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Anjali Ameer is a transgender model, who will soon be starring opposite Mammooty. Could we hope that the LGBTQ+ community might slowly be given its due?
Everything in India comes back to family. Acceptance is really important, and whenever someone does something which isn’t a norm, they get shamed. Even if their family accepts it, it has to remain a secret. This acceptance should go beyond the household – this includes the society, friends and relatives, neighbours, law makers, and the moral police.
The Hindu tradition is not void of same sex depictions in many instances. Yet, homosexuals continue to be alienated from the social community. Even the law under Section 377 forces criminal charges on any sexual act that is “unnatural”, which has put these sections of the society under terrible stress.
This is even more stressful when it comes to transgenders. Though the society overtly recognises the trans people as hijras or eunuchs, we aren’t comfortable allowing them to use a third gender to identify themselves with. This again is kept a secret which everyone knows.
While most of us would easily lay down and revel over gay and lesbian genres in porn, none of us want them to actually live their lives socially. We want their existence to be merely limited to our fantasies. We need to remember that such genres exist only because these people exist, they are real human beings.
Even with the number of same sex marriages rising in the country, most of them refrain from publicising their preferences. Even though many metros across the country host gay parties providing a platform for like minded people to meet, they still are organised in secret. Very few people would have even heard the names Gaydar and Gay Bombay. Other social hubs that openly deny any adherence to the LGBTQ+ community only allow secret hangouts instead to prevent interdiction and damage from local politics.
While there are a good number out there who have raced to incredible heights and carved their names on the walls of success, people like Anjali Ameer were too scared to leave their exile. Now she is going to star in a movie releasing this December. Yet there are many who only chose to reveal their identity after they were assured of their protection.
Though the situation in the country has changed now, most of the masses aren’t yet ready.
We fail to realise that they are just as real as us. Being hostile towards them won’t change the facts. They exist and the earlier we realise that, the better.
Published here earlier.
Image source: Youtube
Professionally, I am a content developer and editor. Other times I'm involved in various activities as a freelance blogger/writer, volunteer in my college's alumni association, career coach, tattoo and skating enthusiast. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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