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<ul><li>As India prepares to celebrate the first anniversary of Supreme Court's verdict to revoke Section 377, the country's <keyword id="8064681" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="first-openly-gay-prince">first openly gay prince</keyword> recounts his 20-year-long treacherous journey to a normal life </li><li>Manvendra’s life has been a rollercoaster ride, and it started with excessive attention and adulation.</li><li>But a lot has changed in the last 12 years. Apart from many other fans, his own relatives now scramble to click a selfie with him. </li></ul><keyword id="79604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Manvendra-Singh-Gohil">Manvendra Singh Gohil</keyword>, the crown prince of one of India's oldest royal families came out of the closet on Oprah Winfrey show in 2007. He did not have it easy, after declaring that he was gay. As India prepares to celebrate the first anniversary of Supreme Court's verdict to revoke Section 377, the country's first openly <keyword id="79603" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gay-prince">gay prince</keyword> recounts his 20-year-long treacherous journey to a normal life His former subjects and community was outraged. People burnt his effigies, and his own mother took out a newspaper ad disowning him. But a lot has changed in the last 12 years. Apart from many other fans, his own relatives now scramble to click a selfie with him. "I am the one who went to Oprah Winfrey show thrice while none of them did," he tells Business Insider India. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="70143121" title="World’s first openly gay prince, who opened up his palace for LGBT people, hung condoms on trees, was last seen raising $400,000 during the NYC Pride Parade" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>


















 ‘From mental shock to therapy, my parents tried to treat me’ Manvendra’s life has been a rollercoaster ride, and it started with excessive attention and adulation. When he was ten years old, he was once a chief guest at a school function where he spoke. His mother did not have an adorable nickname for him. She used to address him as Yuvraj (prince). "As I was growing up, I was attracted to the same sex but couldn't understand what's wrong,” said Manvendra. His parents understood his feelings even less. They tried to ‘cure’ him, and made him undergo shock therapy and counselling. They even enquired if a surgery could fix him! The ultimate Indian parent drama--jumping in a well A psychiatrist however recognized his ‘natural’ feelings and tried to counsel his parents instead. But they chose to unleash the ultimate Indian parent drama. “If you don't follow what they say they will emotionally blackmail you by saying---We will jump in the nearby well," he reminisces. And a lot more pain was in store. "I was asked to try everything from being vegetarian to write Ram Ram, (the name of Lord Ram) thousand times." His parents also approached religious leaders. Sadly, a lot of them were either gay or lesbian themselves. All this erratic activity confused Manavendra. "I was so unaware about the whole thing that I thought probably after I get married maybe I could become a heterosexual." His marriage only lasted 15 months. Manvendra is no exception. As many as 80% of the gay men in India are married to women. This doubles the number of victims as women too are trapped in unhappy marriages. Prince Manvendra's fight against Section 377 and <keyword id="6363554" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="HIV">HIV</keyword> Clearly, Manvendra had a long way to go, but 2019 is a much better year in terms of inclusivity. He brought in allies and took his good fight to a global scale. He appeared on highly rated television shows like ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’. Now several universities invite him to talk to students about homosexuality. He was also asked to introduce the history of LGBT movements in textbooks. Prince Manvendra also fought against the draconian Section 377 which criminalises gay encounters, with his Free Gay India movement in 2014. Now, that the Section has gone away, he travels around delivering lectures and participating in rallies to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS. He wants to raise a fund of $400,000 to house <keyword id="4657105" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="LGBT-people">LGBT people</keyword> at his palace. He suggests that LGBT people should become financially independent before they come out of the closet. "The first thing parents would do is cut your finances." But social restrictions on gay love are a paradox as ancient India had celebrated it, thousands of years before Christ. There is evidence of this everywhere. "We come from a country where sculptures showing men having sex with men are openly displayed at Khajurao," Manvendra says.

World's first openly gay prince had endured shock therapy and marriage to cure his sexual orientation

<ul><li>Ten years on, Prince Manvendra is set to raise as much as $400,000 from a private fundraiser at New York City to build a shelter home for LGBT people in India. </li><li>He came out as a gay prince in 2006 after which he turned into a LGBT right activist in the country. </li></ul>Prince <keyword id="226307" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Manvendra-Singh">Manvendra Singh</keyword> Gohil, who became the world’s first open gay royal to come out of the closet in 2006, is now fighting the rights for LGBTQIA+ community in India. He is the crown prince of Rajpipla, which was once a princely state in Gujarat, India. His experiences motivated him to work for the rights of all the LGBTQIA+ community in India, to the extent that he is raising $400,000 to open a centre. “Nobody was on my side. Everybody was against me.” He<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderToday/videos/2567578563254745/?v=2567578563254745"> told Business Insider Today</a> “The first reaction that came out to the media and the world was that my effigies were burnt by the people of Rajpipla, who respected me as royal,” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-india-43346168/india-s-gay-prince-opens-his-palace-for-lgbt-community">said Gohil in an interview with BBC. </a> 
	
