new delhi as the lgbt members raptured with pride in many cities of india following the supreme courts judgment decriminalising gay sex their community in jammu and kashmir shared muted selfesteembesides the reason that the apex court verdict is yet to be applicable to the state the lgbt community in the state especially the kashmir valley has almost no voice due to religious and cultural orthodoxy which assumed radical nature following the outbreak of the islamist militancy in 198990the supreme courts verdict was in reference to section 377 of indian penal code ipc which does not automatically get extended to the state of jammu and kashmir governed by its own constitution and criminal lawranbir penal code rpcthe rpc framed on the lines of the ipc during the british colonial rule also criminalises sexual intercourse other than the one between adult heterosexuals under its own section 377the supreme court judgment is a historic moment in the movement for human rights in the country it is of huge importance to us because we will now be able to file a petition seeking its extension to jk too dr ajaz ahmad bund the lone crusader for lgbt rights in kashmir told toiuntil 2011 when bund a kashmir university scholar began social work on transgender no one spoke about the community openly in kashmir after breaking the glass ceiling bund found many members of the lgbt quietly approaching him to share their tribulations and stories of persecution he went on to write the first ethnographic book on transgender of the valley hijras of kashmir a marginalized form of personhood which was published in 2017 dr bund also set up a welfare organization that counsels members of the lgbt community and files petitions on their behalf in courts for their rightswe are happy that the first step towards humanizing the lgbt community in india has been taken we had been waiting for this day for a long time a lesbian in her 20s from srinagar told the toi on phone we are hopeful that the statesponsored homophobia will sooner or later end in jk too inshallah some day my girlfriend and i will get married she said requesting anonymityinterestingly the two former chief ministers omar abdullah and mehbooba mufti who are usually active on social media expressing their views about almost every national issue remained silent on the sc judgmentthe state and the political elite are patriarchal homophobic and generally insensitive towards sexual minorities dr bund said the politicians dont even talk about the rights of women in kashmir let alone of lgbt he said we are a very complex and strange society they call love between two men unislamic but how can love be wrong i cannot come out of closet and speak openly about my love for my boyfriend but then we cant talk about any truths here for example we cant even ask young boys not to pelt stones and not to harm people we just gag ourselves because we dont