March 15, 2010, 9:42 am

March 7th, 2010 - 2:36 pm

Kathmandu, March 7 (IANS) Bhumika Shrestha, who became the first Miss Pink Nepal, is an icon of the transgender community. And she is also its first member to take the plunge into politics.

The 23-year-old last month formally became a member of the Nepali Congress (NC), the largest party in the ruling coalition. “Politicians have the power to make an effective change in society,” Bhumika said.

When Nepal underwent a sea change in 2006 to become a secular state from the only Hindu kingdom in the world, the transformation was further heightened by the first Miss Gay pageant in a country that ostracised its homosexual community.

Much has happened since then.

“I joined politics to get a platform for my people. Politicians realise they can’t ignore us. In the last elections, all the major parties included the sexual minorities in their election manifestos,” Bhumika told IANS in an interview.

She remembers how she was thrown out of school as a 10th grader for her “womanish ways”.

“I was about 10 when I realised I was different from others,” says Bhumika, who chose the name when she decided to carve out a new identity for herself as a woman. “I preferred the company of girls and wanted to wear their clothes.”

She was taunted mercilessly by the boys in school and was expelled after teachers thought she was corrupting the morals of other students.

Hurt and humiliated, she was wondering what she would do with her life when someone told her about Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal’s first organisation to protect the rights of gays, lesbians and transgenders.

“It was a huge relief,” she says. “I realised I was no longer alone. There were others like me.”

Today, Bhumika is a human rights officer in BDS and a well-known face in society, courtesy the limelight she received after being crowned Miss Pink and for taking part in public programmes seeking equal rights for the gay community.

Now she has chosen the Nepali Congress because she says she is inspired by the “democratic and socialist” philosophy of its founder, B.P. Koirala, who was also the first elected prime minister of Nepal.

She is also inspired by the thoughts and life of Mahatma Gandhi and Nepal’s freedom fighter Ganesh Man Singh, who strove for equality for women.

Bhumika has taken part in several interactions with Nepal’s lawmakers who are writing a new constitution where she has advocated equality for her community.

Though BDS’ founder Sunil Babu Pant is Nepal’s only openly gay MP, Bhumika and the others have had a tougher struggle gaining acceptance.

They are school dropouts while Pant is a computer engineer educated abroad and while he dresses in the accepted male way, they have chosen a sexual identity different from the one they were born with.

Suman Chepang, 20, was thrown out of school in Chitwan in southern Nepal for refusing to wear the uniform prescribed for girl students.

“For several years, I tied a stone to my heart and suppressed my natural inclinations, trying to look, dress and act like a woman,” says Suman who has now opted for a male identity. “But at the end, my heart revolted.”

Suman too was ostracised by society and when he decided to marry 23-year-old Bishnumaya, the bride’s family refused to accept him.

“There has to be a change in society,” says Suman, who has joined the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist with his wife and five others. “We decided to join different political parties so that it would be easier to usher in change.”

Suman says he chose the Communist party because he was profoundly moved by the life of its late secretary general Madan Kumar Bhandari.

“Here was a man who strove to uplift society,” he says. “Had Bhandari not died at such an early age, he would have transformed Nepal.”

A third group now wants to join the Maoists.

“It is the Maoists whose 10-year People’s War gave a voice to the downtrodden,” says a transgender who declines to be named. “It was the Maoist government that made the first budget allocation for sexual minorities and formed a committee to make regulations for same sex marriages.”

However, what is holding the group back is that the Maoists, despite their promises, have not been encouraging towards the community.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)

It’ll be lots of fun and you can meet cool new people.
Ages 24 & younger.

SALGA Youth Group is a safe, confidential place for queer South Asians between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four to discuss issues facing our community. Whether you need support coming out, or have questions about your legal rights as queer youth, or are just trying to connect with fellow South Asians, this is the space for you! Depending on what members want, the group can provide social events, community outings, discussions, and participation in political events.

SALGA NYC Youth is the youth branch of SALGA NYC, a volunteer organization which serves the needs the South Asian queer community both politically and socially in New York City.

Date: Saturday, March 13th, 2010
Time: 4pm - 6pm

Meeting location:
LGBT Center

Meeting Topic:
Healthcare

This meeting space is available for people who trace their descent from countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet as well as people of South Asian descent from other regions, including but not limited to the West Indies, Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada and the U.K.

The objective of the meeting is to provide a safe space for people where they can freely discuss and share aspects of their experiences as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning individuals.

Facilitators guide the meeting which provides the opportunity for open dialogue about issues important to the participants. Individuals decide on their own level of involvement.

