Stigma against LGBT Community can lead to Deep Rooted Issues

By Janvi Sutaria

Imagine the entire world from a black and white lens! With flowers, trees, animals – all of the same colour. Do you think the world would be as beautiful and fun to live in? Do you think the scenery would still act as a wonder to the eye?

Similarly, having all humans of the same kind, same personality, same choices, same colour and same preferences would not make our lives, relationships and bonds worth it! Variety is the spice of life! Accepting the differences, appreciating the diversity, and enjoying the heterogeneity of individuals is the key to enjoying life to the fullest.

There has been a core and prevailing misconception of a correlation between a peaceful and happy life with homogeneity. We all have an illusion that if everyone around is similar to us, our lives will be better. Whereas the fact is that the actual flavour of life lies in diversity and that happiness comes from within.

With the occasion of Pride Month, it is important to talk about the issues and well-being of the LGBT community. It is further vital to appreciate them for their existence in our society. Research suggests that there is an entire cycle of suppression that this community has been facing for centuries.  Because of the faulty theories of life of the majority of the ‘others’, a societal expectation was created for an individual to be of a certain kind. There was stigma generated that those with different bodies or orientations are diseased and mentally contaminated. While trying to be a part of the society, the LGBT community suppressed its orientations, choices, feelings, emotions and behaviours for the longest time. This helped them please society. But we all know, only those are happy who are true to themselves.

This constant prejudice has been taking a persistent psychological toll on this community for years. Clinically, being unhappy with one’s own body and mind, subduing one’s thoughts and emotions, being unable to expressing one’s feelings, and being unceasingly self-critical, can give birth to deep-rooted psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, personality disorders, sexual disorders, passive-aggressiveness, anger issues, feelings of major guilt and critical suicidal thoughts. Dishearteningly, these, and many more mental-health related issues have been the describing force of this amazing community for years.

It is a part of self-care for everyone to believe that they are ‘normal’. At the same time, it is extremely delusional for them to be convinced by the fact that anyone different from them is ‘abnormal’. We all need to intensely understand the laws and nature of human existence and environment in order to truly be able to coexist and to make internal peace with yourself. Accepting the fact that everyone was made in a certain way for a reason, that everyone has the rights to make choices in their lives as they seem fit, and that just because you are different, it doesn’t make you (or others) bizarre.

Just the way we see different animals in a forest coexisting, just the way we see a variety of colourful flowers make the garden look magnificent, just the way mixed farming is the most advantageous way of farming, and just the way we all, individually, also have an array of emotions, moods and perspectives within us, similarly, we need to incorporate respect and admiration for dissimilarity and variance and apply it in our core values.

Let’s all take a pledge today, of being aware of the differences within each-other, being cordial with it, and finding meaning, excitement and happiness in being different. Let’s live and let live. Let’s be empathetic to this marvellous LGBT community’s hardships, and let’s promise of making them a part of us. Let’s tell them that we are proud of them!

Janvi Sutaria is Psychologist & Outreach Associate at Mpower – The Centre, Mumbai. She has pursued her Msc Dip in Clinical and Health Psychology from Newcastle University, UK. She is a Psychologist who believes that for any kind of change in life, an individual should have a clear understanding of the change wanted, should passionately believe in their goals and should get an appropriate and adequate assistance. She believes that any disturbing circumstance can be managed through self-awareness, healthy confrontation and communication.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

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