LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | Block Island Times

To the Editor,
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of Rajpipla, India celebrated Worldwide Delight Month with a go to to Block Island. The Prince started his go to to the US in New Jersey with a string of performances as a part of the Open Hearts Weekend and his New Jersey premiere of the worldwide award-winning documentary about LGBTQ+ hate crime survivors, “Items of Us,” through which he is likely one of the topics.
The Prince was launched to Block Island by an in depth pal, Kris Lamb, who’s the sister of Bud Oddsen. Kris and Bud are the good grandchildren of Edward G. Faile, who, as a sword fisherman on Block Island, constructed a house on the finish of Southeast Highway within the Nineteen Twenties that Kris and Bud grew to like. Bud and the Prince had been pricey pals earlier than Bud handed away 10 years in the past. Kris and the Prince had been right here to honor the tenth anniversary of Bud’s loss of life.
Whereas on-island the Prince led a meditation class at Champlin’s, spoke on the Harbor Church about Queerness in India, and carried out harmonium music for attendees. The Prince was hosted by the island’s LGBTQ+ group Queer Block Island. Gohil got here out as homosexual in 2002, then was subjected to electroshock remedies, publicly disowned by his household, and sufferer of an tried assassination. The Prince highlighted the numerous methods through which queer tradition is an “Indian export” to the world, and for hundreds of years India had established queerness as an appropriate sexual/gender expression. Gohil has advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in India and overseas, and is internationally acknowledged as a voice within the combat towards HIV. Gohil stands as a proud image of social progress in India, whereas honoring and surviving its wealthy cultural heritage. Gohil enlightened attendees concerning the historical past of the standard Hijra gender id which is a definite third gender distinctive to the Indian subcontinent. Hijra are eunuchs, trans, or intersex people who find themselves thought-about neither male nor feminine and exist outdoors the gender binary system. The Prince stated from the pulpit of the Harbor Church “There are
complete chapters within the sacred Kamasutra devoted to homosexual intercourse, and the positions which permit for optimum pleasure. These holy passages had been all written centuries earlier than Christianity was even invented.”
Much like Block Island, India was topic to repeated European colonization beginning within the 1500s with the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and eventually the British within the 1800s.
Even after, the scar of European colonization has established agency taboos and destructive attitudes in direction of gender and sexuality, resulting in widespread marginalization of
India’s queer folks.
Thanks to Kris Lamb, Pastor Peter Preiser, the Harbor Church, Champlin’s, Kim Gaffett and Joe Teja for serving to to make this occasion doable.
Austin Morin
Block Island