Photo (L-R)  Vikram ( Nirangal ), Bhavana ( Sahodaran ),  Kavya ( Thozhi ), Sankari ( Nirangal ),

Sakthi Natarajan ( Nirangal ).

The Chennai Rainbow Pride March press meet held on 1st of June at 11 am in Chennai Press Club.

Sivakumar Founder & President of Nirangal  & Namitha ( Nirangal ) were Co-ordinates the function.

Chennai hosts its SEVENTH annual Rainbow Pride beginning June 2015, celebrating visibility of alternate sexualities and gender identities. In India, the first Pride march took place in 1999 in Kolkata. Subsequently, Pride Parades have become a fixture of the Indian sexuality/gender rights landscape, with marches having taken place in over fifteen cities to date. In 2009, local groups and collectives working in the areas of sexuality, gender identity, human rights and health/HIV came together under the banner of Chennai Rainbow Coalition, and organized a series of events in the city culminating in the first march on June 28, the last Sunday of the month. In January 2014, the Tamil Nadu Rainbow Coalition was formed, with representatives from most districts of Tamil Nadu, to take the struggle for LGBTQI equality forward in all parts of the state. This year, Pride events in Chennai will commence in June and continue through July 2015. They will include cultural performance festivals, sensitization of educators, youth, students and other stakeholders on sexuality and gender-identity issues, support meetings for parents, poster and placard-making sessions and film screenings. The Chennai Rainbow Pride march will be held on June 28, 2015. This Pride, we bring the following issues to public attention:

 We chose to align the LGBTQI movement in Tamil Nadu with the notion of selfrespect. As a community we are committed to working towards social justice and civil rights beyond alternate sexuality and gender equality.We are determined to fight injustice based on caste, religion, and other forms of oppression.

 It has been over a year since the NALSA judgment of April 15, 2014, in which the Supreme Court recognized the rights of all transgender people, and held that discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation are unconstitutional. However, the five Central schemes announced by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment have yet to be implemented. Tamil Nadu has yet to reactivate its Transgender Welfare Board, expand its scope based on the Events are listed at http://chennaipride.net broader and more inclusive definition of transgender as set out in the Supreme Court ruling, and eliminate physical examinations as proof of transgender identity.

 Section 377 remains an obstacle to the realization of our rights to dignity and equality. We look forward to the day when consenting relationships among adults are not criminalizedjust because they are (erroneously) termed unnatural.

 We call onmulti-national companies to release their Corporate Equality Index details specific to India, ask all private and public sector organizations to ensure workplace equality and include sexual orientation and gender identity issues in diversity training for staff. We seek updates from businesses on progress made in implementing the NALSA judgmenton transgender inclusion.

 We appeal to educational institutions to provide safe non-discriminatory environments for LGBTQI students, and penalize bullying, ragging, and sexual harassment regardless of the students’ sexual orientation, gender or genderidentity.

 Along with the legal struggle we also register our strong opposition to the social and cultural forces that punish young people who chose relationships outside the socially accepted gender, caste, class, and religion, force individuals into marriage against their wishes. It has been scientifically certified that sexual orientation is a disease that can be cured, nor a habit that can be changed;

therefore, we register our opposition to attempt to change sexual orientation through medication, shock therapy, and others means. We acknowledge the support that the movement has received from allies: activists in other social movements who see links between our struggles and theirs, parents who have been exemplary in their expression of love and acceptance, celebrities who have openly expressed their solidarity, all the lawyers who aid our work, and journalists who have been sensitive and just, to mention a few. We extend our gratitude to all these allies.