Lesbian and proud of it

Sun, Jun 29 12:50 AM

It was 1995 when I first acknowledged to myself that I was attracted to a woman. It was a silent confession in the confines of my dorm room in college.

The thought of telling anyone would have meant admitting that I belonged to a category labelled 'homosexuals'. How could I be one of THOSE people? I too, you see, was homophobic.

I was certain that I would not tell a soul about my feelings. After all, what would people think? That I was some psycho, some abnormal person, and god forbid a "lezbo".

I felt ashamed of who I was and how I felt. I had after all grown up in a society where we believe that heterosexual people are "normal".

I grew up in Delhi where the only gay people I had even heard of were, a hair-stylist and a clothing designer, both men. My coming out experience was extremely isolating.

It was 1997 and I felt the need to create a community for myself and for other women like me and so I founded an online group called "desidykes". The group has now hundreds of us connected via email, sharing stories from coming out to parents, to dealing with the pressures of marriage.

I've received many emails from women thanking me for creating the desidykes cyber-community, not realising that they are indeed what make it what it is today - a great source of strength for those who too feel. Coming out has been an ongoing process for me, and may well be for the rest of my life.

I might proclaim I'm a lesbian on a talk show, and I might even write a column for HT City but as long as heteronormativity exists, I will always be asked whether I'm married (to a man), or if I have a boyfriend. There is no denying that I have come a long way from the time when I could not even dream of revealing my big secret.

Today, almost 13 years later, I find myself in a room with 16 others and here we are painting placards, preparing to go out on the streets this Sunday, claiming our identities, showing our visibility in numbers, and being proud of who we are. This Sunday, June 29, we come together to mark this historic event to proclaim our existence.

We want to challenge the oppressive regime of heteropatriarchy and want to climb out of its margins with pride. We want this country to know that we're not as independent as we proclaimed on August 15 1947.

How can we call ourselves independent if we are still holding on to archaic British laws? Last but not least, we want everyone (gay or straight) in the city to come support us and acknowledge our presence as equals. The writer is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Photography and amp; Film.

She will be screening her films on sexuality at the India Habitat Centre on Sunday, July 6.

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