BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that homosexuality was a “genetic disorder” and tweeted that it was a “genetic handicap”.With the authority vested in him, Subramanian Swamy can say pretty much what he likes, and but unfortunately, too many people take him seriously. But more worryingly, the idea that homosexuality or any other non-heterosexual sexualities and sexual orientations are somehow a disease or disorder that is curable is very widely held.Having such ideas is bad enough, but when acted upon, it has had traumatizing consequences for the people involved. The Times of India recently reported that an LGBTQ rights group in Telangana said that it had counseled homosexual people who had been raped by their family members in a bid to cure them. Such “corrective rapes” are apparently believed to “cure” someone of homosexuality.Bengaluru-based Lawyer Gowthaman Ranganathan had then told The News Minute that a “rape is a rape” regardless of the intention behind it. He said that such rapes were indeed carried out, but in a silence deeper than that of other rapes because in such cases, the perpetrators would often be family members themselves. Unimaginably traumatised, victims rarely speak of it.There are other conversion therapies too, marital rape – force your son or daughter to get married. Here, both the men and women are equal, neither can file rape complaints. Men are anyway not recognized as victims, and within marriage nobody cares what the man does to his wife sexually.Why does this notion that it can be cured persist?For over half a century, scientists have been trying to find out if indeed biology has something to do with our expression of gender and sexuality. There do appear to be some tenuous links, but scientists cannot yet say with certainty just how gender, sexuality and sexual preferences are connected.And all this time, like many cultures, Indian culture too, has been hetero-normative – meaning that male-female sexual relationship regulated through marriage is the norm. But also attached to this type of sexuality are clear-cut socially sanctioned tasks, behaviours, characteristics for each gender:A girl who loves to run about is called a tomboy. Among the more affluent, is showered with pink things in an imitation of the traditional western colours of pink for the girl and blue for the boy.Similarly a boy is not considered a “boy”, if he is not tough, aggressive, outdoorsy, rambunctious. If little children do not fit into these pre-fabricated moulds for adults, they are treated as somehow abnormal.Is it any wonder then how much stigma persons of the LGBTQ community face? Even within the LGBTQ there are so many expressions of gender and sexuality, not necessarily distinct from each other, that the more layers one’s identity has, the more stigma the person experiences.If you are a teenage girl, you must be interested in make-up and fashion. But what if you like to run like the wind? And what if you dress and walk and feel like a boy, and are interested in other girls?If you are a boy, you must be maniacally interested in sports. What if you like to read more than you like to play? And what if you feel feminine and like a woman, and are interested in men?What if, we could raise children as little people, little individuals and let them explore games, behavioural traits, and even gender, in a healthy manner? What if we never told them “Boys don’t cry” or “Don’t’ talk so loudly”.Then perhaps, there wouldn’t be such homophobic comments and ideas that homosexuality is a disease that needs to be cured. And women may not be forced to rape their sons.