	<div type="Slideshow" msid="70143133" hostid="261" title="World’s first openly gay prince, who opened up his palace for LGBT people, hung condoms on trees, was last seen raising $400,000 in NYC Pride Parade" firstImageMsid="70143342" slideCount="8"></div>

World’s first openly gay prince, who opened up his palace for LGBT people, hung condoms on trees, was last seen raising $400,000 during the NYC Pride Parade

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil became <a href="https://www.insider.com/indias-first-openly-gay-prince-conversion-therapy-lgbtq-community-2022-4">India's first openly gay prince</a> when he came out to the public in 2006.</li><li>In October, India's top court rejected same-sex marriage, but Gohil said he remains optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ rights in the country.</li></ul>This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, who became India's first openly gay prince when he came out in 2006. He is now an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in India and the founder of <a href="https://www.lakshya-trust.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lakshya Trust</a>, a nonprofit organization dedicated to HIV/AIDS education and prevention. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.When I was growing up, there was no chance for me to find out my sexuality because we didn't have a counselor in school. I didn't have anywhere to go and talk about my behavior or this kind of feeling that I had.There was also absolutely no sex education in school, and parents felt shy to talk about sex. So children often grew up in confusion, not knowing about their sexuality. That was completely missing.But there's been a significant change in the mindset of the people. We've created a lot of allies: The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SweekarTheRainbowParents/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rainbow Parents</a> association comprises of 200-plus parents from all over India who have accepted their children. The Indian Psychiatric Society <a href="https://indianpsychiatricsociety.org/ips-position-statement-regarding-lgbtq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolved</a> that homosexuality should not be treated as a mental disorder, and has been working to ensure that mental health practitioners and doctors don't indulge in malpractice or unethical issues.<div type="image" title="Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil as a child" height="870" width="1161" msid="104627812" hostid="261" sizebytes="22888"></div>Bollywood and the media has changed a lot, too. The media used to use derogatory terms like calling LGBTQ+ people "unnatural," "abnormal," or "criminal," but that language has changed. Bollywood used to portray us as comical characters and jokers, but now, there are serious films about the issues we face.A major change is in the youth population — and the youth population of India is the largest in the world. There has been a lot of awareness and curiosity among students. They want to know a lot about us. I've already done 18 TED Talks in India, and they're all student-driven.Because students have become an ally, I have hope for India. They are the future of our country. If we are able to change their mindset and get them to understand our issues, then we can expect a bright future.<h2>On the Supreme Court's ruling rejecting gay unions</h2>Recently, India's Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/world/asia/india-same-sex-marriage.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rejected same-sex marriage</a>. There has no doubt been disappointment around the ruling, but there have also been positive steps taken to ensure LGBTQ+ rights.<div type="image" title="Members of the Student Federation of India (SFI) along with LGBT activist hold placards and shout slogans during a protest march against India's Supreme Court verdict on same-sex marriage, in New Delhi on October 18, 2023." height="2862" width="3816" msid="104627815" hostid="261" sizebytes="598536"></div>The government's stance has long been that legalizing same-sex unions will affect the culture of the country, but that stance has softened to an extent when the government agreed that same-sex couples have been deprived of certain benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.In 2018, <a href="https://www.insider.com/indias-supreme-court-legalized-gay-relations-2018-9">homosexuality was unanimously decriminalized in India</a>. In that case, they found that there were four fundamental rights in the constitution that were being violated. In this case, there were again five judges on the bench. Two were supportive to the LGBTQ+ community, and three were not. The majority won. But they did rule that transgender men and women have the right to marry.They also said that anyone who wishes to live together as a couple can legally do so without any stigma, discrimination, or violence against them. Many times, parents have used force to keep their gay children from living with their partners, and now the judgment has said that the state will protect couples from forced separation.The government also suggested to the Supreme Court that a committee be formed that can help look into issues that same-sex couples face, like setting up bank accounts, joint properties, inheritances and wills. That committee will be formed of government officials, mental health practitioners, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.<div type="image" title="Holy Hindu Saints and United Hindu Front stages agitation against the petition before same-sex marriage in Supreme Court , at Jantar Mantar on April 27, 2023 in New Delhi, India." height="4015" width="5354" msid="104627817" hostid="261" sizebytes="1216150"></div><h2>Solutions to work toward</h2>I am optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ rights in India. I've worked with political representatives and parliamentarians, and we have created allies. I'm proud to say that I have an ally in each and every political party in India.For me, one ally is enough to make the change. I'm not a political person. I don't plan to run for elections or anything. But I do plan to continue making others realize our value, and that's how we win them over and get them on our side.Because there have been so many petitioners and advocates fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, the government has become more educated. So although the Supreme Court rejected the petition for same-sex unions, it's not a rejection without a solution.See, when you're rejecting something and not giving a solution, then that is a major disappointment. But there is a solution, and we should work on that solution. It's our duty to work on it.

