Written By, Dhee Basu
SHAKESPEARE, a well-known persona from English Literature, had created numerous plays, sonnets for society. Yet till today, his gender is a question. Whether he was a man or a woman or a gay by nature aroused multiple theories among people. His contemporary Christopher Marlowe is known for his creation, “EDWARD II”, where he illustrated the Homoerotic relationship between Edward & Gaveston. In the play, Ireland was the place that accepted queer-brotherhood outside England & the relationship between Edward-Gaveston depended on the political aspects between Ireland – England. By the banishment of Gaveston by King Edward I, was a sign of Homophobia that was portrayed by Marlowe. So, if Shakespeare was male then who was his male love? or if he was female, then who was his BLACK-Lady; was noticed in his Sonnets. Queer community and their stories have always been part of culture, literature, movies, and every artistic field so far. But society has always denied accepting GAY-LESBIAN-BI people openly, & makes this a taboo to talk or to accept.
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn; a gay club where the queer community gathered and opened up about their sexuality. The raid operation by police ignited the rage among Queer and as a result, they came upon the road to protest against the behavior they were getting from the man-made society. A year after the Stonewall Riots, the mother of pride Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist organized the Gay Pride Week and Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, which morphed into today’s New York City Pride March. It was Harvey Milk who asked for the Rainbow Flag From the designer Gilbert Baker for 1978, Pride March. Though he was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by Dan White.
Homophobia, bullying of gay people, violence, inequality in healthcare & job, parenting rights, marriage between the same gender are some of the gruesome issues that they still are fighting for. In “The Big Bang Theory”, Sheldon is the protagonist who is scared of every single possible thing except the homosexual people (which was never shown in the series). Isn't it ironic? We loved the character Sheldon which is played by a gay man, Jim Parson, yet we bully or make fun of people who are not straight.
In India, before September 6, 2018, same-sex marriage was considered a crime, until Supreme Court decriminalized it. The irony is, Indian art and culture and sculpture from Khajuraho supports and holds the notion of homosexuality. In Indian or any household, when their kid comes out as gay, lesbian, bisexual; the kids face loads of trauma, torture, and societal pressure in the majority of the cases.
While every Edward is looking for their Gaveston and dreams to settle in a country like Ireland, there are countries which still believe homosexuality is a crime. But in the last decade, there are quite a few countries that accepted the love between two same-gender people.
While society and some people mocked and bullied these people, the pride communities never lost hope. Rather, they rendered their struggle, thoughts, and works. Some won prizes, some won hearts while some became an idol to their community. Jim Parsons, Ellen DeGeneres, Tessa Thompson, Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus won the hearts of billion, Yuval Noha Harari like writers, historian educated trillion. In Bollywood, Gay people always used as a prop to arouse laughter before 2018, and now Bollywood is producing films like ‘EK LADKI KO DEKHA TOH AISA LAGA’, ‘SHUBH MANGALAM ZAYDA SABDHAN’, movies to spread awareness.
Singapore, Jamaica, Guyana still considers the LGBT community as illegal; though the community is stronger enough to ask for rights. ‘Sex Education’ is a series recently launched on Netflix where the director’s main motive is to aware people of sexuality as apart from straight relationships there are multiple forms of relationships that belong to this mother nature.
Love has no language, sex, colour, status, religion. Love is the truest form of affection that can be offered to anybody you like. We, the human who make this society, if we never made society in the very first place, can we still impose rules and laws on anything? Something is considered criminal when it harms people. The people who consider homosexuality as a crime, do consider Love is also a crime? Bill Clinton to Barack Obama who supported and declared June as the pride month and accepted the community as any other person. Maybe every LGBT community person like “Elio” is waiting for his “Oliver” so he can openly express his love and can live life together and doesn’t have to separate their lives as Oliver has done in “CALL ME BY YOUR NAME”.
To sum up we can say-
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody’s holy! Everywhere is holy! Every day is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
BY ALLEN GINSBERG
Written By, Dhee Basu