How open is your society to homosexuality?

Author: Saroj, an avid blogger from New York.

I was born in the United States to parents who were themselves born in India. I don’t think I really knew what homosexuality was until I was perhaps in my early teens. It was a topic that my parents kept under wraps, and if even a whiff of it were to arise, they quickly stifled it, not allowing such talk to fall on my ears. It wasn’t so much that they hated gay people—both have friends who identify somewhere along the LGBT spectrum—but they were probably more struck by how unfamiliar it seemed. Indians who are gay never are as open in public as those in other societies, so it was perhaps the degree of openness they are allowed in American society that struck them as unusual and perhaps even negative.

I ended up learning about homosexuality as some of my friends started to understand their sexual identities, some of them coming out as gay, bisexual, or lesbian. It never struck me as odd, and it never struck me as deviant. I realized that, in that regard, I was far removed from the views of my parents—who still held reservations about homosexual behavior.

So the question I have now is why do most societies seem to have such a problem with allowing gay people the same rights as straight people?

India has given itself the dubious distinction of outlawing all homosexual displays in public. Indians claim a Victorian sense of propriety and prudishness that was ultimately not there prior to the arrival of the British. Hinduism is replete with stories that don’t necessarily follow “conventional” sexual patterns, per se. Case in point: Lord Ayyappa’s creation story. He was born of the union of Shiva and Vishnu, as Mohini. Hinduism does not see gender, because gender and love of any kind do not know material limits. For India to place so many restrictions on the LGBT population is, therefore, inherently hypocritical.

The United States has been notorious for giving and then rescinding marriage rights for the LGBT population, forever caught in a tug of war between various interest groups. This was most recently highlighted in the recent passage of Proposition 8, revoking the right to same-sex marriages that were granted to couples only months earlier in the state of California. In other parts of the country, similar legislation was passed that limited both marriage rights, as well as the right to adopt children (as seen in Arkansas). What good does that do? Sometimes I feel there is this mentality that allowing gays to marry will be the downfall of society, that it would somehow influence others to follow the same path. Gay parents, apparently, could not have a normal family or raise their children well. It is a silly notion, to put it bluntly.

While the United States is a little more relaxed about public displays of affection among gays, at least in certain parts of the country, the overall hostility to homosexuality creates new problems for the LGBT community. I am hoping to become a physician myself, so my understanding of these problems are mostly limited to healthcare, but even those are serious.

Many gay people feel uncomfortable about visiting physicians, partly because the forms patients fill out do not account for the LGBT and/or genderqueer populations (title, spouse, etc.), indicative that society has still not been able to integrate these populations. In addition, they worry that they will face differential treatment by the healthcare establishment due to their sexuality. As a consequence, many eschew healthcare. The higher rate of breast cancer among lesbians can be, in part, attributed to this (along with a host of risk factors unique to this population). Transgender and transsexual people face their own healthcare dilemmas when faced with a healthcare establishment that is not equipped to handle their unique problems with sensitivity and understanding. When unable to obtain the hormones and medication necessary for their transition from healthcare professionals, most resort to the black market. This carries the risk of severe infection from tainted needles as well as poor-quality silicone (used by male-to-female transsexuals for fashioning breasts). In a country that has boasted about equality for all, the LGBT community has been noticeably left off the list.

“We are all human first” is a refrain I tend to use in calling for us to put aside these man-made boundaries. This is especially true in the case of accepting those who may embrace different forms of sexuality. How does that make them any less worthy of our love and respect, and how does that justify our withholding from them, the same rights that we take for granted everyday (the divorce rate in the United States is just about 50%). In considering many of my friends who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or elsewhere along the LGBT spectrum, I want them to be happy, healthy, and to be able to find happiness in love, just like everyone else. Love and compassion, after all, know no boundaries. We are all human first.