A trans man says he was tricked by his parents into going to India where they arranged a sham marriage in an effort to “fix” him.
19-year-old Shivy (pictured) is an Indian citizen but has lived in California since three. He’s currently enrolled in the Neurobiology Program at UC Davis.
In June, he and his mother got into an argument after he cut his hair short. As a result, Shivy’s mother confiscated his phone. Going through his text messages, she learned Shivy was transgender and that he had a girlfriend.
“She was furious,” Shivy recalls in a video uploaded to YouTube, “and I didn’t feel safe at all.”
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Not long after that, his mother told him his grandmother in India had suddenly become very ill and that he needed to go be with her. Shivy agreed. But halfway through what was supposed to be a two week trip, his family told him he would not be returning to the U.S. Instead, he was being forced into an arranged marriage with another man in an effort to change him.
“After I went to India, [my mother] was quite hostile towards me both verbally and sometimes physically,” Shivy explains in the video. “She would say constantly, ‘Behave like a proper girl. You are not transgender. You are disgusting.'”
Shivy managed to escape his family’s clutches before the wedding. He sought assistance from the LGBTQ advocacy group Nazariya, who helped him find a lawyer and a safe place to live in Delhi.
“I feel so much safer with this police help that came out of this high court order,” Shivy says, “and I just hope I can successfully get my documents and be freed from my parent’s control.”
Watch him tell his story in the video below.
h/t: Gay Star News
