Minorities in India

September 27, 2008

Our class session for today was about sexual minorities in India.  We had a group of people from the organization Sunguma come in to talk to us about the challenges they face in this society and how the organization has helped them gain courage.  It takes a lot of courage to be homosexual in India because as of today it is still illegal.  Each individual speaker has had to face so much discrimination for being who he or she is.   There are many challenges they face on a daily basis.  One of the greatest challenges for them is finding work.  There are only two options available: sex work and begging.  It’s a hard life for them because they cannot get legitimate work.  Sangama is trying to unionize sex work for these people because regulations will give the individuals more rights and work will be safer.  This raises so many questions for me.  If they want to have legitimate work why doesn’t the group just work for equal rights?  I’m so confused by this. Why would anyone want to be a sex worker?  It just doesn’t seem right to me, but who am I to say what is right? 

I started thinking about sexual minorities in the United States.  I know that there are many struggles in the US but I think that there is more much discrimination in India.  In India it is illegal for homosexual people to even be with the person they love.  There is something very unsettling about that.  How can a government tell you who your sexual partners can and cannot be?  In the US there is a huge debate about gay marriage but that seems miniscule when compared to the thousands of Indian people who must hide their feelings and relationships from the rest of the world.  I guess that I just don’t understand Indian society enough to really understand this problem.