We enter the musical world of the corrupt and self-aware immoral ethics of Jacque Audiards’ Emilia Pérez. We are introduced to the fact that there are no binaries in Jacques Audiards’ world. You can sympathise with drug overloads because both of you have gender dysphoria and familial attachment in common. And you kinda don’t know if you want to side with a lawyer who has let an abuser get away, who did it to just pay her bills. Safe to say I enjoyed the film;
Capitalism & Patriarchy Strike Again
I know, capitalism and patriarchy suck and not ever have the luxury to live outside it and not face consequences. And I mean real consequences. Right at the beginning we’re introduced to Rita–an underappreciated, overworked lawyer who brilliantly solves cases for her boss. Exploiting every loophole and at the same time exposing how PR’s delusional stunts end up working.
And then, she’s abducted by a drug lord. If this was not a film, Rita’s curiosity would’ve 98% had her killed–but it’s okay, the drug lord was just a girl seeking help from a talented lawyer who sometimes does shady things (girl power).
I knew of the praise and popularity this film has received since its premiere at Cannes, and have expressed our love and appreciation for Karla Sofia Gascon when she won the best actress award. But what I did not pay attention to was the director behind it. So you can only imagine my surprise and suspicion when I realised it’s a French man.
How did he get this right?
––it’s not hard to get cultural references and nuances right if you’re being respectful. We make it sound like a big and impossible deed, but if anything every acclaimed film made and released this year has been an international production. Be it Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light or Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless. All of them have directors, producers, writers and actors from different countries. What did all of them have in common? The vision to make it work and do the work!
Which is of course hilarious but also shows how seriously he takes his work as a storyteller.
The Rare Beauty In Darkness
People have had polarising opinions on the subject and portrayal of the subjects in the film, you ask me where I lean and I’ll say––I do like it. I like that it doesn’t try to be right, it just tries to be honest about a different transgender experience. One that involves lying, mafia and 1 wife and 2 children.
It’s hard to like Selena Gomez’s Jessi at first, that’s how convincing she is. When Gomez first appeared on the screen, I was worried that I’ll remain too aware of her star presence, but she doesn’t let that last. She blends into the world where she’s convinced of her life. And I haven’t seen Gomez’s acting since her work in Spring Breakers and I still pretty much associate her as a teen acting icon.
Zoe Saldaña, another major star, who personified her character–Rita’s curiosity and bravery to a whole new level. You can see when she’s anxious but never once doubts her step to help Karla’s Emilia.
Not Friends But Allies
And my words would fail to describe Karla’s acting. Emilia pre-transition scared me, she was intimidating. But you see it even post transition–she’s vulnerable but her eyes will have you sat if she commands you to. She’s had a change of heart, but she can’t ever shake how she behaves.
We see glimpses of her past life every time she’s protective of her family and Rita. We understand that there’s a reason why her gang was supportive of their boss transitioning. Why they respected and wanted to help her.
We see it when Rita also starts respecting Emilia, pre-transition when she’s roaming the world to find the best and most comfortable routes of transition and immigration for Emilia. She’s scared, yes, but you know she’s determined to make it happen. Partly because of the money Emilia pays her, sure that’s the not-so-wholesome part of the film that makes you realise that every act of allyship may not be noble.
What kept me invested in the film was not the actors or even the songs, which were very fun and absurd. But what kept me interested was to see a fresh queer perspective, done creatively and something that isn’t too sad or too happy. It’s in the middle, it’s the perfect balance of binaries of morality, gender and expectations.
He swims two laps across before he notices. He goes back and forth, back and forth, up and down the fluorescent blue length before the legs come into view. They’re familiar—in colour, in length. He has seen their hairy paleness before. The knobbly knees and narrow ankles are not foreign to him or his touch, but this time he doesn’t touch. This time he keeps his distance and stops mid-length, standing between the deep and the shallow.
“What’re you doing here?” is his first question. It sounds unnecessary. It tastes childish. A small pain blooms in his stomach, tugging at him to move, to reach out, to be closer. But he ignores the instinct. He stays put and lets his question do the stretching. He allows it to hang like a clumsy weight on a cable, slowly traversing the distance between their bodies.
By the time it is fully across, Kim simply dissolves it with his steady gaze. His thin arms are taut against the cool night. His long fingers are waiting on the edge of the pool. With one push he could destroy distances. With one suggestion, one little gesture, he could command the very laws of space and time to obey him. What is Min, then? What is the point of his resistance? What does his desire or his anger or his apprehension mean? What is he, when Kim can bend anything to his will?
He’s sixteen. A boy with doubts and worries to fill a planet. He’s twenty, bearing change like a burden when others welcome it with grace. He’s twenty-six and flailing without a home for his unspoken fears. He’s thirty and tired and afraid that all that waits for him are empty pools on empty nights. He’s thirty-two and ready to let go of hope when… when Kim discovers and fills the silence in his mouth before—
“Would you rather I left?”
Min doesn’t know. In all honesty, the answer doesn’t belong here. If it did, Kim would’ve never come. He would’ve been long-gone, moving on to better and easier endeavours. He would’ve lived a carefree life without the need to look back at the edge of awaiting pools. If there were answers to any of the questions either of them demand of each other, their bodies would have remained strangers forever.
Min considers the water. Even at midway, its cold extent feels so endless sometimes, he wonders why Kim bothers. “If I were you… I think I would,” he informs, like it matters. Like anything he says will make any meaningful dent in Kim’s resolve. If he didn’t know, he’d try in earnest. He would list out every reason to leave, every meaningful pursuit in comparison. But he has seen the other at work. He has borne the full brunt of Kim’s feet advancing, his digits unfurling, his stare softening to such careful blows they only touch their intended targets like compliments.
“I think I’d go.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
The proclamation is followed by a dreaded push, and then Kim is moving. He’s walking, treading through the water, making nothing of the battlements Min had been building over the years. And Min is once more sixteen. He’s once more twenty, twenty-six, thirty, ageing up with every step. He’s realising he is still as graceless, still as afraid. He’s still tired of the love he harnesses, only to understand its inadequacies too late.
By the time Kim’s nose nudges his own, by the time long fingers find a new place on his sides, Min has grown decades in the blink of an eye—but his love is as tepid as the fluorescent pool. It will never be enough, because he will never be enough.
He cranes his head away, willing to return to distances.
Kim’s eyebrows come together in concern. “Should I leave?” he asks, but he knows it’s not a real question. “Should I leave you?” His touch rises and falls like breath on skin, once playing on ribs, once brushing a cheek. His weight presses into the air until no air is left to hide behind. His black depths suddenly warm to a welcome haze, one Min would’ve gladly dived into, were he brave and happy.
Sadness pulls his gaze low, bringing lips and reassurance to his forehead. Min knows this dream is coming to an end.
“Should I give you up?” Kim goes on, studding Min with kisses. “Should I let go? Let you have it your way?” His questions are kind, but his insistence is strong.
When he walks again, he takes Min along. They walk together. They age together. Feet gliding though time, they cross the tiles, forging deeper into the unsaid, forcing their arms to close on each other for balance, for rescue, for all the dreams that broke before this one. And when the ground of their youth is gone, when the water is waiting for Min to speak his rejections, when they are old and weary of everything but each other, then Kim pushes harder—with his forehead, his chest, his very soul. He pushes, and suddenly all of Min’s butterflies are fluttering from his mouth to Kim’s.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Don’t you already know?” is Min’s last question, and only confession.
They are sixteen, then twenty, then thirty, then one.
I came across this film while looking up what “Sister Wives” mean (while on my ADHD rabbit hole of research). And coincidently, Gaysi Family was hosting a short film screening in collaboration with Yellowstone International Film Festival. “Sister Wives” was one of the four films that were being screened. I was convinced that it was the universe urging me to watch this phenomenal romance between two queer women–Kaidence (Louisa Connolly-Burnham) and Galilee (Mia McKenna-Bruce).
It becomes an acting powerhouse when you add Micheal Fox–who plays Jeremiah–into the mix. With his clueless looks, that convinces you that Jeremiah wants no part in the polygamous norms of his society–but has to conform to them in order to succeed and be respected as a man. He’s not vicious, he’s a product of his society.
God of Multi-Tasking, Louisa
By being a one-woman army–director, writer and actor of the film–Louisa Connolly-Burnham shows us a story of two women finding love and their own identity in under 30 minutes. In simple words, it’s a heartwarming watch. Leaving us, the audience, with a bubbly-giddy feeling. Their wholesome bond latches on to you as the film progresses. You see Kaidence warming up to Galilee and watch them go from strangers to friends to two people who have taken back their freedom to be able to love.
When I asked Louisa how she came up with the plot of the film, she replied,
“I’ve always wanted to make a queer film and I’ve always wanted to make a period drama, so this project felt like the perfect chance to merge those two dreams of mine. I’ve also had a long-standing, morbid fascination with cults and religious fundamentalism–I think it’s a girl thing. So, one day while I was researching the darker side of Mormonism, I thought this could be a fresh, interesting, multi-layered world to set a film in.”
What were the odds that Louisa found inspiration for her film the same way I discovered her film?
Does Modernity ≠ Progress?
Adhering to the creator’s wishes and research, the film begins with a seemingly 18th-19th century farm that sits near a lake. Where Jeremiah (Fox) is telling his wife, Kaidence (Connolly-Burnham) that he is going to bring home a second wife. Kaidence protests but is quickly shut down by Jeremiah declaring that he’s the man of the house, which gives him the final say and that she is still not pregnant.
Yuck behaviour on part of Jeremiah, but looking back at it with some explanations from Louisa –I have realised that Jeremiah is also a victim of the same system that oppresses Kaidence and Galilee. It doesn’t help knowing that the society will see Jeremiah a victim of his wives’ actions and not the system itself.
There’s a twist though, which I won’t spoil for you. But that twist had me wondering if this was Louisa’s way of tackling the popular “trad-wife” trend and the problems with it. It’s a phenomenon on the internet that has picked up a lot of attention in the past year. However, Louisa revealed that she got the idea a couple of years before it was a solidified trend. It was actually her fascination with cults and Mormon societies that served as the inspiration for the project.
A/N- * The way I understand trad-wife is through the lens of western internet trends. I live in India, in a metropolitan city. Which allows me to have access to a lot of western internet trends and know that being a trad wife is not a trend but a common reality as well. It’s not a choice many Indian women get to make, it’s not a hot debate, it’s simply the norm. So when I say trad-wife, I only mean it as a Nara Smith adjacent internet trend.
Breath Of Fresh Air
Sister Wives feels like a breath of fresh air, there’s no lens looking down upon the various victims of the society. While they may not be equals in their world, they were treated equally in front of Louisa’s camera. And each minute of the 30 minutes was utilised carefully, adding humour, nuances and happiness in the mix, taking you on a fun rollercoaster ride.
You feel nothing but joy as Kaidance and Galilee get their chances to find themselves and their freedom. Whether it’s through reading forbidden books or by wearing forbidden coloured dresses. They take it and savour it. They eventually also find their happy beginning as the film is just the beginning of their lives together!
In this article, I explore the complexities of asexuality within the context of Indian culture and marriage. I do this by examining the problematic portrayal of asexuality in the film Satyaprem Ki Katha, where the protagonist Katha uses asexuality as a defense mechanism linked to trauma, reinforcing harmful stereotypes. It makes me want to ask critical questions about whether Indian marriages can accommodate diverse identities and redefine intimacy beyond the physical, ultimately emphasizing the need for greater understanding and acceptance of asexuality in Indian society.
In researching for this article, I was not able to find examples of asexuality in Indian mythology. I turn to the reader to share examples, if they know of any. However, when I was looking for asexual identities in Indian mythology, examples of celibacy often came up instead. Including examples of celibacy to explain the asexual identity would further perpetuate stereotypes, as celibacy is not asexuality and vice versa.
To elaborate, celibacy is a conscious decision to abstain from sexual activity, often for religious or personal reasons, while asexuality is a sexual orientation where individuals experience little to no sexual attraction. The concept of celibacy, particularly in the form of “Brahmacharya”, has significant cultural and historical relevance in Brahminical India. Being a Brahmacharya involves abstinence from sexual activity and is often considered a spiritual and ascetic pursuit.
Characters like Bhishma and Shikhandi in the post-Vedic epics are notable for their adherence to celibacy. Bhishma took a vow of lifelong celibacy to ensure his father’s happiness and fulfill his duty. Shikhandi, on the other hand, is a complex character often associated with themes of gender fluidity and transformation, though not specifically asexuality.
It is crucial to distinguish these ways of being, so as to avoid conflating them and perpetuating misunderstandings. Asexuality deserves recognition and understanding in its own right, beyond the historical and cultural contexts of celibacy. Platforms such as Indian Aces play a vital role in providing much-needed resources and attention to asexual individuals, whose identities are sometimes overlooked or misunderstood by society and even within the broader LGBTQIA+ community.
In the context of marriages, asexuality presents additional challenges. Marriages in India are often determined by Brahminical authority, and therefore, are not just a personal relationship but are perceived as a societal duty, often tied to procreation and family honor. This compulsion to follow the appropriate conduct in a heteronormative society allows very little leeway for asexual individuals within which they can define their orientation or even hold the desire to do so. Asexual individuals, especially cis-women, often feel compelled to adhere to the expectations of sexual intimacy and reproduction, making it difficult for them to navigate a marital setup that doesn’t align with their personal identity.
Cinematic Depiction: Katha’s Asexuality as a Coping Mechanism
In the film Satyaprem Ki Katha, Katha’s claim to being asexual is presented as an excuse to avoid intimacy with her husband, Sattu. This is a rather problematic representation as it trivializes asexuality by portraying it more like a defense mechanism that excuses a person’s avoidance of physical intimacy rather than acknowledging it as an orientation. Katha’s use of asexuality as a defense mechanism perpetuates a harmful stereotype—namely, that asexuality is simply a lack of desire for intimacy, rather than a legitimate identity on the sexual spectrum.
What further complicates this portrayal is the film’s direct link between Katha’s trauma, involving sexual violence, and her asexuality. By claiming that Katha’s repulsion towards any form of intimacy is a mere consequence of the trauma that she experienced in her past, the narrative perpetuates the stereotype that asexuality is solely a learned behavior owing to some psychological injury. This representation reduces asexuality to a pathology, which is not only inaccurate but also damaging to the broader understanding of this orientation. Asexuality does not owe its origins to trauma or depression. It is a sexual orientation just like any other and cannot be compared in this context. Associating it with rape and trauma only deepens the stigma surrounding asexual individuals, particularly in a society that already struggles to acknowledge their existence.
A crucial point that needs more emphasis in both media and societal discourse is that asexuality is not a perversion, dysfunction, or necessarily the direct result of trauma. Rather, it is simply little to no sexual attraction. This does not mean that people who identify themselves as asexual are incapable of love, sex, or that they have shallow relationships. While asexuality is often misunderstood as a form of abstinence or repression, it is important to recognize that it is an identity, not something that needs to be “fixed” through emotional support or romantic love.
In Satyaprem Ki Katha, Sattu’s encouragement of Katha is presented as restorative, implying that Katha’s lack of desire for intimacy can be easily corrected with love and understanding. This oversimplification ignores the reality that asexuality is a valid orientation, not something that needs to be cured or reversed. Relationships, including marriage, can thrive even without centering sexual attraction, provided that both partners respect each other’s needs and boundaries.
The expectations tied to marriages in heteronormative India, further complicate the experience for asexual individuals. However, such a marriage is not considered a vehicle for self-realization, but a fulfillment of certain expectations from society, especially childbearing. Asexual individuals are often pressured to marry, even when it conflicts with their personal desires. For many, the decision to marry may involve significant internal conflict as they try to balance societal expectations with their own needs and desires.
Asexual individuals may struggle with the societal pressure to conform to sexual and reproductive norms. The Brahminical roles imposed upon men and women—where women are expected to bear children and men to perpetuate the family line—are often at odds with the personal experiences of asexual individuals. This creates an immense psychological burden, particularly on cis-women, who are expected to fulfill both sexual and reproductive duties within a marriage.
However, asexual individuals can still crave the love and family that often comes with marriage. Many individuals may also want children just like everyone else, if they resort to paths to parenthood such as adoption or surrogacy. While they may experience little to no sexual attraction, asexual individuals are just as capable as anybody else of experiencing deep emotional intimacy, which can be equally fulfilling.
Beyond Physical Intimacy: A Different Kind of Connection
Asexual individuals are often interested in forms of intimacy that do not center the sexual. Emotional closeness, intellectual connection, and shared experiences can offer a sense of fulfillment and bonding as well. This broader understanding of intimacy challenges the conventional narrative that equates a successful marriage with sexual compatibility. For many asexual individuals, a fulfilling relationship is not defined by sexual intimacy but by emotional support, mutual respect, and shared life goals.
In this context, asexual individuals may find themselves reflecting on what they want out of a marriage. Rather than prioritizing sexual attraction, they might seek relationships based on deep companionship, shared values, and valuing various other forms of intimacy. The question then arises: does the traditional sense of marriage, when penetrative sex is seen as a conjugal duty/responsibility, have room for such relationships?
As society continues to evolve, the rigid norms surrounding the legally-sanctioned marital institution are slowly being questioned. However, the idea that marriage must include sexual intimacy and procreation remains dominant. Asexual individuals face the challenge of navigating a system that often doesn’t accommodate their needs or desires. The portrayal of Katha’s character in Satyaprem Ki Katha raises an important question: can marriages make space for asexuality?
In a society where marriage is heavily linked to sexual compatibility, the inclusion of asexual individuals and their experiences remains a distant goal. The growing visibility of asexuality, thanks to online communities and changing social attitudes, offers hope that these narratives will begin to shift. However, the question of whether marriages can evolve to accommodate the diverse needs of asexual individuals remains one that needs further discourse. Can marriage, with all its social expectations and pressures, truly make room for relationships that prioritize various forms of intimacy? Or will asexual individuals continue to find themselves on the margins of this institution? Only time will tell.
Recently, I had the chance to watch Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3. As someone who studies and researches queer issues, I was curious to see how – or if – the movie might engage with themes of queerness. While the movie certainly doesn’t frame itself as an overtly queer film, it weaves in subtle layers of queerness into the character of Debendranath, a cross-dressing prince with a passion for dance. His story isn’t just another “vengeful ghost” trope, but offers an exploration of queer identity, betrayal, and, ultimately, acceptance.
Debendranath’s Queerness: A Complex Character in Horror
The character of Debendranath stood out as an overtly queer figure in a mainstream Hindi horror-comedy, which in itself is notable. Unlike typical Bollywood depictions of royalty, Debendranath doesn’t fit the mould of a conventional prince. His fondness for dance, self-expression through cross-dressing, and desire to embrace his authentic self, defy societal expectations of royalty and masculinity. However, his queerness becomes the very reason for his tragic end. In a society that demanded strict conformity, Debendranath’s queerness became a threat. His ultimate betrayal—by his sisters Manjulika and Anjulika, the people he trusted to understand and protect him—leads to his death and fuels his vengeance as a ghost. This tragic twist casts queerness in a complex light, where self-expression is a source of both empowerment and peril.
Debendranath’s story in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 reminded me of similar narratives in Bollywood, particularly in Laxmii. In both movies, queer characters are portrayed as vengeful spirits, underscoring a longstanding stereotype: the “vengeful queer.” This trope has appeared in various Indian films, often portraying queer people as otherworldly, dangerous, or vengeful. In Laxmii, for example, the transgender character’s pain and mistreatment lead them to wreak havoc as a spirit. On the surface, it’s easy to critique this as yet another example of typecasting. Yet, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 takes a surprising twist that made me re-evaluate my initial reaction.
Redemption through Acceptance: Breaking the Vengeful Queer Trope
One aspect that sets Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 apart is how it chooses to resolve Debendranath’s journey. While his ghost is initially driven by revenge, he doesn’t remain locked in a cycle of vengeance. Instead, the movie allows him to find peace (or moksha) when his queer identity is finally accepted by his sisters’ reincarnations, Manjulika and Anjulika. This was unexpected and, in my view, one of the most refreshing aspects of the film. Debendranath’s vengefulness melts away once he receives the understanding he yearned for—an acceptance that tragically eluded him in his lifetime but is offered in a future that he could not have foreseen.
This theme of acceptance is crucial because it suggests that even a spirit burdened with trauma and rage can find peace through understanding and love. As a queer researcher, I couldn’t help but see this as a message about the transformative power of acceptance. Debendranath trusted his sisters to accept him when he was alive, but they couldn’t. Their betrayal not only led to his death but also the creation of a vengeful spirit. The final reconciliation—with Debendranath forgiving his sisters and letting go of his grudge—conveys the message that acceptance can heal wounds, even those that have festered for centuries.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 doesn’t try to present itself as anything more than an entertaining horror-comedy. The comedic scenes often feel forced, and at times, it feels like the humour distracts from the story’s deeper elements. Yet, in terms of maintaining mystery, the movie does well. The supernatural aspects are intriguingly woven, and there’s an element of suspense that keeps viewers engaged. While I would have appreciated a more nuanced approach to comedy, the movie’s blend of horror and mystery makes it an enjoyable watch, especially when it engages with Debendranath’s story.
A Queer Narrative Amidst Mainstream Bollywood Tropes
As someone who studies queer representations in the media, I recognize that this movie will likely face criticism. Critics may argue that Debendranath’s story rehashes harmful stereotypes about queer people being inherently tragic or vengeful. Others might point out how Bollywood still tends to treat queerness as the “other”—an identity marked by tragedy and mystery rather than an everyday reality. Indeed, such critiques are valid. Bollywood’s treatment of queer identities often falls into narrow portrayals, be it comedic or tragic. Yet, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 deserves credit for going beyond this by suggesting that acceptance—even if delayed—can break cycles of pain.
The character of Debendranath is not solely defined by his queerness; he is complex, and his struggles reflect the genuine difficulty queer people face when looking for acceptance in conservative spaces. His dance, his attire, his self-expression are expressions of his identity, not just plot devices. When he trusted his sisters to understand him, it wasn’t merely an act of familial trust; it was an act of self-exposure and a plea for validation. His story echoes a reality many queer people experience: the fear of opening up to loved ones, the potential of rejection, and the emotional scars left when trust is betrayed.
Beyond the Ghost Story: A Broader Message on Acceptance
For me, the real value of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 lies in its broader message of acceptance. By depicting a queer character who finds peace through acceptance, the movie offers a lesson that resonates beyond its supernatural elements. It speaks to a universal truth: acceptance is transformative, and understanding can heal even the deepest wounds. Debendranath’s journey suggests that queer people, often marginalised or misunderstood, don’t need to stay trapped in narratives of tragedy and vengeance. With acceptance and empathy, there’s a possibility for closure, redemption, and peace.
This is a narrative I hope we see more of in Bollywood and beyond. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 might be marketed as a horror-comedy, but its message has significant implications for how we think about queerness and acceptance in Indian society. In a culture where LGBTQIA+ rights are still evolving, representations like Debendranath’s can start conversations and open minds. He is a character who, despite betrayal, finds peace not through revenge but through forgiveness—a powerful reminder of the importance of understanding, acceptance, and the redemptive power of love.
Parting Words
While Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 may not be perfect, it offers a fascinating glimpse into how mainstream Indian cinema can portray queer experiences, even within a supernatural, horror-comedy framework. Yes, it follows some traditional tropes, but the resolution sets it apart, pushing past simple revenge to focus on acceptance and understanding. Debendranath’s story is one that speaks to the hope for acceptance, a hope that many queer individuals share, sometimes across lifetimes.
Critics will likely have much to say about the movie, and that’s fair. Bollywood still has a long way to go in terms of nuanced queer representation. But as a researcher and viewer, I appreciate the narrative arc that allowed a queer character to find closure through acceptance rather than vengeance. It’s a step in the right direction—one that, I hope, will inspire more inclusive stories in the future.
If nothing else, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is a fun movie with a meaningful twist, one that makes it worth watching for anyone interested in a lighthearted yet thought-provoking take on queer identity and acceptance.
Have you seen the heartbreaking news about Tripura? Earlier this year, it was reported that there is a growing epidemic of young people in the state testing positive for HIV, potentially linked to injectable drug use. Tripura is grappling with a devastating HIV/AIDS crisis, particularly among young students, with a recent report revealing the heartbreaking news that 47 students lost their lives to the virus between April 2007 and May 2024, while 828 others have been diagnosed with HIV in the same period spanning 17 years.
This alarming situation can be largely attributed to the dangerous practice of needle sharing. When individuals share needles, they are exposing themselves to the blood of others, which can carry certain infections like HIV.
The impact of this crisis is far-reaching, affecting not only the individuals infected but also their families and communities. It is imperative to address the root causes of this issue, including drug abuse and lack of access to clean needles and syringes.
Do you know there is a day called World AIDS Day?
World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1st, serves as a crucial reminder of the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic and the importance of prevention, treatment, and care. For the queer community in India, this day holds particular significance, as HIV disproportionately affects men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender folx. Both groups face the dual burden of accessing treatment amidst stigma and navigating the historical weight of homophobic and transphobic propaganda, further compounding their challenges in seeking care and support.
Did you know that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be transmitted through several routes beyond needle sharing? The virus spreads through certain bodily fluids, including blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. Engaging in unprotected anal or oral sex significantly increases the risk of transmission. Additionally, receiving unscreened blood transfusions can also lead to infection, highlighting the importance of proper medical screening and preventive measures.
As someone living in Bombay, I’ve often heard stories of people contracting HIV and other STIs due to a lack of precautions and awareness about safe sex practices. This gap in knowledge largely stems from the lack of accessible, queer-affirming sex education, leaving many unaware of the risks and the importance of regular testing. When I was a teenager, an older person pressured me into having bareback sex (sexual activity, particularly anal sex, without using a condom). At the time, I didn’t realize I was risking exposure to HIV. Afterward, I was scared and went to get tested, but the process was expensive and intimidating. Thankfully, the results were negative.
Now, I make it a priority to get tested every three months and encourage others who are sexually active to do the same. Regular testing is vital, but I understand how challenging it can be to find affirming healthcare providers and safe testing spaces. That’s why it’s so important to advocate for accessible and inclusive healthcare. In the meantime, please use protection during sexual activities—whether with strangers or trusted partners—to reduce risks and promote safer sex practices.
Do you know there are free testing centers for you to get tested?
Nowadays, there is free testing available. Also, there is anonymity if you don’t want anyone to know about you. There are various Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTCs) across Mumbai. Many hospitals and clinics in Mumbai offer free HIV testing services. Several NGOs in Mumbai provide free HIV testing services like Humsafar Trust (Santacruz). There are also options for a self-testing kit, which you get at your home for free. You can search online or contact local community organizations for more information.
Did you know there are other ways to fight HIV beyond safe sex?
Yes, there are additional tools to combat HIV: Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP). These medications, when used correctly, can significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection.
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)
PrEP is a daily medication that helps prevent HIV infection. It is highly effective for individuals at high risk, such as those who engage in anal sex, have multiple sexual partners, or use injection drugs. PrEP works by preventing the virus from establishing itself in the body. When taken consistently, it can reduce the risk of HIV infection by up to 99%.
Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP)
PEP is a medication taken after potential exposure to HIV to prevent infection. It is most effective when started as soon as possible—ideally within 72 hours of exposure. You may need PEP if you’ve had unprotected sex with someone who is HIV-positive, experienced an accidental needle stick, or were a victim of sexual assault.
Before starting PrEP or PEP, it’s essential to consult a healthcare provider to determine if these medications are suitable for you.
By understanding and using PrEP and PEP responsibly, you can significantly reduce your risk of HIV infection. Early prevention and treatment remain key to living a healthy life.
The Road Ahead
The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to be a significant global health challenge. While there has been remarkable progress in prevention, treatment, and care, much work remains. Promoting safe sex practices, encouraging regular testing, and reducing stigma are essential steps toward a future where HIV is no longer a threat.
Remember, everyone deserves a healthy, fulfilling life free from the fear of HIV. Education, compassion, and action are critical as we work towards making HIV/AIDS a thing of the past.
Started in 1974, the queer organization–International Front Runners is aimed at creating tight knit community clubs that promote sports for queer folx all around the world. They were inspired by the novel Front Runners by Patricia Nell Warren. They initiated their Indian chapter in the city of Bangalore (home to the luscious green Cubbon Park) the–Bengaluru Front Runners. Sitting cozily in my Mumbai office, I can’t help but feel jealous of Umar (he/him) who had sent me videos of the bright Cubbon Park. (that too with a community of queer folx!) He is answering my questions about the organization and his time there, as he seems to gear up for a run, looking absolutely fabulous while doing so. But I keep getting distracted by the greenery around him, taking me back to 2019 when I was strolling around Cubbon Park with my college friends.
My fitness regime involves a small community of women in an all women’s gym. It’s wholesome and lacks space meaning it can get cramped up very easily. Thanks to the unrealistic real estate prices, lack of free, green, clean, public spaces in Mumbai. This is all we get. Not to mention how most of my daily fitness tests are just running behind local trains, holding on train handles and squishing through small gaps in order to stand in trains.
So when I came across Bengaluru Front Runners’ Instagram page, watching a flourishing community with organized and regular running events I couldn’t help but reach out to their team to find out more!
It’s Hard Being Queer And Healthy!
Being queer comes with a unique (often tougher) set of challenges that can force many individuals to neglect not just their mental health but even physical health. Unable to access resources for health maintenance can further distance the community. And it’s not like healthcare is the most affordable aspect of life either. Queer folx are pushed and dragged into situations that make them more vulnerable to contracting diseases. There’s also the fact that multiple members of the community cannot access resources for health maintaince–this includes access to nutrition, housing, medical professionals, medications and lack of care/support through times of crises.
What’s The Bengaluru Runners Front?
Our domestic chapter of the International Front Runners a non-profit organization that promotes sports like running and other athletic events for the LGBTQIA+ community. The Bangalore chapter meets up every Sunday in Cubbon Park with its members for a fitness gala. If your dream is to run and walk with a group of queer folx in a luscious green park, I think this is your place?!
The only criteria to join:
Be Queer
Join for three runs
You’ll be added to the group if you wish to continue!
They also organize two major runs every year–Pride Run and Rainbow Run. The Pride Run takes place during the International Pride Month aka June. And the Rainbow Run takes place between November-December.
This year the Rainbow Run is happening on 1st December and the preparations are intense, fun and be prepared to have a gay time with the Bengaluru Front Runners!
What Does The Doc Say?
Umar Farooq, one of the runners, who is also a doctor advises the general population to incorporate some type of cardio in our lives–be it walking or running. Reason being, India has seen an increase in lifestyle diseases–often being dubbed as the diabetes capital of the world. Our lifestyles don’t support our bodies. Queer mental health doesn’t really help when we store intense stress and trauma, often resulting in psycho-somatic symptoms leading to other diseases.
While cardio and physical fitness are an essential part to ensuring our well-being it also has to do with our mental well-being. Exercising releases happy hormones–endorphins and serotonin! And you can double that happiness when you workout with fellow queer folx, in a safe, non-judegemental zone!
It may not be the ultimate solution, but it’s something everyone from an individual level to governmental frameworks need to work on. Community health results in a better and smoothly run nation. It’s not a queer person’s fault that society makes it immensely difficult to merely survive in the world.
Queer Health = Community Health
Umar recalls being afraid to join sports in school to avoid getting bullied. Queer folx and school sorts could often result in teasing amongst fellow classmates leading to just more anxiety around physical fitness as adults. Umar reminds us that a lot has already been taken from the community. We have always lived in the shadows and creaks of society. All of that stress, all of that trauma has completely made us forget how important our physical health is!
It’s a reminder to serve your body rather than starve itself of the joy of life. As a doctor himself he urges queer folx to enjoy what physical fitness has to offer and run (or work out or play sports) regardless of who we are–what our gender is, sexuality is, height, weight or even where we live (running on treadmill can also be a joyous occasion if you make it be!)
This ranges from mental health, physical health and even sexual health. What happens when the government or national framework doesn’t allow access to a certain group of people to healthcare? They rely on community, and more importantly a community begins to come together.
Ever since the previous update on NMC’s (National Medical Commission) changes in their guidelines for MBBS syllabus (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor Of Surgery), CBME (Competency-Based Medical Education); as of September 12, 2024. The NMC has made required changes to the curriculum by removing references to lesbianism and sodomy as “unnatural sexual offenses”.
However, on September 19, Medical Dialogues reported that the Madras High Court raised concerns regarding the NMC’s usage of the term “Gender Identity Disorder” to describe genderqueer/trans/non-binary gender identities. This terminology has since been revised, as of October 20, 2024, according to NMC’s website.
The update in NMC guidelines has been addressed across 7 sections and subsections in the doc, highlighting changes made to previously exclusionary and discriminatory language used while referring to queer and disabled identities.
You can read the NMC’s exact report on their updated guidelines on their website here.
What we have understood:
1. References to ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ to describe trans-ness and gender dysphoria has been replaced with “Pyschosexual Disorders And Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, And Expression”, prompting the question – why is gender diversity & sexuality being grouped with psychosexual disorders?
2. The earlier focus on “abnormalities” in reference to varied physiological sex characteristics has been rectified. A question about it now reads: “Explain sex determination, sex differentiation, and their physiological alterations and discuss the effects of removal of gonads on physiological functions.”
3. Pediatric section has also been revised.Textbook now reads: “describe adolescent sexuality, diversity in sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
4. Disability Competencies, the NMC has notified that changes are being reviewed by an expert committee, as directed by the Supreme Court. This comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s recent judgment (on October 15, 2024) on a petition filed by a medical aspirant who was disqualified from pursuing a medical course, despite clearing the National Entrance & Eligibility Test (NEET). This was done in accordance with the Graduate Medical Education Regulation, which states that people quantified as having over 40% disability will be ineligible for admission into medical school. The Apex court’s ruling stated that such a blanket treatment to disqualified disabled folx from medical education cannot be allowed
5. Patient History, which was introduced to the guidelines from 2019, that every MBBS graduate has to undergo training to learn how to take down a patient’s medical history without being judgemental about the information shared by the patient.
6. As for textbooks, the NMC has clarified conveniently that changes in the medical textbooks fall outside its jurisdiction.
7. The word “Heterosexual” has not been used in the entirety of guidelines. They have further clarified that any patient/client seeking gynecological treatment are not to be assumed as heterosexual cis-women.
8. Medico-Legal knowledge on the LGBTQIA+ issues are already addressed at school level, and doesn’t fall within the scope of the MBBS Curriculum. It’s unclear whether this knowledge is allegedly address at the high school level or medical school level. On both counts, it is insufficient, if not abysmally absent.
What Does The Court Say?
The Madras High Court has given the NMC until January 6, 2025, to make necessary changes to its guidelines. With a 4-month timeline to revise and address outstanding issues, all eyes will be on the court’s next hearing scheduled for January.
The updated guidelines, published on September 12, 2024, led the court to remark that, “only certain issues were addressed.” The court is now urging the NMC to make further revisions. It’s almost surprising that the NMC does not already have a dedicated team or an expert committee in place to ensure that this back-and-forth with the court does not persist—or are they deliberately stalling?
To truly make progress, perhaps a committee with expertise and lived experience in queer and disabled sensibilities should be brought onboard to help the NMC make these reviews and revisions effectively. It is essential that those drafting these guidelines are deeply sensitized to queer and disabled experiences and committed to creating lasting, meaningful change in the system.
Queerness is not something that needs to be medically erased, it has always existed and will continue to exist. The real question is, how easy are we making it for people to coexist? The same goes for disability. It’s not new, but as more people access diagnosis and ask for accommodations, the medical field has the opportunity to demonstrate humanity-first growth. A medical institution’s goal should be to build systems that support people with disabilities, helping them live fully in our world by building systems of care.
“You can confess, you know?” Abir said, looking at the man on the hospital bed. The man seemed to have a million tubes coming in and out of him and was undoubtedly nearing the end of his journey in this world. His upcoming journey to the place he was headed to, was a different matter altogether.
“Confess what? Own up to your stupid delusions.”
“My stupid delusions. You can stop lying, Mohan. There is no soul other than you and me in this room. That is if you don’t count the grim reaper standing right next to you.” Abir chuckled.
Moving closer to the bed, Abir continued – “I am not recording this conversation. I have no devices on me. I can strip if you want me to. I am sure you will like that.”
Abir and Mohan stared at each other for a good five minutes; one could slice through the tension between them as they sat in the icy cold intensive care unit room.
“Just confess, Mohan. Trust me this is going to help you far more than it will ever do me any good.”
“Help me. How the hell is submission to your fancy going to help me? Don’t you see, I am on my deathbed? It is the end for me. I don’t have time to entertain your little whims, to give in to your cooked-up stories. Go find your closure someplace else.”
“Oh, I don’t need closure. I will get my closure the moment a scum like you stops breathing. It is you who might benefit from some good old closure.”
“Mohan, free yourself from this cycle of deceit. Admit to all that you did all those years ago. I was a child, and you exploited that. Surely you must know how wrong it is to touch a child the way you did, to do all that you made me do.”
“Oh, shut up! Stop behaving like you didn’t like it, Abir. You enjoyed it just as I did.”
“Enjoyed it? I was eight years old Mohan. I didn’t even understand most of the things you did to me. All these years, I knew you were vile and cruel, but today I have realized that you are dumb and ignorant as well. Maybe there is no closure for monsters like you. Rot in hell, you bastard.”
“What did you call you? Bastard!! You bloody, ungrateful little prick. Get out of my room.” Mohan’s breathing became laboured and uneven.
“Get out….” The monitor flatlined. The hospital staff rushed in within seconds, trying to revive Mohan.
One of the nurses turned to Abir and emphatically said – “Sorry Mr. Bhagwat, we have lost your father.”
I am queer, I am sapphic, and I want a monogamous and happy long-term relationship. This is not something that I have gotten to see between two women while growing up in India. Although I had met older gay men in person in India, the first older sapphic couple that I met was at a queer event in London. My bestie and I were fascinated with the tales of the physical spaces in their life—a vineyard, ceramic store, and even a bike modification garage—but they were white. This meant that while they could make one feel hopeful in theory, there was still a gap in terms of actual possibilities.
Recently, however, that changed. I joined an artistic queer group and the organiser was a super cool brown woman who I ended up meeting again at a South Asian event. We had a fun conversation and at some point decided to get together to create more art. One thing led to another, and when I was walking with her and her partner towards their house they mentioned something about this having been a great area to buy a flat. My brain did not compute this, because I am a twenty-five year old immigrant who has absolutely no confidence in ever being able to buy a house in the UK. But neither do any of my friends—so how had these people afforded this? Suddenly I noticed signs that I had missed all along—them talking about college like it had been some time ago, them mentioning living in different countries for years as adults- and I asked immediately, “How old are the two of you?”
They were in their 30s(!!!). And I know that if you are in your thirties and reading this you are probably like “what’s the big deal?” But they both looked so young that I had been expected to walk into another twenty-something’s makeshift apartment that she shares with her girlfriend. I was NOT emotionally prepared to walk into a home that two sapphic women—one of whom was brown—had built together over years of love. I had no idea that I would soo be greeted by the friendliest black cat on the planet who had shifted continents with them and was their little baby. No one had told me that there would be a piano, and a dining table decorated with the EXACT candles that I would pick if I got to build a home with my future wife. To summarise: I had not woken up that morning with the information that that would be the day that I would get to see a real, living, breathing queer brown woman enveloped in cosy domesticity with her partner of many years. I was overwhelmed and was feeling ecstatic; and I was so moved. It is tough to dream about a possibility that we do not see around us. While I had been swiping right on dating apps and dreaming about having a home with my partner someday, meeting this couple made it seem somehow easier to achieve. This is why we need older queer people around us—to remind us not only of how far we have come, but also how far we can go.
And I would like to believe that I am now one step closer to that ‘how far’, because I have some news—your girl is in a relationship! It is very new, which means that we have moved in together (just kidding!). The truth is that when I had started this column I did not have an end goal in mind—it was not like ‘oh, within 10 articles I need to have a girlfriend’. That is not how life works, and that wasn’t the point. It was to just put a personal narrative about being queer in a foreign land out into the world, because we certainly need more of those. This column has been about ME, and not about how we should all eventually end up with someone. But somehow, it happened. You already know my girlfriend, by the way—she is the one I bought a dildo with after the first date and the one I kissed in front of the Tower Bridge. She is also the one who I love talking to about everything and who I firmly believe gives the best cuddles.
This was never meant to be an advice column, but if I had to say something to the girl who wrote the first piece a few months ago I would say this:
Buy a premium dating app subscription, these things don’t work otherwise. –
Keep investing time in your hobbies and keep resting. Never don’t prioritize yourself.
Stay honest and keep doing your screening questions with every potential date.
If something feels off, leave the date quicker.
Trust your instincts and notice when you are loving talking to someone.
In short, keep doing exactly what you are doing.
Everyone has their own path, and if you know where you want to eventually end up, you will find a way there. Most importantly, continue to keep seeking out queer joy—whether you are single or partnered, the most important relationship that you have is with yourself—if that anchor is strong, it will always be (relatively) smooth sailing.
On cold and grey mornings like today, Min comes home from work with an armful of snacks and a chest full of expectation. The boy behind the counter at the convenience store lours at her when she asks for a bag, so she turns her coat into a makeshift sack and scampers away. Snowflakes waft to her head and shoulders. Wind heaves and pitches her body. Clouds gather closer together to giggle as she frantically makes her way back towards warmth. She always counts on Jun to keep the boiler running at a constant and comfortable twenty-one, and once she’s indoors she’s never disappointed.
While her skin thaws and her teeth stop chattering, she rushes upstairs to the bedroom and cheerily flings her offerings before the other.
“Hmm…” Jun murmurs without looking up from her latest preoccupation.
The apartment is cheap. Or at least, cheaper than their combined rents used to be. Min had been travelling too far for work and Jun hated her flat mates. So, they decided to call it “being smart about money” and moved in together. It’s small and congested for two grown women to share. The kitchenette is coated in enough white formica to need cleaning often. The bathroom is almost as tiny as the cabinet hiding the cylinder. And sometimes Min hits her head on the roof beam when she excitedly runs up to the loft. But despite all its shortcomings, this is their little nest. This is their home.
“First a lava lamp, now a camcorder… how come you’re always trying to fix things these days?” Min doesn’t mean to complain, even if she sounds like she is.
A large portion of their furnishings originates from Jun’s love for junk. Her box of belongings was full of mostly non-functional things she finds aesthetically pleasing, which is a side of her Min knew nothing about until the move. She wonders what else remains for her to discover. What other parts of Jun would she be privy to? What other dominions and territories could she add to the jurisdiction of her love?
She hopes for more than a planet’s worth.
“Hmm,” Jun hums a little more insistently than the last time but her attention remains on the buttons and functions of the gadget.
“Mm… and here I was hoping we’d cuddle before bed,” Min whines as she shrugs off her cardigan. Trying to build a career is difficult for tame and biddable women like her. She cannot muster up enough ambition to ask for a raise, to demand being considered for a promotion. She can’t ever be like that, even if she desperately wishes she were. Instead, she works hard to make up for her weaknesses. She works long hours, works weekends, even works night shifts like yesterday in the hope that someone in upper management will notice her efforts. She hopes with all her might, despite Jun telling her to stop being spineless.
At first Min had been annoyed at the discouragement. What does this woman know, she’d asked herself. She’s never worked for anyone else in her entire life. Not everyone can live like a freelance writer. Not everyone can afford a life on their own terms. Min had held onto a smidgen of animosity for the other every time she got another telling-off. But with time she’s come to accept the admonishments to be thinly veiled pride. Jun is proud of Min… and to be reminded of that warms her.
“Ah, you…” she entreats again as she peels off her jeans.
While the other remains resolutely distracted, an idea saunters into Min’s brain. “Hey,” she calls out again, this time with a little smile and a little mischief in her pronunciation. “Hey, look here~”
“Ah, what—?!”
When Jun finally frowns up at her, Min’s fingers play with the hem of her shirt. She lifts it up a small inch before giggling and covering herself again. “Hmm… nothing~” she grins, swinging her hips side to side, slowly twirling in her spot. “Just wondering what you can see through that beat-up camera of yours… you could be missing out on something interesting, you know?” Her tone is low and enticing, a poor mimicry of what she’s often heard in racy movie scenes. Min isn’t always this playful or courageous. It’s only when she’s alone with Jun that she feels free. It’s only when they’re like this can she be anything she chooses to be.
Pulling her hair free of its tired bun, she lets it unfurl down her back and gathers it over her shoulder as she wiggles her butt.
The other blinks for a moment before catching on. “Good point. Why don’t we find out?” She raises the device and trains it on Min.
“Should I show you?” she’s teased in a soft laugh, fingers slowly undoing button after unresisting button. The fabric is rough against the gooseflesh that sprouts on Min’s arms. It’s not that she’s cold or afraid. It’s not that this is making her nervous, no. She is reminded in that moment that she isn’t just revealing a carefully guarded stretch of skin. There is more beneath the cloth that was never meant to be seen by anyone. Wrapped around her waist is her dignity. Trailing down her thighs is her modesty. Hanging off her breasts is her repression and anxiety and insecurity. These parts, Min religiously keeps hidden from the world, and yet here they all are—put on display for an audience of one. An audience that follows the shape of her secrets with an earnest stare.
There is no sound for a while besides the mechanical whir of a lens zooming in on her. Then Jun speaks, in a tone as soft as velvet. “For my last meal in this world. I’d want every mouthful to be you.”
Pure heat, thick and heavy lines of it, races down the backs of Min’s ears. It coils around her neck like a scarf before cascading down her chest. She peeks at the other through her fringe. “Did you write that? For me?”
“Mm,” the other shakes her head. “Words don’t do you justice, my love.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Then what should I call you?”
Min worries her lips. She has asked her heart several times before to give her a reason: why is she alive? Why does she exist in this world? What is her purpose, if she isn’t good at anything at all? And for most of her life this stupid heart has been a quiet bystander to her repeated failures. This worthless heart hasn’t offered a word of comfort whenever she embarrasses herself. But as the shirt reluctantly slides off her shoulders and falls in a quiet flutter to her feet, her heart jumps into her throat and replies for her, for her. You exist for her.
And maybe it’s right. Maybe she has carved out a house of memories, tended a garden of dreams, settled a city of hope. For her, for her.
Holding herself by the elbows, a suddenly self-aware Min hopes to hide herself in plain sight of the other. “Call me anything. Anything but that,” she says and glances away from Jun, whose own amusement has slipped away to be replaced with a quiet sympathy.
“Come here,” she murmurs, finally putting the broken camcorder aside.
Min shakes her head. She grips herself tighter. She gathers herself closer. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Then… should I come there?”
With a gulp, Min returns the steady gaze. Sometimes when they’re in the middle of a heated kiss, a tiny portion of her considers what it would be like to tell the world about Jun; about the two of them. When their breath steams, a thousand permutations of her family’s anger swirl in the back of her mind. When she feels her head grow heavier in Jun’s lap, she wonders if they’d ever be able to do what couples do on her favourite dramas—share a kiss on the top of N Tower, or slow-dance in the glowing lights of Cheonggyecheon, or lie side-by-side among tulips in Everland. When Min avoids suspicious relatives and judgemental friends, she quietly asks herself where she could find the strength to keep her own nightmares from ambushing her. Where could her courage come from?
Does it reside in the distance between them, cinched to mere nothings by an unhurried Jun who crawls down the length of their bed? Does it exist in the way Jun lifts her own tee-shirt halfway up her front and nods in invitation? Does it come from the action of Min eventually ducking into the garment, forcing her head through the neck band and finding the two of them locked in a cage of shared warmth? Does her bravado come into being when short fingers unclip Min’s bra in one sure movement? Does it sit in the negligible gap of their bare stomachs for many seconds; many minutes and hours, as they search each other’s skin for answers to questions that don’t really need answering?
“My love,” Jun whispers between their pressed foreheads.
“No…” Min pouts.
“No? Why not?”
“… because you forget about me sometimes.”
“Never,” the other smiles as she makes her way through Min’s house, her gardens, her city. “Never.”
And Min does feel like someone’s love, then. She feels her bones and sinews stretch to their fullest extent as they fight to accommodate Jun’s love between them.
Viet and Nam, a type of film you would expect to find yourself in a dark theater on a hot Sunday afternoon and expect yourself to be completely amused, sad and happy. The theater’s cool air was a stark contrast to the long line I stood in to get into the theater. It’s only at MAMI that you see over 200 people lined up to watch queer narratives.
They weren’t here for the plot or the queerness (or maybe they were) but I found some relief in the idea that people showed up for art before they think of any other incentive that leads people to watch a gay romantic drama movie.
A Dark Way To Tell A Story
I can understand right from the first few shots, which were completely dark with a small figure getting bigger and bigger that the director will be talking to us from the shadows of the film. No matter what the subject was, my eyes kept moving to the darkened details of coal, dreams, and dirty fingernails.
Very obviously, the film depicts a gloomy, satisfied and normal life that our leads Viet and Nam live around. For clarity purposes, we’ll separate Viet and Nam as separate people, but this would be one of the few films that has the plot bleed into the end-credits. The actors–Dao Duy Bao Dinh and Pham Thanh Hai– as our lead heroes have been credited as Viet/Nam. While we’re not really sure who Viet (Pham Thanh Hai) is without his partner in the dark, Nam (Dao Duy Bao Dinh), we can guess what troubles Nam.
The larger focus of the film is driven by Nam’s life, his dreams, missing pieces and we only see Viet through his eyes. Nam’s mother– Hoa and his deceased father’s friend–Ba are occupied being each others’ platonic companions throughout the film. While one searches for the meaning of her dreams (thinking her husband is trying to communicate with her through dreams) and the other makes sense of a world without his friend.
Does the film have a lot of historical nuances for someone who barely knows anything about the country beyond Vietnamese Coffee? Yes
Will the audience understand the film even without the larger context? Yes, but only if you are enthusiastic about wanting to understand it.
There are many films that I have seen that leave me with the choice to understand it, one other example was Fallen Angels by Wong Kar Wai. I might now know what goes through Viet and Nam’s head when it comes to their country’s history, but I do understand what it’s like to be part of a country that demands your love to heal itself. I understand the pain that goes into deciding if you want to stay with your loved ones, or find new opportunities in a foreign land for your loved ones.
The village life, in retrospect is always nicer, without the burdens of the city’s fast and frivolous lives. I know these experiences, and I could recognise them in Nam’s face accepting it, and Viet’s face when he knew he had to let go of Nam. There’s a form of hunger and disturbance in Nam that Viet combats and balances with his sweet, flirty and overly accepting outlook on life. Which is very similar to the pairing of Nam’s parents.
His father had to pick between leaving his wife behind, to serve a “greater” purpose. Which is why I suppose Nam looks for his fathers’ remains. He encourages his mother to find some closure with his death during the Vietnam wars, but we soon realize, it was Nam looking for a man he’s supposed to resemble, trying to figure out how he dealt with life and compromises that come with it.
At the moment, it felt odd, confusing even thinking I had to know Vietnam’s history to understand the characters. But it’s been 3 days since I saw it, and it’s settled with me, that history aside, I knew what the anxieties were, I was able to witness their gentle love, amidst the dark lens and coal mines. And I hope you do too, hoping it’s made available on any medium very soon!
The holidays season is here, starting off with Navratri, Halloween & Diwali passing by quickly and now flowing into a vibrant wedding season, birthdays, Christmas and New Years! It’s going to be a tough time for your bank balance but how can you ensure that your gifts make people happy, leave an impact and aren’t too heavy on the pocket, and also make everyone happy?
We ventured off on the internet to find some unique, cute, and flirty gifts for your loved ones and even you!
Comes with 1 bullet vibrator and 2 silhouettes for his pleasure. It’s perfect for anyone who carries a chic, rockstar vibe and loves to enjoy the dual stimulation of a cock ring and butt plug. If this reminds you of someone in your life, then consider getting them for the holidays!
This magnifique and enticing set comes with 7 kink items, including handcuffs, tickler and kinky dice. So if you’ve been wanting to spice things up for you and your partner(s) and want to send off a bit of a hint, no better time than now! And if you know a Sabrina Carpenter fan who has been wanting to try something fuzzy and handcuff-y this makes the perfect gift before their next romantic getaway.
Featuring a subtle and cute looking clitoris stimulator easily disguiseable as an adorable decor piece. If you know someone with a sweet tooth and affinity for cuter things in life, it’s ideal for them! Get them a gift that will instantly make their life a little more sweet!
Do you also have a friend who loves their crystals a bit too much? And we absolutely love them for the aura they bring! Gifting them these gem-crystal themed simulation toys for anal & vaginal pleasure, to help them spruce up their holidays a whole lot more!
Who else remembers that one Sex And The City episode where Charlotte was introduced to the “Rabbit”. Who doesn’t love cute things? It’s simple human pleasure.While that SATC episode was one major factor in learning about self-pleasure, and if your bestie is a fan, we’d suggest getting a Bunnie for them!
If you know someone who loves some pińa colada (or even you and your partner), and relaxing by a Goan or Pondicherry beach for the upcoming holidays (or honeymoon) then get it for your wanderlust souls who’d be able to appreciate this travel-friendly kit!
We all have friends who like to keep things and clutter to a minimum, and find pleasure in simpler things and designs of things. It’s about the finer, comfortable and effectiveness of anything. Consider bringing them a minimal,soft and refined gift that they’ll be thanking you for throughout the festive season!
There’s something so human about undoing shame, extending love and understanding that life is also about having fun! Be it blood-family, partners, friends or chosen families, getting and receiving gifts is always a joyous time, so let’s have some besharam and queer festive season!
Sometimes I wonder if most people engaged in the dating ritual know what they are doing. Of course, when all they have to show is a profile on an app, you have to take what they say at face value. If someone says they are looking for a relationship, you are expected to believe them at least until proven otherwise, right?
But what about when it has been proven otherwise again and again? Dating app fatigue is real, y’all! I can’t remember the number of times I have uninstalled and reinstalled different apps. It has felt, at times, that this entire process is just about setting myself up for disappointment. Add to it the fact that Match Group (which created Tinder and Hinge) was sued in February in the United States by six plaintiffs who claimed that the apps are designed to be addictive owing to their gamified user interface. This means that the apps promise that you will find someone by using them. However, they cannot possibly be delivered totally purposefully by an algorithm whose intention is to keep you on the app!
We don’t even need to read the official statement from these apps to know that they claim otherwise, because every single advertisement reminds us of that. There are cute couples on their posters, in Youtube videos, and even on the apps’ Instagram pages. And maybe it is that gap between what is promised and what you end up experiencing that causes the dating fatigue. I have seen a person go from being super interested on text to being stand-offish on dates. I have also seen someone who was super confident on their profile about looking for a relationship, but a few specific questions from me made them realise that this may not be the case. Which is okay and a part of being human, but it is not a neutral experience – it is a disappointing one. And to have this disappointing experience in interaction after interaction can be a lot. Especially when it comes with having to review profiles that are looking to hypersexualise and fetishize bi people and profiles that are biphobic from the get-go.
And then there is the ghosting and late replies and accidental swipes and…phew! You know you have become a dating app veteran when you keep coming across people that you had swiped on 5 un-installs ago. Sometimes you swipe on them again because, well, you were in a different space then and it might work for you now. Other times, you avoid them like the plague because that was a disaster and you do NOT want to go down that road again. While the latter is more of a ‘I never want to think about this’ scenario, the former can play out in different ways depending on whether one or both of you remember that you have met in this digital land of hopes before. It feels so random and unstructured in the logic of who you come across – it feels like none of us know what the algorithm gods are thinking. Yet, there are also lots of people giving advice online on how you can make these apps work for you. While some of this advice – like being honest, adding pictures, answering questions feels useful, most of it feels like people shooting in the dark for what they think might work.
However, sometimes, (after you have paid for the premium subscription), you end up meeting someone that makes you want to keep trying just a little longer. Not because the apps are genuinely brilliant, but because humans are and we can find connections anywhere where there is the possibility of us meeting. While I am sure the general advice given to us for success on dating apps plays a part in that happening, on the whole I feel like things happen when you have the bandwidth to be consistent and to not carry the baggage of the disappointments. Even then, it feels too random to make sense.
Maybe there is no logical path to navigating these apps other than being honest and hoping for the best. Maybe meeting on a dating app is just as random as having a meet-cute in a coffee shop. But we got to keep trying, right? We got to keep uploading witty answers to our profiles and flirting with the cute bookseller in the queer store, because when it works, it works. And at that point it will probably make sense and feel like it was worth it, because it is not like we are out having adventures along the way.
Garish makeup, a territorial flower horn, a Godfather-esque pig head, narrow minds, and even narrower lanes—Shameless unfolds in a gritty, kitschy, and ruthless world.
We find ourselves in a dimly lit washroom, shrouded in dubious lighting and acts. On the bed lies a naked policeman, his uniform disheveled, with a knife lodged into him. This is where we first encounter Renuka (Anasuya Sengupta), a sex worker and one of our main protagonists. Attempting to flee the scene, her sunken eyes and roughened skin tell a silent story of hardship. As she moves from a red-lit alley to a blue-lit brothel staircase, we sense a fleeting reprieve from the danger relentlessly shadowing her. With that, Konstantin Bojanov (Writer, Director) sets the stage for the chaos about to unravel.
Having escaped from New Delhi to Mumbai, Renuka immediately seeks out the nearest red-light district to resume her income. Enter Devika (Omara Shetty), a doe-eyed 17-year-old girl whose initiation into this generational trade is eagerly awaited by powerful men. After her elder sister leaves to follow the tradition, a lonely Devika is drawn to Renuka, the new stranger in town. Their connection is fast and intense, an illicit spark igniting amid an industry run by predatory men, a tunnel-visioned matriarch, and the relentless pursuit of money. What unfolds is a tumultuous escape from deeply ingrained exploitation and the desperate scarcity of light in both their lives.
Chaos Centralised
The film reveals a stark hierarchy within sex work. On one side of the road are the general sex workers, stigmatized and looked down upon; on the other side is a hereditary house of practitioners performing the same labor yet regarded as “superior” due to the religious significance ascribed to their work. This caste-based, brahminical framework not only legitimizes their exploitation but also commodifies a lineage of women, embedding oppression within a system that valorizes sex work when tied to temple rituals and tradition.
Clad in stylish silk shirts and trousers, Renuka is a Muslim woman who has renamed herself after a Hindu goddess to navigate her world with greater ease. Devika, meanwhile, hides behind layers of clothing and fishtail braids, a modest attempt to shield herself from men’s predatory gaze. Renuka is alone in the world, while Devika’s mother (Auroshikha Dey) and grandmother (Mita Vashisht) are with her, albeit as complicit guides, grooming her for entry into the generational business—a haunting reflection of internalized oppression. Renuka has confronted and accepted the wrongs of patriarchy, while Devika remains naive and cautious; they are worlds apart in experience. Yet both women, who have known only conditional love, find solace in each other’s gentle tenderness, and we can’t help but root for them through each chaotic phase of their journey.
No Country For Women?
As Konstantin attempts to tackle multiple themes within this world of sex work and systemic oppression, his portrayal of women’s agency—or lack thereof—stands out, but reveals certain gaps. The narrative splits the profession into “organized” and “unorganized” forms, with Devika’s family representing the structured, matriarchal side. We see her mother enacting a rigid code of conduct with clients, seemingly complicit in this cycle of exploitation. However, the film’s failure to delve into the complexities that bind Devika’s mother to this system reduces her to a two-dimensional character, with little indication of any inner conflict or protective instinct toward her daughter. Could she, in fact, be grappling with her own limited ways of shielding Devika, perhaps wanting to educate her about bodily autonomy or even question the religious structures that perpetuate their exploitation? Instead, the portrayal sidelines these possible nuances, leaving her a passive enforcer of oppressive traditions rather than a mother navigating the painful choice between compliance and defiance.
This portrayal highlights the caste-based dynamics at play, revealing how brahmanical frameworks not only legitimize but also perpetuate systems of generational exploitation. In an interview with Priyanka Singh for Feminism in India, Nrithya Pillai, a dancer and educator from the Isai Vellalar community, articulates how these hierarchies were socially engineered under the guise of “devadasi” traditions, marking women as property in a feudal setup that controlled their lives through ritualistic practices like the pottu kattudal, or marking ceremony. “The savarna narrative,” Pillai explains, “focuses on the temple narrative, in that the devadasis were dedicated to temples. So, they called them temple dancers, which in itself is slightly problematic.” By limiting the scope to this “temple” origin story, she argues, the brahmanical revivalist movement cast women from hereditary dancing communities as mere courtesans, stripping them of their agency, land, and access to performing arts—effectively erasing their broader social and economic roles and reducing them to the stigmatized label of “prostitute.”
In Shameless, Devika’s family echoes this feudal model, wherein the hereditary, “organized” side of sex work is granted legitimacy solely due to its association with religious rituals and tradition. As Pillai notes, women of this lineage were forced back into caste-endogamous marriages, compelled to overcompensate for their identities in an attempt to be “respectable.” By exploring Devika’s mother’s struggles and revealing the reality of her confinement within this hierarchy, the film makes an important attempt to address the complexities of her situation. However, one might wonder if it achieves authenticity without community consultation in the writing process. While the film certainly aims to capture the experiences of Indian sex workers, there is a risk that this approach may lead to an exoticized portrayal that misses out on fully representing their nuanced battle against a deeply ingrained caste system. This raises the question of what a more direct critique of caste-based oppression might look like within the narrative.
What Do They Imagine As Light?
The dingy rooms adorned with faded posters of ‘90s heroines and chipped wall putty don’t offer much hope; they’re simply, commercialized spaces for pleasure. The setup seems bleak and the viewer is quickly made to realize the importance of having a source of light. For some, it serves as a means to abuse substances, while for others, it provides a moment of contemplation, as they fixate on a burning matchstick. The couple seeks out light in third spaces—such as theaters, an abandoned crime scene, and a terrace—only to find themselves trapped, constantly reminded of their inevitable fate.
Where Do We Go From Here?
As the film comes to its end, I can’t help but ask what would they’ve become if they had a second chance at life—a question Renu poses as they get to know each other. Would Devika pursue her dream of becoming a rapper? And what about Renu? Maybe she wouldn’t become a rapper, but would she finally get to live openly as the sapphic lover that she is!
