Category: Articles

The Nature of Homophobia

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

We often talk about homophobia as a form of hate directed at queer people. But it’s more than slurs or discrimination—it’s a system. A mindset. A control mechanism. And like all systems of control, it does more than hurt the visible target; it quietly damages everyone.

Here are five insights about homophobia we rarely say out loud—but should.

⸻

  1. Homophobia doesn’t just harm queer people—it limits everyone

Most people assume that if you’re straight, homophobia doesn’t touch your life. That’s a lie. Because homophobia is what tells straight men they can’t cry or hold their male friends too long. It’s what forces women to perform femininity in a way that pleases the male gaze. It’s what turns love into a cage of rules. If queerness were allowed to breathe freely, so would everyone else.

Homophobia is the reason intimacy and vulnerability feel dangerous—even for those who claim they’re not affected.

⸻

  1. It’s not innate—it’s learned, imposed, and policed

No child is born homophobic. Look at history. Look at indigenous cultures, ancient civilisations, or even pre-colonial societies. Queer relationships were present, accepted, sometimes revered. It was colonialism, religion, and politics that began to weaponise sexuality.

What’s sold as “tradition” is often just trauma dressed up in ritual. The fact that homophobia looks different in different places—and changes over time—tells you everything. It isn’t natural. It’s curated.

⸻

  1. The fear of queerness often reveals a fear of the self

There’s a reason some of the loudest anti-LGBTQ+ voices crumble under scandal. Homophobia can be projection. A desperate attempt to silence the parts of ourselves we’re too afraid to face. Society teaches us to repress desire, to hide softness, to punish difference.

So many people fight queerness not because they truly hate it, but because they’re terrified it lives inside them. That’s the quiet tragedy at the heart of this hatred—it’s often self-directed.

⸻

  1. ‘Tolerance’ is not kindness—it’s control

“I don’t mind gay people, as long as they don’t shove it in my face.” How many times have we heard that? What they’re really saying is: “You can exist, but only on my terms.” Tolerance is the cousin of condescension. It assumes superiority. It keeps power in the hands of those doing the ‘tolerating.’

Queer people don’t need tolerance. They need equity. They need liberation. Tolerance is a ceiling—acceptance is when you tear the roof off.

⸻

  1. Homophobia isn’t about sex. It’s about power

What scares people isn’t just who we love—it’s what our love disrupts. Queer people break the mould. We expose how flimsy the rules are. Patriarchy depends on obedience, on rigid roles, on the illusion of “normal.” Queerness dissolves all that.

This is why homophobia exists: to keep the world in its old shape. Not because queer love is unnatural, but because it is radically, beautifully ungovernable.

⸻

To truly understand homophobia is to see it not as a personal failing or an ugly opinion—but as a system designed to control how all of us live, love, and express who we are.

And the more we dismantle it, the more room we create for everyone to breathe.

Movies, Memory, Magic

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I was just browsing through some old eighties films—yes, even the cheeky ones—when a name suddenly flashed across my mind: Sheena. It’s funny how a single flicker of memory can transport you across decades, straight into the heart of your childhood. I found myself right back where I used to be at nine years old, sprawled in front of the television, eyes wide with wonder. Was that a female version of Tarzan, riding a zebra? Of course, it wasn’t a zebra, as I grew to find out. It was a horse painted with stripes. Poor thing, I think now, but back then – a whole different sense of wonder.

It was around that time I saw Anne of Green Gables for the first time—a story that nestled itself quietly but firmly into my imagination.

Those moments, those films, stayed with me. They’re not just entertainment; they are time capsules, gentle reminders of who I once was, and perhaps still am. Some people say memories make you look back in regret. I wouldn’t know—because without mine, I wouldn’t know who I am.

They shaped me. Moulded the values I still carry.

As a child, I believed in good things. Honour. Love. Trust. The quiet power of being a good human being. And sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I had never grown up. There was a kind of clarity in those days—a sense of wonder that made even the most ludicrous films feel profound. Looking back, I realise that even the silliest movies taught me something. They helped me connect with myself, define my likes and dislikes, and understand what moved me.

