Meet LGBTQ++ icon & international fashion star, Karan Vig

"I chose my time in the UK as a literature student at Westminster University to be the very beginning of what I am now, a time when I was a fashion follower and used to post feeds on my Instagram account with hashtags such as #londonfashionweek when a designer contacted me to be the part of her show in the London Fashion Week itself. Some of my friends helped me to get the hang of it. I enchanted a lot of the show organizers with my ensemble of dhoti and blazer, which in turn got me more and more chances on the front seats of more and more fashion shows, deeper into the world of glamour.

But that’s not all, my time in the UK helped me figure out, I found the freedom to explore my desires and style, which can be a tedious job when one is a part of the homosexual community. I found my love for jewelry and high heels and flaunted them with confidence; not something that was well-received when I came back to India. It was a little disheartening because people really do not gulp it down their esophagus.

My ‘unintentional’ coming out to my family is a memory worthy of being in the top list of ‘things-you’d-remember-and-laugh-out’. One day I went outside to the market to get something and when I came back, my mother was standing outside the door asking to come in to have ‘the talk’, we went inside the room and my mother asked me, whether I am gay? I denied it even though she asked me the same question twice or thrice, then my brother told me that they read my diary, which I was sure no one could find, but when my brother described it, it was a golden diary written in black ink, I agreed. I was like “YES I’m gay”. I like being called an LGBTQ++ icon, I love and spread the idea of equality, and I believe feminism defines equality for every gender. Your gender should not be taken as an advantage. Women first cannot go hand in hand with the call for equal rights is what I believe in.

I believe people have started acknowledging LGBTQ++ society. They are really educated now, a few days ago I was wearing heels and no one cared, there might be ten out of a hundred who even bothered to do a double-check, and I believe that in the coming time, children could unaffectedly say that they have two fathers or two mothers. I have known so many gay guys who turned out to be really good mothers, men can be good mothers too, they can be considerate and creative. Gay men are really emotional beings. I would like to advise the youth to be comfortable in their own skin, wear whatever they want and walk with the spirit, and stand up for themselves, irrespective of what society would say. Section 377 does no good until homosexuals take a stand for themselves."