Today, December 10, 2023, is World Human Rights Day, and we believe there couldn’t be a better day to launch our initiative. For Hues of Pride aims to combat misinformation and disinformation about the queer community in India by empowering people with access to the right information.
I have spent more than two decades covering the LGBTQIA+ community in India. And I have realised that though inherent prejudices and biases may cloud the way a person reports a story, there is also a lack of access to resources and right information, which impacts the way the story is reported. This same lack of information influences the way in which the community is treated/ regarded by people from other walks of life – be it healthcare professionals, educators, doctors or government officials.
In April 2023, I attended a TechCamp focussed on combating misinformation and disinformation, where I met my project partner, Akin Babu Joseph. During the course of our conversation, we discussed starting an initiative that would help the queer community.
The idea of this website/digital platform had been growing in me for a very long time, all the way back to the early 2000s, when I met ‘Bobby’ (not his real name) in a garden café in Chennai.
A strapping young man with the eyes of a frightened child – that is how I remember Bobby (not his real name). Then in his 20s, Bobby, who identified as gay, was on the run from his family who had taken him to religious places, doctors and finally, a mental health facility on the outskirts of the city in an attempt to “cure” him.
After being heavily sedated, chastised for “sinning” and given electroshock therapy, Bobby finally managed to flee the place, and reached out to me through an activist friend.
More groundwork was needed for me to write the story but I was also worried for his safety. Though I offered him a place to stay, Bobby refused, and promised to meet me the next day.
I waited, in vain. I never saw Bobby again. I went on to do a story on conversion therapy, revisiting the topic several times over the years. The National Medical Commission (NMC), the apex regulatory body of medical professionals in India, banned conversion therapy in 2022 under the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, calling it a “professional misconduct’. But the brutal practice continues.
What Bobby said during our meeting remains with me: “My parents are not bad people. They genuinely believe that I am ‘sick’ and can be ‘cured’ or ‘changed’. If only they, and others like them, had access to correct information, and someone in authority would tell them what being ‘gay’ really means.”
And thus was born Hues of Pride!
This website is meant for everyone — community members, families, friends, allies, healthcare professionals, government authorities and the media.
I would not have been able to do the articles I have produced over the years without help from members of the queer community who opened their hearts and minds to me. Nor could I have taken it to the world without the support of editors who believed in me. All I can say is, “Thank you”.
This initiative is my way of giving back to the community that has trusted me with their lives and stories, and to my journalistic fraternity.
It’s a tribute to the Bobbys of the world.
Very moving note and a noble purpose to launch the site to voice for the LGBTIQA community, and the right person at the helm who has reported on this subject for almost two decades, best wishes Priya Mam, wishing Hues of pride a great journey on spreading awareness and getting the community what they deserve in this society- Keep coming !!