My coming out journey began about four years ago. The first time was to a few queer men, strangers of course, on a dating app. One of the best decisions of my life was to attend the weekly Thursday meetings of Good As You, a support group for LGBTQIA+ community in Bengaluru, in 2016. It was my gateway to acceptance in many ways. Through the platform I came out to many more people in the queer community. Cupid’s arrow struck me, and so did the desolation of one-sided love! I needed my sisters’ emotional support then and I had to come out to them. I guess they are officially the first straight people I came out to! All that happened in a span of six months. Post- that, my coming-out cruise transcended from being emotional outbursts to a fun ride. I then came out to many of my friends and a few professors in college. There was a phase when my coming out to straight people was to prove to them that being gay is not my sole identity. I realized that the more I beg for sympathy, the more I am looked down upon. I changed my ways to more straightforward ones. Despite this cocky attitude I was not yet prepared to come out to my Amma and Appaji (mother and father)!

I had always shared my deepest and darkest secrets with my mother…yeah…I was that kind of kid; I still am! Until I was 20, my being gay was not an important secret. I enjoyed being unique in the sea of heterosexuals! I thought I would grow old in my bubble with my mother. Things went awry with bad career decisions and loneliness while I was working in Bengaluru. Though being gay was never the root cause of any of my problems, it somehow felt like one. When I was 26, my parents casually informed me of the marriage proposals for me coming their way. I firmly declined, and declared that I would marry a person of my choice and at my own free will. That was not yet the moment to come out! No, I was not prepared.

Falling in love with another man, making many new friends (it is important for a guy who grew up with no friends!), my journey of sculpting a new, confident, and effervescent ‘me’ – I wanted to share all these with my mother. But I quit my job to pursue MBA and that was the next hurdle. I knew many instances of parents disowning their kids when they came out. The emotional blow of being disowned was not what I was set for at that juncture. I postponed the coming-out encounter to the time after I got a job.

Fast forward to 23^rd December 2019… some of my friends in their teens have come out to their parents. The thought of coming out to my parents before officially crossing 30 years of age was now a question of my pride! On a serious note, I had equipped myself with knowledge, morale and love to do that. If not now, when? There was no more waiting. Apparently, dropping hints for the last five years and educating my mother about different aspects of LGBTQIA+ community were not enough for her to realize I am gay! My picture with my poster for Namma Pride 2017 march was printed in a Bangalore daily and my sister-in-law shared that on the family WhatsApp group proudly (not because I am gay, she does not know that yet! She was just excited I made it to the newspaper!). Nope! That didn’t do the job either! My ‘well educated’ and ‘well informed’ parents are too naïve, I guess. I had to come out officially!

I had informed Amma that my visit home this time is strictly for business – “It is to share something with Appaji and you”. She was unimpressed with the gravitas of my concern! She got busy with her preparations to feed her hostel-dwelling, college-mess fed, frail son! I guess I had to set things straight to come out as gay! I insisted that my parents clear their schedules for the next day. I had my playlist of YouTube videos ready to assist me in the process. Like an attorney rehearsing arguments of a case, I ran through the FAQs queer folk are asked when they come out.

On D-Day, my parents and I had a sumptuous breakfast and sat on our couch lollygagging. They were either too preoccupied or too strung out to ask me what I had to share with them. I belled the cat by playing a series of YouTube videos. The first one was about a lesbian couple; a Myntra video, ‘The Visit’, for its Anouk collection. The protagonist has invited her parents to introduce them to her partner! I guess it was too abrupt for my parents to comprehend. But, I had more weapons ready in my arsenal. I then played a Kannada short film, Freedom – a gay man’s partner comes out to his mother in a rather casual way over a phone call. That did it! My mother visibly swallowed the lump in her throat and innocently asked “Andre… en artha?…What does it mean?” Those abstract videos did intimidate my parents.

The third episode of Satyamev Jayate, Season 3, was the next video in my playlist for the occasion. As I watched it with my parents, I was surprised how well it was researched and shot way back in 2014. My parents pretended to be neutral as Gazal narrated her transformation story. I guess I knew what they were thinking. I clarified what gender identity means when my parents asked me about Gazal. They were awed by her parents’ support. It so appeared that Deepak’s casual and funny narration of his life story took the load off of my parents.

