Sexy Celina is a homosexual?

When Celina Jaitley marched in the Rainbow Walk from August Kranti Maidan to Girgaum Chowpatty sporting blue butterfly wings and waving a wand to protest against the criminalisation of homo sexuality, she become known as the most queer-friendly public icon. Last week, expectedly she was the chief guest at the relaunch of Bombay Dost, India’s first registered lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) magazine. Soon after the launch at Oxford Bookstore, her inbox was spattered with abusive hate mail, with some suggesting that she was homosexual.

The messages, she says, are mostly anonymous and so crude that they only deserved the Delete button. A former Miss India, Jaitley says she won’t be deterred by the show of intolerance but the experience has been upsetting since it reminded her of the homophobia which was largely responsible for the life of a close gay friend. “It saddens me that people have so much hatred towards sexual minorities and people who show them support. It’s also unfortunate that people have not stopped their hatred against the gay community but have only learnt to mask it,’’ she says.

Founder-editor Ashok Row Kavi, says says that little has changed from thetimeof the magazine’s first issue. “People were shocked that there was a large gay community in India and that there was a magazine dedicated to them,’’ he says. Vivek Anand, editorial advisor of Dost and a trustee of the Humsafar Trust, says that Celina is the angel the community needs. “She walked with us on the streets during the Queer Azadi March. Not many would do that because there is always the danger of being considered gay,’’ he says.