It is the hope of SALGA that you feel welcome in this gathering and be able meet and make friends with people who can better understand, share and empathize with you.

Visit www.gaycenter.org for directions to the Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

“This is an important and overdue protection of human rights,” said Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried, sponsor of bill, A.5710-A.  “The experience of transgender individuals, and the discrimination they face, are unique, and should be specifically identified and unambiguously rejected in our State’s civil rights laws, just like discrimination based on age, sex, sexual orientation, religion, race, disability, or ethnicity.”

The transgender community is not protected under current state law.

“By eliminating the fear of losing their jobs, homes, and fair treatment in communities across the state, we can make certain that every New Yorker receives equal opportunities regardless of gender identity,” said Gottfried.

Albany, Buffalo, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester, and the counties of Suffolk and Tompkins have already enacted local GENDA laws.  Thirteen states, Washington, D.C., and over 90 other localities across the country have passed transgender-inclusive civil rights legislation.  Over 150 Fortune 500 companies, including 26 located in New York State, have policies in place to protect their transgender workers.

link: http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20100303-3.html

Films like Dunno Y… Na Jaane Kyun, It’s A Man’s World and I Am Omar will show homosexual couples’ points of view and the hardships they face in a heterosexual world. They will also show how men are often exploited under different circumstances and are unable to express themselves.

Actor Kapil Sharma, who plays a wannabe gay model in Dunno Y… says, “Audiences want out-of-the-box experiences and are mature enough to accept such topics. My film’s for the niche urban crowd and has been handled sensitively. It’s a simple love story; the only difference is that it’s between two men,” he says.

In It’s A Man’s World, Mohsin Akhtar will flaunt his body and his acting skills. He feels that cineplex audiences make intelligent film choices. “Big banners are delivering more flops than hits these days, but quality products will sell. My film is engulfing and hard-hitting,” he says.
Actors are now doing comprehensive research before donning such roles. “I met a lot of gay people and attended discreet gay parties in Mumbai to observe their behaviour. I also watched movies based on this theme,” says Kapil. Mohsin interacted with male prostitutes for his role. “I met young male prostitutes at director Saurabh’s office and observed their body language,” he says.

Although director Madhur Bhandarkar cut the kissing scene between Samir Soni and his on-screen boyfriend in Fashion to avoid censorship, now directors aren’t hesitant about going all the way to show gay love on screen. According to reports, director Onir has included love-making scenes between Rahul Bose and Arjun Mathur in I Am Omar and he justifies it by saying, “Arjun plays a sex worker. So, we couldn’t do away with the physical aspect of the gay issue.” Kapil’s also seen in an intense scene in Dunno Y…, and Mohsin is shown as a playboy on his film poster.

Director Sanjay Sharma isn’t bothered about controversies or objections. “I have not included scenes to create hype. Without that intense scene, my film would’ve been incomplete,” he contends.

Using fresh arguments that range from imperiling India’s defence to making its people delusional, 14 new organisations have joined the final legal battle against the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

On Saturday, the number of petitioners in the Supreme Court - challenging the July 2009 decision of the Delhi High Court to strike down an anti-sodomy law - stood at 16 from the original two.

Two Christian church coalitions, three Muslim NGOs, two Hindu astrologers, a disciple of yoga guru Baba Ramdev, an NGO run by a former Delhi police officer, and an environmentalist, will be among those in the Supreme Court when it hears an appeal next month against the overturning of the Indian Penal Code’ section 377.

Only one person, film director and Rajya Sabha MP Shyam Benegal, has quietly joined the original petitioner, Delhi NGO Naz Foundation, in support of gay rights in the Supreme Court.

With the government saying it will not oppose the Delhi High Court judgement, which experts consider legally strong, the new opponents are readying a range of fresh arguments:

· “Medical opinion” that only the vagina has the muscles required for sex, not the anus (Utkal Christian Foundation, Cuttack)

· Expanding the constitutional right to non-discrimination to include sexual orientation could lead to demands for job reservations (Apostolic Churches Alliance, Thiruvananthapuram)

· Indian cultural morality maybe ready for homosexuality in “50 or 100 years”, not today (Raza Academy, Mumbai)
Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party, Prof Bhim Singh, said in his petition that the Delhi High Court ruling would be “a disaster for the Indian defence forces and the security of the country… in deserted areas”.

“Seedlings of homosexuality developed among the (European and US) soldiers during the first and the second world war when they had to stay back in the forests and the hills for years without having any access to meet their sexual desires,” said Singh, whose party otherwise fights for the reorganisation of J&K.

“My challenge of the (Delhi) high court judgement is that it should not have relied on foreign judgements,” said Mushtaq Ahmed, counsel for Mumbai’s Raza Academy, a 32-year-old Islamic advocacy group. “We can’t impose a foreign cultural morality today.”

