Publicly holding hands should not be a political act

It was a nice day, I was travelling home by auto, watching the world slowly pass me by. Not too hot, not too cold. The leaves on the trees looked fresh and green, and speckled the road with soft shadows. It was the perfect weather for a walk.

I was not the only one who thought so; two men walked down the pathway, dressed in plain shirts and pants. One carried a laptop bag and wore an office ID card. It was early in the day, so they couldn’t have been off work yet; maybe they were on their lunch break.

They were holding hands.

I craned my neck back to watch them as we passed, prayed they wouldn’t notice it, hoped they’d know I wasn’t being rude if they did. One man leaned forward to whisper to the other, and they laughed. For once, I thanked the slow puttering auto and the cars ahead of me for allowing me to hold on to the sight for just a few seconds longer; to watch the way in which they leaned into each other as they laughed, to drink in how their fingers intertwined. How perfectly they fit.  

A simple act, holding hands, but the emotions they caused in me were complex.

I ached, and I craved. I was jealous, just a little. Mostly, though, I was awed by their bravery. We were on the main road, and the traffic was not minimal. In Bangalore, it never is. Yet they held hands with such ease, like the world outside them didn’t exist. It was an act of rebellion. 

But as I sat in the auto and I thought about them on my way home, my awe gave way to anger. Why should holding hands be “brave”? “Rebellious”? They were simply enjoying a walk, and yet to onlookers, this was a statement, a declaration. “We will not bend to society’s will.” A strong and powerful sentiment, yes, but… maybe that’s not one they aimed to make. Maybe they merely wanted to walk with the person they loved.

To be LGBTQ+ is to have simplicity stripped from one’s life. Existence becomes political, and love even more so. Everyone who views us, examines us and attaches so much ideology to every action we make.

My friend, a queer woman, cut her hair. There were aspects of her gender presentation that related to her sexuality, but this was not one of those. Shorter hair was easier to maintain, meant less sweat in the summer, and that was it. Yet to many, this was her pushing her sexuality in their faces. “You don’t have to be so obvious,” her father had told her. Her experience is not a unique one.

There is always an underlying connotation for any action I make even tenuously perceived to be connected to queerness.

A movie I like has a lesbian couple, so that must be why I like the movie. Alternatively, a movie has a lesbian couple, so I must like it.

One common criticism that LGBTQ+ people face is that they focus too much on their identities. “I’m okay with them being the way they are, but they don’t have to shove it in peoples’ faces” is a sentence most of us have heard. Granted, to some extent when we come out, we tend to surround ourselves with proof of our identity. This is for us, for an affirmation that after so many years of hiding, of suffering, we have claimed our identity, and no one can take it away. After years of having to suppress so much, it’s a relief to be able to say it out loud.

But how much of our actions are “shoving it” in people’s faces, and how much of it is just a perception coloured by knowledge (or suspicion) of queerness? Am I “shoving it” in your face because I throw my arm around my friend, or are you seeing “queer” action just because you know I’m out? I am not reducing my identity to just being queer; you are.

What most people who argue along these lines fail to consider is that the only reason the perceptible representation of queerness is an issue at all is because they consider queerness to be a problem. In this era of constant advertising, we’re used to receiving information and are regularly filtering it. The only time it's an issue is when there appears to be some immorality attached to the idea.

After all, queer people constantly have heteronormativity “shoved in their faces”, through movies, books, and questions from relatives. “When are you going to get married?” “My son is around your age, you know…” Would it be fair to argue that this is unfair? Are queer people expected to be okay not just with the constant presence of heteronormativity but the assumption that they must participate, or is that okay because it’s the norm?

Maybe I’m just tired of fighting. I’ve been out since I was in 8th Standard, and girls in a girls’ school could be particularly ruthless. I crave simplicity. Anonymity. I fight for my rights not because I want to but because I have to. I know everything I say is under the microscope. To many that know me, I’m representative of the queer community; I am the only queer person they know, so any mistakes I make can be reflective of the community as a whole.

There isn’t always subtext, there isn’t always more. Maybe the curtains are just blue, and maybe two men just wanted to take a walk.