The Twitter profile of a proud lesbian (@AditiMPride) was created. She opened herself up on Sarahah, a platform that allows anonymous interactions. Within minutes, she was bombarded with sexual questions and homophobic comments like…

‘How do you do it?’

‘You’re cheap and dirty!’

‘Can I join you two?’

‘Do you use your fingers?’

While these questions were predictable, it was her responses that caught everyone’s attention. Of the hundreds of offensive questions, homophobic comments and hateful statements, the thirty most common ones were addressed, with uncanny wit and heart-warming pictures. All in real-time. Each breaking the stereotype of who a lesbian is. The pictures were shot by a celebrated Indian photographer, who was herself lesbian.

Considering the sensitivity of the topic from an Indian perspective, we consulted with members from the community, throughout the campaign.

Besides social media, the pictures were also showcased on LforLove.in, the campaign’s official website.

#LforLove was activated on two social media platforms.

We launched on Sarahah - a popular social networking service enabling anonymous interactions. This allowed our audience to pose questions and comments to an out-loud-and-proud lesbian, without inhibitions and the embarrassment of being identified.

As expected, within minutes, sexual questions and homophobic comments flooded the Sarahah timeline.

Twitter is where we posted our answers. We chose Twitter because of its power to trigger a conversation and attract the attention of those with the means to enforce change, in the shortest possible time. What’s more, we wanted to make it topical and real-time. Twitter allowed us to do that as well.

So as the questions came in on Sarahah, we picked the 30 most popular ones and answered them on Twitter, in real-time. The heart-warming pictures and witty answers, caught on fast and pretty soon the world was talking about it.

In less than an hour, a taboo topic became a nationally trending conversation. Positive sentiment for the community rose from 14% to 83% while negative sentiment dropped from 86% to 17%.

#LforLove attracted attention from individuals and press across 51 countries, finding influential allies like Martina Navratilova and Cindy Gallop and organisations like After Ellen and National LGBTQ Taskforce, USA.

BUSINESS IMPACT:

• Requests to replicate #LforLove have come from Donors and LGBTQ organisations in 19 countries.

• Love Matters received fresh funding of USD 200,000 specifically towards LGBTQ initiatives

• Image libraries, including Getty Images are in the process of including the pictures as part of their collection.

LONG-TERM IMPACT:

• Lesbian marriage searches in India increased by 1450% following the campaign (Source: Google Trends®)

• Within weeks of the groundswell #LforLove created, India’s Supreme Court admitted pleas to repeal Section 377, a 160 year old law criminalising homosexuality.