Queer community in Hyd slams popular prankster Vinay Kuyya's offensive videos

Activists say that they had approached Vinay more than a year ago to take down such content, but that he's continued to create more such videos.
Queer community in Hyd slams popular prankster Vinay Kuyya's offensive videos
Queer community in Hyd slams popular prankster Vinay Kuyya's offensive videos
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The LGBTQIA+ community in Hyderabad has slammed certain offensive videos created by Vinay Kuyya, a popular content creator and prankster in the city. The videos uploaded allegedly without the consent of the persons involved, misrepresent gay people as transgender people, and also promote transphobia as humour.

Vinay’s YouTube channel, which goes by his name, has videos masquerading as “social experiments” - this involves playing pranks on unsuspecting people on the roads, on highways at night, and even on older people in their own homes. The channel has 559k subscribers despite the fact that Vinay had received a warning from the Hyderabad police last year for allegedly creating "public nuisance".

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Patruni Chidananda Sastry, a dancer and LGBTQIA+ activist, put out a couple of screenshots of Vinay Kuyya’s videos that make fun of the queer community. The videos are available on Vinay’s page on YouTube and also on Instagram.

For example, one of Vinay’s "social experiment" videos is a prank on his friend’s parents, where Vinay comes out to them as a gay person, and the parents are told that Vinay and their son are married. The video shows Vinay dressed in a caricatured effeminate manner, wearing a mangalsutra and shawl over his head. 

“The video was initially titled 'Transgender marriage' while it showed the marriage between two gay men. I got in touch with Vinay and asked him to learn the difference between the terms, and also asked him to take down the video which is quite homophobic in nature. He apologised but till date, he hasn’t issued a public apology and is still making videos that are offensive to the entire community,” Sastry says.

The page also has other problematic content, which includes men dressing up as sex workers on a highway, and another one where Vinay is seen asking money from two transgender persons. The video blatantly makes fun of trans persons in action and words. There are also videos of Vinay riding a bike on the road semi-naked, and another one where Vinay and his friend pinch women’s cheeks on the roads without their consent.

Sastry also talks about another video which was shot by Vinay during a queer event in Hyderabad, which had a couple of queer persons talking about their lives and experiences.

“The next thing we knew is that he put it out on his channel without obtaining consent from any of us. This created a big ruckus in my friend's house where the parents were not yet aware of his sexual orientation,” he adds.

It’s been a more than a year since the queer community first approached Vinay, and asked him to take down the objectionable content from YouTube.

“I think he took it as a challenge and in the past few months, has come up with more such content that makes fun of the queer community without having a basic understanding of the terminologies,” says Satry, while adding, “The other day, as a part of AIDS awareness campaign, I wore makeup and was walking on the streets in Nampally when an auto-rickshaw guy touched me inappropriately and asked me if I was 'available'. We deal with such levels of discrimination on a regular basis and we don’t wish to see people on the internet too having a laugh at the expense of an entire community.”

Speaking to TNM, Vinay Kuyya claims that it isn’t possible to put out an apology because that would prompt more people to go back and watch the same video.

“We changed the caption of the video after it was brought to our notice (from transgender to gay). I apologised to the people who pointed it out to me. Whom else should I say sorry to?” Vinay asks.

Talking about other videos on his channel that make fun of transgender people, he claims that these were shot after obtaining consent from the concerned people. However, he still chooses to call them “social experiment” videos.

Ayaan, a trans man and an activist for the transgender community, explains why such videos are problematic and how they affect the LGBTQIA+ community at large.

“In LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender), the first three sections have started commanding some sort of respect in the society while transgender people are still looked down upon as 'hijras'. It doesn’t mean that a gay person’s life is better when compared to ours, but for a trans person, our relationship with our own bodies and how the society perceives us is one of the biggest challenges,” Ayaan says, adding, “The creators need to understand that such videos are watched by members of our community which again creates a deep sense of trauma in our minds. Under such circumstances, creating content at the expense of our community, which is already downtrodden, is only pulling us one step backwards in our efforts at fighting for equality.”

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