Months later, I remembered a friend who got a teddy bear and said that he will gift it to the person he loves. People around him curiously asked him whether his lover was a ‘‘he’ or a ‘she’?’ This question seemed to have put the person on a spot, made him a bit uncomfortable. The person tried his best to refer to their partner using gender-neutral pronouns. This was the beginning of my understanding of the role pronouns played in providing an inclusive space for everyone to express their true self and whom they love.

In 2021, at my workplace in Bhopal, I met a person called Gadha who had come from Kerala. We quickly got along as friends. We would hang out and talk about our professional and personal aspirations, families, food habits, literature, cinema, amongst other interests. When you move to a new city, finding such friends could provide an anchor to help you sail through the ups and downs of a new environment. In the company of someone you trust, you can share your innermost experiences, morals, joys, aspirations, failures, and fears..

In one of our meetups, I found Gadha anxious and upset. As a friend, I tried to talk and help. Gadha shared that the primary cause of her worry was the fact that they were frequently misgendered by those around them! Gadha is a non-binary person and prefers the pronoun they/them though everyone would refer to them as ‘she/her.’

Though aware of various gender identities, I still took it casually until this incident. This incident deepened my realization of the emotional harm that misgendering can do. This realization was different from what one would have by reading about this subject. This was different because it prompted me not just to agree with what is being said, but to see a friend’s distress first hand and to change my own ways of addressing individuals like Gadha.

For others who are non-trans/cisgender, this brings great privilege. Being called ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ correctly all the time is something one may take for granted, and fail to appreciate the feelings of someone who does not have this privilege. Imagine yourself in the place of someone who lives in a world where they are constantly misgendered. How difficult it must be to put up with it? Being mindful of someone’s gender is the very least we can do. It does not take much effort, but surely requires a will, and an intent, of avoiding hurt to fellow humans. Gadha themself says that avoiding to misgender is not really different from avoiding to crush someone’s feet.

Relationships we share with our friends, colleagues and peers is a powerful tool to learn the human experience. Because of my friend, I now keep envisioning and working towards a world where people like them (my friend) are never misgendered. Gender sensitivity should also be extended to someone’s partner, in that we do not assume the partner’s gender, or insist on knowing it. Using gender-neutral language and asserting one’s pronouns out there, is a small step in this direction that will eventually contribute towards a culture of gender sensitivity and inclusion.

Gadha now is doing well. Besides the necessity of using correct pronouns, I have learnt many other things in their company – from making a good Kerala style curry to learning about various scholars and their work in the field of gender studies and psychology.

Let us keep knowing, befriending and learning from people like Gadha.

Notes:

• Gadha’s name and photograph is used with their consent.
• I acknowledge and thank Dr. Ameya Bondre for his inputs and support while writing this piece.
• Gadha’s photo: courtesy author
• Featured image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Stunned, I gulped down the food. I assumed my friend expected a strong reaction out of me, instead. But I simply said: “Gimme sometime to digest this!” (I guess I got too carried away by the food.) We didn’t talk much after that for the whole evening.

That night, I slept over it. Then, realisation dawned. And I had things to say, not just to my close friend, but to all of you as well.

Many of us will, like I did, face a “coming out” situation – whether we’d like to face it or not. Perhaps a dear one coming out to us. Or even some of us coming out to our dear ones.

Here are my thoughts on how a heterosexual person should respond when someone comes out to them as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).

This is all the more important in the Indian context since we know how unpleasant the scenario can be for LGBT people here in terms of social acceptance.

It probably hits you the hardest when the person coming out has been close to you for years, and you’ve been absolutely unaware of their sexual orientation all this while.

Man, that strikes like a bolt of lightning.

A volatile reaction is not unexpected. The surprise may even turn to ire. But this is the defining moment. Harsh reactions would certainly hamper the relationship between you two. If you value your friendship with this person, here are some points to keep in mind.

1. UNCHANGED
Sure you’ve been made privy to additional information about your friend, which you were previously unaware of. But why should his/her sexual orientation change anything that currently exists between you two? He/she is still the same person you’ve known all along.

We all have secrets. Not all secrets mask our personality, our humanity. The top ten things that made my friend my close friend didn’t have “sexual orientation” among them. So I guessed nothing was really going to change!

2. HONOUR
Out of everyone, if my friend chooses to tell me first, or even just tell me something that is so private to him/her, I would be honoured.

It’s a big step for your friend. For anybody to believe and trust in somebody else. So value that decision, and take it like the honour it is. They trusted you. Let’s not prove them wrong!

3. LISTEN
That which everybody should generally do more. And more so in this situation. Your friend is already going through a lot of internal turmoil and agitation. They just need someone to share their feelings with, to speak their heart out, obtain emotional support. So don’t bombard them with questions and your assumptions.

Listen.

