"I Have Witnessed Brutality And Now I See Growth Of The Queer Voices"
“The world is changing” exclaimed my 45 year old friend Manish* (name changed due to identity protection). He has been working with a corporate house since last 16 years. He identifies himself as a gay, but has yet not mustered the courage to come out of the closet. Though now, at least a dozen people in the world know about his sexuality. Some of them are people he hooked up with and stayed in touch.
I WAS ONE OF THEM!
His previous employer found out that he had an affair with a man and asked him to put down his papers. For a long time, he didn’t muster the courage to take up a job in the same field for he thought that his sexuality would be the topic of several murmurs within the organisation. With a lot of counselling, and therapy, he took up a job and stuck to the comfort of it for 16 long years. His need for familiarity and comfort has taken over his ambition for growth. After many years, he called me when he learnt that one of his colleagues was trying to invite me to an LGBTQ+ event in his office. He was disappointed that I denied the opportunity to speak at the event in his office. It took me some time and effort in explaining that I have nothing against him per se, but I had my calendar full of events for the month in my new role as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion head at Axis Bank. He said “I had never imagined that one day someone barely 25 years of age would be speaking about LGBT rights so openly in my office and right in my face”
I can relate to Manish as I have witnessed the era where it was considered sensational to speak about LGBTIQ rights. HOMOPHOBIA was at its peak. People even today get honey-trapped by extortionists, those days, in the era of 377, extortion cases and police brutality were at its peak. It took a little more than just courage to speak up. We had a couple of organisations in big cities that catered to LGBT people, but no free-speech clubhouse apps and rainbow DPs. So when people like Manish are shell shocked in a positive way by the wave of rainbow hues in corporate houses – I get it. I have been in the sandwich era. I have seen the brutality and I saw hope and recovery and now I see growth of the Queer voices and the pink rupee.
In 2014, a World Bank report authored by Lee Badgett on “The Economic Cost of Homophobia and The Exclusion of LGBT People – A Case Study of India” was released that stirred the imagination of the nation. For the first time we could quantify the economic cost of exclusion of queer people – it was pegged from 0.1 per cent to as high as 1.7 per cent of the GDP. It touched on sensitive issues like Job Loss, violence, discrimination, family rejection, bullying in schools and also fear of the law and marriage pressure as the reasons for this huge economic loss. It stated that 28 per cent of urban lesbians faced physical abuse, 66 per cent of men who have sex with men in Chennai earned less than 1.5 dollars a day. And most importantly from a corporate point of view, 56 per cent of white-collared Queer persons experienced discrimination at the workplace.
A sharp contrast, while filing my application in the honourable Supreme Court in 2018 against section 377, I spoke to several young millennial voices to gain their perspective. Many were out and about at their workplace. Many millennials were making it loud and clear at their workplaces that there is No Going Back to their closets. I am sure if Lee Badgett was to do a survey today, the results would be quite different. The world is changing, the young are more informed, louder and do not take discrimination lightly.
From a time when we were a small bunch of queer voices screaming at the top of our lungs to find spaces of acceptance, we have come to a point where there are enough voices on clubhouse and Twitter and in corporate spaces to start their own queer version of their business.
The GenZ and Millennial voices are more informed and “Woke”. Never before has India seen generations of queer voices. We see it now – in all spaces – including the corporate space. This is where justtice, equity, diversity and inclusion as a function becomes important for businesses to proliferate. Every company needs to be sensitive to the ecosystem from where their employees come from. And the time has come, to not just prepare for queer inclusion but to prep up for a world where generations of queers will be cross-pollinating with each other. This could mean more ideas for growth and creativity. Let me say this loud and clear - This is just the best time for the young "Desi Queer."
