Month-long programmes to highlight visibility of alternative sexualities
The Hindu: June 3, 2010
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/06/03/stories/2010060353790500.htm
Tamil Nadu - Chennai
Month-long programmes to highlight visibility of alternative sexualities
Special Correspondent
“LGBT community is opposing the 2011 Census exercise where
transgenders are being counted as female”
CHENNAI: Chennai's LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender)
community, which in June 2009 organised the first Pride March to
celebrate sexual diversity, has drawn up various programmes over the
month to highlight visibility of alternative sexualities and gender
identities.
The Chennai Rainbow Alliance, a collective of organisations working on
common issues of the LGBT segment, will have debates on homosexuality
and family values, poetry reading events, beauty contests and film
screenings as a run-up to the Pride March slated for June 27. The
events are listed on the site chennaipride.orinam.net
Addressing the media, LGBT representatives said Pride Month in June,
when sexual minorities across the world engage in self-assertion of
rights, would be a time for celebration and commemoration of those who
died for the cause.
Kalki of Sahodari Foundation said though Tamil Nadu had been
progressive in recognising the LGBT rights, much more needed to be
done.
The LGBT community is opposing the 2011 Census exercise where
transgenders are being counted as “female”. The demand is that this
community be recorded in the category corresponding to the gender of
their choice and not limited by the limited binary choices of “male”
and “female”.
Though the Chennai Rainbow Alliance is affiliated to the India Network
for Sexual Minorities, there is as yet no coalition at the
national-level to lobby for the Census demand, L. Ramakrishnan,
country director (programmes and research), SAATHII said.
Sunil Menon, founder of Sahodaran, said families needed to value
sexual orientations of LGBTs as natural and normal and provide for
freedom of expression in terms of attire, romance and life partners.
He also stressed the importance of access to counselling services for
the emotional well-being of LGBTs.
Magdalene Jeyarathnam, director, Center for Counselling, condemned
unethical attempts to change sexual orientation through drugs and
other means. She called for awareness among the family members of
LGBTs that sexual orientations should be seen as normal and not deemed
to be symptomatic of a mental illness and sought to be changed through
therapy or marriage.
A support group session will be held on June 13 for family members of
LGBTs. The centre also runs counselling helplines on
9884700174/9884700104.