If something worthwhile comes to your mind, speak out. Ideally, words that attempt to calm your friend. Words that will reassure your friend of your unconditional support. No big speeches, please.

4. GAY
Also means “happy”. So while you are doing all that listening, don’t sit like a zombie, emotionless, expressionless. You may not speak at that moment, but you can certainly respond through your expressions. Trust me, that’s a lot easier than finding the right kind of words to say!

Have feelings of happiness on your face. A smile, definitely. Laughter, no. Nod. Look into their eyes. That’s the most assuring. And if you are comfortable then, don’t forget to sign off with a warm hug. I think hugs make everybody happy, irrespective of their orientations.

(Also, try reacting a little less surprised or less happy for someone who breaks this news on Social Media. I’m still figuring out that part)

5. DISCREET
More than your friend is. Because, intentionally or unintentionally, it’s not your job to spread the word about your friend’s sexuality. Not unless your friend is OK with it, and the two of you have that understanding between each other. Either way, let’s not be the speakers for something that isn’t ours to tell, unless the situation compels it.

That’s all I have for now. But I would like to conclude with a few additional pointers.

a. If your friend is of the same sex as you, do not assume that your friend fancies you.

b. Please don’t ask silly questions.

c. This would be a good time to cultivate some general knowledge regarding the LGBT community. Know the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.

d. Importantly, continue doing what you’ve been doing with your close friend – being friends with him/her.

e. And it’s never too late. You can still make up with your friend =)

Know you’ve found that special friend in your life, when you can share anything, absolutely anything, with that person. Please be that person to your LGBT friend(s).

Credits: An earlier version of this post appeared on Raveen’s blog. Orinam thanks his friend (the one who came out to him) for sharing it and Raveen for permission to adapt it for this site.

My answer is not really straightforward. I must reflect on key events in my life to attempt to answer this question.

Born into a family that belonged to an ‘upper caste’ as defined by Hindu beliefs, I grew up with the privilege accorded to a heterosexual gender-normative middle-class male. Though our family has seen significant financial turmoil, we never really struggled for food or shelter. As a child, I did not perceive the existence of oppression in my circles, nor did my family tell me anything about it. Why would they? We never saw any of it.

I was sent to good schools and grew up listening to stories of people from difficult backgrounds who had made it big through sheer hard work. All the students I hung out with belonged to a similar social stratum. I assumed my bubble mirrored all of society. At that stage, I did not know much about the evils such caste and poverty that plagued our society. The notion that everyone had the same opportunities and it was up to people to utilise the same and get rich or gain power was constantly reinforced in me. I started passing judgments on people with whom I had no immediate contact with at a rather early age. When I saw homeless and/or elderly people seeking alms on the street, I did not see people who had been socially marginalised. I deemed them lazy and judged them for having being reckless in spending in their younger years, thereby having brought their current state of poverty on themselves. In effect I was a complete believer of the ‘Just World Theory’, where one assumed that everything was fair, and to complain was an act of cowardice.

My first realization that people weren’t neatly divided into the man-woman binary was as a young boy traveling in a local train. I saw a group of transwomen (I know this in retrospect, not then) seeking money from the public, performing their signature claps. Curious, I asked my mother who they were. She answered, out of ignorance – or because she didn’t know how to explain to a child – that they were people who had two hearts. Relentlessly, I sought details and asked her how two hearts would fit into the circulatory system. Questions like these, whether to my mother, or to teachers while discussing sexual reproduction in biology class, were met with discomfort, awkward pauses, shifty answers and attempts to change the topic. I internalized this discomfort as transphobia.

When a classmate, a boy with stereotypically feminine traits, was bullied and excluded by his peers from discussion and socialization, I was among those who joined in the jeering.

My pursuit to learn the Vedas sent me on a fundamentalist spree for a short while.

I may, perhaps, have remained that way throughout my life.

In my late teens, my world, as I had imagined it, broke down. Though I held that people had equal opportunities, the statistics said otherwise. Certain communities had more people in the upper economic strata and some were over-represented in the poorer sections. Inequalities were also evident along gender lines in politics, workforce, social participation etc. In trying to reconcile these facts with with my belief system, I was faced with the following choices:

1. Assume women, gender minorities, sexual minorities etc. were inherently inferior.
2. Accept I was wrong in my assertion that life is fair to all.

I knew that the first possibility wasn’t true, leaving behind the alternative. This was the defining moment when my belief system broke down. I stopped assuming fairness and looked at the world again. Like NEO in matrix, I suddenly saw a whole new layer hovering around our lives. I noticed my relatives advising their daughters not to laughout loud or tell them not to go out after it was dark. I had never heard anyone tell me any of this. I began questioning the male privilege I had taken for granted.

