We’re coming out, We want the world to know, Got to let it show

For the first time Hyderabad joined the nation-wide demonstration of ‘India Coming Out Day’ on Friday. Members of the LGBT community congregated at Krishna Kanth Park, Yousufguda, to join hands to release balloons with masks attached to them in the air as a symbolic gesture of coming out. Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Pune have been observing the India Coming Out Day over the years since Delhi High Court decriminalised gay sex in a historic verdict on July 2, 2009.
Six years on, the LGBT community in India is still fighting for acceptance after the Supreme Court upheld Section 377 in December 2013. But the queer community is holding on to the “No going back” motto as they celebrate India Coming Out Day year after year. Hyderabad Times listens in as members of queer community in the city share their journey and what it took to accept, admit and assert their sexuality.
I came out to myself when I was 30: Jayati Mathur
Unable to come to terms with my sexuality, I chose to live in denial for most of my life. Deep down I always felt there was something wrong in my head. I was a tomboy in school who would sit with the boys and check out the girls. I did not have any romantic relationship until for most of my adult life... no emotional attachments what so ever. I’d explained it to myself saying I haven’t found the right guy yet. I was attracted to women all the time, but couldn’t get myself to fathom the fact that I’m a lesbian until I met a kindred soul three years ago. She was open about being a lesbian and made secret about the fact that she digged me. For the first time in my life, I had met an openly lesbian girl.
I was 30 by the time it finally dawned on me that I’m gay. Three years later, I came out to my family. It wasn’t easy. Both my elder sisters weren’t ready to accept it and there was a lot of friction in the family. But I had to be true to myself. Don’t think I would’ve been able to come out when I was younger and financially dependent on my family. I’m sure there are a lot or girls like me out there. I have only one message for them — there is nothing wrong with you!
I found myself, when I found love: Sandipan
Growing up in a small town like Ranchi, I knew something was different about me because I was always attracted to boys. And it wasn’t easy being me, especially between the age of 16-21. I had very very few friends. My classmates in school and college always made fun about how effeminate I was. They would ridicule me for “behaving differently.” So I forced my self to act straight and mingle with girls. I was emotionally very fragile, if someone came up to me in a bus and taunted me with something as simple, ‘Hi, girl’, I would break down and sink into depression.
But it all changed when I moved to Hyderabad in 2013. I created fake IDs to hook up with others like me online. For a few month I hooked up with strangers but was no intimacy or emotional security that I was craving for.
It all change when I met my partner Anil, as luck would have it through a fake ID. We moved in together two months after we first met and have stayed together for the last two years. And thanks to the love and emotional security I found in this relationship, I came out during the 2015 Pride Walk. And that was the day I decided that I will not wear this facade and show my real face to the world.
It was important for my family to know because they needed to deal with their own inherent homophobia: Neha
I came out to my mom only last year over the phone, while I was in Canada. “Are you joking,” she retorted when I told her, “I’m attracted to women the way you are attracted to dad.” She fell silent for a bit, shocked at what she just heard, and asked me for some time to deal with it.
Although she seems to have made peace with my sexual orientation, she still says stuff like at this age my studies and career are more important than my sexuality. Same is the case with the rest of my family although they see me as a perfectly normal person, they tend to look at the LGBT community as a bunch of weird people. I want to change that misconception soon.
Bisexuality is not contagious: Ankita Sinha
I became aware of my attraction towards girls, while sharing hotel rooms, sports locker rooms and the like. But I was too scared to reveal it to anyone until I met a girl on campus. Since we lived together, everyone on the campus knew about us. But after six months she left the campus and I sank into depression. I was suicidal, and started taking pills and barely ate and developed a life threatening intestinal infection. That’s when I came out to my mother.
Today I’ve found acceptance in my family. I have a boyfriend with whom I have a pact that I will check out a hot girl if she walks past me, but what really hurts me is the attitude of my peers who think bisexuality is a vice that is contagious or something. People think I am promiscuous. We live in a society that is still struggling to accept girls who are openly sexual, so to accept bisexual women will take a long time. But I will continue to do my bit to dispel misconceptions about bisexuality.
The third gender recognition doesn’t go too far in transforming lives, unless our society changes: Rachna Mudraboyina
In comparison to lesbian, gay and bisexual people, transgenders have a bigger battle, because the stigma doesn’t affect only the person but also the family. Take my family for instance, Since the time I was a little child that I felt like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and even my family knew about it. But they chose to not acknowledge it, fearing social stigma. Transwoman specifically, are rejected by their parents, so they run away from houses. However, now I have been living with my two siblings and my father for six years now. I am celebrating the Apex Court’s assertion to the government to implement the third gender provision. But the stigma in people’s minds is the real battle to fight. Most transwomen are forced into either sex work or begging. I am a double graduate myself and I don’t get jobs easily. When I do, I face discrimination, a lot of it — either my work is undermined or I am expected to clock in more hours than others. So yes, what we really need to transform are the mindsets.