By Happily Anonymous:
My Country-men,
I’m not completely sure if the first time I felt ‘gay’ was when I was sexually abused at the age of 5 by a man who happened to be 3 times my age. Having me sleep on his stomach and jerk off probably gave him an elation which is beyond what could be described in simple words. On jerking off, he pushed me to the ground and did something so disgusting, that I continue to shudder with the thought of how I felt at that moment. When I was 9, I finally came to understand all what that shameless man did – he sexually abused me when I was on the verge of progressing from a toddler into a boy. As I grew older, I noticed that my body was slowly adapting itself to how a woman behaves. I promise when I tell you this, but none of that was intentional. Tell me, do you think, if I was in my sanest of senses, I would intentionally cat walk so that I could get bullied by my entire class? Or would I intentionally choose to develop an extremely sensitive threshold, which would lead me to tears every time someone called me a “Hijda”? I’m not too sure about how I felt when all the boys in school began to clap their hands every single time I passed their class — because — you have to give it to our humane society — I was a “Na Mard” and that’s how boys who sway have to be referred to if you choose to be in accordance with our oh-so-descriptive and conventional Indian traditional values.
I’ve made some scandalous mistakes too! I began to watch Fashion TV when I was in my 4th grade. Initially, looking at the women walk around with their transparent tops gave me a nice feeling of sorts. However, as I matured and puberty neared, I kind of figured out that I even liked looking at all the bare chested men walking the ramp. At the age of 13, if the justice of this country has to be believed, I should have technically, because of all the filth and perversion in my mind conscientiously chosen to identify myself as a homosexual man. As time progressed and I became an adult, not much had changed. People continued to judge me for who I was and no matter where I went, words such as chammiya, chakka, hijda, gay, homo so on and so forth continue to haunt my ears.
Justice is pretty weird. When on one hand it talks about upholding every person’s right keeping equality on the forefront and on another with such weird ideologies, it tries to discriminate a section. India, particularly has never been able to please what we call the “masses”, because year by year, December by December, there is either a woman out there getting gang raped in a bus with men stuffing rods up her vagina, or a little boy being asked to suck his 49 year old uncle’s penis. What the Supreme Court declared, though hurt my feelings and made me feel like I will never be able to identify myself as an individual, it also made me realize that what I’m living right now is a life of hell. I’m paying day in and day out for something I have no control over. I am being judged, looked down upon and being treated like an outcast by people of my own country and as a matter of fact by numerous other closeted homosexuals as well. But does all of this matter anymore? It doesn’t.
The question also remains — who is it to be blamed for what has happened of me today? Do I blame that man who masturbated on me when I was 5? Or do I blame the society which ridiculed my behaviour, possibly during every moment of my existence? Oh wait. I’m sorry, it is these people who are in need of having their ‘human rights’ protected. I’m just a pervert.
Tomorrow, as I step out and begin a new day I will do so with a smile, knowing that there’s not a single person who can tarnish what I think of myself any further. This judgment has made our lives easy. Each one of us; lesbians, homosexuals, trans-genders and bisexuals. The good news is, we’ve lost all dignity — there’s nothing more to lose. If things can change and if our rights can be recognized — there’s just one gain — an ounce of self-respect.
Happily,
One of your closeted-gay friends.