It’s A Man’s World And We’re Living In It
At 1 hour and 55 minutes, the film builds an intense, often uncomfortable tension throughout. Scenes of assault linger beyond what feels bearable, the stark age gap remains impossible to ignore, and moments of intimacy feel purely physical and painfully brief. The exploitation of Devika and her lineage of women by this generational household is not explicitly explored as caste-based. This feels like an oversight, especially considering the material is shaped through the lens of a white person’s perspective, which adds a layer of unease.
Anasuya On Navigating The Intersections
Anasuya Sengupta captivated our attention in every frame that she graced as a foul-mouthed, self-aware sex worker on the run, making me eagerly anticipate her toothy smile on screen as she punches and gets punched by rules. Meanwhile Omara Shetty’s depiction of meek Devika unraveling her youth, left me shaking my head at every naive mistake she made. At the MAMI screening of Shameless, I got the opportunity to ask the main leads how they navigated the complicated layers of queerness, class, and trauma. Anusuya replied, “Of course, we knew our characters were queer, that sensibility came in. We saw it as a love story, a story of hope and despair before anything else.”
To witness a queer love story intertwined with class struggle, political corruption, and get disturbed by dissent in a Mumbai theatre was a delight, I hope you get to experience it too!
Growing up, I never considered myself a fan of romance. Everything about the genre was off-putting to me. I mean, are you really trying to convince me that these two people who met yesterday are now somehow in love? Those are just the stories in which the protagonists don’t fall into bed the first time they meet. It didn’t matter what the medium was – novels, film, television–the romantic subplots almost always fell short. Either I didn’t connect with the characters, or their stories played out so quickly that the relationship never felt genuine. Add to that the fact that every romance protagonist fell into the same cookie-cutter categories, and the relationships depicted were always painfully straight. It was unrealistic, to say the least. So, for the longest time, I didn’t read or watch romance.
As I grew older and came to terms with my own identity, my apathy towards existing content only increased. I grew more aware of how queer dynamics were teased but never realized, how toxic behaviour was romanticized, and how love was reduced to lust in fiction. These realizations, more than anything, made me come to terms with the fact that I didn’t have a problem with stories about people falling in love. I had a problem with the way these stories were written. And I’m not the only one.
For as long as media has been around, so have fans. However, the modern fandom, as witnessed today, has one “new” salient feature that dominates the space–fan fiction. As the name suggests, fan-fiction comprises “stories generated from the settings, plots, and characters of already established fictions […]” (Thomas 2007, 1) whose proponents subvert, reinvent and reinvigorate popular cultural texts. Fans, frustrated with underwritten backstories, underwhelming character dynamics, and unsatisfying relationships, have taken it upon themselves to renegotiate existing source materials to create texts–queer and otherwise–that offer more satisfying narratives.
Slash fan-fiction and content (defined by the interlinking of two (or more) characters romantically and/ or sexually), specifically, take the canonical story beats and double down on interior character development, allowing for a more nuanced depiction than offered in canon. One needs only look at CW’s Supernatural, MTV’s Teen Wolf, or BBC’s Merlin to see both aspects in action. Teen Wolf’s fandom took one of its most underwritten characters (Derek Hale) and practically built him from the ground up. Supernatural’s fandom was weaving together elaborate romances between two of its protagonists (Dean Winchester and Castiel) for years before its showrunners formally acknowledged any queerness on both their parts in perhaps the most disrespectful way possible in its final season. And Merlin? Well, the undertones were there for everyone to see and extrapolate from.
Fan fiction’s explosion in popularity, therefore, comes as no surprise. The reason people write it and read it with such gusto boils down to a genuine love for the canon characters and a desire to get representation–of more than one kind– right. The distinct lack of creative regulation and monetary considerations frees fan creators from the shackles governing traditional media. Reader familiarity with the world and the characters also helps since they can simply immerse themselves in a story knowing, going in, that they like these people. Everyone already knows the backstory– so authors can play, and readers can enjoy watching their favourites go on new adventures or re-live the old ones without all the plot holes. And you know how sometimes you watch or read something and want more of the exact same thing? Well, fan fiction has that covered too.
All of this contributes to why I choose to get my dose of romance through fan fiction more often than not. There is something distinctly comforting about being able to revisit characters I love in new contexts. It’s exciting to witness how other members of the fandom re-interpret certain scenes and scenarios and build on them– even if I don’t always see the vision. I find joy in the promise of a happy ending for characters who, traditionally, might have been thrown to the wayside in the most disingenuous way possible. But more than that, I love the fact that people saw a gap and took it upon themselves to elevate subtext to an actual relationship, opposing cis values and problematic depictions of queerness, race, religion, and gender dynamics found in canon entertainment media.
Reference: Thomas, Bronwen. 2007. “Canons and Fanons: Literary Fanfiction Online.” Dichtung Digital. Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien Nr. 37 (Jg. 9): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/17701.
The vibrancy of the Juhu PVR theater, everyone is excited for the last film of the first day of MAMI Film Festival. They are locked in like a flight is about to take off. There are rumors about how great the film will be simply because of the promising poster and description. People and film bros have lined up since evening to be able to get in, the games to get are each one of their own. Next thing I know, I’m seated and watching the jockey’s lining up with their horses, with the race about to take off. Our leads are flirting through their eye protection goggles and satin suits. And Remo, our lead under a drug-induced high, is left behind his horse, suffering a slap right from the fields’ warm sand.
This is just the beginning of the movie, characters have been slapped and the director isn’t shying away from introducing our characters’ most authentic self–the sad, mysterious, tortured poet, lover, sorry I mean sportsman.
In one word, the movie is blunt. It’s vibrant with its visuals, sound and sharp dialogues, delivered hot and fresh by each and every actor. Right from our villainous, creepy mobster father–Sirena and the four motherless children who adopt the lead–Remo/Dolores/Lola (will explain the name of the comedy in a bit) as their mother.
Sports, while it has been established that is superficially straight and inherently queer, Luis Ortega, the director, writer and producer of this gritty, fluid and queer story gets it. With Remo’s love interest, Abril is also a jockey herself. Who is currently favored by Sirena (who was a weird sexist dude) as well, but that doesn’t add any strain on Abril and Remo’s love. Instead, we see Remo begging to be loved openly by Abril, who only ever says one thing, “for me to love you, you must die and be reborn again.”
Sounds toxic, I know, but as the film proceeds, with Remo crashing and accidentally killing the very expensive horse Sirena got him, we understand that it was necessary for Remo to crash, burn and be born again.
What we see forward is Remo’s body, the horse, being ridden by a woman–Dolores– has taken over his body, mind and fashion as the Jockey. I realized this in hindsight but Remo was never a part of this story, just the horse/body to be ridden by Dolores and eventually Lola.
In simpler words–Remo is a trans woman, who has been trapped in a self-destructive lifestyle, destroying and breaking everything Remo stood for, just to be able to live as Lola. Once Remo’s body is destroyed, Dolores/Lola take charge.
Abril knows this, and she will fight the world to ensure Lola returns safe and sound back to her arms.
Consider Ortega a part of my carousel of filmmakers to follow closely. I’m yet to watch his previous work–El Angel– that was screened at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard back in 2018.
While this wasn’t Ortega’s first tango with Cannes, it is still pretty impressive to have only ever made 5 films and hit the nail every time (or so I’d assume, judging the level of artistry seen in El Jockey).
Usually when telling stories of transgender folx, there’s a certain empathetic or sympathetic lens expected, but Ortega went a step ahead and decided to show Dolores as this lady, waiting to get out and put her love out in the world.
So while Remo doesn’t talk, show expressions or even his eyes for most of the film––Lola is the opposite. She talks, she listens, she advises and loves without begging for it. A major contrast between Lola and Remo is that Lola never had to beg Abril to love her. She knew Abril loves and that Abril also loves Ana (yes it’s a pan-Polyamory representation too!).
Without giving too much away from the ending, do expect to tear up to see Lola proudly be herself. If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, is being able to see characters finally find peace within themselves. When I saw Lola, with her longer hair, climbing ceilings, cutting hair and being gentle. It only made sense why Remo was so destructive, and that it was Lola who had accompanied us throughout the film.
If Remo is destructive, Lola is someone who has learnt how to nurture.
It appears that love is not the only force reshaping our society this season. In a most delightful twist, the ton is abuzz with the arrival of a romance that promises to break boundaries and elevate our beloved Bridgertons into a new era of inclusivity. The charming Francesca Bridgerton is set to find her match, but not in the expected Mr. Michael Sterling. Instead, a bold new love interest emerges in the form of the enchanting Miss Michela Sterling.
This daring and utterly modern love story is not only a celebration of romance but a triumph for the acceptance and representation that our world so desperately needs. As the ton adjusts to this fresh breath of change, we shall explore why this momentous decision is a victory for love in all its forms. So, gather your wits, my dear reader, and prepare to embrace the future with open arms, for love is love—no matter the name or the gender it takes…
Okay, enough with the Lady Whistledown voice.
If you’ve been living under a rock, let me introduce you to the worldwide OTT sensation that is Bridgerton. The Netflix show that made corsets sexy again, turned balls into social battlegrounds, and made us all wish we could gossip in period attire. Every season of Bridgerton has delivered the drama, romance, and scandal that we crave, and this time, things are about to get delightfully queer.
In a jaw-dropping twist (well, it’s not a twist if you’ve been paying attention), the future seasons of the show will feature Francesca Bridgerton’s love interest. Now, book fans will remember him as Michael Sterling, but the show is here to shake things up. Enter stage left, Michela Sterling, a gender-swapped character who is here to steal hearts and probably stir up a few tea scandals on Twitter.
But here’s where things get controversial (as if they weren’t already). The fandom is split. Some fans are ready to embrace this change faster than Lady Whistledown can spill a secret, while others are clutching their pearls. So, let’s break it down: why is adding queer characters to a popular show like Bridgerton so important, and what’s the deal with gender-swapping characters?
Why Queer Representation Matters: More Than Just “A Trend”
In case you missed it, LGBTQ+ representation on screen is no longer just a progressive “buzzword.” It’s vital, and it’s long overdue. When shows like Bridgerton, with their massive audience, decide to include queer characters, it’s a win for diversity, visibility, and humanising the queer experience. While the show exists in a Regency-era bubble, the themes and relationships are timeless—and so is love in all its forms.
Imagine the impact of queer teens watching Bridgerton and seeing characters like Michela Sterling love as fiercely and unapologetically as straight couples do. For a long time, queer love stories were relegated to side plots, often tragic, and very rarely celebrated. This was also seen in the spin off Bridgerton show, Queen Charlotte, where Brimsley’s love story with Reynolds ends in heartbreak (allegedly!)
So in an attempt to right their wrongs, the show introduces queer narratives to their mainstream audiences. In a world where many still face discrimination for who they love, seeing two women in a powerful and loving relationship on-screen is a reminder that their stories matter too.
Queer representation also shakes up the predictability factor in romance series. There’s always a certain level of “will-they-won’t-they” tension in traditional straight romances, but queer characters introduce new layers of complexity. The hurdles they face are often different—and those differences are compelling. This keeps the show fresh, engaging, and far more representative of the real world.
But we can’t ignore the fact that not everyone’s on board. Some fans are less than thrilled about Bridgerton shaking up the formula.
The Fandom: Excited or Clutching Their Regency Bonnets?
CW: Mention of forced marriage
On one side, you have fans who are embracing this new representation. They’re practically planning viewing parties with rainbow banners. Queer characters? In a historical romance setting? Finally! The love story they’ve been waiting for! A lot of these fans see Michela as an exciting, bold new direction for the show—one that’s inclusive and open-minded.
Then, there are the other fans—the ones who are perhaps…let’s call them “purists.” They believe the show should stick to the source material more rigidly. After all, Bridgerton is based on a beloved book series, and Michael Sterling has always been, well, Michael. His character remains one the most beloved male love interests for book readers. This despite his participation in the colonisation of India and malicious attempts to force Francesca into a marriage with him by impregnating her without her consent.
Some feel that the gender swap is unnecessary, claiming it distorts the character they know and love. And let’s be real, sometimes book fans can get very attached to their imagined versions of these characters.
What’s fascinating is that these debates tend to overlook the bigger picture. The show isn’t taking away Michael; it’s giving us a new character—Michela—and a love story that brings fresh narratives to the screen. The story that book fans love still exists, but a newer and an improved version of the character should not warrant such negative reactions.
Let’s not forget that these are characters in a historically inaccurate world where the Queen is Black, and modern pop songs play during ball scenes. Historical purism is, quite frankly, a funny hill to die on. Gender-swapping characters isn’t rewriting history; it’s rewriting a story.
Gender-Swapping Characters: The Pros, The Cons, and the Drama
Gender-swapping isn’t new to TV and film, but it’s always a hot topic. On one hand, it allows writers to experiment with existing stories and inject fresh perspectives. It can also challenge gender norms and offer different dynamics in relationships. On the other hand, it can feel like a gimmick if not handled well, leading to accusations of “woke-ism” or “tokenism.”
The Pros:
New Perspectives: When a male character is re-imagined as female (or vice versa), it forces audiences to think differently about the character’s journey. Michela might face different struggles, challenges, and nuances than Michael ever did—and that’s exciting. It enriches the narrative.
Breaking Stereotypes: Traditional romance is usually about strong, brooding men and gentle, loving women (yawn). Gender-swapping throws those expectations out the window and offers something more complex, keeping things from feeling stale.
Inclusion: This one’s key. Michela being queer and gender-swapped makes Bridgerton more inclusive, something that today’s audiences are craving. Representation is empowering, and it matters.
The Cons:
Alienating Fans: As we’ve seen, some fans are resistant to change. Gender-swapping can lead to backlash, especially from those who are deeply attached to the original material.
Risk of Stereotypes: If not done carefully, gender-swapping can fall into traps. For instance, there’s a risk of making Michela’s entire character about her queerness, rather than developing her character fully. Balance is crucial.
Tokenism Fears: If the gender swap feels like a lazy attempt to appear progressive without substance, it can backfire. The swap needs to be meaningful and not just a marketing ploy.
At the end of the day, Bridgerton is about passion, love, and breaking societal norms—whether in 1813 or 2024. The introduction of Michela Sterling, and with her, a queer love story, is a step toward more inclusive storytelling in mainstream OTT media. Does it ruffle feathers? Absolutely. But is it necessary? Even more so.
So, whether you’re excited about gender-swapping or quietly rolling your eyes, let’s remember: TV is evolving. And if a scandalously queer Michela Sterling is part of that evolution, we say: bring it on!
I am big on intention-setting, and big on communication. This means that I do not go on dates just to ‘find out what happens’. I prefer that we talk about what we hope will happen, so that we are on the same page. The reason for this is simple – if you are looking for a ‘friends with benefits; situation and I am looking for a committed relationship, what is the point in wasting each other’s time? The same goes for friendships. I cannot do with the ‘let’s try to be friends first and then see where it goes’ setting, because that keeps me in the zone of ‘Is now when we can flirt? What did you mean when you said this thing? Are you into me or not?’ And why are we playing guessing games as two adults who met on the dating section of an app?!
But sometimes a girl DOES need friends. And let’s be honest, being an adult means that we are no longer in situations where we keep meeting new people in relatively sustainable settings like school or coaching classes (except for coworkers but that is VERY different). Enter the option on dating apps to put ‘looking for friendship’ or switching to ‘friendship mode’, which is honestly and truly god-sent. It allows people to set their intention clearly, while also giving them an opportunity to learn things about people from the get-go. There is space for people to write their political inclinations as well, so there is no way that the new person that you approach in class will turn out to be a bhakt (unless they are lying, which is a risk with everything online).
After I completed my course in London, many of my queer friends moved away – either back to their home countries or to another part of the UK. While I had access to the community through LGBTQ+ venues and events, I wanted more queer friends. Specifically, more brown queer friends who get it. I wasn’t sure how to go about this, until one day while swiping through Her I saw that another brown, queer woman had mentioned that she was looking for friends. I decided to swipe on her and see how the communication might be (I have been bitten by enough profiles who claim to be something and turn out to be something else to be weary), and I was so pleasantly surprised! She loved crafts and reading too and recommended the phenomenal book The Jasmine Throneto me. We had some trouble with scheduling an in-person meeting, so we decided to try a ‘craft and talk’ video call where she crocheted, I embroidered, and we spoke about everything under the sun!
At some point in my dating journey, I also decided to add the ‘looking for friends’ filter on my profile on dating apps. I’m happy to report that I have loved every second of scrolling through the profiles on this side of the app (which was a HUGE shift from what I find when I swipe through dating profiles.) People seemed to be willing to let more of their personality show in their answers, and were a lot more honest about exactly what kind of energy they had – ‘I want friends to go clubbing with’ vs ‘looking to build my queer tribe to have a movie night in’. I knew who I was looking for – craft-loving nerds like me who would be up for a drink but look for depth in friendships. Of course, this is very specific, but hey, a girl can hope. I found another friend who I ended up inviting along with my bestie to a drag show after meeting up for preliminary drinks. She was in a long-term relationship and was looking for solo friends because she felt that she and her partner did everything together. We also eventually went to drag bingo and won shots for our dancing skills – it was so fun, and all because I put myself out there.
It was during this time that I experienced a weird disappointment. I had swiped right on someone on the dating section of an app and was ready to get my flirt on with her. Our first conversation was going well – we had a lot in common, but as soon as I said something flirty she told me, “I’m just looking for a friendship.” I immediately stopped. After a second passed I asked her, “okay but I’m just a bit confused – why didn’t you make a profile on the BFF part of the app?” She replied, “oh, I tried but there aren’t a lot of queer people there.” I digested this, and then asked again, “Then why didn’t you mention on this profile that you are looking for friendship?” She had no response for that. What was unsaid stood between us silently – she had obviously chosen to omit that in the hope of getting more swipes. The unfortunate thing is that she had seemed cool enough and if she had mentioned ANYWHERE that she was looking for friendship, I would have actually swiped right on her anyway. But actual friendship cannot begin with deception. This is undoubtedly the WRONG way to try to make friends with me on a dating app. So that conversation ended there.
But the conversations with people who were more honest about their intentions, whom I found on these apps continued. Of course it is vulnerable to be looking for friends – one could even argue that to some people it can feel more vulnerable than looking for a potential partner. But it is definitely worth it – because whether we are single or with someone, we need our friends around us. We are not islands, and life is so much better with community.
We’ve all heard of the heroes whose stories gave birth to epics like The Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Odyssey So today, I come with story of a brave queer soul That lived in the year 2024,
Where capitalism was the great enemy and Life was the victim to be rescued The reward was not glory But acceptance and happiness
But let me tell you, She did not defeat the demon But found her happiness regardless So this is a story
Of our brave hero who stole moments of victory for herself While she lived She was born on the ordinary moon When everything would only change for her world
When her parents garlanded and showered her with their pride They showered her with blessings and expectations Expectations she would probably never live to fulfill Because who knew she would spend two hours out of the 24, travelling
She wakes up at 5 am, To prepare for a battle, She trains and brushes her teeth Packs herself a breakfast that
She will forget to eat She defends herself against the army Of Mumbai locals Where she’s pushed and shoved till she
Reaches her destiny And behold she arrives At the cave of labour Where she is destined to battle
The goblins of small talk and the monster of deadlines She ventures in With a sword of smile on her face
She nods past the goblins Emerging in a victory as she seats herself As lunch time arrives She has been battling hunger
And has seen the horrors of being discredited By the evil warlord named Aryan The three sisters of fate If they exist like the greek legends said
They surely don’t seem too concerned with helping her, As she realized, she will have to work overtime But she emerges victorious When the moon is high and the city still buzzes
Our hero meets her cohort And she is at last finally happy Because as the wise saint of Therapy told her We live and breathe battles That are to be fought internally and eternally…
What started out as a chill weekend watch son turned into a frustration rant to my bestie over WhatsApp voice notes. The problem is I can’t categorize this film ,and while I love abstract films like any other film buff, I really don’t get what this film set out to say.
Is it a coming out tale? Nope
…a queer love story? Kinda?
or a queer indian narrative? Not really
It seems to me that the focus of this film is just–Shaadi.
It’s so obsessed with getting the leads married that it forgets to check in with its lead couple if they even know each other enough to commit?
What’s better than queer rights? Shaadi!
It does a decent job of touching on this trope in Indian families where everyone’s sexuality is HUSH HUSH🤫.
Amar → Punjabi baby queer, ventures to London to explore his sexuality free from his XL-size family.
Prem on the other hand→ an open and experienced queer left his closet behind eons ago.
There’s very little chance of chemistry besides initial excitement…
Just as I settled into their chemistry, they’re getting married…?
Error 401: Chemistry Not Found
All sorts of shaadi-related Kalesh happens & queerphobic relatives are not even the center of attention?
But you know what is? Miscommunication, casual casteism & boring jokes about who’s better the groom or the groom?
In the process of “normalizing” queerness, the creators forgot that they are supposed to be a non-cis-het couple👨❤️💋👨. Which requires much more nuance than just being attracted to each other!!!
And the most important thing that filmmakers need to remember, while creating queer narratives, is that normalization does not require them to fit into the already existing cis-het mold! It’s counterintuitive!
There’s no substance in this film that normalizes queer couples, because it’s so hell-bent on making queer couples fit-in.
It stereotypes queer spaces as unsafe, lustful & inherently sinful.
I love rom-coms, especially queer ones, but I also like my leads to show each other some compassion, romance and compatibility.
This movie said, “let’s be sanskaari-queers”. It’s not a light watch either, there’s no humorous punch besides the family rivalry and cool dadi trope. If I wanted to watch a tale of a Punjabi-Bengali couple, where one is a cute himbo and one is a classic black cat– I’d watch Rocky Rani Ki Prem Kahani. There’s a dire need of more queer narratives, but do we want narratives that are misleading? Sure we need diverse stories, but what good are those if they end up putting us in a box that we try so hard to escape.
Have you ever been on a date where everything is going well until it isn’t? Something changes, and suddenly, like a switch has been flipped, all the initial attraction fades away, leaving only a vague feeling of disgust in its wake. The famous ‘ick‘. If we all think back on why we turned down second dates or tried to weasel out of firsts as quickly as possible, we’d probably come up with quite a diverse list of reasons.
‘He chewed with his mouth open.’
‘Her nails were too long, and she kept picking at them.’
‘They wanted to split the bill…we ordered coffee…’
By all accounts, these are innocuous things, and yet they have devastating consequences for fledgling or even full-fledged relationships. And while reasons differ in their details, the essence of the ick is a feeling of revulsion and disgust tied inextricably to our latent preferences.
What happens, however, when the ick factor goes beyond the realm of the straight and enters the realm of queerness and queer politics? The 1998 paper titled, “The Ick Factor: Flesh, Fluids, and Cross-Gender Revulsion,” examines the cross-gender revulsion experienced by gay men and lesbian women about each other’s bodies as sexual entities. The author, Eric Rofes, a gay man, tries to explain and explore his experience of the ick as best as he can. Rofes is brutally honest in his expression, and his honesty begets an examination of why members of a community whose sexuality is often denied by society might internally reject each other as well. Of course, this is not a universal experience. Not all gay men or lesbian women experience the ick when confronted with the other’s sexual practices and cultures, but it is fascinating to think about why some might.
Now, one’s sexuality, by virtue of being selective (usually), is tied heavily to the concepts of preference or taste – affirming certain inevitable differences amongst individuals. These differences can also be defined as the negation of positive feelings towards something or someone i.e., tastes can also come through as feelings of visceral intolerance, along with strong preference(s).
What does this mean for cross-gender revulsion? Is it natural for people to look at each other’s bodies and not feel attraction, but instead experience a lack of attraction as disgust? I don’t think so, and neither does Rofes. While the paper itself is unable to come up with concrete reasons behind the feelings of revulsion experienced by both lesbian and gay people, it does a great job of acknowledging the internal thought process of individuals and their hypocrisy.
When it comes to women’s bodies specifically, both amongst queer and straight men, there is a tendency to de-sexualise and hyper-sexualise them, simultaneously. This is evident in the contradictory expectations governing what is considered acceptable behaviour by women and the language used to talk about it. Throughout his paper, Rofes highlights how his acceptance of lesbians was often concerning the feminist political culture and their display of non-sexual acts of intimacy like hugging, hand-holding, etc. The moment he was confronted with female promiscuity and overt displays of sexuality, Rofes was left scandalized and vaguely queasy. Incidents like this remain true even for some straight men today who, when faced with a labia, either refuse to engage or shame their partners.
Conversely, with regards to language, many queer men use terms like “pussy” and “cunt” while having sex and yet feel disgusted when confronted with the reality of one. Pierre Bourdieu, one of the leading thinkers on the subject of disgust, asserts that “disgust is the paradoxical experience of enjoyment extorted by violence, an enjoyment which arouses horror.” Bourdieu reframes disgust as a mask for forbidden pleasures or delights, which the acquisition of a certain identity has severed. In this context, it somewhat explains why gay men might use these terms even when it seems contradictory.
None of this, however, explains why one feels revulsion in the first place. Some lesbians, when asked, attributed their disgust with male genitalia, sperm, rimming, etc. to their experiences of childhood violence, rape, and incest. With regards to the gays, Rofes has two possible explanations. First, he draws on the historically proven power of disgust to create boundaries between populations. He suggests that the ick might be a way for gay men to build alliances, hierarchies, and communal classes based on gendered sexual orientation. The second is internalized misogyny. After all, just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you escaped the toxic narratives spun about women!
Regardless of the reason, this alternative take on the ick factor adds nuance to the conversation. While preferences and tastes are highly individual and should be respected, this paper challenges readers to question themselves and examine the hidden underbelly of said tastes. Moreover, in the modern context, it brings another dimension through which to view the innocent ick, which is often dismissed as nothing more than an innocuous rejection. So the next time you go on a date, watch a sexy movie or happen to walk past some couple lost in a passionate embrace, and you feel an inexplainable little something-something, queer and straight denizens of the world, take a second to think about why. Feel free to feel the ick, but don’t forget to question it too.
Frilly lace socks, burgundy mary janes, gingham placket blouse, box shoulder bag with ribbons, a slutty scarlet corset, bow shaped jewelry, siren core specs, morandi note tabs, Kuromi themed pen holder, hello kitty notepads, pastel highlighters, kanken bag and offo! Soooooo many things to own, to own your queerness through these materialistic markers.
If there’s one easy, foolproof way to show your queerness, it is through fashion and accessories. Want to take a peek in my cluttered wishlist? Ok, fine!
Sleeveless rib-knitted racer back
Photo credit: Pinterest
With a blend of 99% cotton and 100% slutty shoulders (I don’t know math!), this is a versatile option to pair with either baggy jorts or jeans. The hint of bra strap visible through the racerback is a way to assert the dominance of the gay girlie gaze 😉
Burgundy dual strap Mary Janes
Photo credit: Theatre.xyz
Giving the ballet flats a tough battle, the dual strap Mary Janes give me the chaotic bi panic energy of why do I have to pick? Block heels for stability and height to tower over short kings, queens and monarchs (in case they’re non-binary?). In the price range of a cozy outside date, I’m obsessed with the bold color and the gold detailing on the buckle.
And yet it stays on my wishlist because as a serial public transportation user in India, I need my comfy paragon slippers more than this, unfortunately.
Chunky Loafers
Photo credit: h&m
These loafers with golden accents have been on my wishlist for 3 years now. With a 4cm platform heel, it assures me functionality and fashion, which means I don’t have to deal with numbing my toes while I walk places. Pair it with trousers and it becomes my go-to himbo, ‘I’m just ken’ kind of outfit ; or pair it up with a dress, a pair of loose socks, and it could be alt and comfortable. Available in imitation leather (currently being branded as ‘vegan’), I want to buy it to live out my fluid dreams of going between femme and masc moods through the outfits I wear.
Set of Striped Front Button Vest or Blazer & Wide Leg Pants
Photo credit: Littlebox India
Advertised as workwear, in my head I already know, it’s going to come out looking like Kristen Stewart in a pixie cut when paired with a killer brown lip combo. Standing at a price point of grabbing everyone’s eyeballs, it has pockets and a price that requires me to solely take public transportation to save up on money. The wide leg pant gives my wide hips and thighs a break from being perceived, allowing me to a little wiggle-room in what I am going for. Do I want to be taken seriously or be seen as sexy? You tell me, or actually, hold that thought; don’t.
Quirky Jhola
Photo credit: Juhu Beach Studio
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but something everything about a bright neon blue and pink heart cut-out tote bag just screams GAY! to me. From the pointy silhouette to the solid color palette, everything feels funny and silly, much like how I cope with my identity on some hopeful days. I mean, the funkier the accessory, the more space for me to be camp and queer. And especially if it is from a sustainable, homegrown brand, the high price point I’d be paying in hope that it’s going to pay fair wages for the labour instead of simply linking the pockets of an Instagram influencer makes sense as a progressive liberal person. But then again, I remember that I also have a middle class lens and find myself growing into my mother when I say: ‘yeh toh apna tailor buss 250/- mei sil ke dega’ (translation: this would be easily stitched by our tailor for only ₹250/-)
Uniqlo built in bra tank top
Photo credit: Uniqlo
Be it Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft to Umang Singh in Four More Shots Please! Wherever you land on the spectrum with white vests, tank tops have always been very queer-coded. But styling it as a desi queer girlie is a headache because sleeveless tops = always adjusting the bra strap or else face the wrath of the aunty gaze. The trending built-in bra tank top solves this so effortlessly. This is what those menstrual companies think they’re doing when they show the women wearing their pads frolicking and cartwheeling in those ads (they are not even close).
Choker
Photo credit: Pexels
Queerness and kinky fashion have always coexisted, thanks to their subversive, non-normative approach. From goth to e-girl and even punk, chokers are an effective way to sneak in a quick nod to the gays and the theys and all the others, signalling that you’re one of them. As a desi queer, I find it difficult to incorporate it on the regular, but when you do queer fashion: the more out of place, the better!
Print shirts
Photo credit: The Souled Store
Flamboyant prints for the win! These loose airy shirts give the onlookers a very ‘do I have boobs or not’ kind of vibe and that’s very fun because it sends across chaotic ripples among the heteronormative. The wacky patterns also serve as a quick pick-me-up on a low day where body dysmorphia (or even dysphoria) has assumed the driver’s seat. It masks the silhouette that I possess.
On that note, everybody say thank you to Billie Eilish for bringing baggy in on our mobile screens!
Queer Pins
Photo credit: Reypin store
What’s better to set the gaydar off than showing off your queer side not so subtly. The cat makes it better, because technically, people can’t clock you if you’re a cat lover or a pride flag-haver, you decide. But as much as quirky of a callback it is to your identity, try taking your tote bag with this pin in desi public transportation packed with people. One dhakka (push) and your pin is nowhere to be found 🙁
Chunky Ceramic Jewelry
Photo credit: Pinterest
Revenge for Marie Kondo’s minimalism, these chunky ceramic handmade charms feel very queer coded to me, personally. While it is very fashion girlie energy, the mix-match customization and the DIY core says otherwise. The intricate designs with colorful beads and chunky gold chain scream camp, cluttered and queer. Since, ceramic is an expensive medium to keep up with, I find it too much of a drag (not the serving lewks kind) to bother buying. The jugaadu (DIY), brokie budget version of this, according to me, would be with air dry clay, trust me, tried and tested!
Eyeshadow
Photo credit: MARS Cosmetics
A blend of playful, personal and political, makeup can be a fun, exhilarating way to give the folks a sneak peak of what’s inside of you aka who you truly are. Like all makeup, its ephemeral nature allows you to take charge of when you want to step into the limelight and show off your fabulousness. Use a touch of eyeshadow to publicly profess and protest against the patriarchal rules.
Note: Best done if the patterns and the colors become more glitter-ier, more shinier
Tattoos
Photo credit: Pexels
Scrapbooking my body with important milestones or maybe a meaningless quirky artwork? Sign me up for it! Tattoos, be it hidden or out and loud, can be a quick wink to signal your queer rebel spirit. The process and its permanency makes the whole ordeal very intimate and vulnerable, making you overwhelmed. Plus, how good is it going to translate from the brain to an art piece? From vetting an artist to figuring out your budget, seems too heavy not just on the wallet but also on the mind. Guess, I’ll have to park that thought for another day!
Piercings
Photo credit: Pexels
With a history of body euphoria and signaling to other queer peeps, piercings go beyond just the aesthetics. Being queer comes with the realization that the ‘norm’ doesn’t make much sense, so why stop at labels? Just lean or rather jump and throw yourself into it, to piss more people off, to be truly your rebellious self! And that includes piercings! Especially, as a bi woman, if tomorrow you see me with a septum piercing, know that that’s my uniform and I’m simply marking my attendance.
Dyed Hair
Photo credit: Pexels
They say don’t judge a book by its cover but sometimes as a queer person you kinda want them to clock you as queer girlie. Dyed hair works wonders, add a mullet or undercut, and you’re ready to enter your baddie era. You get to control the narrative, a streak of your hair or the entirety of your head plus the eyebrows, you pick your intensity of identity. The quick fix is boxed hair dye ranging anywhere from a 100/- to 700/- depending on the rarity of colour. But a commitment to dyed hair is not just applying but maintaining the colour. This means an additional purchase of protective hair care which includes shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, oil, serum and don’t forget the count the number of times you wash your hair. All this seems a hassle and heavy on my pockets which is why the only colour I’ll be sporting is grey. Who is my hair stylist you ask? Late stage capitalism itself!
So Add To Cart? (Or Rot In The Cart?)
So, choice is yours… but also not really. With micro trends popping up every five seconds, fast fashion’s endless temptations, and big media corporations shoving ads in your face, it’s a wonder any of us have the energy left to practice our queerness. And let’s be real, trying to afford the stuff that truly helps you express your fabulous self? It’s like navigating a minefield of priorities—like, are we really supposed to choose between cabbage and concealer? In this economy, I’d say tamatar over top-shelf makeup any day. But here’s the twist: being queer means you’ve already got the jugaadu skills to recycle, repair, and reinvent like a pro. Who needs designer labels when your local tailor can make your shirt as masc as you want it? Or why book a fancy studio when your friend’s got a stick-and-poke kit? Swap out that Bobbi Brown for Blue Heaven and voilà—you’ve nailed the art of queer styling on a budget. After all, in queerness, everything is fair game—and the best looks are the ones you make your own!
Movies have often insisted that the most romantic moments in life occur when gazing into the eyes of ‘the one’ – but these last few months have taught me that being single does not have to be without romance. And I’m not even talking about romanticising all aspects of one’s own life – that is a given – I am specifically talking about forming core romantic memories when there is mutual attraction, but no pressure.
This is a lesson that I have been learning because dating as an adult is quite different from dating as a teen as I now have a lot more agency. Teenage dating was about sneaking around and trying not to get caught. Which meant that the stakes were so high that there already needed to be some inkling of emotions to take a risk to talk to or meet someone. Now, we can ask each other out on a date because there is interest and curiosity to see if there is potential – which makes me want to sigh in relief.
I have also quickly learnt that in the sapphic dating world having a 4-hour heart-to-heart conversation is the norm, not the outlier. Which means that just because there was strong chemistry and flirting does not mean that we will speak again. I am not talking about f*ckbois who string you along by staying in the ‘grey’ zone for months. I am specifically talking about initial no-strings-attached conversations where both parties are aware and in on the fact that there is no commitment yet, just curiosity about who the other person is.
Curiosity is an amazing zone to be in, as this is where you get to know people and yourself. Curiosity holds your hand, directing you away from infatuation-based attraction to information-based crushes. And these crushes are an amazing space for romance to blossom, even if that happens for a date or two.
Over the last few months, I have had swoon-worthy romantic moments on dates with interesting people. After matching and texting for a day or 3, I ask if they would like to jump on a phone call so that we can quickly go over the basics and see if we are on the same page about things and learn a bit more about each other. Once that is done, there is much less pressure on our dates which means that there is a lot more room for flirting and going into the deeper questions.
I always wanted to have a bookstore date and the first date that I went on through a dating app was just that! I had mentioned liking flowers and she was waiting outside the queer bookstore with a whole bouquet of them (damn!). She mentioned loving sunflowers in particular, so I was holding a huge stalk in my hand. We were already off to a good start, and it only got better as we got hot beverages and looked through the shelves of titles together. At some point, we found ourselves in the kids section and I asked her if she would like to read a poem together. This is something that I do with friends sometimes and it is really fun to see how each person reads their part. She was game and we went back and forth on reading an adorable poem from the children’s book. We spoke a lot, walked through nearby lanes, and ended up stumbling upon a candle-lit restaurant for lunch. It was the stuff of romantic dreams, and I am so glad we got to make that memory together – because romantic moments are not just about you getting to experience something, it is about the person that you end up doing it with as well.
Another thing that I always wanted to do was have a romantic kiss in front of the Tower Bridge. As someone who lived in that area for a year while in a long-distance relationship, I would often walk by adorable couples holding each other close and think ‘one day’. Yet when I was sitting and splitting a pizza on a Tower Bridge bench with a girl whom I had a crush on (and who I am pretty sure had a crush on me), I did not think that that moment would be ours. We were talking about everything under the sun and an emotional intimacy was building as we shared red wine. We saw some straight-looking couples come and have that moment, but I was not sure if we would be safe if we went for it. The truth is that just like with the bookstore date, it was not about ticking something off a list, it was having this magical moment with her specifically. So I shared this with her and after having a conversation about whether or not we both felt safe enough in that environment to try, we went for it. It was magical, and I loved every second of it.
To sum it up, I have had a Christmas market date and a museum date. I had a cocktail with a fun woman and walked through a gallery with a chill one. I have also laid in bed and listened to romantic retro songs with an adorable woman (who reintroduced me to ‘Kehna hai, Kehna Hai’ which now holds a place in my playlist). While experiencing all of these romantic moments, I was single- and yet, they were not any less special. Of course, in our case, the intention that my dates and I set is seeing if there is potential for whatever spark there is between us to go somewhere, but that does not mean that we can not enjoy where we are at, in that moment.
I am a hetero-oriented demi/grey-romantic asexual person.
It has taken me exactly 2.5 years to sit down and pen this essay. I first thought about writing it in August 2021. Despite my pitch being approved, I could not bring myself to write it. Am I lazy about putting in the work to write? Yes, absolutely. I did not feel motivated. But the actual reason that held me back was that it required me to be vulnerable about my deepest thoughts and feelings. This story requires me to disclose things that I do not talk about openly. Of course, there is no pressure and no one is asking me to write; it is entirely my own will. I wanted to write and share my story but doing that meant admitting to myself what I have been feeling for a long time. It required confronting myself to clear the confusion and get a better understanding of myself. It was a necessary process because once this experience is out there in the written word, there is no hiding from it anymore.
But I do not want to put my name on it. I am not ready for that bit and will never be. Anonymous feels safer.
I learnt about asexuality in 2020, at the age of 31. I knew what ‘A’ stands for in LGBTQIA+ but never gave much thought to it. Over two years of regular consultations with my psychologist enabled me to understand myself. It helped me to figure out what I want in a romantic relationship, what would be the nature of it, why I want one, and if I even wanted such a relationship. In this journey of working upon myself I discovered my own sexuality, which was always there inside me and with me but I did not have a name for it. I could not recognize it.
I always knew that my relation with sex is not what I see as the prevailing norm around me. I have been in love, more than once, but never felt the need or desire to even hug or kiss the person. So sex was a faraway concept of an experience that I didn’t feel the need for. I never felt that I needed physical intimacy of any level. My wish was to experience and express the love, the deep and intense emotions that I felt. All I wanted was to experience emotional intimacy. My feelings were never reciprocated so one may say that since I had never been in a committed relationship, I cannot be sure or maybe it is a case of “sour grapes”. But I know that in my body, mind, and heart, I have complete clarity on what I want right now and in future. While I was grieving the lack of-reciprocation of my romantic feelings, people have said that since there was no sex involved the damage is less, which means the intensity of pain would be lesser. I understand that it may be a well-intentioned concern, but the damage, if at all we use this word, was not any less than what a sexually-active person might go through.
Once I even manipulated my own self into thinking that maybe a relationship wasn’t happening for me because I am not ready for sex or any sort of physical intimacy. I misguidedly applied the ‘law of manifestation’ popularized by The Secret and thought that maybe I have not channeled my desires in the right direction. It put me in a great dilemma when I felt no physical attraction to the boy I was in love with. I somehow had this idea, or maybe it was conditioning, that once I am in a relationship then physical intimacy might happen eventually, as if it is a natural corollary that is bound to happen on autopilot. Couples get physically intimate and that was a truth I was aware of. I thought, maybe I would be ready if I channeled my desires into getting ready for it. However, it turned out to be not true.
At first I thought that I might be demi-sexual; in my head I assumed that when I get into a committed, emotionally-intimate relationship, then of course physical intimacy would follow and lead to sex, because if not this then what. The major gap here was the check-in with myself. I had to pause and ask myself if I wanted to have sex? The answer was a clear no. Sex was irrelevant and unnecessary for me. I revisited my journey from the time of adolescence till date, and it made me more certain that I have never wanted to have sex. Regardless of whether I was in love or found someone good-looking, I had never wanted to come close to them physically. I completely understood the act of sex at the age of 18. There was a complete absence of curiosity that might have otherwise propelled me to learn about it. Learning about the act, penetration in particular, made me extremely uncomfortable (physically). To me, it felt intrusive. I remember sharing this sentiment with a friend back then. Revisiting this 15-year-old conversation at the age of 31 did wonders. In that moment it became very clear to me that I am an asexual person; everything made sense. My first reaction was a sigh of relief, that said “oh now I don’t have to get physically intimate in a relationship or have sex. Phew!”
Besides being asexual, I also became aware that I do not experience romantic attraction the way I see it happening around me. I do not develop romantic interest unless there is a friendship or an already existing attachment/affection. Also, if I feel a certain attraction, I do not necessarily want to be in a relationship or act on it. I have been on a dating app, but deleted it in 2 months because I got bored. This straight-jump-to-romantic setup made me uncomfortable. I thought that maybe I am scared or its unknown terrain, but I really did not want to meet anyone. I did not like the flirting. It has always made me uncomfortable and I know that it is not the butterflies in my stomach. It feels as if someone is jumping into my very private/personal space. I am not sure how to label it, but it’s somewhere between grey and demi romantic.
Being an ace demiromantic person is not easy especially when sexual and romantic relationships are the norm. For me, it also reduces the possibility of being in a relationship or experiencing mutual attraction. It is not impossible but it has its challenges. The trickiest feeling is to grieve a loss of something you do not want in the first place. There are certain things I know I cannot experience in my life because my body does not want to and yet there are moments when I find myself in a whirlwind of sadness because of it. It’s been a complicated journey and continues to be so. But 3 years of therapy and a steady dialogue with myself has made me a firm believer that a romantic relationship is not the be-all and end-all of life. For me it’s not a pre-requisite to live a wholesome life.
Trigger warning: mentions of abuse/sexual harassment
“Does that mean you like to have threesomes?”, “Ooooh, can I watch when you make out with a girl?” “Oh shit, that’s so sexy, ya!” “Bisexual, huh? Is that just a stop before becoming a lesbian?” “Bisexual isn’t a real thing! It’ll pass don’t worry” “Why can’t you just stick to one? You want to play the field before deciding, is it?”… “Whatever it is, you’ll finally marry a man only, no?”…
I think I was in my prepubescent era when I had a small crush on a girl, and I never understood it. Just a few days later, I overheard a group of girls talking about someone being a “LESBIAN” in the most derogatory way possible! I panicked. Does that mean I am that??? But I also had a crush on this boy in my class? It was too much for my pre-teen brain to process, and so I buried it deep in the corners of my brain. Without realizing, I was internalizing shame and homophobia, and entering the ever-winding shame spiral.
Stepping into my teen years, came with the raging hormones and more instances and musings of having crushes on both boys and girls. I buried those feelings toward the latter, deeper and deeper until I believed that they didn’t exist. Then one day, I met my bisexual awakening in the form of someone who also became one of my closest friends. It seemed like she was exploring her identity too, or at least was a bit curious if anything. We talked openly about our feelings, and for the first time, I experienced my safe space. For the first time, I started to think about what it all means. We became closer friends and maybe more. Maybe it was love, maybe it was just the excitement of finding someone who felt the same way. But like a fragile soap bubble, it just popped one day. Maybe she felt she was not ready to explore that side of her, or she just didn’t want that kind of bond with me! A little heartbroken, I took those feelings once again and buried them even deeper than I did before. Although we made up later, and she is still one of my closest friends, she remains a bittersweet part of my journey to discovering and exploring my sexuality.
Just as most girls do at least once in college, I dated boys, ignored any feelings that I felt towards anyone of any other gender. I went along not knowing that I was building shame and resentment toward myself and my identity. Deeper and deeper I went into the shame spiral! You might notice that I have not used the word bisexual yet. That was because I didn’t know about it, nor did I want to explore further. The world of LGBTQ was met with whispers and judgement everywhere I turned and I did not want to look that way at myself! So of course, I believed I was straight… because obviously, I like boys. I am attracted to them physically, sexually, emotionally, and intellectually. There’s nothing more to it, right? WRONG!
My second awakening came in the form of a celebrity. It was 2013, I was watching the movie Queen and that’s where I saw her, the drop-dead, slap-in-the-face stunningly gorgeous Lisa Hayden. Oh my God! The things I felt that day… I still remember! How can I be straight and still feel this way towards a woman!? I felt both excited and ashamed. I knew something in me changed forever or rather something in me was awoken from a deep, deep slumber. After I came out of the cinema hall, (coupled with also coming out to myself, to be honest), I only felt dread. Yes, it was exciting to see a celebrity on the big screen and look at her adoringly (fine yes, the feelings were not all that innocent :D), but just like that, another bubble popped. The undeniable truth was upon me like a dark cloud. And just like that, I was very aware of all my shame and resentment I had so neatly wrapped up and buried deep in the recesses of my brain, thinking that I would never access them again. I was properly and silently spiralling all alone with these feelings, not knowing what to do!
I obviously never told anyone. I tried not to think about it myself. I mean, I still liked boys, so maybe it will pass. It probably is definitely ‘just a phase’ or something. But deep down, I knew it really wasn’t. Every so often, I would think about it and go further down the spiral of shame and resentment. So, I clung on to my relationships with boys. As long as I still liked boys, I was fine, I told myself. The shame got so much worse when in one very random conversation my father told me, “Bring any kind of boy and I may be able to accept, but just don’t come and stand here with a girl and tell me you want to marry them!” I cannot explain the anguish, and the pain that statement caused me. Further and further, I spiralled, and I still did not know what to do!
I spent all my teen years and early 20s this way, until I just couldn’t go on anymore. I did the only logical thing I could think of at that point. I started reading about it, learned what it meant to like more than one gender, explored the vast world of LGBTQ, and started seeing others who felt the same way that I did, in myriad other ways. Then I finally admitted to myself that, “I am BISEXUAL.” It wasn’t some big moment; on the contrary, it made me feel small and invisible. So, what’s the next logical step? I pushed myself to start coming out to people—my closest friends, some strangers in bars, some boys I met on dating apps. I started chatting with girls on there too, but never had the guts to actually go out with anyone (how could I while I was literally drowning in shame!). I was met with a variety of responses to my coming out. My closest friends were the most supportive, but many others sexualized me, some made me feel inadequate and indecisive, and by the time I was 25, I was so deep in the shame spiral that I didn’t think there was a way out.
But with more exposure and with the support of my best friends, I slowly understood that my identity was something I needed to embrace and accept. And until today, I am still on that journey. I may not have dated many women, or explored my sexuality that way, but conversations with friends, scrolling the depths of social media, and immersing myself in queer-affirmative pages, people, and groups (Gaysi’ editor, Tej being a huuuge part of my acceptance journey), and a brief stint with a queer-affirmative therapist later, I started making my way out of the spiral.
Interestingly, the thing that made my acceptance journey easier was actually my history of abuse and sexual harassment. I was in a whole other spiral due to that too and I was on a long, healing journey for that in therapy and did a lot of self-work. For some reason, that journey coincided with this one and it somehow made it easier to accept myself, and I became more welcome to accepting my identity as a bisexual person. I learnt to treat my newfound acceptance with grace and kindness, and I started nurturing it and growing with it.
Over the years, I fell in love with a man, dated him, married him, and now have a baby with him. But at the same time, I have been constantly and tirelessly working on coming out of my shame spiral, embracing my sexuality, and being proud of who I am. Today, I am happy and relieved that I have reached a space where I can confidently say that I am bi, queer, and proud! Allowing myself to constantly and subtly play with the waters of gender expression one day at a time! Of course, my family (except my husband and his sister) doesn’t know about this part of my identity, but it is a conscious choice I have made to not come out to them for now.
As a new queer mother of a wonderful baby boy, I am excited to go on this new journey with a better sense of who I am and still feeling open to the wide possibilities of change and transformation along the spectrum of sexuality and gender. Grateful that I can be a safe space for my baby if ever he needs to explore his own identity… So grateful for the safe spaces that I have the privilege of leaning on in my husband, my best friends, and the ever-welcoming queer community that exists online and off, that keep reminding me that I am queer enough, and valid, and seen, and every bit part of the rainbow as I wish to be!
The lights are dimmed. The crowd that was screaming its lungs out a few minutes ago is now silent. Slowly, a drag queen makes her way onto the stage. As she enters, a familiar Bollywood tune plays. In her orange dress, the drag queen on stage begins lip-syncing to songs from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a movie I grew up watching countless times. I don’t know if it was the four shots of tequila I’d had earlier or the sheer joy of watching someone perform beautifully, but during her performance I was hit with a roller coaster of emotions and tears began to stream down my face. Her performance stirred a deeply buried memory in me — of myself, draped in the shawls of the women in my family, dancing to the iconic Bollywood tunes of legendary divas.
This is how I remember attending my first drag show in March of 2023 in Chicago, a place I have called home for the past two years. Since then, I have been a regular at the Bollywood drag shows organized by Jai Ho. Every two months, I pull the shiniest outfits out of my closet and hit the dance floor, watching queens and kings perform to songs that evoke a sense of nostalgia. And when I dance, I dance like no one is watching. My inner Helen comes out and I dance for the crowd, delighting them with my seductive moves while I plot another plan to get one of the gay guys to buy me a drink.
Aside from the drag shows, I had many firsts in Chicago. It was the first place where I kissed a man in public. Before that, my displays of love and affection were limited to OYO hotels in Kathmandu. I don’t even remember holding a man’s hand in public in Kathmandu because neither I nor the people I slept with dared to do so. From a very young age, we were taught by people who governed us that love happens in private. Bedrooms are the only places where you can express your love and longing. And even though that love was limited to heterosexuals. Queers could not express that love because it was unacceptable.
But here in Chicago, I didn’t have those moral police to regulate my actions — or at least they didn’t know me or my family’s address. So I started kissing guys in public, and I liked it. And then I kissed more. And more. And more of them. When I am not kissing them, I am holding their hands — in parks, at concerts, in museums. Sometimes I wonder when I became so daring. Have I changed, or is it the freedom of not knowing anyone that makes me do all the things I used to see English-speaking white guys do in movies and TV shows?
I vividly remember how many family members gasped when I wore mascara because it made my eyes more beautiful. Their reaction was similar when I wore mehendi on my hands — they didn’t like it. They treated me as if I had committed a crime. Public disapproval was also evident when strangers on the streets looked down at me when I wore something or did something unconventional. And if the looks weren’t enough to make me feel uncomfortable, silencing was a tool used to suppress my true self with the argument that I was too loud.
Now, here in Chicago, those memories have become distant. I am surrounded by many queer friends who get me. They don’t laugh at me, they laugh with me. They know my pain, my longings, and my desires. When I casually hook up with someone, I don’t have to explain why I did it. My morals aren’t questioned, and queerness isn’t defined by who I sleep with, but by how I treat others with respect and dignity and my politics. Nor am I regularly exhausted by having to explain why I feel a certain way and why I make certain choices in life. They have been on my heels and walked the ramp with their crowns held high. They know that being queer still isn’t easy. Thrones are more common than roses in your path. But they fight and inspire each other.
I had many firsts in Chicago that I will cherish forever. This is the first city where I became best friends with a Nepali gay man. This is the first city where I had dozens of queer friends from different parts of the world. This is also the first city where I have been with more than 50 queer people in a room, meeting them casually — not just to protest or rally. I wasn’t that lucky in Nepal because we had very few spaces for queer folks to hang out. In a country with a population of over 30 million, there’s hardly one or two queer bars. While more cultural and social events are emerging in the city, it still fails to accommodate the larger and more diverse queer population of the country. So most of us are forced to seek refuge in silence. In spaces where we could wear the cloak of invisibility. Attracting attention can still be life-threatening for some of us. Our families can disown and disprove us by forcing us to live a life we don’t want to live.
Growing up as an openly queer person, I had many suffocating experiences in Kathmandu. I couldn’t go out in the clothes I wanted to wear. I had to walk, talk, and present in a certain way and protect myself from all the unwanted attention. It was also easy to single me out because most of the time the rooms were surrounded by straight people. We were outnumbered by the mass of heterosexuals who imposed their values and beliefs on us, and if anyone dared not follow the system, we were harassed, attacked and silenced.
Here in Chicago, many of those barriers have been broken for me. I wear clothes that make me feel happy. I ride public transportation with my nails painted. I do what I want to do without worrying about the consequences of my harmless actions. And for this reason, Chicago will always be special, close to my heart, because it presented me with a possible future where I can live a dignified life as a queer person. Thank you, Chicago, for healing my years of oppression, trauma, and unhealed wounds that I have never spoken of. You have made me happy and safe. You made me confident in my queer body. You taught me how to wear heels and rock a skirt. Because of you, I am no longer timid and shy. I can finally breathe and be who I want to be.
I know this is a privilege not many of us get to enjoy. Living under the same roof or being constantly surrounded with people who want to censor and invalidate your queerness is difficult. The constant fear and threat that so many of my queer friends who are living in their home countries go through makes me emotional at times. They deserve to be happy in this life, too. They deserve to be kissed in parks and weddings and in concerts and train stations. They deserve to enjoy every bit of happiness there is in the world and to live a life like any other human being, not like a living corpse.
I hope that every queer person in the city finds their Chicago.
What this city has done to me, not even my hometown Kathmandu did that — it healed my queer soul. Chicago taught me that it’s not me, it’s them, the ones who can’t see me happy who are weird. It taught me that it’s okay to paint your nails, lip-sync to the female vocals of Bollywood songs, and kiss your loved ones in public.
Having said that, the city isn’t safe for all queer folks. There are still spaces where black and brown queer and trans folks are discriminated against. Not every bar will welcome you with open arms. You can experience isolation. You can still be attacked for being queer. Fortunately, I’ve been protected and haven’t experienced violence. My queerness has thrived in Chicago. I was lucky to find a community that made me feel seen and heard. That took me seriously. And I hope everyone finds that. May we all find our Chicagos, homes where we can be our truest selves and live lives of dignity.
I always had a complicated relationship with my body. The weight scale has been a cruel indicator of how my fluctuating weight has made me an emotional wreck. There were times when the number on the scale defined my self-worth, and I would end up in a miserable state.
I was an obese child, all the people around me would make fun of my weight, and very rarely would a person show mercy on me. Whenever there were family events, most of the clan would make fun of my weight, worse than that I have seen how the female members who were plus size were treated much more horribly than I was treated, not just equally by male and female members of the family but by their mother and father. I was not just obese but a little bit feminine, this would make the bullying much worse. Even at school, I was called so many names by my classmates, this turned my whole school experience into a nightmare. I didn’t have any fond memories of my school, even the teachers were ignorantly horrible. I always got physically and mentally bullied in my school life. This started my lifelong journey of dealing with body dysmorphia.
After completing my schooling, I started my higher education journey. I have to say college was much better than school. There was no body shaming and no bullying, but school bullying had a profound effect on my mental health. I started eating less in my college days and walked miles to reduce my weight. By the second half of my college life, I went from obese kid to skinny kid. My skinny frame made people ask me how I lost so much weight. I told them stress and no eating helps a lot. They thought I was joking but that was the way I lost all that weight. Being skinny helped a lot, I was more active and started eating the right food.
But my body weight fluctuates a lot. Sometimes I would lose weight and sometimes I would have drastic weight gain. I still have a love-hate relationship with how my body looks. Sometimes I love my curves and sometimes I hate them. Taking pictures was another issue as I was highly self-critical of my appearance. I would always point out that something in the picture was looking bad when others told me I looked handsome in the picture. I would take hours before deciding to post the picture or not.
Dating also has been another battle for me, there have been so many dating apps, where I would put only one photo of myself because I would not like any pictures of mine or would overthink before I select the only picture I would look better than other pictures. Dating in the gay community is another issue I had to face because of my fluctuating weight. I have been rejected because of my skinny frame and I have also been rejected because of weight gain. There have been times when my curves have attracted someone, but shedding my clothes made me hesitate. Shedding my clothes in front of a person you are attracted to was nerve-wracking, but they were very patient with me. That made me feel that my body is attractive and desirable. That got me confident enough to post more pictures on my social media feed.
Whenever I used to sleep with someone, I would be uncomfortable getting undressed. I would mention that I would like to keep my t-shirt on during the act, they were perplexed by this. But I was in that mindset that I would not let anyone see me naked so I would tell them that I would like to keep some piece of cloth and tell them that it’s my kink rather than tell them the truth that I want to hide the upper part of my body. Now I am older and now I am very much comfortable with my skin. I don’t mind getting completely naked with strangers. I have to say when you get older you get more confident with everything.
Taking care of my physical and mental health has become a priority for me now. A regular workout routine has not only helped me get fitter but has also boosted my confidence. Exercise has become my therapy, a way to escape the noise and focus on myself. It’s about feeling strong and capable, rather than just chasing a number on the scale.
I’m still on this journey of self-love and acceptance. Yes, I am older than before but I am still learning and growing as It’s an ongoing process, but every day, I’m getting closer to embracing the incredible person I am, regardless of my size. Self-compassion has been my greatest ally. It’s okay to have bad days. What matters is getting back up, dusting yourself off, and continuing the journey.
To anyone reading this, remember, your body is amazing. It carries you through life, allowing you to experience joy, love, and growth. It deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. Let’s redefine beauty as something that comes from within, not from a number on a scale.
Carrying 8 Millions commuters each day, Mumbai locals are one of busiest places to be at. Students, office workers, laborers, senior citizens, the diversity and the quantity is astonishing to say the least. While it transports me, does it really transport and take my queerself too? There’s no space to look cute or queer and that’s the price I pay for comfort. So all aboard on my commute to queerness, or maybe comfort? We’ll cross the track when we get there.
Thane
Eyes? Full of hope, ambitions and gaydar to clock the queer girlies
Head? Completely filled with latest gay memes, two brain cells overworking and figuring out the logistics to reach destination with least armor damage
Clothes? An overpriced ill fitting, figure (un)flattering graphic shirt that makes a niche pop culture reference clearly hinting that I work in a creative field. I catch a starting train that in theory, guarantees me a seat but in real life rarely does and so my journey begins with me begging the aunties where they get off at, in hopes of someone leaving ideally at the next stop or realistically at Ghatkopar. One kind college student guarantees me a seat after six stops.
Mulund
A corporate lady bashes into me, her hands filled with a larger than life tote bag and a small lunch bag, my gay ass rainbow umbrella seems to poke her slightly, making her react as if I am the reason why she didn’t get her increment. So I stuff my gay ass umbrella inside my bag.
Nahur
Somehow men who sell trinkets and earrings are allowed in the women’s compartment which has never made sense to me just like the rule of men being able to enter ladies’ coaches until after 11 PM. It does pain my brain a bit when I think about it, but these vendors unfortunately sell some fun merchat a cost that puts the thrift stores to shame. Case in point, at Nahur, I bought animal crossing’s Isabelle earrings for a mere INR 20/- and the iconic lesbian (alleged of course) couple My Melody and Kuromi bracelet for literally INR 40/- and that makes me let go off my radical train of thought.
Bhandup
At Bhandup, a lady clad in Burqa enters and immediately gets yelled at by the corporate lady to prove whether she has a first class pass or not. The corporate lady then decides it is a good time for a monologue on how people like ‘these’ are the reason why first class has no space. I can’t focus on this Twitter thread I’m reading on my phone about climate change and class so I shut the app and tune into music that is of course gay asf.
Kanjurmarg
Kanjurmarg is a stop away from Ghatkopar which is notorious for an influx of rowdy crowds. Women gear up to fight their place to enter and exit. My carefully curated playlist filled with a weird ratio of hottest queer pop songs and confusingly misogynist yet earworm-y bollywood item songs gets immediately disrupted. A Kevin Abstract song makes a double entendre in my ears and my head spins, not because of the song but because the rush of women body-slamming into me abruptly. ‘So long gay playlist, you shall be missed’, I think to myself as I switch off my playlist abruptly and push into my bag.
Vikhroli
By Vikhroli, rain seems to be violent and my hair pinned with a cute butterfly clip starts sticking on mine and the lady in the back’sface. I aggressively grab my hair that I painstakingly straightened at 5 AM which now looks frizzy and not so cute. I end up pulling some of the strands and make a messy bun. The short bangs that I got to hint at my queerness and hide massive acne prone forehead, now blind my vision and give me sensory overload. I remove a bunch of bobby pins and stick the bangs up. My queerness takes a backseat while comfort becomes the driver.
Ghatkopar
Ghatkopar is ghastly, but I reap the benefits that six stations ago Nikitha made when she wisely decided to not be a social introvert and ask around for a seat to like ten different women with groggy voice, including waking up a poor lady from her deep slumber. I sit on an already warmed up seat, no rain droplets, a seat ready to rest my body for the next four stations. All the sleep lost, ready to be regained and relaxed.
Vidyavihar
*Zzzzz*
Kurla
*Snores and drools*
Sion
Sion always tricks me into thinking maybe I have missed getting down at Dadar. I plug in my reading playlist to relax my nerves that are about to be fried at Dadar and examine my nails. At one point of time, during my uni days, not so long ago, I used to paint my nails with expired acrylic colors of bright colors and seal it with an enamel coat to smoothen the texture. That way I didn’t waste my acrylic paints and my nails would look super cool too. Each nail would be of a different color painted with my expensive brush that was meant for oil paintings. These nails, now, were simply bare, not even a hint of chipped nail polish, it was trim, practical and no nonsense, no personality sort.
