19 June,2011 10:56 AM IST | | Dhamini Ratnam
As the second anniversary of the reading down of Section 377 approaches on July 2, a new breed of home-grown supporters are emerging. Nurtured by counsellors and buffered by support groups and queer activists, parents of queer persons are joining the fight for social acceptance ufffd for their LGBT children and themselves
In a sequence in Sonali Gulati's documentary film I AM, showcased at the recently held Kashish International Queer Festival, one of the interviewees ufffd the mother of a gay man ufffd looks at Gulati standing behind the camera and says with a smile, "I would have helped you.
I would have spoken to your mother had she been alive."
Overwhelmed by the statement, Gulati reportedly resumed shooting the film a year-and-a-half later. Shot over five years, I AM documents the lives of queer Indian men and women and their parents, taking off from the 38 year-old filmmaker's own anguish of never having come out as a lesbian to her mother when she was alive.
While the mother's words may have left a profound impact on the associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's department of Photography and Film, it wasn't just a dialogue from a film.
Several parents of queer persons around the country have begun to take up the cause of Queer azadi, not least by participating in Pride marches held in cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai. Home visits to handle distress calls, support group meetings, co-counselling sessions with their children and now, even an email helpline, mark the changing landscape of the queer movement in urban, metropolitan India, battling its unique class conservatism and communal traditionalism.
Marathi filmmaker Chitra Palekar, who lives in Mumbai, launched an email helpline (FamilyandFriends@queer-ink.com) last week, primarily for parents of queer persons, in the hope that her experiences of being a parent to a lesbian ufffd her daughter Shalmalee Palekar came out to her nearly 18 years ago ufffd may help others come to terms with their child's sexuality.
Palekar, who in her mid-60s, is also one of the 19 parents whose petition lies before the Supreme Court, supporting the historic Delhi High Court verdict of July 2, 2009, that read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised homosexuality.
The judgment, which has been challenged by various religious and conservative organisations and individuals, has four petitions in favour of it, and will come up for hearing at the apex court on July 11.
"The parents' petition," says Palekar, "argues that Section 377u00a0 threatens our children's fundamental right to a life of dignity and equality."
"The past 18 years have been a coming out process for me as a parent of a lesbian. From avoiding all talk on Shalmalee's marriage, to finally talking about my daughter's sexuality openly ufffd it has been a journey of self-introspection. I realised that we take our children's heterosexuality for granted. I also realised how much harm our ignorance can cause them," says Palekar, who has tied up with Shobhna Kumar, founder of alternative online bookstore Queer Ink, to start the online helpline.
The ultimate aim, she points out is to have a support structure in India along the lines of the popular American support group Parents and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). "However, our support group would include the entire queer community," she says, referring to bi-sexual, inter-sex and transgender persons, who don't fall under the ambit of PFLAG.
Palekar is not alone in wanting to share her experiences to help other parents.
Mumbai-based Shobha Doshi and Chennai-based Kamalamma (name changed) are already doing it.
Doshi, who is a regular at the Gay Bombay meets held once in six months, has spoken to at least five parents telling them why she was happy when her son Shameet, who lives in Atlanta, United States, came out to her six years ago. She has even helped her son's partner's mother tackle family resistance.
"My only fear after he came out to me was how would I find him a partner of the same sex. So, I was really happy to hear that he had settled down with someone. His sexual life is a private matter, and no one has the right to comment on it," says the 59-year-old.u00a0
"If parents support their child, society won't ostracise them," she adds.
Driven by the same need, Kamalamma has visited the homes of two other parents, despite facing resistance from her husband.
Kamalamma's son has been staying in the United States for the past 12 years. Since he came out to his parents six years ago, Kamalamma has undertaken the journey from apprehension to acceptance and support, but her husband, she says, faults her for "not insisting on getting their son married."
"I want to do more, but I can't go against my husband either," says Kamalamma, who counselled the parents of her son's friend, two years ago. "We were in the same boat, we are Brahmins and our issues were similar," she says.