Following much introspection and re-examination of my religious beliefs, I moved out of my safe zone and embraced atheism. I ended up being severely ostracised by peers for an episode in which my actions were deemed contrary to the strongly religious-cultural ethos at my school. No one spoke to me, and my classmates actively avoided me. Two years passed thus, leaving deep and long-lasting marks on my sense of self. During this period of extended social rejection, realisation hit me hard. What I was experiencing then must have been exactly what my supposedly feminine male classmate must have felt all these years. The reasons were different, but the exclusion, and resultant pain must have felt similar. And what I felt was temporary: he must have been experiencing this for a long time. The day after I had this realisation, I walked over to him next in the class, said “I am sorry”, and walked away without explaining why I apologised.

While I was able to emerge from that phase of being secluded and return to my more social self, the realisation that there are people marginalised overtly and covertly – sometimes for their entire lives – remained with me. I started speaking with classmates whom the class mocked often, and trying to learn about why they were excluded. This continued into college.

Unfortunately, this behaviour on my part was driven by a misplaced sense of sympathy. I assumed that it was noble to devote my time for the betterment of others. But as time went by, I realised the folly of a sympathy- rather than empathy- driven approach. Time and again I caught myself believing in nonsense and spewing nonsense, but it only amplified my drive to be a better human being. I kept pushing aggressively and started systematically studying.

In 2011, while in my third year of college, I met some people at Nirmukta, an organisation dedicated to promoting secular humanism and free thought. Interacting both online and offline with this community guided me on the principles of structured logical thought and laid the foundations of humanism for everyone to adhere to. Nirmukta members were patient enough engage with me and my still-evolving convictions, and helped me organise my thoughts in a coherent logical manner.

I read about and grew aware of the injustice meted out to caste minorities and noticed my own relatives engaging in caste-based discrimination. I read about the difficulties and struggles of people with physical and mental disabilities. I observed the difficulties faced by women every single day of their lives, a reality of subjugation, harassment and violence. The prejudice faced by gender minorities and people of different sexual orientations. With the single key of empathy, I learned to love of people regardless of any minor unimportant difference between us.

Subsequently, the biggest challenge crept in. I felt it was no longer adequate to simply believe in these ideas and confront my prejudices. It was necessary for the people I love too to stop inadvertently cause mental harm to others. Within the circle of loved ones, the closest were my immediate family. Coming out to them as an atheist and ally of LGBT people appeared an insurmountable goal. I wasn’t really sure about what my parents believed in. I knew a large number of my relatives were right-wing fundamentalists, but I wasn’t sure how open my parents were to receiving alternate points of view, some challenging their most fundamental assumptions.

Summoning the courage, one day in December 2013, I initiated a discussion at home by expressing my anguish over the Supreme Court verdict upholding Sec 377. Curious, my parents asked what it was. Apparently they really hadn’t thought about any of this. What became a Sunday afternoon of intense discussion, soon became a regular affair at home with everyone discussing the problems faced by sexual minorities and women. I realized that their reservations around LGBT issues were overridden by the humanistic values they held.

A few months later, when I announced that I planned to participate in Chennai Rainbow Pride March, they immediately asked if they could join too!

We still do have animated discussions on feminism and LGBTQI rights, and I know that while my parents still have questions, they are most definitely not fundamentalist in their view.

Back to the original question, what prompts me to speak up and intervene when I see discrimination?

Answer: Why wouldn’t I? It is a shame that inequality and injustice persists. Replace the words ‘women’, ‘caste minorities’ and ‘LGBTQI’ with ‘human’. Rephrase terms ‘women’s rights’ and ‘LGBT rights’ with ‘human rights’ and the answer becomes self-evident.

I guess the answer is best summed up by what Desmond Tutu said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

* Geetha TG and Soorya Sriram. What’s going on with men? 

Geetha TG and Soorya Sriram. Transgender Woes.

Geetha TG and Soorya Sriram. A No is a ‘No’ – Not ‘Yes’, Not ‘Maybe’.

Hope you enjoyed watching our previous hangout video Growing up Gay and Tamil, where our members talked about realizing their sexuality and coming out.

In this hangout, some of Orinam’s members who are gay talk about how they dealt with their family members post-coming out (Language: Tamil)

இந்த ஹங்அவுட்டில் ஓரினம் அமைப்பை சேர்ந்த சில தன்பாலீர்ப்பு கொண்ட அங்கத்தினர்கள், தங்கள் குடும்பத்த்தினரை சமாளித்த அனுபவங்களை பற்றி பேசுகிறார்கள்.

பகுதி 1/Part 1:

பகுதி 2/Part 2:

I loved my cousin brother Raghu*. I liked to think I was the one in the family he was closest to, the one he would confide in, seek advice from.

Well, not close enough, evidently.

One morning, three years ago, Raghu called me on the telephone. Without preliminaries, he announced to me that he loved men, not women, and hung up just as abruptly. This, just weeks after he had become father to a baby boy, and a year or so after his marriage.