Matunga
At Matunga, I gear up for the mass exit of the crowd at Dadar. I stand up on my waterproof shoes that I carefully vetted online for reviews for its comfort, versatility on different shirt-pant combos for work, longevity and more importantly, the brand perception. The process took me a tiring 4 months to figure out which resulted in endless meltdowns because I wanted the perfect balance of comfort and design, it didn’t help that my advertising degree made me second guess any and every brand, ad, store and salesman selling me these shoes. The entire process made me paranoid which was so weird because prior to this I used to mindlessly buy heeled shoes, flats as cheap at 200/- that would look great with my fits. But now, since a seat is never guaranteed, trains get delayed regularly and the queues become longer, my feet don’t need accessories to tie up my outfit together, they simply need an easier surface to stand onto. Anyway, it’s time for battle (getting down at Dadar station).
Dadar
I stand at the entrance, feeling like a dystopian warrior princess set to avenge my father or something but really it’s just me calculating the recoil that I am about to face from aunties, their bags and their boobs. When I look down to straighten my clothes and hair before the eventual chaos, I can’t find any of my queer markers that I so painstakingly tried to carry with me. All of them are sitting in a corner of my big bag, as if waiting for me to realize that my queerness is not a relic, it exists with or without them.
And that was just my Central Railway Line journey on a daily basis. From Dadar, I have to switch trains to the Western Line and so the journey continues. My visibility as a queer woman is valid and empowering but it can also be vulnerable especially in public transportation. In the grand scheme of intersections of all the identities I have to, I pick and prioritize what helps me stay comfortable and connected to myself the most. My queerness is hidden in plain sight while I might not show it through a piercing or pride pin, you could take a sneak peak at my ‘for you page’ while I’m doom scrolling or make a mumbly rant about late stage capitalism that I might join you. Whatever be the case, at the end of the day, I make the rules and decide it, and that in itself is queer joy for me!
Over the past few weeks, I have learnt that a first date can be…a lot. Sometimes it can be a fun reminder of why you are choosing to be single. Other times it can be a happy and interesting event that won’t lead anywhere. And then there are those first dates that make you want to have a second, third, and fourth, immediately!
We met on a dating app and quickly realized that the ‘one train journey’ distance between our locations meant that it would take a bit of scheduling to meet up. In the meantime, we took to the phone to learn more about each other. Soon enough, our quick introduction calls turned into conversations that would last for hours. This meant that when I walked towards the Vagina Museum for our first date a few weeks later, I was not going to meet someone I did not know, but to see if our phone chemistry translated into in-person chemistry as well. But I mean, who am I kidding? I had a full-on crush on her at that point. My BestieTM had heard all about it at our sleepover earlier in the week. And then a thing happened that I had thought only happens in rom coms and Hindi songs – somehow, my crush was even more fun, interesting, and handsome in person! After an hour of chilling at the museum we ended up at my place to watch Red, White, and Royal Blue (I know the movie is cheesy, and we both LOVE cheese, so that was the point) and this is the story of how I really wanted to (and did) have sex on the first date.
It was absolutely amazing (like ‘DAMN!’ level amazing), and in this case it meant that we wanted to do it more. Unfortunately, train tickets are expensive and two people who work in different locations cannot rush into each other’s arms whenever they want to. So, we talked a lot over the next few days about what we would like to do the next time. That is when I mentioned how I had always wanted to try a strap-on. To be more specific, I had wanted to try it since I had seen Anne+ on Netflix, which, on a side note, I CANNOT recommend enough! She was into it too (yay!) and now it was time for the shopping to begin.
I offered to buy it on my own since we obviously did not have a label and were not exclusive yet (it had been one date, come on) but she said she would like to split it. And then we had an honest and open conversation about what we would do with it if we do not end up wanting to take this forward before/after the second date. One of the biphobic questions that our community often faces is ‘who is sex better with?’ and it is extremely, EXTREMELY annoying because the truth is that sex is better with whoever communicates more and whoever you end up having more chemistry with. This means not just communication during sex, but also before and after. The openness and understanding with which we both considered the possibilities – perhaps one of us could keep it and pay the other person their amount back? Perhaps we could see if there ends up being more than one purchase and come up with a division model based on that? Perhaps we could see which one of us wants it more in the end and take it from there?
Then there was the question of the actual shopping. We both had purple vibrators so at first, I was wondering if we should look for a dildo that is of a different colour. I started shortlisting some options and sending her pictures. She asked me in a confused and also kind of weirded-out tone, “Why does this have veins?”
“Dicks have veins”, I answered and then realized, “Wait, you have never seen a dick before, have you?”
She had not, and it was through looking up options that would work for my lesbian crush that I realised that there are non-phallic dildos on the market! ISN’T THAT AWESOME?! I love that there is an understanding that there are people who enjoy penetration (and the act of being on top of each other) without having to simulate a specific organ! My crush was happy with my discovery, and we both decided to opt for a fun colour (yes, it was a shade of purple!). We looked up sizes and decided on one that looked beginner friendly. Of course, she and I went for a combo because it was cheaper (though we did first do research to make sure that the material would be body-safe) and because we did not want to end up having to figure out whether the dildo and strap-on would fit in with one another. We also made sure to have a conversation about getting condoms and lube. The payment was made, the order was delivered, and that is how I ended up with a gorgeous lilac strap-on dildo in my room.
I sent her a picture as soon as I opened it – after all, we had bought it together. She loved how it looked, just like I had. And while it would be a few days before our next date, this was now another fun purple thing to potentially talk about while we waited!
“Brat” has made quite the splash this year, not just as a music album but as a full-blown branding sensation. Its infectious beats and provocative lyrics have spilled over from the airwaves into everything from political campaigns to fashion weeks, proving that “Brat” is more than just an album—it’s a cultural juggernaut.
Folx, are we witnessing yet another queer-pop renaissance? Absolutely! And I’m all here for it! The album, “Brat,” by Charli XCX, has been at the forefront of this very renaissance, and its release saved me from my usual monsoon blues this year. The eccentricity, the authentic yapper-specific lyrics, and the production genius of Charli makes me dance even when I want to cry, and is sheer perfection! It’s been 2.5 months since the album became the it-album, but there’s more to “Brat” than just music—it’s a cultural phenomenon in the making.
Some people are also calling this Recession-Core music, and we’re certainly getting there with the worsening of life-quality and everything collapsing. In such a time period, I did need to listen to something that gives me a glimmer of authenticity. And with Charli XCX declaring that “the city sewer slut’s the vibe”, it became official that this will also be the queerest season of music we’ve witnessed since the 70s.
When Troye Sivan’s single, Rush, came out, I remember thinking that he had brought EDM back from the grip of cis-het men and electro-pop house back home to its queer base. The trend swelled into a wave of promising for the music gays in 2024! The industry seems to have finally understood the assignment and con-queered the charts. I’ve been having an audibly gay time!
As much as I loved being the alt music girlie for a bit in 2020, I’ve been craving good pop music. And Charlie-Ben XCX, the half-gujju queer icon, has served it to me on a silver platter!
Maybe I’m nostalgic for the summer of 2013 when I was still a teen, not yet burdened by the responsibilities of adulthood, blasting Boom Clap in my earphones. It felt like I could finally enjoy pop music again? Not because it was more socially acceptable, but because it was actually well-made!
Brat as an album sounds so different from the releases we’ve seen in the last couple of years. With it’s obvious fun sound, and the lyrics that are girl-trend certified, it feels freeing to just be while listening to it. While adult responsibilities are my constant companion today, the times I listen to Brat allow me to remind myself of all the different ways I can still have fun.
Having fun is surely difficult as an adult, but it’s important that we remind ourselves that we’re only here for sometime, so might as well have fun from time to time!
I think what made Brat, as an album and phenomenon, feel inviting was its initiative to just have fun this season. But I needed to get to scratching this itch of a question: What makes Charli’s music queer, despite her purportedly not being queer?
Bad Economy = More Queer Music?
This led me to reflecting on the history of what is considered queer pop. What makes an artist worthy of the queer icon title? It’s certainly not necessary that queer music meet certain criteria or that only a particular group of artists be allowed to make queer music. There’s no particular sound either – just think about the diversity in Chappell Roan’s discography, for instance?
I am convinced that we are in a timewarp, returning to the 1970s when the economy was down, inflation was high and so were crimes against queer folx. Have you also noticed this pattern of dance music becoming popular during recessions, especially in the west? Disco and synth were especially popular during the 1970s and 1980s.
The 70s were also a good time for queer pop icons to emerge, leading to the wonderful music of Queen, Abba, David Bowie, George Micheal and Elton John. Their music was one of my first introductions to queer artists and music. While their music may be considered as classics today, they sure were not as widely loved back when they were still active.
The only fashion influencer I need Credit: Pinterest
Brat For “President”
Considering these past trends, in the present, with the endlessly bad economic woes, it makes sense that Charli xcx’s Brat summer is popular at a time when there’s literally no good news. There’s also Kamala Harris’ infamous Brat campaign that has made America’s otherwise dead-end elections this year marginally interesting to observe. Her entering the US presidential candidacy, being considered slightly “better news” than Trump didn’t really make me (a non-American, who is impacted nonetheless, thanks 2 globalization!) happy since all bi-partisan American politicians seem to be cut from the same cloth of settler-greed, racism, and bigotry.
Politics is a mess, the economy is down, unemployment rates are insanely high and so is the price of rent, healthcare, and basic groceries. What’s one to do but live through these days with the glimmer of good time that music and the arts offer?
That glimmer of hope has come to a disappointed end for me, over the recent collaboration news of fast fashion goon, H&M, and Charli xcx over an autumn collection. Brat as a phenomenon that was supposed to be a freeing, cheap-thrill vibe to summer has become a weapon of approval from not just politicians like Kamala Harris but also the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The H&M collab was truly a nail in Brat Summer’s coffin because H&M, a fast-fashion company known to exploit its workers. The collection features multiple clothing items that are “faux fur” and “faux leather”, which is basically just plastic. I think we’re way past the need for more plastic in our closet.
Brat was meant to be a political shift in the way art (particularly music) is created, but can it be that Charli just sold Brat for a few more dimes?
Special mention: Even the NATO, recently tweeted this image, which further drives me away from this album that has been a constant support through my monotonous days.
With every evil late stage capitalist mechanism enabled, Brat summer was exactly the serotonin boost I needed. It’s been fantastic for my ears and brain. But I doubt I will be returning to this album anytime soon, simply because of what it’s developed into.
As a queer neurodivergent teen, I had always found it difficult to accept myself the way I was. From recognising my queer side, to accepting it and then identifying with it, it all has been a long, tedious, painstaking process. One that I am still going through, and will evidently still be, in the foreseeable future.
It starts with just being so uncomfortable in your own skin. Being distinctly different from the crowds, having preferences and tastes so obviously at odds with the norm, which don’t sit well with a young, developing mind. As a consequence, I isolated myself, dissociated from my true self, pushed it down deep and learnt to live with a mask instead.
Gender is so intrinsic, yet I have found it to be largely based on other people’s perceptions of me. Maybe because everything else about me has also been shaped by their opinions. We all learn to reciprocate emotions and internalise the opinions of those more experienced in the world, from an extremely young age. That is until we are forced to unlearn it, form our own identities, and grow into our own person. I have unfortunately always felt that I’ve been failing to do so: to grow up and have a mind of my own.
As a person assigned female at birth, we have always been told what we are supposed to be — put in a mould and expected to stay in it. If you stray from that supposed ideal of what a ‘woman’ is, you’re berated, put down, or at least reminded of it every waking moment. I had never felt woman enough, which partially, I attribute to all the romantic attention I never got from anyone when I was younger.
And when I did finally feel comfortable in my womanhood, it was when there was someone to appreciate it. I have always needed another set of eyes to see myself through, to really see myself. And that is also how I realised that it wasn’t enough, and that there is more to me than what I have been told, than what I have known myself to be.
I lived a couple years identifying as non-binary. I was happy letting go of my hair, contemplating getting top surgery, wearing sports bras, straightening up my curves, and finally feeling, not just okay, but grateful for the size of my small breasts. It felt like I had finally let myself be myself. Until I met someone I fell in love with, head over heels.
I have almost always been with straight cis-men. I don’t know if it’s the inherent fear in me of dating women, or if this was just the easiest option available, but that’s how it has been. Now, men who are into women will always see me as a woman. Even though I have multiple sides to myself, even when they do see the most authentic version of me, they still seem to prominently see a woman in me.
When society has treated you a certain way, and then someone comes along who really sees you the way you are, it is a different feeling altogether. And when this person likes to see you wearing sundresses, you like seeing yourself in sundresses too!
I suddenly found myself wanting to show more skin, looking for the hourglass shape when I looked at myself in the mirror. And it felt good, to look at myself unfiltered, unmade, and still loving the innate parts of me that this other person loves.
I don’t understand if it was the fear of losing him that was making me adapt to his preferences, and in the process moulding my own preferences about my own body and identity, or if he just made me see a side of myself that I had maybe shunned and kept aside, and fall in love with my whole self again. Either way, it changed the way I presented to the world.
This proved to be an extremely dangerous learning experience, because the relationship fell apart and I was left with all these conflicting feelings about myself. Was I just in love, ready to do whatever it takes to keep him in my life? Or was I actually in the process of discovering myself, learning to love all there is to me?
The one thing I know is that now whenever I go out with a straight man, I tend to present a certain way. I put on a skirt, I put on makeup, I flaunt my figure, and I feel comfortable doing that. Is it a choice? I really want it to be a choice, but I’m scared that it is just another mask that I put on to fit in, to be accepted, to be loved by someone who presumably only loves a certain specific kind of thing… but I don’t want to end up back where I started.
I am learning, or rather teaching myself to just let myself be my whole, authentic genderfluid self. If I do want to wear a sundress, it is not just a remnant of a man in my past, but also a part of my identity that was shaped during that time in my life. So I do wear them, and I bask in that feeling, without feeling any shame or guilt.
Ultimately, labels are just words. Language has evolved to convey and communicate, but it can never be enough to really understand someone else entirely. You can say things all you want, trying to make people understand you, but no one can ever know your vast internal world. I am getting comfortable with the idea that no words can define me completely, and that’s fine. I was me then, and I am me now, and I’ll still be myself in the future, no matter what that looks like.
In the chaos of modern life, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of emotions, relationships, and societal expectations. We often find ourselves caught between the desire to be genuine and the need to present a perfect facade. The lingering question is if faking it is easier than feeling it. Is it convenient to put on a mask of happiness, love, and confidence, rather than embracing our true emotions and vulnerabilities?
As I reflected on my experiences as part of the Queer movement in Assam, I realized that everyone is racing towards a finish line in the expectation that there’s only one winner. But why do we prioritize winning over authenticity? Why do we fake our emotions, relationships, and identities just to avoid feeling hurt or rejected? The irony is that we often end up feeling more hurt and isolated when we fake it.
My dear friend, a development sector worker, echoed this sentiment when she shared her thoughts on why people tend to fake it. She suggested that it might be due to psychological unawareness or a defense mechanism of sorts. I agreed that this could be true, but the question remains: Is faking easier than feeling?
We fake orgasms, love, lust, and friendships at the expense of not getting hurt, but still end up getting hurt. We preach about being vocal but hesitate to be genuine. Humans are incredible creatures, but we’ve mastered the art of faking it. We pretend to be interested in something or someone just to avoid rejection or discomfort. We even fake our job satisfaction, environmental concerns, and friendships.
However, some people are naturally more inclined to fake it because they feel secure and in control of their emotions. But for others, like me, faking it becomes obvious and transparent. It’s a game of perception. In this 21st century, hookup culture has normalized the art of faking it for some. Are men (including queer men) using this as a way to shape accountability or are they faking it because they don’t want to feel it? Are we too eager to settle for someone because we fear feeling hurt?
We’re wired to shape-shift on dating apps like Grindr, creating multiple personalities and identities. Is this faking or a natural extension of our multiple selves? My friend pointed out that we have more than 100 perceptions of a person, making reality subjective and contextual. So, what is reality? Is it one version or is it an averse decision to fake it and avoid feeling bad?
In this fast-paced world where everyone seems to be running (including me), I want to know what makes it easier to fake a smile, love, care, or gesture. Are we becoming the very thing we complain about – self-absorbed partners, abusers, systems, topics, realities, and myths? What stops us from feeling it? If not feeling hurt was the game, then why do people who fake it get hurt more than those who feel it?
My mother once said that she had to fake it to feel safe, but deep down she knew she wasn’t safe. Another friend shared that they used to fake it but got hurt anyway and couldn’t openly talk about it until they started feeling their true emotions.
It dawned on me that nobody was born with a manual on how and what to feel. The environment changed our reality. The system supported this delusion of faking it. Deep down, I still have one question: Do we fake it because we know we’re alone and it helps save relationships? If yes, why do we only try to save one kind of relationship and not all? Is faking also a matter of levels and gears – from 1 to 5?
In a world that encourages people to be real, can faking save your image of being arrogant and uptight? I suppose yes.
The answer lies within each individual’s psyche. Perhaps the key is not in faking it but in embracing our authentic selves and vulnerabilities. Maybe the journey is not about winning or losing but about embracing the messiness of human emotions and relationships.
As I conclude this introspection, I realize that the quest for authenticity is ongoing. We must confront our fears and insecurities head-on and stop pretending to be someone we’re not. Only then can we break free from the chains of faking and find true connection with ourselves and others.
The king knows that his enemies are strong, much stronger than his friends. He sends for his armies regardless. Archers and riders, spearmen and swordsmen. Infantry, artillery, cavalry. They assemble from all the regions he wishes to rule. They assemble from all the regions under his thumb. They descend the frozen hills. They sail the coast. They train in the fields and stand guard at the shores. He summons and they arrive, battalion after battalion, pouring through the narrow streets of the capital. He summons with threats of starvation, and they come, because an unknown threat beyond the battlelines is graver. Dignity. They fight to keep what little dignity they have left.
A battle rages outside while Jon is cloistered away in the secret passages of the palace. He is here, in this unlit chamber, one of countless princes deigned more worthy than commoners and peasants. He is worth more, the king says, than the poor and destitute whose blood gushes to the fore in every skirmish. A battle rages outside but Jon is too precious, too necessary. So they lock him here and leave him to his anguish.
“We will be victorious,” Min says with the nerve of a fortune teller. It is his habit to give away whatever one asks of him, even if he does not have it. Conviction, for instance.
Before the battle, tales of his generosity would glide through the streets and reach Jon’s ears, resting their heads on his pillow and pulling from him all the sighs he could grant. He’d think of Min and imagine saintly light pouring from the hands of a simple, commonplace man. He’d think of a creature so vast its heart must resemble the palace courtyard. He’d draw pictures with his mind, build dreams and fancies that could never be entertained should he ever think to voice them to his attendants.
Each story would smell of unparalleled generosity. Each story—often about the last coin in a purse, or the last cloth on a back, or the last arrow in a quiver—would convince Jon that Min must not be real. He must be a dream, strange and wonderful and mythological.
But he is real. And he is here. A battle rages outside, all chance of escape broken off by the desperate furore of a desperate horde. Yet Min stands guard at Jon’s door, willing to be run through by a sword to save one of countless princes.
“Why did you come?” Jon whispers.
“You wished for it.”
“… you are a fool!”
“As it pleases your highness.”
A battle rages outside. A grief billows inside. The kingdom will be lost. The throne will be stolen. The crown will be reforged. Soon, a new king will take the old king’s place. Soon, countless princes will supplant countless other princes. This unlit chamber will be filled with the sounds of slaughter, the music of killing and dying. The temples of his father will burn. The fortresses of his uncles will crumble to dust. The gardens of his youthful capers, the music halls of his secret desires, they will disappear with him. Time will continue its cruel pace, seizing from one and gifting another.
Jon cares little for these fates. Min is here, when he should be elsewhere.
“I never asked this of you!”
“You did, your highness,” Min corrects him. “Your voice is a torch. It lit my path to you.” He is too calm to be corporeal. He is too gentle to be a mortal. He must be more than human. He must be a home.
To be a home one must be kind. One must hold warmth and sweetness found only in the fire of a hearth. To be a home to another, one needn’t be small or large, ordinary or lavish. One can simply grant space between one’s breaths for another to settle into. One can be a deep-rooted tree and dance in the wind of another’s attention. Min is such a home. He is careful and delicate, like water in a clay pot. He is bright and welcoming, like flickering wicks of a lamp. He is cold and constant, like stars that gather around a shy moon. Min is a home Jon dearly wishes to live in.
“I wished for your happiness…” he mourns. “I wished for your charity to be answered tenfold. With joy. With… love. I wished for you to give me that and nothing else. Yet here I find you, fool that you are, a sun risen in bleeding skies. What happiness can you find in sacrifice?” he tightens his fists. “Be gone. Go to, I say! I will not see you perish in my name, be gone—!”
“Your highness,” Min’s hands arrive like a fragrance. Sudden, but soft. They touch Jon’s arms, his shoulders, the sides of his face. In the darkness of this forsaken prison the blind hands are remnants of spring. His touch settles like night on Jon’s cowering flesh: slow and comforting yet resolute in its path. “Your highness,” Min repeats, the pulse of his tongue as generous as the pulse in his chest.
And perhaps Jon had imagined other things in his sleep. Perhaps he had felt bands of silk loosen at an insistent tug. Perhaps he has heard the urgent rustle of sheets. Perhaps these same beautiful hands rested against him before tonight, holding him still lest he dive too deep into the nectar that billowed beneath his graceless weight. Perhaps he had clung to hair and sweat, to rags and robes, as Min spilled the words of a beggar and not a saint. Perhaps such stories had been woven on warm, restless nights until Jon could bury their shameful shadows in the light of day.
Perhaps Min knew.
“Somewhere, deep in your fear, there is solace, your highness. It is my gift to you.”
A battle rages outside. Jon’s heart rages with it.
A battle rages outside.
Trees have stopped to flower. Birds have ceased their song. The streets are awash with despair. The skies rain nothing but the promise of misery. Such is the fate of kingdoms great and small. Kings may change. Capitals may move. Battles may come to a momentary end. But a single bull will always be held in greater value than ten peasants. A battle rages outside, perhaps since yesterday. But the rages of famine have already touched the lives of so many… too many. Their battle is unending. Their suffering is unending. Its wings span the length of the nation, from barren mountains to ashen seas.
Min does not hope for change. He does not hope for deliverance from these tribulations. His birth has not earned him titles or respect. His poverty allows him no swords or knives of protection. So he smiles and bows, offering what little he can. A bowl of his rice, a bucket of his water, a bundle of his firewood. He may not know the remedy to what ails his ill fortune, so offers what comforts people may seek in the throes of anguish.
“We will be victorious,” he places his false promise in the prince’s lap. He wishes to offer more: you will live, you will flourish, your name will survive. But where other princes desperately seek such praise, this one does not.
Before the battle, Min spread the ashes of his love on a hill. He watched it swim with the wind and leave his side. For what love could survive beggary? It too starves on an empty stomach. Even so, the prince had watered the people with kindliness, and from it bloomed hope. He’d open his private stores and granaries to them like opening his heart, a heart not yet poisoned by thirst for power. Prince Jon, fourteenth in line for the throne, cared naught for his father’s ambitious madness. He was always composed of dreams and light.
In the darkness, he smells like serenity, even if his voice betrays him. “Why did you come?” he asks but his arms reach across the chamber, yearning to fold around Min’s frame. In the darkness, he glows like divinity.
But he is real. And he is here. A battle rages outside, all chance of escape broken off by the desperate furore of a desperate horde. Yet Min chooses to slink across Jon’s threshold, willing to gamble his life for a chance at survival.
“Why did you come?” Jon whispers.
“You wished for it.”
“… you are a fool!”
“As it pleases your highness.”
A battle rages outside. An ambition glimmers inside. The kingdom will be lost. The throne will be stolen. The crown will be reforged. Soon, a new king will take the old king’s place. Soon, countless princes will scramble for the seat left empty by war. But it needn’t be so. This unlit chamber needn’t be a prison. Their stomachs may be empty and their hearts may be heavy, but their dreams can thrive off of the smallest spark of bravery; of generosity. They don’t need a new king. They don’t need countless new princes. All they need is a Jon, the ripples of his benevolence touching everyone he seeks.
Min smiles and imagines himself as a pebble. He clasps a dithering hand in his own.
“I never asked this of you!”
“You did, your highness,” Min corrects. “Your voice is a torch. It lit my path to you.” He draws a rein on his tongue at this, knowing that fear must be erased with a slow and practiced hand.
What he leaves unspoken sits on the edges of the darkness, strolling the width of this chamber on padded feet. It is Min’s twin in shape and size, a ghost that shares in his eagerness. Sometimes it soars over his voice, sometimes it drowns in his guilt. Sometimes, in Jon’s presence, it shudders and weakens at its seams. It grips hard enough to break. He could summon it into the small circle of starlight that pools around Jon. He could bring its odd, somewhat unsightly form out into the open. But the prince is free to look in its direction of his own accord. Their trio can share a drink under the moon someday. One day. If they survive.
The prince is afraid—not for his own life but for Min’s. Even in the face of mortal threat he is so selfless that… that maybe Min must be imagining it. No man is so unfettered by parsimony to cherish a stranger over himself. No ordinary man is so sympathetic, so bountiful in his love that he forgets his own safety. Jon cannot be anything less than a god.
“I wish for your happiness.”
His palms are the lamps of a temple. His voice is the chime of a prayer bell. When he holds Min close, he smells of camphor and incense. When he releases kindness, it cascades from his lips like a sutra. When they walk through the darkness, pressing their fingers into wood and stone, seeking little breaches of light, Jon folds their hands in a promising bind. He is a deity made from unsung songs and unheard laughter. He is sacred, celestial.
And perhaps some of Min’s love still remains. Perhaps what he purged from his body was not permanently lost. Perhaps love, like dreams, can also grow from a spark. Perhaps all it needs is the flint of an unsaid confession, the kindling of a reassuring hold, the fuel of courage and respect. Perhaps he can fan the flames high enough, until they swallow him whole and leave him reforged. Renewed. Perhaps Min’s unsightly twin needn’t remain in hiding forever. Perhaps his generosity could turn its head to him and reward it with what it asks of him.
“I wish for your happiness…”
“I wish for yours.”
A battle rages outside. Min doesn’t let it touch him.
Hello and welcome to my new bi-monthly column where you are going to get to accompany me, a gorgeous and brilliant queer woman who is single for the first time at the age of 25 after a long-term relationship ended. Join me on my adventures in navigating the adult dating world. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that the last time I was single was when I was in the 11th grade and demonetisation had not happened yet. Yes, it has been almost 8 years since that fateful day. And yes, we are all officially that old.
This is my fifth column entry.
TW: Experience of biphobia and racism, mention of transphobic remarks
I officially have dating app exhaustion. I recently sat down to re-download one after a short break, and found myself really, really not wanting to be on it. So, I decided to do something different by searching online for queer dating events in the city. The search engine happily informed me that there was a lesbian speed-dating event happening in just about an hour’s time and even though the ticket price was a bit steep, I decided to do something spontaneous and just went for it!
The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the room was that everyone else looked a bit older than me – which was generally okay because my upper limit for dating is 35 – but it made me wonder why people in their 20s weren’t there that evening. It was only afterwards that I found out that for every other event except the one that I had attended, the organisers had advertised the recommended age group as between 30-44 years. Oh, well!
The thing about speed dating is that you must compulsorily talk to every single person for the five-minute time slot, even though it might be very obvious to everyone involved in the situation that neither was interested or invested in it. Somehow, probability worked itself in a way that the first person I spoke to was also not in the recommended age bracket – she was 52! I decided to use the time to get advice from an older queer woman, but it ended up being the other way around. In this span of 5 minutes (and the extra 5 minutes that we chatted towards the end as I waited for my last date to be free) I ended up teaching her how to add filters to her online dating profile pictures and introduced her to Gen-Z slang. I would be lying though if I painted this as a wholesome interaction between an older queer person and a Gen-Z girlie (those 100% exist and are magical) because the truth is that it involved a lot of me asking her to NOT be transphobic and at one point she referred to not understanding one word because of my ‘accent’ (yes, she was white, and yes, she said it in ‘that’ tone)!
The other women looked like they could definitely be in the upper limit of my dating range, but as I heard them list impressive job titles (one of them was literally a partner in a law firm), my head was inundated with thoughts about what if they felt that I was looking for a sugar mommy? And honestly, my full support to anyone who is trying to do that – get that moolah – it is just not what I was looking for that evening, and I wouldn’t have known how to navigate the situation had someone directly asked me if I were. Overall, the dates were mildly pleasant, and if you are wondering why I did not leave mid-way, it’s because I felt adventurous and wanted to see it through. People asked me questions and were nice to interact with, even though I wasn’t into anyone except for one person.
Later, 4 of us from the event complained to each other about how messy it had been and that we should probably get refunds as we sat at the bar casually chatting. One of the other women was clearly interested in me – though there were 4 of us sitting around, she looked at me no matter who was speaking (in a non-creepy way) and asked me questions about myself aside from the group conversation. Then the 52-year-old got the biphobic ball rolling and everything went downhill. She told us about how a bi woman that she had dated had gone back to her children’s father and now she is only open to dating ‘full lesbians’. While one woman said that biphobia is a real problem, it was not met with unanimous agreement, which led me to delivering the whole ‘As a bi person…’ speech, because come on! Knowing that I was bi made something shift for the woman who had been into me thus far, and she turned away from me for the first time in the entire night and said, “You know I have been with many bi woman who have left me for men” (I pointed out that they could have left her for women as well) and then justified her decision to never date a bi person by saying, “We have a right to choose who we want to date just like bi people do.” Except, excluding an entire community based on a stereotype is not a dating ‘choice’, it is prejudice. But I was too drained by then to say anything more.
The question is: would I go to a speed dating event again? And the answer is: not unless I knew that there were going to be more people in my dating age-range there AND that the organisers had very clearly communicated a no-tolerance policy with respect to discrimination. This is why queer people should be running queer events – and I know that that is not what happened, because the MC told me that he was straight and that this event company organises these speed-dating night for cishet people as well, which I understood to mean that most of their events targeted cishet people primarily. If I had wanted a night where I would be forced to hear transphobic and biphobic statements sprinkled with racist remarks about my accent, I would have asked Seema Aunty from Netflix to organise it. Simply naming something an event for the community is not enough – you also have to make sure that you create a safe space that actually makes everyone feel welcome in it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about love, nature, the idea of how we make ourselves “loveable”, or more like desirable and digestible in order to be loved. In all honesty, I’m just not attracted to people. Is it because I might be aro-ace? Nope, pretty sure I’m not. I think I may have rationalised love a little too much. By rationalizing I mean, I like to love but from a proper, understandable distance. Every time one of my friends has cried to me about the things their ex has done, they are also apologizing for crying and “burdening” me in the first place – which makes no sense to me, because we’re here to love and rant to our heart’s fullest! What confuses me is the factors we resort to comfort them in this situation. The way we justify to our friends why someone is objectively the perfect person or a ‘bad’ person to date.
“You should totally date them, they’re financially stable and go to therapy! Bare minimum but it makes sense” – as we say.
I realize how much that makes me sound like an aunty trying to fix my friends up with a “nice girl/boy”. I may not have internalized the traditional values that make a good partner, but I surely have internalized the framework.
Unlucky Or Unlovable?
Back when I was a teenager, I used to think romance would be the final piece of the puzzle that was my teenage years. But behold, 5 years since the last of my teenage years, I have but a single heartbreaking situationship on my CV. Naturally, I began my 20s with the age old question: “am I unlovable?”
One can’t help but doubt their ability to be a good person? Credit: Pinterest
Having been in therapy for a while, I now know how my brain works. The rat in my brain loves to loathe me, saying, “yes you are inherently a horrible person”. However, after regular CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) sessions, the protective part of it now instinctively takes over to coddle the said rat by telling them that it’s just the way things are (and not who I am)! People are emotionally and physically unavailable because life sucks! After all, we have 24 hours in a day, and what do you mean I gotta work 9 hours out of them?
The rat, adjusting my brain’s vibes as I write this piece Credit: Pinterest
No one truly has time for love, or to pursue love. Does that mean love is now, only for the rich? No of course not, the rich themselves see love as merely transactional. Which also isn’t much different from what we’re taught too. Meanwhile, as much as I love economic stability, I really do want someone who has a life of their own, understands the political climate, empathizes with my queerness and neurodivergence. In return, I grace them with my presence in their life (totally a joke)! Rich folx on the other hand, I imagine, just want to get married so they can get rid of the black money that’s rotting away, and acquire a potential competition to join their own team!
I do want to blame the international film industry for selling me this capsule idea of love. It’s curated, unlike our lives, such that the two protagonists shall fall in love with each other. It takes my emotions and wraps them up in a dream-like sequence and sells it back to me to, possibly, distract me from the horrors of life under capitalism. I’m still debating if it’s okay to take an absurdist Camus-eque route and enjoy these movies while still keeping up with the news cycle.
The only takeaway I had in my education, nihilism and absurdism Credit: Pinterest
Essentially, romance has been the solidifying push that enabled gender roles. Consequently, queer romance and love have become a leading factor in breaking those roles. Romantic movies have clear tropes with certain traits associated with being loveable, and certain others that aren’t. Recognising this pattern was a cool move by feminist scholars, and queer folx have also been pushing back on how we see, understand and perform love.
Every time I have managed to like a cis-het man (can’t help it!), my queerness and neurodivergence have played a role in making me seem interesting to them. Yet, they all still want a woman who matches the cultural values that their family comes from. While my queerness and neurodivergence aren’t mere personality traits that make me cool, they’re parts of who I am that cannot be reduced to be digestible in order to be likable!
I be pan-icking at all times Credit: Pinterest
In my opinion, the “consequences” of liking someone these days include feeling vulnerable, being walked over, and the worst of all, feeling like your Uber driver just gave you 4 out of 5 stars for a super peaceful ride. I don’t think I would mind paying the price of being loved and changed, as long as it doesn’t change me to fit a specific mold. I’m not a commodity that was made to be liked, but a person to be loved.
Going forward, everytime I end up in a similar conversation with my queer-mates-in-hate, I’ll remind myself that neither person has to change our queerness, adjust our mental wellness or the emotions that come with it, or conceal our disabilities in order to present as a convenient partner. I’ll remember that neither of us need a stamp of approval from past friends, partners or even family members in order to be loveable today.
We Love Regardless
Finding partners has definitely gotten worse with time. Everyone seems to want something casual and while it’s nice, fun and freeing, I miss it when that was an option and not a norm. I’m somehow either expected to be this missing gap of new perspectives for a person who is not queer or neurotypical, or this “super chill” laid back person who doesn’t take anything seriously. Or still yet, this person who is irrationally ready to be the other half of a full-fledged relationship from the get-go. My pursuits of romance have not been fruitful, and that’s not because I’m unlucky or unlovable. It’s probably because I don’t fit into the molds that people want to fit me into.
But maybe in a few months, I’ll discover a completely new way to approach love and romance. And will I not love until then? Absolutely not!
All use of memes to make sense of my emotions and this article are intentional Credit: Pinterest
There is a video on YouTube from drag icons Trixie Mattel & Katya, where Trixie asks Katya, “Why do you think gay people love horror so much?”. Katya says: “Because we love seeing straight people get killed.” Yes, this is sarcasm, but many gays would probably agree with this statement *winks!*. All jokes aside, let’s face it, there is a certain love that folx from the LGBTQ+ community have for horror movies.
Every Halloween, our social media timelines are flooded with pictures of friends gathered for fright-filled movie nights. But this love affair with the macabre goes beyond a seasonal costume party or even just a single horror movie night. There’s a deeper connection between gays and horror that transcends the thrill of a jump scare. So, why are we drawn to the shadows? The answer, like a good horror villain, is layered. It’s a combination of the outrageous, the relatable, and the strangely purifying.
First, let’s not underestimate the gushing power of camp. Camp isn’t just a one-time thing in our community – it’s a whole aesthetic to aspire for. It’s about celebrating the over-the-top, the dazzling, and the delightfully artificial. And no other genre delivers camp quite like horror!
Take “Scream,” a cult classic that has remained a gay horror classic even after all these years. It is known for its clever use of campy elements in each of its instalments, but nothing can beat the original. The movie shows a teenage girl threatened by a masked killer a year after the murder of her mother. It serves as satire as well as a tribute to classic horror movies of the past. The movie uses self-aware humor and iconic kills in service of the campiness. It’s scary in its approach and funny when it goes campy, and a must-watch for anyone who loves campy horror.
The Final Girl Trope:
Well, camp is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a deeper connection between the themes of horror and the LGBTQ+ experience. Many horror movies explore the identity of the outsider, the one who doesn’t fit in. This resonates deeply with a community that has historically faced marginalisation and societal rejection.
Then comes the classic “final girl” trope – the brave, resourceful character who survives the massacre at the end of the movie. Iconic characters such as Sidney Prescott in “Scream” or Laurie Strode in “Halloween” become symbols of strength and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. In a world that often tries to silence or erase LGBTQ+ identities, these characters become powerful figures of resistance. We see ourselves in their fight for survival, cheering them on as they overcome the forces that seek to destroy them.
Facing our Fears:
Horror does more than scare us; it helps us face our biggest fears. This type of story allows us to explore our worries in a safe made-up world. For LGBTQ+ people, horror can show real fears of being attacked and pushed away.
Movies like “Get Out” (2017) that look at oppressive structures like racism, mirror how many marginalised folks feel removed from the world of others. Others like “Carrie” (1976) deal with worries about what society expects and what happens when you don’t fit in.
Another old-school scary movie with hints of queerness is “The Craft” (1996). This film digs into ideas about women gaining power and the dangers of trying to be like everyone else. It’s similar to how LGBTQ+ people may try to find friends who understand them in a world that often leaves them out.
The horror movie experience has a social aspect that resonates with the LGBTQ+ community. Friends gather, gasp, and scream together forming a special connection. These movie nights turn into rituals allowing people to bond over a shared love, whether secret or open.
Horror’s appeal goes beyond movie nights in LGBTQ+ culture. Drag queens create stunning horror-inspired looks, artists explore the genre, and Pride celebrations often include horror movie marathons. Horror becomes a common language in many ways helping to build connections and community within the broader LGBTQ+ world.
The Final Scare: A Celebration of the Different
When you see a bunch of LGBTQ+ people talking about a scary movie, don’t be surprised. We’re just having fun with our favourite genre, trying to find heroes, and maybe seeing bits of ourselves in the spooky parts of these tales. LGBTQ+ folks love horror for more than just the thrill; it’s about enjoying the over-the-top stuff, relating to the underdog, and letting out our fears. It shows how powerful stories can be and how a scary movie can bring us together even as it gives us goosebumps.
Our love for horror isn’t just about snacks and getting scared. It’s about seeing strength in characters who fight to live facing society’s fears through these movies, and feeling close to others who share the same experiences. From cheesy old movies to films that clearly show LGBTQ+ themes, horror gives us a chance to think about ourselves, feel strong, and cheer for those who aren’t afraid to be different. So, call your friends, turn the lights down, and don’t be scared of the dark. You might just see yourself – and a whole group of people like you – looking back at you.
On August 1, 2024, Indigo Airlines rolled out a new feature allowing women to choose seats next to other women during check-in. This initiative has received a wave of positive feedback from Indigo’s customers and even garnered global attention—though some suspect that paid media and PR campaigns might be playing a role in its widespread praise.
Concerns from the Queer-Feminist and Trans Ally Community
A primary concern raised by queer-feminist and trans allies is the accessibility of this feature for trans women who do not have gender-affirming IDs. How is Indigo ensuring that these individuals can also benefit from the women-only seating option?
When I attempted to use this feature during booking, I discovered it is only available at check-in. This raises an important question: What happens if the flight is fully booked? The crew, likely already overworked and dealing with difficult passengers, might face additional pressure to accommodate these seating preferences. While it is understandable to expect crew members to do their jobs, it’s crucial to consider how this policy might complicate their already challenging roles in a high-pressure environment.
Backlash and Broader Implications
The policy has also sparked backlash, particularly from men who claim it promotes misandry. This reaction, while contentious, prompts further questions:
Has Indigo considered the preferences of trans men and other genderqueer individuals?
Can these preferences be accommodated without requiring specific gender IDs?
Are ground staff trained to be sensitive to trans identities?
What protections are in place if trans women face harassment from cis women who may be transphobic?
While the crew may be available to assist, it’s worth questioning how equipped they are to handle such situations. My own experiences with air travel have rarely included queer-affirming treatment, which adds to these concerns.
Addressing the Needs of All Women
Another critical issue is the experience of fat women who may require XL seats. How is Indigo ensuring that these passengers can also benefit from this feature? The assumption that fat women don’t need special accommodations is a troubling one that airlines need to address.
Potential Solutions and Moving Forward
One potential solution is to implement protocol shifts that make seat shuffling easier for both passengers and crew, particularly in response to specific needs. If such protocols are already in place or under development, we look forward to seeing them in action.
In the post-COVID-19 era, air travel has become increasingly complex and exhausting. Airlines, eager to recover from the losses incurred during the pandemic, have been overbooking flights, leading to more frequent delays, cancellations, and rescheduling. Meanwhile, airline crews are often overworked and underpaid, adding to the strain of accommodating passengers’ needs.
Inclusive Recommendations for Airlines
To ensure passenger safety and comfort, here are some inclusive recommendations from Gaysi Family:
1.Zero Tolerance for Harassment: Any passenger found harassing another passenger or crew member—whether through unsolicited commentary or inappropriate touch—should be barred from flying with the airline in the future.
2. Crew and Staff Sensitization: Onboard crew and ground staff should receive training on the identities and issues faced by queer and disabled individuals. This training should specifically address the context of frisking and the need for certain accessibility aids or accommodations.
3. Avoiding Overbooking: Airlines should avoid overbooking flights and allow some flexibility for passengers who may need to be moved, or who might fall ill mid-flight.
By addressing these issues and implementing thoughtful solutions, airlines like Indigo can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for all passengers.
I am not a psychologist or a relationship expert, but I am a lesbian, which means I have some experience and perspective on love bombing. Love bombing is a term that describes a pattern of overwhelming someone with excessive affection and attention to manipulate and control them. It often starts with intense romantic gestures and rapidly escalates, which can make the relationship feel exhilarating but ultimately unsustainable, almost like romance on Redbull.
If you ask me, the world of lesbians and love bombing go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly, except with more drama. The stereotypes alone are evidence enough. Take the U-Haul lesbian, for example. I mean, isn’t that the perfect definition of love bombing? You meet someone for one date, and suddenly you’re picking out furniture and deciding whose Netflix account you’ll share. It’s efficiency at its finest—or maybe just a plot twist waiting to happen.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at another classic: saying “I love you” after the first date. I’m pretty sure it’s scientifically impossible to know you love someone after just one date, but hey, why not give it a try? And then there’s talking about a shared future on the second date. It’s adorable and all, but you just met me—how can you know you want to raise a child with me already? Please don’t boycott me, fellow lesbians. I’m just as guilty of fulfilling these stereotypes as anyone else. Still, maybe we should take a closer look at our dating patterns.
I get it—when everyone around you says it’s okay to fall in love in a day and move in with someone in a week, you can’t help but think it’s romantic. After all, when there’s no man in the relationship, these things might seem reasonable, like crashing and burning was part of the plan all along. Or maybe I’m just an imperfect lesbian who’s now a little skeptical about the whole Fast and the Furious: Relationship Edition.
Being queer, for all the fantastic things it brings, can also be inherently lonely. We crave a partner who understands our unique loneliness, someone who can make us feel like it’s us against the world instead of just you. We don’t fit into the cis-het standards of dating, where marriage is usually the end goal, and it’s not even an option in many places. We make our own rules, which can be liberating but also a privilege only some queer folks have.
Historically, lesbian relationships have been shaped by societal pressures and cultural dynamics. For decades, queer love had to be hidden, leading to an intense longing for connection and validation. This urgency can sometimes manifest in rapid relationship escalations, as there’s a shared understanding of loneliness and isolation.
And then there’s the fact that women are often more emotional creatures. We tend to feel things deeply and quickly. Those feelings aren’t always rational, and honestly, it’s not our fault. Women also have higher expectations of emotional intimacy, which isn’t a bad thing, but wanting that level of connection right off the bat can contribute to the crash-and-burn cycle in lesbian relationships. When intense emotional needs must be met at a young stage, you can’t help but see the world and your partner through rose-colored glasses. Believe me, I’ve been there. It’s like living in a romantic comedy directed by a caffeine-addicted teenager who just discovered Pinterest.
Your phone becomes a love shrine filled with memes, music, poems, and declarations of eternal devotion. All this attention can be flattering, but it’s important to remember that healthy relationships are built on mutual respect and understanding, not just the ability to send 100 text messages a minute (and not very consistently, I might add).
This whirlwind of emotions and instant connection can lead to disappointment when reality doesn’t match up to our fairytale expectations. As lesbians, we often bond quickly because we find comfort in each other’s shared experiences. But in doing so, we might forget that a solid relationship takes time to build.
So, what’s the takeaway? While love bombing might seem like a natural extension of our desire for connection, maybe it’s time to mix some rational thinking with those swirling emotions. Let’s laugh at the stereotypes but also learn from them. It’s not about avoiding those intense feelings; it’s about letting them develop naturally, ensuring our relationships have a foundation strong enough to weather any storm.
In the end, maybe the trick is finding that sweet spot between “I met you yesterday, but I’ve already booked our honeymoon” and “Maybe I’ll ask for your number next year.” So go ahead, enjoy the ride, laugh at the stereotypes, and cherish the moments that make your heart skip a beat. Who knows, maybe the U-Haul will come in handy someday—but keep it parked for now.
“Hair is everything,”, declares Phoebe Waller-Bridge in her iconic show ‘Fleabag’. In the scene, the character’s sister Claire had just gotten a ridiculous haircut that in her own words, made her “look like a pencil”. I laugh at how dramatic the scene is but then remember how my own relatives reacted when I, as a curly-haired girl, cut her hair a tad too short. I remember how for an entire month I got unsolicited opinions from people who thought that curly hair was elegant but not when it was as curly as mine, and that short hair was cute but not when it was as short as mine. Indian culture was never chill when it came to hair.
According to a popular Hindu legend, when Lord Vishnu was once meditating on a mountain, a cow used to go up the mountain to feed him milk. The cow’s shepherd noticed this and wasn’t happy. Out of rage, he hit Lord Vishnu on the head causing a bald spot. But when a Gandharva princess Neela Devi noticed this, she plucked some of her own hair to cover his head. When Lord Vishnu came back to consciousness from his meditation and found the princess’ hair on his head, he offered it back to her. She declined, despite bleeding from where her hair was torn off. Lord Vishnu was pleased with her sacrifice. After all, hair is the most divine part of a woman’s body. Today, in that spot atop the mountain of Neeladri lies the Tirupati Lord Venkateswara Temple, where pilgrims arrive every day to give up their hair to Lord Vishnu as their own way of submitting their ego in front of divinity.
In a country where donating hair to the Gods is a widely-revered practice, to say that the local culture and moral codes are intricately tied to hair would be an understatement. One of the 5 K’s of Sikh philosophy, ‘Kesh’, explains how uncut hair is proof of a man’s faith. In many religions, including Islam, covering one’s hair during prayer is thought to be a gesture of modesty. So what shifts when natural hair, often placed as a symbol of humility and virtue for Indians, gets altered?
For Shivisha (she/her), a college student from Pune, the length of her hair has led to horrifying encounters. She recounts how, as a child, she had been touched inappropriately by her male classmates, who justified it on accounts of her ‘looking like a guy’. Once, when she was entering the washroom, her teacher detained her outside, thinking that she was a boy and only let her go when another female student vouched for her. “I even started to wear bigger earrings so that people know I’m a girl. But even then they assumed I’m just a boy who wears earrings.”
For someone like Shivisha, who used to play sports, cutting her hair was a convenient way to maintain it. Unfortunately, in a culture where the primary beauty standard for girls is long, lustrous hair, there is very little space for those who cut their hair short, for whatever reason.
When the queer community comes into the picture, the story gets increasingly complicated.
In a scene from Lucian’s ‘Dialogue between Courtesans’, a book of Greek literature, a courtesan named Leaina describes her sexual encounter with Megilla, a person from the island of Lesbos. Leaina recounts being seduced by Megilla who revealed that under the wig they were bald, ‘like a warrior’. They also preferred to go by the name of Megillus, when they were without it. Megillus’ wig forms an integral part of his identity in the story.
Clearly, hair has played a crucial role in queer history and has especially helped those who want to express themselves beyond the cis-norm. Princess Seraphina, an 18th-century English drag queen, used to wear elaborate wigs and visit ‘mollies’, which were the 18th-century English equivalent of gay bars, where queer folx would go to socialize and commune. She was widely beloved by even those beyond the clandestine queer circles of England.
Then, of course, there were David Bowie and Lady Gaga, who created entire personas around their eccentric fashion, many of which, dare I say, revolved around their hairstyle. But in a country that associates beauty and virtue with how long and lustrous her hair is, women and queer folks’ self-expression doesn’t have a space to exist. Often hair becomes a way to enforce traditional gender roles, with anybody who deviates from it being considered as ‘the other’.
For Earth, (they/them) who identifies as non-binary, hair has played a central role in their gender identity. They used to sport longer hair as a child, mostly because they used to attend Bharatanatyam lessons. As they grew older, Earth began to feel increasingly out of touch with their assigned gender role. “Over the years, I didn’t realize but I grew more and more depressed about my looks. Gradually I started feeling disgust towards my gender expression altogether, but I didn’t know what to do to ease it.” When the pandemic hit, they were able to find online creators and communities that were outspoken about being trans. When Earth realized that they were non-binary, the first step to grow into their gender identity was to chop off their hair. “I cut my hair as the first step towards my transition journey. I still have a long way to go, but for now, cutting my hair has been my biggest sigh of relief and my proudest achievement.”
But choosing to go against the norm hasn’t been without challenges. Earth explains how their mother was worried about them choosing to forego their femininity by trimming their hair to a buzzcut and wearing clothes that weren’t cinched at the waist. Their sister, too, was worried about the threat of Earth being harmed or discriminated against because of their presentation.
Unlike Earth, 18-year-old N (they/them) wore shorter hair as a child. As they grew older, the length of their hair fluctuated depending on how they felt about their gender identity. “Sometimes I grow it long. Sometimes I cut it short. When I feel more feminine I grow it longer and when I’m more unsure, I keep it shorter.” They say that when they had longer hair it was easier to pass as straight, recounting a harrowing story about how one of their male friends once tried to ‘turn them straight’ despite knowing they were dating a girl at the time. But keeping short hair also means judgemental looks from relatives and burrowing remarks of how they ‘look like a boy’. But for N, whose gender identity is fluid, being called a boy feels more like a blessing than an insult. And thanks to their immediate family and friends being supportive of them, N feels like they have a community to rely on.
Skye (name changed – she/her), a 20-year-old from Bangalore, tells me that she experiments with her hair in lieu of coming out to her parents for now. “Breaking barriers one at a time.” she laughs. She describes her style as “femme grunge and tomboy femme”, adding, “I haven’t always been someone who experimented with anything—not clothing, not hair. But as I grew older, I became more curious about my identity. Initially, I loved cutting my hair and later progressed to colouring it.”
But ultimately Skye feels that her hair colour is, at best, adjacent to her sexuality. It does not concretely define who she is as a person.
If something seemingly at the surface, like hair, is only a part of and not the entirety of someone’s identity, why should hair be policed so stringently? Maybe sometime in the future, the religious and moral fervour surrounding hair could be married to more bolder forms of self-expression. After all, doesn’t the greatest form of respect for hair lie in the owner’s willingness to use it as a form of their truest expression?
On August 13, while hearing the bail petition of a man who was accused of sexually abusing and defrauding another, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court observed that the dating app Grindr is being used for illegal activities. Justice D Bharatha Chakravethy urged the police to intimate the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology about its misuse, and even consider blocking the app in consideration of user safety. And no, he clarified, it’s not because the app is used by homosexual men. It is also worth noting that the accused was booked under Section 377 of the IPC for his act of sexual misconduct committed against another man.
It gets more interesting as we dissect the information that is public about the case that led to this observation:
The accused had filed the bail petition under Section 483 of BNSS. The BNS and BNSS are the updated criminal code, replacing the Imperial colonial-era Indian Penal Code.
The victim claimed that his chain and credit card were stolen, and the attacker had also withdrawn a sum of Rs. 1,15,000. The accused was charged with offences under sections 294(b), 377, 387, 506(2) of the IPC.
In case you’re wondering why the accused was booked under IPC, while the bail petition invoked the BNS, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that crimes committed before July 1 will be tried under the old laws. Meanwhile the Allahabad High Court said that while FIRs will be lodged under IPC, the investigation will be done according to the BNSS.
Coming back to the case at hand, Maharaja was granted bail by the court on the condition that he would never use social media or the app ever again. What a strange expectation in the 21st century, where social media is one of the main media of communication (and misinformation) in this day and age! Maharaja also had to surrender his phone to the police, and needs to intimate the police if he purchases a device again. Shady, but not surprised that this is all that it took for an abuser to get bail.
Normalizing abuse somehow never ceases to be the expected outcome, even while technology that enables queer culture and society is called out. Villainising Grindr is not the solution we want nor is the government intervention on such apps, a welcome move. What needs action is that people be held accountable for the harm they perpetuate, instead of a schoolboy punishment like reprimanding them and asking them to surrender their phones. This is hardly congruent with the trauma endured by the survivor who is already marginalized in society for their sexual orientation and identity.
Last time we checked, an abuser never needed a phone to abuse. Sure it’s a medium, but not the only one. Laws fail to protect victims, laws fail to punish the attacker, and those responsible for carrying out the world of the law, continue to fail vulnerable citizens.
Hello and welcome to my new bi-monthly column ‘Quarter Life Single’ where you are going to get to accompany me, a gorgeous and brilliant queer woman who is single for the first time at the age of 25 after a long-term relationship ended. Join me on my adventures in navigating the adult dating world. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that the last time I was single was when I was in the 11th grade and demonetisation had not happened yet. Yes, it has been almost 8 years since that fateful day. And yes, we are all officially that old.
Okay, first things first: am I desperately looking for a relationship? Honestly, (and genuinely) no. The truth is that I am open to a relationship and it is fun to try out different ways that people go about dating today. But to be very honest, I am not sure if any of these ways are for me. When I imagine the kind of love that I want, I often imagine it happening organically. Maybe we will meet at a bookstore (I did have a very flirty conversation with a very hot bookseller recently) or stumble across each other on vacation. And then I wonder if that is too passive an approach — the ‘going through life normally and when love happens, it happens’ way of thinking about companionship goes against my idea of doing things in life with purposefulness. I am not sure what the right answer is, but for now I find myself wondering: how do I send out a purposeful message into the universe that my heart is open to love?
I am not someone who posts a lot on social media, so nobody can slide into my DMs or reply to my story to flirt (or as I understand, people now also think of responding with an emoji to someone’s story as a ‘thing’ which is like…come on!) So I have made dating app profiles and met up with people — but the way that they seem to be navigating dating seems extremely different from the way I do. Most people around my age do not seem to have gotten the memos about healthy communication practices and the maxims of love. And I REFUSE to be another person’s queer Katrina Kaif from ZNMD — I really, REALLY do not want to be the manic pixie sapphic dream girl who makes you realise that love is the most important thing. I mean, they teach this to us in school assemblies in the second grade! And while I know that neither our parents nor any other adult around us embodies these ideas outside of that assembly, I am all out of emotional labour spoons and I refuse to try to get more for the purpose of your education. Please go to therapy, and please unlearn things independently?
As someone who has re-entered the singledom a few months ago, I now wonder if many adult dating rituals are not rituals at all, but ways to disguise the fact that neither of you is engaging with yourself. The ‘which one of us will call first’ game clearly stems from feeling insecure about coming across as wanting to talk more because you enjoy someone’s company (it is a GOOD thing to like people! It is a good thing to take initiative!!!) and the ‘answering questions in an ironic manner on dating apps’ is straight out of the ‘I need to pretend that I am too cool for this place because if it does not work out for me I do not want people to know that I wanted it to’ playbook. And don’t even get me started on the ‘we won’t flirt even though I asked you out on a date because we can’t appear to be actually interested in each other’, can it really get more nonsensical than that?
I have a question to ask: if we do not risk rejection, how do we open ourselves enough to accept love? Why are confusing signals still a thing on dating apps that have clear space allocated to describe what you are looking for? The one foot in and one foot out thing seems immature to me at this point to be honest — I mean, we are Sapphic People. We INVENTED the eye contact and yearning stage — but to reach that stage, we have to talk and sound interested. As for me, maybe I need to put out a three-line ad for a pen pal who will exchange books with me as we slowly start writing each other coded love letters in the margins until one of us finds the courage to speak up and take initiative right before dying at the age of 81 — not out of the fear of queerphobia, but out of the fear of coming across as the one who wants it more. It will be exactly like meeting on a dating app, except in this case I will also get to read.
As a happily married lesbian, I’ve learned that our deepest fantasies can both frighten and excite us. When my wife and I decided to pursue a polyamorous quad relationship, we had to confront a lot of vulnerabilities and doubts. But the rewards of loving authentically and pushing boundaries have been immensely transformative.
So, let’s talk about fantasies for a second. Sure, lingerie and role-playing get people going, but you know what really revs folks’ engines? Inviting some new playmates into the bedroom! Getting it on with another smoking-hot couple while keeping that rock-solid foundation with your long-term partner? Hello, ultimate hotness!
But look, going from that sexy fantasy to making it an actual reality can seriously stir up all kinds of insecurities and doubts. Will they find my partner way more attractive than me? Will they be turned off by my imperfect body? Those hesitations are 100% normal and valid. My wife and I definitely grappled with them hard when we started exploring the idea of having a foursome with another lesbian couple we were super into.
We had to get vulnerable quickly and have those brutally honest convos about our deepest fears – things like one of us developing crazy feelings for the new partners or feeling jealous as we all get out over sharing the person we love most. Putting every single worry and worst-case scenario out on the table helped us set clear boundaries and reaffirm that our marriage of 10 years comes first always, no matter what. With that strong security ground, we could charge into this new adventure united and mutually excited instead of holding anything back. As wedding photographers, we’re constantly on the lookout for awesome couples to potentially work with. That’s how we first locked eyes with this stunningly vibrant, magnetic pair at an LGBTQ wedding expo a couple of years back. We just clicked on like lighters from the first conversation. They booked us for their August wedding like 20 minutes later without even blinking!
Things started getting flirty a few months out when we connected for wedding planning over WhatsApp. The chemistry and spark were off the charts. One of them booked a wildly steamy boudoir shoot with us, just to kick things up another notch. We spent hours photographing them in intimate, powerful lingerie looks, getting wrapped up in the sultry, sexy vibe. A two-hour shoot stretched to four because nobody wanted the fire to end! We doubled down by popping a bottle of wine together afterward, and just like that, everything escalated in the hottest way.
Long story short, we started seriously dating and forming a committed relationship with this other couple. There were frequent intimate double dates, and mind-blowing long weekends away from home where we could truly be ourselves and explore every desire sans any restrictions or distractions. It was electric! We all felt like missing puzzle pieces just clicked into place.
But you know how it goes – times change, new dynamics emerge, feelings evolve. What started as just a crackling passion between the four of us grew more complicated when a couple of us developed deeper romantic feelings for certain people in the quad. A little ol’ monster named jealousy started creeping in. We had to pump the brakes, re-evaluate our boundaries, and remind ourselves that the path forward involved coming together as an equal foursome to make sure everything stayed fair, safe and consensual for everyone involved.
Look, has it been challenging to navigate at times? 100%. Have we had to do some serious soul-searching, self-work, and get really damn good at communicating through every up, down, twist and turn of this non-traditional relationship? Absolutely. But ultimately, taking this leap into the quad partnership has been one of the most beautiful, erotic, utterly transformative experiences of our lives so far.
We’ve learned so much about ourselves – facing insecurities we didn’t even know we had, pushing past antiquated programming, and just straight-up opening our hearts, minds and souls in ways we never could’ve imagined before this journey. Was it always a sexy, steamy walk in the park? Nah. Did we fight like hell to make the quad worth it at certain points? You betcha. There were times we wondered if we were in over our heads. But we persisted and grew together.
I’m not gonna lie, this kind of arrangement isn’t for everyone. Jealousy monsters and emotional land mines can lurk around every corner if you’re not prepared. But if you’ve got that ravenous curiosity, that itch to explore and push boundaries, if you’re willing to get naked emotionally and put in the hard work, this polyamorous journey is an incredibly rewarding one. It’s helped us become our most authentic, liberated selves and celebrate love, sexuality, and desire in radically new, empowering ways.
My advice? Don’t run away from those edgy fantasies that set your lust on fire – go after what you crave, but always with compassion leading the way. Be ruthlessly honest about your needs, boundaries, and expectations from the jump. Set clear rules and guidelines. Never stop communicating, even when it hurts. Lean into any challenges as opportunities to evolve together, become closer, and build more trust. Most of all, never lose sight of the love and profound respect that sparked this whole crazy beautiful adventure in the first place.
At the end of the day, our quad relationship has been messy as hell, totally magical, supremely erotic, challenging as f*ck at times, and above all, real – four people choosing to love bravely and authentically outside the lines society draws. It’s opened our minds to the infinite possibilities that can unfurl when you allow yourself to think outside the box, rip off repressive labels and just get a little unharnessed and comfortable in your skin. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.
During Pride Month this year, I witnessed several teenage queer folx actively participating to usher in a new era in creating spaces for queerness, both online and offline. When I attended the Queer Made Weekend in Mumbai, I noticed that some came out loud and proud, with outfits that looked straight out of a carefully curated Pinterest board, while others gathered shyly, simply happy to witness a community embracing queerness, even if just in pockets. It got me thinking about how a chunk of their young lives must be spent in academic spaces, which are historically known for imposing disciplinary rules and strict normative-uniformity, many times archaic. Ironically, at the same time they offer courses that educate us and are advertised as spaces that nurture intellectual thinking. However, the reality remains that when there is any kind of grassroot level activism and demand for systemic change in these spaces, they are often met with repression by these very institutions. Ironically, the same institutions that supposedly empower, don’t often encourage activism that challenges systems, including critique of the institution itself.
