Pride and Protest: India’s Queer Voices Rewrite the Rules

Pride Month: A Time to Celebrate, A Moment to Reflect

As the rainbow flags go up across the country this Pride Month, celebration and reflection walk hand in hand. For many queer individuals in India, the journey toward acceptance is far from over. Among them is Anwesh Sahoo — a multi-hyphenate artist, model, blogger, and actor — who has navigated both personal turmoil and societal prejudice to emerge as a vocal and vibrant figure in India’s LGBTQIA community.

Crowned Mr. Gay World India in 2016, Sahoo's achievements only partially reflect the inner battles he’s fought. Coming out in his teenage years, he was met not with acceptance, but with deep-seated discrimination and bullying. The emotional toll was so severe that, at just 17, he found himself on the edge of suicidal despair.

“I went down a rabbit hole of depression,” he recalls. “There was a lot of self-hatred... self-pity. I remember thinking, ‘Why has God been so unkind to me?’” The stigma surrounding his identity weighed heavily, especially as he began to understand he was gay. He was visibly queer, and that visibility made him a target.

Yet even amid that darkness, Sahoo found a rare clarity: the realisation that his greatest battle was internal. “I had to change the narrative in some way,” he says — a mission that would later define his life’s work.

Art as Resistance: Reclaiming Queer Identity Through Creativity

Rather than allow shame or hate to silence him, Sahoo chose to reclaim his story — through art. This Pride Month, his journey serves as a compelling reminder that visibility is a form of resistance.

In moments when the weight of depression felt unbearable, Sahoo stated, 'I told myself — either I live my life as an equal citizen, or I don’t live at all.' By choosing life, he also chose activism — not through protest, but through creation.

Blending design, culture, and identity, his illustrations elevate queer narratives long relegated to the margins. Drawing from Indian art and fashion, his work reimagines queer individuals not as caricatures, but as vibrant, complex, and dignified people. “We’ve been reduced to jokes in pop culture for too long,” he says. “I wanted to change that — one artwork at a time.”

From engineering student to design innovator, Sahoo now works at the intersection of technology and art, building platforms for queer expression. His goal remains clear: to rewrite how India sees its LGBTQIA citizens. “We finally have storytellers who look at us as real people,” he says. “This is our time to be seen — and seen clearly.”

Love Beyond Labels: A Couple’s Stand Against Stereotypes

Pride Month is not only a celebration of identity — it’s also a lens through which society’s entrenched biases are exposed. For Aditya Bandopadhyay and Dr. Kaushik Dowarah, being open about their relationship hasn’t been without consequence. The age difference between them, along with the persistent stereotypes surrounding same-sex couples, often made their bond the subject of scrutiny — sometimes even within the queer community itself.

“When a man and a woman marry, it’s seen as a celebration — a natural part of life,” Bandopadhyay points out. “But when two gay people come together, the first thing society thinks of is sex. That strips our lives of meaning and humanity.”

Both men speak passionately about the deeper need for normalisation — not just tolerance. “We want people to wonder what we’re cooking for dinner, not what we do in bed,” says Dr. Dowarah. 

Ironically, some of the most painful resistance they’ve encountered hasn’t come from the outside world, but from within the LGBTQIA community. “There’s still stigma among us,” Dowarah reflects. “Sex becomes the only validation. It creates narrow ideas of who belongs, and who doesn’t — and that hurts all of us.”

Legal Barriers Persist: The Everyday Inequality Queer Couples Face

Even as India marks another Pride Month with parades and public support, the lived reality for many queer couples remains frustratingly unequal. For Bandopadhyay and Dowarah, their relationship continues to be legally invisible in the most basic ways.

“We haven’t been able to open a joint bank account without pretending to be business partners,” Bandopadhyay shares. “We had to go through the charade of creating a business just to meet the criteria listed in the bank’s forms.”

That list of acceptable joint account relationships — parent-child, spouse, business associate — still excludes same-sex partners entirely. The same applies to insurance. “I still can’t name him as my beneficiary,” says Dowarah. “And he can’t name me. The system doesn’t recognise us.”

These barriers serve as daily reminders of the gap between social acceptance and legal equality. But for couples like them, the fight is not only personal — it’s necessary. “It’s about dignity. It’s about recognition,” says Bandopadhyay. “And it’s about building a future where love isn’t measured by legal definitions.”

