Sadhu Vaswani International School For Girls

LGBTQ
RAINBOW PARADISE
English ALS Project

Created by:
SHREYA KATHAIT
SHALINI RAI

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 Objectives:
The main objective of the project is to educate people about the
LGBTQ+ community, see what changes have come over community
in the past years.

To discuss the role of religion in the acceptance of homosexuality.

To discuss the struggles that the queer people have to go through on

a daily basis and the homophobia they have to face.

Furthermore, to understand how the different experiences of

LGBTQ+ individuals are shaped by different cultures by comparing
the two movies, one based in India and the other based in America.

To educate people and spread awareness to be more positive

towards the community, the best way is to have open discussions in
schools and teach the children about it.

The more the people are educated and sensitive, the more they are
accepting towards homosexuality.

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 Certificate

This is to certify that Shreya Kathait and Shalini Rai of class 11D
has successfully completed this project on the topic
“LGBT - RAINBOW PARADISE” in practical examinations in the
year 2021-22.

Date:
Signature:

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 Acknowledgment
We would like to earnestly acknowledge the sincere efforts and
valuable time given by our English Teacher Mrs. Tanu Arora who
has given us this opportunity to create this wonderful practical
portfolio and helped us in this endeavour. She has always been very
cooperative and without her help, support, guidance and
encouragement, the project file couldn‟t have been what it has
evolved to be.

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 Action Plan
In order to accomplish our objective to create awareness about this
topic and to complete this project we have seen movies related to the
topic and gathered information about mindset and beliefs of people
towards the community across different cultures.

We studied about the challenges and the struggles persisting since

past till date. And some provisions for the upliftment for excluded
community in India.

On the basis of the information collected and our own opinion

towards the community project report is prepared.

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 Introduction
The initials LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
and Queer/Questioning.

The community can also be referred to as the LGBTQ+ community. The

“+” in LGBTQ+ encapsulates any other ways of sexual or gender
identification such as pansexual, asexual, non-binary, and more.
Determining one‟s sexuality or gender will be a different experience for
every member of the LGBTQ community.
The Rainbow Flag also known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag
reflects the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of
human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of gay
pride began in San Francisco, but eventually became common at LGBT
rights events worldwide.

The movie, Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan, tells the story of a gay man
and his partner, who have trouble convincing the former's parents of
their relation and make them understand that it‟s their sexuality and it
should not have a bad effect on the relationship between him and his
parents.

Whereas the movie Love, Simon centers on Simon Spier, a closeted gay
high school boy who struggles to balance his friends, his family, and the
blackmailer threatening to out him to the entire school, while
simultaneously attempting to discover the identity of the anonymous
classmate with whom he has fallen in love online.

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 Report
People in the LGBT community are fighting for equal rights and
acceptance daily. Trans people, especially, face a lot of difficulty in
finding acceptance. They are looked down upon all the time as
shameful. This is a major issue because discrimination against the
LGBT community is highly prevalent.

Religion plays a large role in perceptions of the acceptability of

homosexuality in many societies across the globe.
There are temples carvings in India depicting same-sex
relationships. Description of homosexual acts in Kamasutra, a queer
character „Sikhandi‟ in Mahabharata are some historical evidences
of same-sex relationships. However, in certain texts homosexuality
is condemned but it is mainly on the premise that humans give
unnecessary importance to sex. There are always going to be
similarities and differences in different religions towards the
acceptance of homosexuality.

For example, it‟s very clear in Islam that homosexuality is a

punishable sin. The only confusion regarding homosexuality in
Christianity is about the question that how homosexuals should be
treated. Should they be considered as criminals or should their
behaviour be rectified. In both cases, the position is clear that
homosexuality is condemned in Christianity. In Sikhism, since the
religious texts remain silent on this aspect, they don‟t hold any
same-sex marriages in their Gurudwaras.

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Those who say religion is “somewhat,” “not too” or “not at all”
important in their lives are more likely to say that homosexuality
should be accepted than those who say religion is “very” important.

Because of this topic not being talked about enough and seen as
something bad, LGBTQ members are often bullied and cast
out from their families. While some may get a loving and accepting
reaction, many people in the LGBTQ community are not so lucky.
They may have mothers, fathers, and other relatives who don‟t
understand their sexuality. Their relatives may reject them and even
refuse to speak or interact with them.
A similar issue was shown in the movie „Shubh Mangal Zyada
Saavdhan‟ when Aman‟s father, Shankar, accidentally saw him and
Kartik, his boyfriend, kissing in a train and how he fainted and
didn‟t talk to him when he woke up. He blamed Kartik for bringing
this “disease” in their family and later his parents re-christen Aman
in order to cleanse him of his "sins". Kartik also says, “My sexuality
is my sexuality, none of your sexuality”, which describes the theme
of the movie in the best way possible. Near the end, the Supreme
Court decriminalizes homosexuality.

