Pride and Proud

“Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you”

It certainly was a day filled with pride and there was no place for prejudice when people from all around the city and some others travelled from around the state to attend the very first Pride walk in the newly formed state of Telangana. After many months of preparations and months of hard work the Pride Walk 2015 organized by Hyderabad Queer Swabhimana Pride collective collaborating with the Telangana Hijra Transgender Samati made this pride walk was in every bit as colorful and as traditional as it could get. Everyone from across the city joined their hands, their voices and united themselves as one to not only spread awareness about the issue of gender equality and the heinous crimes committed towards people who belong to the transgender community. Holding the colorful flag of the queer and marching down the streets of lower tank bund, all you could see is a group of colorful people walking for their rights to have their equality and all you could here is the slogan, “I am LGBT, but that’s okay’.

The walk started at about 3:00PM from Goshala, Lower Tank Road, Kavadigua and end at Dharna Chowk near Indira Park at sharp 4:30PM, where events were organized for people to participate and for people to speak out the very topic of gender equality and a request to be treated as a human being with equal rights and not being discriminated due to their way of life. The Walk started with a small celebration of Batukama, the state festival of Telangana along with a Potraju performing his leading the crowd in the direction of the Chowk. You could see people peaking out of their shops, their balconies, the bus stops to see what was going on and few even joined the walk mid way to support the queer and just have fun. To add more and show their support towards the queer one parents even came forward to offer her support towards the pride and also about her acceptance of her son’s way of life with pride and also came forward to offer her support to all those parents who don’t understand what it is like to accept your child no matter what his/her choices. Many came forward to express their support and many stepped forward to enquire about the pride and also understand and help to break the stereotype that has been affecting their lives for ages. With the amount of people that turned out to join the pride walk the future seems to hold a kind of hope for people to finally have the equality and the same standard of life they always have been wishing for.

By Amritha Lawrence