This is where student-run clubs and spaces within the campus that encourage communing, come into picture.
From sports, music, social service to nukkad natak and cinema, these college clubs are hubs of enthusiastic student activity. To these young adults, college clubs offer more than just an opportunity to spruce up that empty CV. It’s an attempt at turning their common interest into a conversation. Some hope for simply a familiar face to sit with at the canteen. Then there are others who desperately seek a chosen family to compensate for the lack of supportive ecosystems in their lives.
Having participated in college level clubs myself, my first taste of Pride month and the queer community was of course through…yup, you guessed it, an English Literature Association (ELA). While a queer collective would eventually be formed in my college post my own graduation, the ELA would put out queer narratives through plays, movie screenings or host trivia quizzes at college fests, during my time there.
I can’t help but wonder how the experience has been for queer folx who have had the opportunity to participate in ‘proper’ queer clubs on campus. I set out to interview four different queer collectives from four different states across India, asking them about the nitty-gritties of leading and participating in queer clubs.
On Getting Institutional Support
From organizing fests to seminars and even getting the requisite approval to use a room to conduct club activities, having the institution’s support is always beneficial for a college club. The support can go well beyond the administrative too and it can be essential to helping students set boundaries with agents of hate and neglect towards the club’s values, such as for a queer-affirming campus-community. The bullying that the members of such clubs receive ranges from alienating queer students on campus to actively harassing and making passive aggressive remarks at them, which is often perpetuated by their peers and even members of the faculty. While expecting all to be inclusive is the dream we dream of, even just having specific faculty/ staff members onboard as allies can also build a sense of deep safety and comfort, considering the lack of queer-affirming caregiving and mentorship that one experiences while growing up.
As Pride month becomes zeitgeist, many colleges are recognising the existence of the LGBTQIA+ community and needs of younger folx in navigating their queerness. They are doing so through their on-campus activities, which are slowly and steadily mushrooming in India. However, the reality is that many of these academic spaces try to curb this existence of queer joy in these spaces by watering it down.
Booshan (he/him), the founder of the PSG Queer Collective at PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, recalls the dismissive feedback he got after pitching a short broadcast program on campus for Pride month. While partnering with the radio club on campus was deemed “fine”, the project itself was scrapped by the dean. The college’s support was limited to “letting them be” on campus, but there were restrictions imposed on how openly the collective’s activities and campaigns were conducted.
How are these clubs supposed to sensitize college folks when the opposition to their visibility comes from within the management? 10% of India’s population, which is about 135 million people, are estimated to be queer. Forget about the walk, why are we not even talking about it?
At IISER Tirupati, The Rainbow Collective is forced to function as an informal collective on-campus. Annada (he/ they), one of its coordinators explained that the management is in denial and has no proper idea about the club’s values and premise. Despite having a faculty member onboard as per the rules for on-campus clubs, the dismissal continues.
On a more positive note, Priyanka* (she/ her) who heads the queer collective of IIT Guwahati – Lambda, shares that they regularly receive materials and lectures from the faculty in terms of resource and guidance, despite it the club on campus itself not being officially recognized by the institution. They are also asked for updates and if support is required for the club and its activities.
Pasta (they/ he), the Student Junior Executive of Sophia College For Women in Mumbai, also feels supported as a queer person who runs the club on campus. There are the occasional hurdle of financial planning and operations, yet, at the end of the day, “everyone, including the staff is actually very accepting, the college is just very comfortable”, they say about Sophia College’s environment. In fact, they mentioned joining the college after learning of the existence of a queer club in college through the institution’s website!
The Curious Case of “Collectives”
As I interviewed these four members/organizers of queer-affirming clubs located at colleges from four states of India, I noticed a common pattern of getting corrected by my respondents about how their club was a collective. While the details as to why were fuzzy, they said that they were not allowed to call themselves a club for various technical reasons.
Pasta explained: “When people register to become official members of a college club, they have to pay a fee which is 100/-. However, since we are just a collective, we don’t collect this fee so that people can join us in this space for free.”
This also meant that all the activities and resources required for the collective’s activities needed to be funded by the members themselves. “Imagine we’re having a Pride pin-making event, then we would have to fund for all operational costs so that these pins could be taken home after making them. As a result more people are interested to join in, [which is great], but it also adds a strain to our budget!”, they said. It’s an added advantage that other clubs have. This is why queer collectives have to think twice regarding the feasibility of any event that they conduct, despite the entire college getting to enjoy the experience. The issue goes back to the registration process of setting up of the club, which can get confusing as it is, add to that issues of prejudice and discrimination and the task of creating a queer club becomes even more complicated.
Booshan shared a different perspective that despite having all the rights to have a club, it also comes down to the people who run the club and their identity. “When it comes to queerness or career, career comes first”, he highlighted about the baggage that comes with identifying as queer on campus.
Funds Or Not, The Show Must Go On
These clubs need funds to make themselves visible and be active, which are hard to do without explicit support and official recognition from the institution itself. The acceptance of queer folx on campus needs sensitization through outreach events and training seminars, which in turn require the active participation of all students, faculty, the administration, among others. The systemic cycle of isolation and the lack of access to resources has not stopped these queer college folks from putting in the work though.
Finding a middle ground to balance the fundraising issue and to provide a safe space for the queer folks on campus, the IISER’s rainbow collective hosts regular discussion sessions and movie nights. PSG’s queer collective also managed to organize the Coimbatore Pride in collaboration with Kovai Vaanavil Kootamaippu!
On the other hand, considering its relatively supportive environment, Sophia’s queer collective has impressively hosted a diverse range of events, from drag show to queer karaokes! As I pondered over the potential of these clubs if they were provided with some form of financial aid. I posed this question to them to understand their collective aspirations.
Imagining The Utopia With Unlimited Funds
While sports clubs might get funding for their tournament travels or an art club to conduct art contests, queer clubs fall behind in scaling not just due to lack of financial resources but simply due to lack of sensitization. As my respondents told about the continuous work that goes into maintaining the club and its activities, I asked each of them what they’d do if they had unlimited resources to allocate to the club. Other than Sophia’s queer collective, the remaining 3 respondents had different variations of the same answer: institutional sensitization.
IISER rainbow collective’s Annada wanted to conduct frequent sensitization activities, while PSG’s Booshan said he wanted to sensitize the people to make it easier and more welcoming for the closeted queer folks. “It’s not necessary they should come out but that option in their life should be available at least,” he adds.
Priyanka* echoed the same, “The problem that our club faces is that within the Institute itself, the space is so stigmatized that we have very limited people. I think more than financial, we’d like to have official recognition.”
Taking Up Space As Your Trueself
While it is easier to find a community of queer folks online and simply being content by going online to watch an episode or 2 of Heartstopper, taking up space offline offers a sense of joy and comfort in the most tangible, concrete sense possible. You get to reimagine a real world full of possibilities, where your first instinct is not to survive but hope to thrive. Many students admit to choosing a college that aligns itself with queer-affirming sensibilities. Pasta (they/ he) from Sophia Queer Collective who moved to Mumbai for further studies chose the unfamiliar city for similar reasons. While going through the college’s page to check their facilities and more, they had come across a section which mentioned about the presence of a queer collective. This convinced them as they felt that they’d be much more accepted in the community and wouldn’t have to hide their identity. This proved to be true since everyone in the college including the staff were already sensitized, making their student experience comfortable.
While some take great efforts in relocating to find a college that feels safe enough to be themselves, others have to make their own from scratch. Booshan, who is now a 20-something alumni, tiptoed out of the closet by sharing queer content online. Eventually, when he came out to his parents during the pandemic, the response was, unfortunately, not great. He relied on his seniors from the collective for moral support during those trying times. Through this collective, he gained access to a nationwide network of supportive communities, including NGOs and queer-led organizations. Through this network, he also received financial guidance, legal aid, and so much more that helped him become an adult with personal agency.
The disappointing representation of queer folx in our system, both internally and externally already makes the current climate bleak. We need more examples of queer folks getting to truly living as themselves and in the positions of decision-making. More folks like Booshan should be able to access financial and emotional support for their wellbeing during times of distress. It starts from spaces that are actively present in their daily lives, such as colleges and schools.
Formation of Clubs
TW: Mention of queerphobic abuse
Despite the backlash and absence of recognition, these queer students attempt to build and find their community in their own ways. Booshan, who previously had been part of his college’s NSS camp, opened up about how he had suffered abuse at the hands of one of his officers there. When he shared this experience with his friends, it led them to come together and make a support group for sexual abuse survivors and queer kids on-campus that eventually became the PSG queer collective. Frustrated with inadequate response to bullying and harassment, more and more students are taking matters into their own hands and are forming informal clubs across the campus to stand in solidarity regardless of the number of members willing to join.
The members of the collective at IIT-Guwahati’s share that although the club had been founded by two campus members, Priyanka* has since taken sole charge as a lot of students left campus during COVID and graduated during the lockdowns, leaving the club members with no training or staff since then. What began as an on-ground outreach to research for her PhD thesis on gender minorities, ended up with her realizing the immediate need for sensitization. Despite their collective Lambda not being known to most of the campus, Priyanka* continues to address the queerness with a small group of members.
Wholesome Queer Memories To Hold Onto
While the journey has been extremely tiring, when asked about what makes this process worth the work, the collective (no pun intended) answer were the wholesome memories created and the milestones accomplished. Sophia’s Queer collective was able to conduct the college’s queer-focused flagship event called “Quphoria” which celebrated the diversity and togetherness on campus. Pasta recollected their favorite moment: “I think it has to be the time a drag king that went to our very own college performed for the event. They did a really great job and it was special having them as a part of our main club event!”
PSG Queer Collective’s Booshan recalls his favorite memory as being finally able have an in-person meet up with all the club members from different departments of the college when it reopened after the lockdowns.
At IIT Guwahati, Priyanka* shares that the club was able to help a queer person get out of a dark phase. The club members were able to ensure a smooth coming out process for them to their family. “Knowing that there are people out there, it helps you gain confidence [in expressing your queerness]. This also affects other domains of your life so it is a crucial space” they add.
With the recent news of a trans student in Guwahati allegedly being stalked, policed and asked to leave the school upon the insistence of the school’s Principal, K Chand, more schools and colleges, as well their faculty members, should take initiative to create safe spaces and for young, queer folx. Policies of harassment and bullying need to cover more nuance, touching upon class, caste and gender identity. At the same time colleges shouldn’t always rely on the invisible labor that is expected out of these clubs, and should organize their own sensitization programs with the support and guidance of experienced and sensitized facilitators. Queer and neurodivergence-affirming counselors should be employed regardless of the perceived minority of queerness among students. After all, this would be a step towards suicide prevention on campus.
In our diverse culture with its varied cuisine, food preferences are often shaped by social background, beliefs, aesthetics, or health. The latter two are particularly prevalent in urban spaces such as Mumbai. We set out to explore how queer individuals from the city navigate their food habits. Some have different backgrounds and have recently moved away from the practices that they grew up with!
Religion/Autonomy
In India, a nation with a rich history of vegetarianism *coughs* propaganda *coughs*. The case of “food choices” is a little different. Many adults who move away from home have had complicated relationships with food especially due to religious restrictions. We spoke to Sneha (she/her) (name changed), who was raised in a Jain family, and would’ve had to follow the cardinal rule of Jainism, which doesn’t permit its followers to eat any bulb or underground growing veggies. But it’s been roughly a decade since she started eating meat and has also learnt how to cook it since then!
“I wasn’t particularly religious, I was always questioning things. Despite being a big foodie, I was hesitant to try meat. There was a psychological barrier, mostly due to the conditioning that meat is “impure” and you’re supposed to be disgusted by it.”
When we asked Grace (they/her), a 23-year-old who lives in Mumbai with their aunt, if they’d ever like to go vegan, since they grew up eating and loving meat: “I’ve never considered veganism. I’ve grown up loving non-vegetarian food, my animal-loving, environmentally-responsible self has never felt conflicted with the consumption of meat, nor do I deal with any religious compulsions. It may not be so much of a diet or nutrition requirement but more of a palette inclination, therefore I’ve considered substitutes for monitoring it and having only vegetarian meals on certain days of the week.”
Meat consumption in India is still not as heavily dependent on processed meat, most Indians still rely on butchers for meat, especially, Muslim folx who require Halal meat. Even with vegetables, local grocers and farmers have managed to adapt to the need for certain “exotic” produce.
“It’s been roughly 10 years since I first tried meat, and my parents still don’t know about it. I’ve been regularly told that eating meat is one of the worst things I can do, and I have seen their reactions to other meat-eating people. I think out of all the discriminatory beliefs they have, their dislike for meat consumption is the worst.” Sneha reflects.
Anurag (He/They) grew up not eating meat and depended heavily on milk to help him bulk-up and look more “masculine”. For him, even after incorporating meat (to unlearn casteist ideology of meat eating) in his diet, the bulking-up diet was a disaster in the making. The consequences included acne, IBS, and poor immunity. He says he also felt the stress of wanting to look a certain way, in addition to the stress of falling sick often.
“For 4 years [of college] I had all the meat that I possibly could have had until I started falling sick. I used to follow weird internet diets to gain weight and lose weight or to gain muscle. I was never really a gym ‘bulk-up’ person, but in college I used to work as a model a lot. So, there were days where I would just not eat at all so that I could look more ripped.”
Sneha, who had to deal with unlearning the guilt and disgust conditioned into her by her family’s beliefs, which is similar to many households, pointed out the aesthetics that often restrict people from learning more about meat-based cuisines.
“I still avoid going to the butcher, simply because the imagery is very jarring for me, but I do cook and eat meat quite frequently. I’ve also unlearnt a lot of the misinformation taught that meat is ‘impure’ or ‘unhygienic’; but now it feels the same as cooking vegetables.”
If you think about it, it’s very similar to how homophobia is conditioned into our minds from a young age. Queerness, like meat-consumption in strict vegetarian households (which are often tied closely to caste) is something to be hidden in the closet.
Back in the 1990s when India opened up its economy to globalisation, like many other developing countries of the time, it helped save and feed many people. Globalisation allowed many people to access native and international food for lower costs. Over time that has also led to cheapening of the quality of food that we have access to. With “organic” and “clean” foods now being in higher demand, the price of staples inevitably keeps rising too.
Grace says, “Food is fuel to me, I’ve realised that if I have a craving, I just reward my palette. My appetite gets picky/selective based on my moods and mental health, but else, food is fuel.”
Queerness in general comes from the space of wanting to be able to exist without any restrictions. It thrives in creating spaces for yourself with things you like to do, which becomes all the more important in a culture that promotes familial acceptance over individual identity. Especially for queer folx, this doubles as a tendency to suppress not just bits and pieces of ourselves, but sometimes all of ourselves for the sake of your family’s acceptance.
“I would like to experiment with nice vegan food if I’m in a fancy city. If I’m in a village or if I’m in my hometown I would rather make something at home. If I’m going out somewhere to eat I would love stuff, that I am lucky enough to be living in Bandra, that I have access to ingredients such as vegan butter and cheese and all kinds of plant milk.” Says Anurag.
Ankita (she/her) who started eating meat after moving away from her familial beliefs was still able to move past the commonality of eating meat and switching to a fish-based diet. She says,
“My food philosophy is mindful healthy eating but break the rules occasionally! Choosing what I eat helps me feel more in control & true to myself. I grew up not eating meat, but I did try it for a couple of years in college. I was always hesitant, but ended up giving it a go during that time. Going pescatarian now feels better for me. The focus is on getting enough nutrition by ensuring a mix of fish, veggies, and whole grains.”
We see how moving away from homes to safer spaces can change how people eat. There was a stereotype in the West that perpetuated that vegetarians/vegans were largely “radical” feminists and lesbians who didn’t like meat. We seem to be witnessing a different approach emerge, when it comes to understanding queerness in relationship with food, especially in urban India. Things are somehow worse and better off right now, with the array of ingredients available, but the scarcity of healthy food continues. Perhaps we’re in a spot that could make or break the way our civilization eats and thinks about food!
Growing up as a gay Indian in the Middle East was often about staying inside the closet. Many times, I had to hide my true self, and essentially wear a mask.
I grew up in Kuwait, a small oil-rich country in the Middle East. Not many people know much about this country, and it’s not their fault. Kuwait isn’t that well-known, perhaps outside of the history of the Gulf War that happened in 1990. Otherwise, it’s a nice place… if you’re straight, that is. Growing up gay with Indian parents in a homophobic country was truly challenging.
I came to the realization about my sexuality when I was 14; it took me a year to accept myself. I was in love with a boy in my class for 3 years; he always ended up in my section somehow. My innocent self would buy him Starbucks whenever I could and spend all my pocket money on it. I thought it was just a silly crush, but I started developing feelings for him and eventually fell in love with him. It took a lot of time and healing for me to realize that he didn’t reciprocate those feelings. It broke me completely on the inside. For months, I cried and listened to sad songs to get over him. I had no one to talk to about this; I was all alone.
The first person I came out to is this girl named Rebecca. I met her on Instagram and she was so accepting of me when I told her. I felt loved; I felt seen. I have lost touch with her since, but I want to thank her for accepting me the way I am. It truly meant a lot to this gay kid. When COVID hit and we were in lockdown, I slowly accepted myself for who I am. I watched a lot of gay/queer movies although I was still deeply in the closet. Soon after, I slowly began coming out to my close friends, and it went well. I came out to my dad last year, but he just couldn’t accept that I’m gay. I came out to my mother, and she told me she won’t talk to me if I bring up the fact that I’m gay again. It’s been a struggle.
It’s been a year since I moved to Mumbai from Kuwait for my college. I do still miss Kuwait, but that’s just life. At least here, I can be my true self without hiding any part of me.
P.S.: I would like to credit John Alex who helped me edit this article.
Hello and welcome to my new bi-monthly column ‘Quarter Life Single’ where you are going to get to accompany me, a gorgeous and brilliant queer woman who is single for the first time at the age of 25 after a long-term relationship ended. Join me on my adventures in navigating the adult dating world. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that the last time I was single was when I was in the 11th grade and demonetisation had not happened yet. Yes, it has been almost 8 years since that fateful day. And yes, we are all officially that old.
When my best friend (S, who is also queer and fabulous) and I signed up for the Queer Salsa Classes that were going to be held at a venue that we frequent, I was hoping to do something fun on a weekday instead of following the whole ‘wake up-work-sleep’ routine. I always made time for my hobbies and interests even while I was in a relationship, but break-ups can be particularly hard. Even though I did not realise it then, I definitely needed to be around my community in an affirming and joyous space.
It was immediately a wholesome and welcoming environment, with the mirror-walled dance studio showcasing some fun queer posters and shelves with affirming books. Our dance instructor was phenomenal and kept checking in with us in terms of pace. S, who is a trained classical dancer, later told me that they had encountered many toxic dance environments before this. Along with a lot of rigidity and the glorification of being burnt out, there was a lot of focus on everyone looking and moving exactly the same, with absolutely no regard for accessibility or inclusivity of different bodies. Here, the instructor focused on helping us become comfortable with the movements first. I also learnt that everything that I thought I knew about Salsa was wrong. And the second thing that I learnt was how amazing it felt to not have someone assign dance steps to you based on your gender.
In the second class, we had to practise dancing in pairs, and our dance instructor prompted us by saying, “People who want to learn how to lead can form a line this side, and people who want to learn how to follow can be this side.” The best part was that there was absolutely no rigidity – you could learn one role in one class, and the other in the next. S and I both stood in the Followers’ line and waited for instructions. It was a lovely way to practise, with all of us moving in a circle and changing partners to practise the choreography with everyone who wanted to practise the Leader’s steps. Most of the people came by themselves or with a friend, though there was one adorable couple who made me kind of wish that this was date night for me too. Then I reminded myself that it is not a good idea to pause having new experiences until a romantic partner comes along and went right back to twirling.
At the end of the class I walked over to S and asked if they would practise with me before we left. They looked at me and said, “We could, but we are both bottoms.” “Being a Follower does not correspond to being a Bottom. And I am a Switch*”, I laughed and offered them my hand so we could dance together. And the thing about being best friends with someone is that this immediately became an inside joke that we have referred to again and again, ever since.
Our next class started with some new joinees, including a hot butch. This turned out to be a dangerous class because we were now informed that an important part of Salsa is making eye contact. As fate would have it, she was my first partner for the day. As the new hot butch attempted to lead us to the choreography, I learnt something interesting about myself – if I am even a tiny bit attracted to somebody, I find it tough to dance gracefully and simultaneously make uninterrupted eye contact with them. Turns out, I am only human and my human-ness led to us stepping on each other’s toes. This probably wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t single but I was! The dance instructor was very confused and her re-explanation was followed by a puzzled statement directed towards me, “You should know this…?” So, I decided to stare at our feet – my plan was flawless, I could pretend that I was confused about the footwork and get away from having to look into my dance partner’s eyes. “No looking down”, the instructor directed, “you have to look up and at each other.” Once we changed partners, I could dance perfectly again. S and I had a quick debrief during the water break, “The eye contact”, I whispered. “It’s very intimate”, they agreed.
All of us got over the awkwardness after a practice or two, and I quickly learnt in the following classes that my favourite dance partner was our instructor because it was while moving with her that I would actually learn which steps I needed to practise more. But that did not mean that I did not have fun with other people – with some I developed inside jokes and with others I learnt how to coordinate with a partner gracefully. We were all learning and teaching each other at the same time, and the sense of community was strong in the air. Our last class included a Salsa DJ and a free-for-all floor to practise, and there was laughter, conversation, and lots of twirling. The truth is that as queer people, the world so often forces us to come together to fight for our rights, that it feels like absolute magic when we are able to come together to dance.
*This is an oversimplification, in reality I do not experience sex through these labels.
Maximalism, wapas aa jao! Please return, I miss you…
It’s been a year of witnessing random fashion and beauty trends that don’t have staying power beyond a couple of months. The internet is saturated with content about new products and trends like they can cure cancer or something. Not complaining, because I do like having options, but I hate having the illusion of choice.
Let me explain.
Everything is the same?
Every makeup product being pushed out in the market by major brands and companies are ALL the damn same! They talk about having the same sheer coverage for a “natural finish”. For people not invested in skincare trends, sheer-coverage doesn’t cover anything at all, actually. It is simply meant to help your complexion look even. To actually cover pimples, spots etc., you will need anything between a medium (buildable) to full coverage product. Now the ‘clean girl’ trend that brought sheer coverage to the forefront of trends, started off with wanting to look nice without having to cake your whole face with makeup, while allowing your skin and you to breathe better.
While the origins of the trend is understandable, the name – clean girl makeup – itself has adjectives that are exclusionary in nature. It glamorises a very specific brand of ordinary and mediocre, in my opinion. The same chiselled cheekbones, pouty lips and thin, slicked-back hair – while these may be nice to look at, they are being commodified to become the aspirational norm that people are expected to conform to!
Although this trend has taken off, makeup brands continue to produce and sell all 3 types of foundations/concealers – sheer-coverage, medium (buildable), and full coverage products. Drag queens and professional makeup artists still use heavy-coverage base products, to achieve flamboyant and varied looks. To me, the problem lies in the way products are marketed. Yes, in the capitalist system, marketing has always been the source of evil in promoting products that no one actually needs. Allow me to clarify the paradox – no one “needs” makeup, it’s still a want. But the virtue-signalling tone of ‘clean girl’ as if every other way of being is not ‘clean’ is simply appalling. Being bare skin is not a sin nor is wanting to wear full-coverage foundations. Each way of presenting serves its purpose in a person’s life. Secondly, my gripe is also with pushing the need for elaborate makeup & skincare routines on everyone through content overload, making it look like a need rather than an option.
In my opinion, the “clean girl” aesthetic, the ever-so controversial beauty trend has not been criticised nearly enough. If we actually understood the weight of the cultural critique as to how the trend is inherently popularising something Latina, Black and even Indian makeup tricks that they were shamed for, then it would have been unpacked for the cultural appropriation that it is. Think using a dark lip-liner with light lip-gloss that’s now called ‘doughnut glazed lips” or wearing gold jewellery with slicked back hair. Women of colour were called “ghetto” and “oily” for doing these trends back in the 90s and early 2000s. Only for the same things to be applauded when the owner of Rhode Beauty does it?
Leave it to the professionals
People have been reminiscing about 2016’s makeup trends, which celebrated using makeup as a tool for expression. The makeup tricks that reigned supreme on the internet in 2016 were largely taught by queer and drag makeup artists like Nikkie Tutorials, Bretman Rock, Jefree Star, Gigi Gorgeous, and even RuPaul. Personally, I learnt most of my makeup tricks over the past decade from watching Nikkie Tutorials since I stumbled upon it in 2014. I still follow her tips and tricks to do a smokey eye (anybody else miss doing that? No? Just me then?).
2016 was a pivotal year for makeup, we had drag queens, cis-women and even teenagers on board with doing extremely elaborate makeup routines. Everyone was experimenting with makeup looks at 6am in the morning, everyone’s brows were on fleek, and matte lipsticks were the thing!
Grateful to the algorithm that has managed to recommend queer makeup artists/content creators like Frederic Chen and Stanzi Potenza to me, who are not only fellow non-binary theylies like yours truly, but also quite creative with their fashion and makeup! Stanzi, who is technically a comedy content-creator, has always shown up with elaborate and colourful makeup (think bold eyeliner, falsies and vibrant eyeshadow). She would take on the avatar of a sexist Chad (basic cis-white man) and mock it, making for hilarious skits!
Frederic Chen and Stanzi Potenza
Makes me also question, if queer content creators are the only ones pushing boundaries in terms of makeup? Think The Lipstick Lesbians’ Alexis Androulakis who explains makeup manufacturing like no other in the industry. Think Indian influencers like Shantanu Dhope, Rajkumari Coco, who have been creating original makeup content, pushing boundaries and absolutely not listening to haters!
Queer-led fashion and makeup creativity has always been a point of criticism, only to eventually be appropriated by the mainstream to profit from. I mean see the way Karan Johar is constantly criticised for his fashion choices. It’s a separate discussion that KJo’s sexuality is still widely speculated on the basis of his fashion choices, but the point is – are we perpetuating stereotypes that position queer folx as being good with makeup just by the virtue of being queer?
It’s a route we can’t escape, it’s a stereotype that both helps and suffocates. Surely makeup left in normie hands is ripe for capitalist exploitation through endless “trends”, but makeup left in queer (and professional MUA) hands immediately lends space for experimentation and creativity, it seems.
Why is this a problem?
Brands like Fenty, Rare Beauty and Rhode are able to market themselves as iconic, but their innovation stops at packaging and paying for their elaborate PR list of beauty creators who cater to their very-specific facial features and skin tone (wherever applicable).
As a consequence, Beauty and aesthetics have come to be perceived as 2 sides of the same coin, where beauty deals with trends, physical qualities and aesthetics is the larger picture that is a curation of things that are “beautiful”. Instagram filters and trends like the Clean Girl “aesthetic” have managed to alter our idea of beauty in that we see the same old types of faces and think, “yes that’s what is beautiful ”. Beauty standards do tend to fixate on one particular idealised feature(s), but what trends do is that they streamline one particular type of beauty, aesthetic, face and features as “it”!
What is a “clean” girl? Who is she? Why is she a ‘she’? Technically clean is just someone who has taken a bath, which also comes with a certain privilege in the present-day socio-political scenario. Does that mean we’re adding shame to the context of beauty? Why is it necessary to look “clean” (no, that does not mean that you start cosplaying as ‘working class’, looking at you, Jojo Siwa!)? Why is this a “beauty standard”? And why is it that “doing too much” is not considered fun anymore, but construed as a chore or a dread-worthy performance?
People do have the choice to do makeup as they like, but the second we start treating one choice as being better than the other, not because of the effort or personal preference but because of what looks better, then we are creating hierarchies. Can there really be levels to beauty? Can life be reduced to an aesthetic? Think about it.
If book-tok trends are anything to go by, the romance genre is currently experiencing a bit of a boom. Historical romances, romantic thrillers, romantasy (romance+fantasy)… you name it, and there’s a subgenre for it. But one subgenre, in particular, has been experiencing a remarkable rise in popularity – sports romances. This sudden surge in romances set within the backdrop of the sports world has taken the mainstream by surprise.
To fans of the genre, the connection between sports and romance makes perfect sense. After all, there’s a certain in-built tension to sports that adds spice to whatever romantic subplot the author creates within it. It should also come as no surprise that authors are expanding the focus of these books – moving beyond the heterosexual to explore queer narratives as well.
Now here is where things get interesting. The world of sports has traditionally served as a domain dominated by the masculine and, subsequently, has been treated as a site to maintain said masculinity. Organized sports are filled with rules and practices that emphasize maintaining certain acceptable forms of masculinity and the status quo. In this context, the lack of diversity in the sports world should come as no surprise – talk or representation of queerness is almost non-existent.
This holds especially true for sports like ice hockey and American football – two of the most popular sports featured in the sports romance subgenere, where the performance of masculinity is almost sacrosanct. The easiest and most overt proof of this is the language players use on the field to assert their dominance over one another. Homophobic and misogynistic slurs are used quite casually and frequently. And only recently are players being fined and called out for such behaviour. The reason I bring up language is because it is indicative of the underlying belief that to be perceived as either feminine or queer is an insult, especially in highly masculine spaces. Queerness is seen as transgressive and as a threat to the dominant culture of sports and society at large.
In today’s world, where sports is seen as a bastion of old-school masculinity and the culture that enables it, the desire for queer representation makes perfect sense. We all want to see ourselves represented, and from a purely statistical perspective, there are probably quite a few queer people hopping, skipping and jumping across our sports fields, but we are yet to acknowledge this reality.
And so we come back to the world of sports romances. The inclusion of queerness in these fictional sports teams, with players falling in love with either each other or other auxiliary characters, takes what we already love about the subgenre to the next level. The characters are attractive, virile, and popular (thanks to being athletes), which adds glamour to the premise of the romantic relationship. The bromances are often as strong as the romances and present male relationships of all sorts in a healthier, more supportive fashion (while also setting up the possibility of companion novels featuring each of the friends).
As mentioned earlier, sports inherently involve high stakes for emotional engagement. This is thanks to the constant grind of the competition and the possibility of debilitating injuries (especially in ice hockey and football), which add to the romantic tension. Moreover, the queer relationships featured in these romances are often wrapped up in the inherent fear of discovery and being outed. Both present an ever-looming source of external conflict and pressure – every author’s freaking dream! But more than that, the juxtaposition of the fear of being outed and the overwhelming fictionalized acceptance displayed by the extended cast of characters has the potential to give readers hope that this might be their reality.
Romantic stories touch our hearts because most of us know what it’s like to be in romantic love and be loved, and even the most cynical of us will admit that it’s powerful stuff. Sports romances of the queer variety do what any good story aims to do – examine our present reality and put a spin on it. Yes, these romances are funny, sexy, and more than a little steamy, but that’s not all they are. By existing, these queer sports romances highlight our reality, which still denies full acceptance of certain identities in certain spaces, forcing people to deny their authentic selves to preserve what they’ve worked for. While this might be a bit of a stretch for those who just want to read about sexy sportsmen being sexy together for the sheer sexiness of it all, it’s worth giving a second thought.
So, ultimately, are sports romances making sports queer? No more than they probably already are, but also… YES!
Debalina Majumder’s (she/her) documentary, Gay India Matrimony, which was released in 2019, was shot between the years 2013-2018. These are coincidentally the exact period between when section 377 was upheld as a homophobic law and later, in 2018, when it was read down. While the primary language of the film is Bengali and English, it manages to address exactly what it needs to. It’s about queer folx being shunned out of society, being kept at bay and away from love & community. But when have we ever paid heed to that?
Queering the Movement
Watching the documentary is a bitter-sweet experience that’s comical, awkward, sarcastic, eye-rolling, and honestly, a little sad. It takes us through the lives and romantic aspirations of Gourab Ghosh (he/him), Sayan (he/him), and Debalina, three queer adults looking for a marriage match for themselves. There’s a cameo from the folx at Sappho For Equality who humorously talk about important things that show how much we rely on hetero-patriarchal systems. It made me question the nature of the institution of marriage, which very much makes promises of being the ultimate safety net.
“The controversies surrounding Gay India Matrimony has made it even more popular than we could have imagined. Both the right wing and the left wing have stopped its screenings, which tells us that we must have asked some very fundamental questions that hit at the heart of the society we live in..” – Debalina
Gay India Matrimony was screened at festivals just before the lockdown in 2020 and had a couple of in-person screenings before everything shut down.
Taking us through the quest of finding partners for our 3 leads, the documentary shows them using all possible modern media available for matchmaking. Everything from advertisements in local newspapers, to matrimony websites and even Facebook!
Majumder takes us through 2 different weddings, where she interviews 2 queer people who are struggling to find a partner and acceptance within their family and peers, either for their queerness or for their political beliefs. One thing that struck me was Gourab’s attempt at finding love at the wedding of his comrade. Gourab laughs in the film, stating that the suitors that he could’ve possibly linked up with, immediately dispersed when they heard him chant the Communist Party’s “lal salaam” to their comrade. He went on to compare how love and the communist revolution both use the colour red, saying, “love is radical just like a revolution”.
What Type Of Couples Do We Prioritise?
When asked about her own criteria for finding a partner to marry, Majumder begins by listing different qualities and immediately realises that she might be asking too much of a single person. Sayan argues that if you want to commit to just one person for your whole life, why should you ask for anything less?
The documentary definitely made me question the monogamous structure of marriage, not just in patriarchal spaces but also within queer companionship. Especially the part where academic Ispsita(she/her) raises valid points on why marriage as a structure promotes patriarchy, queer marriage would then still play into that structure. Then I thought how would this documentary play out when polyamrous folx demand legal recognition for their partnerships as well? Afterall, our legal framework at the moment mainly supports monogamous relationships. But in a country that barely recognises interfaith and inter-caste marriages, queer and non-monogamous relationships feel like a distant dream.
It’s been some time since the documentary has come out and we reached out to Gourab who has some new insights on marriage now.
“My idea of marriage is largely shaped by Bollywood, so I obviously always wanted to have a Mehendi ceremony. But I think that in weddings each ceremony or ritual has some significance behind them. When queer couples perform them they are borrowing them from a heteronormative structure and using it very consciously. So, while I will probably want to put Mehendi or Haldi on my hand, I will also try to politicise the interaction, in my own ways. My understanding of same-sex marriage is that there has to be some sort of civil partnership rights. But in the film we think about whether it should be civil partnership rights for queer folx, while it remains marriage for cis-het people. This would mean putting these relationships on a hierarchy! So, we want marriage rights, even though it has its own problems, rituals, institutional stereotypes, and biases. Then the next step would be to abolish the institution of marriage from the inside.”
Debalina Majumder, Filmmaker with Gourab Ghosh & Professor Dr.Paromita Chakravarti
When did the idea for this project come into your mind? How do you think it ages with the current discourse on queer couples getting marriage rights?
As countries were legalizing same sex marriage, I myself was debating and engaging with the subject of marriage with many activist friends. They maintain that marriage is not on the agenda of the queer movement because it is inherently oppressive and patriarchal. Though not a believer of this institution, I found myself asking, can I reject a structure when my state doesn’t even sanction me the right to participate in it? But as I pondered over these questions, the Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 (in 2013) came, that recriminalized non-normative sexual orientations. The film has aged very well, it does not merely talk about queer marriage, but so much more. Hence the questions raised by ‘Gay India Matrimony’ resonate by opening up the issue of marriage itself — which we know, is constantly being redefined even in our status-quo state.
Do you think marriage rights will be a monumental change for the LGBTQ community? Given patriarchy is sustained by the institute of marriage, will this then change the way we look at legal partnership/companionship?
Within the queer movement itself, there is a sharp divide on the issue of marriage. As state after state in the US, some countries in Europe, our neighbors in Nepal, start accepting same-sex marriage, there are many queer activists who have said that the state is co-opting the subversive potential of the queer rights movement by giving them welfare benefits of the state if they marry. Do we not want welfare measures, legal recognition and sanction, insurance benefits, right to take medical decisions about loved ones? Of course, the queer movement does. But at the same time, rights, welfare measures, and partnership entitlements must not be limited only to people who marry. This way those who choose not to marry will be outside of the ambit of welfare. But, if all of us are equal in front of the state, then why not marriage equality? Marriage limits the partnership to two people, and is inherently patriarchal. The structure of family as we know it today, is also patriarchal. The challenge to patriarchy therefore can hardly come from within marriage. It should not be the sole responsibility of queer folx, but be carried out by all people. But for those who want to get married, the options must be made available.
Marriage promises a bouquet of rights. How can we ensure that queer people who are not married have access to those rights of community and partnership too?
Are heterosexual people who are outside of marriage, entitled to the same benefits, as the married ones are? From social welfare to employment entitlements, as well as societal approval, unmarried people are denied it all. It is not different for queer people. I am not a lawmaker. Neither am I very well versed in all kinds of partnerships that exist all over the world. But we can learn from community practices, where the community (imagined in the broadest sense) takes care of its own. Our imagination must be radical– friendship, not only partnership, queer kinship, not just blood ties, should show us the hope for future — we have already created models for radical togetherness, the rest of the society just needs to catch up with us.
How was this project initially meant to be executed? Did the technical vision change as you got more perspectives involved?
I always wanted to make a fun film, since much of queer life is filled with violence and unhappiness inflicted by society anyway. Initially, we planned on two interlocutors, Sayan and myself, but later Gourab came on board. So our interpersonal dynamics and our dynamics with our friends, colleagues, family shaped the narrative — something that could not be predicted — imparting a quality of aliveness to our film. We were lucky to be surrounded with so much wit, much of which is reflected in the film. At the same time, we couldn’t predict the sombre and sometimes downright homophobic reactions that we would encounter — which added shades to the film, and needed modification of the tone. The music was also necessary to set up the fun tone – Santajit Chatterjee was a gem. Abhro Banerjee has always been my go-to editor as he set the pace of the narrative and created a medium which could tackle serious questions without appearing serious.
Sappho For Equality, an LBT-organization based out of Kolkata, recently celebrated 25 years of its existence. They commemorated this milestone with a program called ‘Out For 25 years’ and ‘Paye Paye Ponchis’ in Bengali. It involved a 3-day celebration from the 18th of June to the 20th of June, 2024. The itinerary was packed with movie screenings, theater performances, and even a curatorial walk! The events were the result of a collective effort of their 5 teams that work in the spaces of Art, Film-making, Music, Dance and Theatre. Each team came up with an original production for the community at-large. To chronicle this moment, we got in touch with Koyel (they/them), Sappho’s Managing Trustee, and asked them about the organization’s milestones and future plans.
On The Paradoxical Safety Of Lockdown
The effectiveness of pandemic-induced lockdowns have been questioned in the years since they were imposed, considering that the effects of the COVID-19 virus still looms large. In addition, the lack of thought about the domestic safety of people belonging to marginalized genders and sexual orientations, put many lives at the risk of abuse.
“The escalation of natal family violence and homelessness during the pandemic were alarming. We took steps that we had never thought of executing before. On 11th September 2020 we established Temporary Residency (TR) – a temporary shelter space for queer-trans people in crisis. It’s been a refuge for nearly 60 individuals in crisis since then. We also strengthened our crisis intervention team over the years by involving the members in several peer support training programs.This collective experience of navigating through a crisis situation helped us develop deeper insights on lived queer and trans experiences in the state.”
Koyel also highlighted that Sappho has established a training center with a canteen and library facilities called Porshi last year in Julyfor the community. It’s a safe space to host livelihood training initiatives, community meetings, community gigs, performances, etc.
Sappho works with quite a few external organizations, government and government-aided spaces like schools and hospitals to raise awareness and find ways to support displaced queer folx. But what they have observed is that a lot of times, these institutions are interested in tokenistic representation of queer and trans folx only.
“We often notice jobs for queer folx are in an environment that’s not queer and trans affirmative. There have been reports of violence within workspaces. Due to lack of affirmative spaces and a space to stay, queer and trans individuals are forced to leave their jobs and migrate to other cities. Sensitizing the workspace is of prime importance. Housing is a common issue for queer and trans individuals. It’s difficult to get rented spaces to stay safely.”
These problems require collective awareness and efforts in order to address queer distress as homophobia and transphobia are deeply internalized in our social fabric. These are further exacerbated along the intersections of caste, class, ability/disability, geo-location, gender, sexuality, language, ethnicity, etc. Keeping all these in mind, Sappho came up with the following basic guide to inclusivity at the workplace:
1.Nurture an open mind and try to locate gaps in practices. 2.Don’t assume anyone’s gender, or frame policies without consulting them. 3. Focus on adding gender neutral toilets that are also accessible to disabled persons 4.Be mindful that pronouns play a big part in creating inclusive spaces 5.Set up an Internal Committee to prevent sexual harassment, and it’d be best to have people from the community in the committee. 6.Make provisions for paid leave for gender affirmative surgeries and related treatment. 7.Offer provisions that benefit an employee’s chosen family 8.Sessions on raising awareness must be held with queer and trans social workers to ensure dependable and authentic information sharing and to familiarize people with ground realities
Intersectional feminism helps us navigate and understand the realities with a certain nuance. It’s a common tool in not just research, but also for organizations working to support people to do it right! As Koyel puts it, “there are several fractures within the discourse of feminism that signals the presence of plurality of experiences. For instance, the voices of Dalit women activists have articulated how the brahmanical patriarchy generates oppression. It has also resonated in the case of queer-trans individuals who are collectivizing to [stand up to] the cos-heteronormativity of patriarchy.”
When asked about how does Sappho works to address structural oppression, Koyel said:
“We’ve realized that it can only be identified by observing the challenges of queer and trans lived experiences. Stories of homelessness, isolation, distress migration, challenges in accessing documents, natal family abuse, lack of access to life supporting resources are widely documented. It is evidence of the deep-rooted homophobia and transphobia in our society.”
Additionally they highlighted that there are ways to begin understanding, and while it can take time and effort, it’s all for a cause and for the overall community.
“It’s high time to acknowledge that we live in an ecology where our well being is interdependent on each other. It is this spirit that has propelled us during the pandemic to continue working together and address the crisis.”
Koyel adds an interesting thought on navigating autonomy and the way we currently understand harassment and abuse:
“Our understanding of bodies comes with the question of accessibility to health facilities that can only understand bodies through a binary lens. Understanding lived experiences as a spectrum is severely lacking in the medical discourse. In our experience, we witnessed child marriage as a common issue in the lives of queer and trans individuals assigned female at birth (AFAB). This results in early pregnancy and there are hardly any facilities that can deal with this complex situation at the intersection of gender identity and sexuality.”
We’re aware of how child marriages are still a prevalent issue in our country, but how often do we hear about queer minors being married off, not for their gender but sexuality?
Queering SRHR
Over several years, the organization has observed that the contemporary discourse of SRHR is dominated by heteronormative assumptions. Queer and trans-centric SRHR discourses are scarce to come across and it’s yet to reach a larger mass. Sappho has engaged on SRHR intensely with the community through workshops on understanding bodies and has published credible material derived from lived experiences.
“Insensitivity of health professionals leads to deprivation of services to the community. SRHR is already soaked in taboo and severe surveillance. And in this context addressing and articulating the needs of queer and trans community requires larger effort. Visibilising the narratives of queer and trans lived experiences focused on SRHR is what is needed to counter invisibilization,” – Koyel added.
It is worth noting that these insights were shared by a single organization that has been trying to document, vocalize, and visiblize queerness for the past 25 years in West Bengal. There is still a long way to go in addressing the needs of the larger community, and that is why it is essential to support community safe spaces like Sappho For Equality to ensure that we keep building a society around us that’s inclusive and safe!
Hello and welcome to my new bi-monthly column where you are going to get to accompany me, a gorgeous and brilliant queer woman who is single for the first time at the age of 25 after a long-term relationship ended. Join me on my adventures in navigating the adult dating world. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that the last time I was single was when I was in the 11th grade and demonetisation had not happened yet. Yes, it has been almost 8 years since that fateful day. And yes, we are all officially that old.
This is my second column entry.
This is my first time being jealous in the context of you and me. Like actually, really jealous. And I understand now why the Hindi word for jealousy is ‘jalan’ (burning) because there is a hot prickly feeling all over my body and my head is hurting. A lot. All my life, I have prided myself in how secure I am. Since school I have preached: “Whoever wants to be with you will stay, and whoever doesn’t – well, what would be the point of them staying anyway?” We have been in a long-distance relationship for so long and never, not once, have I felt even the smallest inkling of the possibility of a flame. But with you, today, at this moment, this clarity evades me.
It was such a simple, stupid, trivial detail that you revealed – that someone whom you have matched with on a dating app is from Gurgaon. Such an irrelevant and ultimately inconsequential fact considering the fact that we have officially been broken up for a few months now. So why is it one that I instantly hated knowing about? Maybe because Gurgaon is a REAL place, and that makes this girl a little bit more real in my head. I don’t want her in there. Because do you know what else that makes true? The fact that, while in the present there might still be a part of both you and me that feels sad about our separation, in the future you will tuck a stray strand of hair behind some girl’s ear and pull her closer to you on your lap as you sigh sentimentally and say, “I never thought love would feel so magical again, but with you I didn’t even have you think! With you it was easy.” And you will mean it also, because you are not an asshole. Life would be so much easier for me if you were.
Even the idea of you one day kissing someone and calling them gorgeous while looking into their eyes makes my body feel like it is burning. Jalan, jalan, jalan. All over. We have loved each other for so many years, and I am twisting and turning in bed with the knowledge that someday the only thing left of this relationship that we built, will be memories. But along with them, will be the memory of this heartache. It will be the knowledge that this was not enough for you to try to help me in cementing the bricks that we were laying. If you put in that effort in your next relationship, I will probably ask myself why you did not care enough about us to do it. If you do not, then I will be left wondering if bidding adieu to us was not a big enough loss for you to try and replicate it. Of course, you have told me that this is not about me and it is about you being unable to do certain things because of the fear of doing them wrong. I ask you this though – how am I supposed to feel like your actions are completely disconnected from your thoughts about me?
I am sure that I am going to bring this up in therapy this week – it is for me to deal with, and that is why I won’t be sending this essay to you. In the meanwhile, I am going to try to process this red hot sensation, understand where it is coming from, and think about which boundaries to put up to not bring myself too close to this flame again. But those are things that I am only going to be able to do tomorrow morning.
When I burn my finger I immediately rush to put it under running water, but what is the first aid for this jalan? Maybe it is telling myself to go to sleep. Maybe it is allowing myself to feel it for a little longer just for tonight, with no judgment, and recognizing that the anger and sadness that are accompanying it do not need to be put in the “no no” box immediately. Maybe it is okay to feel the heat from the pyre of a relationship for one night, just like it is okay to grieve its loss for many more. But hopefully, by the time I am done writing this eulogy, it will have become just a little bit easier to look forward to the healing.
The British imperialist government introduced Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 1861. This made sexual activities that went ‘against the order of nature’ illegal in the eyes of the law. Over time, the interpretation of the kinds of sexual activities that went ‘against the order of nature’ included anything that fell outside of the cis-heteronormative.
During the 163 years since, India has witnessed vast changes. Especially since the Republic’s independence, there have been many movements pushing the country’s institutions to consider the cause of queer rights. This has become more pronounced in the past decade:
In 2014, the NALSA judgement by the Indian Supreme Court allowed people to self-identify as ‘male, female, or transgender.’
In 2018, consensual ‘same-sex’ intercourse was decriminalised in Navtej Johar vs. Union of India, which meant that Section 377 could no longer be used to demonise and punish queer love.
Now, in 2024, the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has been entirely replaced by the ‘Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita’ (BNS), while the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), has been replaced by the ‘Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita’ (BNSS).
The mainstream narrative is that the ‘colonial’ yoke has finally been overthrown and that India will now be governed by its own laws. The 19th century moral code of British imperialism has finally been scrubbed clean from the country.
Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, the reality is far darker.
Forgotten people
In October 2023, just a few days before the Supreme Court denied queer people the right to marriage equality, a 20-year-old Pune man was allegedly kidnapped, extorted, and then sexually assaulted by three men.
In 2020, only 236 transgender people were registered as victims of all crimes that were committed across the country. This number is a minute fraction when compared to the 2011 census, which noted that there were 4.8 million trans people living in India.
Apart from these, there are countless other horror stories that the queer community is deeply familiar with, and have been acknowledged through experiences shared online as well.
The idea of being openly queer is a privileged one, and only a fraction of the vast community have the liberty to do so.
Time and again, studies have shown that queer people not only face higher levels of online abuse, but also have a greater threat of sexual violence than cis-gendered heterosexual people.
The harsh reality is that queer people, including gay men and transgender people, are regularly sexually harassed, molested, raped, and then denied any sort of legal recourse.
A simple Google search for ‘Grindr experiences in India’ also reveals scores of stories about queer men being subjected to unimaginable ordeal and even being ‘outed’ to their natal families.
But shouldn’t the law work to protect all citizens from such incidents of violence, regardless of their gender identity?
Everyone is after all equal before the eyes of the law, according to the Indian Constitution.
Starting July 1, 2024, Indian men will not have a clear law protecting them from sexual assault and rape.
The BNS has completely removed the provisions of IPC’s Section 377, which continued to criminalise sexual offences against men, transgender individuals, and even animals.
This is a nod to the patriarchal mindset that ‘strong and brutish’ men cannot be sexually assaulted, and those who do have such experiences are somehow inferior in their masculinity.
To understand how the BNS and BNSS would affect queer people, this author caught up with Advocate Suraj Tomar (he/him), who practises at Delhi’s Karkardooma Court.
He echoed that there is no equivalent to Section 377 in the BNS, which can have a devastating effect on a survivor of sexual violence who may be a man or a trans-person.
He added: “We know that queer people are more susceptible to violence, especially in Tier-2 cities and remote districts of India. In 2016, a young man was abducted by a group of men and gang-raped on the campus of Banaras Hindu University. There are many news articles where the man recounts his experience of how the police mocked him about this when he went to file a complaint. In 2023, we heard of another case of a man ending his life in Gorakhpur (in UP) because a few men raped him, after which he was being blackmailed. A report by the National AIDS Control Organizaiton (NACO) in 2015 says that 1 out of every 5 transgender persons in India faces sexual violence. Queer people who are closeted or belong to financially unprivileged groups were hesitant to seek justice even when there were provisions for punishment for sexual violence. Now, when there are no clear provisions, they will be more susceptible to sexual violence as it isn’t seen as a crime.”
When it comes to the use of gendered language in BNS, Tomar added that “Chapter V of BNS deals with offences against children and women. Clause 63 is the equivalent to Sec. 373 of the IPC, which basically defines rape. It starts with “A man is said to commit rape …”. The question remains that if a man rapes a transgender person, a transgender person rapes a man or a woman, or if a woman rapes another woman, then the victim has no grounds to seek justice.”
Just like the requirement of a doctor’s approval to get a transgender card in India, the use of such language that reinforces the binary, will negatively impact people who do not conform to the ‘man-woman’ discourse.
According to news outlets, several petitions have already been put forward questioning the new laws, with calls for the use of gender-inclusive language in the BNS and BNSS.
Sharif Rangnekar (he/him), the writer of QueerSapien, has also spoken out on how 20 years ago he was assaulted and did not have any legal recourse owing to stigma and the threat of ostracisation.
In an Instagram video, he elucidates how the same may happen today, now that no legal recourse is even available. The combination of dogma and stigma can be deadly.
Even people outside the queer community have expressed their concerns. Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaisingh has said that ‘India will wake up to Police Raj’ if the new criminal laws kick in.
Economist Amartya Sen is not considering the BNS as a ‘welcome change’ since they were ‘implemented without consultation.’
‘Lesser’ Evil for a Greater Good?
It is now clear that the queer community has gotten the short end of the stick. But this supposed ‘de-colonisation’ has other setbacks too.
Adv. Tomar elucidates how the term “‘terrorism’ has been defined in broad and unclear terms in the BNS as something that may ‘intimidate’ the general public.”
He added that “adultery has been omitted, and murder by a group of people having a common identity like religion, caste, etc. has a lower punishment now.”
One positive aspect of the new law is that electronic evidence is now ‘primary evidence’, addressing the growing threat of cybercrimes and the trail of criminality that exists online.
But what will these minor victories mean for gay or straight cis-men or transgenders who are assaulted and find the courage to go to court, only to find that the law, like the rest of society, isn’t built for them?
Way forward?
Across the board, many legal experts have agreed that the BNS and BNSS will deeply affect Indians’ daily lives negatively. But there remains confusion as to how exactly this will happen.
Shreya Gupta, a law student and queer person, elaborates on how the “implementation is fraught with confusion, exacerbated by the Indian judiciary’s existing backlog. This uncertainty is reflected in states like Karnataka, where opposition to the laws is prompting considerations for state-level amendments. Given the current circumstances, introducing these laws may not be the most prudent move.”
1.4 billion people are now governed by new criminal laws, and almost all of us have been in the dark about its effects. That is deeply unsettling.
Much more needs to be done to make the lives of Indian queer people easier. The recognition that assault can happen to anyone, irrespective of their sexual orientation, sex, and gender identity, is just the bare minimum.
Sadly, we have been failed by the very institutions expected to safeguard us.
In the kaleidoscope of Indian culture, ideals of male beauty have long been shaped by the silver screen’s fair-skinned heroes. Those days are now long gone. Within the tapestry of the country’s LGBTQ+ community, a fascinating shift is taking place. In this article, we are going to discuss the dynamic world of intergenerational body ideals in the community, where the traditional notions of attractiveness are confronting the rise of the obsession with gym culture and the ever-present pressures and influence of social media. We are going to discuss contrasting forces that are shaping perceptions of body ideals across generations, from the silver screen hunky men to the chiselled physiques dominating our social media feeds. Brace yourself as we discover a community where “bears” challenge stereotypes and a powerful body positivity movement redefines what it means to be attractive.
Traditionally, the media and society in India have fed us that having fair skin and a slender build is the epitome of body ideal standards. However, the rise of Western media has introduced a new ideal of the muscular, toned physique. This has created a big change in the gay community, which was influenced by this shift. The older generation, who were raised on big-screen body ideals, preferred the slender and delicate build. In contrast, the younger generation influenced by the images on social media of muscular chiselled torsos, prefer the more athletic gym-toned look.
Social media has become a powerful force in shaping body image in the gay community of India. Among these platforms, Instagram has the most influence as it shows a carefully curated feed of sculpted physiques and edited photos, thereby creating unrealistic expectations of body image in our minds. This relentless exposure can fuel your mind with similar expectations and make you follow certain unrealistic ways to achieve that fitness goal. This leads to body dissatisfaction among gay men who have seen that the muscular body is the only ideal body type to pursue.
However, social media is not all gloom and doom. It also shows us body-positive influencers who are working to make the platform more inclined towards accepting bodies of all kinds. Many communities promote body positivity actively on social media platforms. These spaces help people celebrate different body types, encourage self-acceptance, and challenge unrealistic beauty standards. Social media also allows visibility of niche subcultures within the community, which dismantles the singular notion of the muscular, chiselled body in the community.
As a result, it is a double-edged sword that necessitates a critical approach. It’s very crucial to be mindful of what we consume on social media and be intelligent in seeking out representations of diverse beauty. By doing this, our community can harness the power of social media to create a more inclusive and accepting space for everyone.
I spoke to some men belonging to the community about their body ideals and what they look for in a partner. One of them goes by the name Raj (he/him), 55, who said: “For me, a man with a kind smile and a gentle touch is more attractive than six-pack abs.” Akash (he/him), 28, said something different: “I work hard to maintain a muscular physique. It’s a way to express myself and feel confident.” Many have different body ideals in our community and it should be welcomed because it promotes diversity.
The conversation around body image within the Indian gay community extends far beyond the clash of the slender physique and gym-toned Instagram body. Two body-positive movements are changing the system, in my opinion. One is the bears, from the LGBTQ+ community, which are larger, hairier men. It is quite a refreshing counterpart to the often thin queer ideal heavily promoted by the media. This movement celebrates a different kind of masculinity, one that is of strength and maturity. This does embrace a broader spectrum of body attractiveness as it offers a sense of belonging and acceptance of men who might not fit the mainstream mould. And the other one is the body positive movement, which promotes self-acceptance and challenges unrealistic body and beauty standards among the LGBTQ+ community. It encourages the members of the community to celebrate their unique bodies, regardless of size, shape, disabilities etc. It encourages people to dismantle the pressure to conform and create an inclusive space for everyone.
The Indian gay community is a vibrant mosaic, whose perception is not confined to singular beauty ideals. Gone are the days when the fair, leading men dominated the silver screen and our cultural imaginations. Today, we have the “bears” and the body positivity movement aiming to dismantle that system. Younger generations might still gravitate toward athletic physiques and older generations might still retain a fondness for delicate build. Regardless of these preferences, people are slowly accepting and celebrating different body types. The evolving conversation within the community is a testament to its dynamism. In the end, the future of the body image within the gay community promises to be as diverse and vibrant as the community itself.
Before the King Princesses and Troye Sivans arrived on the queer-pop music scene, and prior to my shift from 9xM to VH1 India (because someone had told me that I could finally listen to Taylor Swift’s Love Story), there were Bollywood songs! Don’t be shy, let’s admit it – we all had a notebook to jot down all the latest lyrics, which may have eventually become a Word document upon discovering genius and gaana.com.
Amidst these changes and shifts, we’ve tried to find our own experiences from the pre-existing database of songs we have grown up with. While no one could understand why your 13-year-old self was intensely ruminating about Riya from C division instead of completing your english homework, somehow Atif Aslam in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani’s Tu Jaane Na did. Even though you did a terrible job at keeping up with the English bits of it (it’s actually: <<shining in the shade in sun like; A pearl upon the ocean; Come on heal me>> you can thank me later!).
As I turned older and queer-er, I was forced to face the song that had zapped my baby bi brain: Crazy Kiya Re from Dhoom 2. I am 24 years old now and I have moved on from Dhoom 2 to depressingly comforting Mitski or even a Sabrina Carpenter for a quick shot (pun intended) of dopamine. Yet, I can’t help but come back to these Bollywood hits, which I now listen to with a newfound perspective. Let’s take a look at some of my fave lyrics revisited with a queer audio-filter!
1. Girls like to swing – Sunidhi Chauhan, Dil Dhadakne Do
Lyrics: Girls Like To Swing..Swing.. Zara Aage Nikal Ke..Swing.. Naye Rango Mein Dhal Ke..Swing.. Andaaz Badal Ke.. Yaani Hichkichana Nahi Hai..Swing..
In the video, we see Priyanka Chopra with slicked back hair, dressed in an all-black ensemble made up of straight pant – vest combo. She takes charge and dips Anushka Sharma who is sporting a frilly, pastel-coloured dress. While watching it, you can’t help but notice some queer undertones! It’s giving femme, fluid, and fruity, and we’re here for it.
Taking the movie’s plot into consideration, the lyrics obviously foreshadow these characters’ struggle with freedom from patriarchal practices that dictate marriage as the appropriate route to ‘settling down’, and the instant female-bonding feels like queer liberation as the lyrics emphasis on swinging! IYKWIM.
2. Thug Le – Shweta Pandit & Vishal Dadlani, Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl
Kudiyan nu thug le … hey Mundeya nu thug le … hey
An entire generation raised on 9XM and MTV India was busy learning the hook step to this song. As the track ends, there were bi babies coming into their own queer awakening.
The movie might have flopped (did it, though?) but the songs of Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl popped off and how! While the gen-Z kids were busy learning the hook step to the song, between Ricky’s (Ranveer Singh) hair swaying to the rhythm and Ishika (Anushka Sharma) grooving in her heels, there were queer babies like me experiencing bi-panic for the first time!
As the song ends on a strong note of bi agenda that’s been seared into my brain.
3. Kadam – Prateek Kuhad, Karwaan
Lyrics: Main ghadi ghadi; Bekhabar hi tha; Kya raaz mere; Dil mein hai chupaa; Hai naam kya mera?
From the film Karwaan, the story revolves around 3 misfits, some who keep chasing their goals and others who have given up. Yet, the feeling of being out of touch with your own body and mind is not so unfamiliar with queer & trans folks. From being in denial to having no choice but to face and accept the internal change, while questioning the past, the process is familiar to many of us. Coming out, figuring the labels, googling gender-affirming resources, and navigating the loss of the previous self, the lyrics highlight the battle of wanting to change but the hopelessness felt when failing to be able to do so.
4. Jaane Kyon – Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Dil Chahta Hai
Lyrics: Jaane kyon log pyar karte hain Jaane kyon woh kisi pe marte hain
Bollywood is yet to have its own queer version of the coming-of-age trope, where a group of gay friends come together for a trip. But, Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai seeded the idea for millennials and gen-Z kids anyway! Aamir Khan’s character keeps bantering with Preity Zinta’s about hating on the concept of love. And, look, I agree that cynicism is the main trait of his character, but stepping out of the hetero-tinted glasses, not everyone is looking for their “one”, (or more than one, in case you’re polyamorous!).
The character may be singing it out of emotional immaturity, but when you revisit with an understanding of aro-ace-ness, it challenges the hetero-patriarchal idea that romantic partnerships are more fulfilling than other forms of love. You can’t blame him for questioning it, considering friendship is anyway used as an important plot tool in the movie as a solution to their interpersonal issues. So yes, don’t mind me asking Jaane Kyun Log Pyaar Karte Hain even after the movie ends.
Lyrics Nayi, nayi nahi yeh baatein, yeh baatein hai purani Kaisi paheli hai yeh kaisi paheli zindagani Thamma haan roka isko kisne, haan yeh toh behta pani Kaisi paheli hai yeh kaisi paheli zindagani
Okay, now that we have gotten that out of our way, Parineeta’s song starring Rekha as the oh-so-fabulous lead singer with a moulin rouge-esque backdrop, features lyrics that sync with the film’s plot. It follows the complicated lives that the characters in the movie lead. Keeping my unhealthy obsession with Rekha’s red saree in this song aside, the lyrics throw light on how these conversations were never new to begin with and that no one could stop its course.
