Queer pride march to mainstream

“Like a male and female, let a man and man, a woman and woman love each other. Let these sexual identities fly freely on wings of colors. Let new equations of these free identities bloom in people,” said an invite by Queer Pride Kerala.

The seventh edition of the march was the culmination of the three-day celebration of the community in Kozhikode, abounding in freedom and love with hundreds of people, from the LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer) community and public taking part.

“It was good to see so many people support our cause. Every year it is growing and in a state with high literacy rate, our struggles are getting noticed. Kerala is the first state to unveil a transgender policy to end societal stigma towards sexual minorities,” Kalki Subramaniam, transgender activist, writer and actor  

“This is a great move and we hope the state government's policy would be a major step to remove Section 377,” she adds. The queer pride march and the LGBTIQ meeting’s history goes back to 2009 when it was launched after Delhi High Court decriminalised consensual homosexual acts in private, declaring the Section 377 as unconstitutional. However, after re-criminalisation by the Supreme Court, it turned out into a protest and awareness march.

Seven years have gone by and the activists and members of LGBTIQ community believe that they have been able to bring drastic changes in social perception. “Every year more and more people are coming out. More than the protest on the draconian Section 377, the march and the gathering have moved on to bring awareness among the public about us. Now, we want to initiate a discussion about our presence in society,” says Chinju Ashwathi, an intersex, working as part of an LGBTIQ community.

“Until now, most of the visibility was for transgender people. Many people even do not know the presence of other sexual identities. For the past few years, we have been trying to highlight their cause and say to the world these people are also part of our justice for sexuality campaign,” Chinju says.

Justice for sexuality is based on undoing gender, where the community is trying to explain the irrelevance of giving importance to gender in a modern society. “The idea is not just confined to the queer community. It concerns even heterosexuals or asexual. We should accept each identity and there should be equality. For this we should keep the dialogue alive. Last year about 1,500 members took part in the three-day celebrations. This year it was more than that,” Chinju explains.

Vyas Deep, a gay from Kozhikode, believes that it would take more years to get the freedom they long for. “It is a struggle. The first step is to repeal Section 377. We can only dream about the kind of freedom enjoyed by the community members in western countries. However, the educated are better aware of our cause and consider us equal. Before the state meet in Kozhikode, which I consider as the gay capital of Kerala, we conducted district meetings.”

“In most of the districts, it was students who conducted meetings at colleges. It shows that the youth in Kerala understand our problems. However, most of the intolerance is shown by people aged above 30. It may be their ignorance and I feel that it costs us our social life. These kinds of programmes have given us a platform to speak out and educate the masses,” he said.

“Discrimination starts in childhood. People should understand that this is not wrong or immoral. Let there be more discussions. We should reduce the fear to discuss sexual matters. I think it will be difficult when the country is governed by a rightwing political party. It is not just the intolerance, it is also ignorance. We have to fight both,” he adds.