The context of the petitioner is as follows: Prasanna, a 34 y.o. cis gay man in Chennai, faced a health emergency requiring hospitalisation during the second wave of COVID, in 2021.  However, his partner of over 15 years was not recognised as a family member. As a result, Prasanna was forced to travel to the neighbouring district (where his natal family resided) to seek emergency care there. Based on this and other instances of exclusion and discrimination, Prasanna prayed for recognition of his partner through contract law, specifically the Deed of Familial Association, proposed the same year by Prof Tiju Thomas in the Law School Policy Review. The petition was impleaded in the Sushma hearings of Madras High Court and heard by Justice Anand Venkatesh on Nov 17, 2023.

The Madras High Court has asked for the Tamil Nadu government to consider this proposal, and for it to be included in the state LGBTQIA+ policy currently being drafted,  The Interim Order draws attention to the Supriyo judgement and asks that the DFA be in consonance with the ratio of the judgement, focusing on ways to ensure (only) Article 21 – which includes the right to relationships –  is protected through the mechanism of a DFA.

Media coverage follows

My parents’ reaction was to force me into silence because of fear of social disapprobation and their own prejudices from lack of awareness. Unable to assert my identity and communicate my lack of interest in marriage forcefully enough, I ended up yielding to my parents’ wishes and entering into an arranged marriage with a cis man. I have two children from the marriage. 

However, my gender dysphoria did not fade away.  It made its presence felt even stronger, forcing me to accept my authentic self, or else, cease to exist. I chose the former option, despite the many challenges it was bound to bring up. I came out as a man to the people whom I had been lying to for ages.

Following a divorce by mutual consent, and the decision to co-parent the children with my ex-spouse, I needed to relocate from one part of India to another. Prior to my move, I began looking around for schools in the new city that would be welcoming of children from non-traditional families. I was fortunate enough to secure admission for my children in one such school – the teachers and administration were unfazed by my coming out to them. 

While looking to rent a place close to the school, I meanwhile had to stay with my transphobic parents. As a pre-testosterone man, I present as much younger than I actually am. So, when I informed prospective lessors that the house was to be for my children and me, they started asking intrusive and insensitive questions and passed snide remarks about me. 

Many saw me, a young-looking man with two young girls, as a predator. Whenever they saw the three of us, they would repeatedly ask what my relationship was to the kids. To minimise these intrusive questions, I had started to lie that my partner/spouse works abroad and that I am a stay-at-home dad. However, the term “stay-at-home dad” prompted even more insensitive questions, with some even questioning my masculinity as a father who opted to stay at home rather than go to work and earn money.  

People still do not understand that parenting is a responsibility irrespective of the parents’ gender. In my apartment-hunting quest, I have maintained silence about being a person of trans experience, as I do not want to further jeopardise the safety and well-being of my children and me in a society insensitive towards gender diversity.

As my search continues, I cannot help but yearn for a world that is like my children’s school: accepting of diverse families, including single-parent, queer and trans ones.

* Name changed.
* Picture credits: Daughters of Tarun

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.

In the journey from Zakir to Aqsa, I have lost many things-

1. I have lost my immediate family. Other than my mother, I do not have any meaningful relationship with any of my family members. My brother and his family have boycotted me. I need not elaborate on the importance of having a family. I don’t have one.

2. I have lost my relatives. I have no communication with any relative and have not met anyone for many years now. They are not aware of my transition. All my family members and relatives are blocked on social media. Do you enjoy the company of your uncles, aunts, and cousins? I am not even allowed to meet them. I have stopped going to my hometown of Mumbai and my relatives are not allowed to visit me here by my family.

3. I have lost my friends. I have lost some of my closest and best friends simply because I decided to be myself.

4. I have lost money. Transition is not a cheap affair, especially since the facilities are not available in govt hospitals. I have invested lacs of rupees in my transitioning.

5. I have been afraid of losing my job. Yes, you read this right. However progressive may we call ourselves, I was afraid I may lose my job because the name on my degrees doesn’t match my new legal identity.

