Born in Malda, a small town in West Bengal, young Koushik kept wondering why he didn’t fit in with rest of the boys. It wasn’t football but fashion that appealed to him. Growing up with cousins, he stood out for his short height and soft voice. “I didn’t always know I was ‘different’. Maybe I wasn’t even always different, any more than every person is totally unique. But it made me be hard on myself,” he says.
But Koushik Hore has today, achieved amazing success in giving a voice to those who are just as different and yet as important to the society as him. After coming out to his mother, the youngster has made leaps and bounds in the LGBTQ community of West Bengal. In 2015, he founded QueerIUs or Queer Identity and Us, a youth led initiative to create dialogue on sexuality, gender, sexual health among queer and non queer youth.
The young advocate found guidance in Kolkata based youth development organization, Prantakatha. “In the inviting addas of Prantakatha, I discovered many people like me. They were suffering from gender identity, exclusion and homophobic silence. Adolescent LGBT people seemed more vulnerable – they experience separation from family and friends, harassment at school and invisibility and isolation. With Prantakatha’s support, I started forming a space that could give a voice to us,” Koushik explains.
In a short time, QueerIUs has made giant strides. It has helped create an all Bengal network of queer people, led by transgender women across 11 districts of Bengal. It has along with Prantakatha, got into an MOU with the state government, through which transgender women are given a chance to work as tour guides. “It has helped create queer friendly spaces in 5 colleges in and around Kolkata and it has built a queer friendly network of professionals like doctors, advocates and mediapersons. It might seem a small deal but for my community, not being able to reveal our identity stops us from seeking treatment. It is a caged life,” the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University graduate says.
Koushik’s zeal and efforts have even reached the United Nations Fund for Population Activities under ‘unManifesto’. Initiated by Commutiny The Youth Collective (CYC) and supported by UNFPA, unManifesto has culminated with over 45 partner organizations, to create India’s largest youth manifesto. “30 youth leaders across the nation working for marginalized communities were asked to list a charter of demands to be placed before the local administration and politicians. 7 point-demands were collected from the LGBTQ community of diverse backgrounds,” he elaborates.
Among the demands, the LGBTQ community asked to make educational spaces queer friendly, to make law enforcement agencies more sensitive to the needs and issues of queer, draft rules to prevent harassment of queer people at workplaces, ensure employment opportunities for transgender people and decriminalise section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
As for the silence that was always engulfing the youngster’s personal life, he feels it no more. “I don’t let the negativity and homophobia sting me. Call me optimistic but I am going to speak up and work tirelessly for my community until there is no silence associated with our existence.”