Growing up didn’t take that away. If anything, it deepened the meaning. But I often look over my shoulder at the younger me with a quiet smile—grateful for the dreams, the stories, and the belief that goodness mattered.

Because it still does.

Cancel Culture

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

“Cancel culture” is a term tossed around with reckless ease. It is at once a source of panic for the powerful and a tool of resistance for the marginalised. It is weaponised, misunderstood, over-applied, and under-theorised. But for me, it is something quieter. A deeply personal act. Not a call to arms, but a call to account. I don’t cancel at random, nor do I cancel to trend. I cancel to think. To feel. To stay true.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe in dehumanising those who think differently. I don’t believe in violence—verbal or physical—as a way of enforcing ideological alignment. And yet, I live in a country where the state has weaponised cancel culture far more violently and effectively than any hashtag ever could.

In today’s political landscape, democracy has been reduced to a theatre of obedience. Speak out, and you’re branded anti-national. Question power, and masked goons appear to “correct” your thinking—with lathis, with bulldozers, with threats to livelihood and safety. Institutions once meant to uphold democracy now police dissent. Universities, artists, journalists, and even schoolchildren are not spared. The State has adopted cancel culture—but its version is not moral disengagement. It is erasure. Brutal, literal, and often irreversible.

So then the question arises: What is cancel culture really? Is it this authoritarian intolerance of critique? Or is it something else entirely?

Sociologist Max Weber spoke of the “monopoly on legitimate violence” that the State holds—yet in today’s climate, we must ask: what legitimises that violence when it is used not to protect the people but to silence them? Antonio Gramsci would point to hegemony: how dominant ideas are normalised through cultural institutions, making the dissenting voice seem irrational, even dangerous. And Michel Foucault, ever prescient, would remind us that power doesn’t merely punish; it produces knowledge, truth, and identity. In such a scenario, calling out a public figure or institution becomes less about cancellation and more about survival.

We must be able to distinguish between public accountability and State-sanctioned suppression. Cancel culture, in its most honest form, is a civilian tool. It allows individuals to reject systems, figures, or works that no longer align with their ethics. It is non-violent. It is reflective. It is—at best—an expression of democratic choice.

So when I withdraw my support from someone like J.K. Rowling, it is not a call for her destruction. It is an act of disengagement. I find her views on trans people reprehensible, even though her books shaped generations. The contradiction doesn’t escape me. Nor does the discomfort of reading Neil Gaiman now, knowing the sexual abuse allegations surrounding him. I don’t cancel from hate—I cancel from heartbreak.

And yet, I know the world isn’t black and white. The MeToo movement exposed thousands of valid stories, but it also caught up innocent people—collateral damage in a much-needed revolution. Gandhi boycotted foreign goods to build self-reliance and defiance, but even that choice was not free of complications. These were symbolic acts, deeply political but also deeply personal.

The irony is that while critics decry the “intolerant left” for cancelling, the right has mastered the art of cancellation through brute force. They demolish homes, censor films, break stages, imprison poets, and ban books. Their version of cancel culture wears a boot and carries a stick. But violence is not cancellation—it is suppression. And suppression, unlike cancellation, leaves no room for return, reformation, or redemption.

So here’s my dilemma: If we don’t think through our cancellations, we become the mirror image of the oppressor. But if we never cancel—if we always “separate art from the artist,” if we forever “agree to disagree”—then at what point does silence become complicity?

Sociological theory suggests that no act is free from the power structures around it. But the more we think, the more valid our choices become. Thoughtfulness is the soul of ethical cancellation. It doesn’t always come with clarity. Sometimes it comes with conflict, with sour tastes in the mouth, with the slow erosion of childhood heroes. But that is the burden of having a conscience.

So no, I do not cancel to destroy. I cancel to define. Not others—but myself.

And if thinking makes that act more valid, then I will keep thinking. Loudly, privately, messily. Until it makes sense. Or until I must act again.