Month: May 2020

Demonising doctors and families who force individuals to undergo conversion therapy is the easy bit. The far harder part is the work that must go into building an affirmative society that is respectful of individual choice

In 2018, the Indian Psychiatric Association clarified that homosexuality is not a mental illness but stopped short of calling for an explicit ban on conversion therapy. Doctors who practise it face no action(Amal KS/HT PHOTO)

K’s parents prided themselves on being educated and liberal and yet, when he told them he was gay, he remembers his mother saying: “You don’t have to flaunt it. After all we do live in society.” K is one of the lucky ones, unlike the many, who, when they come out to their families, are dragged off to psychiatrists, counsellors, godmen and sundry quacks for a “cure”.

The suicide of a woman from Kerala has ignited conversation on this so-called “conversion therapy”. There is talk of legal options in some activist circles. An online petition wants mental health practitioners to pledge support to LGBTQI+ people. Four different professional organisations such as the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy have issued statements debunking it.

Conversion therapy has “absolutely no scientific basis,” says Vikram Patel, psychiatrist and professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. “It has been prohibited by every major psychiatric association in the world, including India.”

And, yet, it persists, often with tragic consequences. “I’ve heard some heart-rending stories,” says Rafiul Rahman, founder of the Queer Muslim Project. Stories where individuals are subject to a range of often-violent interventions from medication, electroconvulsive therapy, forced institutionalisation and even exorcism. “It distorts your idea of self and leaves a scar,” says Rahman.

The therapy continues because there is a demand for it. Families, influenced by religious prohibition on same sex relationships, buy into ideas of what is “normal”. Also, the thought that a child might have autonomy in sexual choice flies in the face of parental authority. But, says Patel, “You cannot change someone’s fundamental nature or their fundamental right to be who they are.”

It’s an idea reflected in two Supreme Court judgments. Both Nalsa, which granted legal recognition to transgenders, and Section 377, which decriminalised same-sex relations, and affirmed the right of citizens to live with human dignity.

“Conversion therapy goes against the grain of the 377 judgment,” says Saurabh Kirpal, one of the lawyers in the petition. “It amounts to physical and psychological torture and negates the humanity of individuals by rejecting their sexual choices.”

In 2018, the Indian Psychiatric Association clarified that homosexuality is not a mental illness but stopped short of calling for an explicit ban on conversion therapy. Doctors who practise it face no action. But, says Patel: “If doctors choose to not follow science, they should lose their licence.”

Perhaps we need more centres like the Mariwala Health Initiative that teaches queer affirmative counselling to mental health professionals. Says its director Raj Mariwala: “There’s a much wider work that needs to be done if we are to be truly inclusive.” Demonising doctors and families who force individuals to undergo conversion therapy is the easy bit. The far harder part is the work that must go into building an affirmative society that is respectful of individual choice. It’s an effort where we all — media, professionals, entertainers, teachers — can play a role in writing a new script.

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal

If sex education is such a loaded term, call it something else — value education, life skills, consent education — but we can no longer ignore how desperately we need it in India’s school curriculums.

Projects such as The Consent Project seek to create awareness about legal protections and prohibitions. They challenge norms about what it means to be desirable, to be a man, to be “cool”. And they open conversations on personal spaces and consent.(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In 2018, Mini Saxena, a lawyer, moved back to India from the United Kingdom (UK) and learned for the first time just how tough it was to get schools to accept the idea of consent education.

Saxena had volunteered with a consent project in middle and high schools in the UK and wanted to bring the idea to India. It would teach kids why they needed to respect boundaries, and what their protections were under the law when these were crossed.

A 2007 Government of India survey had found that 53% of children, boys as well as girls, had been abused. Surely, such a project would be welcomed.

Not quite, she says: “I approached many schools. Nobody said ‘we can’t do this’ but they kept stalling under various excuses including, ‘we need parental approval’.”

The boys’ locker room scandal tells us that young adults have active sex lives and fantasies. When these ideas come tainted with the toxic masculinity that you find in countless films, advertisements, music and politics, you need to worry. And when they spill over into talk of rape and gang-rape, you have a crisis.

