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It is a fight that I fight every day, and I get tired and dejected many a times. Won’t you be my friend? Stand up for me, speak for me and fight for me the days that I can’t?
This will forever be our favourite month, the month of June the month of Love! The month which helped us break from the shackles of the false life we were living, and helped us proudly embrace and live our truth.
The month where our predecessors fought for the Right to Love and tried to change the narrative.
I have the Right to Love whoever I want. No one but me decides who I choose to give my heart to and spend my life with.
I have the right to choose who I want to be, to embrace my inner self and live my truth.
I can kiss, hug and have sex with anyone I want. What two consenting adults do inside their bedroom shouldn’t bother you. I don’t come and tell you how to lead your sexual life, so I request you not to interfere in my Right to Privacy.
Equality, Respect, Love, Diversity, Unity and Acceptance are fundamental needs and rights that every human deserves.
Don’t judge us basis what we wear and how much make up we use. Who decided that make up is for girls and dresses can only be worn by women? Why are we called a tomboy if we decide to dress like a man or a sissy if we decide to dress like a woman? How is it that you get to wear what you want and also judge me on what I wear? I don’t remember giving you the right to decide for me.
Why does the way I look make you want to stare at me? I am just like you; maybe I just dress different. I don’t understand the unhealthy fixation you have with my appearance. We don’t dress up to stand out, we just want to feel good in our clothes and belong, and be a part of the same society you belong in.
I am not ‘abnormal’ and I am not suffering from some mental illness. I don’t want to be a person who feels trapped in their own body and has suffocated all their inner desires. This is my Real Self.
If a loved one comes out to you or publicly, please support us and not ridicule us.
People are bullied for various reasons, their social status, their appearance, their preference and their sexuality. Bullying affects me negatively and it’s not great for my well-being and self-confidence. It’s not my fault that I don’t fit into the mould you created.
It is not okay to laugh at me or make jokes about the person I am, or about my sexuality. What is ‘harmless fun’ for you is uncomfortable and offensive to me.
Just like you we too struggle to find love and meaningful relationships but it’s a lot more difficult for us. We also suffer heartbreaks and are also cheated on. In such times I just need a shoulder to cry on and a heart willing to understand. I am not looking for criticism about my choice.
When you break up I don’t ask you to change your preferences and try being homosexual, so why do you advise me to try being straight?
My sexual orientation shouldn’t be a reason why I am rejected for jobs and why I don’t get the house I want on rent. I deserve to get jobs based on my capabilities as I have studied and worked hard to make a niche for myself.
I want to be able to marry the person I love and spend my years growing old with them. It’s not fair that you get to marry the person you want but I only get to love and live-in.
When I fill a form I don’t want to see just male or female gender options. It’s time to be more inclusive.
Lastly I have the ‘Right To Be Me’. Just as I am, unabashed and unfiltered !
I want to live in a world where I don’t have to choose between being real and being successful, between loving who I want and loving who you want me to love, between living a life I want and the living the life you are forcing me to live, and lastly, between being me and being who you want me to be.
“The biggest challenge of your life is to be yourself in a world that is trying to make you like everyone else.” – Frances Del Mundo
It is a fight that I fight every day, and I get tired and dejected many a times. Won’t you be my friend? Stand up for me, speak for me and fight for me the days that I can’t? Let us look out for each other and have each other’s back.
Why should we change who we are just because the society does not approve? You would agree with me the world is a lot more beautiful with colours. Without colours, life would be so boring and if you try to look at life as just black and white, you’ll never see the rainbow.
Love comes in many colours, and as clichéd as it is ‘Love is Love’. We are all pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle that fit to make a complete and beautiful picture.
Pride Month is celebrated every June as a tribute to those who were involved in the Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Inn Riots sparked the beginning of the gay rights movement in America where members of the LGBTQ community came together to protest exploitation and police harassment.
Pride month is celebrated across the globe on different dates in June. LGBTQ Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Many countries have their annual parade where thousands march celebrating themselves and their uniqueness.
India’s first pride parade was held in Kolkata on 2nd July 1999 called the Kolkata Rainbow Walk. It had only 15 participants in total.
The purpose of the commemorative month is to acknowledge the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.
Image source: a still from the film Badhaai Do
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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