Tag: gay india
India’s gay community scrambling after court decision recriminalises homosexuality
Back in 2009, Lesley Esteves was dancing in the streets after judges in Delhi decriminalised homosexuality. When the Delhi High Court suspended the draconian Section 377 of the Indian penal code which dated from the days of British rule, India’s lesbian,gay, bisexual and transgender community thought there was no turning back. Five years on the… Read more »
The Upside of India’s Renewed Ban on Gay Sex
A community that was in danger of becoming complacent is now galvanized to political action Last Tuesday, India’s Supreme Court reinstated a law that has turned me, along with millions of other Indians, into a sexual criminal. Four years ago, a lower-court decision struck down this same law, which bans “carnal acts against the order… Read more »
Record turnout for gay pride march in Mumbai
Some 5,000 people turned out for the first LGBT pride march in the country held after the Supreme Court in December reinstated a colonial-era law that criminalises gay sex It was a record turnout for Mumbai’s seventh gay pride parade where some 5,000 people marched from August Kranti Marg to Girgaum Chowpatty on Saturday afternoon,… Read more »
Gay Sex Is a Crime and Will Stay a Crime, Says India’s Top Judges
The Supreme Court rejects an appeal to overturn a ban India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected petitions from the government and gay rights activists to review an earlier decision that recriminalized gay sex in the country. In December last year, the court overturned a historic 2009 Delhi High Court judgment decriminalizing homosexuality. It said that… Read more »
Indian Supreme Court refuses to review decision to ban gay sex
India’s Supreme Court has refused to review its decision to reinstate a 153-year-old law that criminalises homosexuality. Justice HL Dattu and Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya issued a brief order declaring, “The Review Petitions are dismissed.” The ruling is seen as a huge blow to LGBT rights and has been criticised by activists and government ministers. The… Read more »
Police Violence In India Drives A Gay Couple To The U.S. — And A Detention Cell
“We are feeling like homosexuality is a crime everywhere … there is not any protection here,” said one of the men.Their yearlong journey across more than 10 countries to seek asylum in the United States. Millions of gay Indians suddenly became criminals when the Indian Supreme Court restored the country’s sodomy law in December. But… Read more »
Will politcians change law on gay rights?
On January 3, 2014, it was reported that the United States ( U. S.) granted asylum to a gay couple, Jagdish Kumar and Sukwinder who fled India in June 2012 because of pressure on Jagdish to marry a girl. They did not try and sneak into the U. S. but surrendered to the U. S.… Read more »
Delhi High Court judge who legalized gay sex saddened by Supreme Court ruling
The Delhi High Court judge who legalized homosexuality in India in 2009 has spoken out against the Supreme Court ruling that overturned his decision, saying he feels deeply sad for India’s LGBTI community Former Delhi High Court judge AP Shah who legalized homosexuality in India in 2009 has spoken of his disappointment at the decision… Read more »
Religious leaders laud gay sex ban in India
Local Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Christian chiefs say the court prevents India from ‘going on to the path of destruction’ In a rare display of unity, six leaders of different religious hues in India have released a joint statement to commend the apex court’s decision to reaffirm the country’s colonial anti-sodomy law, and warn… Read more »
Radio Station for Gay Indians Faces Uphill Battle to Draw Listeners
Bangalore – Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Indian law against homosexuality cannot be overturned except by Parliament, gay sex is illegal once again, making it that much harder for young gay, lesbian and transgender Indians to identify themselves as such. This makes the staff of Q Radio, the only Internet radio… Read more »
Delhi: Gay rights activists hold march
New Delhi: Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community on Sunday held a march in the city demanding an end to the discrimination which is still being faced by them despite the decriminalisation of gay sex. Carrying rainbow-coloured flags, the demonstrators marched to the beat of traditional Indian drums, calling for equal… Read more »
India’s Gujarat State Holds First Gay Pride Parade
In a milestone moment for the Indian state of Gujarat, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents filled the streets for the area’s first-ever gay pride parade last weekend. More than 100 citizens came out for the event “bearing rainbow flags and banners and dancing to traditional music.” Many participants wore scarves and masks in an… Read more »
India’s 1st survey on gay love and sex busts myth
Over 25% say they don’t have anal sex, debunking perception that the act defines gay sex India’s first survey on gay men’s love and sex lives is out. And though the organization which conceived of it is the first to admit that it may lack the rigor of a scientific survey, the Gay Men’s Love… Read more »
India’s 1st survey on gay love and sex busts myth
Over 25% say they don’t have anal sex, debunking perception that the act defines gay sex India’s first survey on gay men’s love and sex lives is out. And though the organization which conceived of it is the first to admit that it may lack the rigor of a scientific survey, the Gay Men’s Love… Read more »
Indian queers soon to have their own Radio channel
India is all set to welcome its first radio channel dedicated to the LGBT community. Radiowalla.in, India’s first Direct to Consumer multi-channel internet radio platform announced that it will play host to a radio channel especially for the Gay and Lesbian Community in India. The channel will be available from 11th September 24×7 via any… Read more »
Sexuality and the State
Why India’s LGBTQI movement has a headstart over the West’s Mangesh Karande is 26, unmarried, and drives an autorickshaw in Mumbai. He prefers the late night shift because of the higher fares he can charge. He prefers the late night shift for another reason: Mangesh is intimately familiar with the ‘ladies’ who loiter around the… Read more »
‘Gay scene’ manufactured, mythical in state?
