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First South Asian gay leaders' summit to share strategies

First South Asian gay leaders’ summit to share strategies

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/first-south-asian-gay-leaders-summit-to-share-strategies_100208496.html

June 23rd, 2009 - 4:58 pm ICT by IANSKathmandu, June 23 (IANS) Nearly a dozen gay leaders and minority rights activists will be meeting in New York Friday for the first South Asian Queer Leaders’ Summit to discuss future strategies and strengthen the trans-national network of the sexual minorities.
To be followed by a Lesbian film show and a pride party, the summit, to be hosted by Asia Society and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, will also assess the state of the community in South Asia, especially after the strides taken by the gay rights movement in India and its northern neighbour Nepal.

Once a conservative country where sons were preferred to daughters, Nepal saw a sea change in the nation’s attitude towards the sexual minorities after its Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment, recognising gays as ‘natural’ people and ordering the government to make laws to uphold their rights, including the right to same-sex marriage.

Last year, when Nepal held a historic election to abolish its 239-year-old monarchy, gays contested the polls for the first time and the newly elected constituent assembly gave the nation its first openly gay lawmaker.

In India, policy advocates have edged forward in their battle against a section of the Indian Penal Code that they say is discriminatory towards homosexuals since it criminalises sodomy and makes homosexuality a punishable offence.

In the US, the South Asian community has taken part in the movement for same sex marriage and immigration reforms.

The participants at the summit will include Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s first openly gay MP and founder of Blue Diamond Society, the pioneer organisation for protecting gay rights in Nepal, Indian film director Parvez Sharma, whose documentary, “A jihad for love”, dealing with Islam and homosexuality, won five international awards, and Mallika Dutt, who co-founded Sakhi, an organisation for South Asian women in New York that addresses domestic violence.

It will also be attended by Pakistani-American Faisal Alam, who founded the Al-Fatiha Foundation for gay, lesbian and transgender Muslims in the US, Tamil Sri Lankan American theatre artiste D’Lo, Indian Mario D’Penha, a member of Nigah, a gay collective using film and the arts to conduct discussions on sexuality in India, and Pakistani poet and activist Naveed Alam, whose book of poetry, “A queen of no ordinary realms” won the Spokane Poetry prize.

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http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/world/gay-indian-prince-gets-parade-honour-415868.html

Gay Indian prince gets parade honour

22/06/2009 - 14:45:50

An Indian prince disowned by his family for being homosexual has returned to the country from Brazil after inaugurating this year’s annual Gay Pride Parade.

Prince Manvendrasinh Gohil is the only Indian to have been invited to the event this year in Sao Paulo. He was the chief guest at the parade which saw an estimated 3.5 million people participate.

The prince of the Rajpipla state in Gujarat inaugurated related events at the parade which lasted from June 10-14.

“It was unbelievable to see such a huge gathering,” the prince said.

“And the parade was not the only thing. I inaugurated an office, an art exhibition and even released a book on homosexuality authored by the mother of a gay son.

“I was even made to dance with Samba dancers. The experience was terrific,” he added.

He said people were curious to know more about India, where the practice of homosexuality is still considered a criminal offence. The 43-year-old was disowned by his family after he publicly announced his sexuality.

His rights as the only son and heir to the fortunes of the Rajpipla state were cancelled when his mother Rukminidevi denounced him in a newspaper advertisement in 2006.

Prince Manvendrasinh had struggled with his sexuality for over 30 years and had even agreed to an arranged marriage which ended in divorce a year later when he confessed he was gay.

The prince said he was excited to participate in the event.

“Every person present in the crowd was cheering for India the moment they saw me. It was a very special moment for me. People there are curious to know more about India,” he told Indian newspaper DNA.

