'Indelible mark on psyche': New report reveals violence LGBTQ community faces from families

The Indian LGBTQIA+ community has knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court in the hope that it will grant them the right to marry. During the hearings, an important argument for marriage equality was made by senior advocate Vrinda Grover who brought to the fore familial violence that queer and trans persons face, and how that further denies them the dignity and security to live as couples. 

"Love, respect does not always come from natal families and LGBT+ persons deserve to be loved. Family is also needed outside the need for procreation for one's well-being,” she argued before the apex court.  

Grover argued for the legal recognition of same-sex marriages on behalf of the National Network of LBI Women and Trans Persons and the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). Earlier in April, the organisations published a comprehensive report titled, ‘Apnon Ka Bahut Lagta Hai’ (Our Own Hurt Us The Most).

The report is based on the findings of a closed-door ‘Jan Sunwai’, or public hearing, on familial violence against queer trans people. Held on April 1, the hearing had 31 queer and trans persons testify in front of a panel comprising judges, lawyers, academics and activists, including Justice Prabha Sridevan; Asif Iqbal, Co-founder, Dhanak; Divya Taneja, Special Cell for Women and Children, Mumbai; Kavita Krishnan, a feminist activist from Delhi; and Manjula Pradeep, an anti-caste feminist activist from Ahmedabad, among others. 

The findings

The testifiers spoke at length about the relationship they shared with their natal families and the various struggles they faced to live true to their sexuality and gender identity.  

While the report amplifies the demand for marriage equality for queer and trans people, it also questions the legitimacy given to assigned families at birth, noting that chosen families and intimacies cannot be thought of in isolation without also looking at the reality of what assigned families do to their queer and trans children. 

“Nowhere is the tight control by parents, families and, by extension, communities, more evident than in the lives of queer and trans persons. What stood out from the hearing was that the cruelty, including withdrawal of love, banishment from home, as well as physical torture by family members, causes the greatest trauma in queer persons. This trauma, beginning very often in children in their early teens, must leave an indelible mark on the psyche,” says Kavita Krishnan.

A key aspect of these discussions is the Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954, which legally recognises marriage between Indian couples from different religious backgrounds. LGBTQIA+ activists have demanded that the law take into its purview the protection of rights of queer couples, while also removing the 30-day notice period that the SMA mandates prior to the couple getting married.    

“Amending the SMA to include queer and trans couples while retaining this 30-day notice period is of no use, because as we have seen in the case of interfaith and inter-caste couples, opposing families use this time to prevent the marriage from happening,” says L Ramakrishnan of the NGO SAATHII, which is an ally of the National Network of LBI Women and Transpersons. 

“What we also need are policies to counter family violence and collusion of police with family members (police often support natal families by coercing the couple to go back to them). There need to be strong measures in place to prevent familial violence—which may include everything from house arrests and admitting queer children into psychiatric institutions, and subjecting them to sexual assault and rape,” he adds. 

Human rights lawyer and panellist Mihir Desai notes in the report that while the law can never provide complete protection against repression, it does provide a certain amount of social sanction, moral courage, and procedural protection. 

“A few aspects struck me very forcibly. One, the kind of brutal familial and societal violence faced by those having non-normative sexuality and gender identity is so gruesome that legal protection is absolutely necessary. Second, many of those who deposed have fought and negotiated their way, and find themselves in a better space, but there will be many more who daily suffer this violence. Third, for most of these persons, civil society support was crucial to get out of highly repressive environments,” he says.

Some key recommendations of the report are:

• Assertion of full citizenship: All adults who make assertions with regard to their choice of partner have the right to do so, with no external agency having the power to deny the same. 

• Redefine family: For queer and transgender persons to have the right to a chosen family not defined by marriage, birth or adoption alone; to have someone who could be a nominee or a beneficiary to one’s income and assets.

• Right to exit natal family: While assertion of adulthood and attaining majority would legally mean the right to assert one’s choice, this understanding is not reflected in the lives of queer and trans persons. There is no declaration in the law that one can opt to exit the natal family and create a chosen family.

• Right to marry: A legal recognition of an intimate relationship as marriage would empower queer and trans persons to assert and claim their rights within their natal families. 

• Rights of adult children: While the law recognises the rights of parents to be maintained by their children, an exception needs to be carved out to exempt children who have faced or are facing violence from their parents for reasons of being queer or trans persons.