“Look at her, eww she wears boy-type clothes,” “Oh my god, look at those two men kissing”: these are some typical dialogues you may hear from homophobic individuals. Now, imagine if a gay man or a lesbian woman comes to you while you are with your heterosexual partner, and makes weird gestures towards both of you and mocks you both. Won’t you feel embarrassed or awkward?
LGBTQ+, i.e. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Asexual, Pansexual, Intersex, Intergender etc. are some of the identities that are a part of the community, and yes, these are terminologies that you all must get used to hearing now. Like many others, even I faced difficulties initially in accepting these terms because I was never exposed to these concepts. No, I’m not saying I was homophobic, but I just found it difficult to process it.
But gradually, I began to introspect on these terms. Just like many of us have a crushes on a girl or a boy or vice-versa, it’s normal for a boy to like another boy or a girl to like another girl, or not for someone to not feel comfortable in their own body. How is it their fault? They were born like that. The problem as to why some are homophobic is because they never had any sort of exposure towards these issues before, but just like generations change, our mindset changes as well. There will always be something new in every generation.
Love is a beautiful feeling when we experience it. It does not matter whom you are experiencing it with. There is a quote by Melisa Ethridge, “Love is never wrong.” Don’t you agree with this quote? Be proud of who you love. It’s a powerful feeling, a strong urge towards that person, not just physically, but emotionally, too. And that is not in our hands.
Just like how we say ‘Bas pyaar ho gaya, ho jaata hai’, so why can’t we state this for everyone? Just because it’s something we don’t know about or we feel is ‘abnormal’ or is against the law of nature? Once people change their gender, at least they will feel comfortable in their bodies, which is way better than living your whole life where you don’t love or belong to your body because that is not how it was meant to be.
Imagine being uncomfortable in your own body. If you were a girl with breasts and a vagina, and were being forced to behave like a woman, or if you were a boy with a penis and hairy chest that you hate, won’t you feel strange the whole time? Wouldn’t you want to do the same thing — change your gender and get a gender affirmative surgery?
Unfortunately, we have so many stereotypes in our society as to how a ‘girl’ should walk, what she should wear or even how she should talk. Such an unaccepting society, don’t you think? We have such rigid thinking that ‘this is how it is supposed to be’ and if you see something happening that is not supposed to happen, it becomes abnormal.
Why can’t we just live and let live, let everyone love whoever they choose to love? We have been given the ‘freedom to live’ (our lives) by our Constitution, but our narrow-minded Indian society won’t let that happen. It won’t let anyone breathe or do what they want to do. Just let them be, let the lovers be alone, give them some privacy, stop intruding. If anyone is making love, let them. I repeat, let them.
I strongly believe that life is too short to ponder over such minuscule details of life, how does it even matter? It’s high time we love whom we want to love. People will always judge, so let them. You continue doing what you want to do. People will always have a problem with anything you do.
Last but not the least, just like how all of us heterosexuals (like me) fight for our love that we don’t want to lose, don’t let them lose their love. You would not want to be the reason two people stop loving each other!
Happy Pride Month!