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  India   All India  21 Jun 2018  This family wore red lipstick to support their 'effeminate' 9-yr-old cousin

This family wore red lipstick to support their 'effeminate' 9-yr-old cousin

THE ASIAN AGE.
Published : Jun 21, 2018, 4:32 pm IST
Updated : Jun 21, 2018, 4:32 pm IST

Referred to as 'Little Cuz' in the viral Twitter thread, the young boy from Allahabad was bullied for wearing red lipstick.

To make their cousin feel empowered and comfortable, Bijlani along with all her cousins wore bright red lipstick and shared pictures on social media to show solidarity. (Photo: Twitter / @BijlaniDiksha)
 To make their cousin feel empowered and comfortable, Bijlani along with all her cousins wore bright red lipstick and shared pictures on social media to show solidarity. (Photo: Twitter / @BijlaniDiksha)

Mumbai: The story of a young 9-year-old boy from Allahabad has been doing the rounds on Twitter for all the right reasons since Monday. Referred to as 'Little Cuz' in the viral Twitter thread, the young boy was bullied for wearing bright, red lipstick. 

According to cousin Diksha Bijlani's Twitter post, little cuz is the most 'effeminate' in the house. He loves to paint nails, wear lipcolour, and learn home science. However, due to this behaviour, he is often made the centre of all jokes. 

Recently, when he wore lipstick, little cuz was hurled with a derogatory term. 

To make little cuz feel empowered and comfortable, Bijlani along with all her cousins wore bright red lipstick and shared pictures on social media to show solidarity.

In her Twitter post, Bijlani shared how important it was as elder cousins to undo the conditioned gender binary and normalise gender neutral acts which are deemed feminine. 

She also shared that little cuz felt more empowered when he saw his cousin brother sporting the bright red too.

The post was retweeted over 1,000 times and garnered support from all sections of society. A Twitter user also shared a picture of his painted nails in support of little cuz.

With his cousins rallying support for little cuz, he came out and smiled, comfortable in his skin, tweeted Bijlani.   

The next day, Bijlani also shared an update saying that little cuz was ridiculed by his uncle for riding his sister's pink bicycle. 

However, a confident cuz replied saying, "Gender real nai hota. Kal mene aur bhaiya dono ne red lipstick lagaya tha didi ke saath. Aap puchlo.” (Gender is not real. Yesterday, my brother and I wore red lipstick with our sister. You can ask her.)

Tags: childhood bullying, anti-bullying, gender neutrality, gender affirming
Location: India, Maharashtra, Mumbai (Bombay)