When Deepa Vasudevan, a Canada-based Malayali, came to Kerala to explore her roots, she tried to meet other queer people in the state. This was in the early 2000s when terms such as ‘sexual minorities’ and ‘gender minorities’ were still new to people in Kerala. Deepa found that the queer people living in the state were very marginalised, oppressed, leading underground lives, away from the gaze of a society that only understood legitimacy of heteronormative relationships and marriage. Deepa stayed on, contacting queer groups outside the state, seeking help of the few who were willing to support, and founded Sahayatrika for the welfare of the LGBTQIA+ persons. It was officially registered in 2008.
If in the last decade and more, the visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community has considerably increased in Kerala, it is to a large extent the work of the queer groups that have popped up across the state, reaching out, questioning and fighting the system, and spreading awareness relentlessly. But there is still a long way to go.
Pride month just got over and the Madras High Court pronounced a historic order against the discrimination of LGBTQIA+ people, giving hope to community members in the neighbouring state. The order came with clear guidelines for creating a safe environment for the community members.
Deepa can’t count the number of crisis interventions that Sahayatrika has done over the past many years. “We get a number of cases of people either trying to live with their (same sex) partners or asserting their identities as a queer person. A lot of crisis interventions also include family abuse – families that are unaccepting their children’s gender identities or sexual orientation, putting them under house arrest. We often need to file police cases to help them regain freedom. Then, there is the problematic ‘psychiatric care’ that queer people are taken for against their will, the pressures of marriage,” Deepa says.
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The ‘psychiatric care’ Deepa refers to is conversion therapy – the illegal pseudoscientific practice of certain “psychiatrists” who claim to cure people of their queerness. It has received new attention since the death of a young queer woman in Goa last year, who had allegedly been subjected to the inhuman practice.
Queerala, a group that began working online and later registered as an organisation to cater to LGBTQIA+ people, had approached the Kerala High Court seeking a ban on the conversion therapy much before the Madras High Court order came. The Madras HC judge, Justice Anand Venkatesh, asked for action against conversion therapy while the Kerala case has been pending for nearly nine months.
“We have been able to make such interventions at crucial points. One of the first lesbian couples who got justice after the decriminalisation of Section 377 of the IPC (that criminalised homosexuality) was in a case we intervened in,” says Rajashree Raju, board member of Queerala.
Queerala was also at the forefront of a case that resulted in enabling people to identify as ‘male’ and ‘female’ or 'transgender' on their transgender identity cards issued by the state. Earlier, the cards did not have 'male' or 'female' options.
From an earlier pride march in Kerala
“Not just legal interventions, we have done social interventions, sensitising teachers at schools and colleges, holding meetings with parents of LGBTQIA+ people, conducting a sensitisation programme for mental health professionals along with the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS),” Rajashree says. In September 2018, the IPS categorically stated that homosexuality is not a disease and must not be regarded as such.
Due to the social and institutional exclusion and discrimination that LGBTQIA+ people face, they are more prone to mental health issues, and in a country like India, it is still difficult to find queer-affirmative mental health practitioners. To address this, Queerala includes important phone numbers including that of LGBTQIA+ friendly mental health professionals on its website.
Cultural intervention is another major role played by queer groups. Queerala has conducted art exhibitions titled ‘Homomorphism’ to showcase the work of the LGBTQIA+ people. Meanwhile, another organisation founded by trans rights activist Sheethal Shyam, Dhwayah, has been conducting beauty pageants since 2017.
Sheethal, one of the early queer activists in Kerala, remembers the mid-2000s in the state, when there was hardly any visibility for the community. “There were a few like Deepa who started Sahayatrika; activists like Maithreyan and Jayashree; and Aryan Krishnan who founded Vathil to work on the cause. After the 2009 Delhi High Court verdict decriminalising homosexuality (which was later overturned by Supreme Court before decriminalising it again in 2018), I started a community-based organisation called Voice and was founder-member of the first Queer Pride in Kerala,” Sheethal says.
In 2009, she remembers how the media was so unaware of the movement, describing the pride as a march by the ‘hijadas’, a term used for trans people, considered by some as derogatory. After the 2014 NALSA judgement that gave trans people the right to self-identity as male, female or third gender, Sheethal’s Voice worked with the Social Justice Department of Kerala to do a survey that would lead to the state’s Transgender Policy of 2015.
From Parayan Maranna Kathakal
When she started Dhwayah, it was not only for increasing visibility of the community but also giving them job opportunities. “We had a project to train 30 people in a beauty academy. We also have a trans theatre group called Mazhavil Dhwani, which has staged plays and travelled to different theatre festivals in India,” Sheethal adds.
Another important role played by queer groups is setting up dedicated helpline number for people in crisis. Queerythm, a Thiruvananthapuram-based organisation, has been handling calls actively for four years now, making interventions as peacefully as possible, involving families.
Prijith PK, the founder, says Queerythm has handled about 5,000 calls so far, giving legal, mental health, and peer support. “We want it to be inclusive of the families of queer people. So, we don’t just try to save the queer person out of a crisis, but also keep following up with families, trying to sensitise them, trying to spread awareness so they could accept their child the way the child is,” Prijith says.
Recently, when a team from Queerythm went to the rescue of a trans woman in Kottarakkara who had been locked up, the family called them “mafia”. “But we were prepared for such hostility. So,we had informed the police and asked for their support before going there. We were able to rehabilitate the person and provide help with education and gender affirmation surgery. We also did continuous follow-ups with the parents and within the year, they were able to accept the person.”
The group always makes sure the work is done through proper channels, or it would cause even more trouble to the community members. They had been part of the Social Justice Department’s move to start homes for trans men. However, some of the homes, including one managed by Queerythm in Thiruvananthapuram, were shut down, when there were fewer residents, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April this year, a new queer group has come up in the capital – AMOR Lesbian and Gay collective, a community-based organisation. It was founded by seven friends, most of whom have been actively taking part in the running of other queer welfare organisations.
“After years of relentless fights, helped by other queer people and allies, the transgender community is a lot more visible now. However, the problems of sexual minorities are not as addressed, comparatively. We felt that we needed a group exclusively for the rights of the sexual minorities, for lesbian and gay people,” says Sinosh, a founder-member of AMOR.
On June 28, they had a virtual pride with panel discussion, a week after holding a virtual queer art exhibition. They announced a Mr Gay and a Miss Lesbian India 2021 competition on the same day.
The group is also focusing on improving possibilities for the community, organising English courses, health and fitness classes, and so on. “There are also mental health programmes, counselling, and access in talking to doctors,” Sinosh adds.
AMOR was among others to raise concerns about the definition of homosexuality as an “unnatural sexual offence” in a medical textbook. They sent a complaint to Health Minister Veena George. For the same issue, Queerthym launched a national campaign to stop criminalisation of homosexuality in medical textbooks.
There are now several other groups such as Oasis, Punarjani, to name a few, across the state, doing their bit to accommodate, reach out or provide support to LGBTQIA+ community members.