From Cuttack, B D Das, counsel for the Utkal Christian Foundation, a coalition of Orissa churches, said the decriminalisation of homosexuality had already led gay couples to request church marriages.
“Of course we have not given permission,” said Das, referring to homosexuality as a “biblical sin”.

“Earlier, it (gay marriage) was criminal, so they would not dare to ask.”
Recognising these widespread sensitivities, normally vocal gay, lesbian and transgender activists are staying under the radar. They will stick to the high court’s stress on constitutional rights of an individual over public morality and not expand arguments to subjects like marriage and employment.

“Our energies are focused on safeguarding the decision in the Supreme Court,” said Gautam Bhan, spokesperson of “Voices against 377″, a coalition of gay rights organisations.

The old arguments, made by former right-wing Member of Parliament B.P. Singhal and an NGO called the Joint Action Council, Kannur (in Kerala), have been reformulated as well. These focus on the religious opposition to homosexuality, threat to “public morality” and what opponents argue is its “unnatural” nature.

“(The) High Court decision will protect consensual unnatural sexual acts even when they are obtained by fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, causing fear, intoxication or due to unsoundness of mind,” argued S K Gupta, a disciple of yoga guru Ramdev, and representative of Delhi’s Patanjali Yogpeeth.

The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), run by former police officer Amod Kanth, said the high court had not considered adoption of children by homosexual couples and the concept of family and parenthood.

“The judgement will cause ‘value disorientation’ and torment children,” said DCPCR secretary R C Gupta, “leading to identity crisis, social physical and psychological maladaptation in society.”

“It is an established medical theory that AIDS spread in human beings through monkeys in African countries. Though not established, there are certain theories that state that unnatural sex with animals can be one of the causes.

“It is submitted that unnatural acts always come with curse from nature, as AIDS in the present form and therefore it deserves to be curbed with strong hands (sic).”

Against:
Apostolic Churches Alliance
All India Muslim Personal Law Board
S K Gupta, Patanjali Yogpeeth
B Krishna Bhat, environmentalist
Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights
Utkal Christian Council
Krantikari Manuvadi Morcha Party
Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam
Suresh Kumar, Mukesh Kumar Koushal, astrologers
(does not include all petitioners)

For:
Naz Foundation
Shyam Benegal, film director

Even as U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told a Senate Armed Forces Committee that the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about gays serving in the U.S. military should end, a young Indian-American Air Force officer played a significant role in influencing the decision.

Colonel Om Prakash, who works in the Defence Secretary’s office, had written an essay, The Efficacy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, for the Pentagon’s Joint Force Quarterly in 2009.

More significantly, that essay, written while he was at the National War College in Washington, DC, won the Secretary of Defence’s National Security Essay Competition for 2009 and was reviewed in advance by Adm. Mullen’s office.

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or DADT policy was introduced in 1993 when Bill Clinton was the American President as a compromise to allow gays to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. Before that homosexuals were proscribed from the services.

In the study, Col. Om Prakash wrote, “after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly. In fact, the necessarily speculative psychological predictions are that it will not impact combat effectiveness.”

Priyanka Mitra of the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association said that she “was extremely delighted” that a serving officer from the community was “playing such an important part in the civil rights struggle of LGBT people.”

There are a number of important activities coming up this weekend and leading up to the March 16 Special Election where volunteers are critical to electing pro-LGBT Assemblymember Jose Peralta to the State Senate in Queens.

The Peralta campaign needs volunteers at their campaign office in Jackson Heights, Queens to phone bank and canvass on Saturday, March 6 and Saturday, March 13 starting at 10 AM; they also need help in Get Out the Vote efforts on Election Day—Tuesday, March 16. In addition, we will be doing our own phone banking for Peralta in the days leading up to the election.

Please contact Erin Drinkwater at edrinkwater@prideagenda.org or 212-627-0305 ext. 114 for details on any of these activities.  Let her know if you are interested in phone banking and canvassing in Queens, phone banking at the Pride Agenda office, or both!

“Civil rights for all of my constituents and for all New Yorkers has always been a priority for me,” said Assemblyman José Peralta. “I have worked towards full equality for LGBT New Yorkers in my seven years as an Assemblymember, and I will be proud to continue this work as a member of the State Senate. I think my record in the Assembly demonstrates that when I take a principled stand on an important human rights issue like marriage equality, I don’t suddenly change my mind when the bill comes up for a vote.”

It’s time to get to work to elect Jose Peralta to the State Senate on March 16.

(From the Empire State Pride Agenda.)