Prince Manvendrasinh is fighting to change 19th century laws concerning homosexuality in the country. “I will study the norms that helped in making homosexuality legal in Brazil. I will try to incorporate them in our efforts to make homosexuality legal in India.” The Gay Parade in Sao Paulo first began in 1999 when just 3,000 people participated. It is now one of the biggest events for gays, lesbians and bisexuals from across the worl

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Monday, June 22, 2009

In Search of a Soulmate

Expecting my mate to be all - that is bit stretching it. But writing nothing ain't going to cut it either. In lieu of listening a bunch of qualities and coming across as prosaic, I'll say this: I am looking for a friend who measures up to my liberal beliefs and zest for life, who matches and contrasts with who I am; and, actually, a person I never want to stop learning about. I'd prefer to be chummy with someone who is willing to live his life walking between passion and poise; and, above all, willing to take an optimistic risk. I would be pleased to discover in him a gentle, soft, and vehemently forthcoming personality; and, not to mention, a rich sensuality requiring no exertion of will to animate it. Someone who does not fear what two exciting minds and delightful bodies would discover together.

If this sounds you I think everything else will fall into place.

Hoping the collision to be head-on.

Even if you lack that spark of passion I don't see why we can't at least say hello.

Nishant

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Queer and happily so: Bangalore readies for special fest Text

Queer and happily so: Bangalore readies for special fest Text
By Maitreyee Boruah

Bangalore, June 20 (IANS) In a country where same sex activities are considered a crime comes a colourful, weeklong event to assert the rights of sexual minorities - the Karnataka Queer Habba beginning Sunday.

The festival, which will include a parade, will not only try to create awareness about sexual minorities in society but also up the visibility of various groups that lead their lives under the shadow of fear and discrimination, be they lesbians, gays, transgenders or bisexuals.

In its second year, the Habba has got bigger and better. Similar events will be held in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bhubaneswar.

"Last year, we saw the participation of 600 people in the parade. This year we are hoping for around 1,500 people for the ultimate event of Pride March," Siddharth Narain, a member of Coalition for Sex workers and Sexual Minorities Rights (CSMR), told IANS. The event is the brainchild of the CSMR.

Narain said this year's event was especially important in the context of an ongoing case in Delhi High Court on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises same sex activities.

The festival was launched by various social movements and human rights organisations to resist police abuse and defend the human rights of sexual minorities and sex workers in the city.

Right from a cricket match to public debates, the Habba will see it all. Pride March, the last event of the festival, is likely to see lesbians, gays, transgenders and bisexuals coming together to assert their rights on Bangalore's streets.

The march will begin from National College Basavanagudi in south Bangalore to the Puttanachetty Town Hall in central Bangalore via Sajjan Rao Circle, Minerva Circle and J.C. Road - which are among the busiest roads lined with commercial establishments.

"After the success of last year's Pride March, we have decided to host an even bigger event this year. As a run-up to this year's Pride March, we will be hosting a week of events across the city," said Nithin, a member of CSMR.

Along with discussing and debating issues related to discrimination against sexual minorities and Dalits, the weeklong event will also see film screening, theatre and dance performances, story reading sessions and a public discourse on religion and sexuality.

"The Karnataka Queer Habba will address issues of discrimination faced by the Dalits and sexual minority communities, the legal aspects and history of the anti-sodomy law in India," said Nithin.

"Society has always been discriminatory towards sexual minorities. We want to say that they too are human beings and have all the rights to lead a normal life," said Sumati.

Anupama Gowda, a Bangalore-based advocate, said: "Because of biases in society, many of them don't come out in the open about their sexual orientation. With changing time, people need to change their attitude towards the less visible citizens of society. Law also needs to be changed for better living conditions of sexual minorities."

(Maitreyee Boruah can be contacted at m.boruah@ians.in)

-Indo-Asian News Service

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/weekinreview/21peters.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Why the Gay Rights Movement Has No National Leader in the US

Why the Gay Rights Movement Has No National Leader

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Published: June 20, 2009

Every so often, the American social order is reshuffled. And that upheaval is typically accompanied by a prominent face.

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COMING OUT Marchers demonstrate for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became the spokeswomen for the modern women’s movement.

Yet the gay rights movement, which is about to enter its fifth decade, has never had a such a leader despite making remarkable strides in a relatively short period of time.

Gay people have no national standard-bearer, no go-to sound-byte machine for the media. So when President Obama last week extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, there was no alpha gay leader to respond with the movement’s official voice, though some activists criticized the president for not going far enough.

Until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association. Today, same-sex couples can marry in six states. How did a group that has been so successful over the last generation in countering cultural prejudice and winning civil rights make it so far without an obvious leader?

