Centre’s stand is regressive, it’s crushing our hopes: Hyderabad’s LGBTQIA+ community

The

queer

community in the city feels that the centre's approach can damage a lot of positive change that happened after the

Sec 377

verdict.

Sandy Kushary, a member of the LGBTQ community in Hyderabad, says, “There was a drastic change after the Section 377 verdict. Suddenly there was hope of a future for us and people were much more confident about coming out in the open with their real identity. Now this sort of language is crushing people’s hopes again. It is discriminatory and basically says that we don’t belong in regular society.” He adds, “Section 377 decriminalised consensual sex between same-sex couples. So they’re basically saying now that we can have sex but cannot marry each other? I don’t understand this. On one hand, there is talk about Indian culture and on the other hand, they’re saying we can’t marry but can have sexual relations. The hypocrisy is nauseating.”

Urging people from all walks of life to speak up for the rights of the LGBTQ community, drag artiste Patruni Chidananda Sastry says, “I cannot believe that people who are involved in making polices are being this irrational about the basic gender rights of a human being. We expect our fellow citizens to stand with us in this as it’s a threat to the existence of entire community.”

Harrish, a city-based Equal Rights

activist

, adds, “This idea of criminalizing same-sex

marriage

comes from a basic lack of awareness about basic human rights. It is unfortunate that not a single parliamentarian has opposed the centre’s stand and are instead playing petty politics on this issue.”