I then proceeded to ask them about their first sexual awakening, which was, obviously, met with their immediate raised eyebrows. They are from families that restricted them from such discussions! My mother shared stories of a guy asking her out and how she had run away from the scene and never met him again! To my “He was not wrong. He was bold enough to express his liking for you”, her scornful reply was “Namm kaaldalli adella henge?…These things would not happen in our times”. My father did not have a juicy story to match hers, but he said back then he was too scared of the society to even think of expressing his desires. Right before audience members in the Satyameva Jayate studio raised questions about homosexuality not being natural and why not change ‘sexual preferences’, my mother shot those questions at me! It was surprising, for she seldom asks questions about anything. Dr. Anjali came to my rescue as planned and answered the audience (my parents). My parents were bowled out by the logic that if they (my parents) cannot turn homosexual, there is no possibility of a gay man turning straight. To make sure that they remember stuff from my overdose of gay gyaan, I reiterated the fact that homosexuality is natural and not a disease and that Indian Psychiatric Society has stopped looking at homosexuality as a mental illness too.

It was time to drive the point home. I showed them the short film I had shot with a few of my friends in college a year ago. It was the video in which I come out as queer. I had made sure I maintained a calm demeanor in front of my parents until then. I got a bit jittery as I showed my video. It was a personal account after all!

My narration until then was very scientific and I had struck the emotional chords right too. My father reacted exactly as I expected him to. He was logical. He connected the dots well and was overwhelmed to see my newfound confidence. It was my mother with whom I had been speaking about the LGBTQIA+ community for the last five years, who could not come to terms easily. She bawled “Why did I have to get this curse?” There went my efforts down the drain! I chided her like how she used to teach me when I was a seven year old kid – “My sexuality has got nothing to do with you, nor with the way you have brought me up. It is as natural as my other innate qualities” and asked her to repeat it a couple of times!

I chronicled the judgement of Supreme Court of India scrapping section 377. I briefed them about Dutee Chand, the first Indian athlete to come out as gay in public. I reminded them that Vasudhendra, my favourite Kannada author is also gay. My mother’s sobs interrupted my protest about Indian government being unresponsive about marriage, adoption, surrogacy and other civil rights for queer people. My father was impressed when I questioned the provisions of Transgender Persons Bill 2019. I had never hidden from them about my attending Bangalore Queer Film Festival, Kashish in Mumbai, Pune International Queer Film Festival and Bangalore Pride march every time I’d gone there for the past four years. But until now, to them, these were, ‘just another film festival’ and a ‘yearly rally on social issues’. I had not revealed the queer angle of the events! I could see the glint of happiness in their eyes (even in the tear-glazed eyes of my mother!) when I told them about my queer-themed painting being showcased at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, as part of an exhibition by Pictures Against Prejudice before Mumbai Pride 2019. I rummaged through my Instagram page to show them my posters from the last four years of Bengaluru Namma Pride marches. They did appreciate my efforts to change the stigma in the society through my posters.

It was a role reversal that day! It was for the first time in three decades that my parents sat blinking eyes like ingenuous kids and I shared with them a slice of life, my life! I ensured my parents that they have provided me with a good education and imparted me life skills. I emphasized that I am capable of deciding what I need for my life, and that they should not worry about who would take care of me. Had I been straight and married a woman there would still be no guarantee of that! I confessed that I am in love with a man. I showed them pictures of gay couples who have been together for decades – some of them, my own friends. But I did warn them that my life may not be as rosy as the picture I had painted, and that I am prepared for it. I reiterated that, like my self-acceptance was a journey, they would have to embark on one too, and at their own pace. I offered to help them connect with doctors, psychologists and parents of other gay men.

What impacted them most was when I shared with them how happy I am after the self-acceptance phase, and that I do not want any compromises to stay happy in the future. The only difference of opinion we had was about coming out to the rest of my family and of course the prying neighbours and friends! I suggested they ward off marriage proposals from nosy kith and kin by saying that I will be choosing my own spouse (which is true after all! They wouldn’t be lying anyway!). I advised them to take time and be as proud as I am about my being gay and then tell others too. I guess my parents do not trust the others to be sane enough to let me be! I know they will cross that bridge one day.

Despite the momentary denial, weeping, multitude of questions and naysaying, my parents have now made the choice of prioritizing my happiness over what the society thinks of me! My mother’s smile is as warm as before and I am still my father’s ‘Chinnu’ (Gold – his nickname for me in Kannada)! I am proud of them.

All images courtesy the author.

Tamil cinema has always gloried machismo through its larger than life heroes and shunned anything that is remotely feminine. Until now gender minority characters are used either as an element of ridicule or as monsters.  Likes of I and Aruvi have followed the tried and tested method of using blatant transphobic jokes to bring out laughter in theaters.

Pariyerum Perumal, in this context, is different from most of its predecessors. Puliyagulam Selvaraj, father of Pariyan, the protagonist, is a folk dancer who performs in drag. The movie presents a gender non-conforming character with significant importance in a positive shade, a huge step forward from clichéd psychopaths, sidekicks and street clowns.

