Hello,

As a child, Krishal Prasad was mocked for having more girls than boys as friends, and because he was interested in dance, rather than sports. He didn’t feel comfortable talking to his family about his gender and sexuality, so turned to the internet. There, he encountered the term “bisexual” and, on reading more about it, realised it described him accurately.

Like Prasad, many young queer people across India take the first steps towards understanding and exploring their identity on the internet. Online, they can avoid many of the risks that come with expressing themselves offline, and reach a much wider community than that of their immediate surroundings. 

But, as Nolina Minj writes in Common Ground, navigating the internet comes with its own set of dangers. 

“As with most technology, the internet can prove to be both a blessing and a bane for queer youth,” Minj said. “Even as the interviews elaborated on how the internet enables queer self-expression and community building, they simultaneously magnified the glaring lack of support systems for queer youth in the offline world.”

You can read the story here.

India’s queer youth find both hope and despair online

The internet helps them circumvent offline dangers and express themselves fully. But in doing so, they encounter new kinds of risks in the digital sphere.

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Ajay Krishnan
Senior Editor