‘Today, Supreme Court has told me that I unambiguously have the right to love’: Prominent queer rights activist

With the decriminalising of section 377, many people also took the opportunity to openly come out about their sexuality. Among many, a Twitter thread by a law professor Danish Sheikh has gone viral. In the nine-tweet thread, Sheikh has given a peek into his life from the age of 13 and how he struggled with his sexuality. At the age of 17, when he figured things out, he also realised that the law wasn’t on his side.

I was 13 when I first fell in love with a boy. I didn’t realize it then. I only knew that I was willing to learn 9th grade Sanskrit without any prior knowledge of the language just to be in a class with him. (1/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

I was 16 when I fell in love with another boy. This time, I knew what it was, but was able to successfully convince myself it was a phase – or even better, that it was a one-off kind of love, that I’d just as easily fall for a woman. (2/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

I was 17 when I realized that I wasn’t going to fall for women. That year, for the first time I spoke the words that would make the jigsaw confusion of the last 6 years fall into place. “I’m gay” I said, sitting in the dark, practicing the utterance. (3/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

I was 18 when I began reading about the law that was not on my side, and when I began to see how its existence seemed to validate the silences that had slowly accrued. (4/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

Mentioning the 2013 judgment, he writes, “I was 24 when the Supreme Court delivered the Suresh Kumar Koushal judgment and told me that the rights I assumed were part of my innate humanity did not in fact exist.” However, now he finally feels equal. Equal to others and with a right to love.

I was 19 when I fell in love with a man, sense what it could mean for love to be reciprocated and then what it could mean for it to be lost. (5/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

I was 24 when the Supreme Court delivered the Suresh Kumar Koushal judgment and told me that the rights I assumed were part of my innate humanity did not in fact exist. (6/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

The Koushal Court’s words were weighted down with prejudice and hate. I laughed and brushed them off but they often became an unsaid justification to tolerate casual indignities in public or casual cruelties in private. (7/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018

I am 29. The highest constitutional court of my country has finally told me that
I am, unambiguously, an equal citizen. That I have, unambiguously, the right to love. (8/9)

— Danish Sheikh (@dsheikh726) September 6, 2018