Coming out is like ripping a Band-Aid off, the sooner the better, an openly gay senior advocate who has been recommended for elevation as a Delhi High Court judge by a Supreme Court collegium told a Kolkata audience on Thursday.
“Who you have sex with defines you, both within yourself and how society perceives you. The idea that people perceive me to be something different from what I truly am negates that what I think I am, too. Your sense of self gets withered away, without coming out when you need to come out. Do it sooner than later. It is like ripping a Band-Aid. You have got to do it,” Saurabh Kirpal said at a session on the final day of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet, in association with the Victoria Memorial and The Telegraph.
Kirpal was part of a panel discussion called Queersapien, the title of a book by Sharif Rangnekar, an Indian author, curator and singer-songwriter focussed on diversity and inclusion.
Other than Kirpal and Rangnekar, the panellists were American novelist Andrew Sean Greer and Sumita Beethi, a queer feminist activist and an active member of Sappho for Equality, an LGBTQIA+ (an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more) rights organisation.
The session — moderated by Sandip Roy, a writer, journalist and broadcaster based in Kolkata — brought the curtains down on the “spoken-word part” of the literary meet (a musical performance followed).
Roy said Kirpal’s private life had become “part of the public discourse”.
“Do you ever think that 'everything would have been simpler if I had just not talked about it',” Roy asked Kirpal, prompting him to talk about the importance of coming out.
“It might have been but I would have been so terribly unhappy, not to have come out. I don’t think my life would have been worth a living, because we'd be living a lie every day. I tell a lot of people who have not come out yet.... There is no right time or right way to do it. But do it you must,” said Kirpal.
The Supreme Court collegium had earlier this month reiterated its recommendation to elevate Kirpal as a Delhi High Court judge, saying “his orientation is a matter which goes to his credit… he has not been surreptitious about his orientation”.
In a resolution released on January 19, the collegium rejected the Centre’s argument that Kirpal’s partner’s being a foreign national disqualified him.
If Kirpal’s candidature is approved, he will be the first gay activist to be appointed a high court judge in the country.
Kirpal has appeared in a range of matters covering a diverse range of subjects — from representing Anil Ambani in his legal battle with his brother to being counsel for Navtej Johar, Ritu Dalmia and others in the case that led to the reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalises homosexuality).
He is the managing trustee of the Naz Foundation Trust, the NGO that first fought for decriminalisation of homosexuality in India.
“Do you ever worry that everything about you just becomes pigeonholed into one identity? You are more than just India's first-ever gay judge. You have more legal scholarship than that,” asked Roy.
Kirpal said he does not mind being pigeonholed if it gives some hope to people.
“I am not just a gay person. I am a son, a proud partner, the father to the dogs, and so many other things. But a lot of people take courage from the fact that I am a queer person who is a lawyer.
“I may not consider myself a gay activist. But if it gives comfort to people who otherwise have no one to look up to, because it is not as though we are flooded with people from the queer community who are reaching places of importance, then I don’t really mind being pigeonholed in a particular way. I think my sense of self is a bit stronger than what other people label me as,” he said.
Roy, the moderator, asked Rangnekar about the journey from his previous book— Straight to Normal - My Life as a Gay Man, which came out in 2019 — to his latest, Queersapien. "That book was more of a coming out sort of a story. Queersapien is more reflective. The journey has been more about looking at life in general, the politics of existence, being born into a religion or a caste. It is about new liberalism and a certain idea of liberation which has more to do with consumerism rather than the self," he said.
Greer, who got the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Loss, said that sexual freedom included freedom for all, including heterosexual women.
