LGBTQ dignity -- Shedding Yesterday's prejudices for a Tomorrow of Equality

 LGBTQ dignity -- Shedding Yesterday's prejudices for a Tomorrow of Equality

By Diksha

On 6th September 2018, when the honourable Supreme Court Of India pronounced its verdict decriminalising Section 377, the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) community heaved a sigh of relief, after all then Chief Justice of India himself said -- ‘I am what I am, take me as I am’.

The statement echoed the rallying cry of equality among the LGBTQs, and the whole judgement was so ponderous in itself that it continues to play a vital role in bringing a paradigm shift to our society’s perspective about dignified existence LGBTQ community.

The community has remained stuck right at the heart of society's prejudices and one-sided assertions of ‘being normal’. LGBTQs were always an integral part of the society but there have always been serious reservations on how much “dignified” life did LGBTQs lived with Section 377 worded into Indian statute. A law that considered same-sex love to be unnatural, immoral to justify the shades of prejudices wore upon by the society.

But, do we know that there are instances in our ancient history where the character actually went through gender transformations, or disposed behaviour that can be interpreted as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or as having elements of gender variance and non-heterosexual sexuality. For example, Ardhanarishvara, created by Lord Shiva and Parvati manifests both the genders at the same time. The name literally translates to ‘The Lord whose half is a woman’. Another example can be found in the epic Mahabharata where Arjun’s son-Aravana, decided to self sacrifice to Goddess Kali to ensure the victory of Pandavas, he was awarded 3 boons by Lord Krishna. Aravana wished to get married before his death, so to fulfil his wish Lord Krishna took the form of Mohini to satisfy the boon. Aravana is widely worshipped by many transgender communities throughout India.

Another example can be traced to the epic as well. Shikhandi, a character of the epic was originally born as a female, Shikhandini, was raised as a son because a divine voice directed her mother to do so in order to become the cause of Bhishma’s death, and thus she was raised like a man and when her wife came to know about this on the marriage day she broke the marriage and then Shikhandi ran away. On her way she met a yaksha( a broad class of nature-spirits), who facilitated her to change her sex to a man.

The God of Fire “Agni” was married to Goddess “Swaha” and The God Of Moon “Soma” thus making another same sex couple. Besides this in Vedic Literature Mitra and Varun have been mentioned as icons of affection and intimate friendship between males.

There are tons of other examples as well, but the point is that these instances exist in the scriptures held pious in Indic faiths, so shouldn't it imply that we should be as open to same sex relations as we are for the opposite-sex ones?

Every citizen of this country has the right to live a dignified life, or as then Chief Justice, Deepak Misra explained: “We have to fester tolerance and peaceful coexistence, we have to respect them who they are and not ask them to be who they aren't.”

Yesterday's prejudices against LGBTQs needs to be neutralised by today's all round progressive stimulus of acceptance. We need to release this “homophobia” out of ourselves and just let LGBTQs be themselves simply because they are as much human beings as anyone else, and there shouldn't be a fundamental need to prove that by consistent denial of equality. I personally feel that Scriptured storytelling can be a great way of explaining the concept of LGBTQs to our growing, and upcoming generations. So that they do not have same reservations for them which you held at a point of time.