Coming out to your family, friends, and the world around you is not that easy as it should be. As you long for acceptance, you also constantly fight the fear of losing out on the ones you love. And it was nothing different for Aditya Joshi.
Currently working in CSIRO and based in Sydney, Mumbai’s Aditya Joshi proudly calls himself a ‘double-alumnus’ of IIT-Bombay after completing both his Masters and Ph.D. from there. He completed his M.Tech. as a closeted student. However, after completion, he gathered himself to come out to his parents.
“I was a closeted student and there was no Saathi on campus. I had LGBTQ friends but I would be scared to be seen with them in public. I lied to my batchmates about having a girlfriend. The feeling of being dishonest was overbearing. When Harish first told me that he was going to talk to a professor about setting up an LGBTQ support group, I had told him, ‘Is IIT ready for it?’…” said Aditya.
Founded in 2011, Saathi is IIT Bombay’s LGBTQI+ resource group. Its members include not just people who identify as LGBTQI+ but allies as well and comprise of current students, alumni, teaching and non-teaching staff of IIT Bombay. Saathi advocates for the rights of gender and sexual minorities for a more inclusive campus.
“When a scared M.Tech student like me became an out Ph.D. student, I realized the power of speaking the truth. I experienced how liberating being honest about myself was. To me, my Pride as a gay man lies in this experience of truth and honesty,” says Aditya.
If you ever had a doubt about being honest in life, this profound experience of Aditya will put things into the right perspective for you as he says, “Being out allowed me to focus on my Ph.D. research without having to bother about covering up who I was. My honesty about my personal life allowed me to work hard and focus on my academic research.“
In a series of Facebook posts, Saathi is sharing the coming out stories of the LGBTQI+ Alumni who have found their own free safe haven on the campus.
Here is the full post of Aditya Joshi shared by Saathi:
“I am a ‘double-alumnus’ of IIT Bombay. I was fortunate to complete two degrees there: Masters and Ph.D. During my MTech, I was a closeted student and there was no Saathi on campus. I had LGBTQ friends but I would be scared to be seen with them in public. I lied to my batchmates about having a girlfriend. The feeling of being dishonest was overbearing. When Harish first told me that he was going to talk to a professor about setting up an LGBTQ support group, I had told him, “Is IIT ready for it?”
A year after I graduated, I came out to my parents. While they were coming to terms with it, I enrolled myself as a Ph.D. student in the IITB-Monash program. During my Ph.D., I came out in a Saathi video – it was really a leap of faith. Soon after, I started to contribute to Saathi events on campus. As we organized talks, movie screenings, and play stagings on campus, we realized that positive conversation about LGBTQ people was growing. Thankfully, I was extremely fortunate in terms of the people around me. My Ph.D. supervisors, professors, and staff in my department, staff at the IITB-Monash Research Academy, all my project collaborators and my friends were extremely supportive of me. Often, my friends were questioned about their sexuality just because they were hanging out with me. Luckily, they knew that my truth about myself was only one aspect of my personality. I was cool to hang out with – and that’s all that mattered between my friends and me. Being out allowed me to focus on my Ph.D. research without having to bother about covering up who I was. My honesty about my personal life allowed me to work hard and focus on my academic research.
When a scared MTech student like me became an out Ph.D. student, I realized the power of speaking the truth. I experienced how liberating being honest about myself was. To me, my Pride as a gay man lies in this experience of truth and honesty.”
Acceptance, not only as an LGBTQ individual but whoever we are as a human, is all we all seek.
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