Tabassum argues in favour of the LGBTQ community, particularly on this Valentine’s Day, when all love relationships are celebrated. Sadly, the Third Gender continues to be excluded and persecuted. A Special Feature exclusively for Different Truths. 

There has been a constant battle for the LGBTQ community to eliminate the social stigma associated with same-sex relationships. Members of the community are often told to fix themselves. Gradually, people started realising that it’s not a problem to be fixed. It is just their way of living and loving.

Everybody needs their families and communities to love them and support them.

If a child comes out to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual, it is not something that one is immediately prepared to understand. But parents must accept a child’s identity rather than rejecting one’s child. Parents need to support their children because each child is unique.

In a society that is bound by rigid norms whether, by its culture or society that dictates terms like marriage, relationships, or career, their lack of family support is a huge blow to the mental health as well as physical aspects of the LGBTQ community.

There are countries where canon laws still exist. Homosexuality is a criminal offence. In those countries, LGBTQ communities go through a hide-and-seek phase for most of their lives. Some are forced into marriage. The privileged gay community has the option to go to restaurants, and international clubs or can organise parties located in posh areas, namely diplomatic zones. But what about the less privileged ones? They can’t afford to go to such places even on Valentine’s Day?

Forget about Valentine’s Day, each day the less privileged go through the trials and tribulations of life.

As humans shouldn’t they have the right to hold each other’s hand? It’s a strange phenomenon. If their identity is revealed it can turn into punishments similar to the punishments of barbaric middle-age. Their family can be isolated and regarded as so-called “outcasts”.

Some countries practice the punishment of stoning by death or lashing publicly. In some countries, there is the punishment of sentencing.

Laws can be changed. Many Western countries haven’t legalised the marriage of same-sex couples yet.

While LGBTQ rights have evolved over the years, transgenders’ lives are not easy. It is the life of indiscrimination.

Heraclitus said that life is like a river. The peaks and troughs, pits and swirls, are all part of the ride. He also stated, “The only constant in life is change.”

We need to open our hearts to accept. It is the need of the hour to feel about the trials and tribulations of the LGBTQ community and develop insight that we are all human beings and we all have the right to live a life and love. The pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons. This Valentine’s Day, let us begin by respecting all relationships, despite their different sexual orientations.

People should be able to love without being interfered with or being judged. Let them have something very – special between the two people. It is imperative to understand that love is just love.

Visuals by Different Truths, Picture Design by Anumita Roy

Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein

Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein is an aesthete from Dhaka, Bangladesh and MA holder in British and American literature. She is a poet from unheard voices that deals with the Rohingya Refugees, human rights, freedom of expression, typical human desires etc. A humanitarian freelance writer, her poems have appeared in literary magazines. She seeks beauty from the blade of grass to twinkling stars. Aestheticism is the essence of her existence.