The word ‘homosexuals’ literally means the quality or characteristic of being sexually attracted solely to people of one’s own sex. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by sexual attraction or romantic love exclusively for people who are identified as being of the same sex. People who are homosexual, particularly males are known as ‘gay’, homosexual females are known as lesbians. Homosexual marriages, sometimes referred to as gay marriage, indicate a marriage between two persons of the same sex. The term “homosexual,” was first coined by the Hungarian doctor Karoly Maria Benkert, in 1869, although the term was not in much use until the early-20th Century. 

Mid-twentieth-century homosexual activists preferred the term “homophile” over homosexual, seeing it as a more neutral and acceptable option because it removed the word “sexual” while positively affirming same-gender attraction.  The word “gay” was used as an underground term in the early-20th century and came into usage during the mid-nineties. The term was mostly used during the Stonewall incident. It was historically used as a complete term that included the whole of modern LGBTQ initialism. 

Again, the term “lesbian” comes from the Greek island of Lesbos, related to the poet Sappho, whose writings describe love and attraction between women. As a “gay” classically refers to men who are attracted to men, the requirement of a distinct lesbian identity was often demanded by omissions gay women faced in feminist and gay organizations.

The Olden Days of Homosexuality

The early western document about homosexual relationships come from Ancient Greece when same-sex relationship was a societal custom. Even homosexual marriages have taken place at a relative rate in the past, both within Christian and non-Christian communities.  It is suggested by the researchers that the Catholic Church, which has been enormously loud in its opposition to homosexuality in general, actually approved of same-sex marriages for over 1,500 years, only stopping to perform them in the nineteenth century. In pre-industrial societies also homosexuality was generally recognized by the lower classes although some members of the upper classes considered it immoral.

However, with the rise of the concept of the nuclear family and proceeding urbanization, homosexuality became much less endured and even forbidden in some cases. The sexual alignment in a pre-modern era as shown in different arts such as love poetry and paintings and even in historical figures such as Alexander the Great, Plato, Hadrian, Virgil, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Christopher Marlowe included or were centered upon a relationship with people of their own gender.

However, the term homosexuality appears in print for the first time in 1869 in an anonymous German pamphlet paragraph 142 of the Prussian penal Code and Its maintenance paragraph 152 of the Draft of a Penal Code for North German Confederation written by Karl Maria Kertbeny. This pamphlet advocated the repeal of Prussia’s sodomy laws. Instances of homosexuality are available in Hindu Mythology. The literature drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fiction also testifies the presence of same-sex love in various forms. Ancient texts such as the Manu Smriti, Arthashastra, Kamasutra, Upanishads, and Puranas refer to homosexuality.

Also, there are reports that same-sex activities are common among sannyasins, who cannot marry. Thus, examples of homosexuality are available in both the historical and mythological transcripts all over the world and India is also one of them. Thus, history has evidence demonstrating the presence of homosexuality in past.

Whereas in the past 10 years world over, for the lesbian and gay rights, we find that the legal creativities have transferred from the right to be privately sexual, that is the right to have same-sex relationships at all, to the right to be specific public subjects, threatened from judgment in the workplace and in the provision of services, toward the right to have relationships given status by the law. This change in rights focus, from legalization to civil protection, to civil acknowledgment is, not entirely a lined one. Thus, in recent years a number of jurisdictions had either calmed or eliminated laws restriction homosexual behavior.

The Global Scenario of Homosexual Marriages

At times people used to simply stand the phenomenon, at other times they support legal recognition of such unions, under the cause of avoiding, with regard to certain rights. In other cases, they favor giving homosexual unions legal equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along with the legal possibility of adopting children. Thus, an increasing number of jurisdictions have legalized homosexual acts. However, many jurisdictions have reserved their statutory prohibitions on homosexual acts in spite of much criticism from groups and individuals. The last century witnessed the foremost changes in the conception of homosexuality.

Since 1974, homosexuality stopped being considered an irregular behavior and was removed from the classification of mental disorder. Since then, homosexuality has been legalized in different countries. There are various states across the globe that enacted anti-discriminatory or equal opportunity laws and policies to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a topic of the debate was created with progress towards ad bans of same-sex marriage, although it was recognized nationwide in six countries: Netherland (2001), Belgium (2003), Canada (2005), Spain (2005) and South Africa (2006). The state of Massachusetts in the United States also recognized same-sex unions (although these marriages still have no legal recognition at the federal level in the US). With this, approximately 2.5% of the world’s total population is estimated at 155 million people worldwide.

The act of marriage in society is generally regarded as ranging only to male-female relationships, although most marriage statutes consider it as gender-neutral. Whereas, many examples of acceptance of homosexual marriages as mentioned above and recently approaching as society is gradually becoming more tolerant. This change is copied in the increasing number of jurisdictions, which have decriminalized such acts. However, many jurisdictions have retained their statutory prohibitions on homosexual marriages despite much criticism from groups and individuals who believe that the sodomy law is obsolete and should be repealed.