Later that day, Raghu, all of 26, ended his life in the south Madras flat where he and his family lived.

I wish I could say I had suspected something like this was brewing when he made that call to me, the call that was to be our last conversation. I hadn’t.

Love and forgiveness. I wrestle with these each day. Through love, one can overlook others’ faults, however significant they may be. Through forgiveness, one seeks peace.

Raghu, I wish I could forgive you easily for ending your life, leaving your wife and infant son behind, casualties of the choices you made. Forgiving you remains a struggle, though I try. Questions race through my mind all the time. Why could you not have thought about your preferences beforehand, and avoided drawing her into your life? Did we, as a family, make it so difficult for you to admit your different orientation? Or, was it your desire to conform, to not hurt your parents, that drove you to consent for marriage in the first place? What of the hurt that engulfed everyone when you chose to depart?

Raghu, wherever you may be now, I still love you, my brother. Your difference did not matter to me then, nor does it now. I wish you happiness wherever you may be. And I continue to try to forgive.

To the readers of this note, I ask that you live and let live. If you have a sibling, child, friend or other loved one who has a different orientation, please do not let this difference come in the way of your love for them.

And if you are yourself differently oriented from the so-called mainstream sexuality, be strong in your convictions. Going against family expectations may cause some grief, but that is nothing compared to the devastation resulting from the choices that Raghu – and I fear there have been many like him through the ages – felt compelled to make.

*name changed

This piece is based on a note submitted by an Orinam reader, and is being posted on Sept 10, World Suicide Prevention Day. If you or someone you know is depressed or suicidal, please seek help. Some crisis support resources are here.

One day – he must have been eight at that time – he expressed a desire to smell the lipstick I used to have. It was a maroon coloured lipstick. After smelling it, he asked me whether he could use it. This was the first doubt I had about him and it helped my understanding of him. Once I nodded my head with approval, I noticed that he was,  surprisingly, quite good with it. The way girls purse their lips after applying lipstick, he did the same. I understood that he had been observing me for quite some time. When I told everyone about that incident they started saying that my son was practicing to see what lipstick he would buy for his wife. I laughed with them, but that doubt was poking me. And then with time, I started having more doubts seeing him grow close to girls, instead of playing with boys. His unwillingness to play with other boys at school was a message we chose to ignore.

One day after eating, he asked me to tell him a story. And I started with a fairy tale where a princess is rescued from a demon’s house by a prince. And I can still hear his voice asking me, “Ma, who will rescue me?” Upon asking him why he wanted to be rescued, he said that he would not go to school because his classmates called him “ladyboy”. But other than his unusual calmness and couple of lipstick incidents, I hadn’t noticed anything “wrong” in him. And then I wanted to know the reason behind his being called “ladyboy” and he said that he had once asked one of his friends to become his “husband”, the way his father was my husband. My entire world fell apart. I slapped him so hard that he started bleeding, and I angrily said that he should have concentrated more on studies and “wives” instead of looking for husbands among his classmates. I threatened him, telling him not to call me “Ma” if he wished to do the same again. And that was the last time I heard him talk about his “feminine” nature. He was a child of nine! I do not know what he understood that day. Probably he was scared to lose his mother, or he knew that society had more slaps for him in the future.

After that, he started playing cricket with other boys, joined the swimming and gymnasium team, and later the soccer team. But when he used to come home his eyes would be clearly telling me that he didn’t like them. Yet I was happy to get a “son” who played cricket and soccer rather than with dolls.

He scored well in 10th grade, but asked his dad if he could opt for Arts instead of Science as his major. My husband said if he wanted to pursue arts, he could start looking for his own accommodation. He looked at me and said that he did want to study English in the future, while most of his friends wanted to become doctors or engineers. He was “different” in this respect too – but we did not allow him to select Arts. In +2, he again scored well, and we were so proud of him, but chose to ignore his happiness. He wanted to join either Presidency College or St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, with Physics as his major. We cursed him for his choice and called him dumb for talking rubbish. We forced him to choose Engineering as we wanted our son to be an engineer and start earning money. But now I know that he is a pure Arts student. If we had allowed him to take English, he would have been happy. He used to write a diary; I do not know whether he still writes or not. Once I happened to read it. It was in Bengali, and looking at the poems he had written, I was amazed. How could a fifteen years old guy think so deeply? His ideas about secularism, religion, woman power, gender issues, transgender issues, call girls and other issues were so insightful.

Anyway, the drama started when we got internet at home. I caught him watching a pornographic movie one day. We were both embarrassed, but I was shocked that it was between two guys! I tried my best to make myself calm. It was just before his +2 final examinations, so I asked him to concentrate more on studies. But by then I had already understood that my son is “different”. I could feel that he wanted to tell me something, but at home, my husband and I had made the atmosphere too tough for him to come out and declare himself as gay. I was scared of the word “gay”. What if others got to know that my son is gay, what if society did something to him? I found him crying one day in his room, but I failed to understand him. Neither me nor my husband said, “Do not cry, we are here”. That’s our failure as parents.