I'm India's first openly gay prince. Even though the country's Supreme Court denied same-sex marriage, I'm optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ rights.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>India's first openly gay prince revealed his parents attempted to subject him to conversion therapy.</li><li>He told Sky News the extreme measures they planned included brain surgery and electroshock therapy. </li></ul>India's first openly gay prince said his parents tried to make him undergo conversion therapy in a interview with <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/indias-first-openly-gay-prince-says-parents-wanted-him-to-have-conversion-brain-surgery-12929584" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sky News.</a>Speaking from Jaipur, India, on Friday, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil told the news channel that his mother and father would've gone to go to extreme lengths to try to make him straight. "My parents were planning to open up up my brain, perform a surgery on my brain," he said. "They were planning to make me undergo electro shock therapy."As his parents planned for him to receive the treatments in the US where conversion therapy has been widely discredited, he was ultimately able to avoid being subjected to such practices."Fortunately for me and fortunately for them the American Psychiatric Association had said that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, so they were not successful," he added.Nevertheless, Gohil said he suffered severe "embarrassment" and "humiliation" while enduring the "pain and suffering" of his parents' futile attempts to change his sexual orientation. <div type="image" title="Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil on November 27, 2010 in Paris, France." height="1997" width="3000" msid="102251508" hostid="261" sizebytes="305354"></div>"It was an absolute case of discrimination, violation of human rights, whether I'm a prince or not a prince, parents have no right to put their children into such kind of a torture," Gohil said.Gohil is the founder of the <a href="https://www.lakshya-trust.org/who-we-are/about-manvendra-singh-gohil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lakysha Trust,</a> an LGBTQ+ charity based in the Indian state of Gujarat. According to his bio on the website, his sexuality was revealed to his family in 2002 after he was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown.When he became comfortable enough to speak publicly about his sexuality in 2006, it said his family accused him of bringing dishonor to their clan and led to people in his home state of Rajpipla burning his effigy.But Gohil continued to speak out about his experience, the bio continued. In 2007, it said he was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and told her he said had no regrets about coming out publicly. <h2>Conversion therapy remains a widespread issue in India, Gohil says</h2><a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/sexual-orientation-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The American Psychiatric Association</a> refers to conversion therapy as "sexual orientation change efforts" or "gender identity change efforts" to differentiate it from evidence-based therapy practices. According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/conversion-therapy-ban-challenge-will-not-be-reheard-by-appeals-court-2023-01-23/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>, more than 20 states in the US have laws that can subject health care providers to fines, license suspensions, and license revocations for trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of people under the age of 18.In India, however, Gohil said conversion therapy was still a widespread issue: "It happens to so many individuals in India, I can give you so many numerous examples where parents are literally torturing their children."There have been a few signs of progress in recent years such as Tamil Nadu becoming the first Indian state to issue reforms against the practice in 2021, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/madras-hc-conversion-therapy-pride-month-b1861601.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Independent</a> reported.<h2>Shinjiro Atae</h2>Gohil isn't the first Asian public figure to shine a light on issues facing the LGBTQ+ community over the past week.As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/world/asia/japan-gay-j-pop-shinjiro-atae.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times reported</a>, Japanese pop star Shinjiro Atae came out publicly at a performance in Tokyo on Wednesday following a two-year hiatus.Speaking to the crowd of over 2,000, Atae, 34, said he had struggled for years to accept himself but finally had the courage to publicly say he is "a gay man."<div type="image" title="Shinjiro Atae attends the premiere of Amazon's &quot;The Tomorrow War&quot; at Banc of California Stadium on June 30, 2021 in Los Angeles, California." height="2505" width="3333" msid="102251509" hostid="261" sizebytes="242418"></div>"I don't want people to struggle like me," he added. Japan is the only G7 country where same-sex unions are not legal. In June, the country passed its first law on sexual orientation and gender identity seeking "promote understanding" and avoid "unfair discrimination," according to Human Rights Watch. However, it noted that the law falls short on the comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation equivalent to other developed economies that Japanese rights groups such as the <a href="https://lgbtetc.jp/english/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation</a> have called for.

