PURPLE SKIES: VOICES OF INDIAN LESBIANS, BISEXUALS AND TRANSMEN

This upbeat documentary accomplishes many things in its short running time, detailing the advocacy work of two wonderful Indian organizations: Sangini, the first helpline for lesbians, begun in 1997 by the indomitable activist Betu Singh and Umang, an LGBT support group based in Mumbai. Leaders from both groups talk about how they’ve sheltered LGBT people from angry families and police and appeared before magistrates with them arguing successfully for fair treatment and release. This persecution is an effect of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which since its 19th-century British colonial origins has made “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” a crime carrying a life sentence. LGBT people danced in the streets in July 2009, when that law was declared unconstitutional. But four years later that judgment was overturned. The documentary shares the many stories of ordinary Indians who, empowered by the brief death of Section 377, vowed to never return to the closet. Happily for everyone, that prospect seems within reach, with the Supreme Court of India’s recent official recognition of transgender people as “also citizens of India

Sridhar Rangayan 2014 India 66min hindi & english s.-t.a._en