Posted on September 16, 2013
Source: Los Angeles Times
NEW DELHI — Khushi Kumari had long kept her sexuality a secret, living alone like many of this sprawling city's gay, lesbian and transgender residents.
Today, Kumari, who was born male but lives as a woman, is out of the closet and has moved home with her family. "I said, 'Why hide it?'" Kumari explained one evening at Mitr Trust, an LGBT drop-in center in a bustling, working-class neighborhood of New Delhi. "It just made me depressed. I got mad hiding things all the time."
Kumari, wearing a brilliant yellow and green sari, gold-chain earrings and bright red fingernail polish, is a frequent visitor to Mitr, which she credits with giving her the confidence to live openly and seek medical care for her HIV infection. "Whatever you want to be, you can be here," she said.
Mitr, which means "friendship" in Hindi, was established to battle the spread of HIV/AIDS, as large boxes of condoms stacked in a corner attest. Its benefactors include a state health agency. But like many such community organizations, Mitr is also increasingly responsible for helping some of the most marginalized people emerge from society's shadows, providing medical care and financial counseling, even minting political activists.
Members of these groups now march annually through the streets of India's largest cities in World AIDS Day parades. In southern India, the nation's first transgender movie star runs a foundation devoted to empowering transgender Indians.
In many countries, gay men, transvestites and others most affected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, still suffer discrimination and violence. But as the global fight against the epidemic enters its fourth decade, the campaign's effect on civil society is emerging as one of its most profound legacies.
Some countries have granted rights to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that go beyond those in the United States.
"This is the first disease where people affected demanded a seat at the table," said Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist who heads the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins University. "LGBT communities are literally emerging out of the HIV response."
