We get celebrities to give their take on a current issue each week and lend their perspective to a much-discussed topic. this week we talk about LGBTQ and sensitivity.
On June 12, a shooter, allegedly riled up by looking at a same sex couple kiss, opened fire at a gay night club in Orlando, making it the worst mass shooting in the US. The very next day, a heavily armed man was intercepted on his way to a pride parade in Detroit. Despite the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community worldwide, does the movement have a long way to go to? What can be done to curb homophobia and make the society more sensitive towards the LGBTQ community?
Prasad Bidapa, Fashion Guru: Abolish section 377
Homophobes plus guns equate a dangerous cocktail. Hatred and intolerance can only be passed on through teaching impressionable minds the wrong doctrine. We must teach our young to love, understand and accept plurality. What happened in Orlando is really sad. India can start with abolishing Section 377. When you criminalise a community for their sexual preferences, you leave them defenceless and it is the first step in teaching the young to hate them.
Ganesh Nallari, designer: Community must not call itself queer
Even though we are progressing, we are taking one step forward and 10 steps backwards. That’s what happened when homosexuality was decriminalised in 2009 and was criminalised again in 2013. People will come out of the closet only if they feel reasonably comfortable with the society around them. But when the law itself says that it is a criminal activity, is there hope for society to change? I would say an open dialogue is most important to reduce homophobia. Just talk about it to everybody, whether to an auto-rickshaw driver or a friend, we must explain to them that what really matters is if a person is living an honest, good life and not their sexual orientation. Many people stay in the closet, are married to a partner of the opposite sex, have a family but are leading a miserable life, so they hate themselves. This is how even homosexuals become homophobes. I also think people of the community must stop calling themselves queer. The dictionary meaning of queer means odd, strange or unusual. I read somewhere that the number of homosexuals in India is quite large. So many people cannot be wrong. They can’t call themselves unusual.
Anwesh Sahoo, Mr Gay World India 2016: We’re still fighting jail sentences and death threats
People need to come out and assert themselves strongly. When I came out, I was also able to change the mindsets of those 100 people around me, which included my parents, friends, the guys I was sharing a room with, my professors and neighbours. And honestly, not a single person has despised me since I came out. Gender is a spectrum and nobody should be forced to not be who they are inside. I’ve often come across homosexuals who are also the most homophobic people. That is somewhere down the line, the result of our social construct. It breaks my heart as I wake up every day to a hate crime against homosexuals. It baffles me to see how it’s 2016 and we as a community are still struggling with acceptance and fighting against jail sentences and death penalties. Instead of trying to make perfect men and women out of their kids, parents and teachers should rather be focusing on making them empowered independent individuals first.
Sheethal Shyam, LGBTQ activist: Make space to talk about sexuality
Although there have been discussions about LGBTQ communities in Kerala of late, these are mostly about their gender and not about their emotions. We can hear people talking in support of queers and transgenders to an extent but not about gays, lesbians or trans-sexuals. The point is, on humanitarian grounds, the society should make a space to talk about sexuality and emotional feelings such as love and attachment when they discuss about the LGBTQ community. But since the society is obsessed with the concept of morality, people always connect the discussion about this community along with ‘rules of nature’ and the term ‘abnormal’. There should be legal freedom for people of LGBTQ community to fall in love, marry and get a marriage certificate and adopt a child.
Sushant Digvikar, model and actor: Never mix religion with sexuality
I think the fundamental problem is that we are not educated well enough about sexuality as a whole, with all its dimensions. And we don’t want to talk about sex either. We want to do it, but not talk about it. In our education system, there’s no systematic way of studying sexuality. Sex education too, is very minimal. At the moment, the power corridors have so many members of the older generation who just do not understand the concept of LGBTQ. They don’t understand that there is nothing unnatural about being the way we are. In another decade or so, there will be a new batch of people in the corridors of power who might actually understand this and bring about reforms. Also, you should never mix religion with sexuality. They are two completely separate topics and people need to understand that.
