Ishaan Sethi describes himself as someone "out and proud" and also "loud" about his sexuality. It has taken long to be this way. The 27-year-old is best known today as the founder of Delta app, India's first homegrown LGBT community and networking app. For the Delhi boy, school days in DPS RK Puram were a nightmare. In the 90s, it was impossible to have a discussion on being queer. "In India, sex itself is a taboo topic, so how does one even talk sexuality?" Since the time he was in class six, Sethi started questioning his sexuality, failing to understand why he liked to look at boys, instead of girls. "I felt abnormal. And because I was also slightly effeminate, there was a lot of bullying and name calling." The bullying, in fact, got to a point where Sethi felt forced to date girls. "It made no sense, and I felt I was scamming them. But what do you know at that age?" he tells us.

That being queer is not an abnormality is something he realised when he was pursuing an Economics Major at Brown University in the US. "It is one of the most LGBTQ-inclusive campuses. I saw out and proud professors, peers; they were happy. I realised yes, you can be queer and happy." Sethi came out during his internship days at Nike in Portland. This was in 2010, and he was 19. "Nike happens to be among the biggest LGBTQ employers. I had gay coworkers, I was working in a city where no one knew me. I decided it was the perfect time and place for me to come out," he says. He came out to his immediate colleagues first, followed by his friends at Brown, then his friends back home in Delhi and finally, to his parents.