🌈 Happy Pride 🌈

A cute picture from pinterest symbolising LGBTQIA+

Hello there! It's pride month, and being a wholehearted ally, I felt it was my duty to use any platform to spread the word. So here I am expressing my love for OUR community.

Yes that's right, after educating myself on LGBTQIA+ I understood how important and intrinsic, Allies are to this community. In this article I'll be explaining just a little bit about LGBTQIA+ (because you can find that info anywhere on google), more of my focus will be on making you see how stupid we are, to feel entitled to be telling someone else, what their identity should be. With some parts of conversation with an elder, where I tried to open up that person to the fact of Fluidity. And lastly explaining the importance of allies to the community and the society. Please share this one with all your family and friends.

So, LGBTQIA+ stands for : Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexuals/Allies. The + indicates more Fluid identities that either aren't identified yet or are the sub parts of the above said identities and Pansexuals and two spirits.

Lesbians are women sexually interested in women. Gays are men sexually interested in men. Bis are people interested in both male/female genders, Queer is an umbrella term for the entire community, Asexuals are people who are not interested in sexual activities at all, Pansexuals are literally humans interested in humans, they sometimes call themselves gender blind which means they do not consider gender or sexuality as a barrier in human relationships of any kind. Two spirits is a term that refers to the third gender or fluidity among indigenous people. Trans and Intersex people have apparently very different biology than males and females. This article will become a novel if I start explaining their biology so please do your research.

The term "fluidity" in this context means- the sexual and gender identity of people, that is rather unconventional, or defies the idea of human gender/sexual distribution being binary. For ages, people were living in two boxes of "males" and "females". Anyone who did not fit in these two boxes was considered abnormal or someone who needs medical aid. The term "fluidity" has been introduced so widely, just recently, so it is natural that it's going to take some time for these people living in boxes, to completely open up to something which is outside their box. They have to completely change their idea of the biological classification of humans, which will not be easy for them. So we should be patient and help them through this process. I tried to open up one of my elders to the concept of Fluidity and here are the highlights of that conversation :

Their first misconception was : "These are people who take sexual activities as a form of pleasure and are experimenting new ways. Which is okay but they shouldn't make a propaganda out of their personal preferences."

This misconception is largely prevalent in most of our heads. The truth is, there are biological reasons behind the sexual orientation of a person. According to the recent researches on the subject, it was found that a complex interplay of genes, hormones and brain structure is responsible for a person's sexual orientation (I leave the in depth research up to you). 

So that person referred to the hormonal play as "hormonal imbalance" which is okay as long as no one considers these different hormonal developments as a "disease" or "illness" that needs to be "cured". 

The breaking of the term disease is dis-ease. Anything can be considered a "disease" only when it is found to be harming or causing trouble for someone or something. But these different hormonal developments are not causing any problems to the people who have them. They are also not causing any problem to people around them. So the "hormonal imbalances" which cause people to have a rather different sexual orientation do not qualify as a "disease". Most of these hormonal developments are prenatal. Which means these people were this way before even being born. They were meant to be different. And if they are happy with however they were born originally, who are we to tell them to be anything other than their original self? And adding to that, when a child's hormones are played with, it develops other problems especially mental illnesses that the child would have to suffer later. So it is better to let the child be whoever they want and were meant to be. The societal prejudices and ill-treatments that queers go through, are also the reason why they need to make a "propaganda out of their personal preferences".

Many religious people argue that the spiritual idea behind sex is to reproduce and keep the world going. And sexual indulgence of any kind which is not with the intention of reproduction, is wrong. Well then, these humans with an unconventional sexual orientation, were born this way, and hope you believe God created all of us and them too. So who are you to see mistakes in God's creation of a human being? These God's special creations are not causing any harm to themselves or others. So why are you causing harm to them? Live and let live.

Everybody is allowed to love their most authentic self. But due to the lack of education on the third gender and other sexualities, we have collectively done wrong, trying to change queer people and telling them to hide themselves and their authenticity just because they do not fit in those two boxes in which most of us do. If they love themselves just the way they are, who are we to make them feel otherwise? Their existence is as valid as anybody else's. Can you imagine, struggling to tell people, that you love to be different, you love yourself just the way you came to this world, you love your authenticity and can you imagine begging others to let you be just the way you are and for accepting you as who you are? I cannot. I do not find myself strong enough to beg to my family and the society for accepting me for being a little different kind of human being. So please do not make them struggle for the same. Please try and open up to the existence of something out of your knowledge. Educate yourself and others. Be an Ally.

Allies act as a bridge to connect Queers with those who live in denial of their existence. Allies help people who do not accept queers by making their perception a bit flexible and educating them about the community. Allies help the society to stay connected and not be divided in two segments of queer and anti-queer. And at the same time, also make queers feel loved and accepted for who they are, which proves to be such a powerhouse of support for the queer people while they are on their quest to be accepted by the world. The little acts of allies like including their preferred pronouns in their bio-data, helps eliminate the feeling of alienation among queers.

We should update our "knowledge softwares" on gender and sexual orientations. These topics shall be included in school books because all of us deserve to know all the aspects of human existence, and "Fluidity" is one of the most important concepts of human biology.

I hope this article makes a difference to your perception of gender and sexual identity. Let's stand together and fight for the rights of humans who are a bit different than most. Let's make them know that they are seen and heard and accepted and loved just as much as any other human being deserves to be. Let's create a better world for them where they are not alienated or mistreated for being different. Let's spread love.

🤍Love

Charvi🌸