Session on LGBTQIA community

It was so great to be part of today’s session which was focusing on the LGBTQIA community. I have always wanted to know better about this community and I always wanted to understand the perspective of the people in this community and that was my expectation prior the site visit and I must say I learnt a lot. I have always realized that in the location that I come from, people who belong in the LGBTQIA community are always discriminated against and suffer from the stereotypes in the community like being told that being gay means they’re possessed with demons even though they don’t have a choice really. Going to the session today brought light to me and taught me something new and thanks to the representative from WhyShy and of course 360 plus.

I have learnt from her presentation that being part of the LGBTQ community existed in the ancient times too particularly in India and on religious beliefs everyone was equal. She further explained that there was a festival named Koovagam where Krishna was to marry Aravan prior the battle of Mabharata of which this was a woman marrying another woman. In my toolkit I have added law as part of the resources I could use because I learnt that WhyShy use the bill of rights to advocate the discrimination against the LGBTQ community and using media for sharing the awareness so I’ve happily added those in my toolkit. What really stood out for me was the lesson that we should not address gay people or anyone who belongs to the LGBT community as “them” and be inclusive and address the entire community as “us” and not discriminate people against their sexuality.