The month of June is when in several places around the world rainbow flags are waved, celebrating the diversity of expressions and gender identities that exist on our planet. In the past week, there have been pride parades and functions across India in small or large measure. Saturday saw the pride march at Hooghly in… Read more »
Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History
Lambda literary award finalist, Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient… Read more »
No country for gay men?
The deafening silence in the mainstream press, even as blogs and HIV/AIDS alliance NGOs buzzed with obituaries, stood in stark contrast with the media frenzy a decade ago. It has almost been a fortnight since the founder of Naz Foundation International and a pioneering gay rights activist OBE (Order of the British Empire) Shivananda Khan… Read more »
Chennai holds film festival for LGBT community
30 films, Indian and international, celebrating the LGBT community will be screened at the Chennai Rainbow Film Festival The Chennai Rainbow Film Festival (CRFF) 2013 is an LGBT film festival running from 7 to 9 June 2013 in India. It will be the first in the Tamil Nadu’s capital city, with more than 30 short… Read more »
Being queer without fear: films on LGBTS from Iran, Pakistan
What must it be like to be a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in a conservative country? This year, the Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival will highlight the travails of the LGBT community by screening films from countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Serbia and Israel. Still from Noor, a film about the LGBT community… Read more »
India’s Gay Community Fights for Acceptance, Equality
New Delhi — Indian activists are listening closely as the U.S. Supreme Court debates the issue of same sex marriage. Activists are assessing progress made on the issue of gay rights in India, nearly four years after a Indian key court ruling that decriminalized homosexual sex. As a gay man in India, life has not… Read more »
Getting accepted
Find out more about IIT Delhi’s new gender and sexuality group Indradhanu, the first gender and sexuality support group at IIT Delhi, is not interested in half-measures: “We want to hear ‘we love you’ rather than ‘we love you anyway’”, Kapil Rananaware, a third-year B-tech student and one of the group’s founders, told Time Out.… Read more »
Odd cinema
At the recently held Bangalore Queer Film Festival (BQFF), I pushed and shoved and battled with strangers for space to sit. The main auditorium was jam-packed. Never mind that the aisles were already full; people streamed in anyway, and when I went outside for a break, I discovered the café tables were full, too. Inside… Read more »
100 Years of Indian Cinema: Homosexuals and the third gender on celluloid…Bollywood
New Delhi: When sexual revolution swept through the West in the 1960s after the advent of the birth control pill, some of the effects of the change found slanted reflections in popular culture. But for the ripples to hit the Indian shores, where cinema was still bound by Victorian puritanism, it took another decade. In… Read more »
Children Toil in India’s Mines, Despite Legal Ban
Khliehriat, India — After descending 70 feet on a wobbly bamboo staircase into a dank pit, the teenage miners ducked into a black hole about two feet high and crawled 100 yards through mud before starting their day digging coal. They wore T-shirts, pajama-like pants and short rubber boots — not a hard hat or… Read more »
Scrap ‘archaic’ gay sex laws, rights watchdogs tell India
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have urged the Indian government to review legislation criminalizing same-sex relations Two of the world’s leading human rights watchdogs have demanded India scraps its ‘archaic and discriminatory’ laws against gay sex today (12 February). Amnesty International and Humans Rights Watch today urged the Indian government to repeal laws including… Read more »
Police raid and arrest 30 people at India gay party
Indian police arrest 30 gay party goers in Mumbai for dancing ‘indecently’ Thirty people were arrested for alleged ‘indecent’ behavior following a raid at a gay party in Malad, a suburb of Mumbai, India. According to a police officer who spoke with The Times India: ‘The raid was conducted in the wee hours today [10… Read more »
India’s Gay Community Comes Out of the Closet
After more than a century of oppression, India’s gay community is striding out of the closet. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, Mumbai’s western suburb of Bandra—home to observant middle-class Roman Catholic and Sunni Muslim families—is packed with people strolling the seaside promenades. The main streets are abuzz with vendors selling cheap shoes and colorful scarves.… Read more »
