A Road to Rights for LGBTQIA+ Community
Antara Basu, a feminist writer and blogger, is interning with us as same! She expresses her views on how many steps we have covered and how many are left in this staircase of providing justice to the community.
A customary rainbow flag and hand drawn posters which would have made Da Vinci proud, with people wearing ‘Love Is Love’ outfits and a little bit of courage. And there we have the ideal, pride parade beginner pack. It isn’t until we reach the later phases that we realize that the problem goes much beyond rallying on the streets and chanting slogans. Being a part or an ally of the LGBTQ+ community recognizes deep rooted perversions within the various notions of various people. April 2014, when the Supreme Court released the verdict in the NLSA V UNION OF INDIA, or the Section 377 revocation on September 2018 are both considered as landmark judgement in the fight for the LGBTQ community. These decisions not only signify a truly equal status among people regardless
their sexual orientation, it also highlights an important detail; the extensive path that India still needs to walk, on this road to rights.
May 17, 1990 the World Health Organisation decided to entitle homosexuality as a mental disorder, and today in 2020, we as a society continue to do the same even after years of development. Because we refuse to accept that the choice about who a person loves is their own personal choice. Unbelievable right? One of the biggest problems that we need to combat in the current scenario is pseudo acceptance. Waving a rainbow flag but not wanting your son to be identified as gay. Or the pseudo liberals with their progressive attitudes and forward thinking who refuse employment to people on the basis of their sexual orientation is not being an ally of the community. Ranging from housing discrimination to homelessness and even hate violence that proves to be fatal for many, LGBTQ+ people face threats to life just because other people believe that it is okay for them to dictate the lives of those who don’t concern them.
India can approve countless legislations and yet we will never be able to fully guarantee the rights and safety of the LGBTQ+ community until we can drain out the prejudice and bigotry from thought. And in a country like ours, with a majority of the population being uneducated; ignorance is rampant. Even within the literate masses how can we discuss sexuality when even the thought of sex is regarded as forbidden. Today if we as straight, cis-men and women protected by this veil are denied basic human dignity, equality and rights based on a very personal choice. It seems unfair. And that is exactly how we are allowing our LGBTQ counterparts to be treated. The fight for true equality demands not our silence but our raging voices. In this 21 st century, it’s time we come out of our ignorance before coming out of our closets.