Divya Roop, a 22 year old blog writer spotted this cringeworthy meme put up on a social media platform of an e-commerce website and wrote a powerful open letter to them. Check it out.
Hi team!
I am disappointed to say this that you people are disrespectful (may not be all but I believe most of you).
I have bought a pair of boxers and vests from you and I had been hoping to buy a few more items from you for I used to believe that you people have some really nice stuffs. Unfortunately I regret shopping with you people now.
Let me give you a brief detail about why I am disappointed in you guys. I am gay and recently I came across a post on your page which is to save female infants. The cause maybe good but in order to promote that, you people are spreading homophobia.
Your post reads “save the girl children or else 25 years later your son will come home and say Asha to mili nahi so Ashish le aya”.
What’s wrong with the post? Let me help you understand. In our country we are already denied from having the rights to marry the guy we love and there are hell lot of homophobic people who just hate our existence as if we are intruding their lives.
To add to their hatred, your post suggests that we want to marry men because we don’t have the option to marry a girl.
Let me tell you, there are a lot of girls who would love to marry me and to many of my homosexual friends but we want to marry a person of same sex out of love and not because men are substitute for women when there’s no one to marry.
Gays existed from the very beginning of the human life till now and none of them have been homosexual because they had scarcity of women. The sad thing is, all the people out there think it’s a joke but for people like us, you are making a joke on us. You are portraying us as a substitute during the scarcity of women.
NO WE ARE NOT SUBSTITUTES. We want to marry a person of the same sex for the same reason any straight couple wants to get married and that is love.
Your post is more offensive than people’s comments out there for I would not have expected this from you people.
I can give you the stupid lame threats like I can make hell lot of people to stop buying from you (which I can actually do) but I would expect you guys to be a little more sensitive towards a person’s life.
Give some respect to existence of the people who most of the times end up without their families in this country. Give respect to those so many unaccounted deaths who have committed suicide because they are constantly pushed to live a life that they cannot really live. Give respect to those hell lot of homosexuals who are the reason for so many amazing wonders. For heaven’s sake give respect to Alan Turing because of whom you can use a computer in today’s world.
Don’t be so thankless to so many wonderful people like Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Ian McKellen and so many people from the history. Don’t be thankless to so many gay designers who have given your industry, the fashion industry, some really great designs. Show some respect.
At least understand that gay marriages are also out of love and not out of not having an option.
Work for a social cause but not at the cost of making jokes on another social stigma.
I don’t know what actions are you gonna take but I hope you guys will understand.
Thanks and regards,
Divya Roop.
Should the website in question issue an apology? What are your thoughts, tell us in the comments below.
This Open Letter was originally posted on Divya’s blog Wanderer – A life of a gay guy in India.