Know all about Marsha Johnson, the LGBTQ+ activist in today's Google doodle

Marsha is credited as one of the key leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising-widely regarded as a critical turning point for the international LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Google on Tuesday honoured LGBTQ+ rights activist Marsha P Johnson for emerging as one of the pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the US. Today's Google doodle, illustrated by Los Angeles-based guest artist Rob Gilliam, has shown Marsha with all smiles and sporting her iconic flowery and colourful headgear.

On this day last year, Marsha was posthumously honored as a grand marshal of the New York City Pride March. New York City had also announced plans to erect statues of Marsha and her fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera Rivera in Greenwich Village, which will be one of the world's first monuments in honor of transgender people.

Marsha was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. on August 24th, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After graduating high school in 1963, she moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, a burgeoning cultural hub for LGBTQ+ people. Here, she legally changed her name to Marsha P. Johnson. Her middle initial-"P."-allegedly stood for her response to those who questioned her gender: "Pay It No Mind."

Marsha is credited as one of the key leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising-widely regarded as a critical turning point for the international LGBTQ+ rights movement. The following year, she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR) which was the first organisation in the United States to be led by a trans woman of color and was the first to open North America's first shelter for LGBTQ+ youth, said Google.

No single 'gay gene' defines sexuality, finds largest-ever DNA analysis

The new statistical analysis revealed five points in our chromosomes, called loci, which appear closely linked to sexuality, though each individually has a 'very small' influence.

Business Standard : Like size or intelligence, sexual attraction isn't defined by one gene alone, but is instead the result of the complex interplay between multiple regions of the genome and hard to pin environmental factors.

That's the conclusion of an analysis conducted on half a million DNA profiles as part of a giant study by researchers in Europe and the United States published in the influential journal Science on Thursday.

Its authors hope to bury the notion, popularised in the 1990s, of the existence of an all powerful "gay gene" that determines sexuality in the way eye colour is defined.

"We... found that it's effectively impossible to predict an individual's sexual behaviour from their genome," said Ben Neale, a member of MIT and Harvard's Broad Institute, one of several organisations involved in the work.

Sexual orientation does have a genetic component, say the researchers, confirming previous smaller studies, notably on twins.

But the effect is mediated by a myriad of genes. "There is no single gay gene but rather the contribution of many small genetic effects scattered across the genome," said Neale.

Added to this are environmental factors: how a person is raised in childhood, where they live as an adult etc.

Take for example height: the genetic component is indisputable and linked to how tall your parents are or were. But other factors like nutrition during childhood play an important part.

The same is true for how likely you are to have a heart attack. Certain genes lead to a predisposition toward cardiac disease, but lifestyle and diet are ultimately more significant.

The new statistical analysis revealed five points in our chromosomes, called loci, which appear closely linked to sexuality, though each individually has a "very small" influence.

It also turns out that one of these markers is associated with hair loss, which suggests a link with the regulation of sexual hormones.

It's believed that these five markers could be just the beginning, with thousands more awaiting discovery in future.

Abrogation of Section 377: Law can only change law, not behaviour of people

It will take decades before we can actually eradicate the stigma of being gay or transgender, as a homophobic population will continue to judge and discriminate.

Business Standard :On September 6, India saw victory of law and love. The five bench Supreme Court unanimously passed an order on IPC Section 377, making the country really free for everyone – including gays and transgenders for the first time since 1861. India has become a better country since then. Many trans and homo children, both girls and boys, have been violated within families and their parents have long lived in constant fear of their children being considered criminal. The Supreme Court ruling will give solace to them.

But the law can only change the law, not attitudes and behaviour of people. It will take many more years or decades before we can actually eradicate the stigma of being gay or transgender. While many remain indifferent, the trans and homophobic population will continue to judge and discriminate. At best, many of them will be indifferent and ignore their existence and at worst, we will continue to see hate crimes and violence targeting them. Moral policing often does not have relationship with what law says or what the reality is. The following opinions, which do not have any grounding based on facts and experience, typify the mindset of several religious leaders and fanatics: “They can be what they want to but let them not advertise it”, “So now they are going to ask for gay marriages and spoil our culture”, “All this has been brought to our country from the West”. So on and so forth.

ALSO READ: How the SC judgement on Section 377 ties constitutional values with emotion

Changing such thought processes is an uphill task and can be achieved if it is tackled effectively on three fronts: increase solidarity from within and empower the community, sensitise and engage with policymakers, and educate masses through platforms that involve members of the community and the general population. As long as the general population does not interact and engage with community members, it will not be aware that there is a human being behind a gay or transgender identity. And that is simply not a matter of just sex or gender!

In one of our projects, which serves 6,000 transgenders across six sites, we were able to document some 450 cases of violence and discrimination within a span of about two years. In fact, in every discussion we had with them, we were apprised about insults and violence they faced. We also found that only cases involving extreme physical brutality that were filed as FIRs with the police, were reported as violence by the law keepers...Read More

How Section 377 verdict paves way for those devoid of mental health rights

The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 was quoted by three of the judges in the Section 377 verdict.

It is befitting that mental health was a key focus and an essential aspect of the inalienable rights accorded to the LGBTQIA+ community on September 6, 2018. The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 was quoted by three of the judges in the Section 377 verdict. The colonial-era penal code was questioned against the newer definitions of functioning, illness and finally, rights.

The country’s mental health professionals and premier mental health institutes have often obfuscated and erased their own history of deeply problematic practices and thoughts that have left thousands with irreparable damage. In mere hours after the judgment, stories had started pouring in about the unquestioned malpractice the community had often been subjected to. 

There were transgender individuals who were given electroconvulsive therapy, gay men who were treated for ‘invisible disorders in their brain’ and structured programmes which were created to annihilate and repress any aspect of a person that was non-conforming. The phrase ‘conversion therapy’ doesn’t begin to capture the horror that the marginalised have been subjected to.

ALSO READ: How the SC judgement on Section 377 ties constitutional values with emotion

Most transgender persons are familiar with humiliating psychometric tests used to assess gender dysphoria before they could assert their own right of choice and self-determination. The assessment would often be reflective of the psychiatrist’s agreement with the choice, rather than an objective report. Psychiatrists and psychologists would attempt to ‘counsel’ them against it, or treat it as a strong case of denial. 

Even today, there is no model of sensitisation or caution in this assessment process and there is often a reported sense of violation and harassment. In 2018, the World Health Organisation finally questioned the inclusion of gender dysphoria as a mental disorder and shifted it to the sexual health chapter instead, removing the idea of treatment being associated with gender non-conformity.

The mental health profession has often been critiqued for its comfort with diagnostic labels and its understanding of non-normative as solely a disorder. These understandings have been more rapidly changing and questioned due to the work of activism as well as more queer therapists coming to the forefront. 

However, given the silos that therapists often work in, percolation of alternative understandings takes time and is inhibited by the nature of power structures within the medical profession. The external frameworks used by the mental health profession have had the capacity to oppress the marginalised, just as much as they have provided safe spaces....Read More

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