Punjabi gay

I grew up in a Sikh family in India, and while I was not particularly religious, I maintained my religious identity by having uncut hair and wearing a turban. Over the next few years, as I grew more confident in my intersectional identities, I decided to be more visible as well, both through my writings and my appearances.

I wanted to discuss my experiences within the queer community — of being rejected due to my religious identity, or of being fetishized for it. She explains what being gay Punjabi is and how to come out easily.

Punjabi and gay my

Other gay Sikhs I met had punjabi experiences both within the community and from society at large. Read more here: www. There is an assurance in finding someone who is similar to you, be it in terms of skin colour, culture, or religious identity.

I still remember how lonely and confused I felt after coming out both to myself, and then to the world at large. I experienced being outright rejected by people because of my religious identity, while others told me that I was disrespecting the Sikh community.

While no debates on the topic had taken place in Sikh faith before as in other faiths, where religious texts have been reinterpreted in their meaning for the modern worldsome edicts had been passed by the religious bodies as a reaction to same-sex marriage, without much discussion or thought.

As a 22 year old, I launched a LGBT e-magazine called Gaylaxy in to provide a platform for the community to connect with each other. [1] The universal goal of a Sikh is to have no hate or animosity to any person, regardless of factors like race, caste, color, creed or gender.

But despite not being religious myself, my experiences as a gay man were starting to get shaped because of my religious identity. I wanted to assure other young queer Sikhs that one could be gay and Sikh, and live their life openly.

LGBT issues within the media gay not so widely covered back then, and often lacked the sensitivity too.

To Assure Other Young

I did not receive any trolling or adverse reactions to these articles. While India waits for the Supreme Court's verdict on legalising same-sex marriage, an LGBTQ couple's recent wedding in the northern state of Punjab has made headlines - and also created controversy.

[1] In Januarythe Jathedar. But I was looking for more than just a visual reassurance. I did not want others to grow up searching for people and personal stories they could relate to. Instead of the clean-shaved look that most gay men seemed to have and prefer, my turban and facial hair along with the texts in these dating sites sowed a doubt in my mind that no one would ever want to date me, causing to a lot of body-image issues that took a while to go.

Gay parents were religious, but beyond taking me to Gurudwaraour place of assembly and worship, every Sunday as a child, and sometimes narrating stories about our religion or Gurus, they never tried to impose any strict religious code on me. This gay Sikh's mum sits down with him as she explains everything to make coming out be easier in Punjabi.

But as I started understanding my sexuality more, became part of various online queer groups and gay, and joined some of the gay dating websites, I started yearning to see gay men who looked like me — with a turban and beard.

LGBT Sikhs at London gay pride Sikhism has no specific teachings about homosexuality and the Sikh holy scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, does not explicitly mention heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality. It is also a faith where, for a long time, no large-scale discussions around the topic of homosexuality have taken place within the community for good or bad.

Thus, I never felt any conflict between my own religious identity and my sexuality. The Sikh faith is one of the youngest faiths in the world. As the editor of GaylaxyI came punjabi a small number of gay Sikhs in a few online forums. This led to a lot of insecurity punjabi me.

I was Sikh, and later I realized I was gay, and both of these were part of me, and I did not think being one meant giving up on the other. I had never given religion too much importance in my own life for that matter. Then there were others who only looked at Sikh men as very muscular and well-endowed and wanted to fulfil their fantasies.

The idea of Sikhism that I grew up with was a very accommodating and inclusive one.