Kamalamma, in turn, found the help she needed at a parent support group meeting organised by the Center for Counselling started by counsellor Magdalene Jeyarathnam five years ago. The centre offers counselling on a range of mental health issues, and facilitates the coming out process for a number of gay, lesbian and transgender persons, through co-counselling sessions with parents.
In 2007, the centre began to hold informal meetings between parents of queer persons, once every three months. For the past three years, it has been organising a meeting for parents in June, the month of the Chennai Pride. More than 35 parents and family members attend these meetings. This year, the meeting is scheduled for June 25, the day before the Pride.
"Invariably, parents would ask 'Are there others like us'," says Jeyarathnam. "Parents have questions pertaining to matters like 'how do same-sex adults have sex?', or how should they tackle relatives when it comes to the question of their child's marriage."
These support group meetings are restricted to parents. A few queer persons are invited to share how parental support or the lack of it has affected them. The result, says Jeyarathnam, is often very powerful.
She recalls an incident from last year's meet, when the mother of a man who wanted to transition to a woman, attended the support group meeting assuming they would tell her how she could convince her son to remain a man.
"At the end of the meeting, after hearing the stories of other queer children, she told me, 'I have learnt that no one in society supports my son. So, it's better that I support him'," says Jeyarathnam.
Creating support structures
What has helped change the landscape of queer activism is the fact that LGBT organisations have begun to create support structures for parents as well. In Mumbai, Gay Bombay, a social platform for gay men, has been holding meetings with parents. In March, they held a meeting only for gay men and their respective parents.
The idea, says Vikram Doctor, one of the organisers of the meeting, is to now, facilitate a conversation between parents.
Bengaluru-based groups include Swabhava, that has run a telephone helpline for LGBT persons for the past 11 years, and Good As You, a 16-year-old gay support group that organised the first parent meet during the Bengaluru Pride in November 2010.
The meet was attended by six mothers, one father and seven siblings, informs Vinay Chandran, Executive Director, Swabhava, who offers counselling on the helpline.
"We had received several requests from parents to meet other parents from the community. We have certainly reached a point where parents are not just accepting, but also keen to be there for others like them," says Chandran.
However, Chandran warns that support groups must not be mistaken for counsellors. "If a parent is threatening to kill himself, sending him to a support group alone won't help," he says.
Deepak Kashyap, a 25 year-old Mumbai-based psychologist who has been practising for a year, undertakes co-counselling sessions with queer persons and their parents, and is keen to support parents through email exchanges. In the past year itself, over a dozen families have approached him.
Since parents too face an equally tough coming out process, efforts are also on to create a 'resource base' of personal accounts, information and general support for them to understand their child's alternate sexuality.
Gulati points out that her film was made with the aim of being a 'resource' for queer Indians and their parents, "to show that they are not alone in the world and that there are many like them." Gaysi, a Mumbai-based literary website for queer readers, recently tied up with Chennai-based queer site Orinam to publish interviews of family members of queer persons. Activists agree that parents too require spaces where they can talk about their children, without being judged, and where information about homosexuality is readily available.
At the same time, 'out' and supportive parents exhort others to accept their children, since it only makes the family grow stronger.
"Parents of queer persons are also part of the community. And in my experience, I have grown closer to my daughter after she came out to me," says Palekar.
"Getting a sanction from our parents is essential to our happiness," points out Kashyap. "Often queer persons suffer from low self-esteem, guilt and shame, since they hide such a central aspect of their lives from their parents."
In fact, in a study conducted among 50 females, many of whom do not identify as a woman, by support group for lesbians and bisexuals LABIA, it was found that as many as 18 have attempted suicide. The study, informs founder-member Chayanika Shah, will be released by the year-end.
"It is nice to know that some parents are making the effort to reach out, since they too negotiate social contexts. At the same time, however, the predominant story is that most families are highly critical, negligent and abusive of their child's homosexuality. The next best thing we learn to expect from parents is silence, if not acceptance," she says.
Doshi, Palekar and Co. are out to change that.
