Growg up gay: From onscreen queer ins to real-life hero | GQ India

Contents:

• GROWG UP GAY: FROM ONSCREEN QUEER INS TO REAL-LIFE HERO
• FAMO GAY MEN INDIA
• 8 BOLLYWOOD STARS AND INDIAN CELEBRI WHO ARE GAY
• 7 GREATT GAY CHARACTERS IN BOLLYWOOD FILMS THAT HELPED US OPEN OUR MDS ABOUT THE COMMUNY
• INDIA'S FIRST OPENLY GAY PRCE ENDURED YEARS OF TORTURO NVERSN THERAPY. NOW, HE'S FIGHTG TO MAKE THE PRACTICE ILLEGAL.

GROWG UP GAY: FROM ONSCREEN QUEER INS TO REAL-LIFE HERO

One of the openly gay personali India, the 61-year-old Padma Shri recipient has penned down a heartfelt poem exprsg his anguish over the recent verdict of crimalizg gay sex tled ‘Through love’s great power’. His mother, Jtice Leila has been openly supportive of him and has been a strong supporter of the gay rights movement. Like a te royal who dit himself to the muny, Manvendra Sgh Gohil has been actively volved raisg awarens towards homosexualy and the implitns of AIDS sce the day he me out public, ten years ago.

That didn’t stop the Prce and he set up his own chary lled Lakshya Foundatn that works wh homosexual men and the transgenr muny to promote safer sexual practic, spe often facg hdranc om the police. A Journalist and one of the most proment LGBT rights activists India, Kavi is the founr and chairperson of the Humsafar Tst and has been one of the first people to openly talk about homosexualy and gay rights the untry.

FAMO GAY MEN INDIA

Born 1947, Kavi had dropped out of an engeerg llege, unable to al wh the reactns to his homosexualy. Fortunately he was enuraged by a senr monk to eely explore and exprs his homosexualy and he left the monastery and went on to study at the Internatnal School of Journalism, ‘g-out’ terview ma headl after appearg Savvy magaze 1986.

In 1990, he found Bombay Dost, India’s first gay magaze. His anisatn ntu to mobilise legal emancipatn of homosexualy India, bis nng several terventn programm for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmted fectns Mumbai and Goa.

8 BOLLYWOOD STARS AND INDIAN CELEBRI WHO ARE GAY

Onir is one of the few openly gay film directors Bollywood, who have shown that nothg is impossible.

7 GREATT GAY CHARACTERS IN BOLLYWOOD FILMS THAT HELPED US OPEN OUR MDS ABOUT THE COMMUNY

Menaka played a very important part the crimalisatn of sectn 377 that prohibed homosexual relatnships. He was one of the petners who got homosualy crimalised 2018. Parmh Shahani Parmh is the head of Godrej India Culture Lab and an thor who has wrten two books Queeristan: LGBTQ Incln the Indian Workplace and Gay Bombay.

INDIA'S FIRST OPENLY GAY PRCE ENDURED YEARS OF TORTURO NVERSN THERAPY. NOW, HE'S FIGHTG TO MAKE THE PRACTICE ILLEGAL.

Harish is one of the strongt voic pchg for equal rights India has featured many shows, cludg Ellt Page’s Gaytn. As a shy, pimply gay boy livg a one-room flat Colaba and gog to St Joseph’s High School a red BEST b, the Elton Johns and Freddie Mercurys of the world seemed too distant, too urse, I felt the allure of Judy Garland, Madonna and Lady Gaga at different pots my life, but never matched up to the trsic nnect wh, say, a Meena Kumari or Sonam Kapoor. When I first met the filmmaker Riyad Wadia, flamboyantly high after the succs of his documentary BOMgAY the mid-1990s, I found my first Indian queer in who was queer himself.

To watch gayns articulated so eely wh Mumbai’s cultural i, om hog societi to railway statn loos, was exhilaratg.

Everythg I me across while rearchg my first book Gay Bombay, I lapped up hungrily: Mythologil characters like Shikhandi, the work of artists like Bhupen Khakhar, wrers like Ismat Chughtai and Hoshang Merchant; films like My Brother Nikhil and Fire, magaz like Trikone, and books like Saleem Kidwai and Ruth Vana’s landmark Same Sex Love India. In a landmark lg, India’s Supreme Court crimalised homosexualy on Thursday. But who are India’s gay celebri?