LGBT discussions

Today we had Shubha Chacko and 3 members of the LGBT community come into our class and teach us about sexuality and sexual identity along with sharing their stories of struggle with us. Shubha is a woman who works with 2 organizations called Sangama and Aneka to empower, advocate for, and otherwise help members of the LGBT community in India. Her work is important because homosexuality is so stigmatized in this country that often they fall victim to sexual harassment, family disownment and physical abuse from their families, and live in unspeakable poverty because there are only 2 jobs available to them: Sex work or begging.

Shubha taught us about how sexuality in India is so linked to survival, poverty, political struggle, discrimination, and is context specific(many homosexual people will not receive ration cards and have such a high fear of being found out because of the above mentioned stigmatization). One of the reasons homosexuality is so taboo is because it was actually made illegal by the British to practice any other type of sexual action other than the most traditional sense by the 377 Act. No longer is homosexuality illegal according to Indian law, but it is still greatly frowned upon. It is her opinion that sexuality is not something that fits in a box just as people are all different and cannot be fit into a box.

The people from the LGBT community that came in to speak with us were one man who identifies as gay, a born man who identifies and dresses completely like a woman, and a born man who completely identifies as a man, marrying a woman even though this is not legal in India. Each person shared their personal stories of struggle and hardships in a world where they are being told to act in ways that are contrary to their inner identifications and what is the normal way for them to act. Common occurrences in their stories include: times when people sought to control them sexually and raped them, lack of familial acceptance and being made to wear clothes and have hair commonly associated with their biological sex, thoughts of suicide and attempts at this, sex work and begging, false accusations of various crimes by police officers, and yet hope found in the empowerment and support provided by Sangama and Aneka in their work to combat the after effects of Act 377. The irony in this situation is that the vast majority (at least 80%) of the people here are Hindu and there are books within this religion dictating sexually promiscuous actions that include acts between people of the same sex and othere types of sex and pleasure that my be achieved outside the most traditional sense of sexual practice.

Homosexuality is also something people are uncomfortable with as it is practiced in the US. Harassment and violence against people who identify as LGBT happens and in this past election we saw each presidential candidate asked questions about allowing gay marriage to occur. It has been said by our professor that having many words for something in a language says something about that culture and this is something that may hold true for both the Indian and US cultures. How many words can you think of in either slang or political correctness that insinuate sexuality in any form? In just a few seconds I can think of 12 words in English right off the cuff, which I will not list here because I'd risk offending people. From my perception of the presentation we heard on Wednesday, there are just as many words in the many languages spoken in India. It is my opinion, based of the given evidence of the LGBT presentation and my knowledge of the groups and movements in the US that homosexuality is a large, obscure, and uncomfortable issue in both countries.