Trauma haunts LGBTQ+ Indians years after end of gay sex ban
Five years since India legalised gay sex, persistent discrimination means many LGBTQIA+ Indians continue to suffer “mental trauma and alienation”, said one of the Supreme Court judges who lifted the ban.
Indu Malhotra was part of the five-judge constitutional bench that in 2018 unanimously struck down part of Section 377, a law introduced by India’s former British colonial rulers that had stood for almost 160 years.
Malhotra, who is now retired and was only the seventh woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, said the Sept. 6, 2018 ruling marked “the most momentous day of my career as a judge”. “The court was packed with people from the LGBTQIA+ community and also some of their parents.
There was so much emotion, it was such an atmosphere … There was so much revelry and relief,” she told Openly in an interview by phone from Delhi.
