A few months ago, Orinam, an all volunteer collective of LGBTIQA+ people based in Chennai, celebrated its 15th anniversary. There they had an unexpected speakera 17-year-old who, on an impulse, shared his ordeal of being bullied at school for being “effeminate”. His tormentors weren’t just students but teachers too. “If this support group hadn’t helped me, I would have committed suicide. Now, I just want to finish my board exams,” he said. Across the country, students are bullied because of their sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), forcing many to drop out. So, Unesco’s New Delhi office teamed up with Sahodaran, a male sexual health initiative in Chennai, to conduct a community-based study on SOGI-based bullying in Tamil Nad.