On 22 September, in the Delhi High Court, a most extraordinary thing happened. Judge Siddharth Mridul passed an interim order granting police protection to a young transgender male and the LGBT activists supporting him, from harassment from the boy's family and the notorious Uttar Pradesh police. As senior advocate Rebecca John said, in a country where the Supreme Court upheld Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, severely harming the rights of the LGBT communities, where state machinery is often mobilised on behalf of conservative families against young people trying to choose their own lives, the judiciary upholding the rights of 19-year-old Shivy was remarkable.
Shivy, born biologically female, named Shivani Bhat, brought up in California for most of his life, found himself taking his parents to court, when they dragged him from California to Agra, locked him up at home, abused him "verbally and physically", took away his passport, green card and all identification papers, his phone and his computer, all because they found out he was transgender. It began in June, when Shivy wanted to cut his hair and his mother reacted furiously, confining him to the house and confiscating his phone, forcing him to unlock it, thus finding out his true identity.
Shivy's story came to light when he recently put out a powerful video online, an appeal for support against his family's never-ending intimidation. In the video, obviously difficult to shoot, Shivy haltingly recounted all that happened to him, the abuse he suffered from his parents' hands. Though Shivy's life took an extraordinary turn, his desires are ordinary ones; to be safe, be accepted, to get a good education. A student of neurobiology at the University of California, Davis, an honours students with scholarships lined up, as he proudly related in the video, he was forced to take admission in Dayal Bagh Educational Institute, Agra. It was clear how the idea of a substandard education rankled him.
However, this provided him with the opportunity to escape, as college was the only time his family couldn't monitor him. As Nazariya member Rituparna Borah recounted to dna, somehow Shivy retrieved his phone from home, got access to the school WiFi, contacted friends in the US, who contacted Nazariya, an NGO in Delhi, whose people, on 10 September, finally got him out.
"Once we ascertained he was not a minor, we went to Agra to help him," she said.
When his family filed a kidnapping case against the activists, with the UP and the Delhi police going to their homes in Delhi, harassing even their children, Shivy went to court with a writ petition, declaring him a legal adult, seeking protection and the return of his papers.
In his order, Judge Mridul minced no words calling what happened to Shivy -- bigotry. Activist Leslie Estevez, who helped Shivy, said at a press conference in Delhi on Friday, that the judge did not apply any special benefits for LGBT people, he only upheld human rights. "What kind of a parent unleashes the UP police on their children," asked Esteves.
Rebecca John emphasised much the same, calling it an order to be celebrated. "We associate custodial violence with jails, but this happens in families too," she said, comparing Shivy's case to others of familial harassment, such as people from different castes falling in love and being hounded by families and police. The speakers remarked upon UP police's prompt action in this case, driven no doubt by Shivy's father "a rich and influential businessman with deep roots in Uttar Pradesh", given their inaction in other cases, for example the six month stalking of Khabar Lahariya reporters in the state.
The order had the potential of both furthering the space being created for the LGBT communities in India, and of upholding individual liberties, as John stressed.
"I felt like I was going to die," said Shivy in a particularly bleak moment in his video, "if my mother was stronger she would have beat me more."
"My mother told me I was not worthy of respect, of any achievements, no one would love me," he said. Now that he is away from his family, Shivy repeated many times, he felt safe, and happy, "a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders and I can breathe."
