It’s MJ’s fault – she’s stopped nagging me as efficiently as she did in the past when it came to writing posts on Gaysi. I think she’s too busy sowing her wild oats.
So how was the last year, peeps? Here at Gaysi we’ve had a super busy one. We had our usual posts about Events, Opinions, Fiction and of course… cue scary music (or drum rolls, as you please)… PODCASTS! As usual, we were not free of controversy. But we live, we learn and hopefully, we have fun along the ride.
This year has already promised to be special. Gaysi is organising ‘Dirty Talk’ as part of the QAM Pride festivities. Details are coming soon and all you ladies who love ladies (even men who love ladies) – watch out… knowing MJ, she might even convince Vidya Balan to make a special appearance. Just nobody tell Vidya Balan about the podcast. Yes THAT podcast. Men who love men, please write to MJ and demand that your dreamboat make a special appearance. If you’re nice (or perhaps naughty, keeping with MJ’s style) she might hear you out.
In 2012, we at Gaysi hope that those of you who have been silent lurkers (we have stats to prove you exist!) will find your v0ice and say hello. A good place to start is here in the Gaysi Community Forums.
Cathartist, our AMAZING editor, told us that we should branch out into posts about everything and not just LGBTQ stuff. And she’s right (as always). Why don’t we review books that we love or places that we travel to or share recipes? Books, Destinations and Food don’t have to be LGBTQ themed to be featured here. I’m always wondering what book to read next and I certainly don’t decide based on how many gay characters there are in the book. Similarly, I’m also always wondering if certain places are safe to travel to – not just as a woman but as a queer woman, so I’d love to read reviews and write-ups from people who’ve been there and can shed some light on the matter. And food! We need some rainbow themed recipes. What’s more, Gaysi is a space for all queer desis. Desis also include our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and all countries they reside in. We’d like to hear all these voices on the platform. To set the ball rolling we’ll be featuring a video (and a few words shared exclusively with Gaysi) tomorrow from …okay, we’ll let that be a surprise.
So all of you who have always wanted to write – go on! Do it. Details on how to go about submitting a piece can be found here.
Have a wonderful 2012, filled with love, happiness, peace and lots of fun!
A note from MJ
Our last and final (we promise!) appeal to donate to the Queer Azaadi Movement March. There are many ways to do this.
– Through Gaysi PayPal account:
– Cheques/Cash can be dropped off at the Humsafar Trust office at:
The Humsafar Trust/Center for Excellence (CEFE)Riviera CHS, Flat 1, Ground Floor15th Road, Near RBI Colony, Santacruz (W) Mumbai 400 050.
Love the bit on Desis includes the rest of the gang in the subcontinent 🙂
I’ll wait for our Lankan, Pak and other queers to write hot stuff!!
Srini, I am glad you agree. Please spread the word among your fabulous friends (we know you have many!).
[…] know what that means: Go watch the video, show some lesbian love and spread the word.As promised by Broom, we want to feature more voices from Desis across the globe. So here’s to new beginnings and […]
And Ms. Broom it’s time you started paying me for all the stress-related activities I take up in the name of Gaysi. 🙂
I thought it was nice that this blog is restricted to only LGBT-related content because there are few desi blogs dedicated to this subject. There are lots of places for people to read about recipes, general books etc. but few places that are dedicated platforms for desi LGBTs. Once you open the floodgates to “anything goes” how do you maintain the right balance of LGBT-related posts vs. general stuff? It’s cool if that’s where the editors want to take the blog, but I hope that doesn’t dilute it’s function as an online space for gay desis. I’ve seen similar discussions with the editors over at After Elton and After Ellen over the extent to which to review/ cover non-gay related stuff and they seem to have settled at “gay-related” however tangentially or broadly so.
Thanks for your feedback Adam. I, personally think of Gaysi Family as a baby gaysi at this stage. Past the coming out, we all open ourself to the queer world, voraciously reading queer lit, devouring queer flicks, finding new loves, getting our hearts broken, finding love again, queer proposals, weddings, honeymoons, children, parenting…. Our experiences may or may not be the hetero-equivalent of aging. But we all do (or would like to) live this quality queer life and share our stories. Gaysi would like to grow old with you and hear all about it. I know I sound vague, but I hope you’ll be patient with us as we find our feet.
As far as opening floodgates go…content-wise, we’re in a famine-situation than the flood of Biblical proportions that we’d like to see. So rest assured, we are probably years away from having to actually turn away people or reject potentially-straight content.
Once again, thank you for your feedback. This is your home and your input is valuable in making this space as hospitable as we can.
I don’t get this whole fear of flooding and everything being washed out.
I’d personally want content from LGBTHIKQ et al identifying queer authors. And if there’s an occasional guest author who writes for queer issues, why not?
My initial stories on Pookaramma or Paati were non-queer, yet they came from me. Does this mean we’re gonna limit authors from writing? Somehow I feel that a budding queer writer would find asylum here to not just write, but also write queer stuff. But I guess, as long as the theme or the author is queer, stuff shd be posted.
[…] limit ourselves to writing only queer themes? This was recently brought up on Gaysi by a reader who says,I thought it was nice that this blog is restricted to only LGBT-related content because there are […]