Given the context of how certain peeps insist on brushing off queerness and our existence as something borrowed from the ‘West’, the lyrics “Nayi, nayi nahi yeh baatein, yeh baatein hai purani” can be interpreted as a response to them. These conversations that are often dismissed as “westernizing” have always existed and have historically been documented as well. As puzzling as it is to be on the receiving end of their rootless critique, true to the words, nobody can stop us from exercising our individual free will. Life moves on with or without bigotry.
6. Kukkad – Nisha Mascarenhas, Marianne D’cruz, Shahid Mallya, Vishal–Shekhar; Student of the Year
Lyrics: Oh seena 6 biscuit da Oh munda 6 foot da Oh dheere dheere karda dhamaal sa Oh munda kukkad kamaal da
Do I hate the fact that Rohan (Varun Dhawan) and Abhimanyu (Siddharth Malhotra) don’t end up together? Yes. Is my letterboxd review for this movie an elaborate think piece on this? Yes. On a different note, Student of the Year (SOTY) explores a love triangle between Rohan, Abhimanyu, and Shanaya (Alia Bhatt). The movie deals with themes of jealousy, ambition, and betrayal. Kukkad is the song that introduces Abhimanyu to the other two protagonists. Sung from a male POV, the lyrics describe everything from his physical attributes to his persona. I have nothing more to add except, why are you as a grown man describing another man’s abs in such detail? Or maybe SOTY walked so that The Challengers could run (I am being so unserious right now).
7. Isq Risk – Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; Mere Brother Ki Dulhan
Lyrics: Naina laage toh jaage Bina dori ya dhaage Bandhte hai do naina khwaab se Na ata ho, na pata ho Kore naino mein koi aa base Kaisa yeh isq hai, ajab sa risk hai
This Imran Khan, Ali Zafar, and Katrina Kaif starrer is yet another love triangle film that released in 2011. Back then, I was busy learning the choreography of Ra.one’s Chammak Challo instead of watching this film. The film managed to grab the attention thanks to its fun, spunky playlist, revealing the confusion, realization, and acceptance of Kush (Imran Khan) as he allows himself to fall in love with his brother ki dulhan, through music.
This is relatable because us queer folks go through such a non-linear journey of coming to terms with so many fundamental things about ourselves, including attraction. The lyrics echo this emotion of attraction being out of your control, which is oft-debated by the bigots. They think that [queer] attraction is a choice and not instinctive. Despite the lack of important laws safeguarding us and our privacy, and increased risk of hate crimes and isolation, queer folks continue to strive for the isq that comes with the risk. Awaiting the day where this part of our lives is not a canon event that everyone of us has to go through.
Oldie But Queer Goldie; An Honorable Mention
As I sit and listen to Mukesh’s lyrics from the movie Anand: “Meine tere liye hi saath rang ke sapne chune”, I cannot help but think that maybe it is queer. Maybe it is not, but growing in a pop culture space completely consumed with the concept of a cis-boy and cis-girl falling in love repeatedly, it doesn’t hurt a little to daydream about them from a completely queer perspective.
I adore Pride Month for its celebration of queerfolk all around the world. I celebrate alongside every queer voice, loudly and proudly, because nothing has ever been wrong with being queer. Still, a strange feeling of dread accompanies my excitement as June approaches.
Every year, like clockwork, the bigots come out in droves during Pride, spewing their vile rhetoric and hateful insults. Meanwhile, companies change their socials to rainbows, advocating for diversity and acceptance while continuing to invest money into child labor or politicians pushing for anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
June reinvigorates hate as much as it does Pride. And as you will soon learn, hate has always been a part of Pride’s complicated history.
Pride from Prejudice
In July 1969, humanity landed its first man on the moon. The monumental achievement is thanks to countless scientists who paved the road for Neil Armstrong’s first iconic step on that beautiful grey rock. Yet for all that humanity achieved among the stars, the situation back home remained significantly more primitive.
A month before NASA fired up the rockets for Apollo 11, the NYPD threatened to fire on a crowd of rioting queer folx in Greenwich Village. On June 28, 1969, undercover police officers began a raid on a nightclub named Stonewall Inn. The police arrested queer people for horrific crimes such as“wearing makeup as a man” or “wearing pants as a woman.” As nightsticks swung and people got pinned against the walls, a fire lit up in the hearts of every patron.
The police officers, armed with heavy nightsticks and an unfounded sense of security from the dozens of angry, marginalized people around them, pushed patrons around. They loaded liquor and lesbians alike onto police cars like cargo, and the injustice of the situation started to attract a crowd.
Eventually, the crowd began to heckle the police officers, who naturally responded to shouts of “Gay Power” with excessive force. Soon enough, bottles, bricks, and purses flew in retaliation, and a riot broke out. The Stonewall Riot sparked a series of LGBTQ+ movements that sprung up in various parts of the United States throughout 1969.
And why did the Stonewall Riot become the catalyst for an LGBTQ+ revolution? Because queerfolk won.
Even the NYPD, at the height of its bigotry, admitted the embarrassing loss of New York’s finest. The sobriquet of Pride wasn’t just earned from confidence in one’s identity. Queerfolk earned that pride for winning against an institution of bigotry. The NYPD didn’t expect to lose quite so spectacularly to men in dresses and women in pants.
Nowadays, countries celebrate June as Pride Month in remembrance of the Stonewall Riots. International groups from Serbia, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Brazil, Canada, and many others honored the event as a symbolic gesture of solidarity.
The Culture War
While queerfolk prepare for Pride Parades, homophobic grifters on social media ready a slate of the worst takes you’ve ever seen. The moment June 1 hits, feeds become rife with posts from bigots demonizing “Pri-DEMON-th.” Ironically, they seem as excited about Pride Month as queerfolk are, much as they deny it.
They’re a big part of why Pride Month stresses me out. The emotional whiplash of cute couples waving rainbow flags to conservative aunts sharing the vilest homophobic memes on social media is enough to rip my head off my body. In my heart of hearts, I know these are just the flailing of a dying breed. People are becoming more accepting, and history proves this to be the case.
And yet the hateful few grow louder and louder, not realizing the boat they’re on is slowly taking water. Unfortunately, some of those few have the means to set back queer rights for a couple more years through hateful policies. Of course, these politicians wouldn’t have such power if they didn’t have the money machines behind them.
Profitable Progress
Capitalist corporations didn’t just see progress in Pride parades. They also saw profits. Lots of it. About $4 trillion even, according to corporate analysts. The commodification of Pride showcases the unsettling manipulation of large corporations on unsuspecting queerfolk. After years of being unseen or outright mocked in advertisements, why shouldn’t they buy some Nike Shoes with rainbows on them?
Queer ads have become a win-win for many brands in the modern day. Social media becomes a light show of multicolored profile pics and Pride merch every June, with queer employees spotlighted and patted on their minimum-wage backs. The LGBTQ+ community shares these posts in praise, while bigots share these posts in outrage.
Either way, the brand got shared.
I don’t begrudge people for being happy about this. Hell, I am happy about this. The very notion of corporations pandering to queerfolk is, in itself, a cultural win. You won’t see me complaining about gay people getting that bag. However, the “win” has a ton of asterisks attached to it.
As soon as June ends, the rainbow lights turn off, and companies act like queerfolk don’t exist for the next eleven months. Some corporations who waved rainbow flags even bankrolled politicians with the power to halt LGBTQ+ rights. For the curious, the names include Amazon, Walmart, Verizon, Wells Fargo, Home Depot, AT&T, and many others.
Two steps forward, two steps back.
Stressful Celebrations
I’ve never been the best at handling my feelings. I have five emotions in my head, and they’re all different variations of Anxiety from Inside Out 2. I know I’m supposed to be happy, but it doesn’t help when my cynicism is backed by reality. Bigotry still exists. Corporations profit from marginalized groups.
Even so, I remember that faithful June night in 1969 when a crowd of angry queerfolk fought for their rights. I remember every Pride Parade since, every letter from the LGBTQ+ acronym making themselves seen by a society that once kept them out of sight. I remember the bracelet my girlfriend made for me, showcasing the red, purple, and blue of bisexuality.
Yeah, some things still suck. But there’s a hell of a lot more things to be happy about. And I will fight to keep things that way.
A community of transgender folx, many from Bahujan and Dalit backgrounds, reside in Sandeep Nagar (on the outskirts of Kovilpatti), Tamil Nadu, which is a society that has been set up under the leadership of Dalit transgender activist, Grace Banu. The society is a safe space for transgender folx to reside as a community and had been providing refuge to 2 queer teens: Roshni*(she/her), a 19-year-old queer cis-woman and her minor friend, who is trans (she/her). The safety of this community has been compromised as a result of death threats from Roshni’s caste-Hindu family who gathered around their society and “laid siege”.
*name changed to protect privacy
Who laid siege to the transgender community residing in Sandeep Nagar?
Prior to these events, on the 18th of June, 19 year-old Roshini was presented at the V.K Puram police station, where she was accompanied by some residents of Sandeep Nagar. According to a report by The New Indian Express (who have misgendered the trans minor throughout their report) she had refused to go with her biological family citing sexual and emotional harassment. These details are also spelt out in the petition filed by Grace Banu (copy pictured below) to the Chief Minister’s cell and the superintendent of the Thoothukudi police station. Due to these circumstances, Roshni took refuge at Sandeep Nagar. She eventually moved to a government-aided shelter.
Despite her having shifted out, Roshni’s frustrated relatives gathered around Sandeep Nagar, along with “casteist goons” who threatened the residents and Grace Banu outside their homes. As reported in The New Indian Express, one of the relatives told the residents: “who will question us? I will manage to come out of jail in seven years.”.
On the 12th of July, Banu submitted a petition to the Chief Minister’s cell and the Thoothukudi police station superintendent. In it, she sought protection and appealed to the policemen to ward off the goons who were causing ruckus in the neighborhood with an official warning. She had also asked for police patrol that could ensure the community’s safety. In her comment to Gaysi Family, Grace Banus said, “The local police took 4 days to respond. They visited Sandeep Nagar yesterday for patrolling and said they will keep an eye on the situation.”
The minor, a trans-girl and a friend of Roshni’s, was presented at the Kovilpatti All Women’s police station. Thereafter, she was was sent home with her parents on the condition that the parents should not torture her. On the 11th of July, the minor reported alleged harassment once again and had left home. Sources told The New Indian Express that she was taken to the Thalamuthu Nagar police station for further inquiry. As of now, there are no updates on the minor’s situation and where she is right now.
“Everyone needs to know that violent casteism and honour killings are very much alive in Southern Tamil Nadu and it needs to be strongly addressed. The casteist groups who threatened the transgender community must be apprehended and stopped from engaging in such transphobic and extra-judicial acts. There is no queer liberation without dalit liberation.” – Grace Banu
What is the history of the Sandeep Nagar neighborhood?
Sandeep Nagar was set up by Grace Banu with the support of their trans-friendly ally district collector Sandeep Nanduri, after whom the new village is named. It’s a residential and employment space for approximately 30 transgender women. The shocking part of this incident is that these 30 transgender folx, already alienated by mainstream society, were threatened right outside their homes in a neighborhood that was designated as a safe space for them. It’s essential to remind ourselves that trans or queer safety is not something that the system provides, but it’s something that the system has to continue to ensure.
How are we evolving as a culture and society if people feel comfortable with the idea of killing young people, while justifying their queerphobia?
When asked if there is anything that we, the larger Indian queer community and its allies, can do to extend our support besides amplifying this news, she said, “Dalit Trans people have risked their lives to support two rural queer teens. But the support from urban queer people for such cases is little to non-existent. We need queer people everywhere – corporate DEI leaders to NGO leaders, everyone to stand with us and fight this violent casteism [in addition to queerphobia].”
So far only a few news agencies or outlets have covered this news, which in itself is an issue. A lot of media coverage has been historically redirected from queer rights movement to celebrity culture, instead!
That aside, many reports that did cover the issue have used gendered pronouns that are not appropriate for the minor involved in the issue, who is trans. Many news platforms have also sensationalized the matter by referring to the 2 teenagers as a ‘couple’, despite Grace Banu’s petition’s wording, which refers to the 2 queer young persons as friends. This leads to the erasure of the nuance in this matter, which is not just about queerness but also about caste hierarchies that exist even in queer society.
Taylor Swift is the 34-year-old pop sensation of American origin, who has had the world in her grip, as a musician and performer, since 2006. Her reputation precedes her and she is known for her biographical songs, detail-oriented execution of album concepts, imagery in lyricism, and overall business acumen & marketing strategy. Even with all of the control that she exercises over her artistic production and the business of music, her work hasn’t been safe from criticism and controversy. Regardless of whether you hate or love Taylor Swift, her cultural impact has gone beyond petty celebrity gossip and expanded to discussions about her socio-economic-political & environmental impact. Her cultural currency has managed to keep her relevant and it’s a little hard to ignore it when there’s a billionaire with an undeniable stronghold over such a large, global demographic.
Taylor Swift: A Lyrical Genius or Viral Buzzwords?
To discuss this, we brought on-board four self-proclaimed Swifties (members of the Taylor Swift fandom), Kashvi (she/her), Surabhi (she/her), Diksha (she/her), and Anjali (she/her). All 4 Swifties are in their mid 20s, cis-queer women living in urban India. Surabhi (she//her) an avid listener began by expressing her disappointment about the latest release, The Tortured Poets Department:
“The Eras tour and simultaneously dropping a double-album doesn’t feel like she’s sat with any of her releases lately. It feels like she’s putting out half drafts and has become a money-making machine. She has zero social media presence and only shows up with her albums. Everything is basic, trendy, and catchy (not in a good way). There was a time when I would sit with her lyrics and engage with her poetry. Her music these days is so repetitive.”
While this is hard to disagree with, it also raises certain questions about artists’ relationship with social media and using it for marketing. If an artist can afford to not care about their social media, wouldn’t they immediately also abandon the external pressure to maintain a social media account? And what kind of artists are able to afford such luxury? Kashvi chimes in that it is not necessarily about being active or vocal on social media, but about being authentic. One would agree that if being authentic and relatable was your whole brand identity, then what Kashvi says does make sense.
Surabhi has another bone of contention with the latest album:
“She’s repeated so many metaphors, it’s almost like she’s romanticizing her bad mental health and stretching it to fit the idea of ‘the Taylor Swift journey’ . What’s a journey if you’re not even honestly putting in the effort to revolutionize the creative hold you have on the world right now? There was a time when her lyrics showed how isolated she was. Some think it’s genius of her to create parallels in her songs and albums, but anyone’s journal entry will draw such parallels.”
Many fans reportedly had similar gripes. When one takes out the time to listen to 30 songs based on the life experiences of a 34-year-old white woman during a genocide of Asian people, a failing world economy, and political turmoil at-large, and she only sing about her romantic pursuits in a rather vague way to make it relatable for the listener, it begs the question – what is the message that she’s putting out there?
“She announced the album with a caption where she said that ‘there is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed’. But the album doesn’t represent that AT ALL. It’s so random. Feels like Instagram-able jargon put together. Like what is ‘I cry but I’m so productive’?” – Kashvi implores.
Socio-Economic Impact Of The ‘Eras’ Tour
A LinkedIn post recently highlighted what a blessing the Eras tour has been for the American economy, with Taylor Swift’s concerts not just creating jobs and paying hefty sums to everyone involved in the tour, but also boosting the local economy of towns in the neighborhood.
As highlighted by Surabhi, the experience didn’t exactly reflect what Miss Swift hoped to do;
“The Eras Tour was the most scammy concert that I have ever experienced on TV. Imagine how fooled I would feel if I actually spent money on this? Taylor has the same expressions while she sings. She’s singing the same mass-approved songs, and she frames a generic background story to make it special. What if she chose to sing ‘Ronan’or ‘Best Day’, which are basically the songs that make her the artist ‘Taylor Swift’!”
Not to mention the infamous topic about Swift harming the environment by having two private jets flying simultaneously between cities that are barely a state away. What ever happened to the tour bus culture? Time is money, but is the tour then worth experiencing? Does it remain one-of-a-kind? It makes a good case for anyone to question the motivation of the artist who seems to be out there to simply produce fast-music.
“Her tours are never ending, and while it improves the economy of the towns and cities she’s visiting, it adds to the air pollution so much more immensely, which she’s not even addressing.” Surabhi points out.
Taylor’s usage of private jets indicates her prioritization of her own comfort over all else. They are and will continue to be a status symbol. Investing in good security probably costs way less than maintaining private jets.
It’s not about pulling down a woman successful on her own terms, but white people who harm the entire world, justifying it as a requirement for success. People are annoyed with Taylor Swift because despite all the minimal good she does, people who are struggling worldover are carrying the burden of the issues that she creates.
“I’m a die hard Swiftie but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna support everything she does just because she is TAYLOR SWIFT.” announces Diksha.
A Feminist Icon
Let’s be real, when we think feminism, we do not think of Taylor Swift. Personally, when I think about feminist music, I associate it with Riot Girl music. Because that has made more impact on my life than Swift’s “The Man”. Even back in 2015, when Swift released the music video for ‘Bad Blood’ I felt more excited about the cameos and never really correlated it with feminism. Almost 10 years since the music video, I haven’t seen any of the celebrities featured interact with Taylor Swift in public (I almost forgot Zendaya was a part of it).
“It was super radical of her to re-release her albums, but it threw light on all the feuds she’s involved in the past. I love ‘All Too Well’ but I doubt people would have heard a 10-minute version of a song if it wasn’t associated with Gyllenhall. Taylor is not a feminist, she’s just a woman and there are certain experiences she sings about that are shared by all of us.” Kashvi says, expressing her frustration.
It’s so vague, that everyone relates to it!
“Taylor’s connection to feminism is limited to calling out male singers for writing songs about their lives and exes, while she is herself being criticized for the same thing and putting a blotch on her exes’ careers. It was because of the Scooter Braun controversy that her albums were able to get that angle, besides that we don’t really know her involvement in the movement,” Kashvi adds.
When I think of feminism in the context of famous, contemporary American singers, Halsey sets a better lyrical and production standard for me. And I do think that Swift was wrong to say “Charlie Puth is underrated” . His music is pretty good, but he’s rated as much as a cis-het white male artist.
But as Diksha points out, “Yes it was relatable back then, only back then”.
For Anjali who is in her mid-20s now, going through a sudden breakup, navigating expectations of adulthood and friends, the Tortured Poets Department album helped them process their sadness. There’s a universal feeling of betrayal that comes with being suddenly abandoned and questioning yourself about whether it is a fundamental flaw that you were born with.
“For me, the album is in different phases of heartbreak. It is not my place to dissect it for her, but I really hope she’s okay. I have more emotional attachment to the album as it coincides with my breakup. I related to the grief and confusion that came with the sudden breakup, and the desperation of trying to make someone love you.” [Anjali]
While I am well aware that discussing Taylor Swift probably adds to her celebrity, and it will likely not affect her public image on the scale that she currently exists, my point was to never to put down an artist. This piece was largely born after her new album dropped as a way to chronicle the moment. It has been over a month since the album came out, and we still get regular voice memos from Swift. By these memos, I mean her attempts to release new versions/draft recordings of her songs to remain at the top of the charts.
We doubt that with her marketing ploys and a loyal fanbase, her relevance will go away anytime. She has managed to cement her legacy such that her lore will likely be around for as long as our civilization continues business as usual. Should one person have this much power? That’s a discussion for another article. But, it’s not just about Taylor Swift and her individual ability to cultivate such influence on the media at a time when there are pressing humanitarian issues that need public attention. It goes both ways, newsrooms generate headlines about celebrities and celebrity culture because people love reading about it, but we are also fed media coverage strategically. Celebrity culture’s criticism has been reduced to mere criticism and requires more action from us – boycott and divest from celebrity culture now!
In today’s world, where conversations about gender identity, norms, and the dynamics of power are ever-evolving, examining historical precedents becomes crucial for understanding the roots and implications of these issues. The reign of Akbar, one of the most illustrious rulers of the Mughal Empire, provides a rich case study in the regulation of masculinity and gender norms. Akbar’s reign has been interpreted and studied by different scholars through myriad lens, focusing on the nature and composition of the ruling elite, institutions of governance, religious ideology, structures of revenue collection, the economy of the empire, networks of power sharing, and the role of normative texts, often taking references from Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama. However, only a few scholars have explored the notions of masculinity in the imperial court, which has the potential to broaden the propensity of the period. The norms of masculinity in the imperial court give us information about sexual disciplining of imperial servants, regulations concerning marriage, norms for male bodily comportment and ceremonial purification, and conflicts over the acceptability of homosexual love. Through a critical reading of courtly literature, historians draw out the ideals of manhood articulated through the person and body of the king. In this essay, we will attempt to comprehend and discuss the representation of imperial norms of masculinity in Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama.
In the imperial court of Akbar, a great deal of effort and justification were expended to establish the codes of masculinity and establish a setting where those norms could be regulated for imperial servants. Their constant pursuit of the qualities that both developed a man’s highest nature and qualified him for the highest form of worship, which is imperial service, went beyond just trying to defend their allegiance to the emperor.
Certain kinds of norms were to be followed by a man to get the opportunity to serve at the imperial court. In Abul Fazl’s language, elevation in the imperial service was itself a test and a training. He mentioned in the Akbarnama, ‘The emperor’s trust was like a draught of heady wine, which only strong men could drink’. The statement shows how the notion of strong man or masculinity decides the status and power of man in the court. Muzaffar Alam in his work, in the same context, mentioned the instructions one needed to follow to win the trust of the emperor. Imperial servants were urged to read Tusi’s work, work of Ghazali, the sufic poetry of Rumi; they should exercise moderation in all things, maintain constant vigilance, should hunt for military exercise, should exercise close supervision of the town and neighbourhoods under their authority and should take steps against wine-drinking except where it was for medical purposes and for intellectual stimulation.
Abul Fazl also identified some inner qualities of men that need to be within men who serve the court and these qualities are also mentioned in the description of particular offices. Such as a provincial viceroy should be a prudent, careful and discreet man, controlling his impulses to wrath and levity alike, carefully selecting honest and truthful servants, sleeping and eating in moderation and schooling himself in works of philosophy when the duties of his office allowed.
During his reign, in an effort to disseminate the norms of masculinity, Akbar also attempted to regulate the marriage, sexuality and body of a man. Bodily regulation drew on a long tradition of concern with bodily purification and bodily comportment that permeated the Mediterranean, west Asian and Indo Muslim worlds. This moral regulation which aimed to promote a new set of norms for elite male virtue was quite different in this period. Though the purpose was creative, it was repressive and prohibitive. Even new norms were formulated around the natural purity of the male body and conducted a very public campaign to discourage overt homosexual attachments which indicated the patriarchal and heteronormative attitude of the authority behind these norms of male virtue.
The institution of marriage was the primary instrument through which Akbar tried to regulate the body and sexual desires of men. The emperor promoted a model for ideal marriage in which mature men could realise the ethic of imperial service and women enjoyed peace and companionship. While validating the model, Abul Fazl stressed how important it is because it was preserving stability amongst men, promoting the “establishment of homes” and preventing the “outbreak of evil passions”. Along with it, Akbar also sought to regulate the extra-marital pleasures of his servants to curb and control sexual activity not channelled into the controls of marriage. Therefore, numerous prostitutes of the imperial capital were compelled to live outside the city in a special quarter.
Not only through marriage, the body and sexual desires of men were regulated in various other ways. In Badauni’s text we see how new meanings were attached to semen. It was discussed that the emission of semen produced a state of impurity requiring major ablution. Regulation of body hair was the other way where the importance of a beard to a pious Muslim was emphasised. At the same time, some ideas such as the beard drew its nourishment from semen were being introduced which built an association between the forms of regulations.
Here it would be interesting to understand how it has been projected in the new norms that homosexual love did not fit with the model of self-controlled masculinity. Akbar made attempts to restrain and punish male homosexuality. In the social scenario, homosexual love was not precluding love for women because love between men did not generate anything like a fixed, self-conscious homosexual identity like we know of it today. To understand Akbar’s stance on homosexual love, let us take an example of homosexual love of that period.
Ali Quli Khan Zaman, one of the military commanders, fell in love with Shaham Beg who was a member of Akbar’s special bodyguard. The two even engaged in monstrous distortions of imperial ritual where Khan used to bow down before Shaham Beg and call him his emperor and perform kornish or royal salutation. Akbar did warn them but they persisted in their attachments, at which Akbar was prepared to risk military confrontation. In this context, we also cannot oversee the political dimension of this opposition. In 1565 a wider Uzbeg revolt emerged against the young Akbar’s attempts to consolidate his authority, in which Ali Quli Khan Zaman played a leading role. Though Akbar’s forces had crushed the rebels, Akbar was shocked by the revolt and that is why when he came to know about the sexual taste of Khan, he emphasised it so that to highlight latter’s moral weakness and accentuate its origin in the disordered Uzbeg culture of Transoxiana (modern-day lower Central Asia).
Thus, sexual pleasure for Akbar was legitimate within the strict moral constraints of marriage, and that too only with women. Sexual intercourse among men, according to Abul Fazl, was ‘neither consuming nor melting, neither love nor friendship’.
So, we have seen how the imperial court of Akbar espoused these stringent and prohibitive norms of masculinity in order to constrain the male virtue. The manipulation and regulation demonstrate how Akbar’s patriarchal perspective sculpted men’s masculine traits and how this had an impact on the entire social context of that time. Even though it is the least talked about part of Akbar’s reign, Abul Fazl’s account of how these evocative norms were used to manipulate body and gender identity is intriguing. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to these codes as we study Akbar’s reign in order to fully comprehend its complexity and how it shaped the broader context of the time.
In contemporary discussions on gender and power, examining the norms of masculinity in Akbar’s court offers valuable insights into how historical precedents shape modern perceptions of male identity and authority. The regulation of masculinity in Akbar’s reign, as detailed by Abul Fazl, underscores how patriarchal and heteronormative values were systematically enforced to maintain social order and control. These historical norms resonate with ongoing debates about toxic masculinity, gender roles, and the suppression of sexual diversity in various cultural contexts today. Understanding Akbar’s efforts to regulate male behaviour, sexuality, and body image provides a historical framework for critiquing similar mechanisms of control in contemporary societies. It highlights the persistence of certain power structures and the importance of challenging restrictive gender norms to foster more inclusive and equitable communities. By drawing parallels between the past and present, we can better appreciate the complexities of gender dynamics and the continuous evolution of masculine ideals.
Is it possible for scent to touch skin to speak to it for words to breathe and linger and laugh in my hair
Do you see the way I look at you smile do you see how I count every giggle for how it caresses my heart like a bird’s feathers after a long flight
Do you not see the light and the longing in my eyes when you lift your fingers and pick up the lighter rubbing it against your shirt your sleeves rolled and earrings hanging loosely to your face
Words with you are scarce disgustingly insufficient
with you, only and only glances work and heartbeats buzz
My heart and you have conspired for me to love for me to loathe
loathe your eyes eyes with a tinge of brown slyness and a stroke of black audacity that incapacitate my soul and my heart flutters away
My heart is no longer blood or veins or bodily constituents it’s a repository of you and everything of you every gesture, every scream, every wail
My love for you is no love at all it is a concoction of contempt and misery and yearn and succulence it panics and consumes
Love helps you sleep and smile but I last slept only before I saw you smile sleep has gracefully abandoned my system leaving me at the mercy of your smiles the smile that the lilies envy the smile that breathes air into the dead and dingy
I must think of you for me to write of you I think of you in ways that are menacing and amusing
But why think when I can feel when I can feel the time we held hands and the heat generated within my palms and how my fingers trembled afterwards
Why think when I can feel your gaze tracing my hair Time gets stuck and the food burns rivers drain out and tears dangle beneath my eyes
How are you so bereft but also so rapturous with all that exquisiteness contained in you do you not feel it tickle every inch of your body when you sleep
You have of me as much as I have to give but I wonder if I could remanufacture me and produce never-ending amounts to be devoured by you consistently
My trysts and fantasies are bewitching but perhaps not so truthful and tactile for you to love me more than just some of me.
As someone who has moved to a different continent to pursue higher education, I think it is safe for me to state that it is tough to be an international student. Of course, I do have a certain amount of caste and class privilege that has allowed me to move and study abroad in the first place. Despite this, the movement across borders does come along with its own challenges and feelings of isolation. Upon moving to a country where the majority does not look like me, eat like me, or talk like me, it was already a struggle. But add to that the parts of my identity that are not immediately visible to others, and it becomes an even more complicated situation.
When I started living in a student hall in London, I found it to be a strange experience to see all the students coming together from different countries around the world to study in what was, for many of us, our first-choice school. I am sure that many wondered how their social lives would turn out – in fact I literally had a girl say to me, “You need to make friends now because otherwise everyone will be in groups and you will be left alone.” Consider it a testimony to how much I value quality over quantity in friendships that instead of alarming me, her words made me feel concerned for how insecure she must be about navigating social situations and building perceptions. But this did not mean that the situation ironed itself out for my comfort.
When searching for friendships with depth and quality, I need to feel like my whole self is seen, respected, and cherished in the space between us. How am I supposed to be able to open up with that kind of honesty, when I have no idea who might or might not react negatively to who I am? Many of us look for familiarity in new situations, and international students often find themselves turning to people from their own countries. This makes it a particularly taxing experience, when instead of finding comfort in hearing my mother tongue spoken in an alien land, I find myself hunting for clues in each sentence to make sure that the person in front of me is not a queerphobe. Being in a new country also means that I have no idea about the attitude that locals carry towards queer people. After all, progressive legislation does not automatically mean that every single citizen and community is progressive and accepting.If you are wondering why queer people don’t just assume that everyone is nice until proven otherwise, it is because the cost of accidentally coming out to somebody who hates your very existence can be extremely, definitely, totally not worth it.
What all this leads to, then, is a queer girl (me) meeting people, exchanging names, smiling, and feeling suffocated because of the lack of avenues to seek community. So where does she (still me) turn? To fictional queer women, of course. In this case it was the brilliant women of A League Of Their Own. After an exhausting day of masking – I would play an episode of the Prime Video series and feel seen in the way Carden’s Greta would own her femininity and queerness in the same breath. I would see Jacobson’s Abbi find community and learn about queer culture and get lost in how she was surrounded by brilliant people. Unlike other shows where there is a single tokenized queer woman, this one represented the diverse aspects of being queer because, well, there were so many of us on screen! And together, they were a team! Eventually I would find people who would feel like my own teammates, but for now I was wrapped up in a cozy blanket and safe for the running time of the show.
This is what queer media does for people like me – it gives us a chance to see what can be- sometimes even what should be- and makes us feel a little less alone in moments when we can’t access community in other ways. This is why A League of Their Own is important, and this is why it absolutely sucks that Amazon canceled the show. I am not saying, even for a second, that it was perfect. It had many faults, but none of them felt gaping enough for it to not deserve another season when trashy reality television returns season after season. What is even worse, is that Amazon blamed this on the strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), which is basically the company saying that the price that people pay for standing together as a community is to lose out on shows about standing together as a community. The irony is not lost on me.
Of course, my stuckness in this particular situation was temporary – I slowly discovered queer groups and spaces around me. But not everyone is that lucky, and not everyone has that privilege. We might all end up wrapped up in our blanket from time to time – some of us more than others – wondering if there is anybody else out there like us. It is for those moments that we need to keep creating and supporting queer media representation because sometimes that is the only thing that can reply, “there is, there will be, there always has been.”
Gender performance has been a hot topic and we caught up with Humhu (he/him), who like many of us is trying to understand gender identity and expression from a creative point of view. When handed the photobook, ‘Boys Will Be Toys”, they have designed it in a way that the reader notices its two divisions – Masc and Femme. There’s no formal starting point to the photobook; if you begin on the femme side, a set of glamorous shots catch your eye, radiating a certain risque. The softness comes through despite the makeup and fishnets that would generally be considered “badass”.
The masc side then grips you with a stunner element, the compulsory gore and tough-act. You can also get a peek at the softness that is concealed under stylish sunglasses. The pictures have been taken outdoors, leading us to the question of gender divisiveness of spaces, with the masc often being equated with the outside “real” world. It could be interpreted as representing how a person, assigned male at birth, is automatically expected to present themselves in a certain way outside domestic spheres.
It’s visible that Humhu (He/Him) and team (Ankit, Revant Dasgupta and Tito) wanted to portray an exaggerated and expressive way to poke questions about the gender binary and its compulsory nature. The styling of the subjects in this project has been done with meticulous thought and with a high regard for fashion.
Ankit & Humhu, Femme Side Of Boys Will Be Toys
What was the inspiration behind this photobook? Did it start as an idea for a photobook?
The 3 of us — Ankit, Tito, and I — are all close friends. About one and a half years ago, on an evening that [felt] high on creativity, we began brainstorming and having fun. It was all done in my studio. We shot the femme part inside my house and the masc shots outside, in my building. There was some sense of purpose in that we wanted to portray certain things, but the images we took were all very random. We discussed the idea of making a zine out of it, and after a lot of trials and discussions and test copies, we landed on it being a photobook with a hardcover.
You compared femme and masc to being two sides of the same coin, what does that “coin” represent for you?
Well, the coin represents ourselves for all three of us. The project has been a personal exploration for us as artists and human beings. We all do different yet similar kinds of work. The coin for me and Ankit as a performer was to see how far we could stretch ourselves. How much can we, as subjects, embody the masks of two polar “opposites”? It’s not just about being one and making a caricature of the other, because that’s how we have seen it represented in the mainstream media. We have these cis men playing these cross-dressing roles in Bollywood. They mostly end up making a mockery out of it like they are these well-built, muscular actors wearing dresses. And they are not embodying the femme but they are making a mockery of it. They’re doing it as cis-het men, they are not letting go of the cis-het masculinity and not letting a softer femme come in.
Masc Mask, Humhu & Ankit
How did it “feel” to do the two sides of masc and femme shoots?
It felt very wholesome, to do both sides on the same day; it felt transcendental, almost as if we had crossed the gender barrier and were not just “one” thing. And it’s also what the project aims to do as well: that boys will be toys and not what people often say, which is “boys will be boys”, boys shouldn’t just be boys! We want to say that boys will be toys instead. You know, just like how when we were kids, we would construct and deconstruct entire realities and re-mould our toys into whatever we wanted them to be, we wanted to do the same thing as adults!
There’s some level of harshness on both sides of the ideas, but one is more censored and the other more gory. How did you come up with this?
Honestly, it was quite organic, we hadn’t planned to the T, about what we wanted to say and represent. It was more of a feeling, of what should be or can be done next and we followed it without questioning. It’s also to do with the authenticity of both sides. So when we decided to do the femme side, we had a guy with tape as the nipple pasty. As for the gory side of masculinity, it was to show the fragility of masculinity and the “hurt” male ego. It was us covered in the wounds to the ego. We didn’t just want to show the glamorous or crude sides, but also embody it on both sides.
The Censored Femme, Humhu & Ankit
What’s that one thing about boyhood that you’d like people to take away from this?
One thing about boyhood is that it’s tangible, flexible and stretchable. It’s not limited, just like girlhood and non-binary hood aren’t limited to certain ideas. Boyhood is whatever you make it to be, it can be structured, individualist, soft, femme, raw, masculine. It is up to you how you define boyhood, it can be anything.
If the masculine/raw side of photos is blood, how do you think it translates to the glamorous side of femme? Aren’t we then restricting them?
This has to do with the storyline we’re presenting. They’re boys, out in the world, being their tough sleeves and they went out, got hurt and are all roughed up. But when they come home, in their private space they can choose to be their soft selves, that’s queer, feminine, without the elaborate props. All this glamour and self-expression is allowed in the comfort and safety of their house, come home and chill, take it easy. Indulge in selfies inspired by Kim Kardashian or Kylie Jenner, it’s sacred and protected. But we know that they’re both masks, neither of them is real, yet we wear them. They are contradictory and also complement each other like Yin and Yang, it’s both restricting and contradicting one another. There’s a bit of masc in femme and a bit of femme in masc.
The Wounded Ego, Ankit And Humhu
When does the femme and masc presentation come together for you?
They come together, whenever anyone creates a look that has elements of both, in a wholesome way. Even if the presentation is 99.9% of one and 0.01% of the opposing energy, you’re still consciously choosing to mix and match their energies and styles. There are small details that can be accounted as either masc or femme, but both are inherent in all of us, no matter who we are and how we identify, as it’s a spectrum. We all have it in us and we’re beyond the structure of the compulsory binary. We just have to realise that we don’t have to pick either side.
It is interesting to see how the early days of the shoot worked, but it is also noteworthy that as one goes through the photobook you realise that each image has a femme and masc side to it. Each pose has been recreated as a parallel to another. It is visible in the images that despite being posed and staged, they do not feel like a forced expression. The subjects are comfortable moulding into the roles that they are posing as. It’s a wholesome sight, and it reminds one about what Virginia Woold once said in her publication, “Room Of One’s Own”. She reminds that for any artist to be a “wholesome” or well-rounded artist, they need to be androgynous. They need to be in touch with their masculine and feminine energies.
“Why did no one tell me that breakups were this hard?” This was the question that I kept asking all of my friends after my first heartbreak. Even though I knew and have always known that love can be fleeting, my knowledge did not save me from the feelings of overwhelming sense of loss and grief that followed. The relationship, though short-lived, was intense. I had only read about heartbreak and seen my friends go through all the motions when they broke up with their partners. I had never really imagined it to hurt so damn bad. Most of my friends are straight, so I did not really have representation for the heartbreak that I was about to go through. In cis-het relationships, the very general and simple reason that cis-women give is that “men are not good”. I remember my friends being really excited to see me happy and in love. However, unknowingly, they also put a lot of pressure because according to just about everyone, I was lucky to not be dating a man and so there was nothing that could go wrong. Boy, were they wrong!
I am not going into the details about what happened because that is boring and not important; what is important is the fact that queer people, and especially queer women, do not really see relationships like theirs around them. We see happy and successful queer women in love but only on the internet, and those examples are also quite scarce. We do not have a concrete reference, so every little thing and every feeling seems so unique, but also quite isolating for that very reason. Fortunately, I had some queer friends, but I still felt very alone because the feeling of loss in itself is very isolating. And when you couple it with the fact that most of the people would not understand your feelings or dismiss it by saying that your ex was in the wrong, heartbreak for a queer person becomes almost like a burden that one has to carry all alone in this big cis-het world.
People cope very differently while going through heartbreak. I, like every other rational person, booked a hotel room for myself because I did not want to be at home with my parents. When I told my friend about this, like all reasonable people, she left everything and came over with whiskey for a “breakup party”. in her own words. Looking back, it hurt a lot and I did not know how to deal with it, but I am glad that I got to experience it because it made me realise that my friends care about me and will do everything in their power to make me feel better. Heartbreak also puts a lot of things in perspective because even though you feel just so horrible and alone, you see your friends actively choose you over everything just because you are sad. And even though they do not understand, they just want to be there for you. At the end of the day, breakups suck for everyone but just like queer love, queer heartbreak is vastly different from that of cis-het people.
I remember that I used to constantly remind myself that a big heartbreak meant a big love. But while we’re on the topic of heartbreak, I won’t dwell too much in cynicism, because love is truly remarkable. It’s a profound feeling that has the power to overshadow everything and everyone else in your life. It’s warm, homely, and almost magical when you have someone who wants to know every little detail about you and your life. You actively make space for another person in your life, not because you have to, but because it feels like the next logical step, especially when you’re deeply in love. However, in queer relationships, the act of making space becomes a task in itself. Unlike our heterosexual counterparts, we’re not always readily accepted, and we constantly have to pick and choose who we can share this happiness with. Despite this, self-preservation and safety remain the primary concerns of every queer person. Witnessing others talk freely and without considering these factors can evoke feelings of resentment and helplessness.
The helplessness and resentment felt by queer individuals when only cis-het love and heartbreak are accepted in society, runs deep. It’s a constant reminder of systemic biases and societal norms that marginalise the queer experience. Seeing predominantly cis-het relationships celebrated without question reinforces feelings of isolation and invisibility. Queer individuals often feel pressure to hide their love to avoid judgement or discrimination, amplifying their sense of helplessness and resentment. Constantly navigating spaces where queer love may not be welcomed is emotionally exhausting. Despite these challenges, it persists, defying societal norms and finding strength in shared experiences. It’s a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
I can only hope that younger queer individuals get to experience queer love and even heartbreak in their lives, not just through the lens of the internet. Experiencing these emotions firsthand, navigating the complexities of relationships, and overcoming heartbreaks contribute to our growth and understanding of ourselves. It’s through these experiences that we learn resilience, empathy, and the true depth of our capacity to love.
Moreover, by witnessing real-life examples of queer love and heartbreak, younger generations can find solace and validation in their own experiences. They can see that their feelings are not isolated or abnormal, but rather part of a rich tapestry of human emotion shared by many within the community. So, as we navigate through the highs and lows of love and heartbreak, let us remember that our experiences are valid, our stories are worth sharing, and our capacity to love knows no bounds.
Thailand just became the first South-east Asian, and third Asian country to legalise queer marriage. Earlier on June 2nd, the Pride month-related celebrations in Bangkok were also attended by the country’s Prime Minister, Srettha Thavisin, who was spotted supporting citizens. He was also reported as saying that he was working to legalise same-sex marriage at the march – something that other Asian politicians can learn from in terms of allyship!
Thailand’s mainstream media is known globally for their progressive and creative plots in their queer romance dramas, specifically BL & GL (Boy Love and Girl Love). Their constitutional developments towards protecting the transgender community is also something worth taking note of. Showing us time and time again, just how easy it is to be inclusive when there is political will!
The Thai Cabinet had already introduced a civil-partnership bill in July 2020, which also enabled queer couples to adopt children and inherit property. Following that, on June 18th, 2024, we saw them continuing to lead the landscape of queer rights in Asian countries. They joined the league of Taiwan, the first Asian nation to legalise marriage rights, and Nepal, the second Asian nation and first South Asian nation to do the same.
I don’t know about you, but we are definitely thrilled to see 3 Asian countries making such big strides to be queer-inclusive. 2024 is looking up!
On the 14th of June, Indrani Chakraborty, mother to a trans kid wrote an open letter to the Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswasaema. It was in response to the shaming and subsequent expulsion of her child, who had posted pictures of themself wearing a bathing suit on their private instagram account.
According to the letter that Indrani posted on her Instagram account, the picture in question was clicked at a family day at the pool, and was “a moment of innocent joy” that was twisted by the school’s authorities as something devious, ‘shameful” and “disgusting”, and so repulsive that it drove them to expel, and deny her ward the access to education.
Chakraborty wrote in her open letter: “The school, which should be a sanctuary for learning, became an arena of judgement. Her social media, her space for personal expression was scrutinised and slandered.”
It’s disheartening to watch any mother plead for something as basic as a fair chance at education. However, we see this happening time and again with those who are affirming and supportive of their queer children. It is worth noting that the comments under Indrani’s post were torn between defending the principal’s actions and supporting Chakraborty and her daughter.
K. Chanda, the principal of South Point School, Guwahati, which is the institution in question, when confronted by the parents on 11th June, told them that their child could continue in the school only if, “she deleted her social media account, left her community, and [complied with] ongoing counselling sessions [guided by] the school counsellor”, as reported in The Wire.
Going by this statement, it may be assumed that the principal is asking the parents to ensure regular counselling sessions facilitated by the school counsellor only. However, knowing the reality of mental health support in India, this may very well be conversion therapy in disguise.
She made it clear that the school has tried to support Indrani’s child through their transition after it was brought to their notice, but drew the line at “semi-nude” photos. But the pertinent question is how did the principal get access to the post?
Was it a student who shared it with a parent, and it started a chain reaction?
Let us clarify, the problem is not:
A child, wearing bathing suit around her family
A child, being trans
A child, being supported by her parents
The problem, precisely and clearly, is:
A principal, and a group of parents who felt comfortable to comment, complain and police a minor’s body on their private instagram account that they do not have explicit access to. And then go on to decide for the parents and child about limiting their access to education.
How can an educator, like K Chanda, whose job is to protect all children equally, deny this fundamental right?
Last time I checked, to access education, all you needed was a pen, paper, and most importantly, a supportive teacher who facilitates it! K.Chanda isn’t the one cut out for this job though. As far as we presently know, none of the parents who complained about the post have come forward, nor any details on if any classmates have come forward in support of Chakraborty’s child and who initially raised this “concern”.
My FIRST vote! I voted with empathy, I hope you did too.
My first vote! I voted on the 20th of May, 2024 – along with all of Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra, finally reclaiming my right as India’s citizen. A citizen of the supreme, “Mother of Democracy”. Quick sidetrack, I really think that countries are best not referred to as feminine or masculine! Especially, with all that has been going down with the wonderful, crowd favorite social construct: Gender, don’t you think it’s best that we don’t see the nation through a gendered lens. To avoid the dire consequences? Just a thought; let’s get back into the main track.
The Ginormous Reality Show I get to be a part of
I voted in Phase 5 of this ginormous stage show we all participate in every five years. I am one of 18 million new voters to join the stage show this year. A stage show of the “largest democracy”. The production of this stage show is increasingly veering into becoming a satirical farce. Each phase, like the acts in a Gujarati stage play, comes with whole new twists, turns and dramatic reveals. But I digress again *facepalm* The picture of me below, next to SRK’s, just about sums up how I felt on election day. I finally get to be a part of the fabled democratic process! I felt euphoric, even more than the day I got my Voter’s ID that was marked Female! On that day I voted as a citizen of this country in newer ways. It made me feel like I belong and am part of the nation and its people. Since that day, I am less likely to passively accept comments asking me to “Go back to Pakistan”. As a transgender person, transitioning and living my authentic gender expression has helped me appreciate each milestone, helping me feel affirmed for my humanity.
I finally got the chance to exercise the power of my Ungli ☝🏻Image by Aniket Narawad
My “election journey” in certain ways is similar to others’, including Reshmi Biswas, a transgender voter from Kolkata who voted for the first time. Like her I spent countless hours poring over my voter identity card, its supporting documents, and application processes. It is worth noting that the Election Commission of India (ECI) first allowed transgender people to vote only in 1994 following a petition by transgender activist Shabnam Mausi. Yet in the 3 decades since, for countless transgender folks like Reshmi Biswas and others, getting to exercise the right has been an uphill battle.
Here, in an interesting way that reflects a different sort of privilege, my story differs from Reshmi’s and others. Yes, I did finally get #MyFirstVote, which is something most Indians get to take for granted – AND a right that has been denied to me twice before for seemingly no reason. I’ve been eligible to vote for the last two election cycles and simply wasn’t able to because my application, like so many other folks, wouldn’t go past the submission of documents to the Election Commission. So, for the 2014 and 2019 elections, I applied months in advance as a Heteronormative Muslim Man and never heard back beyond the acknowledgement of application. The way I am different from the others who didn’t get their voter ID this election, or disappeared from the voter list altogether, is that I applied as a transgender woman with my transgender ID. The history of transgender voting abilities seems to be changing – quite interestingly.
My Super Gender-Affirming Voter ID courtesy of ECI
Mr. Azhar on election day, My gender-affirming election officer from the Election Commission of India – Image by Aniket Narawad
Mr. Azhar was at the polling booth on election day and was beaming with a pleasant, wide smile. He is the officer from the Election Commission of India who managed my application. After submitting the application on the ECI website as I had done earlier, I forgot about the application, half expecting no reply. One day Mr. Azhar visited my address, verified it, sought the relevant documents, and collected them for submission. Most importantly, and this might be something he may not be aware of, under his guidance I was able to get marked as ‘female’ on the ID. I am grateful to him for all the work he did.
One of the first stories I ever did with the Gaysi Family is about traveling through the security check at an airport and the hurdles I faced involving IDs. This was back in October 2021, and was the first time that I had traveled while presenting as femme. This was a few weeks before I came out on my social media, and so my family, many friends, and others had no idea that I was expressing femme. I was in some ways incognito then, and had pulled off a weeklong Goa work-trip without anyone on my social media or in my family finding out I was now expressing femme even while traveling.
The caption that the editor wrote alongside was: My First Flight Travelling Femme Ft. @rayyanmonkey
All the things that cis-people take for granted – the way they move through spaces nonchalantly, the manner in which they expect to be accepted as they are, wherever they go, the freedom of their expression of unbridled joy online and otherwise, knowing that they won’t be chided or policed.@rayyanmonkey really do be reclaiming all that joy for trans-bodies 🤗🤗🤗🌈
In the story I also spoke about the intense anxiety I felt as I approached the first security check, and how inadvertently, the person checking my I.D often calls a senior or their colleague to consult on my validity as a person. This has happened so many times that I have stopped shooting it, recording audios and rage-posting about it on my stories. Multiple airports have done it at security and multiple airlines have done it at their check-in point. Eventually I just began to accept it as part of my travel routine.
This is the whole thing with expressing oneself as a transgender, non-binary, or gender expansive person. Many of us have ID cards that still show our pre-transition images and/or gender markers. This whole charade used to play out often to me: I’d hand my ID over, sweating nervously, and of course my hand shaking as I’d hand over the phone with the ticket. All the while hoping that the one Youtube video I watched titled, “Makeup for airport for transgender woman tutorial.” is going to deliver on this interaction.
As soon as I hand over the ticket and the ID and checker looks up, I take the phone gently and swiftly swipe over to my Transgender ID card, while also handing over my PAN card to them. Always the PAN card never the Aadhar or any other. PAN does not have a gender marker. But PAN card doesn’t always work. Sometimes they ask me for Aadhar. Now I’m trembling for sure, and also know that I am holding up the line; the people-pleaser in me is likely feeling attacked. I am sweating profusely. I hand over the Aadhar, and if the ID checker feels fine, they will wave me by, with the same bewildered face they have had on since being handed my ID. But if the ID checker expresses doubt, then I go into emergency panic and awkwardness mode. Usually, the next step is that the ID checker calls over their manager/ supervisor, and now the situation has so many more ways it will move towards, before resolution. I can feel absolutely every eye at the airport piercing right through me. Even if maybe all of 10 folks were looking at me, it feels like a thousand eyeballs. No one asks me to, but I move over to one side, so at least the line can continue moving.
These days though, all I do is whip out my Super Gender-Affirming Voter ID, courtesy of the ECI and hand it over to the ID checker as they begin to make that familiar grimace of gender-inspired confusion. That’s it. Just the Voter ID, and the checker is floored. No reaching for the phone to swipe over for the transgender ID or the genderless PAN Card, or trying to avoid the Aadhar. Just the all-powerful Voter ID and their hand waves me past the imaginary barrier into gender euphoria.
How to get a Female, Male or Transgender Marker on your Voter I.D as a Transgender and/or Non-binary, Hijra or Kinner identifying person?
A while ago, a handful of you who see my instagram stories and read my articles, saw that I went to the Aadhar office and applied for a change to the gender marker and photograph on the card. I ecstatically shared that the Aadhar office accepted my application and took my picture – looking all femme. Also, and most importantly, they handed me an acknowledgement form stating that they had accepted my application for a gender marker change to ‘female’.
This acknowledgement form is what Mr. Azhar asked me to acquire, when I applied for my Election ID card. Especially, if I wanted a ‘Female; gender marker on my Voter ID as my Aadhar card still had my pre-transition pictures and gender marker, as did all my other IDs. Which is why I had applied; thankfully it was accepted and I was handed the all-important acknowledgement form. I sent Mr. Azhar a copy and he submitted it. And that’s the story of how, less than a month after the submission of my Aadhar gender change acknowledgement on the 25th of January, I got my spanking new, all-powerful Voter ID.
Yet, it would maybe not surprise some of our transgender readers to know that it has been six months since I applied for it, and have yet to receive my updated Aadhar card with the femme picture they clicked, and the gender marker updated to ‘female’. When I had put those updates up on my stories, I recall that a transgender sister asked me if I got my Aadhar card, and to let her know if I did. Because she too applied and got the coveted acknowledgement form, but has not seen that updated card yet. However, I did vote as a transgender registered voter, and travel with relatively more ease everywhere, whipping out my all powerful Voter I.D.
India is not for beginners.
Just Wondering: How I finally got a Voter I.D on the third attempt, which was also the first time I applied as a Transgender person? And also in just two months of application?
The main reason that the election commission accepted my application is likely because of my valid Transgender ID Card. At the voting booth Mr. Azhar informed me that I am the only registered Transgender Voter in my polling booth area, which has a total number of 1100 folks. Wiki states, “Generally, fewer than 1% of the worldwide population are transgender, with figures ranging from <0.1% to 0.6%.” So is the math mathing?
I think not; when we have a total of 812 transgender registered voters in a city of 21,673,000 hoomans, that’s only about 0.003%. Yet even that number is freaking unprecedented in all of the city’s history. Never has there ever been an Indian election with as many registered transgender voters – 48,000. This is in fact the first election cycle since the Transgender ID cards began being handed out three years ago.
The thing is like Vinnie, a transgender person who is also living in my sub-district said, “Unfortunately I had to vote on my deadname. But I did vote.” Many transgender identifying folks may vote under deadname or using pre-transition gender identity cards. A good portion of the community just doesn’t register to vote, since they feel disenfranchised from the democracy and the party manifestos. In addition to this, there are a whole host of other factors affecting how these numbers play out on the map of Mumbai. Factors like income groups, class, caste and communal factors are also in effect.
Malad West tops the list of number of transgender voters in the city. The constituency accounts for 33% of transgender voters in Mumbai with a whopping 339 voters, making it the most number of transgender registered voters in a district. Like Prasun Choudhari reports for Mid-Day, “In a significant revelation ahead of elections, the Malad West Assembly constituency has emerged as a beacon of inclusivity, boasting the highest concentration of registered transgender voters”
An official from the Mumbai suburban district collector’s office observed, “The statistics shed light on the evolving landscape of political participation, particularly among marginalized communities. Malad West stands out as a symbol of progress and acceptance, showcasing a commendable commitment to ensuring that every voice is heard in the democratic process…with 79 per cent of the registered transgender voters in Mumbai calling this district their home.”
What this official and also to some extent the Mid-Day reporter ignore are education, income, class, caste, communal and other factors that are in effect as well. Which is why a district like Byculla, with a large concentration of Muslim occupants and a known large concentration of different Hijra communities shows only 7 registered transgender voters. While Ghatkopar and Malad show such high numbers of registered voters.
The reason we finally have even this number of registered voters is because parties are trying to deliver on election promises made almost two cycles ago and the election commission has finally tried to deliver as per the Supreme Court’s directives basis the Transgender Persons Act 2019. One of the most essential demands from the community for almost as long as the movement has existed is the right to vote. In fact the National Portal of Transgender persons exists in part to ensure this constitutional right. As the ruling party scrambled to deliver on its promises, it also simultaneously made it seem like they aren’t doing these very things yet and will do it for the transgender community if they are elected?!
This article from just before the election after the release of the BJP Manifesto reports that “In a landmark move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to bring the transgender community and senior citizens above 70 years of age, whether poor, middle class or upper middle class, under the ambit of Ayushman Bharat scheme.” Except this was already part of the Protection of Transgender Persons Act 2019, and was supposed to be put into immediate effect. Not only that but the center already used it as an electoral promise before the last state legislative election cycle. Which is why in 2022 YesWeExist and I did this collaborative piece. Where we elaborated that after our own investigation and contact with the National Portal of Transgender Persons, we realized that the erstwhile news stories about transgender persons being bought under the ambit of the Ayushman Bharat Scheme was an election ploy. Our investigation revealed that it was far from an initiation at that time. They were yet to set up the committee that would then deliberate about how to go about it.
This election is vital for the Indian LGBTQIA+ community!
A dark time we live in, where sectarian politics, communal hate, corrupt politicians and a biased media have seemingly not only thought of the electorate as ignorant, but also to a large extent been able to make us ignorant of the truth, while convincing us that to hate is patriotic. It’s why even within the transgender community, communalism is rearing its ugly head ever so frequently.
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi once said “My community has become too Islamic. I am bringing back Hinduism in such pomp and splendour,” in an interview with SCMP. Tripathi, enjoys a powerful influence within the community and in government policy circles. Her endorsement of the Ayodhya Ram temple where religion will once again serve as a tool for mobilizing voters – has long since sealed her position in the right to left binary of the political spectrum.
This Hindutva narrative that has been winning for the last decade is the reason there are queer “activists” like Ankit Bhuptani stating half truths like: “I know of a total of four surveys conducted on the LGBT community in India, with a focus on the election. All of them showed overwhelming support for the BJP by the community, with the most popular one being from @PlanetRomeo Yet, no LGBT news handles or portals covered it. I wonder why?”
In case youare confused by that let Ashish @mysticboy24 provide context and truth, “It is because LGBTQIA+ community doesn’t mean only gay cis-gendered people or mobile app-using population. 2 out of 4 surveys you are talking about had negligible or close to no representation of women and transgender folx. It’s important acknowledging the lacunae and not to saffron wash the rainbow.”
It’s why there are reports that at the Official Mumbai Queer Pride March folks were told to not allowed to chant, “Jai Bhim”, because Dr. Ambedkar and all of his teachings go against the hindutva narrative. This is where we are at today, there is a powerful and large portion of the Indian queer community that supports an authoritarian party, that actively restrains the remaining community’s pursuit of being recognised as full citizens. Ironically, it is this political right of the LGBTQIA+ community that I ought to thank for my swift voter ID.
I am both glad to be “A” transgender person on the list and sad to know there weren’t any other registered as transgender voters in my area. For my entire district, you can fit all of the registered transgender voters into just an omni van! Higher income, upper caste and class-concentration are some of the factors leading to this low number of registered transgender voters in the “affluent” part of Mumbai that I reside in. Similarly, the upper caste and high income concentration is probably why Vile Parle has 0 registered transgender voters.
While I took in the hot heatwave air, sweating it out with all other citizens voting this cycle, my intrusive thought for the day reared its head: ‘What if I hit the wrong symbol after all the memorizing?’ I waited in the same line as all the other 1100 voters of my polling booth would have to. My inclusion on the list was no “symbol of progress and acceptance“ for my area. All the other voters and persons present sure did let me know through their looks and whispers that my inclusion was no “beacon of inclusivity”, as most behaved as though they hadn’t seen someone like me at a polling booth ever. Through their behavior and reactions, they showed just how much of a milestone even 812 registered transgender voters in this city is. I actually overheard someone saying “yeh laug bhi vote karte?” (do these people also vote?)
When I did make it to the polling booth, as is still customary for any ID check, I was nervous AF. Sweating profusely (heatwave plus anxiety of being rejected) and a generally meek and confused demeanor, because it was the first time ever that I was to vote. I had used this ID to travel frequently and even flipped it out when a flattering bouncer asked for my ID. Yet I was nervous in the polling booth line, even more so after listening to the family behind me whispering about my dress. For their part, the polling booth officials also did the customary double-checking of my ID and consulting with their superior to ensure that my ID checks out.
She then gave me that wave that I had been craving for. I didn’t move and just froze for a bit. She waved again and the person she had consulted with reached out with the brush. I got that deep blue nail polish that I had been craving for since I was a child and learnt democracy in civic studies. I went into the booth. Trying to remember Faye D’souza’s instagram VVPAT voting guide. I pushed the button observing how my finger shivered. Glad the intrusive thought didn’t win that day. I stepped out of the polling booth and swaggered with the realization, re-entering the sunlight – that I am the first transgender person to vote from here. grateful to be a part of the democratic process finally and extremely grateful for my all powerful Voter ID card.
Last step after #MyFirstVote ?
Sitting on the couch silently wondering what my vote tells me about who I am today.
Actually, the real final last step after #MyFirstVote ?
Lying in bed, wondering silently about all that you have heard or read about the electoral manipulation, the EC’s silence, beaten voters, missing voters, delayed lists of voters and hijacked voting boothswhile the EC sleeps. After all the videos you have seen of people committing voter fraud while – and this entirely flummoxed me – shooting the evidence themselves and making it public all by themselves. Thinking about how the stage show metaphor this article uses no longer works. The Indian Election this edition was more like a Reality TV Show than a stage show. Complete with candidates that you can vote for. And then wondering whether your vote means anything at all or like all other reality shows the awareness is all too scripted. Right before falling asleep, just like the EC.
About a month ago, a friend shared a viral video with me. It showed a parent promoting an adhesive named Girlie Glue, proclaiming it to be a natural-made adhesive for kids and pets. Founder Katie Hydrick, says she got the inspiration from being “tired of slippery and uncomfortable headbands” (so relatable) and her kids not having “enough hair” for a clip. It’s so true, because how else are people supposed to understand that your child is a girl? Hydrick said she wanted something easy and so, she did what most entrepreneurs do: find a solution to a self-created problem! To be frank, personally, it seems wrong to accessorize babies of any gender. They are just fresh out of the womb, give them a breather; besides, they are already experiencing so many new things.
“About Us” on Girlie Glue’s Website
One can’t even imagine the toll this might take on kids who are tagged fussy when they’re just overwhelmed by people fidgeting with them. People’s criticism of this product in the comments almost made the world look sensible for a second. They make a good point by talking about harmful gender roles and feminized beauty ideals being pushed onto the scalps of wee babies! Considering how sensitive kids are to any sensorial stimuli, imagine having a sticky bow stuck to your scalp every day. Yikes.
The tweet below actually brought up a great point about piercings or as the Western world calls it, ‘mutilating’. It is often observed that American and predominantly white parents are against piercings. Unless the parent is desperate to present their child as a girl.
Everyone has their reasons Emily, but we get your concern!
One memorable time we encountered this “logic” was in the show F.R.I.E.N.D.S when Rachel Green’s sister pierced Emma’s ears to make her look more “feminine” by making her “nose look small”. Rachel, though rightly pissed at her sister for not taking her consent before piercing her child’s ears, missed one more reason to be exasperated; why did Emma have to “look” like a girl at all? Emma probably didn’t care about gender expression just yet!
Green Sisters and their curse of hating their noses
But it’s never as simple as just gender roles or its performance. Gender performance that we learn is also dependent on what gender around us looks like, and how it is represented in isolation but in regards to our social context.
