Big Little Moves

The pandemic has been extremely difficult for everyone but it’s been even more adverse for members of the queer communities.

The LGBTQ community has faced a myriad of problems during the pandemic. Sexual minorities have historically suffered from mainstream prejudice and the pandemic has aggravated socio-economic inequalities, instigated family and institutionalised abuse, apart from limiting access to essential care. This has resulted in acute mental distress.

The heightened levels of distress in the community was due to longstanding factors that were unfavourably triggered under lockdown conditions. Family members who are intolerant of marginalised sexual identities, often tagging their orientation as “disorder” or “just a phase”, have always featured among the main perpetrators of subtle and overt forms of violence towards queer, trans and homosexual people.

Access for the queer community for mental health care has historically been low but during the lockdown it was dwindled even further. Not only that but the services that were open towards helping the queer community were completely overwhelmed.

During the 10 months of the first wave of the pandemic in India in 2020, Y’all, a queer collective based in Manipur, received about 1,000 distress calls on their helpline number from LGBTQI+ individuals. In May 2021 alone, they received 450 such calls (including texts and WhatsApp messages) indicating a telling escalation in the number of queer people seeking help during the second wave.

Along with this access to safe queer spaces was also limited to online interactions via zoom calls or other video call mediums.

The pride parade which is a safe space for the queer community to own their identity and express themself was also limited to being a virtual event for the second year in a row. As such the idea of being queer itself was being triggered on a day to day basis.

Our Approach

• Create a safe space for the queer community to express themselves
• Educate people against transphobia and homophobia through real stories
• Empower the community and platform them like a true ally would.

Our Target audience

• Primary | Queer community members
• Secondary | Dating app users | Young Adults (20+) | Aware of the queer community but transphobic.

With our Primary TG we wanted to make queer members who were sitting at home and felt isolated to feel empowered.

With our Secondary TG education was key because these were the people that would report trans members on the dating app.

Glorious Luna is a drag artist. He came out as a homosexual to an empowering family that let him express his identity. However, he still had to face the ignorance and homophobia of the people in general.

Not many people get to choose their own name but not many have the courage that Prithvi does. He spoke of the big little move he made while transitioning.