One explanation is that gay and lesbian activists learned early on that they could get along just fine without one. Even in the movement’s earliest days following the violent uprising at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village 40 years ago this week, no singular leader emerged. Some historians believe this is in part because it was — and still is — difficult for the average American to empathize with the struggles of gay people.

“The gay movement has always had a problem of achieving a dignity or a moral imperative that the black civil rights movement had, or the women’s rights movement claimed,” said Dudley Clendinen, who co-wrote the book “Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America” and now teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University. “Because this movement is fundamentally about the right to be sexual, it’s hard for the larger public to see that as a moral issue,” he said.

By contrast, the moral authority that leaders like Dr. King, Ms. Friedan and Ms. Steinem could claim — and the fact that Americans did not look at them and imagine their sex lives — made it easier to build respectability with the public.

Another reason for the absence of a nationally prominent gay leader is the highly local nature of the movement. Unlike the civil rights and the feminist movements, the gay movement lacked a galvanizing national issue.

In the 1950s and 1960s, black activists pushed for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and asserted their rights in the courts in cases like Brown v. Board of Education. Feminists campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

“Betty and her group wanted to do it from a more top-down approach,” said Daniel Horowitz, a professor of American studies at Smith College who wrote a biography of Ms. Friedan. “You go to Washington and you lobby members of Congress. In fact, she talked explicitly about the N.A.A.C.P. as her model, and the N.A.A.C.P. had achieved its goals primarily through Supreme Court cases.”

Many gay activists pursued a different approach, focusing on issues pertinent to their local communities. Though he has achieved celebrity status of late, Harvey Milk was a mere San Francisco city supervisor, without much in the way of a national profile, when he was assassinated in 1978.

City councils and state legislatures are where domestic partnership laws and legislation extending anti-discrimination protections to gays and lesbians originated. In 1982, Wisconsin became the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And of the six states that now allow same-sex marriage, three — Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont — legalized the practice through a vote by the state legislature, without prodding by a court.

“The issues of gay rights are mainly state issues, so the focus for activism is going to be on the local level,” said David Eisenbach, a lecturer in history at Columbia University and the author of “Gay Power: An American Revolution.”

The shifting legal and political environment that has confronted the movement over the years has also made it difficult for a singular leader to emerge.

After the Stonewall uprising 40 years ago, the goal was to persuade society to stop treating gays and lesbians like social deviants.

That movement for equality was later overshadowed by efforts to combat AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s. And AIDS itself is a reason leaders were hard to come by. “AIDS wiped out a whole generation,” Mr. Eisenbach said. “What you have is a vacuum. And that still has not been filled.”

As the AIDS crisis was contained, gay activists shifted their focus in the late 1990s and early 2000s to laws about discrimination, hate crimes and domestic partnerships. Successes on those issues were due in large part to gay rights groups that rose up at the local level and learned to work with local lawmakers.

Until 2003, few even contemplated that gay couples would be able to marry. Then Massachusetts’ highest court ruled that gay couples had that right under the state’s Constitution, ushering in a whole new phase of the movement. Activists on the state and local levels were already well in place and found themselves positioned to wage the campaigns for same-sex marriage — as the recent successes in the Northeast have shown.

“They see dispersal as a great thing, that it’s better not to have a concentration or too much attention overinvested in one individual,” said David J. Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who has written about the civil rights and women’s rights movements.“The speed and breadth of change has been just breathtaking,” he added. “But it’s happened without a Martin Luther King.”

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http://desicritics.org/2009/06/21/052059.php

Queer Pride India 2009: Celebrations in all Major Cities

Queer Pride India 2009: Celebrations in all Major Cities

June 21, 2009
Sanjukta Basu

‘Greetings from the land of the Sinful Kamasutra’ said Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil while opening the Euro pride 2008 at Stockholm. (Video) But how many of us know who he is?

Exactly a year ago I wrote about Prince Manvendra Singh on this space - my post ‘Its time to stand up and stand tall’ where I said

“only when the number of people identifying themselves as queer is large enough and the faces known enough will the society realize it is not something so unnatural after all. And this responsibility lies with LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people themselves to come out of their closet and be confident of their sexuality. It's time to stand up and stand tall.”

