This is for my friends outside India - thanks for your privately expressed concern, which is appreciated. Vastly more appreciated would be if you could take a minute to express it publicly. Mainstream media in many countries has been largely silent on the issue. (1/n) At a dinner in Melbourne with a group of very well informed people, I found that most had simply not heard of what was happening, or if they were faintly aware, had no clue about the extent to which the State was clamping down on dissent in as violent a manner as possible. (2/n)

India' new Transgender Rights Bill needs to rejected in totality by the Rajya Sabha for the following reasons (1/7) #StopTransBill2018 It nullifies the NALSA judgment sanctioned principle of self-identification. Under the bill, any person who wants to change their gender marker to "transgender" needs to appear before a screening committee which includes medical experts. (2/7) #StopTransBill2018

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) 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)

On a break from the Supreme Court's #Section377 hearings, a very unexpected barometer of change. (1/5) Six years ago, as the hearings in Suresh Kumar Koushal began, I came out to my parents. They reacted with anger and sorrow, then took me to a psychiatrist who informed all of us that homosexuality was a mental disorder which he could cure with aggressive treatment. (2/5)

The third day of the #Section377 Constitution Bench hearing was a mix of pointed arguments from the lawyers arguing for decriminalization and horrific hate speech masquerading as submissions from the respondents who finally began their arguments. Thread on Respondents' arguments. As with the 2012 hearings, there was little substance in what they actually had to say. Unlike the 2012 hearings, the judges did not allow these digressions to go on for long.

Day 2 of the #Section377 Constitution Bench hearings also featured some of the most powerful court craft I have had the privilege of witnessing, courtesy @MenakaGuruswamy (Thread) It wasn’t the fact that she was the first female lawyer to speak in a testosterone packed litigation (and courtroom), though that was crucial. It wasn’t the fact that she made it a point to address the sole female judge on the Bench time and again, though that was significant.

Today's #Section377 hearing at the Supreme Court was empathetic and invigorating, a far cry from the 2012 hearings that reduced the LGBT community to a series of acts, then refused to provide any kind of safeguards against state abuse because who after all was targeted? (Thread) In the Koushal Court in 2012 , the two judges constantly interrupted counsel with outright irrelevant digressions on what constituted "carnal intercourse against the order of nature", the fig leaf of a phrase that targets LGBT persons under section 377 #Section377