Accepting the LGBTQ The culture of queer conditioning
at around the age of
10 12 i realized that i couldn’t fit
into any box of identity
that the society had made for me
as time passed by i was conditioned
more and more into believing that i was
wrong and did not deserve to live a
dignified life
i felt suffocated to form
a false illusion of my identity just to
get validated by the society
to pretend to be what i was not and then
one decision
changed my life hi i’m max suryash
sharma
and i do not hesitate to say that i am
lesbian and genderfluid
although there was a time in my life
where i would literally shivered at the
thought of telling this to anybody
even to myself why
why was it so hard for me to accept what
i was
why is it still hard for some people to
agree that humans like me exist
conditioning conditioning has the
magnificent power to affect
every human’s mindset on this world
while we might be negatively conditioned
literally every day of our life
we still choose to be blind puppets to
it
but what exactly is this
how exactly does conditioning work
we are constantly learning and gaining
new knowledge in our life
to achieve our dreams and to also bring
about a change in the society
while conditioning also involves
learning about new concept
sometimes it can become a parasite
that stops you from adapting to new
knowledge and proceed
after a point of time we become constant
and stagnant with a way of thinking
and eventually become unreasonable and
outdated
we are conditioned in religion gender
caste
sexuality how one has to behave what is
proper what is not what is appropriate
after a point of time we need to
decondition
ourselves delve into it and realize
that we are merely following what was
said to us
and paving way for more injustice
for example when a baby is born
we tend to assign the color blue to boys
and pink to colds but does it mean
that the child has to hate the color of
the other gender
does it mean that if a boy grows up to
like the color pink he’s less
of a man no not
at all now let’s discuss about something
that we all must have witnessed but
perhaps
jules do not talk about it bother about
it
do you remember the first time you met a
hijra person and you felt intimidated
just by their looks do you remember that
one guy who was a little feminine and
the girl
was little masculine was bullied in the
class
and no one said nothing do you remember
that one character in a movie who was a
little
feminine who wore floral clothes and it
felt absolutely okay to humiliate them
we all witnessed this we witnessed the
pain
and injustice but jews do not talk about
it because
we weren’t supposed to right we were
taught that these people were wrong
dirty by media by films
in fact the stories by our own relatives
parents
the lgbt community is one of the most
tabooed communities in our country from
the society’s
hostile and violent behavior towards us
to the basic fundamental rights that we
don’t have
every day is a fight a fight against the
society
which constantly targets the identity of
people
who are different another way of
forming notions about a certain
community is to not talk about
it enough people are unaware ignorant
they don’t know what’s right what’s
wrong
and they feel that it’s insignificant to
them
section 377 was struck down in 2018 and
lives have changed
just legally we are not criminals
anymore
but how our lives will be is not
guaranteed
people are still hostile even violent
towards the members
of the community they are unaware
they have certain myths and they are
even violent sometimes
so what do we do how do we become good
allies
to the community by breaking down
all the notions stereotypes myths that
we have
formed of the community over the period
of time
and putting an effort to making
ourselves and people around us aware
about what’s true and what’s wrong
so let’s start with discussing something
and educate ourselves
the lgbt community stay in the closet
suffocated isolated uncomfortable
because they do not have the freedom to
express themselves
openly myths like it is a phase
it’s it’s a disease and it’s treatable
it’s so prevalent in our country
that some of us believe it true and try
to get it treated
conversion therapies therapies that
claim to treat someone’s identity
by supernatural energies or even painful
shocks corrective rape
getting a homosexual woman raped because
someone thinks that
they haven’t experienced it and many
other forms of
violence is used by people to treat
someone’s identity
some of you are lefties
some of you are righties some of you are
dark by complexion
some fair some somewhere in the between
some have a sixth finger in the hand
similarly some are gay some are straight
and others can belong anywhere in the
spectrum
we need to realize that these are just
variations that do not need to be
corrected
being gay being straight being bisexual
being trans being non-binary
is as innate and normal to a person as
being left to your writing
these do not need to be corrected
because they’re absolutely
innately correct
another myth that we break hair is that
gender is same as sex
now that is a huge myth sex is not same
as gender and they cannot be used
interchangeably
sex is what you’re biologically born as
what you’re assigned at birth
but gender is what you feel about
yourself
which you identify and understand over a
period of time
i was assigned female at birth but i
realized that i was gender fluid
now both gender or sex is not
binaries there are not just two sects
in the world and gender is actually a
spectrum
prefixes or pronouns are not
binary too i am
mx riya and mx is a gender neutral
prefix
my pronouns are they and them and not
she
or he but why do we need to understand
all this
it’s so complicated because
this is the first step towards
inclusivity
a first step towards creating a safe
space for people
who identify differently
one more argument that we get a lot of
times in our country
is that it has come from the west it’s a
modern phenomenon
have we forgotten the beautiful past
of our country have we forgotten
the beautiful scripts the epics
the histories that our country has
produced
there were there were different
identities
diversity of identities which were
accepted
and embraced for example the beautiful
feminine of thoughts of male gods
the beautiful story of arawaan and
krishna
where krishna converts into a female for
arawan
and the beautiful life story of
sheikhandi
every religion propagated the idea of
love and respect
it was us who created stereotypes
phobias
hate so i get all of this
i understand all of this but i have one
question
when do we start to teach the next
generation the kids
about such concepts well
let’s start to teach them basic love
and empathy let’s teach them that no
matter how their friend expresses
themselves
they are to be respected and considered
one among them
let’s teach them that love is beautiful
and hate is destructive
well i think that children are better
off than us
they originally do not differentiate
their friends
they differentiate others on the basis
of how the other person behaves with
them
and not on the basis of what the other
person’s
religion is how the person looks
so perhaps we need to decondition
ourselves and get to the basics of
love and respect
one decision that changed my life as i
told you in the beginning
was to not think about what the society
would think of me how the society would
treat me
and stand strong and have a voice for my
community
well i always say that i am very
fortunate
and privileged my family and friends
have accepted me and my identity
i remember that when my parents accepted
me
and my sexuality i knew that
they will always be with me as a support
and as a shield
one more person that transformed my life
was my partner
like any heterosexual relationships
we have had our love layups and extreme
dumbs
but no matter what happened we stood by
each other
at every step but no matter how much i
love her
no matter how committed and devoted we
are towards each other
we won’t be able to experience some
beautiful
special moments of our life
marriage children
i want to ask you something do you
really
think that love should have any
conditions
i don’t think so so let’s
understand the true meaning of love and
respect
let’s not get caught against the war of
different religions sex sexuality
or speciesism we are moving towards a
better society where respect prevails
but it won’t be possible if each one of
us do not stand strong
and become allies for each other
humanity is the key
a human is nothing
nothing without humanity
and everything being
himself and being kind
thank you