Out of the closet, on a DVD

Her first job was as a security guard at a hotel in Delhi after which Betu Singh set up her own business in the early 1990s. Soon, she gave it all up to work for the rights of lesbians and now runs the Sangini Trust, which is among the few registered organisations for homosexual women in the country.

Singh and several other prominent members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community have joined hands for Project Bolo, a collection of their personal accounts which will be available as a DVD, an online streaming video, and a book. The project, a part of the ongoing Queer Azadi Mumbai Week, was launched at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on January 22.

“We take a look into the lives of those from the LGBT community and focus on their growing-up years, their coming to terms with their sexuality, their struggles at home and at work, the repercussions of their sexual orientation, and their personal victories and failures,’’ said filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan, who has conceptualised and directed the video featuring 20 people from the LGBT community.

The project will also highlight the milestones of the Indian LGBT movement since the early 1960s. It will include a list of gay hangouts and cruising places, an account of the early efforts at forming groups in Mumbai and Delhi, and finally, the historic Delhi HC verdict in 2009 decriminalising homosexuality.