Go girl! Live the way you want to

Gunjan Sharma

So, Indian sports have come of age, finally. A girl from a small village in Odisha wins a silver medal in the Jakarta Asian Games last year. This year in May, she decides to claim another accolade, this time off the track — with a public statement: “I am in a relationship with a woman.” 

One rarely hears whispers or rumours about who’s dating whom from the track and field sport — it strictly seems to be the preserve of Indian cricketers. As a sports journalist friend tells me, “Everyone knows but no one really talks about it. But this from Dutee is as big as it gets. It took a woman to blow it out of the stadium. One wonders what made Dutee publicly declare her love to her loved one and risk everything — money, fame, family. What gave her the courage to open herself to all at once to be judged, not by her huge achievement in sports but her sexuality, to be so bold and blunt about her identity? What else but love, of course. 

Has anything changed with the amendment to Section 377? Has the acceptance of homosexuality gone up? Has life changed drastically for a common, regular homosexual person? My youngest gay male friend says both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. While he expresses polemically on issues of sexuality and masculinity, he says, “One has to tread with great caution even now, especially with one’s family.” I recall the day when he showed up in a pair of awfully uncomfortable high heels shoes, for an office event, Women’s Day celebrations. A dead giveaway! “Hasn't anyone seen these at home?” I asked. He assured me the shoes stay hidden at his friend’s place, whose sister would claim them as hers should the need arise. And then I recall the day when he decided to come out, not atypically to his mother, almost bursting my eardrums on the phone, screaming, "I told my mother, I told my mother." The shoes are in now his closet — where shoes belong — and not people.  But why did the poor dad was left out? After all, he, too, knows about the turn in the law too? “Have you lost it,” he asks with the same passion. “I am the son of a cop…He will freak out.”

Perhaps Dutee would have kept it under wraps too, had she not been facing the kind of blackmail she is because of her sexuality, ironically from home. While many may say — if you tell your family, you are in a better place, for sure. However, the experiences of Dutee, and many like her, have been different. Coming out to anyone is a new experience each time — who knows what's coming back at you. Dutee got the press on her side, most folks don't! "Sab ko ek saathi chahiye hota hai," the athlete has said. And she has chosen hers, a woman like herself — challenging and confronting the existing binary norms when it comes to sex and gender, love and desire. 

A week before, I was training a group of young girls on the issues of adolescence and growing up in Kukas, a small town on the outskirts of Jaipur. Typically, these sessions are a lot about periods. Yes, we are still taking up menstrual health and hygiene with girls who are riddled with fear around periods and growing up. They still believe that during periods they are so "impure" that they can scare the gods away from a concrete mandir! But this time one of the "secret" questions was: “kya do ladkiyaan pyar kar saktee hain kya?” (Can two women love each other?)  

And I say — Go ask Dutee Chand, gold medalist, 100 mt, 200 mt, India.

— The writer is an LGBTQ activist and has worked with the Naz Foundation, New Delhi