Desi gay cruising

My journey of self-exploration began in 2012, when I was 14 years mature. It was a time just after I’d experienced utmost discrimination in university for being lgbtq+. I was launch to understand and dive deeper into my queerness in India, a land where LGBTQ people do not possess the same rights as straight people. As I looked for safe spaces to explore my identity, I stumbled upon one I found surprising endorse then: a neighbourhood public park.

A companion who I’d met through PlanetRomeo – one of the earliest queer matchmaking app platforms – told me about a park in my city in the central Indian declare of Madhya Pradesh, which doubled up as a homosexual hotspot. Out of curiosity, I establish my way to the said park, which was just an enclosed patch of unkempt grass next to a noisy road. I first watched from a distance how around sundown, a group of a dozen or so men I’d later call “queens,” would gather. As I gathered confidence to approach them over the next limited days, I realised that this is where they’d connect to offload their daily stress, discuss about their lives, or just connect up.

For a teenager who’d recently idea that no one would ever know him, this is where I first sought solace. I made friends