Finally, a movie which is trying to create a dialogue against deep-rooted casteism in the society is also talking about gender minorities. This is a progressive move to create a unified voice against all forms of oppression. Though the intention behind the character is clearly a welcoming one, the portrayal and presentation of it are debatable and need to be looked upon critically.

The primary reason that this calls for a debate is the gender identity of Selvaraj, Pariyan’s father. The director has used elements such as pity, sympathy, pain, innocence and affection to humanize Selvaraj, but has made no attempt to examine the gender identity of the character. The audience members are left to interpret the gender identity of Selvaraj. It would be fair to assume that most would have perceived the person as a trans woman. Such assumptions are unhealthy. A basic thumb rule in any gender-sensitive environment is to never assume a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation.  Unless an individual unambiguously expresses that they are transgender, they cannot be perceived as one. Going by this, Selvaraj can only be considered as a loving father who transgresses gender norms.  Feminine mannerisms and performing in drag alone are not enough to qualify someone as transgender.  To assume feminine men are trans women will only validate the notion of gender stereotypes and fall into the cliché of glorifying toxic masculinity.

It has been an unwritten rule in Kollywood that the moment film makers decide to cast trans feminine or non-binary characters they have to think of scenes to use terms like pottai and the number nine.  Almost everyone from the Tamil queer communities would have faced these abusive terms, and movies play a huge role in legitimizing them. The obsession is such that in Movie I, the character Osma is admitted to room No 9 in hospital.

Pariyerum Perumal also has a scene where these terms are used against Selvaraj to abuse and bully them. Unlike its predecessors, the movie tries to reverse the abuse and attempts to show the damage created by these abusive terms and how they are always used by people with power. The terms here are not used by hero or comedian to ridicule and laugh at Selvaraj: they are used by the casteist thugs to abuse and bully an elderly person as an act of transphobia and caste based discrimination.  The scene brilliantly portrays pain and violence inflicted upon gender minority people. Especially with the gruesome act that follows, it sends a clear message on how verbal and physical abuse go hand in hand and why both need to be addressed.

Though some of us from the community did not find this particular scene to be offensive, a few others did and wanted the words to be muted. This moment presents an opportunity for gender minority communities to discuss and debate on how we want to approach mainstream cinema. Do we demand the banning offensive terms for good, or or do we look at the context and go case by case.  Do we really think we can erase the words from vocabulary of cis gender people by censoring the movies?

Finally, the part where Selvaraj is attacked, stripped, molested and chased away. The part that made me shiver, cringe and find it very hard to sit through. Though reality is not much different for gender minority people from working class and oppressed caste sections of society, the aftermath scenes as shown in the movie need to be scrutinized.  After such gruesome violence, the movie shows no action against the criminals. No legal action is taken; the police are nowhere to be seen. Pariyan is shown to be in anger and ready to go on a violent spree to avenge his father, but her mother intervenes and normalizes the violence, as it is not the first time his father has been abused.   In a society where gender minority people face sexual violence from all quarters, the last thing we need is for the victims to normalize rape and violence. What is the takeaway for mainstream audience if a progressive film normalizes sexual violence?

Interestingly, the film is censored to be suitable for all audience with “U” certificate. This brings out the question: do we even consider the gruesome act against Selvaraj as sexual violence? Or do we only consider it so if it is performed against a female body? How easy it is to erase atrocities committed against non-female bodies in Indian society!

To conclude, Pariyerum Perumal is an honest attempt to humanize gender non-conforming individuals.  In spite of its flaws, the movie will appeal to mainstream heteronormative audiences, and perhaps contribute to creating an inclusive society.

It was 2011, my third year of college. I wasn’t struggling with my identity or anything, but I was going through a phase where I felt I was not being loved. I felt depressed to the point of being suicidal almost every week, and I had come out to a couple of friends in college by then. Every time I felt incredibly depressed, I used coming out as a vent to talk about my issues with someone. And it helped me feel better.

At one point, I decided someone from my family should know. It was going to be my mom, sister or my dad. One of them, first. I wasn’t sure about telling my sister then, because she was in college, and my friends suggested it might be too young for her to know about my sexuality then. I also ruled out telling my mom because, at that point, I didn’t want her to be sad about her son being gay. I was already depressed, and wouldn’t have been able to take it if she had struggled to come to terms with it too.

