Penning this down feels a bit harsh to me. It has always bothered me how some communities are differentiated and discriminated while others dominate. I suppose the reason why it seems harsh is that we have somehow grown up needing a separate representation of the LGBTQ even for our entertainment purposes. We cannot rise past the deep-rooted mindset that we’ve been fed and nurtured with: some people are different and it is not normal. What’s worse is, that this representation that society pushes back against is only meant to normalize the differences among us, enforced by our rigidity towards the acceptable and unacceptable.

The media has only showcased what is expected out of it, it is structured around what the public demands and enjoys. This tendency to prioritise profit has limited the media to publish works that they believe would gain them maximum interaction. It is only now that people demand more accountability and informative content. Looking back a few decades, the representation of the LGBTQ community was nothing but stereotypical and ridiculous roles, which were at best meant for comic relief and at worst meant to demonise the entire community and the mere idea of people being different. The representation of gay people as effeminate was so prevalent and mocked that it is still used as an insult to the cisgender. As for the representation of lesbians, somehow it has always been liked even though never talked about publicly. With a little introspection, it is easy to find the culprit behind this: The adult film industry. Instead of portraying the community as humans, it has presented them as sex objects and has helped cultivate a generation of men who are happy to see the representation of lesbians as long as it is directed to serve the male gaze. The trans people have been reduced to mere sex workers trying to satisfy the men who are too proud to come out as gay.

I have often noticed people appreciating great actors like Amitabh Bachchan(Laawaris), Biswajeet(Kismat), Kamal Haasan(Chachi 420) for their skills of cross-dressing as a woman. It is strange and hypocritical that in a culture where men performing roles of women in theatre and art is a tradition yet society is unable to accept the idea of transsexuality. Kuckoo from Sacred Games seemed to be a confident woman and everybody was drooling over her until it is revealed that she is trans and that’s when the memes and mockery came in. I still appreciate the creators for making the show inclusive and Gaitonde being a total sweetheart towards her, but it’s heartbreaking to see that trans people lose their appeal as soon as they try to be happy with who they are.

It is good to see that the media has started creating content which is more representative of the LGBTQ people. It has been a great step from portraying the community as negative, a subject of mockery and exaggerating effemination of the various identities to being inclusive and conceding the injustices they have to face. We all love Chandler from Friends. He is funny, sarcastic and a really good partner but I couldn’t help but notice how he has been repeatedly pointed out as gay for liking traditionally feminine things at various instances. It’s high time that we understand that Maa ka Laadla isn’t messed up, he is just different. The unmanly limp wrist forced wooing of the alpha male character, this is everything that is wrong with the stereotypical representation of gay men. The worst part is that this phase of Bollywood stereotyping wasn’t even funny (not to imply that it is funny would have made it better somehow), it was insulting and derogatory. The increased representation of the queer in media has actually escalated the acceptance and normalization of the topic to some extent but it still needs proper representation of the issues they face apart from the rom-com genre. Can you think of the last time you saw a multimillionaire gay in a movie or show? Me neither. And yet, Giorgio Armani is a real-life bisexual man with a net worth of 8.1 Billion USD. It is not ‘unrealistic’ or ‘forced’ for LGBTQ people to exist in fiction. Fiction derives from life, and if LGBTQ people with diverse backgrounds can exist in real life then why can they not exist as such in fiction. And because they’ve never been portrayed to us in this manner, we are unable to break our own stereotypes and prejudices relating to them.