“Guys trash talk girls all the time. They ‘joke’ about raping or gang-raping them. They might not be called ‘locker room’ but literally hundreds of such homophobic, anti-women groups exist across social media,” says J, a male second-year college student.

Navigating this terrain can be tricky. Is it wrong to want someone to be your girlfriend? Should you post someone’s picture without their consent, even if it’s to compliment them? What do you do if you’re uncomfortable in such a group — leave, report or just play along?

Projects such as The Consent Project seek to create awareness about legal protections and prohibitions. They challenge norms about what it means to be desirable, to be a man, to be “cool”. And they open conversations on personal spaces and consent.

Sometimes the kids will talk about their own sexual abuse by someone in their family, or a neighbour perhaps. In other cases, anxieties range from a desire to fit in to a fear of revenge porn. A woman might share an intimate photograph with a boyfriend and then, if it is leaked, wonder if it was her fault, says Saxena who holds one-hour workshops outside of school.

Custodians of India’s “culture” continue to argue against sex education, insisting it has no place in our glorious civilisation. They, and we, need a reality check.

If sex education is such a loaded term, call it something else — value education, life skills, consent education — but we can no longer ignore how desperately we need it in India’s school curriculums.

“We keep telling girls how to prevent bad things from happening to them. And, yes, they need to know how to protect themselves,” says Saxena.

“But we really need to start talking to the boys.”

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal

Before Covid-19, women with disabilities were already undergoing their own lockdown, invisible and shut out from the rest of the world. Now, the walls are closing in.

An Afghan woman with a child waits for alms in front of closed shops during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Kabul, Afghanistan April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail(REUTERS)

As a girl of 15, Nidhi Goyal wanted to be a portrait artist. Then she became visually-challenged, and turned to activism. “I was 16,” she says about losing sight to a rare genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa. “It was a struggle and I was slipping into depression until I looked at my own privilege.” She then decided to “do something about it”.

Now 34, the Mumbai-based founder and director of Rising Flame, a non-profit committed to changing the lives of people, especially women and girls with disabilities, finds herself on the UN Women executive director’s civil society advisory group and president of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development.

Before the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) upended the world, women with disabilities were undergoing their own lockdown, invisible and shut out from the rest of the world. Now, the walls are closing in.

“Women with disability have been fighting to get out of their houses as their families worry about letting them navigate alone,” says Goyal. “Now, we are under lockdown again.”

Many of the problems are not unique to women, but apply to all people with disabilities. In some cases, caregivers are not able to reach those who depend on them. Access to medicine and groceries is difficult. Therapy and rehabilitation are on hold. And how do you even begin to practise social distancing if you need help to wash your hands?

But Covid-19 has also reinforced what many people with disabilities believe: They are invisible to society. When policymakers talk about vulnerable people, they refer to older populations and those with underlying conditions like diabetes. People with disabilities have not always specifically been included as vulnerable. “When there’s a crisis, who do we forget? Those we always forget,” says Goyal.

This exclusion is evident also in the global discussion on a spike in domestic violence during the lockdown. But how many women with disabilities face violence at home? Nobody knows. How do you reach them? No one has a clue.

According to the International Disability Alliance, one in five women lives with some form of disability, with an inordinate proportion in developing countries among low-income groups. These women face layers of prejudice that stem from gender, poverty, a lack of education and social prejudice. Often denied sexual and reproductive rights, they are at greater risk of sexual assault and violence.

To counter some of this sense of despair and isolation, Rising Flame has, through every Saturday in April, organised “house parties” (Vella Panti). These have included, a book reading session, movies and podcasts. “It was important for us to remind the community they are not alone,” says Goyal.

The fear, once Covid-19 is behind us, is that the “new normal” might for disabled women end up being the old normal where they struggle to be heard. “I’m concerned that marginalised groups that have always been left out will be excluded again,” says Goyal. “It’s time we took matters in our hand.”

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal