In the year since India’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that decriminalized homosexuality, Deutsche Bank vice-president Ketty Avashia has noticed a small yet important shift toward greater equality in the workplace: Co-workers are more sensitive to issues affecting LGBT people like herself. Colleagues at the bank want to learn about what it’s like to be LGBT in India, said Avashia, a 41-year-old transgender lesbian who works in the technology unit at the bank’s office in Pune. “I see a certain amount of curiosity and inquisitiveness among colleagues wanting to know more about my life,” she said. “Lately I’ve begun seeing a fair degree of warmth in the questions coming to me.” Asian countries lag far behind the West when it comes to equality for LGBTQ community– an acronym referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer — and especially same-sex marriage rights. Some recent progress though has been made in closing this gap.