And they did. In just one year, the queer movement in India has grown by leaps and bounds. There are more popular culture celebrities who now openly support homosexuality, most vocal of them being Celina Jaitley who have called out for supporting gay rights in India on her blog on Times of India. The last year or so saw movies like Partner, Dostana which had both explicit and implicit homo-eroticism and gay rights advocacy. While our cinema and advertisement have always had depiction of male homosexuality albeit in a funny and derogatory manner, we have been terribly silent over female homosexuality. This also changed (very insignificantly) in the recent past, a certain Virgin Mobile TV commercial is the case in point, where a girl tells her father that she is not interested in going out with this boy from her class. The father gets all worried thinking she might turn out to be a lesbian and insisted she goes out with boys more.

We have India's first ever transgender celebrity Rose Venkatasan on Twitter which in itself is a great sign.

Now India prepares for a never before celebration of Queer Pride with events and pride marches being planned in all of the 5 metros. The month of June is celebrated as queer pride month all across the world to commemorate the Stonewall Inn incident on 28th June 1969 and the series of protests that followed at the in Greenwich Village in New York. [Useful Link - list of queer pride march in other countries ]

Pride march is a way to tell the world that "we are who we are and we are not ashamed of our sexuality." It is also a way of saying that "we are not going to be cowed down by the norms set by society and wouldn't be ashamed of our sexuality even when we have to face ostracism." In India a pride march also means a protest against criminalization of homosexuality and the voices this year is loud and clear.

Bangalore

Karnataka Queer Hubba 2009

Bangalore will kick start ‘The Karnataka Queer Hubba’ this Sunday, 21st June 09. The Hubba is a week long event celebrating queer pride with a series of interesting activities, talks, seminars, film shows etc running up to the Bengaluru Pride 09 on 28th June.

Some of the significant events lined up as part of the Hubba are: Queering the Pitch: Cricket Match on 21st June; Dalit-Sexual Minorities Dialogue on Stigma and Discrimination on 22nd June; Release of Human Rights Watch Report - This Alien Legacy: The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism on 23rd Jun; Pirat Dyke Film Screening of One in Ten and Desert Hearts on 24th Jun; Public Discussion on Religion and Sexuality on 25th Jun; Story Telling Sessions on 27th Jun and more.

Pride march will begin at National College, Basavanagudi at 2:00 p.m and go up to Puttanachetty Town Hall via Sajjan Rao Circle and Minerva Circle and will culminate with a series of speeches as the crowd gather on the Town Hall steps. Last year the march was attended by as many as 600 people and this year the numbers are expected to be even higher.

The March and the Hubba are a collective effort of various organisations and individuals under the banner of Campaign for Sex-workers and Sexual Minorities Rights (CSMR)

(Official Website - For details, time, venue of the Hubba, Official Twitter)

Delhi

Delhi Queer Pride 2009

Delhi would have its 2nd Queer Pride March on 28th Jun 09 at 5.30 pm starting from Tolstoy Marg to Jantar Mantar. This year it is expected to be attended by even greater number of people and is going to be much more fun and frolic with wedding bands, rainbow colored flags, fancy masks and lively people of all kinds. There would also be street plays and talks at the end of the march. Like Bangalore, the Delhi march is also being organised by LGBT people and allies under the banner of 'Delhi Queer Pride Committee' and not by any particular organization. The official blog of Delhi Queer Pride says, "Queer Pride is a celebration. It is about loving who we are, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, hijra or straight, and affirming everyone's right to be respected." (Useful Link1, Link2, official twitter)

Chennai

This year Chennai would hold its first Queer pride march on June 28th, Sunday, 4 pm Marina Beach from the Triumph of Labour statue to the Mahatma Gandhi statue. The call to join the march goes out to Lesbian, Gay, Kothi, Aravani, Bisexual, Trans folks and Straight allies as they all enter Chennai to celebrate June as the pride Month. Besides the main march Chennai has also been organizing events to celebrate the pride all through the month of June.

The celebrations kick started on 5th of June by Amour, a multimedia Bharata Nathyam dance performance by Shanmugha Sundaram, produced by Sathir Natya and sponsored by Alliance Francaise of Madras and SAATHII.

