India gay sex
LGBT in India: What it's like six months after gay sex was decriminalised
The change in law does mean "many lesbian and gay people are starting to disclose their sexuality to their parents", Kiran explains.
"But there's a double standard. Some people will accept having LGBT friends but they won't agree to their relatives who appear out."
Last year a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey ranked India as the world's most dangerous country for women, coming out worst for sexual violence.
Kiran says it can be unsafe to be transgender in India's capital and won't always attend celebrations, or visit certain areas.
"Five boys tried to pull me into a car on New Year's Eve," she explains.
"I think they were trying to rape me but I pushed the door open and ran away.
"It really scared me."
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My journey of self-exploration began in 2012, when I was 14 years elderly. It was a second just after I’d experienced extreme discrimination in institution for being gay. I was beginning to realize and dive deeper into my queerness in India, a country where LGBTQ people do not include the same rights as straight people. As I looked for safe spaces to explore my individuality, I stumbled upon one I found surprising support then: a neighbourhood common park.
A friend who I’d met through PlanetRomeo – one of the earliest queer dating platforms – told me about a park in my capital in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which doubled up as a gay hotspot. Out of curiosity, I start my way to the said park, which was just an enclosed patch of unkempt grass next to a noisy highway. I first watched from a distance how around sundown, a group of a dozen or so men I’d later notify “queens,” would gather. As I gathered confidence to approach them over the next few days, I realised that this is where they’d meet to offload their daily emphasize, talk about their lives, or just hook up.
For a teenager who’d recently thought that no one would ever understand him, this is where I first sought solace. I made friends
What it means to be gay in rural India
My parents didn't object. I didn't have a brother, so they thought of me as a son and didn't mind if I dressed up as one.
But they did not know about my sexual orientation.
To be loyal, I didn't know much either. I knew that I was attracted to girls but I also knew that it was not right. So I never told my parents. They still don't understand. Nobody close to me knows. During weddings, I often find women attractive but I have never had the courage to speak to them.
When I turned 20, I had to find a way to express myself. I couldn't discuss these feelings with anyone in the village. But mobile phones came to my rescue. I would dial random numbers and narrate strangers my story - anyone at all who cared to listen. When one girl I called told me that she liked my voice, I was elated. It was the first time I had got a compliment from a girl.
These were fleeting moments of happiness. Deep down, I was sad.
I tried to kill myself when I was 24. My parents thought that I was depressed because I wasn't married. They got me married a few weeks later but it was doomed. Within a year, I was divorced.
By this time,
India decriminalises gay sex in landmark verdict
New Delhi, India – India’s Supreme Court has decriminalised gay sex in a landmark ruling.
The court heard petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 377 – a colonial-era law under which a same-sex relationship is an “unnatural offence” punishable by a 10-year jail term.
“Any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates fundamental rights,” Leader Justice of India Dipak Misra, who was top of the five-judge bench, said in Thursday’s ruling.
“The constitution is a living organic document … pragmatic interpretation has to be given to combat rigorous inequality and injustice. Social morality cannot be used to violate the fundamental rights of even a single individual. Constitutional morality cannot be martyred at the altar of social morality.”
Any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates fundamental rights
by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra
Thursday’s judgement is a shot in the arm for India’s gay community.
“We become equal citizens with the removal of Section 377. Equal rights are accessible for us with this decriminalisation,” one of the petitioners in the c
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