Chakgay! India #3
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Table of Contents Letter from the Editors Indian Families and the LGBTQ+ Community The Fluorescent Freddie Mercury And no one’s going to stop me, honey! HIV/AIDS in India Queertionary The Gender Binary A Rose in a Meadow of Tulips A review of the 2018 album by Troye Sivan A Guide to Coming Out Namma Pride 2018 Transgender Day of Remembrance Utopia Where We Thank You Letter from the Editors Hello dear readers! Welcome to the third issue of our magazine, titled ChakGay! India, by QueerDesi! This issue is special to us - it touches on a variety of topics, from Transgender Day of Remembrance to Freddie Mercury to Indian families and the LGBTQ+ community. This issue we received a collaborative submission from a writer and artist from Humsafar Trust which we are absolutely honoured to put out. We also have a gallery of our favorite pictures from NammaPride 2018 (held on December 9th in Bangalore) taken by one of our members Ishika Singh (@_ishikaasingh_) (she took the cover picture!). We hope this issue proves to be interesting, informative, and moreover, enjoyable! We want to provide a space for writers and readers to express themselves and hopefully see themselves in our content. There are so many queer narratives that aren’t in the public eye, and we hope to show you a small slice of them in a fun way. (Besides, who doesn’t want to read about Freddie Mercury?) Yours queerly, Oviya Cherian and Ananya Vepa (Editor in Chief and Executive Director) P.S. Contributions (and opinions) are always welcome, contact us at [email protected]! QueerDesi is a student run initiative from Bangalore, and our aim is to promote inclusivity within the LGBTQ+ community and to bring new points of view to those outside of it. Indian Families and the LGBTQ+ Community By Shashwat Bansal September 6, 2018, marked a momentous occasion for the LGBTQ+ community in India as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was decriminalized permitting sexual acts between the same gender. The problem now remains in the conservative Indian families who don't believe in the new and upcoming culture of LGBTQ+ community in India. To understand this let us look at how the LGBTQ+ community came to prominence in India. It was in the early 1900s when LGBTQ+ activists for AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) began protesting against the arrests made based on “suspicious accounts” of homosexuality. ABVA was founded by Siddharth Gautam in 1989 along with seven other members. In 1991 ABVA published a 93-page report titled ‘Less Than Gay’, a citizen report on the status of homosexuality in India, the first report of this kind Ever since then there have been many pioneers of the LGBTQ+ community but it is still unnerving to see that many Indian families aren't willing to understand and accept the LGBTQ+ community. In rural India, honor killings are performed so that both men and women have to run away without any financial support. Vasanta Mogli, a transwoman, LGBTQ+ activist and a public policy scholar at Tata Institute of Social Sciences says, “Village medics and babas often prescribe rape to cure lesbians of homosexuality. Refusal to marry brings more physical abuse." Let us take the example of Parag Mehta. He had already made two suicide attempts by the time he was in his final semester at the University of Texas and decided he had hidden his sexuality from his family long enough. This was in 1999, well before Mehta became Barack Obama’s first liaison to the LGBTQ+ community – the first of three Indian Americans to eventually hold that post. During the late 1900's Indian Americans were deep in denial about their homosexuality, so when Mehta told his parents he was gay, he was worried they would sever all ties with him. Instead, something remarkable happened:“ My dad wrote a letter,” said Mehta. The letter went out to the entire Mehta clan, as well as various members of the Indian community in Temple, Texas. Dr Mehta, a retired physician, said that it was only after reviewing the scientific literature in hopes of finding a medical “cure” for homosexuality after his son came out did he realized that there was nothing to be cured. “There is a shame that’s associated with this, especially among the older generation, who are all too willing to get their gay children married off to members of the opposite sex, simply to maintain appearances.” He says. For a number of young LGBTQ+ South Asians, the challenge lies in openly forging an individual path while maintaining ties to their largely conservative families and their communities. There’s a religious component, there’s a community component, there’s a shame component – ‘What will people say?’ All these things are playing on their minds,” said Sunu Chandy, who is a lesbian. There are multiple improvements such as the case with Parag Mehta's family and numerous Indian families across India. To conclude, the LGBTQ+ community has changed drastically since the 1900s, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The Fluorescent Freddie Mercury And no one’s going to stop me, honey! By Arya Guhan Freddie Mercury was one of the most outrageous and glamorous humans to have ever existed. He was a rock legend in leather pants and leotards. Nobody could ever get enough of Freddie Mercury. Men, woman and everybody simply adored the man. Even as he lay on his deathbed taking his last breaths, people, fans and otherwise and press crowded around his house to get one last piece of him. The singer-songwriter is most famous for being the lead singer of Queen, one of the most famous rock bands of all time. He met his future bandmates in 1971 at one of their own band’s earlier gigs. Mercury claimed to have loads of ideas for them and asked if he could join their band. They didn’t take him seriously until they heard him sing, and when he sang, they were blown away by his raw and wild charisma and striking stage presence. They welcomed him, and Freddie dubbed the band ‘Queen’, which at the time was a derogatory term for gay men. They published their first electric albums ‘Queen’ and ‘Killer Queen’ in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Queen took off and Mercury became an icon of world-class vocal talent. He revolutionized rock and roll and gave it an edge no one else could. He was one of a kind. Queen never talked about Freddie’s sexuality or the disease that eventually killed him, but his bandmates said that they were sure he couldn't be defined in a binary way. Most people thought Freddie was bisexual way before it was something that was frequently talked about. Guitarist and roommate Brian May, when asked about it said that back in the ‘early days’ Freddie had a numerous amount of girlfriends but said he still suspected that Freddie had an attraction toward men. “The visitors to Freddie's dressing room started to change from hot chicks to hot men," May said. "It didn't matter to us; why should it? But Freddie had this habit of saying, 'Well, I suppose you realize this, that or the other,' in this very offhand way – and he did say at some point, 'I suppose you realize I've changed in my private life?'” By the end of it all, it was never clear the nature of Freddie’s sexuality, even after the dizzying array of partners he had. Freddie openly dated men and women, both during and after his relationship with Mary Austin, who he described as “the love of his life”. He wore outfits that bent societal and gender norms ranging from angel wings, tight leather shorts, and PVC attire which were all popular at gay nightclubs. His eccentric sense of style brought out his personality beautifully. Mercury lived in a time where the world didn’t really fully accept gay and bisexual people and they were seen as a joke, a tragedy, or having a mental illness. People from the community were barely represented in the media. Freddie was close to his family but he didn’t once tell them about his sexuality. They were Zoroastrians and in their religion being gay was seen a form of demon worship. Men and woman at that time were forced to keep their sexuality on the down low because of the wider societies’ close-minded air towards anything that wasn’t heterosexual. But that didn’t stop Freddie. From dressing up Princess Diana in drag and sneaking her into a gay club, to building a stage for David Bowie, to recording with Michael Jackson and his pet llama; Freddie Mercury lived a wild and exciting life before AIDS leached his life away. The public didn’t know about Freddie’s disease until shortly before his death. Freddie died of AIDS on 24th November 1991 leaving the world with a legacy that will be with us forever. HIV/AIDS in India By Ananya Vepa December 1st was World AIDS day, a day to raise money for HIV/AIDS research and to remember those who have died due to the effects of the virus. It is also to honor those who fought against the stigma associated with the HIV/AIDS, and who lost their lives in the process. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (more commonly known as HIV/AIDS) have killed millions of people worldwide since it’s first discovery in the early 1900s.