6. I have lost social connections and respect. It is difficult, exhausting and uncomfortable to be brave everyday, to explain to every person and to face their reactions. How do you avoid this? You retreat into a shell. I may appear confident but I am a timid tortoise who wants to go back to my shell in a jiffy at the smallest of sign of danger.

7. I have lost security. Being a non-passing trans woman puts me at risk of verbal, physical and sexual harassment every living day of my life. Not all fears come true but not all fears are invalid.

8. I have lost respect and popularity. Many many people who used to appreciate me previously now don’t even look at me and their eyes speak to me what they think about me.
An abomination.

9. I have lost my ability to be a biological parent. In the current circumstances, that is not feasible. I have lost the right to contact my nephew who was also my foster child and whom I raised for 5 years

10. I have almost lost the chance of finding a loving life partner. It is very rare for persons like me to find a suitable match – a loving life partner who would accept me and love me the way I am. All I get are creeps.

Now, though I have lost so many things, I am happy and satisfied with my decision.

And if, hypothetically, I were in a similar situation again, I would choose what I chose, again.

 

 

 

Never had I ever thought in my dear life that I would be in such a position. All I ever want is happiness for all. I am still trying to make that happen. Just to let you know this is very difficult for me. So please bear with me, keep an open mind and try to read the following fully, thoroughly, as calmly and as understandingly as possible. This is difficult for me, very difficult. And I am crying as I write this, but I am not trying to create sympathy here. It’s just because of the pain to arrange my whole life in front of you right now, even though I was right there with you all, living it.

Let me tell you, these are the things that I realized/noticed after coming here and I had never thought about it when I was back home. And even if I had thought about it sometime when I was younger, I was terrified of the very fact of daring to consider this. It is just not easy at all. I want you to help me through this process. I feel so helpless sometimes thinking about what I want, what I can have, and what I am allowed.

This year is for studies, but somehow it has also become the biggest exam of my life. Being away from home, gave me space and time to think about my life. So below is my life story, I am not going to hide any details and tell you about as much as I remember of my childhood times, it’s all here below.

In the 3^rd grade, I joined a co-ed school and there, as you know, I used to be the tomboy of the class. I used to play cricket with the boys and also kabaddi with the girls. Never having had a good group of friends, I used to fight with the girls and keep moving from one group to another based on which group the fight was with.

Please try not to be disgusted with me for what I am going to say now, because I have gone through this a lot. I have been shocked at myself for thinking like this, but I just cannot help it. When I was young, studying sometime between 4^th and 6^th grades, all must have watched movies or shows where couples were romancing and fantasised about it. For any girl it would have been the predictable fantasy of being with a man, but for me it was the different, the fantasy was of me with a woman. I was young at that time and thought that everyone must have similar thoughts. I did not share these fantasies with anyone. There are times during my 6^th to until may be 10^th where I used to plead with God for a miracle that would change me into a boy, overnight. That mom and dad should start thinking that they have given birth to a boy, the records in the schools must miraculously change, and I should be one of the boys in the class. But yeah, this was too much to ask of God, wasn’t it? Such miracles never happen.

There were only women teachers in my school, and I used to have crushes on the beautiful ones. I also used to befriend the beautiful girls in my class, and charm them using my humour and my imitation skills, and make them laugh. Let me tell you all, there were no questions in my mind about who I was and why I was that way, nothing crossed my mind. Then it was 11^th and 12^th grade, it was time for studies, and nothing much happene. I don’t remember much about those times.

Then entering college life, an environment where girls talk a LOT about boys and check them out: I did too. I became best friends with Padma. Basically, as you might know, it was a co-dependent relationship. She needed a shoulder to cry on as she thought she was the most unlucky person in the whole wide world, and I was happy to lend my shoulder because – I don’t know why – maybe because I enjoyed the importance I was getting in her life. I used to hang out with her most of my free time and we were inseparable. I used to write poems about her.

