#desi pride

I don't understand how you stand to the side"

The lathi charge, tear gas attacks, stone pelting, ruthless beating of peaceful protesters.

This is cruelty.

This is fascism.

This is an authoritarian government that will use all available means, from shutting down the internet, to brutally attacking students, to silence the voices that rise against them.

And that is exactly why we need to be LOUD.

And if you love a leader (that does not give two shits about you) so much, that you are blind to the suffering of the people around you, you are the problem.

Educate yourself. Look around. See things for what they are.

other qrs to donate

“I started [social media] in 2017 to 2018. My wife actually started earlier, and I was supporting her from the background, behind the scenes.”

That all changed when her brother and mother, who didn’t have social media, were informed by a family friend that Shubhalaxmi Patil’s Instagram account had a rainbow emoji, a symbol of LGBTQ2S+ pride, next to her name.

“It was so silly. I didn’t think anyone from my family or my brother’s friend would understand that. But they told my brother, my brother explained it to my mom, and my mom told me to remove that emoji,” she said.

“And I was like, ‘I’m already shrinking myself so much that I’m not in the videos. I’m not publicly out. But you are asking me to remove that emoji, as well?’ I don’t know. It’s like the rebel in me, or I was just done with shrinking myself to make everyone around me feel comfortable. I just started making videos.”

Now living in Toronto, Patil met her wife in India while attending different colleges. They have been together for 13 years, but when they lived in India they had to keep their relationship more private for their own safety.

Imposed during British Colonial rule, a law criminalizing same-sex relationships was struck down in 2018. Another law acknowledging a third gender was passed even earlier in 2014. But much like Canada, stigma, harassment and violence towards queer and trans people remains ongoing in India.