India's first openly gay prince says his parents tried to subject him to the 'torture' of conversion therapy to make him straight

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In 2006, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil came out to a local newspaper, becoming <keyword id="11892747" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword>'s first openly gay prince.</li><li>He endured years of conversion therapy — including electroshock treatments — and was publicly disowned by his family.</li></ul>Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, the 39th direct descendant of India's Gohil Rajput dynasty, knew he was gay at age 12. But he could only live his truth three decades later.Gohil publicly came out in an interview to a local newspaper in 2006, becoming the first openly gay royal in the country. He was 41 at the time.Until 2018, homosexuality was illegal in India, punishable under Section 377, a colonial-era draconian law that demanded up to life imprisonment for anyone committing sexual acts "against the order of nature." Naturally, Gohil's public unmasking triggered a nation-wide scandal. The entire town of Rajpipla — a formerly princely state located in the western state of Gujarat where his ancestors were kings — turned on him. "The day I came out, my effigies were burnt. There were a lot of protests, people took to the streets and shouted slogans saying that I brought shame and humiliation to the royal family and to the culture of India. There were death-threats and demands that I be stripped off of my title," Gohil told Insider over a phone call from the coastal state of Kerala.His parents, the Maharaja and Maharani of Rajpipla, responded with similar rage. They publicly disowned him as their son and took out advertisements in newspapers announcing that he was cut off as heir due to his involvement in activities "unsuitable to society". <h2>He turned the palace grounds he was once thrown out of into a shelter for the LGBTQ+ community.</h2>Gohil had expected the homophobic uproar. The society he grew up around was strongly conserative, and the country he grew up in didn't legally recognize gay rights. Many around him believed that homosexuality was a mental disorder. At the time, Gohil remembers reporters clamoring to him for a comment on the public rejection. He calmly recounted the answer he gave them, saying, "I don't blame the people who are against me. I blame their ignorance on the subject." Today, at 55, Gohil's stance remains the same. Much of his advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights continues to primarily revolve around decimating the stigma around homosexuality. It's with that approach that he founded Lakshya Trust, a charitable organization with the aim to improve the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in Gujarat two decades ago. In 2018, the year that the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in a landmark ruling, Gohil opened up a 15-acre palace grounds to build a shelter for vulnerable members of the community. Ironically, it was the same palace he was thrown out of when he publicly came out years ago. In that sense, a large part of Gohil's crusade for equal rights and dignity of life for the LGBTQ+ community is rooted in his own painful past, which included being forced into a short-lived arranged marriage with a woman (Gohil eventually married his husband in 2013), enduring years of torturous conversion therapy, and suffering in silence.<div type="image" title="Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil" height="1928" width="2571" msid="90942851" hostid="261"></div><h2>After coming out to his family, Gohil was subjected to years of conversion therapy.</h2>Back in 2002, four years before he came out to the world, Gohil came out to his parents, having been attracted to men for years. "They thought it was impossible that I could be gay because my cultural upbringing had been so rich. They had no idea that there's no connection between someone's sexuality and their upbringing," Gohil recounted. The state of denial was followed by his parents insisting on finding a "cure" for his sexuality. In the next four years, Gohil claims that his parents took him to a host of medical practitioners and spiritual guides, "They approached doctors to operate on my brain to make me straight and subjected me to electroshock treatments." When it didn't work out the way they imagined, Gohil was shipped to religious leaders who were ordered to make him "behave normally." None of it worked. But by the time his parents stopped their efforts, Gohil was left traumatized and depressed, often contemplating suicide. In many ways, he says the newspaper interview unshackled him. <h2>Conversion therapy is still not illegal in India. "I have to keep fighting."</h2>Two decades since, conversion therapy is still not outlawed in India (Tamil Nadu is the only state to legally ban the practice last year). Even though there is no proven success rate, it continues to be widely employed to physically and mentally assault the country's queer population, leading to increased depression and death by suicide among LGBTQ+ youth in India. In 2020, a 21-year-old bisexual woman <a href="https://lifestyle.livemint.com/health/wellness/the-pain-and-cruelty-of-conversion-therapy-111634459309525.html">committed</a> suicide after her family subjected her to a harrowing two-month ordeal at de-addiction centers in Kerala in a bid to "cure" her bisexuality. Today, Gohil is at the forefront of the demand for a ban on the unethical practice. In that, he is not just fighting for a ban but is also battling decades of regressive mentality, ignorance, and judgment. "It's important for people like me who have a certain reputation in society to continue the advocacy. We can't just stop because the country repealed Section 377," he said, explaining that a law being passed in India doesn't always mean that people will immediately start accepting or following it."Now we have to fight for issues like same-sex marriage, right to inheritance, right to adoption. It's a never-ending cycle. I have to keep fighting."

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World's first openly gay prince had endured shock therapy and marriage to cure his sexual orientation

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World’s first openly gay prince, who opened up his palace for LGBT people, hung condoms on trees, was last seen raising $400,000 during the NYC Pride Parade

Preeti Soni

I'm India's first openly gay prince. Even though the country's Supreme Court denied same-sex marriage, I'm optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ rights.

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India's first openly gay prince says his parents tried to subject him to the 'torture' of conversion therapy to make him straight

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India's first openly gay prince endured years of torturous conversion therapy. Now, he's fighting to make the practice illegal.

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