The problem is not making young girls wear dresses to make them look pretty. It begins with picking a dress for the child so that they represent your specific gender values. We learn to perform gender from our parents and other caretakers, who have learnt it from theirs and so on. But it’s never just limited to that, the concept is also encouraged and developed within the cultural community we are living in. We are taught to pick out clothing designs’ based on our social positions and what they represent. For example, a frock is mainly designed to look pretty, and is not a practical choice to go hiking in. It has frills and lace, and is made of uncomfortable tulle material that holds its shape. It’s seen as“too” pretty to be destroyed while playing in the park. So kids in this attire will usually be found sitting next to their parents or playing in a manner that is very conscious of their clothes and restricting their movements so as to avoid ruining it. Their posture at every step is to ensure they don’t flash themselves.
Maybe you didn’t mind the elmer glue, but maybe don’t treat your child as a doll?
The tweet above, highlights another great concern, how far can parents take their pursuit of fun? For many parents, it is thought to be originating from their own unfulfilled dreams and aspirations that they project onto their kids. But we have to ask ourselves, where do these aspirations come from? We should question how much pressure our parents, or we as parents, put on the child to fit into this purported idea of gender. The act of sticking a bow on your kids’ heads is not as harmful as the reasoning behind it, which seems to stem from your fear of your child being accidentally misgendered. Bows could be fun for you but it could translate into something that children will feel the pressure to adhere to as they grow older.
For kids assigned female at birth and raised as girls based on this, such pressures begin to show up as early as when they are toddlers. There’s always pressure to remain “gender-appropriate” and look “cute”. Things are slowly becoming more relaxed (thanks to the evolving feminist movement) since there are more practical clothing options for all kids. Also, it is possible that many parents who have been subjected to the same treatment, now try to protect their children from this (unless you’re Mommy Girlie Glue).
In a community setting like schools, which can often have standardized and gendered rules of dressing, it is hard for children to express themselves, especially in India where gendered uniforms are the norm. When I was growing up, I remember being subjected to strict school dress codes, right from the select few hairstyles I was allowed to the shine of my Mary Jane.
Glad to note that things have relaxed for younger Gen Z and older Gen Alpha young folx, who are the current school population. Sue (name changed) (she/her), who used to teach in private and alternative schools in Tamizh Nadu mentioned how her previous workspace didn’t follow a traditional uniform. The children were allowed to dress in casual wear, as long as they followed a few ground rules like not wearing branded or logo-heavy attire, a way to ensure an equitable student community.
According to her, the only hiccup was that “long hair, was something restricted to girls. [Girl students] could grow their hair out and wear ponytails, and braids or even leave it loose if it’s not too long. But, boys had to always maintain a certain length when it came to their hair. Why do these kinds of things have to be gendered if they are accepted for one gender? When it’s acceptable for one gender, why is it not acceptable for another gender?”
Meghna (she/her), also an educator who works at a school with a similar philosophy, observed that the female students in her school preferred to keep their hair long. Despite the short hair rule, male students experimented more with cuts and colour, she observed.
The same relaxed rules for girl students’ hair being “free to style”, received a different response in the school she teaches at. It would be easy to say that children have agency to express themselves, but children are often, if not always, perceived as representing their parents. It is worth noting that young students are still forming their opinions and figuring out who they are. Considering the power dynamic between children and systemic rule-setting by adults, it is understandable that they often accept and submit, instead of critically engaging or rebelling back. That’s when adults around them are expected to facilitate and make space for them to express themselves.
One such instance occurred in Meghna’s school: “So we have a [student] who is non-binary and they dress depending on how they feel. They have supportive parents, but issues often arise between peers. Some boys who consume a lot of ‘alpha masculine’ content online, often make fun of kids who present in ways that are [they’re taught to see as] ‘feminine’. As teachers, we have had conversations with them, but the problem is that so much of this doesn’t happen in school; it happens online and in spaces where we don’t have any visibility [as teachers].”
Parents also have trouble navigating/restricting content that children see online, as it is a vast new territory. Understandably so, as the older generations weren’t bombarded with overwhelming content like younger folx may be exposed to today. In a way, it’s a good thing that we’re encouraging more conversations about this and questioning how children are being subjected to some sort of policing around their gender expression. Girlie Glue, at first, seems like a sweet moment a mother may be sharing with her child. However, broadcasting this moment exposes the mother and child to much more fundamental discussions online.
We live in a paradoxical time where kids have never had so many resources at their fingertips and they have more flexibility with self-expression than the previous generation, and yet we find them under more pressure than ever to perform their gender and identity.
If you think it’s a nightmare to hunt for apartments *in this economy*, it becomes doubly harder to do so as a transgender person. The marginalisation is amplified by caste, class and social locations, as well as age. With inclusive welfare policies (like this one) being a distant dream, problems with housing are impossible to ignore — now more than ever. But for the transgender community in India, the lack of safe housing is only one aspect of the access gap.
Trans lives are constantly shaped by the spatial anxieties of accessing gate-kept spaces like hospitals, schools, workplaces and safe housing, made worse by anxieties of belonging, once you’ve got a foot in the door. Global north data shows that nearly half of the world’s unhoused population are queer/trans youth. 1 in 5 transgender people in the U.S. have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives; more than 1 in 10 trans women have been evicted because of their gender identity. In India, data further shows us that over 95% transgender individuals are denied jobs across the board and are often forced into informal, unregulated, and systemically stigmatised labour such as begging and sex work. Trans people are also more likely to face barriers while accessing safe and stable housing, due to lack of financial stability or rental history.
While problems of homelessness and poverty are urgent, seeking help is often stigmatised and always tedious. So when the Garima Grehs, envisaged as a safe temporary housing solution for transgender folks in India, were provisioned for in the Transgender Persons Act 2020 and piloted in 2021, the community reacted with a lot of hope. Despite initial misgivings, they were generally regarded as a policy step in the right direction. Why? Because safe housing is more than just a matter of shelter.
Housing: A pivotal determinant of trans health
For Kaveri (name changed), having a Garima Greh to turn to meant that she had a place to recover and rehabilitate in. Situated right above the healthcare center run by Mitr Trust in Delhi where she was undergoing HRT therapy/gender affirming care, the Delhi Garima Greh is one of 12, instituted across 9 states under the SMILE (Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood & Enterprise) scheme in 2020.
For Bella Sharma, former project manager at the Delhi Garima Greh, the home was a celebration of queer resourcefulness and the community’s commitment to the cause. She herself had been a Resident at the Greh, and is grateful for the safe haven it provided her after a brutal altercation with the police. It was also a place where she re-discovered herself.
But after months of not drawing a salary alongside growing family responsibilities, Bella had to step down from her role last December. And she was not the only one.
A 2022 report on the Delhi Greh by The Quint put things in perspective: due to an indefinite funding pause, the home’s mental health counselor was compelled to also take charge of cooking everyone’s meals. For Bella and many of her former colleagues, working overtime was the only option for the longest time. “Lots of residents were dependent on us so we were all trying to do our best to make ends meet, mostly banking on private donations and mutual aid, while waiting for the funds to arrive,” Bella adds, as she recalls watching the Delhi Greh get stripped of resources. “The community was trying its best not to let all this hard work go to waste,” she said referring, of course, to the decades of activism and advocacy that led up to the Transgender Persons Act, 2019, which with all its flaws, did result in the first tranche of shelter homes, albeit few and far between. But the irregular funding disbursal is an affront even to that progress.
Earlier this year, the funds meant for 2023 eventually arrived. But this untimely and unplanned disbursal without any explanation or clarity regarding the same, has led to unnecessary crises and avoidable drop-outs at all the Garima Grehs. This has disastrous consequences for residents who are preparing to transition into permanent housing while working towards financial autonomy, with disruptions in high school classes, vocational training and career counselling services, and life-threatening situations for those who may need timely suicide intervention, case management and mental health services, HIV treatment, gender-affirming care and other critical health services.
During her time at the Delhi Greh, Bella herself observed the critical conditions under which some of her friends wound up there: trans women who were outed to their family by “marriage proposals from impatient lovers and family friends”, folks who found themselves pulling the chord and packing their bags after being called a “unspeakable slur” by their mother. “Most people who come here are drained, burned out, some even suicidal, and it takes 3 months for them to stabilise”, Bella claims.
Course-correction no longer enough, we need a fresh vision
Even when they were up and running, the Garima Grehs were not without their flaws. Reports of lapse in security, with families of trans people and sometimes even the police storming the Garima Grehs and physically assaulting residents were making news. A few of the homes also don’t accept transgender couples who have fled together, stipulating that the space is only aimed at catering to trans individuals.
Filmmaker Jaishree Kumar, whose upcoming documentary on the Delhi Garima Greh, Basera, offers an even-handed glimpse into the state of these shelter homes, confirms this, saying, “The security guards at the Delhi home have quit, and the place is rife with hygiene and molding issues, poor quality of food (and even that was courtesy private benefactors). Now due to funding cuts, the trans women and trans men’s dormitories have also been merged.”
In order for these shelter homes to become autonomous and sustainable one-stop wellness centers, there is a serious need to re-engage with the vision and reimagine it at a policy level, so that residents and employees continue to have access to safe housing and ancillary services at their most vulnerable.
To begin with, a total of 12 homes for a country-wide trans population of 4.88lakh (as per the 2011 Census) is not suggestive of an inclusive and representative policy as it completely dismisses and decenters the needs of unhoused trans people in smaller cities and peri-urban areas. Many trans youth who run away from their natal homes are compelled to cross state lines in order to reach the Grehs, like Diya (name changed) who left her home in Assam and arrived at the Delhi Greh.
Ari Roy Chowdhuri who co-leads Nadia-Ranaghat Sompriti, a trans-kothi-hijra rights collective in West Bengal, does not hold back when asked about the lack of Garima Grehs outside prominent cities like Kolkata, citing that the unique needs of trans people in semi-urban areas are often removed from mainstream funding circles. “There is no acknowledgement of the resource-starved environments we operate in,” she adds.
Similarly, Jasmine (name changed), a trans priestess from Bilaspur exiled by her community, discovered a safe space only in Himachal Queer Foundation’s Self-Care and Catharsis workshop in Palampur (HP). At the time, she was dealing with the compounded trauma of being ostracised by her faith-based community and family. “She stayed with us for a few days while we helped her retrieve her belongings which had been confiscated,” Don Hasar, who co-founded Himachal Queer Foundation, tells Gaysi, adding that this was a completely self-funded effort and that HQF receives no grant or resources to set up and systematically offer safe shelter. “Keeping her safe was our priority, as was making sure that she safely reached a new space, where she could resume her work as priestess, which gave her a sense of identity,” they add, citing the interventions they made with the Police and Village Panchayat officials to ensure this.
Beyond housing, Centering access
That’s perhaps why the concept of safe housing needs a broader definition, to especially account for the diverse needs and experiences of trans people across the country. After all, safe temporary housing solution is only as good as its ability to provide holistic and comprehensive care.
For Don, therefore, it is not enough to build Garima Grehs which one cannot access without a transgender identity card. HQF, which works on sensitizing municipal and local law enforcement authorities, routinely impresses upon them the need to hasten the ID registration processes and remove harassment and prejudices from these spaces, heavily underscoring the importance of engaging and involving institutional actors and structures in effective implementation of such policies.
Like Ari, Don also complains of the lack of recognition for organizations who work in semi-rural settings and “work against templates generalizing trans experiences”, like making community interventions, working to create safe spaces in natal family spaces for queer youth, and offering legal and career counseling that centers the individual’s interests, among others. “Rural realities cannot be ignored, and local challenges (related to harsh climate, terrain and mobility) in the pahari regions must be factored in,” they tell Gaysi, also advocating strongly for “one-stop community centers for trans people at risk, modeled after the Telangana crisis centers for cis-women who fall victim to domestic violence.”
Even those of us who have had challenging experiences with coming out while still being financially dependent on our natal caregivers, know the utter loss of security that comes with housing instability at some point in life. The crisis in safe temporary housing, especially for those at a high risk for displacement from their neighborhoods and homes, then poses larger questions: How can we direct some of our privilege and efforts to protecting marginalized LGBTQ folx from housing discrimination? How can we ensure that the rights of transgender students at Indian campuses are not violated or threatened with eviction? Do we need to think about community building specifically for trans elders? Are we able to think of shelter homes as all-encompassing spaces with 12-step programs, behavioral and sexual health services and the works?
When we look back at queer history, especially that of ballroom dance houses or hijra kothi communities closer home, we may remember how these spaces also offered trans artists and performers (a large segment of whom were unhoused) a refuge from the streets at night. In Aravani Art project’s ethos, we see something to that effect, with many of the graffiti artists in the community discovering a sense of belonging at a moment in their lives when they’re experiencing some form of an access gap, where an unexpected foray into queer art gradually transforms into a project of reclamation – of space, security, and identity, a coming into one’s own. And what is a home, if not that?
The LGBTQIA community had its presence in my home, however tiny it was. I have my elder sister to credit for that; she came out as bisexual while she was in 12th class. I was lucky enough that the road was cleared for me. It’s been three years since I came out to my parents. From my father, I learnt not to let casteism stop me. From my mother, I learnt how to fight back against the stomping rage of patriarchy. And yet, I found both of my parents unable to accept my queerness. Sure, they didn’t outright disown me but the disregard stings as well. My university is far from home, a melting pot of various cultures. The weather can be unpredictable here, and the grind of college kept wearing me down. Until I found my people among members of the queer club it was a rush of feelings and consumed much of my waking thoughts. The liberating feeling of finally being understood and the freedom to take up space felt like a semblance of solidarity. Being close to my mother, the mentions of the club, and everything queer globally from the legalization of queer marriage, queer celebrities to transphobic legislation began to permeate our conversations over call.
Back home, my father remarked, “Ruhi oi shob L– G- B-T jinish matha theke nemeche?” (Ruhi have you gotten over all of that LGBT things?). The disdain in his voice was enough to finally push me over the edge.
“It’s not a temporary thing to get over”, I began. And over the next half hour, I debated with him about the biological, social “rationale” of being queer.
It finally ended when it was time for dinner. He was finally quiet, but not convinced. I was tired, but not defeated either. Recounting this to my friends later, many of them advised me to let it go and keep my peace.
“It’s no use dear, they won’t understand.”
“Don’t waste your time on them, just be happy they haven’t thrown you out yet.”
There was just one part of his argument that stuck with me.
“Why do you want to stand out by being queer?”
“Why do you want to invite more trouble and ostracization into your life?”
I had been born with enough oppression on my plate. Assigned female at birth, a middle-class family, dark-skinned and Dalit. This rhetoric comes up everytime I talk about the struggles against oppression of any kind. Especially, if it’s with someone from a privileged position concerning the topic of conversation.
“It’s going to take a lot of time, calm down.”
And even the outright pessimistic view, “Why bother, these things will never work and sort out by the time you grow old and die.”
I am appalled by this notion. The freedom I have today as a woman, my education, and my rights as a Dalit person have been ensured by Savitribai Phule, Dr B.R Ambedkar and many more. They dedicated their entire lives to pushing back against – oppression so that we, the future generations, could have better lives. How far down the capitalist self-centered mindset does one have to be, to not care about things which don’t concern us? The bare minimum we can do is pass on this knowledge, and these core beliefs to ensure that systems of oppression cannot lead to imposter syndrome within us. With this determination fueling my actions, I became the head of the queer club on campus. It was a space for discussion, but the gaps remained. Being the only openly Dalit queer in the club, the rest of them being savarnas, I dared not awaken the elephant in the room, for fear of it trampling down my few strong connections on campus.
With the last few years as the saffron and orange flags are ubiquitous and the superiority complex of -religion swells, every moment feels like the nation will boil over. In the garb of “de-colonization and national pride” these movements label queerness, women’s rights, and Dalit, Adivasi’s and other marginalised castes progress and rights as sacrilege. Laws to ensure – live-in relationships are notified to the court (enacted in Uttarakhand), archaic orders for women’s nighttime curfew in women hostels across all universities in Odisha (which was revoked fortunately) and the operationalization of the CAA act signal a bleak future where all pretences of democracy are dropped. Innumerable atrocities against the oppressed communities in India are left out of news reports, continuing the rose-tinted view of the current political climate.
I cannot rest easy with this uncertainty. Feeling torn between enjoying my freedoms while they last and working against oppression has taken up most of my waking thoughts now. There is no easy escape either; the so-called developed countries of the USA, and UK thought of as queer people’s havens are regressing toward fascism and religious conservatism as well. The recent upsurge of the 75-year oppression of Palestinians by Israel was what triggered me to look deeper into history and politics. I still have much to learn and understand; how the US has been influencing politics globally, the economic crisis and even Brexit and the “refugee crisis “. We will not keep running and hiding only to be hunted and killed.
My priorities have now changed and I strive to work for the real liberation and emancipation of people, not just of queerness but their material conditions. by taking part and building organisations that fight against oppression using a three-pronged approach with students and sympathetic groups- Educate, Agitate and Organise.
[This article is part of a special series at Gaysi highlighting the work of Dalit creatives, artists and writers curated and edited by BRC (positionality: Dalit queer non binary neurodivergent). If you would like to be a part of this series, please write to gaysifamily@gmail.com with subject line “working with BRC” along with a pitch or proposal. All published articles are paid.]
Major political parties have been releasing their manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as late in the game as a fortnight before elections, and sometimes even after a phase of voting has concluded. Election manifestos may not be taken very seriously by some voters and even by some politicians themselves. Unsurprising, considering election manifestos are not legally binding in India, and thus, neither political parties nor their candidates can be legally held accountable. Nevertheless, they are a strategic set of promises by parties to the electorate.
Irrespective of intentionality, manifestos in the past couple elections have had some mentions of queer rights. However, with the passage of the Transgender Persons Act in 2019 (hereafter, TP Act 2019) and the recent judgement in the Marriage Equality case in October 2023, the ball is now in Parliament’s court to recognize a whole host of rights and protections due for LGBTQIA+ persons in India. It has become a legislative matter, putting onus on parties and their MPs, whom we must engage with now.
In the 2024 elections, marriage equality is yet to grace any party’s manifesto; however, the phrases ‘civil union’ and ‘same-sex partnership’ have stood in for it in some manner. Garima Grehs (shelter houses), amendment of the TP Act, and gender-affirming healthcare are among the handful of promises in party manifestos.
Personally, the inclusion of at least some advances toward LGBTQIA+ rights in party manifestos was a welcome surprise. However, reactions on social media and in many opinion pieces were wrought with cynicism – people questioning parties for not speaking up earlier, or declaring the promises as election gimmicks. The scepticism has been rather disheartening. Meanwhile, atrocities against queer persons, especially trans persons, have become frequent occurrences – bullying in schools, forced marriages, and confinement, to name a few. Rights and protections enshrined in law will go a long way in helping us secure the safety and dignity of queer persons.
Rome was not built in a day, and neither will we build the Queerdom. Keeping some of that cynicism aside, it’s time we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and rise to build the foundations of our Roman empire. To give us a head start, here’s a list of promises from some prominent parties’ manifestos.
BJP’s manifesto mentions the expansion of the Garima Greh network to ‘cater to the needs of transgender individuals’. Identity cards have also been promised to transgender individuals for ‘their nationwide recognition’, but hints at gatekeeping access to Ayushman Bharatha, a national public health insurance scheme, for ‘all eligible transgender individuals’. No promises toward other LGBQIA+ persons, and keeping in line with the updated rules of Transgender Persons Act, 2019, right to self-identification will be in jeopardy.
Congress (INC) has promised expansion of Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution, which prohibit discrimination on various grounds, to include the words ‘disability’, ‘impairment’, or ‘sexual orientation’. Promises have also been made to ‘bring a law to recognise civil unions between couples belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community’ following ‘wide consultations’. Notably, it is the only manifesto among those including LGBTQIA+ rights, to not have anything specifically focused on trans persons’ rights.
CPI(M) has widened the ambit of promises notably to include anti-discriminatory laws, amendment to the TP Act 2019, ‘legal recognition and protection to same sex couples similar to marriage’, reservation in education, measures to address ‘bullying, violence, and harassment’ in educational institutions, and treatment of crimes against LGBTQ+ persons on par with those against ‘non-LGBTQ+’ persons.
Latest in line is NCP-SP, promising legal recognition, including marriage and adoption rights. Inclusive education with training for educators, gender-affirming care, hate crime legislation, policies preventing workplace discrimination, harassment, and bullying, opening of youth centres and counselling and support groups, and public awareness campaigns are other notable promises.
Now, armed with this information, vote wisely, and hold parties accountable to their promises.
Many queer people are wary of participating in political campaigns fearing their safety, and rightly so. Strength, however, lies in numbers and diversifying tactics. Here are few ways we can demand accountability while minimising individual exposure:
Understand major and regional political parties’ promises for LGBTQIA+ rights. You can find other parties’ manifesto by googling them.
Educate, educate, educate! Find out the stances of various MPs – both for and against LGBTQIA+ rights. Pink List India has a formidable archive of statements made by various politicians in public or in Parliament with media clippings. If your local MP is amenable, be our ground deploy and engage in-person, if you can.
Pick battles with the best odds. It’s easiest to bring around the most amenable. So, engage with politicians and parties most likely to support our cause. With timelines for legislating on LGBTQIA+ issues unspecified, Parliament is under little pressure to act. However, harnessing social media as a powerful advocacy tool, campaigns targetting social media handles of these MPs would help. Target these MPs and their political allies, be like the Duolingo owl!
Land in their inbox. Contact details of MPs are public information. Participate in mass campaigns mailing/posting our demands to MPs and party offices.
Contribute information. Maintaining repositories like Pink List India and coverage of elections from a queer feminist lens such as by Gaysi Family and Behan Box is hard work. Send them statements you come across made by your local politician on LGBTQIA+ rights, so they can be documented. Volunteer your time with repositories. Expand the reach of resources/ information shared by platforms by helping translate them into regional languages.
Create engagement. Invite MPs to LGBTQIA+ events. Organise town-hall or sabha-like setups where they get to interact with LGBTQIA+ persons. Ask them for responses and statements to our challenges. They can resist and claim ‘packed schedules’ at the start, but eventually, we are citizens – their electorate, and they must make time for us.
Remind them of their promises. Refer to promises in their manifestos in all correspondence – letters, social media, meetings. Let them not forget and know that we have not forgotten. Borrowing from the adage “tell a lie often enough…”, let us instead, repeat a promise often enough till it is brought to reality.
As activist and artist Zanele Muholi says, “If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.” Resilience is no guest to us, and as a community advocating for its rights we have come this far; we must strategise to use this momentum to move forward. Let us persevere towards improving political will.
Happy and wise voting, and let the good fight continue.
This IDAHOBIT, as a queer teacher, I hope for a day when we can be out there and free and happy, on our own terms, without much to fear for.
IDAHOBIT – The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia was on May 17. As serendipity would have it, a group of students from the school where I worked earlier, recently texted me about how they encouraged the boys of their school to sport mehndi and nail polish. They even got them to cook, while some of the girls enrolled in robotics for their school fest. Some of their seniors whom I had taught global perspectives discussed different communities around the globe who bent binary gender norms. I was in hosepipe mode, touched beyond the ability to articulate my feelings. This is my journey to earn acceptance.
In the year 2021, I was assigned the role of a Humanities and Global Perspective Teacher in a renowned International school in my city. I was offered the role keeping in mind my Masters’ degree in PR, a paper Presentation in Epistemology – Theory of knowledge and the role of AI in Education, and my 4-year experience of working with an NGO started for the indigenous Hijra-Aravani community.
I was – still am – someone with a lot of facial hair and peach fuzz, a trait proudly attributed to congenitally high androgen levels. It never felt daunting, but enhanced my gender euphoria, much to the chagrin of every conservative person around. My gait, demeanor and pretty much every other trait, added layers to my masculinity.
What acted as a speed-breaker to my blissfully happy non-binary life was the day a student blatantly asked me why “I had the same facial hair men have”. I had myriad ways to handle this situation, realistically speaking. I could divert the topic, I could just smile, or I could just say “it’s just the way it is” and sound apologetic about something I look at with great deal of self-esteem. It could also have irked me on a particularly dysphoric day, and gotten me riled up. I realized, that ALL my responses in that moment would reflect not just my personality, but form a lasting opinion that would be cemented in the child’s mind. About the LGBTQ community. About every queer person out there. This was an opportunity in my life to instill kindness in the child’s mind towards LGBTQ people.
This was during the same time as when the “MAGA boys” and their queerphobic content was gaining traction among children of around this particular student’s age. MAGA to the politically unacquainted is an acronym of “Make America Great Again”. It refers to mostly-white, conservative American men who believe cis het white men made America great thanks to their “non-woke” ideology (read as “regressive”) and want those dark ages to return.
Many “motivation” pages have also been doing the rounds on Instagram, and they engage solely with discourse thar belittles trans*, intersex and non-binary people. It wasn’t long before such conversation entered the classroom. On one hand, the boys who engaged with such content had begun equating trans people to right-wingers and paid internet trolls who proclaimed that they identified as wolves. On the other, my facial hair – followed by my mannerisms and gait were being pointed out as unexpectedly “masculine”. I had to intervene. This was my only chance to educate these students on the need for diversity.
I started looking for ways to teach children about LGBTQ people and their rights from a human-rights lens. ONE question that would link the two parallel quandaries I faced – my “masculine” features vs the growing queerphobia in kids, was all that was needed, and bam! It was to debunk the idea of a binary gender. It started with educating kids that people assigned female with XY chromosomes and male-assigned folks with XX exist, thereby making them aware of alternate X & Y Chromosomal variations in humans – XXY, XYY and many more. It was encouraging to see the surprise and enlightenment they displayed, and merely reinforced the fact that humans are taught bigotry, not born bigoted. There definitely exists inherent inclusion in children which has to be fostered and the need for diversity in society needs to be be informed and queer-affirmative. It was wholesome when the kid who asked me about my facial hair drew me a card with a sorry on it and said it’s “valid for me to be me”. The rest of the room seemed to blur as my eyes welled up.
I soon followed this lesson with another on the existence of indigenous trans* and gender variant communities around the world, using a lesson plan that was Google-maps enabled, curated by pbs.org, with each community marked on a location that is hyperlinked to details about that community. We then went on to discuss the impact of both colonization and the orthodoxy displayed by caste-privileged people, that led to the creation and maintenance of the Criminal Tribes Act, which was passed by the British in 1971. The Hijra community in particular was targeted under the Act. This was also an excellent moment to educate them about cis heteronormative caste patriarchy, and why casteism and queerphobia work together. Queerness has the potential to dismantle caste hierarchy, provided that privileged queer people and allies are sensitized about caste.
This act passed by the British created the category of “eunuch” to refer to the many, often unrelated gender non-conforming communities in India, including hijras, khwajasarais, and kothis, and many of them are seen as suspicious due to their gender non-conformity by the law.
The Indian phenomenon was paralleled to similar colonial and post-colonial situations around the globe, in a poignant, heart-wrenching documentary by the BBC titled “Gender identity:How colonialism killed my culture’s gender fluidity”. It included voices of Francis Geronimo, a two-spirit individual, Leher, a trans woman from the Hijra community who uses the label “third gender” and Kai, who identifies as a “Brotherboy” from Sydney, who collectively described the historical massacre carried out by imperialists on indigenous gender variant communities.
I would up the lesson by showing the students two objects – a blue house T-shirt and a blue crayon, which largely fell on the “blue spectrum”, albeit possessing different wavelengths. This was used as an analogy to grasp that cis women and trans women are both women, but they experience womanhood differently in some ways. Trans women and Non-Binary trans femme people may also experience their femme identities differently. The words “man” and “woman” are themselves social constructs, which the first bipedal homosapiens are unlikely to have used.
The children were asked to recall how many primary, secondary and tertiary colours exist. They chimed in “three! three! six!”, in that order. They were further probed if those were the only colours on the planet. They gave me a long stare. Voila!! I had delicately managed to pull off a holistic session on empathy and respect for the need of diversity. This was done without sounding dogmatic, as right-aligned people fear, but by encouraging the children’s curiosity about the world around them.
Sadly, there were loopholes and challenges. Now the catch here is, the school was in a conservative locality of my city. To them, even the well-intentioned act of teaching children to treat LGBTQ people with dignity was the beginning of a slippery water slide that would lead to queer children, according to them, which was ridiculous. Nevertheless, this was a long-overdue challenge that had to be met. Down the lane, it would probably help with ensuring someone’s psychological safety in knowing that their queerness is not an abnormality, but a way of the world. We needed kindness in children sure, but we need them in adults as well.
On the national level, queer sensitization efforts are already facing both tacit and blatant resistance. The same year, a teacher sensitization manual prepared by a trans activist in India for gender variant LGBTQ children that was presented to the Central Secondary Education Board had been widely criticized by the conservative masses and had to be revoked. This manual had been created for merely helping students survive because it included details on gender neutral restrooms and ways to help students explore their gender and navigate gender dysphoria. It became national news and the said trans person was also doxed.
This irrational transphobia has been relentless and seems to have percolated all parts of our society, including my own environs. I would overhear large groups of parents in whatsapp groups of my apartment or known circles. murmur in hushed undertones, referring to trans activists using dehumanizing pronouns like “it”. It was humiliating. The heart yearned for just some warmth among the next gen, nothing more or less.
The following year, Arvey Malhotra, a 15-year-old childended his life because of the relentless bullying he faced in his school, Delhi Public School Faridabad. A queer-sensitization was long overdue to reinforce kindness among children and their parents. While his mother bravely fights tooth and nail to deliver her child justice, both she and other such affirming parents realize that this is a systemic issue.
Unfortunately, the next manual was presented to teachers by a cisgender heterosexual representative of the current government named Jyotsna Tiwari. Luckily that manual was pulled down owing to queer outrage. It reduced trans individuals to caricatures, only meant to be found in public spaces as people begging for alms or blessing new borns. It was condescending. And on the other hand, we were encouraging the idea of trans folx in all parts of society, even as doctors and lawyers. What an irony!
While this manual was struck down, a similar such manual was created and adopted in ANOTHER right-wing school that I worked at. It was worse than the cancelled NCERT Manual. It did not have a word on gender dysphoria or mental health support. It had no roadmap of any action plan. The word “kind” was mentioned two dozen times without a quantifiable example of what “kind” meant. I was also asked not to name any oppressor community, be it in the systems of colonization or casteism, which was ridiculous. Marginalization doesn’t happen in the passive voice. There exist extremists who subject us to it, systemically. I was also asked to rewrite my work in the passive voice and make queerphobia sound more like an allegation than an everyday lived experience.
Let’s just say, the end wasn’t as rosy, and I changed jobs to teach my core subject – English. I now work with adults, training them to write exams like GRE and IELTS that help them go abroad. I wondered how I would ever spread awareness and empathy in children towards the LGBTQ community – as a queer student and a victim of sexual abuse and bullying at school, myself. The last thing I wanted to ever see is a reflection of my own trauma in front of me. I fought it out alone perhaps so that my students wouldn’t have to.
One fine day, a student reached out to me out of the blue to tell me that she wished a trans woman for woman’s day. I teared up instantly, in the middle of a staff meeting. Imagine how good the woman would have felt to be acknowledged. They further went to the extent of educating a teacher who said all males have XX chromosomes and all females have XY chromosomes, and told her that a small percentage of people exist outside these binaries. This was ALL I wanted!! A world that wasn’t divided into two rigid boxes – blue and pink – but had possibilities for more. Where children could be who they wanted, without being shamed for it.
The good thing that happened to me was that I learnt to value minor changes. Children – and adults – grow at their own individual pace. We’ve just got to trust the process and enjoy the journey more than the destination sometimes. It is very unfortunate to have to do it on the terms and conditions of fragile cis het ego. LGBTQ people who aim to have even the most basic, informed conversation on queerness have a lot to lose – including their lives. Hurting cis het sentiments is the lowest end of the totem-pole, the higher ends include an organized witch hunt against us.
I follow a leader named Dr. Ambedkar. He taught millions of people around the world that “Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle…”. As someone with immense self-esteem in me, I refuse to settle for scraps of tokenism that I sordidly call “sloppy-seconds” tongue in cheek. I will speak up, take space and vocalize my anguish at how dispensable queer lives are looked at, and I already do so actively – at events, at pride, in blogs and in protests. I want to instill values of inclusion, diversity and equity in children at all costs regardless of what it takes. I want them to respect all forms of life around them.
This is too obvious to even be said, but for the last time, We DO NOT want cis het kids to be queer – as ridiculous and impossible as we know it is. We wanted queer kids to study and graduate high school ALIVE. This IDAHOBIT, as a queer teacher, I hope for a day that we can be out there and free and happy, on our own terms and conditions, without much to fear for.
Dating as a gay man in a city like Bombay is quite messy. Some are looking for love and some are looking for friendship, and there are others looking for other things. Finding someone who is looking for the same things as you is next to impossible. Personally, I found that my dating scenario was somehow the same as everyone and yet, different. Dating for me only began in my late 20s, as I was focused on being independent and didn’t want someone invading my space. I was quite against beginning a relationship in my teens and early 20s, but when you are growing old, you realize that you do need someone in your life. That feeling made me enter the dating scene in my late 20s.
I started using dating apps and found lots of people who were looking for genuine relationships. I spoke with a few of them, dated some and met them once or twice, but few stood out. Let’s start with a guy I met at Lower Parel at a gay party; there was an instant connection as we danced together and made out on the dance floor. Everything was going well and he was a tall, good-looking guy, and I was excited! So you can imagine my shock when I got to know that he was already in a relationship and was just looking for a random makeout session. It was probably just my second gay party and I didn’t get a memo about the random hookups and open relationships that occur in the community. It was an eye-opening moment for me. After all, I was naive and got to learn my lessons.
Moving on to another person who messed with my mind: he was a cute, tall, and handsome guy from Himachal Pradesh trying to make his mark in the film industry. I knew of the pahadi-folx as a soft-spoken, sweet people, but damn! He truly was such a gem of a person, always well-behaved and respectful. The first time we met was at one of my favorite places in town i.e. Marine Drive. We ended up talking for a long time, enjoying the cool breeze in the evening, the sun going down, the beautiful moon, the stars, and the waves thrashing against the shore. It felt like the most romantic place for me and we kissed too. We met a few more times, but he didn’t feel what I felt for him, and texted me one day that he didn’t feel love for me. In the end, we decided that it was better to move on and keep minimal contact with each other. It didn’t break my heart, but I was surely feeling down afterwards.
There were some people in-between whom I met once only. They only liked going on dates, and wanted people to spend money on them. They want their dates to take them out to expensive restaurants, buy gifts for them, and take them on vacations. They wanted me to be their sugar daddy, which I was quite shocked to learn, but also found quite hilarious. To be honest, when you get old, you know what kind of people you are dealing with, and you can sense it from the first meeting. I am glad that I started dating later than the norm, because it helped me understand what kind of person I am and also how other people are.
Now, let’s move on to another person who I felt might be my future husband (LOL). Goes without saying, but he was a cute, good-looking guy working in the media. We met through a mutual friend and hit it off immediately. There was an instant connection. We met many times and I even went to his place, but we didn’t do anything other than kiss each other. He was quite funny and sang too. There was only one weird thing about him, he would not reply for days, and out of nowhere he would suddenly text me or call me. I wanted to take it slowly with him, but I was wrong. One day, he messaged me and said he was dating someone and they were going out together for a vacation. I was hurt but I said that I was happy for him.
My dating scene has taken a break for the time being, as I want to focus on other things. But, I am still trying to find my man. I know my man is out there who like me, is dating the wrong individuals. As a hopeless romantic who daydreams about romantic adventures, I’m confident that it will surely become a reality.
We are not unfamiliar with the concept of star-crossed-lovers, it has existed as long as storytelling, and we all love a good romantic tragedy. However, before Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet got mainstream, our lands had their own lore and tales in the form of Heer-Ranjha and Laila-Majnu. These stories have been adapted by mainstream Indian cinema for as long as we can remember. The thing about adaptations is that they show us just how universal love and rebellion is. Where there is love, there are obstacles and yearning.
And who knows obstacles in love and yearning better than queer folx? Which is what seems to have inspired Kamya Nair to bring out an adaption of Laila Majnu but this time, it’s queer and our Majnu is a woman named Manju.
Set against the backdrop of the COVID lockdowns in Mumbai, India, “Lailaa Manju” follows the journey of its titular characters, Lailaa and Manju, two young women navigating the complexities of their relationship amidst societal prejudices and familial expectations. Played with remarkable depth and authenticity by the talented ensemble cast, the characters come alive on-screen and resonate with the audience in a fresh way.
Kamya Nair’s directorial prowess shines throughout the film, as she skillfully balances moments of intimacy with anxiety around being “different”. The cinematography, done by DOP Archana Ghangrekar, captures the essence of landscapes, creating a visually striking tapestry that mirrors the emotional landscape of the leads. Contrasting the bustling streets of Mumbai to the newfound, yet ominous serenity of life during the pandemic-induced lockdowns, each frame is imbued with a sense of purpose.
“Since Manju is a graphic designer, the colour of the walls in her bedroom was consciously created as a canvas to reflect her mood. Blue can be many things: but mostly my interpretation is blue is a dark reflective pool…a sort of unconscious space, when the right light hits, it can be dark and sort of amniotic. So the color blue creates a womb-like state inside Manju’s room. The eggshell blue of Ajji’s room is also a take on this to represent her fading consciousness,” Kamya reflects, in an interview with Gaysi Family.
Still from Lailaa Manju
Kamya’s Lailaa Manju sets itself apart with its nuanced take on depicting queer relationships and related complexities on the Indian screen. She portrays the tightrope walk that is being your authentic self and managing family expectations, with finesse. Familial expectations and the guilt that comes with unmet obligations are a near-universal experience in this part of the world. Through the lens of Lailaa and Manju’s relationship, the film confronts deep-rooted prejudices and societal norms, challenging viewers to confront their own biases and misconceptions.
Kamya Nair, Director & Writer of Lailaa Manju
Mansi, who plays Lailaa, spoke to Gaysi about her working association with Kamya. “The story is very close to Kamya, and everything I did for prep was sourced around her, rather than the text/script being the primary material. For every word, and every line in the script, I would ask about the character’s intention and their context to understand what we were working with. There are certain things that exist as context outside the screen and script, to develop it and then create layers surrounding it.”
With its subtle depiction of internalized hetero-patriarchal traditions: from restricting women from visiting the shamshan-ghat to eventually letting go of their identity for the sake of fitting in. The story brings out a sense of empathy and a sense of relatability through the little things we do.
“We wanted to tell a multigenerational story about women [and queerness] in various spaces. Ajji and Devi’s story is a proto-queer relationship. If they probably had a chance to understand their friendship better, it’s possible that they would have had a queer relationship.[..] What might have been if Ajji had not been married off? Ajji’s dementia brings her back to this unexplored, unresolved territory.” says Kamya, when asked about the ailing grandmother’s character.
Whether it’s our hearts aching for all the long-lost loves, and Lailaa-Manjus or Lalit-Majnus (another adaptation?) who existed before us. Kamya’s depiction of homophobic parents was not just limited to their problems with homophobia, but also fleshing them out as real people who have reasons for behaving the way they do. Not in any way excusing the behavior, but rather adding layers to the dynamic.
The film depicts a form of vulnerability that does not shy away from being authentic. The passion for storytelling translates on screen such that the audience too understands the context that the characters come from. Who they were, how their relationship matured and what led to their current mind space.
Our Lailaa And Manju
Mansi expands on how safe she and Tanvi, who plays our Manju, felt on the set. With behind-the-scenes being not just physically, but emotionally safe space. “With Lailaa Manju, the safety I felt around the set, the safety to be emotionally vulnerable, [was] a prerequisite for playing this character. [As an actor, I] expose [myself] to the vulnerabilities of the character and the world they come from. There was a kind of security in doing that, in the process of not just making the film but even [in terms of collaborative storytelling].”
“Lailaa Manju” is a triumph for indie cinema—a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of queer identity in contemporary India. With its compelling narrative, stellar performances, and exquisite cinematography, Kamya Nair has crafted a film that demands to be seen and celebrated. It is a testament to the power of storytelling to challenge perceptions, spark conversation, and inspire change.
In this past week, we saw yet another controversy ranking high enough on the weirdness and angry-rich-man scale for mainstream media to care about queer people and their lived realities.
Bhavish Aggarwal, the co-founder and CEO of Ola, an Indian cab-hailing giant, worth almost $2 billion, lashed out about pronouns. And where do entitled people who dispense opinions like candy, do so? The hellscape we all lovingly used to call Twitter. In a series of Tweets and later a LinkedIn post by Mr. Aggarwal (yes, I used Mr., you’ll soon see why) ranted about what he described as the ‘pronouns illness that most Indians had no clue about’ earlier.
His tweets quickly went viral, as expected. He even went so far as to claim that some MNCs were promoting this culture of pronouns in the country ‘without us Indians even realising it’.
Gasp!
A secret disease was spreading within Indian society like wildfire and it wasn’t low-paying jobs, hunger, or hate. It was the use of pronouns which according to this tech-bro, even many ‘big city schools’ were teaching to our kids. Aggarwal went on to lament that the CVs he receives also have the shame of pronouns attached to them, with job-seekers including he/him, she/her, or they/them, after their names. One wonders if Mr. Aggarwal ignores the CVs with pronouns more than he ignores the CVs with no pronouns.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, right?
Then came the usual tirade that we queer people have heard for years if not all our lives. The ‘need to draw the line in following the West blindly’.
The need for urgent policy reforms? No. The need to pay employees a living wage? Absolutely not! The need to make sure that the unemployed youth of our nation do not fall into the sick ways of sharing their pronouns openly? Bingo!
What prompted this sudden rant on social media from a CEO no one really knew about? Mr Aggarwal asked the AI chatbot of LinkedIn, a professional community-building network, the question that we all have on our minds- ‘Who is Bhavish Aggarwal?’
The chatbot responded dutifully that Aggarwal was the co-founder and CEO of Olacabs.com. A former Research Assistant and Intern at Microsoft Research India who had graduated from the prestigious (if not infamous for its casteism) IIT Bombay. Rather than focusing on the accuracy of the bot or revelling that someone outside the tech circle knew him (albeit a soulless software), Aggarwal quickly took a screenshot, painstakingly circled all the uses of ‘they’ in reference to ‘him’ in the copy, and then proceeded to post it promptly on Twitter with his long rant about the pronouns and its attack on Indian culture.
One wonders if Aggarwal’s English teacher met with a similar rant when pronouns were being taught in school. Was Wren and Martin his sworn enemy? Was Shakespeare the nightmarish demon of his dreams because even ‘thee, thou, and thy’ were akin to pronouns right? Several questions remain to be answered. Only some will eventually be. How deep does this ‘pronouns illness’ go?
The crusader answered in an X post on May 11. In a lengthy lament, Aggarwal has gone on to slam ‘Western companies’ like LinkedIn and Microsoft for their ‘wokeness’. A point to note is that he uses the word ‘wokeness’ as if it were another illness and something to be weary about.
Aggarwal goes on to say India does not need “lectures” from such companies, ignoring the fact that no one needs lectures from him as well. “On a personal front” he says that upon visiting Ayodhya last year, he “learnt about how [transgender persons] had been accorded special respect in our culture since ancient times.” Did he miss out on the fact that trans people are also forced to beg, live and work on the streets and often die of exhaustion (this relentless heatwave!) and exclusion? Perhaps not.
As if this was not enough, he goes on to slam this “western DEI system” calling it an “entitlement mindset” and vowing to “fight it.” Diversity, equality, and inclusion? Surely, we need to fight them, tooth and nail.
Finally, Aggarwal says that he will put his “money where his mouth is” and invest in an Indian ‘Digital Public Infrastructure’ or DPI that would be governed only by Indian law and not by Western-made “community guidelines”. He also announced that Ola would be moving away from Microsoft’s Azure cloud to the Indian-made Krutrim.
While make-in-India is welcome, the motivations for his shift are suspect at best.
Looks like, in addition to ‘putting his money where his mouth is’ he is also finding room for his foot in there.
Putting aside all jest and sarcasm (with a heavy heart), incidents like these reveal a dangerous trend that is quickly becoming a newfound social currency. The degrading and belittling of queer people or for that matter any person who does not fit into the category of a rich, English-speaking, urban male, has become a mark of respect amongst the communities that people like Aggarwal embody.
The Ola CEO has 487,500 followers on X and 187,000 on LinkedIn. Considering that his reach does not transcend his followers, which it certainly does, this is a community of close to 6.7 lakh people who follow and read what Mr Aggarwal thinks and shares. One can safely assume that many also aspire to be like the man. He has after all cracked the great Indian dream of studying in an IIT, working in some of the world’s biggest tech firms, and founding a billion-dollar startup, whose services millions use every day.
This sets a very dangerous precedent.
What India has just witnessed is what the West has already done and continues to do so since the rise of the techiest tech bro of all tech bros – Elon Musk.
Musk, one of the richest people on the planet, is known for his transphobic comments that he frequently shares on X. This is despite him having an openly trans daughter, who incidentally, has said that she no longer wishes to be related to him in ‘any shape or form.’
Aggarwal has just taken a leaf out of Musk’s book of spreading hate and shovelling one’s opinions down the throats of other people, without the self-awareness that comes with money and power in society.
Unfortunately, such men have become gatekeepers to our online lives. They determine what we see, what we consume, and in turn what we believe. One would think that these people with the power to influence millions of young minds would think before they speak. Aggarwal while tweeting should have thought about a closeted trans person working in Ola who will now not even think about coming out at work, for fear of their colleagues following the path their boss has clearly laid out for them- one of bigotry and queerphobia.
The shattering of the gender binary and the insistence of people to show their true selves are somehow slaps on the faces of successful cis-het men and they sure are fighting back.
The controversy has passed and Bhavish Aggarwal will continue to revel in his cathartic post-rant relief. He surely has learnt nothing, considering how a day after launching his war against pronouns, he re-tweeted a post about a woman ranting about how she was a ‘pregnant woman’ and not a ‘pregnant person’. This came on the heels of the Supreme Court noting that genders other than women can also bear children and thus ‘pregnant person’ is a more inclusive term. Bhavish Aggarwal has a problem with the apex court too.
But his words are now out there for thousands if not millions of young people to read and wonder- ‘Is he right? Should I remove my pronouns before applying for a job?’
Responsible dissemination of one’s views is what is required, but it remains an elusive dream while open hate speech against queer people and the usage of terms like ‘illness’ to describe them has become all the more real.
It is time for the ones in power to reconsider what they say and post because we, and most importantly, the keepers of history (or is it time we announced it as their-story) are watching.
Oh, and if you’re a new recruit at Ola Cabs, be sure not to reveal your pronouns lest you be branded as having caught the much dreaded ‘pronouns illness’.
Domestic spaces are often divided up between the custodians of the house, usually your parents or grandparents. Depending on the environment you were raised in, it is likely that different spaces in the home can invoke different emotions in you. This experience can be rooted in how you see/have witnessed your parents cultivating and interacting with these spaces, even if it were along the lines of gendered roles.
Credits: Jo (they/him)
The kitchen has been one such gendered space in many homes. While it might not be true for everyone, patriarchy demarcates the kitchen as a predominantly “feminine” space. Gendered spaces at home often become an enabler of the hetero-norm that goes on to further reproduce gender roles.
The problem with enforcing gender roles, especially on skills like cooking and navigating domestic work in the kitchen, is that we take away the opportunity from people to grow and develop interests in holistic ways. For example, if a person is raised as a boy and conditioned to express their masculinity (often assigned male at birth – AMAB) shows interest in cooking, it is often discouraged or they’re held back from taking active interest in these activities. But for a person who is raised a girl and conditioned to be feminine (often assigned female at birth – AFAB) being forced into learning cooking for the sake of their potential husband, it takes away their autonomy and excitement of trying something new for their own selves.
Speaking to young queer folx raised as girls, especially some who grew up in environments that encourage experimentation in the kitchen and promote cooking as a skill that would enable them to conduct their lives with a sense of agency, one speculated about the possibilities of fully degendering kitchen spaces.
MAKING SPACE:
For Subeksha (she/her) who grew up in Darjeeling, cooking was always a space that was dominated by her parents, making her see it as a parental space where adults would take charge and would only let her help with peeling rather than actual cooking. Even then, she had no particular interest in learning how to cook as she had other hobbies and academic interests to explore.
As for Jay (she/they), they did not like cooking for the simple reason that their kitchen was a small space and could not hold more than 2 people at a time. However, she enjoyed helping their grandmother cook in her spacious kitchen.
Sasha (name changed) (she/her) talked about how the kitchen space was more of an activity area for her. Even in a physically smaller house in Mumbai, she would be seated and playing with her own kitchen set next to her mom, who would spare some atta flour to make her kitchen set seem more legitimate.
ARE YOU A SURVIVOR CHEF OR EXPERIMENTING CHEF?
As many do in a rite of passage to adulthood, Subeksha moved out for college and was surrounded by roommates who eased her into cooking. She initially helped them by chopping, peeling and handing out things, and eventually learned her way to “survival cooking”. The pandemic was a time when she would spend time in her family kitchen experimenting “like a mad scientist” to recreate foods and satisfy her cravings. Jay, who has a similar philosophy, also learnt how to prepare recipes that they crave just to save money and make it whenever they want it.
Nikita (she/her) spoke to us about how her mom never taught her to cook, mainly since her mother also learnt how to cook after having kids. Also because her mom believes that she can learn it later in life if she needs it or just find a partner who can feed her. Nikita’s mom wanted to make sure that she is always focused on her academics and career rather than the domestic space. However, Nikita says that has always wanted to learn cooking as a basic skill and be able to survive on her own, but one of the obstacles she faces is finding a good teacher. Being neurodivergent, she needs a teacher who can supervise and teach recipes with detailed instructions.
Nikita Making Do With Packet Food Skills
On the other hand, there is Avi (name changed) (she/her), who works 12-16 hours at a cancer research lab in Navi Mumbai, has the option to purchase decent meals from her work cafe. For her, food is still just for survival and cooking is for emergencies, because it’s “too time & energy-consuming”. Avi adds that the only cooking related “lecture” she got from her parents was, “Pati ko rakh side pe, khud ko kya khilayegi?” (translates to: leave cooking for your husband aside, what will you feed yourself?).
FOOD FOR ME & YOU
Jo (they/him) shared how their PCOD (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Disorder) motivated him to learn cooking beyond just as a mere means for survival, and as a way to deal with cravings in a healthier way. They say that, going from living in a chawl and then with a joint family, one does not need to enter the kitchen much, as someone is always who can cook for you. But as an adult, making homely versions of their favorite foods not only helped them begin to enjoy cooking but also enabled them to start taking better care of their health.
Credits: Jo (they/him)
Sasha, talked about the ups and downs she experiences with respect to her body image and weight, and how it led to her starting a diet last year. But after getting tired of just eating bad food, she decided to work on cooking and eating what she likes, and fill in the nutritional gaps with newer recipes. But what mainly sparked her interest in the kitchen was coffee and her journey with experimenting with different brewing styles. Soon she also learnt to cook middle eastern food via Khayali Pulav’s YouTube videos, and started to have more fun with cooking. Sasha also thinks hosting is a big reason for why she loves cooking now.
A coincidental common thread between all of these strangers who have never interacted with one another, could be that their parents fostered a degendered space around cooking in the kitchen. Either allowing them to pursue it from a young age or allowing them to not take interest in it even as adults. Promoting a degendered environment for food, kitchen and cooking as a skill paves the way for many young adults to explore their lives outside of their gendered expectations.
On 7th of May, I went to the central school along with my family members to vote in the Lok Sabha elections for the first time ever. The voting booth happens to be about 10-15 minutes away from our apartment. I was eagerly looking forward to this day, not because I felt hopeful about being able to change our current regimen, but because of the possibility of people starting to look at me as an actual adult instead of endlessly infantilizing me. I thought it would make them realize that I, in fact, am old enough to participate in the decision-making process of this country.
I was allowed to directly go inside the polling room without having to stand in the line, since I’m physically disabled, and was accompanied by my parents who are both senior citizens. However, the presiding officer told us that they can not allow me to vote because we had not taken my PAN card, Aadhar card or any other legal documents for identity proof in lieu of my voter card, which itself has not arrived even though months have passed since we have applied for it. We were told that the paper tickets featuring our voter ID numbers from the election commission should be enough and that I would be allowed to vote even before the voter card arrives, because my name is already registered in the voter list.
I started feeling sensorially overwhelmed upon being told that I would not be allowed to vote. Even a tiny piece of thread sticking out of my skirt, tickling my leg felt overwhelming to me and I just wanted to sit down somewhere and take the thread out. So when the polling officers told my parents to go ahead cast their own votes, I asked the police officer if I could just sit down on one of the empty chairs in the room, but the officer didn’t even try to listen to what I was trying to say and forcefully grabbed my arm and told me to wait for my parents. And since I’ve always hated being held like that, my temper shot up and I angrily took my arm out of her hand and stomped to the empty chairs and sat down to take the thread out and calm myself down.
My mother walked towards me and asked if I had a pictures of any kind of photo-identity document on me, which they could use as identity proof. I offered to help search for it on her phone, but when I finally did find something, the presiding officer said that we can not use it because people aren’t even allowed to bring phones inside the polling room, another rule that no one bothered to tell us before because no one actually checked for phones anyway.
After both of my parents were done casting their votes, they told us to leave the room immediately, because the line was getting longer and we had to go sit in the waiting area since my sisters were still in the line. Refusing to give up, my mom decided to go find a Xerox shop to get the legal documents printed out from her phone, asking me to wait there with my dad.
While we were waiting, a man in an army uniform approached us and asked my dad if I was his daughter and if I could even read and write as if I was not sitting right next to my dad. Frustrated with being misgendered and disrespected like that, I tried to tell that man that I could do much more than just reading and writing, but the man just shrugged me off because he couldn’t understand what I was saying, or more like he didn’t even try to.
After a while, my mother came back to the waiting area with a worn-out look because all the shops were closed in the whole neighbourhood owing to the elections. Right when I was about to give up on my hopes completely, my dad got up and said that he would just go home and bring my aadhar card, while my sisters were still in the queue to vote.
As we were waiting for my dad to return, I vented to my mom about how they ought to explain the rules more carefully and my mom told me about how some of the people who were done casting their votes said that they were not even asked to show any type of identity proof, unlike me, which left me feeling insecure about my appearance and how much trouble my whole existence was causing to my parents. As I was just falling down the downward spiral, I started crying without even realising it. My mom noticed this and told me that I shouldn’t be crying about it because people were staring at which, I just snapped and said, “Let them think whatever they want.”
Oh no! You feel uncomfortable seeing a disabled person crying in a public place?? Think about what exactly pushed me to that point! Why should I care about the society when it doesn’t care about me?
Fortunately, I calmed down a bit after having a brief meltdown and got to cast my vote after my dad brought my aadhar card from home. Although I can undoubtedly say that I would not be able to forget about this day anytime soon, because of the emotional turmoil I had experienced on this day, I also learnt to completely disregard my anxieties regarding how I’m perceived in public.
As much as I am tired of being discriminated against for just being different from most people, I certainly am proud of myself for being able to toughen up and keep growing as a person.
I am an autistic grey aro ace masc lesbian. To me, my identities are like layer cakes with the foundation being rooted in my lesbianism. I had to make the cake reference; aces would know!* I’ve only been out of the closet for 3 years now and the reality is that I did not feel as alienated when I was in the closet. The belonging that I have felt in lesbian memes has been the biggest validation so far. However, I’ve also internalized the ‘date or hangout’ and ‘flirting or being nice’ culture so much that I have told myself I am supposed to be lost and not have clarity. Ironically, in most other circumstances, I see myself as someone who usually has a lot of clarity, but it does not work too well when that lesbian panic hits! Once I do find this clarity, I struggle to decide if I should continue wearing the ‘chaotic unclear lesbian’ mask or not? I turned 37 this month and being born in April the month of – autism acceptance, International ace day and lesbian visibility day – makes it all the more validating, am I right? Hell, no .. all I am acing at is that impostor syndrome!
For my polyamorous heart, intimacy and commitments do not mirror the social blueprints of allosexuality and amatonormativity. I approach relationships from a place of abundance – excited about the endless possibilities. To me, kink and eroticism is not (merely) sexual but a form of intimacy and I seek intimacy in all equations, especially platonic attractions. It was validating to read about Audre Lorde talking about erotic as the power as part of an aro-ace support group I went to. As much as there is the narrative of U-hauling in lesbian spaces, it feels unrelatable to me because I don’t even know If there are spaces that are accessible to me, which understand the way I seek out intimacy. Oftentimes I feel let down by those close to me, who have misunderstood me or my identity. I did not know that I would have to defend my identities as if it were a PhD thesis. I mean it is a disservice to not let an ace lesbian enjoy her layer cake in peace!
People often think that my being aro-ace means that I don’t feel anything at all or that I completely lack the experience of feeling attractions. This leads to them making unhelpful assumptions about me. A woman once assumed that I was unable to access and enjoy sexual pleasure due to internalised misogyny, clearly missed the brief that I am, in fact, a lesbian who is pleasure positive. Another acquaintance, who probably felt attracted to me, assumed that I might not feel the same way simply because I identify as aro ace. These assumptions are rather harmful to me and invisibilize my lesbian identity; let me do my lesbianism in peace, please! Despite the imposter syndrome that constantly whispers in my ear that I shouldn’t feel anything, I choose to be honest about my emotions when I know what I feel. The outcomes are not always fun and I am currently mourning the loss of a friendship where my ex-friend possibly thinks that I’ve betrayed her, but all I did was express emotions from wanting to feel loved by multiple people without having to centre someone else’s narrative.
There is so much pain in losing a sapphic equation that has been a deep friendship, filled with love and intimacy in a manner that I cherish. Would masking my feelings have saved me from this grief? Should I not shield myself from feeling anything for women and even expect reciprocation in non-mononormative terms? When, all I want is to be stepped on by them? In such instances I tell myself that all Sappho wrote was ‘love, attraction and desire for women’ and not whether said desire attraction and love was limited to romance or sexuality or something else entirely!
Since watching Carol last year, I have proclaimed myself to be Carol and Therese’s Child as in the movie, they end up reuniting on the 17th of April, the day I was born!
Masking feels familiar but it is also exhausting and soul-breaking when all you want is to find people who see you and want you for all that you are, in my case the soft sensitive butch snaccc hoe that I am!
*Editor’s Note: The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) made cake the unofficial symbol of asexuality, because ace folx love to talk about how cake is better than sex! Not untrue!
Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal, the wannabe Elon Musk (not a role model), recently posted his frustrations with pronouns on X. With the upcoming elections, the unrelenting heatwave, the ominous threat of nuclear war, widening wealth inequality and soaring food insecurity, you’d think this Indian startup stalwart and widely-renowned innovation dudebro would have more relevant concerns to share about the world, but this is what he chose to publicly throw a fit about.
We do wonder what it’s like to work alongside him every day of the week at Ola HQ (tip-offs welcome!). His tantrums were rooted in being referred to as “they” by an AI app and he denounced it as the “pronoun illness”, imported from the West. Earnest question: Is ride-hailing on smartphones indigenous to India? A quick search on Ola reveals pressing matters that Bhavish would do well to focus on.
Ola’s promising invention missing the mark:
The Mint reviews Ola’s Electic Scooter – Following the West too blindly, are we?
Forbes highlights how Bhavish’s aggressive marketing of the vehicle did not translate well when he sold the most number of shares in OFS.
Forbes on Aggarwal’s Astounding Confidence
Your eDgY hot takes are doing nothing to solve issues with your products or the culture at the workplace you’re building.
Aggarwal is expressive on X, but what goes on behind Ola doors?
5paisa, on “Why Ola Is Failing?”
For all the woke-averse startup bros speaking out in support of Bhavish, thanks for outing yourself as bigots. We’ll see you in June!
PS: check out Ola’s “celebration” of the LGBTQ community in past Pride Months, it doesn’t get more mechanical than this:
Let’s Celebrate “pronoun illness”Ola’s Pride Post on the Decriminalisation of 377, 2018
We hope you well soon, Jhanvi (on behalf of Gaysi Family)
He does it, right there in the hook section of the now globally-trending OTT release of “Heeramandi”; Sanjay Leela Bhansali announces that he is sticking to his own typical Bhansali Productions walla Gender politics on the screen. In the first episode, within the very opening scene is a transphobic dialogue exchange, they couldn’t even wait for the hook section to be complete. Following this is another in which Sonakshi Sinha’s character uses the derogatory word Khusra, complete with clapping to indicate that to be Khusra is the worst.
The hook section lets you know SLB is going to tell you a 20th century patriarchal story with Gender portrayed through a limited 21st century, Savarna male-gaze that by now we are all too painfully familiar with. Remember Padmavat and the glorification of Sati (custom of a Hindu widow burning herself to death or being burned to death on the funeral pyre of her husband) we doing that – now on OTT with Tawaifs. The final closing scenes of both films are thematically and, to an extent, visually similar in their glorification of feminine sacrifice for love and for the land.
I managed to binge through the entire show this past weekend. I happen to have a keen interest in the subject matter and the time period this film was set in, as I am currently researching it for another project. I have done a fair amount of research on the subject and firstly I am here to tell you that Heeramandi, does not actually get it entirely wrong all that much. In my opinion it does do some justice in showcasing the part that The Tawaif played within the freedom struggle.
It was honestly shocking and refreshing to see the acknowledgement of Muslims within the freedom struggle and also the incredible scene where Bibojaan (Aditi Rao Hydari) shoots a British Officer with a pistol while wearing a Burqa. In another scene, the Kalma is read out loud on screen upon the death of a Muslim freedom fighter. While, on the whole, the effect of the typical over-the-top feels will end up only playing into the otherization (and orientalisation) of Muslims, there seems to be some real efforts made here to incorporate a general Muslimness into the story and the freedom struggle.
The Blatant Transphobia and Homophobia and Heeramandi:
For me, like Vinay Nirmala said, the queer portrayal of it made me want to “abuse so f#$#ing much.” It was the same old done-to-death bollywood portrayal of queer characters. Geet observed that the whole Ustaad character is just problematic. Ustaad is either intersex, transgender or a cisgender gay man, none of which is clarified, and also I think the difference between the three is entirely lost on the filmmakers. Ustaad is a sort of pimp in this world, I say sort of, because pimps were seen quite differently during this time period. They are shown as duplicitous, snake-like and untrustworthy.