When he was in his 1st year of Engineering, I noticed he was very happy. I had never seen him that happy since the day of the slap almost ten years ago. I asked one of his cousins, who used to be very close to him, to talk to him. He was always scared of talking to me or his father because other than fulfilling his childhood demands of getting him toys, we always said “no” to him. After a month, one day one of his friends came and told me, “Aunty, Tatai thinks he is in love” and before that I saw him chatting on Yahoo messenger. The minute we would enter his room, he would minimize the chat window. And then one day, while snooping on his mobile phone, I saw a message from a guy stating, “Waiting for your call, darling”. I think I began to understand him more than ever before, but chose to be silent despite seeing all this. So my reply was “Who is the guy? Is he older or younger than him?” Tatai was shocked and cried in fear, and again I chose the same line, “concentrate more on your studies”. He kept saying, “I am gay”, but I pretended to not hear him.

I do not complain about my son at all, but he is not outspoken when he needs to communicate his needs or issues. He is too shy to express himself. He doesn’t complain much, and tries his best to be happy with whatever he has. I do not blame him; perhaps we never allowed him to speak out and that became a habit. Or this might just be his reserved nature. So, after a year of his coming out to me, I understood something had gone terribly wrong with his life, but he chose to be silent about it with us. Eventually, I learned from his cousin that the other guy had left him. I was so happy. Yes, happy! I thought this might prompt him to return to what I considered normal. To help things along, at home, we started bashing homosexuals in front of him. But we did not understand that our act of disowning homosexuals tore him apart.

In the meantime, he had become close to one his female classmates, and we all liked her. We praised her excessively in front of him and literally forced him to be close with her! Later, we discovered that she was going through a breakup and Tatai was comforting her, and taking care of her. He made us understand that when he needed our help, we had neither helped not comforted him.

So though we were expecting the outburst, we were in denial. Silently he was making himself ready to leave home. For the first time he went to Pune for his 3rd year internship and that was the beginning. He decided against the job he was offered through on-campus interviews and went to Pune instead, to join the lab he had been working at during his 3rd year internship.

In 2008 he went to Bangalore for another internship, and was excited about Pune. We were running out of time and were desperate to stop him from going to Pune, as we feared him going out of our control and choosing to fully embrace a gay life. But he was determined and bold. On the day after his final year exams, he packed everything and left home. While leaving, he left me a big letter, and in that letter he opened his heart. After reading that letter, I understood. As parents we had crushed our child’s dream. We had wrung him dry from the inside and then buried all his dreams. I felt that whatever he had written in the letter was right. He asked me many questions, and I did not have answers to any of them. But then other than crying, I had very little to do. I asked myself why we did not kill him immediately after his birth, what is the need of keeping a child alive where he is not allowed to do anything he wants. He told me how much he had tried to make us happy, had tried his best to fall in love with girls, and he named all the girls he thought he was dating. I spoke each of them and the uniform feedback I got went thus: “A person like Tatai is hard to find. He is gay, but, above all, he is a human being and a good human being, so we had to accept him.”

And, since then, I started reading more about homosexuality. When he decided to move to Bangalore with a guy he was in a relationship with, he fought with his father, and his father called him a “homo” instead of calling him by his name, and said wrong things against the other guy. He came home just for a week, and the day before he left for Bangalore, for the first time in his life I saw him getting angry. All of his frustrations came out on that day. He cried, he shouted, he broke everything he had, and that lasted for hours. The only question he asked was, “Why can’t you accept me the way I am?” Seeing him we understood again how painful it was for him not to be accepted by his parents. My husband and I had dated each other for nine years before we got married. Everyone was against that marriage, but we fought against all the odds to get married. We asked ourselves whether we could survive in a situation where we were not allowed to be ourselves. And the answer was no. After this reflect, we decided not to stick to our own prejudice anymore.

My son is better than many of his peers. Today when I look around, I find him different from others. And I am sincerely thankful to god for making him different. When he moved to Chennai from Bangalore, I felt something had gone terribly wrong for otherwise he would never have left Bangalore. And this time I was not happy, and did not want to make the same mistake I had made before. I went to Chennai within two months to see him, to comfort him. But his assessment amazed me. I do not think that after a breakup, I could be in touch with my ex-boyfriend as if nothing had happened. When I asked him about the reason of their breakup, he said, “If two people cannot get along, people often tend to blame one of them, or both of them, when the fact is they just couldn’t walk along together on the same path, and decided to break up, without destroying their love for each other. We should not find any reason or logic. It’s our decision and promise me ma that you will keep maintaining a healthy relationship with him the way you used to. He is a very good person.”