This brings us to the portrayal of the LGBTQ community in children’s media, which is negligible to the point of zero in India. What we fail to understand as a society is that normalizing a culture that may help an individual figure out their own self is necessary. I recently watched Pappu in Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare and I could see what most of the genderqueer kids might have gone through in their childhood: unaware of the way they feel, differentiated and unaccepted by the society. The movie Love, Simon was the first of its kind, teenage gay-rom-com which too showed how gays have been stereotyped to behaving and carrying out a certain kind of lifestyle. Speaking of teenage queers, Riverdale took a strong stance on the forceful conversion of people to cisgender when Cheryl Blossom was rescued by Toni. Kevin has also been an integral part of the show trying to explore his sexuality and overcoming his fears. While talking about gender-inclusive shows, I can never skip Brooklyn 99 for being so open and nonoffensive about representing the queer. The show is written so well that the jokes are clever without hurting any community. It even represents a black gay Captain, the portrayal of which is otherwise limited to white people. This also reminds me of BoJack Horseman for having the only asexual character ever in 2019, Todd Chavez. The thing that makes it so distinctive is that his straight ex-girlfriend developed an app for asexuals after Todd came out about his sexuality and we, along with Todd find that he wasn’t the only one of his kind.

Where on one hand the OTT platforms and other visual media is trying to normalize the subject, the news media has been quite negative and ignorant while reporting issues of the queer. The only significant coverage that they get in a year is around the pride parade while it turns into a riot and chaos. Media has had a pivotal role in trying to make people accept various identities. The representation of the queer in Bollywood started as soon as the 1990s, way ahead of its decriminalisation which marked the need for educating people and normalizing different identities. Let’s take a look some centuries back when people who were trans held of high respect, were kept to look after the queens for being trustworthy and used as reliable spies. Khilji in Padmaavat has thrown some insights on his preference of both men and women. It is only fair to say that our ancestors were more tolerant and accepting about people having their own personal preferences if not anything else. It’s also fair to continue the legacy that our ancestors left behind and make a society that is acceptant and tolerant of the differences and diversities. It’s high time that we acknowledge the need for mutual respect to make this world a better place for the forthcoming generations if not us.

Only after watching Umang and Samara in Four More Shots Please! I realised even celebrities who seem to be so open and casual about their lives are so closeted with their sexualities due to the fear of their desertion from the industry and being tagged as inadmissible in the society. The entire world knows that Karan Johar is gay yet we have never seen the director accept his sexuality explicitly. His biography clearly mentions his encounters with homophobia while he prefers to answer questions on sexuality ambiguously. I have literally seen people ask “Tu Karan Johar hai kya?” (Are you Karan Johar?), as if to mock and question the other on their sexuality. A person is recognised almost as an icon of homosexuality in order to satisfy their irrational homophobia. Which pretty much explains everything that is wrong with society.

Where on one hand society is slowly progressing towards making itself more tolerable, somehow the politics have always been a disappointment in this aspect. More and more countries are starting to recognise and respect the right of queer community by introducing and changing laws and policies, which is a great step towards change. But at the same time, the policies still remain biased and ill-implemented due to deep-rooted stereotypes and orthodoxy. Begging is not a criminal offence in India yet the 2018 bill has criminalised the traditional systems of Badhai and Mangti practised by the Hijra and Jogta communities and has left them with no alternative for earnings since trans communities remain uneducated and unemployed. And somehow the politicians who are blinded by their deep-rooted homophobia, prejudice and casteism remain in power and continue to suppress and derogate the mere existence of minority communities. The landmark judgement of Section 377 in India has surely given a ray of hope to people earlier discriminated and assaulted due to its criminalisation. In order to normalise its implementation further, significant baby steps have been noted with the proposed inclusion of Trans in Indian Security Forces. The legal recognition of the Third Gender also stands as an important landmark judgement way ahead of decriminalising Section 377. But more or less, the status of the protection from bullying and discrimination still remains highly questionable under the Trans Rights Bill for it hardly covers any healthcare benefits and does not adequately addresses the violence. While the recognition of the trans identity is celebrated, their sexuality needed to be medically screened and certified by the authorities to be established as said gender until this year. This explicitly defied the Supreme Court’s judgement that was ready to take a person’s word to acknowledge their gender. Despite all the backlash and criticism it received, the bill mostly remains unchanged except for the required medical certification and not much has improved for the trans community in India. The bill is nothing but proliferated transphobia in action. Where little has been done to normalise the Indian gender diaspora, the aspects of equality and respectful life still remains a distant dream for many and the social acceptance and inclusion of the genderqueer is a long way to go.