STOP Making Faces And Chup-Chaap Non-Heterosexual Ke Baare Mein Jaano!

In a world of binaries, we grew up with only two genders, male and female. As such, it becomes rare to meet people beyond the common notion of straight males and straight females. To make up for the lack, we have a little bit of introduction about the people who are not heterosexuals.

1. While heterosexual means someone attracted towards a person of the opposite sex, non-heterosexual includes everyone who doesn’t identify as heterosexual.

2. Earlier, the norm was to classify people broadly in two categories only, heterosexual and homosexual. But the usage of the term “non-heterosexual” has greatly helped people become aware that this classification is incomplete.

3. The term “homosexual” primarily includes gays and lesbians, while “non-heterosexual” includes bisexuals and transgender as well.

4. People have found using the term “non-heterosexual” to be better because it is a general term. It eliminates the need of categorizing people into gay, lesbian, etc. It is considered helpful in discarding gender bias.

5. Non-heterosexuality is often mistakenly used to refer to people with non-cisgender identities. But this usage becomes irrelevant since the former is concerned with sexual orientation and later with gender identity.

6. The term “non-heterosexual” helped the non-heterosexuals to claim their identity instead of feeling stigmatized or neglected. This was due to earlier deep-rooted beliefs of people who perceived anything other than heterosexuality as abnormal.

7. An American Historian, Jonathan Ned Katz, argued that the usage of the term “non-heterosexual” led to the sole normalization of heterosexuality and caused discrimination against those who were not heterosexuals.

8. Laxmi Narayan Tripathy has been working actively to change mindsets around non-heterosexuals. She is one of the leading Transgender Rights Activists in India. She also discussed her life, struggles, and journey in her autobiography titled Me Hijra, Me Laxmi.

9. The entertainment industry has also started making movies and shows which intend towards educating the audience about sexualities other than heterosexuals. Some examples include Kapoor and Sons and Laxmi. Shows like Pati Patni aur Panga on MX Player have addressed the topic without going overboard.

With the developments in educating people about genders and communities, many people have become aware of the age-old social stigma against non-heterosexuals and started changing the norms and making the world a better place for everyone.