From Survivor to Trailblazer: Uma’s Fight for Trans Rights

While Pride Month may appear celebratory on the surface, for many trans individuals in India, it is also a time of painful reflection. For Uma P — a trans activist, founder of Jeeva, and one of the country’s leading voices in trans rights — visibility has come at an immense personal cost.

Her childhood was marked by physical violence and relentless abuse, both within her home and at school. “My father would beat me and shout, ‘You are a boy, stop behaving like this,’” Uma recalls. The pressure to conform to a binary identity turned brutal early on. At school, even basic acts like using the toilet became dangerous. “Boys would force themselves on me,” she says. “They tried to strip me, to see what I had underneath. It wasn’t once — it was routine.”

Despite the trauma she endured, Uma has become a fearless advocate for trans rights — helping transform both law and public policy in India. A co-petitioner in the landmark Supreme Court case that decriminalised homosexuality in 2018, Uma also played a critical role in a lesser-known but equally significant legal victory: the amendment of Section 36A of the Karnataka Police Act. This change has helped curb police harassment of transgender individuals — a form of institutional violence long overlooked.

But Uma’s work didn’t stop there. She led the charge for horizontal reservations — affirmative action that acknowledges trans identity as a distinct category of marginalisation. Thanks to her legal push, Karnataka became the first Indian state to offer 1% government job reservations for transgender persons.

Still, progress remains uneven. “That one percent reservation has not been properly implemented,” Uma says. “We need more — education, housing, and job protections. Not just tokenism.”

Pride Beyond Borders: India’s Quiet Strength in Trans Visibility

Bittu K.R. — a genderqueer trans man and academic — offers a striking comparison that challenges the notion of Western progressiveness. Despite the many challenges still facing LGBTQIA+ people in India, Bittu argues that, in some ways, the country offers a more socially grounded foundation for trans existence than many so-called developed nations.

Having lived in the United States for several years, Bittu witnessed firsthand the hostility faced by visibly trans and gender nonconforming people. “I’ve been attacked on the street just for being who I am,” he says. “In the U.S., people still argue that trans people don’t even exist — that it’s all made up.”

By contrast, Bittu points to India’s long-standing trans-feminine communities — including Hijra and Kinnar networks — as having laid the groundwork for greater social acceptance. “You don’t have to start by convincing people that trans people are real here,” he notes. “That’s already part of the social fabric.”

Legislation May Lag, But India’s Social Fabric Holds Promise

While India’s legislative framework for LGBTQIA+ rights is far from perfect, Bittu highlights the importance of its cultural underpinnings — especially in contrast to countries where transphobic policies have been formalised at the highest levels.

In the United States, bans were introduced that targeted trans people even in academic and healthcare spaces. “They stopped funding life-saving programs,” Bittu explains. “Trans students can’t even go abroad anymore. The fear is real.”

India, despite its slow-moving legislative machinery, hasn’t passed such sweeping transphobic measures. “Our laws may not always be ahead of the curve, but our social acceptance — that daily, lived sense of visibility — is often much stronger,” Bittu says.

Trans Workers in India Face Fallout from U.S. Policy Shifts

As trans rights in the United States face mounting setbacks, the ripple effects are being felt far beyond its borders — even in India. Trans rights activist Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli points to a disturbing pattern: transgender employees in India are increasingly being terminated from U.S.-based companies as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs vanish.

“These people were hired when DEI frameworks were being strongly pushed. Now, with those budgets and initiatives dismantled, they’re being quietly let go,” she says.

Vyjayanti explains that even in the best of times, the number of transgender people in private sector jobs in India is extremely low. But now, with the rollback of inclusive policies in global headquarters, those few opportunities are shrinking even further. “Every week, someone is sharing their termination story. It’s happening again and again — and it’s linked directly to what’s happening in the U.S.”

Denied the Right to Donate Blood: When Bias Costs Lives

But systemic discrimination isn’t just found in the boardroom — it can cost lives in far more personal ways. Vyjayanti recalls one of the most painful moments in her life, when her mother fell seriously ill and needed a blood transfusion. As her daughter, Vyjayanti stepped forward to donate. But because she is a transgender woman, her blood was quietly rejected.

