Cut off from their usual safe spaces during the Covid-19 lockdowns, LGBTQiA+ members, who were forced to live with family, found themselves struggling with preserving their mental health
Transwoman Anjali Siroya, who works as recruitment coordinator at TRANScend, The Humsafar Trust, says because she was home-bound during the lockdown, she had stopped dressing up. Pic/Ashish Raje
Anjali Siroya’s work space is also her “safe space”. The 23-year-old, who is recruitment coordinator at TRANScend, an initiative of The Humsafar Trust to enhance socio-economic inclusion of transgender people in India, came out to her family as a transwoman, six years ago. While her parents didn’t turn hostile towards her, they continued to call Anjali by her birth name, addressing her by the pronoun she no longer identifies with. Her job, however, was a healthy distraction, enabling her to engage with members of the community for a better part of the day. Home only became the place she returned to each night.
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This changed during the pandemic-induced lockdown last year. From March 2020 till December of that year, Anjali was home-bound. The workshops and events she’d have been involved with, moved online. With no friends or community members to turn back to, Anjali was left to fend for herself. “Because I didn’t go to office, I had stopped wearing make-up and dressing up. This went on for over six months. I realised during that period that I couldn’t be myself anymore. I experienced several depressive episodes,” shares Anjali in a telephonic chat. When she returned to work in January this year, Anjali was hopeful that the situation would improve. “But, in March, we went back into lockdown, and things were back to square one.”
Aruna Desai, co-founder of Sweekar: The Rainbow Parents, a support group for parents of LGBTQiA+ community members, says that on an average, they have been getting three calls daily, mostly from teenagers, who want to come out to their parents. Pic/Sameer Markande
While COVID-19 impacted everyone, it hit disadvantaged communities the hardest. India’s LGBTQiA+ community, in particular, experienced a slew of psychological, financial and health challenges. A 2020 report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), revealed how the “stay-at-home directives, isolation, increased stress and exposure to disrespectful family members” exacerbated the risk of violence and abuse, both physical and psychological, against members of the community.
Closer home, NGOs, support groups and mental health professionals have been working round the clock since last year’s lockdown to help vulnerable community members. Aruna Desai, co-founder of Sweekar: The Rainbow Parents, a support group for parents of queer individuals, says where they used to receive one or two calls a month, they now get an average of three calls daily, and mostly from teenagers. “Gender expression has been a cause for concern for many parents who are suddenly spending a lot of time with their kids. So, boys with feminine traits, or girls with masculine characteristics are constantly under the scanner, and are taunted and mocked,” says Desai. This leads to a disturbing atmosphere at home. “One of our callers even threatened self-harm.” Since the team is working virtually, they have been holding counselling sessions over video calls and telephone. “We are mostly concerned about the growing number of school-going kids who want to come out. It could be because of the access to too much information on social media, and also the pressure from peers, and little or no distraction during the lockdown. We have had to advise them to focus on their studies and wait till they are 18, so that they are mature enough to deal with the consequences, if any,” she adds.
Dr Avinash Desousa, Prarthana Sham and Tinesh Chopade
Aniket, 19, who lives in Malkapur, in Buldhana district of Maharashtra, came out to his parents in February this year. He is one of the teens, who reached out to Sweekar last year. “I spent most part of the lockdown overthinking about how I was living a fake life. I knew I was different since I was in Class VIII, but I was scared about what my friends and family would think, so I tried to be someone else. I was briefly in a relationship with a girl, but I broke up, because it made me unhappy,” says Aniket, who identifies as gay. During the lockdown, he spent most of the time in his building, where his neighbours, especially the kids, would tease him. “At some point it got to me. The fact that I wanted to do fashion designing, while my parents were forcing me to pursue medicine, also affected me.” While Aniket’s father has come to terms with his son’s sexual orientation, his mother, he says, is still in denial. “My life has not been easy since. But, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
Dadar resident Parth S, 26, an entrepreneur, who also came out to his parents after they started looking for a match for him, says, “I took the help of my cousins and broke the news to my family.” The fact that they were all cooped up under one roof, made it tougher for him. “We were constantly arguing.”
Bengaluru-based therapist Prarthana Sham, a team lead at The Alternative Story, a mental health and counselling service, says during the early days of the first lockdown, many people, including LGBTQiA members, moved in with their families, because “it was a physically safer space to be in”. “But some of them had not come out to their families, and this meant hiding a part of their identity, and living with that sort of feeling, which is not always good for one’s mental health.”
Dr Avinash DeSousa, president, Bombay Psychiatry Society, adds that incidents of depression and anxiety have also increased. Shrishti V (name changed on request), attempted suicide after she learnt that her partner, who had moved to her hometown during the lockdown, had started seeing someone else. Post recovery, she was taken in for counselling. “If a breakup happens, you can speak to your family, but in this case, she couldn’t tell them. She was always upset and crying, but they were not able to understand why and couldn’t help her,” says DeSousa.
The fear of contracting COVID-19, only added to their woes. “With HIV infection widespread within the community, many were worried that they would pick up the COVID-19 infection and not survive. They needed to be constantly counselled,” says Tinesh Chopade, advocacy manager at The Humsafar Trust.
The silver lining to the lockdown cloud is that for the first time, many queer persons felt comfortable in seeking help for mental health. “The reason for this was that the online mode of therapy was now available. The fear of going to the clinic and being judged or ridiculed, no longer existed. They could log in online and speak to a mental healthcare professional, and if they were uncomfortable during the session, they could simply log off,” says DeSousa.
Chopade says that at the start of the pandemic, The Humsafar Trust just had two counsellors working out of Mumbai. “With the overwhelming number of calls that we began receiving, we decided to hire more people. We also tied up with independent mental health services, and offered to financially help those who had reached out to other counsellors.”
The Alternative Story also started a queer support group that touches base every other Tuesday; recently, the counselling service also started a fundraiser to help members of the community, who want to access mental health services and therapy. Sham adds, “In a flip side, the lockdown also allowed members to distance themselves from situations they were not comfortable with. They didn’t have to go to spaces that enforced heteronormative behaviour. It gave many an opportunity to not do the things, they’d otherwise have to do, to conform.”
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