I finally understood that my little son who used to shout at the crows, play with the puppies, and save his fish to feed the stray dogs, had become mature. We made a mistake while bringing him up, but not only did he understand us, but gave us his selfless and unconditional love, which makes me so proud. As a mother I should have taught myself how to love my child the way he is, but I did not.

Now after reading articles and talking to others, I have decided to stand by him against all the odds. Whenever someone talks rubbish against homosexuals, I protest. I ask them to read more on homosexuality before commenting. With his calmness, determination and good nature, Tatai made many of us understand that homosexuals are as normal as heterosexuals. There is no room for hatred.

I sincerely thank Good as You for providing me a platform like this, where I can hear other Tatai-s, who are equally good or better than many of us and fought or have been fighting against all the odds to live with “pride”. And I am sure your pride can never be snatched away from you if you chose to be yourselves.

-with love to all of you.

Orinam notes:
1. An earlier version of this essay appeared on the online forum of Good As You, Bangalore, and has been re-published on Orinam with consent.
2. Thanks to volunteer Sami for editorial support

Oh beloved son!
I, your mother, have something to ask
Carrying you in my womb was no easy task
I ask not for the sun or the moon
I, your mother, seek a simple boon

Don’t tell your father who you really are
Your aunt shouldn’t know whom you long for
Hide from your uncle that you have a man in your life
Let your brother-in-law not know, your in-laws are not from a wife

I don’t want the world to find out my son is queer
I can’t deal with the ridicule, hate and fear
Don’t put your father through this ordeal by fire
It took all of our lives and struggles to reach here

Oh, beloved son!
I, your mother, have something to ask
Carrying you in my womb was no easy task
I ask not for the sun or the moon
A dutiful son will not deny a mother her boon

—
But, oh mother!
Even Kaikeyi’s boon was only for fourteen years exile
But what you ask of me is a lifetime of lies so vile!

Transcreated from the Tamil original by the author with input from Kinsey3 and Tilak.

James Clementi, brother of Tyler Clementi, who is also gay, read an impact statement at the courthouse right before Dharun Ravi’s sentencing.
James’s statement will resonate with many young LGBT people who are victims of bullying.

“Dharun did his research online weeks before he ever moved into that room and met Tyler in person. He discovered that Tyler was gay and based on this, dismissed Tyler as unworthy of kindness, acceptance, as a person worth getting to know, and decided instead that he was someone who deserved to be laughed at, picked on and violated.”

Your Honor, I am not the victim of any crime committed by Dharun Ravi – but my family and I have been impacted by the crimes committed against my late brother, Tyler Clementi, and I believe I have personal insights into the way that Mr. Ravi’s crimes impacted upon my brother, and what my brother was forced to endure in his brief weeks at Rutgers University.

May 22nd, will be the twenty month anniversary of my brother’s passing. In the past twenty months of my life, not only have I had to live with a despair and sadness that has crept into every part of my life and my being, I have also been forced to observe and be silent. Observe while the media picked apart every bit of my brother’s final days and his mindset. Observe while many members of the press sought to justify the unacceptable and criminal behavior of Mr. Ravi. Observe throughout the trial the lies that Mr. Ravi’s defense team cooked up in a further violation and disrespect to my brother’s memory. I watched as Dharun slept through court, as though it was something not worth staying awake for. I listened while Dharun and his defense attorneys laughed together, as though there was a private joke in the courtroom that I and my family were not aware of. And through it all, I listened and bit my tongue. The truth is that from the moment a computer randomly selected Tyler and Dharun to live together, my brother’s fate was sealed. I spoke with Tyler often in the days leading up to his leaving for Rutgers. He was excited and looking forward to the experience of going away to school. He was a brilliant student, a talented and kind person who would never do anything to hurt another person. He could never have known the viper’s nest he was walking into, nor could anyone in my family have imagined a situation so horrible and cruel that he would need to be protected from.

With Dharun Ravi as his roommate, my brother never stood a chance of having a happy and comfortable first semester at college. Dharun did his research online weeks before he ever moved into that room and met Tyler in person. He discovered that Tyler was gay and based on this, dismissed Tyler as unworthy of kindness, acceptance, as a person worth getting to know, and decided instead that he was someone who deserved to be laughed at, picked on and violated. Even before they had ever met each other in person, Dharun was beginning his plot to bully my brother. He thought he had found the perfect target in Tyler Clementi, and just because the situation that he created of his own doing spun further out of control then he would have wanted it to, does not absolve him of legal responsibility for the laws he broke. Nor, in my mind, does it absolve him of the moral responsibility for the human being he broke down. It must be easier to objectify, deride, and humiliate someone if you see them as less than yourself and the friends you are trying to impress, and there is no doubt in my mind that Dharun never saw Tyler as truly a person, only an object of ridicule that he could use to show off his computer abilities and gain some new friends in the process. While Dharun may never truly be able to grasp the pain and fear he pushed into Tyler’s heart, I will never be able to stop thinking about it.

