THE RAINBOW CHALLENGE

If the Supreme Court accepts the demand of same-sex couples for legalisation of their marriages, it will pave the way for them to get long-denied rights like inheritance, adoption, etc. But it will also open a Pandora's box of compliance complications for government and corporate machineries

- Naina Gautam, Chitra Nair

For the Indian society, the concept of heteronormativity is a bubble-a comfort zone from which it is not ready to come out, says Rahul Upadhyay, founding director of Gandhinagar Queer Pride Foundation in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. According to Upadhyay, who identifies as non-binary, India was "never ready per se" to decriminalise homosexuality.

Last month, the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on cases seeking legal validation for same-sex marriages under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. The hearing of the cases began in March and concluded in May. Against this backdrop, Upadhyay's observation commands a deeper discussion, particularly in the scenario where the apex court rules in favour of the petitioners.

THE BASIC CHALLENGES... ARE THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE TO OPEN JOINT BANK ACCOUNTS, WE CANNOT HAVE A NOMINEE OF OUR SPOUSE AND WE CANNOT OWN PROPERTIES TOGETHER. WE HAVE NO INHERITANCE LAW MANVENDRA SINGH GOHIL LGBT ACTIVIST

Two years after the court read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to decriminalise homosexual relationships in September 2018, a report, Queering the Law: Making Indian Laws LGBT+ Inclusive, commented on the difficulties that the community continued to face in accessing the rights given to them by the court. In its introduction to the chapter on identification documents, the report states, “Identity documents are essential for accessing an array of rights and benefits. But updating them can be very difficult, particularly for transgender persons. Procedures for doing so are complicated, and officials in the process may often discriminate against queer persons."