Abuse and trauma are all too prevalent in the LGBTQ community.
Abuse could come from a high school bully who harasses people
they don‟t understand.
This was shown in Love, Simon how he is a closeted gay kid who is
outed by another person, who found out accidentally, out of spite
and the homophobia he faced in school by two boys after everyone
found out about his sexuality. At first he is afraid, instead, of how it
will “change everything”, how people might perceive him
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differently. He also resents having to "come out" at all and asks why
"straight is the default." In one poignant scene, Simon's mother says
to him, "You can exhale now, Simon." That's what the film is. A
long overdue exhale.

In both the movies, it is seen how none of them came out to the
people how they wanted to. In one movie, a very negative reaction
towards homosexuality and how it creates tension between Aman
and his family and how they try to get rid of his “sickness”, while in
the other, Simon gets a better and a more positive reaction and it
shows how accepting most people were, if not all. Both movies have
a happy ending, the gay protagonists get to be free and themselves
in this cruel world after so long, which is very rarely shown in most
queer movies.

LGBT community has many more problems that they face. The
majority of people hide their sexuality out of fear of losing their job.
They experience disaffection from their family and friends,
invisibleness and harassment at school which causes ill-mental-
health, dropping on their school, unemployment and homelessness.

Although some provisions have been created for the upliftment of

the community in India, there are still many layers of homophobia
that we have yet to overcome.
Transgender people in India are allowed to change their legal gender
post-sex reassignment surgery under legislation passed in 2019, and
have a constitutional right to register themselves under a third
gender.

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In 2018, in the landmark decision of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of
India, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised consensual
homosexual intercourse by reading down Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code and excluding consensual homosexual sex between
adults from its ambit. Even though this community still faces
lacking the rights to marriage and adoption this step was still a big
step.
LGBT Pride Month occurs in the United States to commemorate
the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a
result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the
impact LGBT people have had in the world.

In the following graph, rising acceptance of homosexuality by

people in many countries around the world over the past two
decades is shown.

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When there is a positive and accepting environment, LGBT people
feel more comfortable in coming out and being themselves. Anyone
can realise they are queer or decide to come out at any age, be it 10,
16, 23, 30 or 40 years.
Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world
becomes a better and a more interesting place.

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 Self-Reflection
Initially we were puzzled whether to choose this topic for our project
because this is something that many people avoid talking and are not
ready to confront rather admit that this is wrong. As a result many
people are not aware and when known make fun of these people. As
the movie also showed that this is something natural and cannot be
changed by any force. Just because of the behaviour of the society
LGBT people tend to live in isolation and lead more miserable life.
We learnt not to judge people just because of their different identity,
we should be cordial to everybody and show respect towards each
member of society rather than judging their identity. We all our
educated and responsible citizen of society and shall not use our own
perception for inconsistent judgment, we have to be the voice for all
the needy voices. Our one positive step can grant them security and
end this orthodox belief in mind of the people.

We learned that we should never ever assume anyone‟s gender or

sexual orientation and always speak gender-neutral terms and try to be
more positive towards the LGBTQ+ community. Even if we
accidentally find out about someone‟s sexuality, we should never out
them because that‟s almost same as bad as crime. We learned how to
comfort someone when they come out and how we should react.

The most relief that people can provide to someone coming out to
them is by being positive and accepting towards them, telling them
they are valid and that they still love them. Coming out of the closet is
already a scary and overwhelming process but imagine gathering so
much courage to tell people about your real self and them not
accepting you for the one thing that you can‟t control or change.

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 Equal efforts were put in by both the partners in researching and the
report writing. A lot of new information about the LGBTQ
community‟s history, struggles and acceptance in different parts of the
world was learned. We learned how still in many countries, being
homosexual is actually illegal and a crime. Even in the countries
where it is not illegal, LGBT people still face a lot of homophobia and
discrimination.

Several Google meetings were held to discuss about the project. We

also saw the movies together on conference call only.

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 References
 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/sblog/status-of-
lgbtq-community-in-gender-equality-39180/
 https://www.arrowpassage.com/top-five-struggles-lgbtq-
community/
 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-
homosexuality-persists/
 https://blog.ipleaders.in/evolution-of-lgbt-rights-in-india-and-
taking-the-narrative-forward-living-free-and-equal/
 https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/religion/religion-social-
values/religion-lgbt-acceptance/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubh_Mangal_Zyada_Saavdhan
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love,_Simon

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