India’s LGBTQ+ community face domestic violence and pressure to ‘convert’
- Some queer and transgender Indians are struggling to hide their true selves from their families amid the coronavirus lockdown
- Activists say many want to come out despite the growing risk of being put into to conversion therapy
Recently, Anjana Hareesh came out as a queer person to her family. The admission prompted her parents to forcibly place her in a “de-addiction centre”, where she was given a heavy course of medication, she said in a Facebook Live video on March 13. When she tried to resist, the workers there slapped her.
Then exactly two months after posting the video, Hareesh was found hanging from a tree at a resort in Goa, India. She was 21.
Hareesh’s friend, Gargi Harithakam, said she did not have any substance addiction. “I have lived with her and I know about [whether she used drugs]. ‘De-addiction centre’ is basically a term used to mean ‘conversion therapy’,” she said over the phone.
Being forced to stay at home with homophobic or transphobic family members is putting them at risk, with several people reporting mental, verbal or physical violence from their relatives.