doweshowbellyad0 while more and more people may seem to be coming out of the closet the journey has been far from easy and the road ahead even tougher unless something changes drastically even though more number of people are seeking to break free at the cost of social ostracism the odds have been heavily against them and if they dare to come out in the open they live under constant pressure for them it is a constant fight for survival things get bad when such women are forced into sex by their husbands or when the husband or anyone else from the family finds out that she is having a relationship with a female says neha and the men according to her want to belong to the crowd male callers are those who are confused about their sexuality they need help as its hard for them to accept that there is an alternate side to their personality they are the targets of other peoples jokes and harsh treatment by their family members in most cases elder brothers these cases are hard to tackle as these guys are on the verge of suicide she addsshe goes on to say they are not ready to get out of the closet because both the female partners involved in a relationship are financially dependent we have helped a lot of them to earn their bread and then they do break free however they do not live in the same society after that they relocate to distant placesnot only are these men and women considered outcasts organizations are also frowned upon for their efforts to help such individuals one such ngo actually refused to disclose any further information about them neither the name of the females nor the kind of training they provided to these females and the work that they do and was very reticent to talk about the entire issue not surprising considering that indian law itself makes it illegal to have homosexual relationships section 377 of the indian penal code enacted by the british criminalizes what it calls sexual offences against the order of nature how do you expect the government to help questions neha the biggest hurdle is the selfacclaimed society representatives the ngo has faced failure in rescuing many troubled people because of these socalled representatives who are much more powerful than the police as it is the police are biased and have never proved to be of much help there has been a case where a female was beaten to death and we were sadly not able to help she addsif the indian legal system makes alternate sexuality a criminal offense the public has made it an even bigger moral offense remember noted urdu writer ismat chugtais lihaf quilt a short story that dealt with lesbianism and homosexuality in 1941 the authorities found the text so inflammatory that the writer was dragged to court and this was 1941 more than six decades after things arent