It had to be dad for a couple of reasons. My dad was a very well-read man. He had never been to college, but he spent most of his nights devouring books. I’d sleep off at 10 PM, but he’d stay up till midnight reading everyday. We’ve never watched cricket together, we’ve never gone to movies together, but he’s always talked about history (Soviet Russia!), about people we now consider icons and the like. I just believed dad would understand sexuality better than my mom, hoping he’d have read about it somewhere. While there was a good enough chance that he may have never heard about queer people, my gut feeling was that he’d come to terms with it pretty quickly because he’d surely read enough about people and cultures across the world, and as he’d always taken a specific interest in reading up on these topics.

Although I tend to narrate my coming out experience as something that happened over a couple of minutes, I remember asking dad directly how liberal he thought he was, a few months earlier. He laughed, trying to understand why I was asking that question when we were bored out for two hours waiting to meet the doctor on a random day. I went on to ask him some really irrelevant questions to get an idea of how accepting he would be of my orientation, and I vaguely remember he passed the test, though I don’t exactly remember what I asked him to find that out.

So one day in August, I called up dad and told him I was coming over for the weekend, and that I wanted to talk to him about something important. He asked me for details, I said I wanted to talk in person over the weekend, and asked him to make sure he was available. I went home that weekend, but couldn’t muster the courage to come out. I postponed telling him.

One or two or three weeks later, I went home again. Sunday morning, we were watching TV, and my mom came over and asked me what it was that I wanted to talk to dad about. I shrugged it, off saying there was nothing important, and told her I almost forgot what I wanted to discuss. It was hard for me to lie and hide things from my mom, but I really wanted to tell dad first.

A little later, dad came over and asked me the same question. My grand plan for coming out was to slyly ask him to take me shopping for shoes, but instead take him somewhere else once we’d left home and tell him everything he needed to know.

A few minutes later, I was on his bike and I told him I really didn’t care about shoes, and that I just wanted to talk in some secluded location where no one could hear us. In retrospect, I find it funny that I was so scared about some random stranger finding out I was gay when I was talking to my dad, but three years ago, I was definitely afraid.

So, he took me to a park. And I had my Kindle with me. I had bought it a few months earlier, specifically to read the It Gets Better book. It had stories of LGBTQ people from across the world, and I was scared to read the hard copy in hostel, so I actually ordered the Kindle just so that I could read the book without anyone knowing it. When I was with dad, I had also loaded the Kindle with PDFs of web pages converted from Orinam.net that had resources for friends and parents.

So we sat in the park. I made sure no one was around, and proceeded to tell him. It was all the more tough for me because I had to come out in Tamil. So far, when I talked to friends in college about sexuality, it was very convenient for me because I could get away with saying I’m gay, and I’m attracted to men and a trillion other things in English. How do you actually tell your dad that, in Tamil? Not to sound elitist – just that I haven’t had enough conversations about sexuality in Tamil, and I haven’t read as much about sexuality in Tamil although I’d have liked to.

But I was prepared, though. I had also gobbled up substantial information in Tamil (from places like Orinam.net) and I knew same sex attraction was ஒருபாலீர்ப்பு. I knew the right terms, and I proceeded to tell him my பாலீர்ப்பு was different. I told him எனக்கு பொண்ணுங்க மேல ஒன்னுமே தோணாது “I have no feelings towards women”. To be honest – I was pretty nervous. I did not shiver – but I was definitely sweating. His face turned weird. I told him some of my friends knew and they had always listened to me and stood by me every time I was depressed. I told him there’s no concrete research to prove why people are gay – it could be genetic, it could be environmental. This triggered him to tell me “medical treatment எடுத்துக்கலாம்” (“take medical treatment”) in the belief it would make me straight. I told him this in return: அவ்வளோ easy நீயும் என்னை மாதிரி மாறிடலாமே (” if it were so easy, you could become gay”). And then we talked for about half an hour, and I pushed him to read resources for LGBT parents on my Kindle. He said he was not in a position to read those right then, and that he was happy I read so much.

We didn’t talk much once we came home and I was leaving back to college at night. He just told me to stay safe. Only a day had passed, and he was coming to terms with what I told him and I could totally understand. It was a bit too much to get him to understand everything quickly (my friends were pretty quick), but I was sure we would get there. The next time I came home and I raised a topic that was close to these issues, I always spotted a tinge of sadness in his face. It has been three years now, and things have changed drastically. A couple of months ago, I saw him sharing pro-gay stuff on Facebook. He knew I attended the Pride March, he knew I went to the Chennai International Queer Film Festival, and he’s getting very comfortable about talking about my sexuality with me.

When I was depressed, I went for a counselling session and was told that I had done the right thing by disclosing my orientation to my parents in college, and I’m so glad I did it then. I can see things falling in place right now: I’m getting out of my bouts of loneliness and depression, attending queer events, and generally feeling a lot better in comparison to that day three years ago when I struggled to tell my dad everything he needed to know about me.