It was during my second year of college, that I came across the Ellen DeGeneres show on TV. I became her fan immediately and was able to relate to her for her dress sense, sense of humour and her dancing. I googled her, and found that she is gay! I did a little research about what it means and found that she likes women and that she is going to marry a woman in California. I was shocked. I got too afraid and since Padma had not yet got into a committed relationship with a guy, I was terrified that people in college might start talking about us in a bad way based on the amount of time we spent with each other. Then Padma got committed to Suresh, and I never really cared about making any more best friends. It was too much of hurt and trouble and I did not want anyone to be as dependent on me again as was the case with Padma. I chucked the thoughts of Ellen out of my head. and as an obedient daughter when the college got over, told you to look for a boy for my marriage, because after college life, I felt very lonely without anyone so close in my life.

I am skipping the part of engagement and things with Mahesh that you all know. So, after coming here, I do not know, what was the hidden urge in me that made me join the LGBT society in the university here! I had also joined it as a strong ally (a non-gay person who wants to support LGBT people); because I don’t know why I felt like these people deserved equal rights in their lives too.

Then began my journey of self-discovery, you see all the paragraphs above, all these little details, I started to get reminded of all that, the things that I had locked into that little box in my heart, my fantasies, my dreams, everything that I had tried to erase out of my life, came back to me. May be it was the space and time that I got here to think about myself. But I researched a lot, read a lot and was depressed thinking about what I feel, think, imagine and compare it with my research findings and cry and feel sad for what I was doing to myself by pulling out old stuff from that little box! It took me four whole months from September to January, to finally I accept myself for who I am, without any anger or regret. I needed someone to talk about this and I have a close friend and I knew she would understand my situation. After a whole week of gathering up courage, I did not even tell by words, I gave her a letter stating my dreams from which she asked me questions and I answered them and she finally understood what I was trying to tell her about. It is difficult.

When one knows that one is different and that a kind of different that will be looked down upon by the society of so-called “normal” people, I feel sad. There, tears start again. Being LGBT is not something abnormal, it’s not by choice, it’s just natural. When I finally accepted who I was, it was like meeting another self of mine. That person who was locked in so much within myself that I had forgotten about her, who has been a part of my mental and physical being but I had just decided to ignore her. But I could not do it anymore; I needed to recognise that other person within me.

I would humbly request you, not to take any hasty decisions. I did not know all this would happen to me if I came here, and believe me when I say, I swear on my God, this is not how I had planned my life. I want you to be with me in this journey, I want you to accept me for who I am. Please be with me, I cannot do this without you all.

I have never ever wanted to hurt any person in my life, I love you all so much and I care so much about you all. This is true and my God knows and I think you know it too. I hate hiding stuff from people I love, and I knew that you should know what is going on with me. But believe me, this is very hard to accept oneself and it’s like one terrifying journey to tell someone about who you really are. I love you mom, dad and sister so much, I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you all. I hope you will understand. I miss you all so much right now and feel so lonely. And I am not able to stop crying. This is very hard for me. Please be with me. I try to be a strong person, but I will be very lonely without you all. Please understand the things I have said.

I notice women, I notice how they smell, imagine having a good chat with them and some romantic dance. Whenever I listen to songs, I am singing the male lyrics that praise the girl and not bother much about the girl’s lyrics. There is this rush and tingly feeling that happens in my heart whenever I notice a woman that I like, and I get nervous around her. Whenever or rather rarely I imagine dancing with a man, I still tend to lead, I do not know why, I have always wanted to lead and be the man in a relationship rather than being a woman.

In the light of this situation that I am in and the things that I found about myself, it would be selfish of me to get married to Mahesh and spoil his life. He noticed that I was not myself for past few weeks. I had to tell him before I told you all. He understands my situation very well and I think we have agreed upon cancelling the marriage plans. Because, if we didn’t, it would be us who would be living the marriage and it would been fated for doom. He deserves a good life with someone who can make him happy emotionally and physically. I cannot handle the physical aspect of the relationship with a man. He understands me for who I am and has been supportive for past one week. He has told his parents and therefore I would request you not to call them for a while until you can process this information because they are trying to process it as well.