India’s Gay Pride
Delhi, India – More than a thousand people thronged into the heart of India’s capital for the fifth edition of the Delhi Queer Pride Parade that took place on Sunday in support of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community. Carrying rainbow-coloured flags and placards with slogans, supporters marched to the beats of traditional… Read more »
Indian gay rights parade demands extension of anti-discriminatory laws
New Delhi — Hundreds of gay rights activists marched through New Delhi on Sunday to demand that they be allowed to lead lives of dignity in India’s deeply conservative society. Dozens of demonstrators carried a nearly 15-meter (50-foot) -long, rainbow-colored banner and waved placards demanding that the government extend the scope of anti-discrimination laws to… Read more »
Pensions for the transgender community in Tamil Nadu
The state government of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu announce a pension scheme for transgender residents The government of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has announced the introduction of a pension scheme specifically for the transgender community. The state’s chief minister J Jayalalithaa said earlier this month that 11.7 million Rupees ($211,000,… Read more »
India sees young LGBTs as a group for the first time
India has announced a draft youth policy that will regard the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS patients as groups that face stigma and need policy help The Indian government is trying for the first time to focus on the problems of transgenders, gays and lesbians as a group that needs suitable policy interventions to deal with… Read more »
Lesbian couple exiled from village in Punjab
Swaran Kaur and Harsharan Kaur banned from village and disinherited by family in northern India A lesbian couple from a village in Punjab northern India have been told to leave their home by the village government and disinherited by their families. Last month the Punjab and Haryana high court ordered the police to protect the… Read more »
Ordinary Lives Extraordinary People: A Photo Essay Of MSM And Transgender People From South Asia
In a region of often intense stigma, discrimination, violence and social exclusion, males who have sex with males, hijras, and transgender people, try to live ordinary lives at home, at work and at play, just like any other person. Like you. Like me And in such an environment, they are extraordinary people Access to photo essay available at… Read more »
HIV programmes for MSM and transgendered people gradually being scaled up in India
Rupali always felt she was different. Born as a boy in India, she liked wearing girls’ clothes and finally at the age of 20, decided to disclose to her family her gender orientation. She declared she wanted to live as a woman. “When I first decided to tell people about my sexual orientation and gender… Read more »
Australian former judge says he is a ‘second-class citizen’ because he cannot marry
Retired High Court of Australia judge is questioned by senate inquiry into legalising same-sex marriage Micheal Kirby, former High Court of Australia judge Retired judge Michael Kirby reached the pinnacle of his profession and served on the High Court of Australia for 13 years, but despite this he said today that he is a ‘second-class… Read more »
Indian society struggling with gay rights: Activist
New Delhi (Reuters) – Legalising homosexuality has had little impact on the deeply entrenched homophobia in India, where thousands of gays still face discrimination and a lack of basic rights, the country’s most prominent gay rights activist told Reuters. Hours after US President Barack Obama turned the global spotlight on gay rights by saying that… Read more »
Tears and Broken Glass as India’s Largest Transgender Festival Closes
Devotees pull the cart carrying the statue of Aravan around the village on the second and final day of the festival in Koovagam, Tamil Nadu.Ayush RankaDevotees pull the cart carrying the statue of Aravan around the village on the second and final day of the festival in Koovagam, Tamil Nadu. Human beings often seek spiritual… Read more »
Changing face of AIDS
A decade ago, New Delhi’s The Ashok turned away a dozen gay men who wanted to book a conference room at the hotel for a think-in on AIDS, which was still labelled a gay man’s disease. It took several phone calls from the senior bureaucracy at the Union Health Ministry’s National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO)… Read more »
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