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India has taken a big step in supporting the LGBT+ community. Although the queer community  doesn’t have adoption or marriage rights yet, India is going in the right direction. Hopefully, with the LGBT+ community being able to speak up and out without fear of getting arrested, they can gain more rights in future years.

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'The rich ones (queers), they will extort money from; the poor ones (queers), they will use for sexual favors, Nobody talks about these experiences,This is not a conversation that people are comfortable with here in India.'' -Mohnish Malhotra

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How is India working towards giving the queer community marriage and adoption rights? What are their steps? What are their goals?

How have the people been celebrating pride? Do they have a pride month like we do?

What are other countries like India doing to support the LGBT+ communities? How is India being inclusive compared to countries who have just recently gotten new gay rights laws, like Australia? How is India doing compared to countries who have had the law around for a while, like Canada?

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Now that the LGBT+ community is legal, many people are celebrating, but with almost all cultural changes, lashback is to be expected as they queer community explores and tests the waters of their new freedoms.

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"It can be a range of harassment - from sniggers, homophobic, transphobic jokes to the extreme of violence and sexual abuse” -Shubha Chacko

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"Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine."

When the law says, 'Against the order of nature...' it is not specifically referring to the LGBT+ community, but it does include them.

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Ishaan Sethi, a co-founder of Delta, India's first LGBT social networking app, asked for more LGBT-friendly policies, like gender-neutral bathrooms, leave for sexual reassignment surgeries, insurance for same sex couples, and sensitizing employees to make workplaces more inclusive.

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Shubha Chacko, executive director of Solidarity Foundation, helps transgender people find jobs because workplace bullying was widespread.

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"The end goal of assimilation is when your sexuality or your gender identity is not even a topic..." -Ishaan Sethi

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“For a transgender person, it becomes a lot more difficult because they are visibly different, they cannot put their appearance behind them."
-Suresh Ramdas

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"I want to change the negative mindset of society so that they (the queer community) can be integrated into the mainstream" -Mayank Bhardwaj

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Male to female transgender people, or hijras, often beg, sell their bodies for sex, or take money from families by threatening to curse them with infertility and bad luck. They did not have any other options for jobs, and many people believe that hijras had the power to put curses on people.

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Before homosexuality was legal in India, it was a hard life for those of the LGBT+ community. They were living in a country that made them outcasts. They were shunned and disowned by friends and family, forced into social isolation, and their workplaces had little protection against discrimination. They also were very vulnerable to police abuse and sexual assault.

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Many of the assault, blackmail, harassment, and 🤬 victims would not go to the police because they feared getting arrested, or worse. People were afraid of their troubles getting overlooked, and getting thrown in jail, instead of their harasser.

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A. is a young gay man, who wishes to be identified by his first initial.
A. had made plans to meet up with a man through a messaging app. Instead, he was greeted by two men, who drugged and raped him. One of the men took a selfie of him and A.. A. said, "I was afraid he would blackmail me"

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Rajesh Yadav is a gay cross dresser who prefers she/her/hers pronouns. She had been gang-raped four times in less than one year, beaten with a brick, and almost thrown out of a moving car simply because of her gender and sexuality.

''I would beg them to leave me every time, but they would beat me and use violence against me and then 🤬 me"

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One of India's most popular religion is Hinduism (according to the 2011 census), which was once accepting same sex relationships. Old Hindu temples depict same sex relationships, and there are even same sex relationships in Hindu myths. In other myths, transgender people are given a special status and praised for their loyalty. But, a lot of that changed when the British conquered India.

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The term “queer” was considered a slur, and is now a “reclaimed slur” as some would call it. It was originally used as a slur to attack LGBT+ people but it has had a change in meaning. It is often used as an umbrella term to describe the LGBT+ community nowadays. If somebody calls themselves “queer” as an umbrella term for anything in the LGBT+ community, it is not being used as a slur. So in this project, queer is not an insult, just an umbrella term for the LGBT+ community.

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More and more people are advocating for the LGBT+ community to have marriage and parenting rights, and people are starting to speak up about it since the queer community was decriminalized in September of last year.

Some couples are married through the traditional Hindu traditions, but the marriage is not registered because of the current laws in place. Queer and/or genderqueer couples cannot adopt children either, but many are hoping for another change to come soon.

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September 6, 2018 was a joyous day for the LGBT+ in India. Although they did not quite yet have marriage and adoption rights, those of the queer community could finally embrace themselves and not hide it. Homosexuality, and others in the LGBT+ community would no longer be sent to jail and considered criminals.