Meera Singhania put it very eloquently, “It’s a very “oriental”, colonial trope to look at queer characters.” It portrays it’s queer characters and also queer love, through the colonists lens of victorian morality. The British are the ones who passed the Criminal Tribes Act and pushed this idea that transgender folks are horrible, disgusting and criminal. And today folks like Sanjay Leela Bhansali continue to portray us as seen through that colonized portrayals on screen.
In two instances Sanjay Leela Bhansali uses Queer sex on screen to build a certain character profile. The way he does it ends up stigmatizing queer love within the existing stereotypes. As somehow unnatural. In one scene SLB needs us to begin to dislike this British officer, Cartwright, who is to be one of our main antagonists going forth. How does he do it? By showing this british officer to seemingly rape Ustaad. We never see any other intimate scene in the entire show with the character Ustaad. In this scene the queer sex is used as a device to build negative associations. In another scene we see Fareedan (Played brilliantly by Sonakshi Sinha) about to sleep with a woman, and here this scene is shown to build both Fareedans’s duplicitous nature, and sort of “femme fatale” like character.
And with Sanjay Leela Bhansali this is something of a habit, we’ve seen him present transphobic transgender characters before like Razia Bai in Gangubai Kathiawadi and Malik Kafur (a real historical figure) in Padmavaat.
The Whole Memoirs of a Geisha of it all
Besides the homophobia and transphobia, what is also annoyingly frustrating for me, is just how shallow and male gaze-y it gets with gender politics. It’s the whole Memoirs of a Geisha of it all it it’s treatment of The Tawaif culture.
Sampada Sharma wrote for Indianexpress, “It may appear as though these women are being celebrated but they are treated like sacrificial lambs who are made to believe that their sacrifices have some kind of meaning.
Bhansali makes the idea of ‘sacrifice’ appear noble, without actually inspecting how these women are being tortured over and over again, and never reaching any point of salvation. There was a time in Indian cinema, when female characters were portrayed as bechari abhla naaris’. The female characters in the alpha-male movies existed as wives or sisters or mothers, and were there only to serve the men of the story. They were repeatedly taught to sacrifice themselves for their family, and society but then we moved forward. Female characters started getting independent, having more agency and were not just seen from the lens of the male characters of the story, and as audience, we loved that change. Much like the women, men too started evolving in the movies but now it’s starting to feel like the clock is turning back.”
When you read about the Tawaif through Sabah Dewans’ gaze in ‘Tawaifnama’ (a Muslim women), or Ruth Vanita’s gaze in ‘Dancing with the Nation’ (a transgender woman) there is so much more to it. The truths, the joys, the pain, the struggle and most importantly the empathy. Their works seem to always come back to bringing focus to THE PATRIARCHY THE PATRIARCHY THE PATRIARCHY.
Sabah Dewan is a Documentary film-maker. Her documentaries and books have focused on issues of gender, sexuality and culture. The Mint said of her book, ‘As a historical text, it is a feat. Dewan bridges generations of private memories with public archives to compile a thorough and tender account of tawaif life. Most significantly she approaches –and pay attention to this – a 20th century culture with the nuance of 21st culture gender politis.’ – Mint
Somehow when you read Madhur Gupta (leading odissi dance Maestro) Courting Hindustan, or for that matter my much beloved Umrao Jaan Ada by Ruswa (male poet, born in the year that Kingdom of avadh collapsed) or its onscreen Indian or Pakistani renditions (yes two exists and I’ve watched em both) – Much like Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s brand new Heeramandi – they all almost never seem to call out the Patriarchy or even gender as a social construct as these other feminine and feminist gazes.
That’s my fascination with the subject in case you were wondering. The Tawaif, the Hijra and The Khawaja Sira all existed at the same time in our collective South Asian history.
They all inhabited gender in a very interesting way, and really a way that we have not seen since in our lands. The Tawaif like The Geisha existed within patriarchal societies where their entire reason to be seems to be to inhabit GENDER in a generationally learned and intentional manner publicly. To socially perform the construct GENDER. They had involvement with spirituality and religious festivals, culture and performance arts, and education. Some of them were cultural stalwarts of their time, and for various reasons were known by a lot of folks. Albeit I would gather given class and caste differences within the larger population that inhabited these lands, you would be surprised to know that you didn’t have to know too many to be famous. I mean I’m sure these days just the Instagram followers of Shaikh Khushi would quadrupole or more, idk, I suck at math – the number of “followers” that Begum Hazrat Mahal ever had in the time that she was alive for instance.
The issue for me, and also annoyance, is It is unlikely that Sanjal Leela Bhansali or Muzaffar Ali (Umrao Jaan) in their renditions of Tawaif cultures ever intend to bringing your attention to oppressiveness nature of performative gender in Patriarchal systems. On contraire SLB seems to want to continue to celebrate the sacrificial women.
There are films that do justice, where we have seen women who we can relate to and aspire to be. More often than not, like Dahaad, Lipstick under my Burkha, Bhakshak and Lapataa Ladies writers are mostly women or co-written by women. Now I’m not saying that men can’t inhabit the feminine gaze, there are surely some examples for that like Anubhav Sinha for Thappad. But more often than not like Sampada Sharma points out these days it’s starting to feel like the clock is turning back – The Pushpas, KGFs and the Animals of the last few years have brought back the alpha-man and Heeramandi has brought back the sacrificing woman, which isn’t a cause for celebration.
I have to ask:
Answer me honestly, would you say after watching Heeramandi, that Sanjay Leela Bhasali – Music, Direction, Screenplay – approached a 20th century complex patriarchal culture with the nuance of 21st culture gender politics.’
Just move over and make some space please, why thank you very much.
I write this article with a lot of trepidation because, firstly I do not want to hijack a space that isn’t mine and secondly because I am myself work in progress, and call myself a “savarna in rehab”.
Much like the handful of people born in an oppressor caste-community, who are unlearning their caste biases and taking a massive U-turn from the values handed to them at birth, I too have had to cultivate a completely different set of values for myself. This included reading and learning to become self-aware, and taking everything said by most people in the community that I was born into, with a pinch of salt.
Nobody was born politically correct and neither am I. I do not want to sound “Holier than Thou” because I’ve had my share of brazen mistakes. I am writing this article because there’s only one thought in my head. If not now, when?
To the uninitiated, Rohith Vemula was a hard working and intelligent Dalit student who cracked the entrance exams conducted by the University of Hyderabad in the first attempt. He studied there under a rightful scholarship. He had witnessed the casteism faced by his mother (and he would face it too) right from his childhood, and this made him stand up to the barbaric caste system.
Rohith raised issues related to caste apartheid on campus under the banner of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). During his tenure as a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, the university stopped paying him his stipend of Rs 25,000 because of his protests against the caste system and this later escalated into a suspension; all a casteist charade organized by oppressor caste students who could not appreciate his efforts to end the inhuman caste system.
His suicide note reads, “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of stardust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living…” Rohith’s poignantly worded letter was also alluded to in the title of the movie, “Natchathiram Nagargiradhu” (translates to: The Stars are Aligning) directed by Pa Ranjith.
A few days ago, there was an another casteist attempt to butcher Rohith’s legacy as cops who attempted to close the case related to his institutionalized murder by claiming that Rohith lied about his caste and committed suicide to hide it. This was blatantly ignorant of the trauma that Rohith and scores of other Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi (DBA) students continue to face in educational institutions. After facing the wrath of public outrage, the case has been reopened by Telangana’s Director General of Police and reinvestigation is underway. If anything, these events highlight that attempts are on to reduce Rohith “to his nearest identity…” even in his death.
If this case of institutional murder does NOTHING to wake us Savarna queers up, then it is time for an ugly reminder or two,
1. LGBTQIAP+ people, especially from caste Oppressed backgrounds, from the Hijra community, Aravani and Kothi communities and more are systemically restricted from educational institutions, and face institutionalized violence that goes unchecked in these spaces.
2. Many of us LGBTQIAP+ people are yet to be sensitized on the matter of caste, and acknowledge our privilege within the community when we come from Savarna natal families.
WILL WE EVER DISCUSS RAINBOW CASTEISM?
The Mumbai Pride march this year that happened in February recorded a shameful turn of events when members of the Humsafar Trust – a part of the Mumbai Queer Pride Collective, that organized pride – were called out for disallowing Ambedkarite Queers from sloganeering the name of the visionary Dr. Ambedkar. There were attempts to seize the posters of Dr. Ambedkar that Ambedkarite queers carried along.
To the uninitiated, Babasaheb Ambedkar as he is fondly known as, wasn’t just an anti-caste activist, but an ardent feminist and a queer rights ally. YES, THAT’S RIGHT. He represented Dr. Karve in court when the latter was tried for writing affirmingly about non-heteronormative relationships. He referred to Havelock Ellis’s research & literature to defend his argument and stated that homosexuality is an absolutely human experience. It can never be denied that he upheld our rights before pride was even a thing in India.
When I shared a story on my Instagram, asking *interested* respondents to narrate incidents of discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community, many people willingly reached out to me stating that they had faced casteism. This article is to point out jarring discrepancies within the community, biases that could even have been my own.
Srishti, a non-binary person belonging to a marginalized caste, mentioned incidents of overlapping oppression – queerphobia and casteism. They gave an in-depth feedback on how strongly “rainbow casteism” has impacted them. In their own words, “there is not much difference between cisgender straight Savarna (oppressor caste) people and queer oppressor caste people. The groupism and exclusion of caste marginalized people is just given a rainbow tint. Queerness gives no one miraculous brownie points to be a better person. Like cis het people don’t acknowledge straight cisgender privilege, in the same token, Savarna LGBTQ people are yet to acknowledge their caste privilege. This results in disagreements such as on reparative action and reservation, which made me ultimately stay away from pride events.”
INTER-TRANS* NUANCES
Recently, a well-known trans content creator posted a reel on their gram with another queer friend, shot on a local train in Mumbai. The initial caption read, “tum katora leke aao, hum camera leke aayenge…” (you bring the begging bowl, we will bring the camera). The reel drew a lot of flak for using the marginalization of the Hijra community for the purposes of clout-chasing and garnering social media views. Many trans women called out the content creator for their lack of class awareness and understanding of the lives of the Hijra community. One comment by Vinnie read out, “I feel ashamed…if you celebrate your queerness by flashing your UC privilege in the eyes of the ones without privilege, your queerness is of no use…”. Vinnie also had a lot to bring to the table in terms of elitism – “It is funny to see people at bourgeois venues talk of acceptance when they themselves don’t acknowledge their privilege. I’ve been to events where my makeup was judged by a highly successful make-up artist without even realizing that I don’t have the privilege to buy expensive makeup…”
Kalvi, an Aravani Kothi trans woman, had similar experiences. “When I left home, I pinched one of my mother’s sari for sentimental value and wore it at pride, only to get judged and mocked. The condescending attitude borne for socio-cultural identities who don’t speak English is appalling…”
UNDERSTANDING THE OVERLAP OF LGBTQ+ AND CASTEISM
The other day, a close family member was dissing reservations in educational institutions teaching medicine. This personally hit me, because all the doctors who put me through unethical medical treatment and queerphobia belonged to oppressor caste, who may not have gotten in through affirmative action, but had considerable generational privilege that held them up instead. The reason they could put me and many others through queerphobia is because their caste location teaches them to do this.
It is this same caste that allowed the rapists at Hathras, the rapists of Bilkis Banno, and many others to never face accountability for their actions. It’s because of this casteism that a person can change her name, age and identity and lie about having a deadly disease like cancer to fleece money from other queer persons.
On the question of reservations, horizontal reservations are the pressing need of the hour to guarantee trans people equal opportunity in arenas they currently have little access to. This includes the field of medicine. What is now a casteist statement will tomorrow be a Transphobic statement, if horizontal reservations are indeed created for trans* and intersex people belonging to the DBA community. Savarna LGBTQ+ people need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to analyze the similarities that exist between casteist marginalization faced by caste oppressed people and those that happen against marginalized sections within the trans community.
Recently, I went through the twitter account of plenty of Oppressor caste doctors who announced themselves as “unreserved” proudly. I saw their views regarding the LGBTQ community and it was putrid to say the least.
Plenty of times in life, we have been presented with evidence of how Casteism and queerphobia intersect. These are different forms of oppression, definitely, but there exist people who face both, and many a time, at the hands of a common oppressor.
Think of all the LGBTQ+ victims of violence. Has any one of them got justice? Arvey Malhotra’s mother still runs pillar to post seeking justice for her late child. Pranshu was bullied by 4000+ people on social media. Not one of them is in jail. And as if that’s not enough, the dastardly Trans “Protection” Act of 2019 has mentioned that the punishment for the assault of a trans person is imprisonment of “not less than six months, but which may extend to two years with a fine.” This is much less than the punishment for rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is imprisonment of “not less than seven years but which may be for life or for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable for fine.”
This reflects a systemic lack of accountability. The brunt of such blatant transphobia is borne most brazenly by those who are homeless and face additional forms of discrimination, like casteism.
According to a report by the Centre for Law and Policy Research, statistically,
1. It was Dalit trans people who underwent most amount of violence in educational institutions and were especially susceptible to sexual harassment at work, as it has been attested to by 33 % reporting various brutal forms of sexual assault and harassment at work.
2. 23 % of Dalit transgender persons have faced invasive, inhumane forms of abuse when seeking help from the police, including but not limited to denuding and stripping.
3. The most limitations in terms of accessing public transportation facilities have also been made faced by Dalit trans people, and this has also included vital public spaces – parks (50 per cent), police stations (46 per cent) and government hospitals (43 per cent).
Erasure is an intersectional form of prejudice which ruins the existence of multiple identities in its wake.
Rohit Vemula, and every other anti caste activist was, is and will always be relevant to the LGBTQ+ Community as well. Pride and LGBTQ+ rights can never be solely along the lines of “love is love”. It has to widen the scope of discussion to include discourse around Casteism, led by caste marginalized individuals.
I understand and completely admit to the irony that I, an Oppressor caste queer person, am speaking about this. My inner feeling of graveness, my inability to process the caste-apathy in the community, and my own need to take accountability for myself and use my limited reach to make more people aware of Rohit Vemula made me pen this article. There is this crushing embarrassment of the acknowledgement that this same article may not have received the same reaction had it been penned by an Ambedkarite queer, or even cis het individual. As a lay person, I observe the abuse on social media when an Ambedkarite individual discusses their lived experiences. When a Savarna person talks of casteism they get praised for wokeness, but when the same discussion is led by an Ambedkarite individual, it is led by admonishment. That’s the very difference (that right aligned queers don’t get) between Ramanuja discussing caste and Babasaheb doing it. Only one of them got brownie points, no prizes for guessing who. And only one of their legacy lives on in the LGBTQ community – again, no prizes for guessing who – it’s only Babasaheb Ambedkar.
I’m not a card-carrying member of the community. I’ve never been to Pride (the horror), I don’t run rainbow marathons, and I simply don’t talk about my queerness as an Indian man on the internet. While I’m perfectly happy to pay due deference to the dick, I’ve come to realize that I struggle with the “pride” part of the concept.
At the very end of my date with a lovely gay bespectacled man, an activist in every sense of that word, he leaned in for a kiss and asked me if I had come out to my parents already.
Do I tell him the truth, hoping with all my heart that he agrees to a second date, or do I go the easier route? Make a joke about my parents being progressive— barring the routine Islamaphobia— and how they’re hoping that this is merely a phase in the life of their left-leaning, liberal son. With time, your political leanings will change, and so will your lack of interest in marriage. With time, you will change.
He laughs, and I do too. I don’t know why I lied. I just knew that I had to. Luckily for both of us, he was forced to give me a quick kiss, saved by the incessant rings from a helpful Uber driver. Thank you, Manjunath.
I have a second date this Sunday and a tonne of guilt.
My queer journey isn’t a surprising one. I have always known that my interest in the cover picture of Jockey Boxers was unusual, and I was convinced that the right girl would be able to change this. It is probably why I asked the same girl out twice in school, varying strategies, choices of medium, and different wardrobes. For the readers wondering, she said no twice. However, asking her out, and the failed attempts were necessary for the role I was auditioning for. It’s far easier for boys to relate to rejection versus a perceived lack of interest in the “opposite sex”. To be one of the boys is all about mathematics, really. You calculate how many seconds you held someone’s hand, the number of Mississippis a hug lasts for, the acceptable number of shots of cheap Old Monk you down before you express how hot you found Akshay Khanna, the number of jokes you make objectifying women, and the excruciating detail of the porn you watch. It’s funny, now that I think about it, but cishet boys spend so much time discussing each other’s sex lives, that there is a veneer of homoeroticism to the whole conversation. But, to get back to my point, it’s a performance. There is a script to follow. One misspoken line, one touch too long, one glance in the wrong direction, and you’re out. It’s Survivor in a high school in a small town in Tamilnadu. For those unfamiliar with this staple of American television, Survivor is a reality TV show in the US that pits a bunch of great-looking strangers against each other, because the only way to win is to prevent yourself from being voted out by the group. Just like in Survivor, I felt compelled to pretend, even when I was being unbearable, to never lose the costume. Just like in Survivor, while everyone seems so different in the beginning, homogeneity seemed to be the goal. Just like in Survivor, I focused on building alliances, with people who would have my back, faking authenticity and vulnerability. Slowly, the disguise merged with my skin.
Fortunately, I’ve always been good at games and never did lose. At least, it felt like I won.
Recently, I’ve been wondering if I’ve been wrong about the rules of the game.
What my experience growing up taught me is that my queerness did not have to be a big deal, so I chose to consciously minimize it. Even when I came out to my sister, it was over text. I sent her a message, with little to no context. “Btw. I’m bi. I just thought you should know”. For someone who’s chronically online, she took some time to respond. When she did reply, she said, “Please tell me you meant bipolar? At least, we have drugs to deal with that”.
We share a history of mental illness, and in any moment of heaviness to do with my queerness, I laugh when I think about coming out to my sister. It was easy, it was comforting, and it gave me the courage to tell more people. I have now repeated the story quite a few times, but I spare them the details; a superficial declaration of my sexuality tossed into the conversation like an unnecessary garnish. I have a fulfilling career, a tightly-knit circle of friends, strong political opinions, and sufficient familial drama to make for a great conversation. We could talk about everything under the sun. Except for my queerness, of course.
And, if I’m being very honest, there are perks to this indifference. Marginalization is not something you leave in a small town. If you’re not a rich, well-educated, well-networked queer man, Bangalore is not easy to navigate. I know of many people who’ve been attacked on Grindr dates, men impersonating police officers to ‘catch’ gay couples, and queer folks who’ve been at the harm of physical violence merely for walking on the roads. Let me make this clear: I’m not one of these people. I come from privilege, speaking with certain fluency in English and Kannada that is comforting to police officials and boring corporate gays alike. However, the fear is so persistent, of both violence and of rejection. Not of my body, but my humanity. I know better than to be openly queer. I know better than to wear a gorgeous Kalamkari print and walk on my streets. I know better than to kiss a man on the roads, even if it is just the right moment to make a move. I know better than to even look a man in the eye for too long.
I sometimes wish I didn’t know better.
When I moved to Bangalore, I had my heart broken by multiple women, and engaged in multiple clandestine, sexually intimate relationships with men. Everywhere I turned, dating a man was often done in secrecy, if not, you were a queer activist. There is no in-between. So, I did what I thought was best. I would often go on dates with young and old men, have a lovely time, and on the third date, tell them I’m moving cities. My friends often joke that my unofficial policy is to only date men outside state lines. I wanted my queerness to be a party trick, purely for the entertainment of straight people, a palatable form of expression that excluded the visibility of love, heartbreak, pain, anger, and the sheer confusion of loving a man. It’s one thing to try and convince people of a delusion you want them to share with you, to buy into your schtick. It is quite another thing to let yourself be taken in, shaping your personality through these small lies. I have got to the point where the lines are blurred, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to find my way out.
I think I’m ashamed.
Shame is not a feeling that I strongly resonate with. I’m fairly confident, very extroverted, so loud, annoyingly energetic, and perpetually in love with my job and my friends. But it’s impossible to deny shame when it rears its head every single time I think about leading a life with a man.
In the past, I have always given myself permission to fall in love with unavailable people. Women who’ve never had crushes before, women whose only allegiance was to the Lord Jesus Christ, men who were straight (never doing that again), and queer partnered men who lived 10,000 miles across the Atlantic ocean. You can see the pattern. I’ve made it a practice to fall for people whose absolute lack of interest would always cushion my fall.
I recently messaged the lovely gay activist who made me blush and cooked me dinner. I told him that things simply weren’t working out for me and that we’ll have to take a break. He was kind and understanding, making this message so much harder to send. I’ve been thinking a lot about what put me off exploring this relationship:
He has a dog that was fairly clingy and fought for his attention more than I did.
He didn’t ask me enough questions about myself. Am I not interesting enough?
He’s an elder queer, with far more experience dating, with far more experience in bed.
He’s an activist
He’s an activist
He seemed to be able to pierce through a fairly well-put-together story of why I don’t date. He quickly pieced together a naivety that made me feel so seen. So juvenile. So inexperienced. So defensive. So ashamed.
When I broke things off with him, I reached out to friends with the list. I knew I wasn’t looking for opinions and suggestions. I had already made up my mind. I wanted validation that this was not a high-stakes decision to make, that it didn’t matter. I did not want to regret missing out on an incredibly fulfilling relationship with a gorgeous man and his lovely poodle just because I was afraid that I was being seen, in all the glory of my shame.
What is the price of searching for love while finding it harder to love yourself?
I’ve spent so much time denying this humanity in me, that shame has started to room in the same place as my heart, hidden, being stowed away in the dark. Shame isolates. Shame makes you feel so alone in your experience that it becomes necessary to rationalize its survival. Otherwise, the loneliness is all-consuming. My story is not unique, it isn’t even so tragic, but I’ve always felt this incredible loneliness in my body, in my being, and in my love. I was convinced that I had tricked every single person in my life, and I had done it well enough to find so much support and community that I wanted to continue doing this forever.
To give credit to a younger me, I think I’ve played a decent game, having survived this far with my self-esteem and self-worth intact. However, I cannot help but wonder if there is an alternate universe I could have explored, an opportunity to grow into the person I am today without having to hide such an integral part of my being. I don’t just like dicks, I also love the men who come with them. I want to be with a man who is kind, loves public transport, can read Tamil fluently, and is willing to listen to me drone about the importance of sunscreen. Being in love openly is a public declaration of my humanity and I am disappointed that I struggle to do this and that for twenty-five years, I have never been brave enough to try.
I have a date this Sunday with an anarcho-communist I met on a dating app, and I’ve only been talking about him.
Will he be kind?
Will my friends like him? He says “Yeeee”, instead of “Yes”
Will he hate that I like pretty expensive things?
He lives 25 kilometers away. In Bangalore terms, isn’t that a long-distance relationship?
The Artificial Reproductive Technology act was passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2021. It effectively banned commercial surrogacy and promote altruistic surrogacy. The act defines altruistic surrogacy as a process where the intending couple doesn’t pay for anything apart from the surrogate’s expenses and her insurance.
As per the law, an intending couple is defined as – a married, heterosexual, infertile couple of 5 years (the husband is to be between 26 to 55 years of age, and the wife between 23 to 50) with no prior children.
“The surrogacy bill as it now stands needs to be repealed. I’m not saying that it should not be regulated, but in its current form the bill does nothing more than impose a Victorian morality on the people by excluding not only queer folks but also single parents. By removing the commercial component, the exploitation won’t stop. Rather the risk of exploitation will increase. When a bill that is supposed to protect reproductive liberty and autonomy does everything but that, including criminalising it” says Rohin Bhatt, a queer rights activist and a legal bioethics scholar at Harvard.
The bill also has several arbitrary tests for infertility and necessary certifications that are at odds with the WHO definition of infertility.
This definition not just leaves out the queer community and limits the possibility of couples from conceiving, but also works on a bigoted assumption that exploitation of reproductive labour through commercial surrogacy is a practice limited to only queer people and single parents.
Operating on such an assumption is not only exclusionary in nature but also prevents the law from providing protection to surrogates from exploitation they may face. It also sets dangerous precedents for different laws regarding adoption.
There has been a long history of governments trying to bar queer couples from surrogacy. Russia, Nigeria are amongst some countries that not only banned surrogacy for same sex couples but also banned foreign same sex couples from adopting from their countries.
Apart from this, the bill also increases the danger of underground surrogacy clinics popping up by criminalising commercial surrogacy. As has been observed in countries worldwide, banning surrogacy has never led to a decline in exploitation, but has actually increased surrogate deaths by creating a huge underground, unregulated market instead. Viewing surrogacy as altruistic instead of as reproductive labour is also short-sighted and displays a clear lack of understanding of it on the government’s part.
The surrogacy bill seems to be yet another puritanical and moralistic bill that uses social good as a shield to cover its more insidious agenda.
In the blurb to “Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Rural Queer Studies”, there is a sentence which, despite talking about rural queerness in America, applies just as much to the UK.
“Rural queer experience is often hidden or ignored, and presumed to be alienating, lacking, and incomplete without connections to a gay culture that exists in an urban elsewhere.”
The book, an intriguing read that shares the perspective of rural queerness in other countries, caught my attention and given my experience, is likely going to be on my To-Be-Read for the future.
This sentiment, while not the experience of everyone on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum who lives rurally, sums up the main issues with being queer in rural areas. Add to that the extra element of disability, and you get the perfect cocktail of inaccessibility to queer spaces, with people in this demographic feeling locked out of their own community.
So, what would you count as rural? Yes, a lack of infrastructure and facilities but also rurality relates to the little villages in the countryside, often forgotten about by administrative bodies and councils, as they focus on towns and cities.
The problem surrounding queer spaces in rural areas is twofold; firstly, while they may exist, they are often inaccessible for people with disabilities by public transport. Secondly, due to this lack of attendance, it’s particularly hard to sustain.
Several studies, including those from the University of Cambridge and the Office for National Statistics, have found a clear link between neurodivergent conditions and queerness. With such a strong link between neurodivergence and queerness, so much so that 40% of the queer community has some sort of disability, it is shocking to me that there is still not a single fully accessible queer space in the UK.
Reports into this intersection and the problems they face note a number of issues, which, despite provisions within the Equality Act 2010, persist without enthusiasm for change. For those not in the UK, the Equality Act is a piece of legislation which, in theory, makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics, i.e. disability, sexuality and gender identity. This results in a lack of facilities like step-free access, and in queer bars and clubs, accessible spaces are being used for storage without a shred of consideration. Where there aren’t facilities, it is often because buildings were built before legislation regarding disability-based discrimination was introduced in 1995; however, not always.
As someone with epilepsy, I feel for others in queer spaces with my condition, whose seizures are often triggered in these spaces by the consistent use of strobe lights for ‘atmosphere’. Not a problem I face myself; however, unlike in other contexts, such as cinemas and eating places, there is no appetite to provide regular provision of disability-friendly events, where sensory stimulus, often the heart of queer spaces, is reduced.
Throw into the mix the complication of living rurally, and you might as well give up on having permanent, accessible queer spaces at all. Along with the stereotypes of being one of the only queer people in the village (thanks to Little Britain), independence and mobility in these areas are lacking, meaning that even if there is the smallest amount of provision for disabled people who fall under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, the likelihood of being able to access it without arranging support, often posing another challenge, is slim.
For the average disabled person who is also queer in rural areas of the UK, this adds up to a number of additional steps to take: finding out if it is at all possible to get there and back by public transport, relying on family or friends, who may have conflicting and packed schedules, or arranging potentially costly support to take you to such events and venues. From my own experience, I am reliant on family or, if I’m lucky with timings, the bus that passes through my neighborhood only four or five times a day. If it’s on Sunday, although unlikely, public transport does not exist to get into town at all.
Some of the common stereotypes perpetuated are like the one around being the ‘village gay’ (or bi or pan or whatever). I, myself, am the village pan, and yes, often they are, at least, somewhat realistic. There is also a certain amount of erasure when it comes to rural queerness – a belief that we simply do not exist. Furthermore, much of the sensitized media currently in existence about rural queerness focuses on the US, leaving the UK without an example of what is accurate, perpetuating stereotypes.
Furthermore, it is argued that much of queer identity is entrenched in urban culture, complicating “dominant models of queer identity”, perhaps the root of the lack of acceptance and consideration in rural areas, cutting out the voice of disabled queerness apart from in exceptionally rare circumstances.
In 2021, the Museum of English Rural Life aimed to challenge the persistent connection of urbanness to queerness; however, it found that while there were attempts to normalise rural queer narratives, urban spaces are much more compatible with the community and, too, the disabled community. It is often the case that the challenges with accessing queer spaces as a person with disabilities fade, to an extent, in urban spaces, due to the concentration of funding for access being focused on cities. Because the rural, disabled queer doesn’t exist, right?
This is the attitude taken by many decision-makers because the typical tropes of queer identity are intrinsically linked to urbanity. Further, while based on American statistics, the likelihood of disability is higher in rural areas, where the further disabling effect of rurality leads to decreased mobility and travel. Looking at this through a social model lens, there is a real need for a flip in thinking about accessibility to queer spaces.
Paul Ruiz of the University of Delaware, proposes that starting in the mid-twentieth century, queer spaces were created by the community in spaces where their apparently deviant lifestyles were sheltered from the rest of the city; a sort of anonymity which was enshrined in queer culture, hence the urban link. Nevertheless, this left the narratives of those who are queer in rural or countryside spaces with little voice or opportunity, despite which there was no intention to exclude them intentionally.
Aside from queer spaces, there is the unfortunate effect that having Disability Pride Month (July) right after LGBT Pride Month (June) has, although not in relation to rurality. As someone who fits into both, I hold both with equal importance, even if others do not; however, the perception is that Disability Pride Month must take a back seat. Perhaps this is because LGBT Pride Month is more established than Disability Pride Month; the former was founded in 1994, and the latter in 2015. While there was, for many years, a Disability Pride Day on the anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act being passed into law, it did not have the global reach it needed.
The problem with one after the other is that particularly for those who fall into both minorities, although arguably this applies to everyone, that after LGBT Pride Month, everyone is ‘prided out’, so to speak. With little energy left, it is no wonder that Disability Pride Month does not receive the attention it deserves.
The intersection of the two, a place where I fall, is a tricky balancing act. It is, in the end, a fight between the Pink and the Purple Pound. While the Purple Pound, the spending power of people with disabilities in the UK, is worth more (£249 billion a year to the UK economy), it also costs more to rural businesses and venues to make their premises fully accessible to the disabled market. The Pink Pound (worth £6 billion a year to the UK economy – the estimated spending power of queer folx in the UK) requires little adaptation, and as such, it is far easier, particularly in rural businesses with lesser footfall, to cater for a market that requires little investment and is easier to attract.
That’s what it comes down to in rural areas; a matter of funding and footfall and, to an extent, fanfare due to the niche space being disabled and queer takes up, attracting little mainstream attention. . The queer community attracts more business, while being both disabled and queer is, perhaps, seen as being too complicated for many rural venues and business owners to cater to.
Trigger warning – mentions of ableism, fatphobia, neurodivergent shaming
Do you believe the saying that all oppression is connected? I’d like to share a personal story that validates the fact that oppression and bigotry doesn’t happen selectively in silos. There was this gay friend from Pune whom I have known for many years as a family friend since childhood, and even before he came out as gay. He was recently attending Pune Pride.
Now in Pune, there are not one but two Pride marches. One of them is organized by Bindu Queer Rights Foundation (BQRF) and Yutak, and the theme is traditional, prescribing Indian “family-friendly” attire. The other march is organized by Qutcast and Mist LGBTQ, and is liberal and allows for a healthy display of consensual kink and drag.
The differences don’t end there. The pride organizers at BQRF encourage marchers to discuss only topics related to LGBTQ rights whereas Qutcast and Mist LGBTQ recognize the intersectional nature of queer rights and makes space for marchers showing solidarity with Palestine and those affected by religion and caste-based atrocities, while carrying placards prompting the smashing of Brahmnical patriarchy and more.
My gay friend is a proud gay man inclined towards right-wing politics. He also engaged in some “both-sidism” between TERFS and Trans* people, which found him a special place on all my blocklists – I’ve blocked him even on Pinterest.
However, this story is from before I blocked him in 2021. He had attended the Pride march organized by BRQF wearing a dhoti and kurta, after having gained an ENORMOUS amount of weight – in his own words – upon returning home to Pune. He was marching with his “Love is Love ” placard when someone behind him called him a “saand” (buffalo in Hindi) and asked him to move out of their way. He also had a hard time maneuvering the dhoti along with the placard and that affected his gait. Two other gay guys were like, “Abe langde dhoti pehenke chalna nahi aata to pehenke kyun aata hai…” (“If you don’t know how to walk wearing a dhoti, then why did you wear one…?” Also Langda is an ableist slur for a mobility-challenged person).
My (ex)-friend who wanted a “pronoun-free, non-woke” Pride march ranted to me for 20 minutes nonstop about what he faced. I just gave a long pause and was like, “I wonder how you don’t get the irony here….” That’s all I said. And then I hung up. He didn’t get it even after that Pride, which is why he received a grand, red carpet entry into my block list.
Pride marches and events that aren’t for everyone are a façade. They are just dress-up parties that do not serve the purpose of liberation that Pride marches began with. People who attend and support such mockeries of pride are not only doing the spirit of pride a disservice, but also to their own selves.
THIS is what privileged queer people don’t understand. If they cut the branch that Dalit and Adivasi queer people, Muslim queer people, Trans, non-binary and gender variant people are sitting on, they will also fall in the process. Nothing can sum it up better than the meme below.
I have had my own share of undesirable moments at Pride as well. As a neurodivergent trans*-person who experiences both gender dysphoria and dysmorphia, Pride marches sometimes let me down. My journey to self-acceptance has been like doing the cha-cha-cha. One step front and god knows how many steps back. Till date I can’t look at a full length mirror without cribbing about how fucked up my gendered and flawed body is. It has taken a lot of breaking down, therapy and self-recorded pep talks to get to where I am today. Of course, discovering that I’m autosexual also helped.
My neurodivergence adds to body language that is considered publicly awkward. As an autistic ADHD person, I stim a lot. I do repetitive actions that help me manage anxiety. I randomly flap my hands when I talk, I keep twirling as I talk, I flick my fingers a lot, I crack my knuckles like crazy. I am very fidgety. If something gets my attention, I randomly stare at it for long periods of time. I’m told my stares are very harsh and intense, which make people feel creeped out. I understand that, but I wish I could tell you that’s not in my control either. I try my level best to be mindful about it and mask my traits, and I don’t even know why I sound so apologetic about it here.
I have been given very rude, judgmental, “what on earth are they doing…” kinda glares at Pride for my body language. It just makes me very hyper vigilant – the same uncomfortable feeling I have when I travel home alone at night. I feel like I’m always on guard. It feels ironic that Pride is called a safe space then. I have had my share of body-shaming as well – I’ve been told that I need a whole liter of lotion for my body surface area (YEP). I am prone to dust allergies, where exposure to fine dust and traffic emission makes me get hives and my face swells up. I even got shamed for that once or twice. For Christ’s sake, I’ve been shamed for not removing my upper lip and chin hair. WOW. AT PRIDE!
That was my “had it enough, give me a break” moment. I’ll admit all this is still on the lower end of the totem pole. I am sure a handful of people are capable of being far more vicious and the brunt of that is faced much more by those at other precarious intersections of the community.
As a non-binary person whose gender dysphoria is limited to my breasts, hips and the hourglassy curvature above my hips, it pinches when well-known activists say things like there is a new “trend” of being non-binary. I am not going to use this article to name and shame anyone, but you can imagine the harm it causes.
I have also noticed that it is inherently easier for anybody, queer or not, to misgender trans masculine people and use she/her, maybe because masculinity in people clocked as female, has been somewhat normalized over the years? Somehow people on the trans masc spectrum are never perceived in the manner they wish to be. Trans men are always spoken to and gazed at as “men-lite” versions. It is so condescending when we are told, “let’s have a group picture with all the ladies together…”. The amusing part is the pronouns used are correct, but other terms like man, woman and person are messed up.
In addition to all this, I have heard many people – both cis and genderqueer – say that non-binary people “take up a lot of space within the trans community without having dysphoria…”. This is a very harmful statement that is also patently untrue, especially when it is said on a dais at a Pride event by conservative gay/lesbian people. Many enby folks do experience dysphoria and many other intend to medically transition, including yours truly. In addition, the NALSA judgement in 2014 gives trans people the right to self-identify. Moreover, the trope of “real and fake” trans people perpetuates the same biological essentialism that cis-het normativity propagates, When the same binary-upholding, cis-heteronormative traits are furthered within the LGBTQ community, many of us feel it’s better to Netflix and chill at home (pun intended? Maybe, maybe not).
I have spent years unlearning identity politics only to realize that the person who can aggravate discomfort in you can be anyone – cis het or queer. Rainbow queerphobia is no better than cis het queerphobia; I mean it isn’t supposed to feel miraculously better because a queer person does it, right? The pinch sadly feels the same in both cases, and in fact it feels worse when someone you hope for a safe space from, does it.
I can’t think of a better way of ending this article than by quoting Marsha P Johnson – “There is no Pride for some without liberation for all”. It succinctly summarizes my whole rant in the paragraphs above. Let’s do more than getting Marsha’s pictures on placards, let’s try espousing her quote for once? Thenk yew.
TW: mention of sexual assault; 3rd episode has repeated sexual assault
In a pit of hopelessness, looking at the world around us, art and media is oftentimes our only respite—a place for us to feel seen, held, and comfort amongst all the injustice.
I’ve been rather uninspired by the content being put out for a while now. So imagine my surprise when I opened my Netflix account and saw a new series that piqued my interest—Baby Reindeer. It’s a 2024, 7-episode miniseries by queer British playwright Richard Gadd, based on his one-man play.
The synopsis was simple enough: a struggling comedian meets a lonely woman while working at a bar, who soon becomes obsessed with him and starts stalking him. Turns out, the story is based on harrowing real-life events experienced by the creator.
I took the synopsis at face value and went in with little context—I think that made the experience that much more thrilling.
The show follows the story of Donny, an insecure, down-on-himself creative who’s moved to the big city to follow his dreams, only to be met with the harsh reality that his dreams might just be out of reach. But this story isn’t just about Donny. It brings to life a bunch of characters who are complex, relatable, and at times hold a mirror up to our deepest shadow(s).
At first, when I saw the character of Martha (played by Jessica Gunning), a bubbly, chatty, dishevelled fat woman, who I thought was going to be an “antagonist” on the show, alarm bells started to ring in my head. Was this going to be another fatphobic, misogynistic show that paints an isolated plump woman as a “psycho stalker” and uses her as a punchline?
Well… I’m glad I stuck with it and gave it a chance. And I was pleasantly surprised by how the show treated each of its characters.
While the series of events shown are definitely dramatic, outrageous, and at times, traumatic, the treatment of these themes is through an utterly human lens. It’s horrifying, it’s painful, it’s healing, and boy is it hilarious!
Never before have I seen the psyche and inner workings of a sexual abuse survivor portrayed so beautifully onscreen. There’s no pity. No dramatisation. It happens to be direct and matter of fact, which is what makes it all the more compelling. Donny’s inner monologue, his relaying of his intense feelings of shame, were so cathartic to watch on screen. It’s as if someone was in my head, saying the things we are all too often so afraid to say. But it is in the sharing of these experiences that true healing happens.
Rather than being over-the-top, judgemental, or even self righteous, Baby Reindeer isn’t afraid to get down and dirty and wrestle in the murky mud that is human emotions, traumas, and relational dynamics and how these shape our identity and self-perception.
As a survivor of sexual abuse, diagnosed with BPD and CPTSD, I could see myself in both Danny and Martha. And there lies the beauty of this moving series. There are no “bad guys and good guys”, just human beings full of nuance and complexity.
At its core, Baby Reindeer is a show that portrays the cycle of trauma and its long-term, all-encompassing impact in an empathetic way. It highlights the tendency of trauma survivors to get sucked into unhealthy, codependent relational patterns as a desperate attempt to get our needs met. The ending, where Donny is seen mirroring Martha from the beginning of the show, poignantly alludes to this.
The show also doesn’t go as far as to show a clear cut “upward” healing journey for Donny. He’s seen learning, overcoming some fears, but still succumbing to others, which aptly mirrors the life of a person living with complex trauma.
Another standout character is Terry,a transwoman, who plays Donny’s love interest. She’s confident, beautiful, and sweeps Donny off his feet. Her trans identity just happens to be a fact about her, not all of who she is. At a certain point in the show, she is faced with aggressive transphobia at the hands of Martha, and the incident is addressed in a gentle, delicate manner. It’s not patronising, but rather is explored through patient conversations between the characters. The show even addresses delicate subjects such as sexual assault of children within the Catholic Church (through the character of Donny’s dad.)
A part that stood out to me is that even after Donny has a heart-to-heart with his parents about all that he’s been through—his parents respond to their son’s confession in a gentle and accepting manner—he still ends up reconnecting with his abuser and continues to make a deal with him for a shot at fame. Donny’s honest confessions of “I wish I could say I left right then, but I stayed”—highlights the reality for so many of us, who are at some level really trying to be better for ourselves, but fall through the spiral of nonlinear healing. One step forward, two steps back.
Most importantly though, the show doesn’t shy away from delving into the grey. In an internet culture that is obsessed with moral policing, cancelling, and just over all binary thinking, the dynamic between Martha and Donny is truly refreshing and heartwarming. Yes, I bet a 100 folks on X would jump to call it “toxic”… and they’re not wrong, it kind of is. But in actuality, the life of trauma survivors cannot be put into neat little boxes.
We are not great judges of character. Sometimes, we empathize with the people who are bad for us a bit too much. We make ‘questionable’ decisions. We do things that seem counterproductive to those who don’t understand. We hurt ourselves in attempts to “heal”. It takes us trial and error, support, and most importantly time to find our way, find ourselves and learn to live with the experiences we will carry with us forever.
While this may be a heavy, uneasy watch for some, this 7 episode series flies by in no-time, neatly packaged with no loose ends, telling us everything it wants to say, with an open-ended close. Whether you’re someone who relates to the experiences described, or you’re desperately looking for traces of real, raw humanity, Baby Reindeer has something to take away for everyone.
We can all agree that gender and sexuality are both spectrums. But alas – not every identity on the spectrum is treated equally. And oftentimes, things are shrouded in a fog of misguided misinformation.
“Bisexuality” is already quite a contested orientation. And we all probably know someone who thinks ‘nonbinary’ just isn’t a real thing (psssst looking at you “just pick a team!” people). So imagine the reaction I get from people when I tell them I am in fact… both those things! You and I both know that nonbinary bisexuals are obviously real and valid. The haters just kinda lack… imagination.
Jokes aside, the rampant misrepresentation, existing stigma, and spreading of myths can actually have a lot of negative consequences. Especially for impressionable youngsters who are just beginning to learn about the spectrums while trying to find themselves. And the worst part? These myths are deeply entrenched in our culture, society, and media, specifically pornography.
Porn is the first brush for a lot of people when it comes to exploring one’s sexuality and orientation. And impressionable people may even go as far as considering porn as a legitimate source of sex education , and may not be able to discern fact from fiction. This is because much like the rest of the world (boo), the porn industry is dominated by cis-het men. That leaves so much room for myths, misconceptions, and downright b*llshit that can range from factually innacurate to downright *offensive*. And we NEED to talk about them.
I’m going to take you through some of the most common porn-peddled myths about nonbinary bisexual folx. If you’re in for a laugh, an eye roll, or a good old rage out, keep on reading!
We don’t exist/ It’s an oxymoron
Finding nonbinary representation in porn… much like trying to find it in the rest of the media world, is an impossible task. Traditional porn execs aren’t going out of their way to prioritize marginalized identities – they want views with the same old tricks and problematic stereotypes that have existed for decades. So yeah, they don’t really have an incentive to showcase non-binary bisexual people.
Another point worth mentioning here is the common misconception that the term “nonbinary bisexual” is contradictory and doesn’t make sense. Nonbinary bisexuals have existed throughout history, and while the ‘bi’ might be perceived as implying a binary, in real life, it is just used as a term to describe that bisexuals can have preferences at different levels for the genders they are attracted to. It has also been interpreted as meaning attraction to 2 or more genders, similar to bi in bi-weekly (is that twice a week or once in two weeks?)!
We’re HORNY and ready to go at it anywhere, anytime
You’ve heard it before – bisexuals are of course bisexual, because we are horndogs who want to have loads of sex with every gender possible. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing problematic about having loads of sex, if that’s what you want. But making such sweeping generalisations for every person belonging to a sexual orientation can be incredibly damaging.
While the term ‘bisexuality’ refers to the number of genders a person is attracted to, it has no bearing whatsoever on a person’s libido, or frequency of desire to have sex. And it sure as HELL doesn’t mean we’re ready to have sex with any random person of any gender we come across!
Attraction is something deeply personal and subjective to each individual who experiences it. A gender preference absolutely does NOT imply attraction to every person of that gender. And society at large better be taking notes!
Probably the biggest myth spread about bisexuals – a spilling over of the previous point – is that we frequently participate in group sex. Specifically, threesomes. If I had a buck for the number of times I have been propositioned to be a “unicorn” in a threesome with couples looking to spice up their sex lives on dating apps, I’m sure I’d be a billionaire right now. Now I’m sure there are plenty of bisexuals out there who love having threesomes, while some may like an inanimate third partner in the mix (that’s code for getting kinky with sex toys!). The point is, it’s their choice! And not some innate ‘trait’ that’s set in stone.
That’s because there is a specific niche of pornography that fetishizes bisexuals, most commonly bisexuals who also happen to have a vagina, showing them in a threesome with a cis-man. Now clearly, this is some hypermasculine sex fantasy absolutely soaked in the male gaze. In reality, a person’s desire to participate in group sex is entirely their business, and doesn’t have to do with their sexual orientation. And besides, we all know a nonbinary bisexual with severe social anxiety who wouldn’t dare join a threesome. 😛 Hell… some of us don’t even want to have sex with a partner. Partnered sex can seem intimidating, overwhelming, or even unsafe to a lot of us. Exploring pleasure – whether you’re bisexual or not – isn’t just restricted to partnered sex! Sex toys for queers exist and often times offer a much safer feeling option for individuals to discover what they like and don’t like in the bedroom… before even involving another person in the mix.
We’re all directly or indirectly impacted by the media we consume, sometimes without us even realizing it. And even though jerking off is a time when our rationality goes completely offline, a little critical thinking – even while watching porn – never hurt anyone. That’s exactly why open conversations about sex and sexuality are important. So people can explore, discover, and express themselves in a way that’s authentic and safe. Whether it’s being open about your sexual orientation or talking about experimenting with sex toys, every one of us can add to the wave of sexual liberation. After all, there’s no room for shame in matters of pleasure. So go forth, be besharam, bust bisexual myths, and have fun while you’re at it!
Now that the major parties’ election manifestos are out, CPI (M) has an impressive road plan for the LGBTQ community. They have promised on horizontal reservations, amendment of the Transgender Protection Act 2019 to include equal punishments for crimes done against trans people, strengthening mechanisms to curb bullying, and refurbished anti-discrimination laws.
Congress on the other hand, has promised to modify articles 15 and 16 of the constitution to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. It has also promised a legalization of civil unions for queer couples.
BJP meanwhile, seems to have only included 2 lines of cursory content regarding the transgender community. The word “Transgender” is mentioned as a noun as opposed to an adjective, which is dehumanizing. Furthermore, the government has promised to include transgender people under the Ayushman Bharat Yojna. The major question to ask is, how will a rural transgender person from a South Indian village understand an act which has entirely been conceptualized and even christened in Hindi?
Have the legal nitty gritties and provisions of the scheme been effectively communicated to all transgender people?
And the catch – the government has also promised to create Garimah Greh Shelter homes for trans people. It is infuriating for four reasons – in 2022, it was this same government that had for some reason – blocked the funds for many shelters that were already operating. No clear reason was provided. Without the requisite revenue stream for a year almost, these shelter houses were forced to shut down, throwing dependent trans lives into jeopardy. The other reasons why this gets our goat is – there is no effort made on sensitizing natal family about trans acceptance. Even the first NCERT teacher sensitization manual drafted by queer activist Vqueeram was rejected with vile harassment thrown at Vqueeram, and the second manual drafted by an Oppressor caste cis het woman named Jyotsana Tiwari had been withdrawn because of sheer misinformation. Both these teacher sensitization manuals could well be extended to parents as well, but no. BJP isn’t known for proactive stances in favour of the LGBTQ+ community.
By promising beneficial schemes only for the trans community, while ignoring all the other queer identities, the BJP seeks to drive a schism between members of the LGBTQ community. It reeks of ignorance about intersecting identities or perhaps it is a strategic move to divide and rule. Trans, intersex and non binary people who are also LGBA+ exist. Besides, there seems to be no on-ground research of how many trans people, particularly trans femme people would want to use the Garimah Greh. Statistically, through 5-6 years of experience as a trans activist with various organizations, a considerable section of trans femme people choose to live in closed trans communities such as Gharanas or the jamaath system under a Nayak or a Guru. The reasons for this could be manifold – lingual familiarity, caste oppression, complete lack of natal support, the feeling that trans/queer people would be safer than cis het people, healthcare advantages, and more. In such a case, shelter homes would be rendered pointless, especially if they don’t receive enough funds to operate well. Besides LGBTQ-run organizations like Periferry also provide LGBTQ people accommodations at affordable rates.
The BJP has not only been tokenistic, but have also chosen a very low-commitment zone as a promise in their manifesto. Regardless of whether they keep their promise or not, the long-term impact of this move is questionable. The queer community will continue to thrive regardless of whether this move is made or not.
To conclude, the election manifesto of BJP comes off as a damp squib, and does nothing to support the LGBTQ+ community or even specifically the trans* community. It’s not surprising either, given the majoritarianism that the party espouses. If queer folx voting don’t wake up and smell the coffee, they will take hundreds of us to drown along with themselves. The damage done by the BJP is enough – passing the poorly drafted Trans Act 2019, refusing us rights to marriage and more. Vote wisely, and I’d say vote left.
After a four-year hiatus, the JNUSU election was held in March 2024. Students eagerly celebrate this festival of sorts in JNU, which has been denied to them by the administration for the past 4 years citing COVID. JNUSU 2024 turned out to be historical with a 74% voter turnout (one of the highest in the recent decade), however, the prominent winner which captivated everyone’s attention has been BAPSA. The recent election held in JNU, BAPSA- Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association for the first time made its way into the Central panel – an apex body in JNUSU, winning the covetous and important position of general secretary and councilors in the School of International Studies and Center for the Study of Law and Governance. Priyanshi Arya, a first-year PhD student in the Department of Philosophy is elected General Secretary. Megha Kumari and Ramnivas Gurjar have been elected for the post of councilors in the School of International Studies (SIS) and the Centre for the Studies of Law and Governance (CSLG). Priyanshi comes from Kumaon, Uttarakhand and belongs to Shilpkar caste (SC) traditionally associated with the profession of craftsman and sculptors. Ramnivas comes from the Gurjar community (OBC) of Chambal, and Megha comes from the Mallah community (OBC) of Vaishali, Bihar, which is associated with the fishing business and is renowned for their prowess in making boats. It’s a great achievement for BAPSA to bring forward students from marginalised communities to the forefront to represent the student body.
Prevalence of systematic caste based oppression that Dalit, Adivasi and other backward class families face in their everyday life is known and widely talked about. However academic spaces, these islands of excellence – renowned to carry forth the spirit of universality, liberal ethos and ideas of égalité remain confined to the clutches of upper castes and marginalised caste communities find themselves in the same vicious cycle of caste discrimination, which they seek to overcome in these spaces. University spaces are turning into Agraharas, where students coming from specific communities are covertly targeted and discriminated against because of their caste denominations. The marginalised caste students are dehumanized and often frowned upon by Brahminical/Manuwadi professors and administrators alike. When there is an ever increasing number of suicides of Dalit students in university spaces, when there’s a systemic discrimination to marginalised students in PhD vivas, an organisation like BAPSA becomes indispensable providing them space and solidarity to all the oppressed communities. They feel a sense of belongingness in the organization where together they can raise their voices against injustice. This is possible only due to the non-Brahmanical structure that BAPSA follows. Other parties within JNU like the Left organization use marginalised caste students as their foot soldiers and rob them off of their representation, further taking away their space and their voices. However, BAPSA unlike other organizations, doesn’t have a parent party or affiliation with any party which regulates or dictates their decisions, but it’s totally up to the rationale and consciousness of members of BAPSA to take any decision which is debated before introduction, making BAPSA a unique organization and most democratic in JNU. Where other organisations of Left and Right have their position holding posts occupied by Savarnas, they rarely talk about the issues of caste marginalisation. BAPSA voices inviograntly for the demands of marginalized and oppressed communities. BAPSA is an autonomous structure, free from external control by a parent organization, fosters a strong sense of belonging among marginalized students, empowering them to find their voices.
Q. What are your views on the victory of BAPSA in the JNUSU elections? And how do you see the Ambedkarite politics navigating in the university spaces?
The recent victory of the BAPSA in the JNUSU elections marks a significant milestone after ten years of their establishment in 2014, Priyanshi highlights. The presence of BAPSA in JNU, a traditionally entrenched institution, signifies a growing resistance movement. Priyanshi observes that the celebratory atmosphere extends beyond mere festivity. The jubilant drumming (Daflis) reflects a deeper sense of anger and a long-fought struggle for representation. BAPSA’s win grants a stronger voice to marginalized sections within the university. Even before this electoral victory, BAPSA actively championed Ambedkarite ideals through various movements, including opposing fee hikes, the 13-point roster system, and advocating for fair hostel allocation.
News of BAPSA’s triumph has resonated with the global Ambedkarite community, sparking celebrations worldwide. Priyanshi highlights the vast network of supporters, indicating a broader movement for social justice. Ramnivas emphasizes the win’s significance for marginalized students. They now have a support system to address potential discrimination from supervisors or colleagues based on social background. This victory empowers students to assert the principles of oppressed unity and the teachings of iconic figures like Ambedkar, Phule, Birsa Munda, Periyar, Savitribai, Kanshiram, Mandal, and Phoolan.Megha, a BAPSA member, describes her first-ever win in the School of International Studies (SIS) as a transformative experience. The ideologies of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Phule, and other leaders have paved the way for students like her to access prestigious institutions like JNU.
Q. What was the turning point that led you to this movement?
Priyanshi is from a Dalit family and is no stranger to discrimination, both subtle and overt. Everyday casteism manifests in actions like serving food on separate plates, and inquiries about surnames or fathers’ names. The incident that shook Priyanshi’s life was her father losing his job due to caste discrimination and later the realization that she is not as safe as her Savarna friends in this Brahminical structure society. Consequently, Priyanshi’s family gradually transitioned away from Hinduism, embracing the Ambedkarite movement and actively engaging with its literature. At JNU, weekly reading sessions with like-minded friends fostered a sense of belonging and provided a new space for her identity. Ramnivas’ journey towards Ambedkarism began with the powerful image of Kanshiram Sahab in his hometown. Professor Dara Sir from Jamia, who teaches Ambedkar studies, played a pivotal role in shaping his views. Additionally, witnessing the fearless activism of his Ambedkarite friends in class further fueled his own commitment to the movement.
Megha, a new student on campus, readily identified the three dominant political forces: Left, Right, and BAPSA (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association). BAPSA particularly resonated with her, offering a space where she could express herself freely. Her prior experiences of witnessing discrimination against Dalits by Savarnas had instilled a strong determination to fight against such injustices.
Q. How do you feel when you do this work?
The founding members of BAPSA entrusted their legacy, their vision and dedication to the organization and it passed down to each new generation of students. BAPSA entrusts every new batch of students with an emotional responsibility to carry forward the ideals, while refraining from imposing rigid ideologies. Priyanshi describes the energy generated during the protests as “transcendental” which is the effect of collective actions, evident in the persistent chanting of “Jai Bhim.” Given the great response from people of JNU and across the country, it shows how much people can trust a Dalit woman who is struggling to create a change. Ramnivas on the other hand expresses his gratitude for being part of this larger movement. Megha is a new member of BAPSA, and is eager to contribute more to the organization. She appreciates the influence of Ambedkarite politics within the university campus as a positive development.
Q. What keeps you going?
Priyanshi draws inspiration from a defining moment within BAPSA. She recalled the pre-election meeting of BAPSA where the Presidential candidate Biswajit Minji opened his speech with a powerful statement, “Right now I am giving a speech here but my father is working on a field.” This poignant reminder of the struggles faced by people and their will to struggle against all odds gives inspiration to Priyanshi. It reinforces her commitment, prompting her to ask: “If I don’t do this work, then who will?”
Ramnivas finds his inspiration in the power of all the first generation learners who come to institutions like JNU. As he says “We are the first generation, and not the last generation.” BAPSA provides a vital space for these oppressed communities. After facing language based discrimination in the class, Megha struggled initially but later this incident furled her desire to support others from marginalized backgrounds who face the same struggles. BAPSA’s unwavering stance in advocating for student rights even in the face of faculty opposition, inspires Megha. It provides her with a sense of purpose and motivation.
Q. What are the core principles and ideologies that BAPSA stands for, particularly in relation to the struggles against caste oppression and social inequalities?
The idea of the unity of the oppressed was asserted by Priyanshi, which encompasses SC, ST, OBC, religious minorities like Muslims, persons with disability, the LGBTQIA+ community and women. BAPSA believes that through this collective front, marginalized groups can effectively challenge the Brahminical hegemony and Manuwadi ideology. Ramnivas, another BAPSA member, emphasises the organisation’s commitment to fight all forms of oppression, regardless of caste, religion, sexuality, or any other discriminatory factor. Beyond this they also believe in the trinity of principle, that is equality, liberty and fraternity. Megha openly acknowledges her eagerness to delve deeper into BAPSA’s literature and work, demonstrating her commitment to learning and contributing to the movement.
Q. How do you plan to address the issue of caste discrimination and promote social justice within the university campus?
Priyanshi outlined BAPSA’s handling of key issues like advocating for a caste census within JNU, similar to the protest going on at Ashoka University. It is important for any university to know the dynamics of the operation of the structure, and it’s not just for the students but also the faculty and workers. This will reveal who is sitting in the AC rooms and who is cleaning up the mess. In the academic sphere, BAPSA proposes reducing the weightage of viva-voce examinations in PhD entrance exams since it is a trend in JNU to give 0-2 marks in the interview to the students coming from SC, ST background. Additionally, BAPSA calls for increased scholarship amount to better support students. Their agenda extends beyond these immediate demands, as BAPSA advocates for the reinstatement of discontinued GS CASH, promoting gender sensitisation and ensuring LGBTQIA+ inclusion on campus. Ramnivas expands on the issue of representation, emphasising the need for hostel allotment as per the reservation policy. He further highlights the importance of streamlining the process of changing PhD supervisors, particularly for the students from marginalized communities who are very easy targets in the biased system. According to Megha it is easy to prejudice a person from their attire and language and that’s how minorities suffer in the campus. She assures that any kind of act of discrimination has to be fought through BAPSA first.
Q. How does BAPSA view the intersectionality of caste with other forms of oppression, such as gender, sexuality, class and religion, and how does it address these intersections in its political agenda?
Dr Ambedkar first talked about the Brahminical patriarchy,in his work “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India.” In this system the caste status and caste purity is maintained by controlling the sexuality of women. And all kinds of caste atrocities come lurking in. Beyond the subjugation of women, LGBTQIA+ communities also face alienation due to the emphasis on bloodline and procreation within this framework. Women and queer individuals are challenging the very foundations of Manuwadi Hinduism (a discriminatory legal system) by adopting a more equal and socially just model of lifestyle, by breaking away from shackles of traditions and imposition within our society, demanding their rights which they have been long denied. BAPSA raises voice for Dalits tribals, women, queer, religious minority, disabled, and people from backward caste. It was only BAPSA that had their agenda printed in braille for visually impaired individuals.
Q. In what ways does BAPSA seek to challenge and dismantle the existing power structures and hierarchies within academic institutions like JNU?
BAPSA’s agenda prioritises an increase in the student representation in JNU’s decision-making bodies. Recently it was noticed that JNUSU was not invited to the Academic Council meeting. BAPSA’s presence in the union will ensure stronger support towards the inclusion of students in such forums. Priyanshi mentions about the need for better infrastructure in the campus for disabled persons, where at one side students romanticise Ganga dhaba and Sabarmati dhaba, on the other side it becomes inaccessible for some students. BAPSA had always had that ideological understanding, has been connected in ground with all the oppressed minorities and can now concretely raise these issues that more members of BAPSA are in positions. Ramnivas emphasizes the need for inclusivity that extends to university workers. BAPSA aims to dismantle systemic inequalities, including the “caste capital” within academia, where publishing opportunities often favour established networks. To bridge academic gaps, BAPSA plans to establish study support groups to assist students with various needs, including exam preparation, PhD applications, proposal writing, and research methodology. Megha pointed out the lack of representation among the faculty members which also needs to be addressed. Many opportunist students join parties like ABVP to access the large network for jobs and promotions, but BAPSA sticks to its ideology because it’s the only thing that will bring a change in the existing structure.
Q. What is your approach to dissent and protest, and how do you navigate challenges such as state repression and institutional backlash?
Coming from a not-so-privileged background, these backlashes can be harsh on them, yet BAPSA members recognise the importance of protest as a means of addressing critical issues. As Priyanshi argued protesting is urgent because the issues are grave. Priyanshi expressed gratitude for the nationwide Ambedkarite community’s support, encompassing legal aid and financial assistance during these struggles. However, engaging in protest can carry significant risks, ranging from disciplinary inquiries to potential expulsion, jeopardizing their academic careers. BAPSA prioritizes mobilizing large numbers of students during protests to mitigate these risks. Additionally, they find a sense of empowerment in the recognition that their commitment to constitutional values and willingness to defend themselves deters baseless accusations. According to Ramnivas, as JNU is becoming more controlling there is a trend of multiple unfair and unjust notices from the side of administration. Examples include imposing hefty fines based on wardens’ judgments and limiting PhD hostel allocation to four years.
