sexuality and freedom to openly choose their gender within the boundaries of their home, family or school still remains a constant struggle for the community.

While urban LGBT voices that are heard through several online and real-world platforms form an important part of LGBT activism, these expose only a small part of the diverse challenges faced by the community. Far away from the gay parades, meet ups and heated discussions on social media, the reality for the LGBTQ members in rural India is vastly different and it will be long before the regressive attitude towards homosexuals changes in these parts of the country. The families there have their own ways of dealing with the LGBT individuals where secret killings of the gay men are planned so that running away to some other city without any money in the cover of night is their only option or the family sanctioned corrective rape for lesbian women are the methods used to cure them of their ‘diseases’.

 Though theoretically, most educated citizens support alternative sexualities and gender identities, there is an urgent need to change the ground reality and bridge the gap between academic knowledge and everyday experience so that we can collectively challenge the stereotype. We need people who pause and ask what's funny about an oppressive homophobic joke. We need allies who point out that such derogatory behaviour costs freedom and dignity and what's better for this than the support of the educational institutions with a change in current education model based on obedience to authority and unquestionable following of rules and regulations by encouraging the children to learn about the basic human rights and the tools to protect those rights.

We must not forget that the rain has stopped, it is now time for the beautiful rainbow to come out and shine. So each time a person or an institution participates in LGBTQ activism, we come one step closer to bridging the gap between reality and true inclusion. Is there a  better way than to prepare the future leaders of our country with the knowledge of LGBTQ rights or a better time to start with your contribution in the activism than the pride month currently going on?