“At the time, I didn’t know about the ban. I was only thinking about helping my mother,” she says. “They didn’t say it directly — but I started to notice a pattern. They didn’t want to take my blood.”

Repeated incidents revealed an underlying prejudice. Hospital staff would whisper, unsure of “what kind of blood hijras have.” Vyjayanti suspects they assumed she was a sex worker, and therefore immuno-compromised — a damaging and false stereotype that led to inaction in a moment of crisis.

These experiences speak to the deep structural barriers trans people in India still face — not just in jobs or legal rights, but in the most intimate, human moments. 

Banned from Donating: A Policy Rooted in Prejudice

Under India's Guidelines for Blood Donor Selection & Blood Donor Referral, 2017, transgender persons, men who have sex with men (MSM), and female sex workers are permanently barred from donating blood — a blanket restriction based on outdated notions of HIV risk.

Trans rights activist Santa Khurai, from Manipur, is fighting to change that. In 2021, she filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court, demanding the removal of these discriminatory guidelines.

Santa recalls what first pushed her to act: “In 2013, three Nupi Manbi — that's what we call transgender women in Manipur — went to donate blood at JNIMS hospital in Imphal. One of them was trying to help a relative. But instead of being welcomed, they were publicly humiliated.”

Nearly a decade later, a similar incident took place at a private hospital in Imphal West. “Even though a trans doctor, Dr. Beoncy, stepped in to help, the doctor was mocked too. They questioned Dr. Beoncy's credentials. That moment exposed just how systemic and deeply rooted this discrimination is.”

A Gendered Lens on Discrimination

But as Santa dug deeper, she noticed something revealing: not all queer people face the same level of bias when it comes to donating blood. Trans men and gay men, she found, had often donated without much resistance.

“This is about how visible you are — and how much society projects its fear onto that visibility,” she says. “Trans women are far more likely to be targeted, not just in blood banks, but across social and legal systems. Even within our own communities, the layers of discrimination are complex.”

Santa’s fight against the blood donor ban isn’t just about overturning one outdated policy — it’s about confronting a culture that dehumanises trans women and others by branding their bodies as dangerous or impure. “These laws were never about science,” she says. “They’re about stigma and Pride Month celebrations are also about changing these stereotypes”

Her petition is still awaiting judgment. But by taking the fight to the Supreme Court, Santa has already done what the system refused to: shine a light on a policy built on fear, not fact.

Claiming Space — In Life, and Beyond

Many LGBTQIA+ activists in India have reshaped systems, policies, and public perception — not just through protests or petitions, but through the quiet determination of living authentically in a society that often denies them space. One such trailblazer is Thripthi Shetty, a transgender rights activist and artisan who became the first transgender person to be recognised by the Handicrafts Development Corporation of India, receiving an Artisan Identity Card from the Union Ministry of Textiles.

Along with her partner, Hrithik, Thripthi made another groundbreaking decision: they pledged to donate their bodies for medical research and organ donation. But the system wasn’t ready for them.

“There were only two categories in Kerala’s organ donation portal — male and female,” Thripthi explained. “But we are a trans couple. I transitioned from male to female, and my husband transitioned from female to male. When we tried to register, we couldn’t find a place for ourselves.”

The couple didn’t give up. They met with the then-health minister K.K. Shailaja, requesting the inclusion of a transgender category. Their advocacy paid off. Kerala’s Mrithasanjeevani organ donation registry added the category — and Thripthi and Hrithik became the first to register under it.

Their legacy doesn’t stop there.

“We’ve also pledged that if we die a natural death, our bodies should go to the Kochi Medical College. Medical students need to know what transgender bodies are like after surgery — how our bodies work. Education is part of justice.”

Pride Month is not just about rainbow flags, parties, or parades. It’s a tribute to lives lived in resistance — and a call to honour not only the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community but also its ongoing struggle for dignity and rights.

From fighting to open a joint bank account to demanding the right to donate blood, to simply walking down the street without fear — each story in this movement reveals not just pain or prejudice, but immense courage and resolve.

Pride reminds us that equality is not charity. It is a right — one that must be claimed, protected, and defended. Not just in June. Every day.