Pride and prejudice

One could say it is pointless to ask if things have changed a year into the reading down of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code by the Delhi high court; yet it’s a question that must be asked. Not for stories of turnaround of hearts and emotional coming out of “pink sheep” to their families but to open up the closet the way we did post June 2, 2009. Legislations don’t change mindsets — they may get a gay professor his job back, yet not spare him social scrutiny. Debates do. Even the legal fight is not yet won. The Supreme Court is yet to rule.

Coming out
Raging discussions on TV, print, over dinner tables, in schools and coffee shops following decriminalising of consensual sex between adults in private last year, for one, proved a lot of people wrong about a lot of things. The way the judgment was received, for instance.

“The Indian public has been very mature and very tolerant of the judgment. The debate has helped more and more people talk about the issue in a more legitimate manner. It’s not as closeted anymore and that has certainly made it easier for the average person to come out,” says Siddharth Narrain, member of the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum who works on issues related to gender and sexuality, among others. The younger homosexual people may be coming out a lot more than before to their friends and peers, but not to their families.

“The families may still be hesitant,” says Chaitanya Shah, founder-member of Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action (LABIA), “but the individual has found the encouragement to stand up for who he/she is.” 

It’s hard to quantify for lack of data, but there is anecdotal evidence of quietly conducted same sex marriages — four in Bangalore alone — and people coming out to their families. “A very close friend came out and moved in with his boyfriend recently. A year ago, he was scared of anyone outside his close circle even finding out he was gay,” says L Romal M Singh, culture head of a Bangalore-based news channel. Singh, who is on many gay websites and chat rooms, says that the number of people who initially listed themselves as ‘straight and experimenting’ have changed their status to openly gay.

“The debate familiarised people with a lot of things, one among them being that gay does not mean transgender and transgender does not mean transvestite, and so on.”

Social spaces
“The legislation is notional — it’s real and it’s unreal,” says Shah. It has tremendously encouraged those in doubt, both individuals and liberal families worried about social backlash, but it hasn’t de facto opened up social spaces that have in the past been hesitant to let the members of sexual minorities in.

“Inside, everyone feels strong individually, but a year is too short for social transformation,” she says. In that sense the battle remains the individual’s; only now the legal climate is favourable for coming out. But to quote attorney Joe Miller from the movie Philadelphia, “We don’t live in this courtroom, do we?”

The party meter, however, has another story to tell about traditional spheres created by the LGBT community (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders) to meet, network and share. Vikram Doctor from Gay Bombay, one of the first groups to start gay parties in Mumbai, says that a number of new party organisers have entered the scene in the last one year, “which is good because we always wanted the party scene to expand.” 

Last October, we also saw the launch of L Lounge, an online networking website for lesbians. Legitimacy accorded by law, says its organiser, Shobhna Kumar, has made such initiatives a success. “Thankfully, we haven’t ever faced any problem with the police. The real issue is dealing with the management of some places where the parties are organised. The staff isn’t always comfortable with two women holding hands, for example. So we make it a point to ensure we select venues which are conducive for these parties,” she says.

Class divide
Akkai, a kothi, works at the Bangalore-based Sangama, an organisation formed to safeguard the rights of sexual minorities, especially those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds who migrate from towns and villages in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Sangama has a database of 3,000 plus people who call their helplines or attend weekly meetings. “Not a lot of people have come forth after the legislation,” she says.  Her colleague Christie, who is quite vocal in the local media, says, “People like us don’t come out. New people who join our support groups still tell us not to acknowledge that we know them in public. That hasn’t changed.”

That is because the police remains largely ignorant and deeply prejudiced. In April, recounts Akkai, two homosexual men were sitting in Bangalore’s Cubbon Park, an established gay cruising zone, open about their sexuality in public and unthreatened. But the police threatened them with revealing their sexual orientation to their parents and took them to jail. “We had to intervene and tell them about striking down of Article 377. But they were least apologetic about what they had done,” says Akkai.

The walk ahead
“The legislation, because it falls under the context of discrimination, is strengthening,” says Shah. But discrimination remains and the community, largely marginalised. The movement is making a shift from a standalone struggle to one that walks in solidarity with similar movements for the marginalised: feminist, Dalit, HIV and so on. So this time, Queer Azadi’s rally planned for July 2 at the Azad Maidan, between 3 and 6pm, will bring together participants who are not just from the LGBT community but involved with struggles of those on the social periphery. The call is made to any and every subscriber to justice, equality and freedom, privacy, dignity and respect for all.