Hence same-sex relationships, regardless of their duration, are not legally recognized in most countries even their existence has been proven by history and as a result, homosexual partners are deprived of many of the legal and economic privileges automatically conferred by marital status. These include employee benefits, the right to file joint tax returns, and perhaps most importantly since the start of AIDS, health benefits and rights arising on the death of a partner, including regional inheritance, etc. In society at large many of these benefits are available to heterosexual de facto partners, but continue to be inaccessible to homosexual partners.

Indian Society and the Homosexual

Today, although queer identities can be said to be acceptable to many Indian youths than the old times, they are only accepted within the boundaries of their family and home. Acceptance of their sexuality and freedom to express their gender choices is still a long-run struggle. Social media and corporate initiatives have helped a lot in increasing awareness of homosexual (LGBTQ) rights. And the situation looks more optimistic for homosexuals as compared to transgender people or lesbian women. Even though social media and online platforms have been a help for the urban society, it exposes only a small part of the challenges faced by the community. Because far away from these online discussions, the rural part of the country has its own way to deal with these individuals.

Secret honor killings for a young gay, family-sanctioned corrective rapes for lesbian women, even pre-planned and sanctioned by their own family are some of the ways still practiced in the rural society. Even in urban societies, suicides by homosexuals are part of headlines every year. It would be not very wrong to say that own families are dangerous to homosexuals in India. A recent study found that one of the main factors that result in the humiliation of this community people is their own family reaction towards homosexuality. It concludes that most LGBT people are accepted to family only if they agree to live like heterosexuals.

Legal Status

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code relates to Unnatural Offences and includes homosexuality within its domain. In India, this Law relating to homosexuality was adopted from the British penal code dating to the 19th century. Section 377 states:

“Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.”

Similarly, Section 292 of IPC refers to obscenity and there is ample scope to include homosexuality under this section. Also, Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code, which punishes any kind of “obscene behavior in public”, is also used against gay men. From 2010 onward has been the rise of LGBTQ rights. There has been a continuous demand for rights in courts and in the public by the LGBTQ community. And this have been resulting in the passing of judgments that paved the way for those rights in India. The judiciary, both the High Courts and the Supreme Court, have been open to the issues raised by the different NGOs, groups of LGBTQ members, and associates.

This has resulted in some landmark judgments in the last decade which concluded in the reading down of Section 377. Section 377 of The Indian Penal Code was the act that criminalizes homosexuality which was introduced during the British rule in India. It was referred to as unnatural offenses and it said that whosoever has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with man, woman, or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

However, in the case of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India as a historic verdict, the Supreme Court of India on 6th September 2018, decriminalized the Sec.377 of the IPC and allowed gay sex among consenting adults in private. The SC ruled that consensual adult gay sex is not a crime saying sexual orientation is natural and people have no control over it. The Court held the article affords protection to ‘any person,’ “transgender persons who are neither male/female fall within the expression ‘person’ and, hence, entitled to legal protection of laws in all spheres of State activity, including employment, healthcare, education as well as equal civil and citizenship rights, as enjoyed by any other citizen of this country.”

In the case of NALSA vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court of India held that the right to express one’s identity in a non-binary gender was a crucial part of freedom of expression. It directed the government to give legal recognition to the third gender.

Conclusion

There has been a lot of advancement in the past decade to understand LGBT, their existence, and their rights. Changes in laws, policies, societal structural changes, and mentality have improved the conditions of this minority community. There have been important advances in theoretical understandings of their lives. These advances, and associated research on processes, point to the relevance of approaches directly addressing minority stress in the lives of youth and how this stress affects youth well-being. At the same time, keeping in mind the magnitude of mental health problems suffered by LGBT youth, it is upsetting that there are only a few supported approaches for working with these youth across a variety of set-ups, ranging from schools to clinical treatment.

In a decade across the globe, different countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have affirmed same-sex marriage and repealed discriminatory laws, countries such as New Zealand and France have confirmed financial and adoption rights for the queer community. Even in India where homosexuality was criminalized, referred to as unnatural offenses, through some landmark judgments, decriminalized homosexuality and allowed gay sex among consenting adults in private and many others which improvised the rights and positions of these individuals. It also ordered the government to take necessary steps to remove the social disgrace, promote transgender-specific health programs, and grant them equal legal protection.

Even though structural changes are required on a large scale, through every large and small, every society across the globe, it is ongoing. And through this time the individuals need support and their free will to express themselves in society, there are still stereotypes thought, people’s biases that are leading them to think that homosexual people are odd and different from the normal ones. Even today there are cases of people coming out of the closet and stating to their families that they are not the person their family expected them to be.

This society has to understand that being a homosexual is neither a ‘problem’ nor is it a ‘choice’ or such. LGBT individuals are also individuals, persons who have their sexual preferences which differ from which appear to be the normal, due to differences in behaviors, having a personal perspective and mentality that differs from everyone else’s. Saying that it’s accurately wrong for people to have sexual preferences that differ from the normal is wrong itself.