The remarkable journey India is taking to preserve its traditions and culture while following its development path appears almost mystical. International visitors have long been drawn to our city's variety. But there is still a significant stigma surrounding tolerating diverse sexual orientations.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual plus others make up the abbreviation LGBTQAI+. They are the individuals who are not familiar with the cisgender heterosexual "ideals". The Hijras are a distinctive social group and part of the LGBTQIA+ community in India. They are either "neither men nor women" or men who act like women, depending on the culture. They are referred to as the Third Gender at the moment.

Despite the fact that our nation has been independent for 74 years, the LGBTQIA+ community continues to battle for their basic rights and societal freedom. On September 6, 2018, the Indian Supreme Court struck down section 377, which classified gay relationships as "unnatural offences." However, there is still a lot of work to be done in the current situation as we look about.

The historical information regarding homosexuality and transgender people in Indian culture is presented in this article. It also covers the main advantages and disadvantages of our legislation regarding the LGBTQIA+ population, their social standing, how they are portrayed in Indian movies, and the issues they confront there.

Timeline of the LGBTQIA+ Movement in India
Homosexual relationship was deemed unnatural and made a crime under Chapter 16, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 1860, the year of British control.

The Right to Equality was enacted under Article 14 on November 26, 1949, when India gained independence, although homosexuality remained a crime.

On August 11, 1992, the first documented homosexual rights demonstration took place decades later.

Kolkata held the inaugural Gay Pride Parade in India in 1999. Calcutta Rainbow Pride was the name of the march, which had just 15 participants.

In the landmark judgment Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi case, the Delhi High Court ruled in 2009 that punishing consensual gay consummation between adults as a criminal violates basic rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

In the Naz Foundation v. Gov. of NCT of Delhi case from the Delhi High Court, which was reversed in the Suresh Kumar Koushal and others v. NAZ Foundation and others case from 2013, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was restored.

A measure to decriminalise homosexuality was proposed by MP Shashi Tharoor in the latter part of 2015, however the Lok Sabha rejected it.

In the historic Puttuswamy decision from August 2017, the Supreme Court established the right to privacy as a basic constitutional right. This offered LGBT campaigners fresh hope. Section 377 is unconstitutional "insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex," the Supreme Court declared on September 6, 2018, in a majority decision.

Representation of LGBTQIA+ in Indian Cinema
Indian cinema has gone a long way from representing the LGBTQIA+ community as comedic relief in films like "Kal Ho Na Ho," "Bol Bachchan," and "Partner" to today showing that there is nothing wrong with a guy loving another man in films like "Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan." Bollywood used to portray members of this group as odd or deserving of ridicule in the 2000s, but things have improved since then.

Here are a few movies that got portrayal of LGBTQIA+ community right !!!

1. Kapoor & Sons
   Bollywood has a history of exaggerating how homosexual people are portrayed. Recall Bobby Darling and Suresh Menon? Fawad Khan demonstrated in Kapoor and Sons that homosexuals are not at all like way Bollywood has long portrayed them. In contrast to how homosexual men are typically portrayed in movies, his mannerisms and tone when playing Rahul Kapoor were not obnoxious. Choosing a gay as the main character required courage on the side of the filmmaker, Shakun Batra.
    
2. Badhaai Do
   It was a bold move, to put the lavender marriage idea on display—a marriage of convenience where one or both parties hide their sexual orientation out of social pressure. To depict a homosexual police officer was another first. Many of us might be unaware that gay individuals in India actually live in lavender marriages. The movie has sparked discussion, which is usually a good thing.

Conclusion
Section 377 was declared lawful by the Supreme Court. The next step should be to make society more accepting of the LGBTQIA+ population and to prevent any kind of prejudice or brutality towards them. This may be accomplished by using numerous strategies, such as sex education in schools. Given that India is a country where individuals of many different cultures, faiths, and languages coexist, why is there prejudice towards this small group of transgender persons.