Perspectives

3.

Often, I've been asked by people:
"How did you know that... you're a ... you know...
"A lesbian?"
"Yeah that."
My answer was always the same.
"Well you see, back in 9th grade, I had a crush on this guy who had a really cute girlfriend. The day they broke up, I was consoling her. That's when I realised that I didn't have a crush on the guy, per say. I harboured a crush on the girl.
So yeah, that's how I found out."

However, this isn't the complete truth. That fateful day in 9th grade was just the start. Looking back on it, I wonder why I didn't figure it out sooner. The signs were there, just waiting for me to pick up on them. Throughout my preteens and teenage, there had been flashes. Flashes of attraction to the 'wrong gender'. Flashes of things I wanted, that I so desperately tried to subdue, thinking that it's wrong.

It took me an awfully long time to come to terms with it, to accept myself for who I am. It took me even longer to be open about it. Although, by the time I was 16, I realised that there was nothing to be ashamed about, nothing wrong with who I am or which gender I preferred. There were just socially constructed norms that people followed in fear of not being accepted.

After that day in 9th grade, I started being more aware of the people around me. I was noticing more things about the them. At that point, I hadn't told anyone about myself, not even my best friend Riddhi. Riddhi has been my friend right from 1st grade.Even though I knew that she would be nothing but supportive, I was scared. I didn't want to risk losing my only friend. So, I went through days with this newfound knowledge until another such fateful day:

I was at Riddhi's place. We had met up to watch a movie the both of had been looking forward to since a long time. 15 minutes into the movie, I zoned out. The movie wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be and so I zoned out. I was daydreaming, quite happily too, at that, when, all of a sudden she exclaimed:

" She's such a lesbian!"
"Well so am I," I threw back. For one blissful moment, everything was fine. And then I realised what I had actually said. Riddhi was looking at home with her mouth open, the forgotten movie playing in the background. I moved to reached forward and closed it for her but she swatted my hand away.
"What, did you just say?"
"Well, you know... that I'm a lesbian?" I ended it as a question.
"Oh. Right. And you didn't think it relevant to tell me ?"
"I was going to but you know..."
"Know what? That I'll judge you? You're unbelievable."

And with that, she stormed out of the room. Yes, she stormed out of her own living room but that's besides the point. I just sat there, waiting for her for what felt like hours but was, in fact, 15 minutes. I could say that they were the most difficult 15 minutes of my life, but they weren't. I understood her reaction and knew that it would be fine, and it was. After she came back, we talked it out. She was understandably pissed but we got past it.

So, that was how I accidentally came out to my best friend. As for my family, my mom and my sister already know. They're pretty supportive about it. I think my dad suspects, but he hasn't said anything, so we'll leave it at that.

Apart from that, there was the phase where I thought being a lesbian entailed a different gender. I thought that now that I identified myself as one, I would have to act like a guy. I even cut my hair short, which earned me a lot of weird stares. I started acting all 'cool' and such.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise, that this is not how it is. Being a lesbian didn't mean that I had to act different. In fact, it didn't mean that I had to change anything at all. It was just another part of my identity. I was just another homosexual in a society which shunned anything that was different, anything that went against what was 'normal'.

By this point, I was used to how society worked. There were a few open-minded people but apart from them, very few were actually willing to accept something new. I mean, why was being straight the default option?

When the talk of Section 377 was going around, I was a bit surprised. This was something new. I hadn't expected the Supreme Court to even consider something like this. And when the section was decriminalised, I was thrilled. By all means, it wasn't much, but it was a start. A start that could and would lead to something more.

-Rtr.Janhavi Shah