Gay rights activist speaks about initiatives undertaken by his trust to support LGBT community.
On Sunday, Pune witnessed its first LGBT Pride march organised in the Budhwar Peth to create awareness and celebrate the existence of the LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community and their supporters. The march was organised by gay rights activist and president of the Samapathik Trust, Bindumadhav Khire (44).
He is a software engineer who gave up his career in the US where he worked for four years. He returned to India and got involved with the issues of gay rights and AIDS. Khire spoke to Kiran Dahitule about different aspects of homosexuality in India and the initiatives of his trust for the LGBT community.
What is the central message that you wanted to convey through the march?
The primary goal of Pune’s first LGBT Pride march was to communicate with society. The focus was to march in public and tell the people that although our sexuality might differ, we are still humans. We also have the right to live and lead respectable lives. We should not be subjected to prejudices in any way be it legal, medical, social or cultural. We are normal people with different sexual orientation and we should come out to celebrate the diversity.
How satisfied are you with the response to the march?
Many people, mostly the members of our community as well as ‘Friends in Support’, a group that is our well wisher and supports us, came forward to join the march. The best part was that no one wore a mask to hide their identity. More than just coming out in open, it was a way to send message to society that we are humans and we should be given equal rights to live.
What kind of support do you provide to LGBT community in Pune?
The community never got any support previously. We organise interactions and sessions with psychiatrists. This is in order to sensitise and provide moral support to people from various backgrounds, especially gay and bisexual youth struggling with their sexual orientation and their parents and friends; people from the medical fraternity.
All the members of the community need proper counselling to handle the mental stress and tension created due to the stigma in society, harassment by parents and colleagues at work. On the other hand, we are also run focused programmes on HIV testing. A lot of LGBT members come for check-up and ask for condoms. This drive has reduced the percentage of HIV-positive members. In the last couple of years, the percentage has gone down from 6.25% to 4 %, which shows that there is a huge reduction in the occurrence of HIV among the LGBT community.
What are your future initiatives?
We are waiting for the Supreme Court judgment on section 377. This will allow marriages among the same-sex couples. The marriages will not be religious in nature but it is a fight for legal partnership. This will give the couple an equal right and a partnership in society.
In the next year, we plan to hold sensitiation workshops for the three most important pillars of society; the media, lawyers and police. These are the people with whom we interact the most and all of them need to be informed about the changing dynamics of our society.
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