In the light of such treatment, it comes as no surprise that the suicide rate for lesbians in India is high. ‘Women are not only prevented from expressing their sexuality, they are forced to go in the complete opposite direction in living and having sex with someone they really don’t want to,’ says Rex Watts, co-ordinator of the Bangalore-based support group Sangama. ‘Some have been locked in a room for days and starved until they admitted it was all lies.’įor those forced into marriage, what the rest of their life will entail is an incubus all too real. ‘There have been many cases where women have been raped by their husbands, their brothers, even their fathers, in a bid to “cure” them,’ says Betu Singh, co-ordinator of the Delhi-based support group Sangini.
When a woman comes out, or her family finds out, the reactions can vary from denial or rejection right up to the thoroughly horrific. It is the family and the relentless pressure it puts on daughters to marry that causes Indian lesbians the most suffering. Our families want to know where we are going. ‘We can’t just pop out to a gay night when we feel like it. ‘We don’t have the same freedoms that gay men do,’ says Amrita, 21, from Bangalore.
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