Love Wins As Supreme Court Reads Down Section 377

September 6, 2018, will go down in history as the day the Supreme Court read down Section 377 and decriminalized homosexuality. With this decision, the Constitution bench, headed by CJI Dipak Misra, and comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud, Rohinton Fali Nariman and Indu Malhotra, have showed their support to the LGBTQ community. The community is obviously overjoyed with the decision as their love now will not be considered criminal.

Talking to SheThePeople.TV, Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ rights activist, said, “I think it has reaffirmed our faith in the Constitution of our nation. It has also made all kinds of love legal. Love is the law of nature and today’s judgment reaffirms that.”

Nitasha Biswas, who is Miss India at Miss International Transqueen, said, “It is a very big day for India and it has been an ongoing struggle over the years. Finally, love has won over. This should have happened years ago.”

On how the movement is going to look like from here on with the SC’s approval, Nitasha said that now we need to have more LGBTQ-friendly spaces. "We all need to come together and help each other for various work, employment etc. We need to have more celebrations like Pride month to spread awareness about the community to the people across the country, so more and more people shed their homophobic nature towards us.”

Aarav Appukuttan from Kerala, who was born a girl but identified as a boy and went through sex-change surgeries last year, welcomed the move. But he said that while the Supreme Court has accepted homosexual love and decriminalized it, it will also become more easy for people with criminal mentality to dupe innocent people.

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"The revolution for queer rights in India has officially kicked off. Now, we will not be a minority in India as we will come out in larger numbers and talk about our stories."

Back and forth

The judgment on decriminalizing homosexuality has gone back and forth since 2009 when the Delhi High Court had decriminalized it. Then, in 2013, a two-member Supreme Court bench had criminalized it and now finally it has again decriminalized it.

Comedian and LGBTQ supporter Navin Noronha hopes that the country does not go back again to decriminalization. “By the end of it all, the homophobics receded as they realized that we have victory in terms of voices and general understanding of human rights. It was only about time that the Supreme Court put a stamp on it too."

"But now the real fight begins as now we really need to take care of ourselves. We need to be more careful with getting more human rights for us like having housing and general welfare needs. The revolution for queer rights in India has officially kicked off. Now, we will not be a minority in India as we will come out in larger numbers and talk about our stories,” he said.

The people from the LGBTQ community have finally found a legitimate space in society, that was always their’s to take.

Cheers to a new India!