LGBTQ+ Issues: Perspectives from a South Indian Straight Girl

“You there, YOU TWO, How were your hands held while walking right now? Do the same once more!” 

Eli (my friend) and I turned around to notice our Academic Coordinator glaring at us. Eli demonstrated it and told her that I had injured my leg and needed support while getting down the stairs for which she had held my hand. But our Academic Coordinator (who also happens to be a professor of Psychology!) was not pleased, and she kept asking us pointless questions before labeling us as lesbians. I stood there perplexed, wondering what was going on. I was shocked to even say anything, wondering how a highly educated person could be so narrow-minded as to label us as Lesbians simply because we held hands. It might seem weird to even think that when two straight girls held hands she concluded that we were lesbians! Such is the mindset of most people in India. 

Now, this incident occurred in India, a...

Editor's Note:   On September 22, 2017, Sarah Hegazi attended a concert for Mashrou' Leila whose lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay. She was arrested along with a group of others for waving a rainbow flag in support of LGBT rights. Her arrest coincided with Egypt's zero-tolerance crackdown response to end public support for LGBT rights in the country.  She recalled being jailed, beaten, and abused by inmates. 

Sarah (Zarah) was granted asylum in Canada but lived with the PTSD from her experience.  

“To my siblings,

I tried to survive and I failed, forgive me.

To my friends,

The experience was cruel and I’m too weak

to resist it, forgive me.

To the world,

You were awfully cruel, but I forgive.”

This is the last note left behind by Zarah Hijazi, an Egyptian LGBTQ rights activist who committed suicide last week in Canada. She was raped and tortured in the prison by the US-backed Sisi government for her...

As a straight person, I have always been curious to know about homosexual relationships, how they meet, how they hook up, how they know whether the other person is straight or not, and a lot of ‘HOWs’ to be honest. It doesn’t mean peeping into others’ private life, but just curious to know how someone could get attracted to a person of same-sex and have a crush on him/her without being sure of their sexuality. How can they approach the other person being unsure where to stand, in the border of friendship and romance? 

While all these questions excited me, I started thinking of it in a more focused way. I realized that these are not only the concerns of LGBTQ people but everyone out there including myself. How can I crush on a man without knowing his sexuality?

Love is in its most beautiful and purest form when an individual finds their soulmate in another individual regardless of their gender. 

So, let’s accept the fact that LGBTQ...