| No Images? Click here  Today marks a year since the Supreme Court read down Section 377 in a historic verdict. Stories from across the country suggest that it has been a bittersweet year. Sidhant Kumar Behera told HuffPost India’s Piyasree Dasgupta that a queer flashmob may not raise eyebrows in big cities like Delhi or Mumbai, but in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur, the community is still as good as invisible. However, progress has been made by mobilising people through social media and now, even a pride parade is on the cards. Sharif D. Rangnekar writes that while the 2018 order was a big relief, it hasn’t made that much difference to his life—“we had gotten so used to hiding, to finding safe spaces, used to the hostility around us and the struggles that we faced, that the reading down of Section 377 was nothing more than what it actually is—that we are no longer criminals every time we have sex”. From Hyderabad, Nikhila Henry reports that while there have been more ‘coming out’ stories over the past year, they sit side by side with tales of discrimination and marginalisation. When the judgment came out in September, various reporters from local and national channels probably used their personal networks and reached out to individuals — gay men, lesbian women, transfolk — to get their reaction. When we saw these names on papers, videos and social media posts, we tried to find them through networking sites — unlike in big cities, where people from the community know each other and how to reach out to each other, we had no clue that so many of us even existed, right here, in Raipur. And like those men in the crowd commented, queerness is dismissed as a big city phenomenon by most people here.  While we recall the historic date, we need to remind ourselves of history as well as the current reality—that we continue to be discriminated against, not even schools and colleges are safe enough for queer people as there isn’t a single anti-discrimination law to protect us. This holds for the workplace as well. We can have sex but we can’t turn that act into a fulfilment of a union of love as the civil rights attached to marriage are still denied to us.  New to this email? You can sign up here.You can also follow HuffPost India on Flipboard.©2019 HuffPost India | Worldmark 3, FL 3, Aerocity, Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, Delhi 110037 |
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