Pride doesn't end when the month does, and neither does the work of building a campus where queer students feel safe, seen, and supported.
What He Carried Alone
Every June, campuses perform an allyship: a flag, a few posts, maybe a panel. Most of us watch from a distance, feel briefly progressive, and move on with June 30th. Meanwhile nothing changes for queer people, the calculations, the self-editing, the quiet surrenders continue exactly as before.
This isn't about the queer community. It's about the rest of us, the watchers, the well-meaning, the people who mistake silence for support.
A friend of mine came out a while ago. I told him warmly, "Doesn't change anything between us." Looking back, that wasn't generosity. It was a way of filing away an act of trust as something not worth pausing over. He'd handed me something significant; I set it aside instead of meeting it.
What followed was a string of small, individually excusable moments. I laughed along at jokes instead of speaking up. I asked him prying questions dressed up as curiosity. I stiffened whenever his boyfriend's name came up, often enough that he stopped bringing it up. I once told him proudly, "I don't even think of you as queer, I just think of you as my friend." I meant it kindly. It was erasure.
None of it was cruel. But all of it landed on him, not me. In every room, every conversation, he was running a calculation I never had to: who's safe here, who knows, who might react badly. I never thought about any of it. He thought about all of it, while I told him what a good friend he had.
I'm not writing this for credit for noticing late. I'm writing it to name who I wish I'd been: the friend who pushed back on the joke every time, not just when it cost nothing. Who asked "how are you two doing?" as easily as I would any straight couple. Who noticed the silence and asked why, instead of letting it settle in.
It's one thing to see this pattern in hindsight, in a single friendship. It's another to understand why it repeats so consistently, on a campus that doesn't see itself as unkind. So we sat down with someone who watches this pattern play out professionally, week after week, in a room far more honest than a group chat.
Let's Understand More
The following exchange was conducted by Gymkhana Editors with Ms. Anindita Chakraborty.
Ms. Anindita Chakraborty is a clinical psychologist with over six years of experience. After completing her M.Phil in Clinical Psychology, she has spent the past three years working primarily with young adults across several college campuses. Her practice is trauma-informed, and she brings a formative, student-centered approach to her work. She currently serves as a wellness counsellor at IIT Kharagpur, with a focus on queer counselling.
Editors: Campus isn’t openly homophobic, nobody’s shouting slurs. So where is this discomfort actually coming from?
Ms. Anindita: It’s rarely the loud things. It’s daily language, daily jokes, humour that isn’t even aimed at one person, but someone in the room is still hearing it and filing it away. And nobody arrives here with a blank slate. People carry years of bullying, family conflict, and history long before they ever set foot on this campus.
Editors: What kind of jokes are we talking about?
Ms. Anindita: Jokes about masculinity and femininity. Men being “too feminine,” that whole register. And when someone does come out, the first response is often a question mark: are you sure? People mean it as curiosity. It lands as doubt.
Editors: What about close friends, people who mean well, but go quiet or awkward when someone comes out to them?
Ms. Anindita: There’s no script, no single “correct” response. What’s actually missing isn’t etiquette. It’s awareness. And it’s worth remembering: queer people don’t come out once. They come out again and again, in every new room, every new group, and each time carries its own weight. Tolerance isn’t the same as acceptance, either. “I don’t have a problem with it” is the floor. It’s not the ceiling.
Editors: How much does background, caste, religion, hometown shape this experience?
Ms. Anindita: Enormously. Students from strongly religious backgrounds often internalize the idea that they’re sinners, and that doesn’t disappear the moment a law changes. Someone from a more conservative or rural background can carry the question of what will my family think so heavily that it blocks them from coming out even to their closest friends. That’s a fundamentally different weight than what someone from a liberal, urban household carries.
Editors: And when that pressure has nowhere to go?
Ms. Anindita: Isolation. Self-doubt about their own identity. Vulnerability to abuse. Social anxiety, fear of losing people they love, a creeping belief that they’re unlovable. Left unaddressed, that becomes depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation. And that’s without even getting into what trans students navigate separately. That’s its own significant weight, distinct from this.
Editors: Roommates and hostel allocation, how much does that matter in practice?
Ms. Anindita: A great deal. Being housed according to a gender that doesn’t match how you actually identify restricts how freely you can exist in your own room. It creates a constant, low-level fear of being found out, laughed at, shamed. And how a roommate responds to a disclosure shapes how safe that person feels in their own space, long after the conversation ends.
