LGBT News LGBT Indians gear up for possible U-turn on anti-gay laws

Boy this will get long so I'll say I'm sorry in advance but I'll just leave this on EC so people realise the LGBT situation in India. We're breeding like rabbits so we'll soon have the largest LGBT population in the world and then we'll need people to understand us.

So the hearings for the pleas started yesterday and the bench has been understanding so far. We're pretty hopeful that the verdict will at least call for an amendment to the section or debate in Parliament, if not it's complete overrule. But the problem doesn't lie there.

Homophobia in India isn't actually derived from section 377. There have only been a handful of prosecutions, extortions and assault cases since 1861 and most Indians didn't even know what it was before all the discussion.

We've just been heavily polluted by Colonial and partly by Muslim rule. Ancient India was extremely tolerant of basically everything; all our languages, ethnic and religious groups and yes sexualities. But as a country, we're suffering from such historical amnesia and being so influenced by foreign cultures that homophobia has been etched into the ethos of the land and has slowly developed across generations into the force it is today.

The reason why we're so late into the LGBT conversation is because we're ironically too diverse for our own good. The US has many minorities too but they're not as populous and they've all subscribed to the American way of life, learnt English and don't care about religion that much. We've got too many things to disagree on and too many differences to actually address common issues that permeate across all ethnicities, classes, religions, etc.

Sociologists have repeatedly wondered how this country has managed to stay united all this while and indeed we're barely hanging on. The people might be superficially nationalist but they still identify first as one the numerous religious, ethnic and lingual groups before being Indian.

Which is also why even a landmark judgement won't make India LGBT friendly right away. Millions of our barely literate people outside the cities have forgotten our tolerant history and religions (Hinduism and Buddhism), don't understand its significance and most importantly, don't answer to the apex court.
They'll do whatever they want unless contained by law enforcemnent, which as of now hasn't received any directives to protect the LGBT. And yesterday the Chief Justice postponed expanding the discussion to anti-discrimination laws, marriage and adoption rights.

This is because the government and judiciary are constantly negotiating with the country's current views on morality and ethics on every policy decision. And this is no different. Who knows when the right might mobilise a huge anti-LGBT movement to challenge the court's decision or people start purging queer groups. These rarely even get violent.

The people are slaves to their traditions and their politicians seeking reelection, slaves to them. So we might have to wait for homophobia to die out through generations to get the same level of acceptance as most of the West.

Decriminalising sex is still the first step however and I hope it's done quickly but what I'm actually happy about is that pro-LGBT rationale will be exposed to the public because of this and it might change their views. That's what makes a difference.
We've been criminalising caste based discrimination since independence and giving them endless benefits but the caste system is all but gone today because people have stopped caring about it voluntarily, not because some law forced them to. If anything, their huge resevations in colleges and jobs only made us hate the scheduled castes and tribes more.