Growing Up With a Pansexual Brother

My younger brother and me, framed sometime around 2001.

In 2022, on Pride Day, my (29) younger brother (27), identified himself as pansexual and gender-fluid. Coming from South Asia, specifically India, LGBTQ+ individuals were (and, to some extent, still are) looked down upon in society, suppressed, and considered taboo. Fortunately, my parents and grandparents embraced his coming-out story as gracefully as I did, despite the sudden shock, trauma, and turmoil they went through.