Editors: What does real support actually look like, beyond simply not being unkind?
Ms. Anindita: Active, not passive. I know of a student whose friends didn’t just accept that he wanted to cross-dress, they went with him to pick out bangles, nose rings, earrings. That’s the distinction that matters: showing up with someone, not just tolerating them from a safe distance.
Editors: Where do you think IIT Kharagpur stands today, and where is it heading?
Ms. Anindita: There’s no overt hostility, but the quieter discomfort is still very real. Even now, most people on this campus don’t know the difference between intersex and transgender identities, and recent legislation hasn’t made that distinction any clearer. Some acceptance has arrived. Understanding hasn’t, not yet. That gap is still wide.
If a joke has ever landed wrong in a group chat and you said nothing. If you've asked a friend something about their identity you'd never ask anyone else. If you've noticed someone quietly stopped mentioning their partner around you, and didn't wonder why. If you've ever felt a small flicker of pride for simply not reacting badly to someone's truth, this was written for you, too.
The same people have been carrying this alone for long enough. It's time the rest of us carried some of it too.
Ms. Anindita's answer about what real support looks like, showing up with someone instead of merely tolerating them, isn't abstract on this campus. There's a name for what that looks like in practice, and a community that's been building it.
Ambar is a safe space for all the queers and it has a good number of allies socially aware about the different issues going on in this world as well as the issues of the queers. This peer group is always willing to give the much needed support that any queer much deserves and we would voluntarily give the support to you as a queer student navigating campus life because we know how hard it can get to figure out yourself, sometimes you can be so depressed and desperate just because you want to express yourself in a certain way.
What they have to say -
"Members of Ambar meetup regularly (atleast twice a month) where we sit together and discuss with each other about our on going campus life and discuss one on one if any of us are facing any problems as queers and if as queers you need any kind of support, if there’s any sort of clothing which you want that would affirm your gender better or if there’s a possibility of a preferred pronoun change, we try to help you voluntarily from our side as much as can.
We also have expression programs where we give the much needed support that you need by helping you come out and express yourself in a way that fits your gender better, such as trying out certain clothing, makeup and your preferred pronouns. We together go out in our true forms and express ourselves in the way we feel from the inside through these programs, and members and allies are always there to support you in case you are scared to do it all alone."
A Testimony, From the Current Governor of Ambar - Anshul Singh
"I am Anshul. I am a woman. But about a year ago, until August of 2025, I was not officially inside Ambar, and I was struggling to come out and be and express myself in the way I always wanted. I would yearn to wear what other women wore, put on makeup and live like a woman full time. But I did not have the sort of friend circle which would support or reaffirm my gender, it was difficult to live on a daily basis with no affirmation and the fact that I was a woman. Then came Ambar, I still remember it was the 11th of August, 2025. I got the email about the Ambar interview. During the interview, it was for the very first time I felt seen and heard, it was the very first time I could be a little more of what I truly am and speak a little more freely about my opinions and the chaos going on in my mind. I was then finally officially part of the Ambar family. It was the very first time I felt seen and heard, it was the very first time in my life, I said to someone that I am actually a girl. It was liberating. Liberating to the core. I attended all the 5 events of Pride Week dressed up as a girl with makeup and all. Soon during the Pride March I found a special friend, and became part of Queer + Ally friend circle with many of them in Ambar as well as not yet an official part of Ambar. I got the support and affirmation that I always needed, my friend circle treated me like a regular girl, used my right pronouns voluntarily even in Hindi even before I did it myself. It was so liberating and affirming. Eventually they helped me with the makeup, hair clutches, and soon with clothing. Until I was wearing women’s not just to events but to even my classrooms. I was out and loud and proud. And the chain of events unfolded only because of Ambar. Finally I decided it was time I give it back what I got from Ambar by being the Governor and helping my fellow queers feel seen, affirmed and cared for and eventually come out and live their life the way they always wanted.”
A Note Before You Go
Institutional support matters here, not just individual goodwill. The Student Council works to ensure inclusion is reflected in practice, contact us whenever something needs to be raised. The Wellness Team is a confidential and trained resource; reach out whenever the need arises, big or small.
Neither replaces community spaces like Ambar, which is always worth showing up to. Together, they help ensure safety and acceptance don't depend on chance, and that no student has to manage this alone.
Signing off,
Tripti and Yaj
