Diksha Bijlani, a 22-year-old woman from India, would do anything to support her 9-year-old cousin whom she fondly refers to as "Little Cuz" — and that includes getting her other relatives to wear lipstick. Diksha explained that her male cousin had recently been bullied by some of his immediate family members for taking an interest in makeup [1], so she decided to do something about it.
"[My aunt] had this mini lipstick that she was discarding but Little Cuz saw it and asked for it, so she gifted it to him!" she told POPSUGAR. "He quickly applied it, but then someone in the room said, 'Are you trying to be a chakka (transgender)?' He didn't even understand what that meant. But the same person started teasing him and then he hid under the bed and wiped off his lips because he's afraid that we are all mad at him for wearing it."
Rather than letting the ridicule slide, Diksha set to work and shared what she did in a moving Twitter thread [2].
She enlisted the help of her brother and younger cousin to make Little Cuz feel more supported by wearing the same shade of lipstick proudly.
"We had to call out to him since he was under the bed and say, 'Look, we're all wearing lip colour!' He peeped out and saw my brother wearing it and smiled," said Diksha. "He saw the cousins around us clapping so he slowly slid out from under the bed and posed for us, too."
But there was only one problem: Little Cuz's lipstick had completely smeared while he was trying to wipe it off. Thankfully, Diksha was there to help him reapply. "His comfort meter went up slowly with time and in a while he was flaunting the lipstick to other people in the house."
And although some of the male elders in the family weren't exactly jumping for joy at Little Cuz's newfound confidence, Diksha is happy he's finally able "to be comfortable in his self-expression and not be ashamed to share his opinion."
As the tweet picked up more speed, people around the world rallied behind Little Cuz.