GETTING UP IN the morning, going for work, meeting friends, attending parties, a warm chat with family members over dinner — this is our din ka daily dose, but has it even clicked to us that there are people who have been deprived of the luxury of living a normal life with every eye staring at them with a mocking defeat? Homosexuals, bisexuals, sex workers and transsexuals face this mental trauma at every point in their lives, especially in India where they are considered as criminals.

 

Such is a case with Christi, a transsexual who was born as a girl and presently is a male. He felt that his male soul had been trapped inside a female’s body. As a child, his family forced him to behave like a girl which he couldn’t tolerate. He liked to dress up in male attire, but wasn’t allowed to do so. In school, he fell in love with a girl for which he was suspended. His teachers used to shout at him and asked him to stay away from rest of the girls as to not influence them to behave like him. Even his family members didn’t understand the mental torture, which he was going through. Instead, they joined the gang. And, when his younger brother tried to talk to him, Christi was bashed very brutally. He says, “Home was like a central jail for me.” Even the doors of the church were closed for him.

 

Now, he has left his home and is working with a group called Sangama to fight against the social injustice meted upon people like him.

 

Bimava, a sex worker from Vaishya Anyay Mukti Parishad, Sangli (Maharashtra), narrates her side of story. She says that recently a few policemen came to her village with an American who addressed himself as Great Master to arrest the sex workers. He charged them for keeping minors in their brothels which wasn’t true.

Unable to tolerate this injustice, Bimava raised voice against it, for which she was thrown behind the bars. The policemen used their best skills to torture her. Ultimately, she had to be admitted in the hospital.

 

Shocking, but true, this is the condition of sexual minorities India.

 

People say that sex in marriage is correct, but sex without marriage is wrong; they say that heterosexual is fine, but homosexual is wrong. But why? All the people should have the right to choose the sexuality and what two people do inside a closed room is their personal business, so why should one make it a public propaganda?

 

With a torch in their hands, they are still fighting to establish themselves in this society where people should treat them with dignity. The motto which has still kept up their sprit of fighting is —