On 20th June The Shakti Center and Human Rights Watch organized cultural performances and discussion on colonial origins and everyday impact of sodomy laws.

On 22nd June Monday, 6.30 pm, South Indian Film Chamber Theatre, Anna Salai, there would be a screening of the Oscar winning film ‘Milk’ as part of the South Indian Film Chamber's Oscar Film Festival, in association with the US Consulate.

On 26th June, Friday, 4 pm there would be held a ‘Support Group Meeting’ for parents and siblings of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Chennai. Facilitated by Center for Counseling, a non-profit organization, the meeting will provide a supportive and confidential space where parents and siblings can ask questions, get factual information, and most importantly, meet other parents who are struggling to cope with similar issues relating to their adult children.

(Useful Link1, Link2)

Mumbai

In Mumbai while the feelings and emotions to celebrate the pride perhaps remain the same the Mumbaikars prefer to call it the Queer Azadi March and it is held on 16th of Aug to signify the freedom movement for queer people in India. The emphasis of the march is more on the unjust law of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that in effect penalizes homosexuality. To quote from the official blog, "The choice of date, 16th August, was in order to make a statement that while the rest of India had got its independence from the British on this date in 1947, queer Indians were still bound by a British Raj law (Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, introduced in 1860) and Victorian mores that have corrupted traditional Indian acceptance of alternate sexualities."

Planning is yet to begin with full force for 2009 Queer Azadi but small steps have already been taken. The intention is always to make it bigger than the last year so perhaps we would see a lot of interesting activities from the LGBT community in Mumbai in August. Meanwhile here's a link to the media coverage of last years queer azaadi.

Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar

Full fledged preparations are also on in Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar however the dates are not decided yet. Kolkata happens to be the first proud city in India to have held a gay pride parade way back in 1999. In 2005 the Rainbow Pride Week was celebrated from Jun 20 to Jun 25 with much stronger participation than before. The Rainbow week consisted of film shows, art exhibitions, discussions and dance performances all meant to create spaces for dialogue and understanding devoid of hate, stigma and harassment against LGBT community. The week long celebration concluded in Rainbow Pride Walk through Southern Avenue, Gol Park, Gariahat, Ballygunge and Park Circus.

This year the queer pride date is colliding with Kolkata's Municipal Elections so they are reconsidering 28th June as the pride date. I will update this space with more information as I get them.

More readings - 2005 report, 2007 report, 2008, Link4

I have not been able to find any more information about Bhubaneshwar except that pride march preparations is on for the first time there.

The next steps: United effort optimizing the use of New and Social Media

The above listing is enough to prove a point - a point that I have already repeated. It is now only a matter of time that we get rid of the archaic law. A petition filed by Naz Foundation is at its final stage in the High Court of Delhi. During the arguments hon'ble court have been pro LGBT rights in its observation. My personal thought is that right after these two months of queer pride celebration the Court would pick it up and give the final orders which would go down in the pages of history as the true freedom for queer people in India.

Meanwhile there are still more efforts required from Queer community. As more and more city join the queer pride celebrations there is a need of a common national body which could support/promote/document the movement. Right now each city is doing it at their own level but their has to be a unity, coordinated movement, an army of peace loving queer people need to be built which would continuously be negotiating with the lawmakers for recognition of homosexual relationships, family units, property distribution, domestic violence etc.

Use of new and social media is still very minimal in the civil society sector. Internet is the only medium which is static, you can't see the re runs of a TV news for more than 2 days, you won't find the newspapers of 2 weeks back but anything you document on your website or blog would show up on the search results even 10 years later. It is important to document the movement on internet. I for one couldn't find enough content on the Kolkata rainbow pride walk, they don't have a website or a blog yet which are much needed. As and when smaller cities join the movment it would get even more difficult to follow them all via mainstream media. None of the city organizers have thought of designing HTML support badges and banners to be put up on their website to support the pride which is what young techie India needs today.

Hopefully in 2010 when I come back to this space writing on this topic I would be updating you on the same.

Till then do show your solidarity by writing about it on your blogs, micro blogs, help the movement being documented, which ever city you are go ahead join the march, take photographs, videos, make films and upload them on youtube. Spread the joy put some more colors in your life.

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