How would you describe the word “LOVE”? I would say “it’s an entirely emotional bond shared by two parties together regardless of gender, time or space.’’ Hope you agree.

Is there anything called “NORMAL”? Well, by now we all know there’s not, because the pandemic we are going through has taught us a really important lesson which is that there is nothing called “normal”. We have begun to redefine “the normal”. Everything has taken a fresh look and turn. Be that as it may, have we let this change, almost twice the size of the world, seep into our emotional stratosphere yet?

We talk about humanity, equality and go into rhapsodies over egalitarianism. But is this a practical reality yet? It really beats me.

LGBTQ+ Well, it rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? But do you know what it means? If not, you should keep on reading. Even if you already do, no problem, keep on reading because you are going to learn a really important lesson that school presumably never taught you.

LGBTQ+. Let me spread it out for you. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transexual, queer/questioning. The list goes on. For those of you who are not familiar with these terms, let me just briefly give their definitions. Lesbians are women who are attracted to other women. Gays are men who are attracted to other men, while bisexuals are attracted to both men and women.

Transgender people are those whose sex assigned at birth doesn’t sit comfortably with their gender. Queer though considered by some derogatory, young people who are not bound by or identify with the societal zeitgeist on sexual orientation or gender identity call themselves queer while questioning is the process of discovering one’s own gender identity or sexuality. Hope this caught your fancy. I hope to interest you more. Keep on reading.

The International Service Avenue of the Rotaract Club of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura launched a campaign called ‘’Pride- Love of the Rainbow’’ with the prime objective of building awareness about the LGBTQ+ community to create an atmosphere impregnated with equality for every single human soul to feel free to love and that love to be reciprocated.

In this concerted crusade for equality, a lot of other international Rotaract clubs joined hands with us. Now you must be wondering why we launched this project.

Well, the answer is, a lot of LGBTQ+ people have to confront social ostracism on a daily basis which makes it even difficult for them to come to terms with their own sexual orientation, gender identity considered counterintuitive and regarded with disdain by the very society which is believed to be founded on humanity and egalitarianism.

With that in mind, initially we waged an awareness campaign to make people familiar with what LGBTQ + is and its many facets. Through digital literature we were able to educate a lot of people who were not aware of LGBTQ+ or who didn’t have a clear comprehension as to what it really was.

We took the best out of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and the whole kit and caboodle to spread these words of knowledge. Then we talked about the problems and issues confronted by the LGBTQ+ community and how some people from the community have luckily gained acceptance and affirmation in some countries.

In a country like Sri Lanka, more often than not the LGBTQ+ community is pushed to the fringes of the society. Some of them end up on the streets sex-working or in religious processions dancing to entertain others. Is this their fate? I beg to differ because their fate would have been better and entirely different if not for the discrimination, violence, ill-treatment and harassment befall them most of the time.

It is pathetic indeed to see such gratuitous acts of violence, contempt and hatred in a country where the sun rises to the soothing sounds of Paritta -chanting, azans, ghantas and church bells. People wake up to them. Each morning they are reminded of the pure teachings of love, compassion, empathy and sympathy of their respective religion. It doesn’t matter even if you’re irreligious because nothing makes you less human and humanity is the most precious and unblinded form of religion.

We didn’t let our efforts stop there. Without letting the significant impact of the project dwindle away in any way, we held three webinars on three salient topics featuring nine individuals who work for the community and above all who value humanity more than anything.

Not only did Sri Lankans, but also a lot of foreign Rotaractors joined in these interesting and mind-boggling discussions. In the first webinar we talked about ‘’Sexual orientation’’ and the facilitators who made this discussion a reality were Brandon Ingram, Actor, Writer, Creative Director; Shanelle De Almeida, Licensed Clinical Psychologist; Nathasha Edirisooriya– Project Coordinator at Community Welfare and Development Fund.

The second webinar was on ‘’Ending discrimination against LGBTQ+ Community’’ which was facilitated by Aritha Wickramasinghe, Lawyer and Equality Director at iProbono; Ardlay Mohamed, Head of Counselling & Asst. Centre Manager at Shanthi Maargam; Rosanna Flame Caldera, Sri Lankan LGBT Rights Activist.

The last webinar facilitated by Thyagaraja Wardas, LGBT rights activist and Senior Lecturer at the UOC; Vasi Udurawane, Artist, Writer and Actress; Thenu Ranketh, Executive Director of the Venasa Transgender Network was on ‘’Gender Identity’’. In approbation of the second webinar, The Morning e-Paper published an article making us so proud of the work we had done proving the saying “We only have what we give.”

Then, in the heat of the moment, right after the webinars, we continued our awareness campaign through digital literature; mainly images carrying information and captions carrying words of knowledge. To make the process of awareness more interesting to people, we introduced a short video series whereby we shared a couple of personages’ (who also share their part in the LGBTQ+ community) message to their younger soul with help of the book ‘’Yay! You’re GAY! Now what? – A GAY BOY’S GUIDE TO LIFE’’ by Riyadh Khalaf, an Irish-Iraqi author, LGBTQ+ activist, broadcaster and YouTuber.

To our greatest satisfaction, Rotaract Club of de Conceição das Alagoas, Rotaract Club of Sagamu, Rotaract Club of Taxco de la Borda, Rotaract Club of Chittagong Rainbow, Rotaract Club of Deonar and Rotaract Club of Narayan Zantye College waged awareness campaigns in concert with Pride, the project we launched as the ardour was in air.

Even though we could not organize anything physical owing to the Covid-19 outbreak, we were able to make a donation to EQUAL GROUND, a non-profit organization working for the betterment of the LGBTQ+ community which was quite rewarding because although physical activities had been pulled out, we managed to do something meritorious for the very community who are still seeking acceptance within this tiny island surrounded by the chatoyant waters of the Indian Ocean.

The project wouldn’t have been a reality if not for the kind hearts over at Bellisma, Macarons.lk, 180 DEGREES and last but not lease, The Fox’s Lair by Khayali. So, I’d like to leave a special note of thank to them on behalf of the organizing committee of the project who are forever grateful for their kind support rendered by sponsoring the project.

Didn’t I promise that you would learn something that school never taught you at the end of the article? Well, let me quote the phenomenal Stephan Fry. ‘’Live an honest open life and people won’t despise you for it, or if they do, they won’t be worth knowing: only insecure and unhappy people snigger and sneer’’. Well, that’s it.

So spread love! Be someone who values humanity over anything else. Let’s make this world a better place for everybody to love and to be loved for their sexual preferences, limerences and dalliances are highly personal. So why worry over something that doesn’t do you any harm? We all are creations of Nature and Nature made us different and assigned each of us a task to complete before going to bed under a sepulchre.

Basically, we all are decedents of the same bloodline if the humankind started with two people initially. Let’s love each other for at the end of the day, we all are born and die in the same manner, we all cry and laugh in the same manner. Spread humanity, take pride in who you are, do your job for the society and live an honest open life as Stephan says. 

Written by Rtr. Pomuditha Katugampala