Things have changed for good in the last 10 years: Nikkiey Chawla on LGBTQ community
India’s first transgender model Nikkiey Chawla is happy with the recognition and acceptance the LGBTQ community has received, especially in the last 10 years. “Earlier, I just knew two words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, and it was only when I turned seventeen-eighteen that I got to know much about it,” she said.
“I was in Delhi when someone asked me if I am from the LGBTQ community, at first I was like which community is this, then later I learned about it. If we compare the last 10 years, so it’s been 10 years for me also wherein I openly said about myself too. Things have changed for good in the last 10 years because that was the time when our fight started. So over the years people’s thinking has changed because of the way some people from our community shared their thoughts and educated the people. And thanks to the media too, who showed the real thing and not some spiced up drama,” she added.
Talking about homosexuality and bisexuality, Nikkiey shared that it was very recently that people started acknowledging it. She added, “It is because of the efforts put in by everyone, be it from media or people from LGBTQ community. And yes, I have many friends from LGBTQ community and I’m very proud of them, they’re very open about it.”
On same-sex marriage in India, she said, “I’m against same-sex marriages, not because I don’t want loved ones to be together, I’m not anyone’s enemy but my point is that when we give everything to people they start making mistakes. I would share an incident that in India when section 377 got scrapped, some people were happy but some people misused it a lot. On Tiktok LGBTQ community people were making videos against themselves and fighting over that, but if you yourself do these kind of things, you should not expect people to understand you.”
“So I want that the people who’re exploring themselves and experiencing freedom to just enjoy that. And not everybody is vocal about their life from LGBTQ community, so I want that this act of marriage to pass after some time, because if it gets passed now, there will be a lot of problems.
Like there are people getting divorced as they’re not understanding each other and not coping up with each other, so if same happens with our community it will cause mishappenings because they’re already emotional vulnerable. So I’m with government on this decision,” she added.
A message to the community? “Please be who you are, love yourself the way you are, no matter from where you are, no matter what color you have, what is your body type, nothing matters, what matters is your love for yourself, your compassion for others. This matters a lot.
I urge my fans to keep supporting me as you were, keep encouraging me, keep loving me, keep watching my show – Moments with Nikkiey Chawla and keep me in your prayers, so that I keep doing good work, and I love you all, love your parents, and complete your education and be self-independent,” Nikkiey signed off.
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