Tyler’s final days and hours were filled with fear, shame, and a despair so great it ripped him away from me forever. His last moments consisted of knowing that the intimate details of his life were announced to the world on Twitter, that his roommate who had given him a reasonable expectation of privacy in their room had filmed a sexual encounter and broadcast it to an unknown number of people, many of whom were in the dorm that he lived in, and that his roommate planned to do it again. He knew that not one person who was aware of these things spoke out in his support, or approached him to offer any kindness. I cannot imagine the level of rejection, isolation and disdain he must have felt from all of his peers. Of course it was reasonable for him to think that he was targeted for his sexual orientation. What other reason would Dharun Ravi have had to treat him so cruelly? What offense had Tyler ever done to him?

Dharun Ravi has never shown any remorse, regret, sorrow, guilt, compassion, or humility. He only bothered to apologize to my brother once – through a text message, sent hours after Tyler had gone missing, and only after he realized he might be in legal trouble. In this fake and insincere apology designed to cover his tracks, he dismisses his criminal behavior as a “petty misunderstanding,” never seeming to grasp that Tyler, as the victim of a crime, is the one who gets to decide what it was and how he feels about it. It is Dharun’s arrogance, his belief that his perception of the damage he did or didn’t do is all that matters – that the perception and pain of his victim is insignificant if he says so – that has frustrated me throughout this process. Mr. Ravi and his defense rejected the notion that a crime of bias intimidation had occurred because they were only concerned with Mr. Ravi’s perspective. If they had ever bothered to put themselves in Tyler’s shoes, it would have been unmistakable to them that a bias crime had occurred. Dharun never bothered to care about the damage he was doing to Tyler’s heart and mind; that was inconsequential compared to the fun Mr. Ravi was seeking at the expense of my brother’s dignity and wellbeing.

Indeed I have often found myself wondering if Dharun Ravi is even capable of empathizing with another person. Nothing in his behavior during the time he lived with my brother, or since his death, suggests this to be true. My family has never heard an apology, an acknowledgement of any wrongdoing, and remorse for the person who isn’t here. The behavior I saw in the courtroom, combined with an interview on the television news program 20/20, suggests a complete lack of concern for my brother or the pain inflicted on him. Mr. Ravi appears untroubled in any way by what he did, how he made my brother suffer. To be honest there is a time when an apology would have actually meant something to me, but now it is clear that anything of the sort would be empty, rehearsed words, spoken without empathy.

In his 20/20 interview, Dharun Ravi states, “I feel like I was an insignificant part to his life. That’s giving me comfort now.” What reasonable, feeling person could look at the facts of this case and come to such a conclusion? The total lack of compassion and shifting of blame for his own actions seeps through every word Ravi speaks about his crimes. How can he think that he was an “insignificant part” of my brother’s life when he knows that his Twitter profile was the last thing Tyler saw on his computer before deciding to end his life? For so long I have craved to hear some small amount of recognition, awareness, and humanity from Mr. Ravi. I have had to accept that this likely will never happen. But I have found a level of comfort in listening to Middlesex County Prosecutors Julia McClure, Chris Shellborne and Bruce Kaplan fighting for my brother’s dignity in the courtroom. I often felt during the trial that Ms. McClure was Tyler’s champion, that she fought each day to ensure his voice be heard and that the crimes he was victimized by not be ignored. The Prosecutor’s office worked hard to do this, because although it is too late to save Tyler, a precedent must be set to ensure that all bullies will know that the second their behavior crosses the line of criminality, they will be prosecuted. I have found vindication in knowing that an unbiased jury with no preconceived notion of this case or the players involved, was able to see past the lies and understand the heart of what happened. I hold these small comforts close and with gratitude, but there is nothing that can ease the pain of my loss. I love my brother, and I will mourn for him every day for the rest of my life. I ask only for fairness and justice. I ask that the gravity of Dharun Ravi’s crimes not be ignored.

Thank you.

Watch the video:  Clementi’s brother speaks at Ravi’s sentencing

On April 29, 2012, IBN7’s Zindagi Live hosted an exceptional series of interviews with mothers of children who are gay or lesbian. Compered by Richa Anirudh, the 39 minute episode, primarily in Hindi, featured Chitra Palekar, Padma Iyer, Amita Sharma and Shobha Doshi. Counselor Nivedita Singh provided basic information and cleared misconceptions parents often have about their queer children.

While each of the mothers (and a grandmother) is amazing in her own way, we at Orinam could not help but be moved by Shobha-ji’s perspective on life and living as a cancer survivor and unflinching supporter of her son Shamit and his partner.

Thanks to Harish Iyer for tweeting these links, and to Richa Anirudh and the IBN7/TV18 network for such thoughtful programming.

If any of our readers would like to help with subtitling this in Tamil, please let us know.

