28-year-old Thahir Mohammed Sayyed (pictured) was slated to represent his home country of India in the upcoming Mr. Gay World pageant being held in Knysna, South Africa this weekend. He was to be the only Asian participant and organizers were thrilled to have him. But homophobic bullies have quickly put a stop all that.
In a statement sent to India’s newspaper DNA, Sayyed said, “I am withdrawing from the contest. I hope the organizers appreciate the difficulties I faced. I cannot take this pressure. I have switched off my phone to prevent getting any unwanted calls.”
He went on to explain that, as a result of entering the competition, he and his family have received threats and were even prevented from praying at their local mosque.
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“It would be unfair for me to drag them into any trouble,” Sayyed said, referring to his family, who he says is now in hiding.
Sayyed also refused to elaborate further out of fear that “talking about this will only worsen things.”
Mr. Gay World is an international pageant for gay men that was established in 2008 with the goal to establish ambassadors for LGBTQ and human rights.
“We created this event to combat homophobia, but for a delegate and his family to go through such harassment is unacceptable and we have to be sympathetic with him,” Eric Butter, president of Mr. Gay World, told DNA.
Other administrators of the pageant also expressed regret over Sayyed’s withdrawal from the competition, calling it “100 percent understandable” but saying it was a shame for India as a country.
“It is unfortunate that LGBTQ rights aren’t accepted in one of the world’s largest democracies,” said Coenie Kukkuk, the pageant’s managing director.
India’s treatment of the LGBT community has seemed to worsen over the last few years. In 2013, the country’s Supreme Court reinstated a colonial era law banning gay sex. The punishment for being caught engaging in homosexual behavior is life imprisonment.
Related: Police Raid Gay Party In India, Arrest 30 Guests For “Indecent Behavior”
Billy Budd
Horrible.
Glücklich
Sad. India is a challenging country getting a lot of bad press lately with the gang rapes and reinstatement of laws against sodomy, but my experiences there, albeit in the big cities and as a white-ish American, have been no different than some other emerging country like Mexico or Chile.
I spent two weeks on business there this past February and took my husband with me as he’d never been. No one paid us any more attention than they would any other Westerner but this was in Mumbai and Delhi, with a weekend in Agra, so lots of tourists. He stayed for another two weeks when I came home and didn’t report anything unpleasant.
India’ll get there. Maybe not like Europe or the coastal US, but they’ll get there.
Realitycheck
@Glücklich: I agree,
the way I see it, nations are like people they need to grow and
that takes time, time to educate and evolve.
And, It is a shame so much suffering must happen in the while….
Jim Guinnessey
No doubt because he is a gay Muslim the mosque crowd (and maybe some of the Hindu crowd, too) got to him.Religion of all kinds has always been the chief oppressor of mankind.
Chris
With that country’s overpopulation, Indian people who are gay should be held up a role models — if for no other reason than their contributions to zero-population-growth. [Yes, my comment is snarky; but it’s the only printable thing I could think of in response to how this young many is being treated.]
Alex Cameron
Humanity at its best not will human ever learn we are
Of peace always v
AlanSA
Excuse my ignorance, but Mr Gay World is supposed to be a World Class event right? So, in order to represent a country (As in Mr India) surely there must have been some sort of selection process in India itself?
Why did this problem not materialize then?
If the country is truly so homophobic that it can send a whole family into hiding surely they would have reacted then (during the selection process) already?
Why only now at the Mr Gay World event? Something’s fishy about this story (or exactly how the Mr Gay World selection process takes place)… OR Maybe this Mr Gay World thing needs a bit of extra publicity? Just asking…
Transiteer
Guess it’s not a surprise, given that India is a nation full of males who see no issue with raping women on the bus, or tourists anywhere. It might try to join the real world, but with all the bonehead males there, it’s stuck in the Third.
SylG73
Shame. If people never fight and face the hardships, things will never change.
jsmu
@Glücklich: Saccharin and drivelling comments by mindless yuppies are not what India needs to ‘get there.’ At this rate, India may ‘get there’ about the time life as we know it comes to a crashing halt–which will be partly because of India’s reckless, thoughtless approach to fossil fuels and the environment. News flash: Mexico and Chile are not ’emerging countries’ in any way shape or form, and clearly you have no idea that Mexico is now ruled by drug cartels and somewhere no intelligent traveler would set foot.
Glücklich
@jsmu:
Pray tell, what are your strategies for furthering India’s acceptance of its gay Muslim population after 1,500 years? You’re clearly enjoying life from the cheap seats of armchair activism, enabling you to give careful consideration to what India DOESN’T need…
“Mexico is…somewhere no intelligent person would go.” Tell that to the hundreds of foreign companies, including my own, who have set up offices (large ones at that) in Monterrey.
Chile and Mexico, while in better shape than India, are, in fact, emerging countries, though your incisive observations are doubtless informed by your firsthand experience conducting business there. Oh no wait! That was MY firsthand experience.
This “mindless yuppie” considers himself put in his place!
James Hart
Because this website is headquartered in the US, people here forget that most of the world views homosexuality as unnatural.
Gordon S. Hale
Queer bullies!
Kangol
@Glücklich:
There are Islamic traditions like Sufism and even some traditions in Sunni and Shia Islam that have not been homophobic in the past. Look at the tradition of gay male poetry in Arabic.
The problem is Wahabist Islam that keeps getting spread and funded by Saudi Arabia, and Salafism and other forms of extremist religion. So anti-gay beliefs and practices are NOT automatically associated with Islam.
Also, South Asia has a tradition of same-sexual love and transgendered people who were integrated into the society. Among Hindus there are the hijras, and in Pakistan, trans people are accepted in the wider culture (though not among religious extremists; sound familiar), and have even hosted TV shows there.
Also, as the article noted, “In 2013, the country’s Supreme Court reinstated a colonial era law banning gay sex.” It was the BRITISH who introduced virulently homophobic laws and beliefs in India and everywhere else they ruled (the US–we’re still getting over it, Nigeria, Egypt, Jamaica, China, you name it).
That country and its horrible laws and traditions deserves a huge amount of the blame for the suffering that LGBTIQ people have endured since these hateful laws, and settler-colonialism took root.
Glücklich
@Kangol:
Thank you for your thoughtful input. I barely remembered there had been some level of LGBT, etc, acceptance pre-Raj but did know all of that was outright banned by the British.
I also appreciate your segmentation of the various branches of Islam with which I am unfamiliar. (In my business, Sharia is the go-to for matters of finance and investment since it has a clearly codified methodology for things like profit purification and acceptable businesses.) Like most Americans, I automatically associate Islam with gay=death so that’s my bad.
I’m willing to give the British a pass on their former colonies’ attitudes toward their LGBT populations. South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia come to mind. ZA is the primary destination for a business trip I have planned in October. Unfortunately, that same trip also includes calls on clients in Botswana and Kenya, which are not so friendly to our type, though I may scratch Kenya if the safety climate hasn’t stabilized by then; the husband is coming with and I’ve nixed a vacation in Zanzibar even though they’re pretty tolerant of gay *tourists*.