I’ve liked girls for a long time. I’ve known I like girls for a short time, having spent years refusing to know it, acknowledge it, accept it. I’ve said out loud that I like girls only recently. The road to that victory (a road I am still on) was long and winding and scary and hard. Hannah Gadsby said it best – “By the time I realized I was gay, I was already homophobic.”
I was maybe 12 years old when I read about Emily in Pretty Little Liars trying to suppress her feelings for girls, trying out ridiculous thought experiments and tests on herself to try and convince herself she was straight. I told myself I’d never felt anything like what she described so of course I couldn’t be gay. I told myself that, at most, I was bi, and if that was the case then I could hide it easily (even from myself), and nobody ever had to know. Anyone who knows me knows that I date boys a lot, and am often very intensely invested. Compulsory heterosexuality did not even leave my little middle school self alone. I was constantly trying to compensate for something, trying to hide a part of myself away, denying to even myself that it existed. I made a big deal about how I could be the “cool girlfriend” and not get mad when my boyfriends found other girls attractive – I found them attractive too! I was a cool girl. I wasn’t like other girls. I read everywhere that it was possible to find people aesthetically pleasing without being gay. I was convinced that this is what was going on.
I am many things but I am not unintelligent. One would think that if 17 year old me found herself constantly wondering about what it would be like to kiss girls, she might accept that she LIKES GIRLS. But no, we live in a culture (one that I was and am definitely a part of) that treated bisexuality as a cry for attention – “she just wants to appear cool”, “she just wants to be a part of the hype”. This combined with a boyfriend who refused to take me seriously when I brought up doubts about my sexuality meant that when I finally came to a point where I wanted to have the conversation, I was convinced I was lying to myself. Towards the end of school I had a small circle of friends around me who knew, who accepted it, never denied or belittled it, did not make a joke out of it, refused to even consider/suggest that it might all be a lie. I didn’t make a big deal out of it. There were enough people around me who would’ve been far from accepting, and I even had someone tell me I couldn’t possibly be bisexual if I’d never fallen in love with a girl (I still haven’t, and I am still bi, fight me).
The turning point was college, the lack of gatekeeping, the removal of the fear of having to prove myself. Nobody asked me to prove my identity. I told myself I was allowed to be wrong about it. If it came up I’d say, “Maybe, I’m not sure”, and once someone asked me if I’m bi and my answer was literally “sometimes”, which is what felt true and real to me at the time. I slowly built my confidence up on the reassurance that if it turns out I’m wrong about this, that’s okay. That’s allowed. To a great degree, I was past my internalized homophobia in that I no longer saw it as a bad thing, I no longer saw it as something to be squashed and hidden and suppressed, but part of me still feared I was lying to myself, making it all up for attention. I have gently coaxed that fear away.
Today, I sat alone in the closest thing I have to a childhood home and watched the news come in, refreshing Twitter every five seconds, and felt my body explode with disbelief and joy and relief and love and pride. I was sobbing the way I haven’t since I was 14 as I watched my country’s Supreme Court state, unambiguously, that love is not a bad thing, my feelings are not bad, I am allowed to exist in the way I do and no matter what bigotry exists in the world, the letter of the law, the Constitution of India, and its fiercest protectors are going to be on my side. I saw reassurance, protection, faith. Reading the judgment made me inhale and sigh and laugh and cry in disbelief. There is a very long road ahead and bigotry will have an uglier face now. But here’s the thing. I love my country so deeply and intensely and I’ve always believed that it is something greater than all of us, that the principles and values on which it was built are beautiful and powerful things, that our democracy is an extraordinary, living, breathing institution that has the ability to endure terrible pressures and come out stronger.
Middle school me was too scared and misinformed to understand that freedom from oppression is not true freedom if you have to hide a part of yourself. This is something I learnt / understood / recognized only this year. Today, I had it reaffirmed to me by the highest court in the land, and whatever limitations the impact of this will have, the championing of our rights by the Supreme Court is something that holds a special place in my own personal journey. Today’s judgment has meant everything and more.