The entire series may be viewed by clicking on the following segments:

Original in Tamil:
எழுத்து: சுதா சந்தானம்

கிருஷ்ணரைப் போல் என் மகன்!

English translation by Niruj Mohan Ramanujam

The boiling hot weather in Chennai that evening, was reflected in my
emotions. My eldest son had just told us that he would not be able to
marry a woman. When my husband and I asked him why, he told us
something about his sexuality.

I got up and turned on the television. I wanted to calm myself and
needed a diversion. They were telecasting a debate on the topic ‘Which
love is greater? That of the people of Ayodhya for Rama, or that of
the people of Aayarpaadi* for Krishna?’

(*Aaayarpaadi – Krishna’s birth place)

My mind went back to my son’s issue. He told us that he had realized
he was different when he was fifteen years old. He was not attracted
to girls like his other male friends, but was attracted to boys. He
initially found it very confusing. Confusion led to fear. He then went
on to read many books on this subject, and found convincing
explanations for his feelings.

His father and I tried to talk some sense into him. His father even
went to the extent of telling him to get married to a woman for the
sake of our happiness, and then do whatever else he wanted secretly,
on the side. My son was furious at his father’s suggestion. He told us
he could not conceive of cheating his life partner that way. Upset, he
stormed out of the house. He has not returned yet. His father too, put
on his shirt, and went out.

My heart sank.

The phone rang. It was my son.

“How low can you get? If Dad had an affair, would you be able to take
it so lightly?”, he asked.

“Why are you talking about our lives now? We have been married for
thirty years. We are talking about your marriage now”, I replied.

“You are talking about my marriage from your perspective. Based on
what you want. Based on your expectations out of it. You don’t seem to
care whether such a marriage would make me happy or not”

“Why would we beg you to get married, if we didn’t care?”, I
interrupted. “Why are you talking to me like this?” I started crying.

“Oh please. To stop your tears now, I have to get married and cry for
the rest of my life? That is what would make you happy!” He was angry.
“I am not going to get married just to stop your tears. You can cry
all you want.” He hung up.

I know my son quite well. He must be worried that his parents were
miserable and heartbroken. He was frustrated that he couldn’t be of
any help. That inability was making him angry, upset and frustrated.

As his mother, how can I not know what is going through in my son’s
mind? How can I not understand his feelings?

Wait a minute! Something is not making sense. If, as his mother, I
know what is going through his mind and I understand his feelings, why
am I not able to understand him when he says he doesn’t want to get
married?

I was utterly confused. I could make no sense of it!

Loud applause from the television distracted me.

The person who was debating on the side of Krishna spoke. “Andal’s
(Krishna’s lover) poems say that Krishna lied a lot. Everybody knew
that Krishna stole butter from Aayarpaadi women. Aazhvars’ (Krishna’s
devotees) verses tell you that when Krishna is missing, he can always
be found in the folds of Aachiyaars’ sarees. The people of Aayarpaadi
never judged Krishna because of these qualities. With Krishna what you
see is what you get. Krishna said if you loved him, you have to accept
him the way he is.”

“Rama was not like that. He behaved exactly you wanted him to behave.
He did things to earn your love. Did he not forsake Bharata in order
to keep his name unsullied? Did he not disown his wife and let her
suffer in the jungle, when she pregnant? Did he not do that to keep
his name and reputation unsullied? Did he not kill Vaali, hiding from
behind? On the other hand, Krishna had thousands of wives and kept all
of them happy. He even broke his vow of not bearing arms, in order to
help Bhishma succeed in his vow. That is true love! Not causing any
harm to people who trust you and depend on you, knowingly or
unknowingly, is indeed true love”, the person on TV made his case.

My mind went back to my son. Wasn’t he saying the same thing, after
all? He wants to be true to his life partner, he doesn’t want to cheat
on him, even if it is inconvenient for him. Is it not the right thing
to do, after all? If my love for him is similar to that of the people
of Aayarpaadi for Krishna, should I not understand and accept him the
way he is?

In fact, he wants to make his partner happy, just like Krishna. He
also wants to be true to his partner, like Rama. If his happiness is
what is important to me, then why should I stand in his way? My heart
would sink to see him cry, when he was a child. How could I see him
suffer now?

My husband and I wanted him to get married to a woman, because we
wanted him to lead a happy life. In reality, such a marriage would be
meaningless. It would neither make him happy, nor his wife, or even
their parents. It would just be a three-day party for friends and
relatives. (Or make it two, these days)

The debate on TV came to an end. The moderator concluded that the love
of Aaayarpaadi’s for Krishna was indeed greater, since it was
unconditional and was not bound by rules and regulations.

I told myself that I too must love and support my son the same way.

Relieved, I went inside to make myself a cup of coffee.

Another translation A Son Like Krishna by Aparna V Singh is available here on Womensweb.in