Post by griffo on Jul 1, 2023 18:20:38 GMT
4w.pub/how-homophobia-in-india-has-fueled-the-rise-of-transgenderism/
India is a homophobic country that punished homosexuals by modelling its archaic sodomy law based on the buggary Act of 1533. It wasn’t until 2018 that Section 377 was decriminalized. The judgement passed by the Supreme Court of India was just the first leg of the long-drawn battle for social legitimacy by the community. Issues such as same sex marriage, inheritance of property, and civil rights are yet to receive legal sanction. Gay men and lesbian women still can’t marry in India because the Special Marriage Act defines two parties as “Male” and “Female.” Despite the fierce legal advocacy under the leadership of Arundhati Katju, Menaka Guruswamy (lesbians themselves), and numerous activists, the Central Government opposes same-sex marriage as it is “not comparable with Indian family unit concept.”
Rape as conversion therapy is perhaps the most oft practiced anti-gay ritual in India. In the case of Sucheta this was true. Being unable to bear it, Swapna (who was the only earning member of the family) and Sucheta wrote a long and poignant suicide note and consumed poison.
There appears to be a steep rise in the cases of ROGD (Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria) in India. While there is a dearth of research on the issue, conversation with therapists from the US and UK backs this up. They tell me about desperate Indian parents reaching out to find someone to help their teenager—the kind of help they can’t find in India because, for one, we have the most despicable mental health service that is nascent at best, and most Indian therapists seem to want to instantly “affirm.”
Many Indian mental health service providers advocate for rights of minorities but, in the case of gender, they espouse the same logic as the West in treating transgender as if it was the same as homosexuality. Many advocates campaign against “conversion therapy” towards “LGBTQI” individuals without realizing that the “T” is a part of the problem. Enthusiastic professionals offer helpful advice about HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) and SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgeries) by using vocabulary like “assigned sex,” a factitious phrase that must be abolished from clinical jargon. Some offer trainings on Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice, which focuses on the oppression faced by the “LGBTQI” community (which may be true, but does not challenge young women who want to be boys with holistic mental health support, or understand the reason for such distress in the first place). The futility and ambiguity of the characteristics as described by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Model) only makes matters worse. These Indian websites also engage in rampant and irresponsible fear mongering with unsubstantiated numbers of suicidal ideation.
The government of India submitted figures to the Supreme Court in 2012 which claim there were about 2.5 million gay people recorded in India. These figures are based on those individuals who have self-declared their orientation to the Ministry of Health. While gay marriage is still illegal, the number of lesbians opting for SRS is on a steady increase with no speculation over the reasons. Meanwhile, an active cheerleading campaign for transgender identity spreads through the gay community.
A female constable from CISF (The Central Industrial Security Force) was recently officially recognized to be a “male” constable. Hindustan Times reports that she “underwent surgery to change her sex and beat laws that don’t allow gay marriages in India.” After an alleged four years of bureaucratic indecisiveness and lack of precedence, she was put through multiple fitness and “gender” tests. She took a loan for a whopping 10 lakhs INR (about $14,000 USD) for surgery and painful (lifelong) hormonal injections. “Had same-sex marriage been allowed in India I would have not undergone sex-change,” said the constable who hails from a small town in Bihar, and had joined CISF in 2008. Spending close to 7 lakhs INR (over $9,000 USD), a woman of a remote village in Orissa underwent a sex change surgery to marry her lesbian partner. On February 4, 2020 the couple married as “heterosexuals.”
Rape as conversion therapy is perhaps the most oft practiced anti-gay ritual in India. In the case of Sucheta this was true. Being unable to bear it, Swapna (who was the only earning member of the family) and Sucheta wrote a long and poignant suicide note and consumed poison.
There appears to be a steep rise in the cases of ROGD (Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria) in India. While there is a dearth of research on the issue, conversation with therapists from the US and UK backs this up. They tell me about desperate Indian parents reaching out to find someone to help their teenager—the kind of help they can’t find in India because, for one, we have the most despicable mental health service that is nascent at best, and most Indian therapists seem to want to instantly “affirm.”
Many Indian mental health service providers advocate for rights of minorities but, in the case of gender, they espouse the same logic as the West in treating transgender as if it was the same as homosexuality. Many advocates campaign against “conversion therapy” towards “LGBTQI” individuals without realizing that the “T” is a part of the problem. Enthusiastic professionals offer helpful advice about HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) and SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgeries) by using vocabulary like “assigned sex,” a factitious phrase that must be abolished from clinical jargon. Some offer trainings on Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice, which focuses on the oppression faced by the “LGBTQI” community (which may be true, but does not challenge young women who want to be boys with holistic mental health support, or understand the reason for such distress in the first place). The futility and ambiguity of the characteristics as described by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Model) only makes matters worse. These Indian websites also engage in rampant and irresponsible fear mongering with unsubstantiated numbers of suicidal ideation.
The government of India submitted figures to the Supreme Court in 2012 which claim there were about 2.5 million gay people recorded in India. These figures are based on those individuals who have self-declared their orientation to the Ministry of Health. While gay marriage is still illegal, the number of lesbians opting for SRS is on a steady increase with no speculation over the reasons. Meanwhile, an active cheerleading campaign for transgender identity spreads through the gay community.
A female constable from CISF (The Central Industrial Security Force) was recently officially recognized to be a “male” constable. Hindustan Times reports that she “underwent surgery to change her sex and beat laws that don’t allow gay marriages in India.” After an alleged four years of bureaucratic indecisiveness and lack of precedence, she was put through multiple fitness and “gender” tests. She took a loan for a whopping 10 lakhs INR (about $14,000 USD) for surgery and painful (lifelong) hormonal injections. “Had same-sex marriage been allowed in India I would have not undergone sex-change,” said the constable who hails from a small town in Bihar, and had joined CISF in 2008. Spending close to 7 lakhs INR (over $9,000 USD), a woman of a remote village in Orissa underwent a sex change surgery to marry her lesbian partner. On February 4, 2020 the couple married as “heterosexuals.”