Coming out of closet: Delighted to be gay

Nov 30, 2010 - Fozia Yasin (The Asian Age)

A grandmother walked up to the stage and said, “If I can be here and say that my grandson is gay so can you.” She received a standing ovation at the gay parade in the city on Sunday, where almost 3,000 people turned up. Many who spoke about the discrimination they face as homosexuals.
Twenty-two-year-old Divya’s real name is Dev Singh. Dev allegedly got fired from his job when his office got to know that he “wasn’t straight”. Presently fighting to get his job back, Dev is working as peer educator with an NGO for LGBTs. He has come all the way from Jaipur with his friend Raksha to participate in the city’s gay parade. “There was no problem till I went to work like a man, but my ordeal started the day they got to know I’m gay,” he said, teary eyed. Incidents of daily humiliation is something each one of them share.
Like Dev, 16-year-old Harshit (name changed) says that he quit studying when his college friends found out that he has a boyfriend. He was ostracised. “My friends bullied me. Many even called me ‘cursed’,” says Harshit, dressed in a shimmering black halter dress.
A transgender from Delhi, Sonia, 25, says that her community lives at the mercy of the police. “We face a lot of harassment at the hands of police,” she says.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/45144" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-05cfb1d55227d7c04c8af88007dc5990" value="form-05cfb1d55227d7c04c8af88007dc5990" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85444180" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>