James Williams, Gay Activist in India, Dies at 35

James Williams was a homosexual man who grew up in a conservative and non secular milieu in Alabama, the place homophobia was rampant. But over time, he noticed the United States transfer towards higher tolerance, which he attributed partly to nonthreatening tv reveals like “Will & Grace,” the long-running sitcom with an brazenly homosexual lead character.
While on trip in India in 2017, he met Ayush Thakur and moved to India to reside with him. Gay intercourse had been decriminalized there solely in 2018, and Williams noticed that persecution persevered. He thought that if Indian tv reveals have been modeled on “Will & Grace,” they may carry homosexual individuals into Indian residing rooms and assist change hearts and minds.
So he spent his days assembly with producers and others attempting to get such reveals off the bottom.
Then, final 12 months, the coronavirus pandemic hit and halted his efforts. In current weeks an explosion of circumstances has put India below siege, sapping medical programs, overwhelming crematories and leaving some individuals to die in traces exterior hospitals.

Williams examined optimistic for COVID-19 on April 24 and joined the determined scramble for a hospital mattress and oxygen. He finally discovered each, his brother, John, stated, however to no avail: He died April 28 in a hospital within the Delhi area. He was 35.
James Robert Williams was born June 30, 1985, in Florence, in northwest Alabama, and grew up in close by St. Florian. His mom, Kay (Carter) Williams, was a schoolteacher. His father, Paul Kenneth Williams, a former Marine who served within the Vietnam War, was an IRS agent.

James’ mom died in a automotive accident in 1992, and his father dedicated suicide in 1995. Jim, 9, and John, 11, went to reside with their father’s sister, Sharon Alexander, a volunteer for nonprofits, and her husband, Bill Alexander, a monetary govt, in East Amherst, New York, close to Buffalo.
In addition to his brother and Thakur, Williams is survived by the Alexanders and their two daughters, Christie and Jessica Alexander, and their son, Doug.
Williams majored in English at Columbia University. “He was a campus character, a big, tall, funny guy who always had a good story to tell,” Laura Kleinbaum, a former classmate and shut pal, stated in a telephone interview. A gifted author, he beloved composing observational essays and particularly admired Joan Didion.
After he graduated in 2008, he turned a private assistant to author Daphne Merkin and commenced touring the world.
“He was really into getting airline points, and he would make random trips to random cities to get them,” Kleinbaum stated. “You’d be texting with him, and he’d be, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m in Shanghai.’ ”
Eager to know his boyhood and his dad and mom, Williams had begun an oral historical past mission by interviewing his dad and mom’ mates in Alabama. In these interviews, John Williams stated, James was characteristically blunt, sometimes beginning by saying, “You know I’m gay, right?”

In current months James was attempting to get a visa for Thakur, who was by then his fiancé, in order that they could possibly be married within the United States. They had hoped to settle in Los Angeles and work within the leisure trade.
John stated that his brother had “really believed in the power of the media to change the way people thought about certain disfavored populations.”