I am sorry that I had to take this decision, but I am telling you pappa and mamma, you are reading this and may be finding it hard to accept, but I am living this. Knowing that I was never really the person I was, that’s something big to accept oneself. I know since our lives are connected, I am making you face these things with me, and I am sorry for that. I really am. I have tried to be a good daughter that you both deserve, you are wonderful parents anyone could ever ask for and I want to make you both proud of me. I hope I will. I am the same daughter that you have had, but this is a reality about me, which I hope you will accept. I love you pappa, mamma and sister. I know I am unable to keep up with your dreams of getting me married to a man and sending me off with him, but please see the fact that I am more at ease with my identity and inner self now. I have understood that I was not crazy to feel different for the past 25 years. My God has always given me what I have asked for. I had written him a letter after coming here saying that I have realised who I am and I don’t think I will be able to fulfil that aspect of myself in this life. But see what he did, he made me accept my identity in front of my parents. I think he wants his daughter to live the life in her way.

I know the outside world is tough. It might even mock me for who I am. But mamma, pappa and Keerti, if I know the fact that you all are there with me, I will be 200 times stronger than I am now. I can face the world or anyone else. I just want you all to understand me, accept me and my heart.

I know you will have many questions about this and I request you to keep calm and read this FAQ sheet fully. It will answer most of your questions.

https://new2.orinam.net/resources-for/friends-and-family/faqs-gender-and-sexuality/

I will not be able to answer your call or Skype with you all for few days. Because I am not ready and I think even you will need time to understand this information and process it fully. I wish I could have told this to you all in a better way, but I lack the courage to say on phone or over skype. I have my LGBT support group here and my best friends who are there to give me support. I would request you to try using the contact numbers in the above website and talk to any parents of LGBT people or their counsellors to have a support group, so that you have someone to talk to about this and understand my situation and your own situation better. Sister, please do this for me, try contacting some numbers in this website and arrange a meeting with them sometime soon.

https://new2.orinam.net/resources-for/friends-and-family/support/

I will be just a call away but not immediately as we all need to process this and we all need time to come to peace with our thoughts. It’s been an emotional toll on me to write this email and I know very well it was for you all to read it. But I did not want to hide myself from my family, after I discovered myself after so many years.

Dear pappa, please do not be angry towards me, this is not something that I am doing on purpose, I am BORN THIS WAY and my God wants me to acknowledge it! I cannot help it, it’s not a choice I have, but this is who I am, I am attracted to women. I would request you and mamma to please forget about the society for a while and just think about your daughter and the things I am going through. It’s me who is living this and not them. It is no one’s fault, it’s in my nature.

With lots of love, hugs and a wish that you will reply to this email and not avoid me. I respect you all, but please don’t call me immediately I will be unable to answer it pappa, I need you all the most now and an email reply from you whatever it is that you all want to say would give me strength, I love you pappa, mamma and sister, please remember I am the same daughter you have and the same didi you have my little sister, there is just this one thing that you need to accept about me…

Love, Bubbly

All names in this post are pseudonyms

Did she cut off her thaali?
Cutting off her thread of secrets,
Did she slip off the metti?
Slipping away her regrets,
She did not have to,
“I want the freedom and the girl!”
With girlfriend in hand,
She never agreed to a marriage proposal.

Did she get disowned?
Father would rather have a son,
Mother would rather have a married daughter,
Did she end up without a home?
Homeless, however not a soulless being,
She carries her home with her wherever she goes,
With that her many closets.

She gained new friends,
A makeshift family,
Yet she misses her relatives,
Her dearest Amma and Appa,
She never could shut them out of her heart,
No matter how hard she tried,

Even if they coldly shamed her,
Amma and Appa are not callous,
A weighted silence,
A small reunion,
“Eppothum iruppaai nam kanmaniyaaga”*

Photo credit: Subhalakshmi

Thaali – the wedding necklace
Metti- toe rings
Amma- Mother
Appa- Father
*“You shall always be our loved one (literally, precious like an eye)” 

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.

Chennai Freethinkers, a regional group of Nirmukta organized their annual ThinkFest on Feb 23rd this year. A panel discussion titled “Reason, Prejudice and the case for LGBT rights,” was organized as part of the ThinkFest, where Orinam members and friends participated.

In this video, Orinam volunteer Shambhavi talks about conventional family structures and how they don’t always make sense (beginning at 47 min 30 sec).

To watch the full video and read more about the ThinkFest visit Nirmukta website

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.