Q. What are your demands? And what are the future endeavours your organization wishes to achieve in the coming term?
The fight for dignity is central to the agenda of BAPSA. As previously outlined, their demands encompass a reduction in the weightage of viva voce examinations for PhD admissions. Additionally, they advocate for increased fellowship stipends, alongside initiatives promoting disability, gender, and LGBTQIA+ sensitivity on campus. Notably, BAPSA calls for the inclusion of gender-neutral pronouns within the JNU constitution and a women’s reservation policy across various university communities and organizations. Ultimately, their vision entails fostering a more equitable and socially just campus environment.
This article is part of a special series at Gaysi highlighting the work of Dalit creatives, artists and writers curated and edited by BRC (positionality: Dalit queer trans neurodivergent). If you would like to be a part of this series, please write to gaysifamily@gmail.com with subject line “working with BRC” along with a pitch or proposal. All articles published are paid.
I am proud of the strides made towards queer acceptance in the Philippines. Although we still have a long way to go, the fact that queerfolk can even hold pride parades without fear of censorship means so much to me. But even then, you would never catch me going to these events. Obviously, not because I’m homophobic. Any reason I have to be afraid of myself gets settled in therapy. I simply can’t connect with the type of queer Filipinos who have the confidence to join these parades. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I’m sure there are so many accepting queerfolk in these parades that I’m simply too insecure to talk to.
I also have issues with my country’s desire, both queer and straights alike, to paint queerness with one technicolor brush. Although my friends support my non-binary self, I know so many old-school gays and lesbians who don’t understand it. God forbid I have to explain to my parents that on top of being bisexual, I’m not even 100% on the whole “boy” thing.
Being Queer Sucked For A Long Time In The Philippines
Before colonists spread the gospel to the so-called faithless pagans, the native population of what would eventually become the Philippines had a deeply empathetic perspective on queerfolk. Gender did exist, but the bigotry commonly associated with the social construct did not. Pre-colonial society gave feminine and masculine roles equal importance.
Unfortunately, the spread of organized religions like Christianity and Islam brought along ideals of homophobia and misogyny. I am not saying that all Christians or Muslims are bigots. However, there is no denying that the spiritual leaders of the time, and frankly, leaders of today, hold harmful views of the LGBTQ community.
Once the EDSA People’s Revolution in 1986 dealt a fatal blow to the Marcos regime, LGBTQ people who fled the country returned and brought with them progressive ideals of queer identity. The 90s saw the rise of several LGBTQ groups that worked towards gaining legitimate political power.
Nowadays, queerfolk still face discrimination from the predominantly conservative Philippines, but they finally have a community that backs them when nobody else can. From notable queer icons in entertainment to senators openly calling for the acceptance of gay marriage, there’s no better time in post-colonial Filipino history to be queer than right now.
So Why Do I Hide?
“Acceptance” in the Philippines is complicated. Notable figures in the gay community are openly transphobic, believing transwomen are simply “confused” and just need to accept their biological origins as “fact.” There’s also the unfortunate association of queerfolk as “comedians,” accepted for the entertainment they provide. The funny hair stylist might give conservative grandmothers a chuckle, but the moment they bring up gay rights, these women will preach about fire and brimstone.
I am non-binary. I realized that fact in 2021, and I am much happier for it. As someone who’s always struggled with queer identity throughout my teen years, realizing there was a label that perfectly described how I felt was liberating. I liked being in my body, but I didn’t like people locking me into male or female roles. I’m me, and that’s what I want people to focus on more than anything else.
Honestly, my favorite reactions are people who go “Oh, cool” then just move on and use my preferred pronouns of ‘they/them’ moving forward. Discovering my non-binary identity is a big deal. Being non-binary is not. I am simply one of the thousands of nonbinary folks out there. I’m proud of who I am, but I also don’t make a show of it. I also know that for some people, making a show of it is part of their process.
I admire all the flashy rainbow gowns and public declarations of love. I also value the societal impact that these loud and proud queerfolk have for hidden LGBTQ people everywhere. The knowledge that you are not alone in your struggle means the world. But that’s just not me. I don’t think the presence of an awkward non-binary nerd shrinking away from the spotlight adds much to the experience. Maybe it does, but my natural inclination to avoid conflict tends to override my ambitions of becoming a queer icon.
There’s also the fact that my non-binary status is a massive pain to explain. Whether queer or hetero, many Filipinos still view gender as a strict binary. “Love has no labels” might be a catchy slogan, but in practice, it’s often not the case. People will label you however they want. For the most bigoted conservatives, all gay people are effeminate perverts. For old-fashioned gays and lesbians, the dynamic still needs to be “the manly one” and the “feminine one.”
I’m fortunate to have friends and family supportive of my identity. Still, I’ve also met some folks who scoff at the idea of non-binary. “It’s too complicated” they say through fake smiles, and honestly, that hurts just as much as any slur. The idea that who I am is “too complicated” to bother understanding. If they won’t bother understanding me, I don’t see a point in giving them the chance to laugh.
At the core of it, I’m still not “open-open”. I recognize the amusing irony of attaching my name to a public article titled “quietly queer.” I doubt anybody I’m hiding my queerness from reads articles about the queer experience anyway. Even if they do, I don’t care. I just won’t go out of my way to share something important to me when I know apathy or bigotry will follow.
I wrote this just to let shy queerfolk like me know that there’s nothing wrong about not joining pride parades in the Philippines. Everybody has personal reasons for doing so. Donating to charities, voting for LGBTQ-supportive politicians, and even sharing the love on social media are valid ways of showing support. After all, pride parades are just one way of celebrating queer identity. It might not be for me, but I’m so happy to live in a country where queer people can express their love so openly. Maybe one day, I’ll join them.
Recall your wildest encounter ever. It could be a one-on-one interaction, a threesome, foursome or a manysome. It could be the wildest orgy of your life. Everyone’s doing various things to drive you past the finish line. Every erogenous zone of yours is being “sex-plored”; every sensory organ of yours is on overdrive. AND YET, you feel like you’re not entirely satisfied. Not in the same way as when you get off of yourself. When you’re alone in your locked room with the blinders shut, touching or fingering yourself.
Auto sexuality or autoeroticism is a part of queerness that has mostly been invisible, given that there are scant resources about it. It is basically being attracted to yourself, being able to pleasure yourself better than others could, and the ability to turn your own self on. You may still enjoy physical relationships with another person or people but you’d be aroused more by masturbating in front of the other person or showing yourself off, as opposed to actively engaging with the other person(s). You could also be turned on by your own nudes or that of others, your videos of going solo on yourself or that of someone else masturbating, or of you having sex with someone. Your eroticism and relationship making you go randy is what it is largely about.
Imagine if you were your only admirer, critique and audience alike, had enough time to absorb the entire silhouette of your body and weren’t answerable to ANYONE ELSE. That’s autosexuality to you. For those who’ve not had a great relationship with your body from the get go – due to having faced body/appearance-shaming, carrying internalized fatphobia, having a history of self-harm just to name a few (been here, felt that) – discovering one’s autosexuality can be a vulnerable, yet liberating experience.
There are many reasons why people are not aware of the term even within the LGBTQ community and/or they are averse to exploring it:
a) People tend to pigeonhole their chosen sexual labels into one of the few labels that are already a part of the acronym LGBTQIA (this is the reason there is a ‘+’ at the end)
b) Going by observation, the focus is always on the people you are attracted to, when one talks of sexual orientation. However, the focus is seldom on the frequency, intensity, nature and other attributes of one’s sexuality, which makes autosexuality invisible (just like demisexuality)
c) Autosexuality or autoeroticism, has often been closely linked to NPD – Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This causes so much stigma and harm, both against those who identify as autosexual as well as those who fall under the cluster B Personality Type.
d) There is poor or a complete lack of understanding from partners of autosexual people as to how to approach the situation, which causes a lot of autosexual people to huddle back into the closet. Not all autosexual people are averse to another person stimulating them. There is no one way of being autosexual, just like there are myriad ways of being bisexual, asexual or gay. You need to communicate without judgment with your partner and ascertain their needs before you jump into the sack.
As a gender-diverse person myself, (I’m non-binary), as someone who has both physical and social gender dysphoria, I get by most days just trying to not loathe my body. My entire life has become a ticking countdown to the day I get my top surgery.
However, discovering my autosexuality since 2018 helped me assemble a lot of the puzzle pieces toward decoding myself:
a) I took a lot of selfies of mine in 2018 and 2019 when I lost truckloads of weight. I felt better because I could pass as a flat-chested person in loose clothes then, and simultaneously felt worse because I have an hourglass physique. As conflicted as I felt, I noticed that I see my masc pictures as a “version of me that I wish to look like” and “present as”, while I see the effeminate pictures of mine as doppelgangers or clones who would turn me on a lot if they actually existed. So there’s that contrast.
b) It made me realize that dressing up masculine makes me feel self-assured and confident and I’d want to present masc about 95% times, but dressing up as femme gets me horny instantly (provided it’s not a daily affair but just a rare instance of dressing up). I’d not mind reserving the last 5% of the time for indulging in my femme appearances.
c) It made me embrace the tiny possibility that my gender expression could be fluid. Before this I was very rigid about being masculine all the time. All my Pinterest boards for formal, ethnic events and pride-march wear were filled with pictures of “masculine” attires. Trousers, shirts, dhoti-kurta, harnesses, and more. But now I have pinned 1-2 ideas for gender-bending, euphoria-inducing ways of wearing saris. In fact, my partner looked stunning in a sari once, so in some sense, I mirror what I like to see in my partner, I guess?
d) It made me fit seamlessly into the role of a butch lesbian in same-gender relationships. And I realized that even when I’m dating, I enjoy role plays and fantasies that involve me getting off in front of my partner. It’s such a powerful role reversal from the heteronormative stuff I’ve read, where it’s often the cis woman pleasuring herself in front of the cis man. Although I’m dominant in most same gender relationships, I also like being watched. I’m glad I’ve been in a couple of healthy, understanding relationships that have allowed me to explore and articulate. In many cases I realized that I enjoy getting off by myself far more than when the other person is doing me.
e) As a person who has grown hating their body thanks to dysphoria and dysmorphia, self-pleasuring and using sex toys made me heal and see my body in a different light. I minimized reducing my physique to an effeminate Point-Of-Sale and started exploring neutral/euphoria-inducing parts instead. My muscular legs give me euphoria. The dimple on my left cheek does too. My upper lip hair as well. My fingers and hairy arms do so much to turn me on. I don’t wanna make my pre-transition life insufferable, so I’ve started jotting down ways to find pride in my body even before I land on the Operation Table.
f)Something I wish I was told long back – seeking pride in your body and getting turned on by yourself isn’t selfish and investing in a healthy sex life isn’t a waste of money. These are healthy ways of finding yourself. Don’t let boomers gaslight you. I am meticulously saving money to get myself an ergonomic thrusting rabbit vibrator and a clitoral suction device with lube from a queer-person-owned venture, so that I can take time and derive some bottom euphoria by playing around and figuring out what I like best.
g) Being with cis-het-men in the past opened my eyes to what I was missing out on. One of my exes ACTUALLY – not even kidding – used his phone torchlight to look for the clitoris. This was in 2019. That was the tipping point in my life. In addition to being unaware, he was sloppy too and didn’t cut his nails, tried some mainstream hardcore trashy moves on me and expected moans when all that came out were groans. I was so done with him that the experience made me steer clear of other cis-man in the future as well. That was when it hit me, that there’s no point in entirely blaming cis-het men, because many cis-het women and queer people in India haven’t been encouraged to sleuth out what turns them on. This made me spend some quality me-time. What moves feel best on the clit? Do I like direct pressure around it? What hits the G-spot the hardest? Am I limiting my erogenous zones to just two of these? I also realized I HATE hardcore porn and founding myself feeling vulnerable and withdrawn after watching it once. It felt emotionless and mechanical. I am your highly-mushy, coffee-chugging Mills-n-Boons reader. We don’t do the “wham-bam-thank you-ma’am” drill here, we stay in and cuddle. This later led me to label myself as demisexual.
There was this scary moment in my life which now looks funny in retrospect – my mom walked into my bathroom and found one of my older vibrators that I got over five years ago, with a damp cloth beside it. She picked it up and she gave me a puzzled look. I told her it’s a vibe and I told her to put it back because it was inside me about ten minutes ago. She freaked out and asked me what nonsense I was to. I was like, “I’ve burnt my hands with terrible people in the past, so now I’m in self-service mode…” She gave me a long stare and then left my room while I wondered how smoothly this went without me having to get kicked out of my house. I’m glad I didn’t say “aatmanirbhar” else I might have squashed the Modi bhakth in her.
For those who think they’re autosexual but don’t want to get walked in on by mummy, papa, chaachi, maasi and the whole boomer brigade –
a) Try to order the toys or any accessories you want to the address of friends who live alone or have enough privacy to receive packages at their home – with their prior consent, of course. That’s what I did! I put a friend’s address for delivery in 2019. If I shared this article with her she’d have aneurysms laughing. You can even have it delivered to a night club you regularly visit.
b) Explore when you’re most at your most private – under the shower. Use aloe vera gel as an alternative to lube. No one would suspect anything. Just do a skin test to ensure you’re not allergic. Use your own saliva only after you’ve brushed and flossed your teeth.
c) If your job is something that requires travel, well and good. If you’re studying, use combined study as an excuse to go to the house of any friend whose home lets you get off safely.
d) For those who like the thrill of doing it outdoors. Try basements, night clubs and other dingy places that you’re sure don’t have any cameras.
e) Many cheap hotel rooms are not quite as safe as you wish to believe they are. But if that’s the only option, and if you can afford it, inspect the room for hidden cameras, especially behind the mirror right after you check in. You do not want people blackmailing you later.
To those who live independently, experiment with things like attire, lighting, kink wear, mirrors, curtains and more. What do you like to wear? Do you find yourself or parts of you attractive? How do you like to present yourself? Do harnesses, strap ons, ropes, and collars turn you on? Do you like company when you’re at it? Do you like being accidently watched? Have you ever left the curtains slightly open so someone could voyeuristically see you touch yourself? Are mirrors fun or overwhelming? Does running water under the shower enhance your mood like waterfalls do in Bollywood? (Think Main Hoon Na). Does darkness help calm your nerves or does having lights on help you clean up better? Does the thrill of being caught excite you? What parts of you turn you on? What fictional characters do you manifest yourself as?
These are just some starter questions that will help you break the ice with your own self. You see, it’s a myth that all queer people are very comfortable with ourselves or with partnered sex. Many of us still fight internalized queerphobia. Added to that, sex and sexuality are still taboo in a nation with the highest population count. Despite being the land that birthed the Kamasutra, masturbation is taboo and added to it, we Indians have very warped beauty standards that are barriers to self-acceptance.
However, I do believe that there is always a first time to everything and one can always take baby steps. It might take you years or even your whole life, to figure out that you are autosexual, but the journey is actually real fun. No pun even intended.
I haven’t always known that law was my calling, but grappling with the integration of my identity as a queer individual within the legal field has been a constant struggle. While there are successful and openly queer lawyers, they predominantly operate at the apex court, leaving those of us at the foundational levels—such as trial and district courts—feeling somewhat adrift.
Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to find incredible queer friends in college who’ve helped me navigate the complexities of staying true to myself while pursuing a legal career. Law school and internships expose you to an all-encompassing world of legal intricacies. Delving into the legal intricacies concerning queer individuals entails navigating and dealing with the complex dynamics of various state institutions. This includes, but is not limited to the police, the judiciary (a.k.a. the courts), civil society, and the individuals who find themselves failed by these entities. It involves a nuanced examination of the legal environment in the country, which sheds light on the challenges and inadequacies of these institutions that directly impact the rights and existence of queer individuals. For me, dealing with these institutions meant a significant level of masking who I am, in presentation as well as stances and opinions. Failing to reconcile my queerness with my legal pursuits would mean compromising a significant part of who I am as well as leaving myself vulnerable to the overt and implied consequences that being “out” in the workplace brings.
In my first year in law school, I began interning under a progressive advocate at a district court in Delhi. While I was there, it became pivotal for me to explore how my queerness would be perceived in those surroundings. While we worked on socially significant issues of domestic violence and labour disputes, discussions on queer issues were notably absent or simply not considered important enough to warrant serious conversations. However, being part of a circle that embraced diversity provided a semblance of comfort about being out in an environment like that.
A friend’s comment on how only specific queer organisations address queer issues was eye-opening. Even within ostensibly progressive organisations, the indifference to queer concerns is glaring. Nevertheless, the response from senior members, acknowledging the need for inclusivity, fueled my optimism that being an openly queer lawyer was a tangible prospect.
In my second year, I embarked on a new internship with an organisation’s LGBT program, a decision driven by my uncertainties regarding a career in litigation, ultimately leading me to opt for a supportive organisational setting over my individual advocacy. There, I joined the legal aid department, where the dedicated team worked tirelessly to support queer individuals facing legal challenges. Apart from that, the team provided valuable mental health resources to help individuals cope with the emotional aftermath of these incidents. This experience not only broadened my understanding of legal assistance but also exposed me to the critical intersection of legal and mental health support within the LGBTQ+ community.
It has been an exhilarating rollercoaster ride, where my identity as a queer law student seamlessly integrates into the fabric of the organisation. At an organisation where you work mostly with queer individuals, my queerness is just one facet of who I am; it doesn’t overshadow or burden me. Working here has been a healing experience, surrounded by like-minded individuals and interacting with various members of the queer community. Of course, I acknowledge that the organisation wasn’t flawless and had its imperfections like any other workplace, such as conflicts between different departments, lack of trained human resources, misunderstandings between the staff, and more. Despite these, my identity as a queer person was always acknowledged and affirmed. Being in that familiar space, surrounded by other queer individuals, provided a sense of safety and comfort.
In contrast, even progressive organisations lack ample space for queer individuals due to their predominant composition of cis-het men and also the inherent power structures in place that prevent queer people, especially queer women, to hold positions of power.The scarcity of diverse identities in such spaces underscores the stark difference between existing as a queer law student in larger progressive organisations and the inclusive environment of queer organisations. This is not to say that all the queer organisations are fully inclusive or understand how to navigate biases stemming from casteism, elitism, or even a lack of reflection on ‘the political’ altogether.
We urgently need more spaces where queer individuals can exist without having to constantly explain their identities to those who don’t understand them. The legal field, dominated by cis-het men, demands our presence and activism. In a country where basic rights like marriage equality, civil union rights, anti-discrimination policies, and even basic dignity remain elusive, we, as queer individuals, must be the trailblazers on the ground, fighting for ourselves, as no one else will.
Like most South Asian names, mine also holds meaning, but unlike most others, my name—Sakhi—is a unique one. It is almost on the threshold of peculiar, because while a lot of Hindi speakers have heard it as a word that means friend, they are often unable to digest it as a name in itself. And so, for as long as I’m capable of remembering, most people mess it up. It’s mispronounced, misspelled, or just avoided altogether. Till day, whenever I hear the name Sakshi (a more common name in India than Sakhi) out loud, I still turn to check if it’s me the person is talking to, because more often than not, I have been called Sakshi, especially by those who do not know me closely.
I had no problem correcting peers, teachers, relatives, and acquaintances, but I would get irritated when the same people would still resort to some new annoying pronunciation of my name, which was quite common during my teenage years. Life was irritating enough as it is, and it felt like no one understood me most of the time. The least they could do is get my name right, right? After all, no disrespect to Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name?” but we all relish the sound of our own names—nothing grabs our attention like it. Perhaps those who have a fairly common name cannot in the slightest fathom the joy that surges within me when, on a first encounter, someone calls me Sakhi right away.
As a child, I used to constantly pick fights with my parents over this, complaining about it so much that sometimes, I could feel them almost regret their choice. It was my dad’s idea and he had put in so much thought behind it. When he was a kid, he heard the name in a Bollywood movie called Bemisal, starring the legendary actor, Amitabh Bachchan. He adored it ever since and cherished the way it sounded. Even though I was aware I was being a jerk with my incessant whining, I would still despise my name because being bullied and teased about it in school (where Sakhi, which is supposed to be pronounced s-uh-kh-ee, deliberately became sucky often) was no fun.
Only after starting college and studying literature though did I come to recognize the mischievous and queer layer that my name was marinated in, all while I’d been obnoxiously complaining. In Hindi, the word sakhi refers, on the surface level, to a friend. Not just any friend though, it is a gendered word and is only used for women. The word’s intimacy grew exponentially for me when I learnt that the first openly lesbian organization in India was also named Sakhi. It was started in 1991 by Giti Thadani, a prominent figure in Indian lesbian activism. Lesbians in the 90s wrote letters to the organization expressing their loneliness, asking for guidance, and blatantly expressing their desires. As excited as the fact was that I shared a name with such a subversive organization, it also left me utterly curious and clueless. Why, sakhi?
The answer to that was one that I discovered in Thadani’s book titled Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India. One of the most interesting elements of the text for me remains the manner in which Thadani excavates the socio-cultural layers behind the term sakhi. By closely analyzing ancient Hindu mythological writings, she substantiates the word’s erotic and sensual dimensions that dominant homophobic discourse suppressed, reducing it to a simple designation of friendship that could be contained within “acceptable” hetero-social dynamics. Naming her lesbian space Sakhi then was Thadani’s act of resistance and reclamation—beyond its mainstream curtailment—as a “female companion, friend, and lover.”
Cultivating a safe sphere for lesbians networking prior to smartphones and apps, the daring responses that the Sakhi collective received from across India transformed it into an archive of subverted shame and silences. The letters poured in and were proof that even in the most ostensibly heteronormative spaces, queerness did, and will continue to, nestle in chinks and crevices till equity was achieved.
As someone who is still questioning and curious about their sexuality, I found such comfort in learning about Thadani’s Sakhi. The loneliness of being queer receded with knowing that, by sheer coincidence, my name is etched in the memories and legacy of delightful, delicious, and deviant intimacies, even if they weren’t what I was named after. The word’s crisp and intricate enunciation will always unspool echoes of sapphic tales that slipped beneath the seemingly ‘innocent’ and ‘neat’ designations of friendship between women in India.
Comprehending all of this, I have started to relish a newfound coziness in my name. Sure, a lot of people still mess it up, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I strive to be just as unusual as this name is and hold up its worth. I understand now—fitting into the norm is in no way a prerequisite to belong with people, and such a fixation could gnaw not just me but anyone hollow.
Bapu Bazaar on Christmas was so crowded that there was barely any network on my phone. It is crowded on most days. It took me around 45 minutes to find him. I was meeting him for the very first time after knowing him for two years. Donning a Christmas red hoodie and letting my hair down was my contrast against his all black, sober look even though we both somehow knew that inside my skeleton, I stood no chance against him.
I am not a hug person. I rarely initiate hugs and when people hug me, I am always worried about hugging them tighter or looser than they do. On one of our monthly calls, he had told me his height and how I might have something called the Napoleon complex. This was the man I had platonically liked for two long years, yet our hug did not feel scandalous. It felt warm and comforting and most of all, accepting. In that hug I found both justification and validation for liking him.
Old Jaipur at night is a thing of beauty. The shops and the Hawa Mahal, exquisitely lit against their pink walls is what aesthetics are made of. On our way to his Airbnb in an e-rickshaw, we talked about how his name attracts women on dating apps and how he was looking forward to Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan. He was most probably disappointed beyond repair. He stopped the rickshaw to buy a cigarette. The guy I had befriended two years ago did not smoke and took a lot of pride in it. Not that I did not. These are things of the past. As most things and people do, we too have evolved.
I have often struggled to feel safe and secure when I am with people. Very few people have been able to make me escape from the insecurities and obnoxious gazes I prepare myself to face every time I step outside. Was it the four year age gap between us? Did I see an elder brother in him?
I had never smoked until he offered me his Marlboro Advance and all my abstinence from things that can trigger my asthma vanished. Passive smoking used to repulse me and there I was, smoking the same cigarette that touched his lips, the closest I will get to them. I wonder if his smell was stronger than the cigarette. For a moment, we were Sahir Ludhianvi and Amrita Pritam: Amrita would smoke Sahir’s leftover cigarettes after he had left to taste his mouth. He taught me how to smoke and that one puff from this really strong cigarette felt like a spark flying through my being. He told me about the date he had gone on with a trans woman and I did not know whether to feel proud or envious. We told each other about our love lives but only one of us was trying to feel better about themself.
We parted our ways with a hug—I had become a hug person for one day. Through the cab window, I could see him take his right hand near his ear and signal me to call him once I get home. I did not merely like this man. I loved him. I have, for the last three years.
In a cafe that flexed a magnificent view of the Hawa Mahal and the Aravalis, he had asked a stranger to click our picture. He never sent me that picture. The lack of it in his Jaipur highlight on Instagram has since stopped me from asking him for that picture.
I have enjoyed telling and creating stories visually from a very young age. The characters I conjured up were always inspired by the people around me—my friends, my family, teachers, and just about anyone I met. I made sure, however, to give them different names, keeping in line with the idea I had of storytelling (all characters must be fictional).
I remember sometime around the age of 7, my parents had started watching a lot of English films such as Gone with the Wind, The Sound of Music, and other classics. I didn’t understand or speak English at the time, but I would still insist on watching the films along with them.
Later on, I would incorporate the names from these films into my own stories. Characters like Rhett, John, and Paul would become my companions and together we would go on many adventures. Sometimes I would name my own character as well, to fit in with the rest. Looking back on these stories, I wonder why I was so fascinated and particular about the use of these names, especially those assigned to male characters and therefore my male friends.
Recently, while going through a pile of art that I had made as a child, my friend asked me, “Why is the main character in all your drawings or stories a boy?” That had never occurred to me! The idea that in some ways or the other, I was always drawing or conjuring up a version of myself. Coming out as a trans man now, it all finally falls into place.
Growing up, while I was always aware of the discomfort and disassociation I felt with my body, I never had the words to validate it. The films and stories I was exposed to all involved cis-het characters and heterosexual relationships. I found myself identifying with all the cis-men I saw on screen, and my desire to be one grew ceaselessly, yet all I could do was imagine.
Words like dysphoria, transgender and gender-affirming care did not exist when one is brought up in a cis-gendered, heteronormative household. I grew up believing there was absolutely no way to become who I really was.
So sometimes I do feel like I had to create that character or role model for myself. It is also very fascinating that today, I look a lot like the characters I used to draw as a child. It is almost like I was making myself come to life!
2 years back, as a part of my final year thesis at college, I got the opportunity to create a full-length comic book. I created yet another story, the main character uncannily similar to me in both personality and behaviour. This was around the time I had come out to most of my friends but was still going by my dead name, a name that had always felt alien.
My character was a trans man. Naming him was not difficult. I did an arbitrary Google search and picked one up randomly, giving myself the freedom to change it later if I felt like it. The name, however, really stayed with me, and over time I started to see myself as the character I had created —someone a lot like me, with a life more similar to mine than I had planned. I was unable to finish the comic book and ended up only submitting pre-production research and character sketches. The project persevered nonetheless; it grew into the identity I was always running after, and a name I could finally find solace in.
The lack of queer and trans characters in mainstream media robs the queer community of seeing themselves on public platforms. As a trans writer and illustrator, I feel like I have a responsibility to create more stories about people like me, stories that are easily accessible. I want to create and write characters that young queer children can look up to, something I did not have the opportunity to experience while growing up.
I do sometimes wonder; what if I had the words and resources to understand my identity at a younger age, would I have had the freedom to start my transition much earlier? And to understand myself much earlier?
We are always looking for ourselves, in the books we read, in the films we watch or even in the music that we listen to. There is always a need to relate—that something which is produced by another can validate our feelings because it confirms that we are not alone in the way we feel. The basic nature of relatability is to banish the idea of ‘otherness’, a feeling those from my community are, more often than not, immensely familiar with.
I never liked my dead name. My parents regularly applauded themselves for the amount of time and effort that went into finding the right name for me. Something that would draw people’s attention (it didn’t work, people forgot it the moment they heard it) and a name that would rhyme with my sister’s name.
My mother is Bengali, so it was only mandatory for my sister and me to have a daak naam – a name only used by the family. My daak naam is very gender-neutral and I believe it fits me better than my dead name. So as much as my parents tried to persuade me to not tell anyone about it, very soon I was only called by my pet name, and the traces of my dead name only remained in my legal documents and transcripts.
I have never felt any kind of familiarity with that name. It was given to me but it was never mine. When I began my transition, my parents tried to persuade me to have some part of my dead name in my newly chosen name, but it felt too alien. And in some way that is a relief.
I do like my pet name and initially, I did wonder if I could just go by that. But when I was creating the character for my thesis, it felt familiar and also fresh and new at the same time.
It truly is a wonderful and liberating experience to name oneself.
Robert LeRoy Parker, an icon of the ‘Wild West’ era, was the leader of a gang of outlaws known as the ‘Wild Bunch’ in the Old West in the USA. His life and death have been the inspiration for many films, television and literature, but his most popular contribution might just be to modern lesbian vocabulary. He was colloquially known as Butch Cassidy.
Through his name the American slang word ‘Butcher’ became common in the early 20th century, meaning ‘tough kid’. The abbreviation of this gave us the word ‘Butch’, which according to the Oxford dictionary means a lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior. But as always, there is more to it than meets the eye.
What was once a way to describe a woman with short hair, no makeup, and men’s clothes is now more of an aesthetic fueled by an attitude and sense of confidence in yourself. It is an umbrella term that includes multiple identities like soft butch, hard butch, stone butch, chapstick lesbian, studs and more. It is also not just women who identify under the banner but also non-binary peeps and trans-persons!
The word was first popularized in the 1940s, alongside what is widely accepted as its counterpart, ‘femme’, which has come to be a reference to a queer person of feminine appearance or behavior, in the working class bars in places like Manhattan and San Francisco. These spaces provided a safe haven for sapphic women to explore their gender presentation away from judgemental eyes. Even though it was a space that middle and upper class lesbians of the time avoided, the butches at these bars could be spotted in “men’s” clothing and short hairstyles, while displaying suave, chivalrous manners when interacting with their femme counterparts.
This was prevalent well up to the 60s and 70s, but it wasn’t until the 90’s that till butch women became a topic of conversation in the USA again. This was at the height of second wave feminism in America when the conversation around butches, but in particular the dynamics between between butch and femme women, was gaining prominence. In short, the feminists were just not here for the butches! They pilloried butchness as inextricably misogynist and butch-femme relationships as dangerous replications of heteronormative roles.
From its emergence among working-class lesbian bar culture in the 1940s to its resurgence in the 1990s, this subculture has an interesting and rich hidden history in American sapphic culture, but there are prominent butch women in histories all over the world.
In their book ‘Butch Heroes’ author Ria Brodell sets out to find people like them. “I was looking for people in history with whom I can personally identify — people who were assigned female at birth, had documented relationships with women, and whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine,” Brodell explains in the book’s introduction. The language around queer identities has largely evolved since some of these butches strutted their boots. Today some of them could have been identified as lesbian, bi, pan, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer or intersex. But at the time the language wasn’t so nuanced, so Brodell choses to identify them as butch.
In Brodell’s work we meet D. Catalina “Antonio” de Erauso (1592 – 1650) who was born in Spain to an aristocratic family. She was raised in the convent, but before taking her vows she fled dressed as a man to sail and fight in the Spanish army. Once she was caught she was popularly called the Lieutenant Nun. She famously petitioned King Philip IV for a military pension citing her 15 years of service and even sought permission from Pope Urban VIII to dress as a man due to her ‘virgin status’. Both of which she successfully received!
The book also brings to us the story of Okuhara Seiko (1837-1913), an artist of the late Edo period of Japan. Her birth name was Setsuko, but she changed it from a feminine sounding name to one with no indication of gender. She is described as masculine and chose to wear men’s clothes and keep her hair short. During her time, women were not permitted to study painting so she arranged to be adopted by an aunt to move to Edo (now Tokyo) to pursue her artistry. Seiko was the first female artist to have an audience with the Empress of Japan!
The book sheds light on how butchness has always existed in women’s history (or should we say, her-story) all over the world, even if it wasn’t called that at the time. Today butch women are a regular part of pop culture. We had the iconic singer K.D. Lang who plagued women’s sexual confusion in the early 90’s with her haunting mezzo-soprano voice. Her 1993 August Vanity Fair cover shoot with Cindy Crawford remains iconic to pop culture enthusiasts even today.
The second coming of straight women questioning their sexuality came with Ruby Rose, who rose to stardom in 2015 after appearing on Orange is the New Black as everyone’s favorite prisoner Stella Carlin. Since then, Butch women have been a part of Western pop culture regularly, especially in film and television. Granted most of the time it has been in the form of secondary characters with trope-y story lines, but they are there, rocking the pixie cut and sporting a pair of flannels.
But the most popular butch of all time, one most people think of when asked who the first butch women they ever saw was, is Ellen Degenres. Her fall from grace is well documented and frankly well-deserved, but her impact on the LGBTQIA+ community, in creating a space for queer people and in particular butch women, cannot be ignored.
To this author though, and to lots of other Hindi-speaking queer women as well, the first time we saw a butch woman on-screen was Komal Chautala in Chak De India! She has long been part of the discourse on queer-coded characters in Bollywood, largely due to her abrasive push back in conforming to the gender binary during a conversation with her father as shown in the movie.
In an article for Vogue India titled “How Bollywood’s LGBTQ+ agenda studiously ignores transmen” we hear about Omar’s story of how they as a transman felt seen by Komal’s character. Back in the day, in 2007 when the movie was released, Komal was seen more as a “tomboy” rather than butch. The difference between the two changes depending on who you ask. Some say tomboy is more of a phase while butch is a lifestyle, some say tomboy is more about material things like clothing choices, hairstyles and other personal preferences, while butch is more of an attitude about who you are and your identity. The biggest difference between the two, when colloquially addressed, remains that tomboys are straight women and butches are queer.
Since Komal, we have had more robust and out there butch women in Indian film and television. In the popular Amazon Prime TV show, “Four More Shots Please!” we have Umang, a bisexual fitness trainer. Her muscular built, tattooed arms and IDGAF attitude is the best example of butchness we have for brown women. Netflix’s Ajeeb Dastaans is an anthology series that gave us the short story titled Geeli Puchhi. Here we meet Bharti, who’s butch physical appearance paired with vulnerability in her storyline as a Dalit woman and a sexual abuse survivor, helps bring a more nuanced approach to queer butch women on the screen.
While these characters embrace their butchness they are played by women who are neither queer nor butch. A problem that exists in entertainment industries everywhere. Social media then becomes a place for more authentic butch representation. Through social media we have had the identity of butch further classified, think of butchness as a scale where on one end we have the soft butch, someone with more softer features, long hair, likes minimal makeup, rocks the white tee and denim look. Maybe someone like Kristen Stewart. On the other end is the hard butch, definitely more muscular in built but not necessarily, someone whose wardrobe is filled with flannels, wears their hair in a pixie or buzz cut, and dons lots of leather! Maybe someone like Sara Ramirez.
Even the gym girlies trend on social media, not something only queer women have embraced but all women who enjoy looking muscular have, is a trend that owes its existence to butch culture. Feminine masculinity presents itself in various forms. And yes, queer women dominate this conversation and butchness is an extension of the same.
Within the butch label we have soft butch and hard butch but other trends have emerged regularly like the chapstick lesbian or the hey mama lesbains or even studs, a word prominently used by butch women of color in the western world. Butch can mean anything and everything to the people identifying with it, if they want it to! It is feminine masculinity in all its glory and this women’s day we are embracing it!
The theme of International Women’s Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion, and I hope this piece has inspired you to include our lovely butches in the conversation! The fact remains that we need more in your face butch representation! And all kinds of butch representation, really. So what are we waiting for? Women’s Day?
“Isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?” this quote from the movie Before Sunrise(1995) reminds me of how we as humans seek love in everything we do. We seek warmth, recognition and understanding in all of our gestures. Whether in cooking a meal for someone, or remembering someone’s Subway order, there’s a hint of love even when you’re mad at someone. Our childhood is shaped by the love our family and parents give us, and our teenage years are dominated by the platonic love that our friends surround us with (or don’t), and by the time we reach the frontiers of young adulthood, there seems to be a collective urge to find romantic love. If we think meticulously, love dominates the majority of our spheres of life, specifically romantic love.
I am twenty-two and I have never experienced romantic love. It wasn’t something which bothered me too much up until I was 18. I found myself all grown up with and surrounded by a splendid bunch of friends who surpassed all standards that any romantic partner may aspire to, through their gestures towards me. But, no matter what is said and done, platonic love and romantic cannot take the place of one another. Oftentimes, I am told to focus on giving the love I have in me to myself, instead of waiting around for another human to do that for me. However, I feel that as hyped as romantic love may seem, it is irreplaceable for me. The kind of comfort it would bring, cannot be compared to platonic or self-love and vice versa; all of them are equally meaningful but in their own respective ways. Being an individual with the personality of a giver and a hopeless romantic, not having ever experienced romantic love at my age, is not fun and believe you me when I say this. I constantly yearn for a connection like that, even more so when I see other people around me who have it. I am someone who desires an organic connection, so meeting people through platforms like dating apps does not feel real. Additionally my analogy about all of this isn’t layered with a strategy – if it comes along then I will take it as it is, is more of what I believe in.
However, after a certain point in time, romantic love feels more like a need than a want, I suppose, which is exactly where I am at, and yet nowhere near it. The lack of it has caused much turmoil within me but it has also taught me more about who I am as a person, and it has led me to figure out and understand the little things that I enjoy about life. It has helped me discover the passions that I like to pursue, it has taught me to be comfortable with sitting alone in my room and still not feel lonely. When I say all of this, it might seem like I am trying to replace romance with the notion of self-love, rather, what I intend to indicate is that as much as we as humans desire to be loved, seen, understood and recognised by another human being, as much as we may derive meaning from the idea of romantic love, it perhaps, does not come along, and it may never come along, so instead of awaiting it like a hopeless romantic fool, I have ended up teaching myself to seek pleasure in my own company. Sounds horribly depressing right? It does feel awful on some days, but in the fullness of time, I believe, it is only yourself that remains with you, to seek company from. Ofcourse, it is rather exhausting and dreadful to do that when the entire universe is comprised of grand gestures of romantic love in a manner where all forms of love seem to fall short. On top of that, being a hardcore Hindi cinema fan, I have umpteen fantasies and dreams about falling in love, but it has always been one-sided (Oops, did not mean to overshare!)
In the end, I’d just like to urge whoever reads this article to stop waiting around for love and stop putting yourself through inorganic relationships just for the high of it, because if at all it would do anything, that would be ruining the essence of how pure the emotion of romantic love can be. Instead, maybe just go make yourself a cup of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, put on your favourite pyjamas and watch some dull-witted rom-com, you never know when one of those plotlines ends up unfolding in real life!
Ah, there comes in my hopeless romantic self, yet again!
Being gay in this world is not easy! In fact, the experience is not universal either. Ask any gay person in this world and the answer will differ from person to person everywhere. Some might be happy living as openly gay individuals with few worries, some might be cautious with whom they share info about their sexuality with, and some are downright in denial about their sexuality. I am one of those people who is cautious to share with the world. I try to keep a wall around me because I am that way. There is always a chip on my shoulder.
So one day, I had to come out to my family members because it was becoming unbearable to hide. But the reaction to my coming out was not quite what I imagined. Well, if you have a supportive family, chances are they will support you and vice versa. For me, I did have a supportive family, but a conservative one. My coming out was not the same as what I had imagined it to be. So, let me tell you who my family consists of: my parents, two elder siblings, and me. My elder sister is married with a kid and my elder brother is divorced without kids. We live in Bombay and we are not a rich family, we are just a normal lower middle-class family, but we are a happy family! But one day tragedy stuck when my mom expired, leaving us heartbroken. It was one of the most tragic times of my life and a nightmare that had come real. We were all mourning, but the situation was that we were left without a woman in the house. So, no one was cooking in the house, and we were just about eating anything for some time. But, the issue was that there was no woman at home. Patriarchal families in India are very much obsessed with women cooking at home. They just want a woman in the kitchen to cook for them, and it’s a pretty oppressive approach. Every person who came to our house to give condolences said that the sons should get married as soon as possible so the kitchen would continue to operate. So, my extended family started telling us to get married, to any cis-woman, so the house would be neat and clean. My elder brother was the first target for the relatives. My brother is a very lazy and irresponsible guy, and that’s one of the reasons his marriage didn’t survive. So, he started putting pressure on me to get married, so everyone would leave him in peace. He said that between us two, it should be me. I thought we were a family, but for him, I was the person who needed to be sacrificed to save the family’s pride in society. From that point onwards, I stopped considering him my brother or my family, because I would never do that to him when he tried to throw me under the bus as if my life were an afterthought.
But, this is my coming out story, not about how I don’t like my brother anymore. So, my elder sister was also putting pressure on me to get married, but not with the same intent as my brother did. One day, fed up with it, I told her on a phone call that I was not straight. I told her that I was a homosexual. I expected her to be somewhat sympathetic and understanding, because we shared a great relationship. But, I was wrong, the reaction I got from her is something that I would never forget. She started panicking, telling me not to tell anyone about this, and that she was really scared when talking. But, you know what she was scared of, her reputation in society. She thought her relatives and her friends would make fun of her, and we would become the butt of all jokes. She listed some names and said don’t tell them, and was worrying about what would happen if anyone knew that I was gay. I didn’t argue with her, and just said okay! She started panicking again about what would happen to our father if he knew that I was gay! She started saying that he might die if anyone came to know about it, and everyone would make fun of him. He wouldn’t be able to bear the embarrassment that my identity, and by extension, I, would bring to my family. After that the conversation ended, and I was only thinking about how I thought my sister would be very supportive of me when I told her about my sexual orientation. What a fool I was. She didn’t care about me, she only cared about her reputation! I thought that my coming out would be accepted by my family, but I got a reality check that day. Right now, my relationship with my sister is back to normal, but the worst part is that we never talk about me being gay, and she acts like that conversation never happened. That day doesn’t exist in her mind. I maintain my distance from her.
This has made me very much opposed to the idea of coming out, and I hope the people who read this have a much better support system than I have. Coming out is a very personal choice, but be prepared for any outcome.
All you need to know about GLAAD’s report on queer representation in video games and 7 LGBTQ+ video games coming out (literally) in 2024 that we think you should watch out for!
When you think of the quintessential gamer, your mind goes to a white boy sitting in the basement of his parents’ house, crouched in front of a screen, away from all of society. That’s just not true anymore. This may have been the key demographic of gamers a few years ago but not today. With the ‘gamer girl’ culture taking over the socials, strides have been made to make the space more inclusive, but is it enough?
Due to its interactive nature and opportunity to build community, gaming, like any other form of media, can be a great escape from reality for its users. Especially for its queer users, it can be a way for those who don’t feel comfortable or safe enough to explore their gender identity or sexuality in the real world, to indulge in the same in the digital world. This makes it an important outlet for self-expression.
There are a few relatable queer characters in the gaming space, like that of Lev from Last of Us (Part 2) and Ellie from the original game, who rose to prominence after the HBO adaptation of the same starring non-binary star Bella Ramsey and our favorite trans ally, Pedro Pascal. Nonetheless, most video games claim brownie points for representation only by adding optional or secondary characters that are queer.
Don’t get me wrong, having this option is great, allowing players to decide if they want their character to romance queer non-player characters is a way of adding a layer of diversity. These kinds of character customizations are certainly a step in the right direction. But, they have been stand-ins for a more robust and impactful LGBTQ representation in the world of video game for decades!
We need more out-there, in-your-face, queer representation!
Till we don’t have that, let’s celebrate the ones we do have. Here are 7 LGBTQ+ video games coming out (literally) in 2024!
Hades 2
The Hades video game series is a rogue-like dungeon crawler in which you battle to break free from the Underworld (as described in Greek mythology) using dark sorcery to take on the sinister Titan of Time. Probably one of the most anticipated games by queer gamers, the first edition followed Zagreus, the bisexual son of Hades, whose equal parts loveable and frustrating nature helps him hack and slash his way out of the underworld!
In the second edition we follow the star goddess, Melinoë as she takes on her turn to battle the Titan of Time in the Greek Underworld. Even though little is known about this version of the game yet, the original one offered two distinct romance options and more than a handful of LGBTQ+ characters, all inspired by Greek mythology. No doubt this one will do the same!
Release Date – Q2 2024
Dragon’s Dogma
One of the most iconic action role-playing games. This high-fantasy adventure takes players in the role of Arisen, the hero of the story driven by his desire to challenge the dragon, who recruits allies to take on giant monsters. Even though no information is given by Capcom about the changes in prospective character relationships, we do hope that the sequel continues with allowing players to befriend and romance any character they wish just like in the original.
Release Date – 22nd March, 2024
Beloved Rapture
The developers of this OG Nintendo style role-playing game have shared how LGBT themes and friendship are integral to the story of the game!
The game is an indie jRPG that blends modern themes with classic gameplay. It follows Johan, an introverted man from the countryside, as he is forced to abandon his carefree existence when he comes up against a religious faction. He is joined by Aiden, a mysterious son of a shrine caretaker, and Crystal, a noblewoman who has run away from her family.
Release Date – Q1 2024
They Speak from the Abyss
If you’re a fan of classic dungeon crawling-style role-playing games that explore themes of psychological horror while solving puzzles then this is the game for you!
Step into the shoes of Vanessa Rivers, a queer woman who moves to a new city to be closer to her partner, but her fresh start turns into something sinister as she’s thrown into a nightmarish world.
Set in a lush, narrative-driven world of witchy demons, the game lets its players bond with witches and demons and even smooch adorable characters!
Release Date – 2024
Read Only Memories : NEURODIVER
ES88 is an esper tasked with capturing Golden Butterfly, a psychic entity hiding in the memories of others. Set within Read Only Memories’ Neo-San Francisco, colorful, vibrant cyberpunk city, players will get to play as ES88 as they work to uncover the memories stolen by the Golden Butterfly in this psy-fi adventure.
Like the original, this one too is set to feature multiple LGBTQ+ characters that players can take on!
Release Date – 2024
AfterLove EP
This slice-of-life game is a blend of narrative adventure, rhythm game, and dating simulator that allows players to experience urban life in Jakarta, Indonesia through the eyes of the musician Rama, a young-man working through the death of his girlfriend, Cinta.
Through this role-playing game, we explore the decision Rama makes about the path he wishes to take and his relationships!
I know, I know- Valentine’s month is a capitalist nightmare for a lot of people, with heart-shaped things haunting you as you are just trying to go about your life. But I am a cheesy person who loves love and firmly believes that there is nothing wrong with using an occasion to shower a little more of it.
Last year, I broke up with someone who I have been dating since I was a teenager. It was a happy and healthy relationship, which means that we both had space to love ourselves along with loving each other and we cheered for the other’s growth. For example, last year on Valentine’s Day I bought gorgeous white lilies for myself – distinct from our celebration together – because ‘I can buy myself flowers’ should not be a sentiment reserved only for those who are not in a romantic relationship.
Internal love and external love are both important, and neither is a substitute for the other. So taking care of myself will not be a new thing exclusive to this month (though I have been going the extra mile). Instead, maybe, my new thing can be watching movies and shows that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. As a self-confessed romantic I must admit that there is a long list of those, but here are some that are my absolute favourites:
The Addams Family: My current dating app profile says something like ‘It’s meant to be if you also want to slow dance your way into old age.’ And this sentiment is a result of watching Morticia and Gomez waltz on screen and feel disappointed when it has been ‘hours’ since they last did it. How is anyone supposed to look at the electric chemistry and passion between the two of them and not want to manifest their dancing ritual? Is it really too much to ask for slow dancing in the kitchen every evening after we tell each other about our day?
Anne Plus: This feel-good movie revolves around a queer protagonist who is trying to navigate a newly-opened relationship along with an upcoming move. The element of self-discovery is gorgeous and heartwarming without being preachy, and the story gives Anne the space to breathe, explore, and just be. Not to mention that there is a fabulous scene in which Anne and her friends try drag for the first time! The warmth and fuzz in this movie comes from the tonality which does not treat things like make-or-break but like possibilities and opportunities for learning new things about yourself.
What We Do In The Shadows: This show focuses on the trope of ‘found family’, which in my eyes is the ultimate Valentine’s Day theme because there is so much love in those two words. It is specifically about a found queer vampire family that lives together in a creaky house. Everyone sleeps with everyone but there is zero jealousy (perhaps a few centuries of living together does that to you) and they are always off on a (mis)adventure together. The costume design is brilliant, because of course, queer vampires will be the most well-dressed folx on the planet. It is a hilarious show – to the point where I had to pause to laugh even on rewatches.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Yes, this one is waaaay more intense than the other movies on this list, but my heart completely melts when I think of “you dreamt of me?” “no, I thought of you.” It is a beautiful interaction with an important reminder of intentionality and purposefulness being important pillars of love. Plus their slow burn romance is swoony in the best way. I also love that some important scenes involve a kitchen, because it is a place of comfort and conversation. Most importantly, it has a lot of eye contact which I am always, always a sucker for.
Schitt’s Creek: I said warm and fuzzy in the introduction so obviously this show is going to be on the list. Whether it is the episode where Patrick sings ‘simply the best’ to David or the one where Alexis learns how to take time for herself and not jump from one relationship to the other, there are so many precious moments on this show that make it what it is. My personal favourite is David and Stevie sitting in the honeymoon suite with face masks on, while telling each other: ‘You are my best friend’, right after running to the bathroom with upset stomachs. If that is not love, I don’t know what is.
The Sagar Dighi pond in Cooch Behar, West Bengal, is known for being home to a diversity of migratory birds, and is surrounded by government offices and courts. Many young people come there to hang out as it serves as a ‘third place’ – a space besides the home and workplace, which anchors community life. Khaboria24, a local news channel, recently broadcast a short video from the banks of this pond where 2 young women were sitting and recorded kissing from a distant camera. On the channel, as a presenter wrapped up their segment, the video was played on screen to a song that seemed to poke homophobic fun at the young people. After all, queerness is just a mere spectacle for mainstream media.
This breach of the young persons’ privacy can be largely attributed to stringer culture in journalism. Stringers are not unlike your local gossip. They land up in the vicinity of a neighborhood and ask for information about what’s going on. If it is newsworthy, they might pull out their camera or microphone to get a shot or soundbyte of it. They don’t receive salaries or retainers, but often maintain relationships with multiple news organizations that rely on them for B-roll or early information from ground zero before a reporter can get there and do a more thorough investigation and reportage. This means that stringers are often not sensitized about the ethics of journalism (that are already quite sparse and white gaze-y, to begin with). During the COVID lockdowns, many news organizations were telecasting videos sent in by stringers where they can be seen prodding people who had lost children or dear ones due to bureaucratic mis-steps related to imposing the lockdown – such as daily wage labourers resorting to walking long distances to flee cities so as to sustain themselves and find shelter. They were asked pointed questions, even as they were in the throes of grief, like: is your child dead? Is it true that you suddenly lost your livelihood in the city?
It is likely that some stringer going about the town happened to spot these 2 young women kissing on the banks of the pond and zoomed in on them with their camera to get a shot of it before sending it across to the news channel. The editor at the news channel, seeing no fault in outing these 2 young women without consideration for social consequences, seems to have gone ahead and telecast the same. After all, to mainstream media, queerness is merely a spectacle. According to reports, the channel refused to take down the video until the parents of the 2 women apologized and assured that it would never happen again.
Contrast this with the trans-person in Chennai, who works as a software engineer in the Chromepet area. They were dragged and tied to a lamppost, stripped of various articles of their clothing, and beaten as several people looked on. According to the people, they were suspected of being a kidnapper in the neighborhood, but it boils down to transmisia. The police eventually rescued the trans-person from the mob, and videos recorded by onlooker began circulating of the event. News channels and social media accounts broadcast the video as-is, without considering the pain and humiliation of the trans-person who was victimized by the pervasive transphobic gaze in our society.
This is not just breach of individuals’ privacy by the prevalent media culture, but also a case study in how voyeuristic “news” content led by stringer journalism has become in today’s day and age. It is a deep-rooted systemic rot in the gaze taken to report on community life. At a time when queer people report feeling unsafe to be their real selves at home and in workplaces, a ‘third space’ like the banks of the Sagar Dighi pond or even the roads of Chromepet in Chennai is where they feel they could retreat and take a breather – but alas! the Big Brother lurks there too. Media, which is often touted as the fourth pillar of democracy, has been reduced to a bully who is prying on people and threatens to leak their private information, with little regard for their life post the 15 minutes of infamy and humiliation doled out by news platforms.
This is not limited to queer persons, but can also be observed in how women were chased and slut-shamed by popular Tamizh news channels simply because they were at a pub that was open beyond 11:30pm in Chennai on the night of the cricket World Cup final in November 2023. They were described as “half-dressed” and shots of their faces and bodies were repeatedly flashed on the videos accompanying the news reportage.
One truly wonders about the newsroom culture in these media organizations and the editorial gaze taken to news itself.
Induced lactation to breastfeed young children has been an important medical breakthrough for parents of all genders. But this is especially queer-affirming, given that it helps adoptive parents as well as transgender parents connect with their children, through this incredibly intimate experience.
Induced lactation has been described as the process of milk production by a mammal without their becoming pregnant. This is often done through using herbs, supplements, medication, hormonal therapy, mechanical stimulation, as well as the infant.
In a world where breastfeeding is considered an important chapter of building intimacy and kinship as a mother, it can be incredibly desirable for certain people as well as dysphoric to others, depending upon their relationship with their gender identity, their body, and maternity.Despite the rigorous process and often an inability to produce adequate milk, most people who induce lactation to feed and connect with their child have reported feeling satisfied with the breastfeeding experience. It is also reported to help the child who may have separation trauma/anxiety from their natal parent, who have may have given away the child for adoption or may not have wanted to breastfeed the child for various reasons.
In 2018, the first medically known instance of a transgender woman who induced lactation to feed her child, did so because her partner who gave birth did not feel so inclined.In 2002, reports emerged about a Sri Lankan cis-man who breastfed his children after his partner died in childbirth. According to a doctor at a Sri Lankan government hospital, it is possible for cis-men to produce milk if the prolactine hormone allowed for spontaneous lactation! Medical anthropologist Dana Raphael said that this could happen simply by stimulating the nipples (breast pumps can be used)and eminent endocrinologist, Robert Greenblatt,concurred. Certain medical conditions like a pituitary tumour and being on digoxin, a heart medication, could also allow for lactation. Starvation too, can cause spontaneous lactation and has been historically recorded as allowing men to breastfeed their children in oppressive conditions. In fact, this is one of the most important function of the nipples – a feature that is common to most people, regardless of their genital form or their gender identity.
Queering lactation helps us question the construct of maternity and the gendered and racial stigma that exists around breastfeeding. It is also anti-capitalist, because if people breastfed while staying agnostic to these gendered roles, then it could pose a challenge to a potentiallyUS$100 billion industry that is built upon selling infant formula.
If I hear one more straight person talk about how they want to go to a queer club because they “just want to see what happens there”, I will officially lose my mind. What happens, there, Karen, is that queer people get to breathe and be themselves without the fear of being judged by an othering gaze. This is the exact purpose that you defeat when you walk in with your “curiosity”. Let’s be clear here: there is a huge difference between actual, genuine allies wanting to support queer venues, and straight people who treat our spaces like they are walking into a ‘scandalous’ theme park with a sash that says ‘Bride to be’ or a crown that says ‘Birthday Girl’. None of us are playing a role here (except for those who might literally be performing on the stage) and we are not exotic characters whose purpose is to show you a fun time. We are literally just trying to exist and chill with each other in a safe space, and being exotic-ized by you takes that away from us.
The problem is not the physical presence of a straight person, but the entitlement. If you are an actual ally and you come across a queer event/venue, you will probably look for the ‘allies welcome’ or ‘everyone welcome’ sign- and if you don’t find it, you will understand that that space is not for you. Just like for ladies’ nights nobody needs to write ‘not for men’, when an event announcement says ‘Queer Social’, you need to understand that it is not for you. It would seem that this is a very simple thing to understand, but my last year in London has shown me otherwise. In one instance, I was talking to two friends (one of whom was straight) about how amazing it had been to attend a Discussion Group for Sapphic people because I had felt seen. Immediately, the straight one went, “Can I come next time?”
I must admit here that the AUDACITY left me flabbergasted for a moment. I had JUST mentioned that it was a safe space for Sapphic people. Had she not heard me? What part of what I had said had made her feel that it was okay to ask that? I replied by stressing that it was for sapphic people ONLY. That should have ended the conversation, but she doubled down by saying, “Not to participate, just to be a fly on the wall.” And this is a person who sees herself as a feminist. I am 99% sure that if I had told her that a cishet man had wanted to attend a women’s group she would have immediately spotted the issue with his request. Therefore, my question is this: do straight people think that queerness is a performance for their viewing? Do they even see us as human beings or do they view our community as an immersive experience that they can enjoy/ observe/ engage with and then go back home after this ‘experience’?
Then, of course, it becomes a cyclical idea that goes like this: of course I am a ‘cool’ ally, therefore I can go to a queer space; of course I have been to queer spaces, therefore I am a ‘cool’ ally. And what is with this confidence that allows straight people to decide for themselves that they are brilliant allies to the queer community simply because they have never personally hurled a slur, and therefore they should be allowed to enter queer spaces since they have decided that they are ‘safe’? First of all, allyship does not mean not doing anything bad towards a community. It means standing beside someone, advocating, protesting, and speaking up on their behalf when the need arises. Secondly, if you believe that you are safe and therefore can just walk into a queer-only space, then I have news for you: you are the most dangerous kind of unsafe because you think you are entitled to consume queer people’s existence in mere exchange for not calling them a slur. This is not how it works. This is not how anything works. Being able to enter our safe spaces is not a trophy that you get for not being a horrible person. Sorry, but not sorry.
And then there are straight women who will tell me that they want to go to queer bars because that is the only place where they feel safe. Even as they say this sentence they will fail to see the irony in the words escaping their mouth. So for them, I will underline this next sentence: You are feeling safe because you know that you have the most privilege in a room that was supposed to keep people safe from your gaze. And if you find yourself being offended by what I just wrote, ask yourself this: if a cishet man who was your friend said over and over again, “I want to come to ladies’ night, please, you know me and you know I won’t objectify anyone or make them uncomfortable!” would you not think he was being shady?
Treating people like objects is not just about sexualisation- it is about dehumanization. And when you see queer people as an opportunity to have an immersive, exotic experience, that is exactly what you do to us. And we can always tell who you are. Always.
I can’t remember the first time I saw Rakhi Sawant. Maybe it was in one of those reality shows that she participated in, in the 2000s.
What I do remember is that I immediately liked her and was drawn to her. Her confidence, broken English, vibrant energy and flashy clothes entertained me. And the fact that she was a reality TV star was icing on the cake. But it wasn’t these factors that made me appreciate her. In those days we had a plethora of reality TV stars on Hindi channels. Some sang. Some danced. Some fought. And some entertained us with their idiosyncrasies. But there was Rakhi, who was different from her contemporaries. And special. She wasn’t like those pretty, naive bahus who wept for men on screen. Neither did she act coyly repressing her sexuality and saving it for a man. Instead, she was a cheeky and non-conforming woman who openly embraced her sexuality, carving out her own identity in music videos that catered to the male gaze. Rakhi was the kind of woman who made sure she made her presence felt.
Born into a working class family, Rakhi Sawant had to struggle to get to where she was. Unlike most actresses, she wasn’t born into a film family that could support her career in Hindi films. So Rakhi danced her heart out as a way to make a name for herself. Her performance in songs like Mohabbat hai Mirchi and Pardesiya (remix version) made her a household name and earned her the fame of the “item” girl in Bollywood.
However, the mainstream actresses who were initially reluctant to dance in item songs replaced her. But Rakhi was Rakhi. She didn’t let anyone get in the way of her determination to be number one. As reality television grew exponentially, she moved into television shows and found new ways to entertain us.
I still remember watching her bachelorette show Rakhi Ka Swayamvar religiously. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman go out in public to find a suitor for herself. She might have done the show for money (which she proudly admits), but for my naive brain that was struggling to understand my queer attractions, it was groundbreaking as she was out there searching for the love she deserved. With this show, she gave me hope that a person who doesn’t fit into society’s box can still demand the love they want in their life.
Apart from the show, Rakhi acted in several other productions. She did a movie with Farah Khan and Yash Raj Films. Her interview with Karan Johar for “Koffee with Karan” was also the talk of the town when it premiered as she openly admitted that she went under the knife to enhance her body parts. Her openness was ridiculed, but to me it was a brave act. Her confession made her honest and vulnerable — something Bollywood superstars still lack.
However, her film career didn’t last long. She wasn’t of any use to Bollywood as it had already found a new set of women to attract audiences. But who could stop Rakhi from entertaining us, right?
In 2014, she even formed her own party called “Rashtriya Aam Party,” which she later disbanded after getting only 15 votes in the election.
With the advent of the digital age, Rakhi slowly started losing her appeal. There were Poojas and Urfis to replace her. She wasn’t the only source of entertainment now, nor was she the only person challenging the idea of celebrity. But in the last few years, Rakhi found ways to entertain the audience with new strategies and tactics. She crossed all boundaries and became what the current generation uses most — memes.
For what she does, Rakhi deserves a round of applause. In a world where celebrities and influencers are easily replaced, Rakhi has made sure to stay relevant. However, she has made many problematic statements in her career that are hard to ignore. She was one of the people who vocally invalidated Tanushree Dutt when she shared her sexual harassment story in 2018. She has also used homophobic remarks against queer people, which is unacceptable.
The biggest conundrum is, however, that Rakhi is the same person who comforted several queer people like me who rarely got to see themselves and their desires represented in Indian pop culture.In an industry obsessed with testosterone-driven heroes flaunting their machismo, it was Rakhi who set me free by breaking the gender expectations people have of how a “good” female actor should look and behave.
She was truly an unhinged icon who subverted ideas of gender performativity.Her non-conformity, over-the-top persona and uninhibited display of sensuality in item songs made me feel validated and seen, which rarely happened.
All I want to say is thank you Rakhi. You saved my life in the same way that Madhubala and Sridevi did for my ancestors. You were truly a queer icon for me as your unabashed performance of sexuality, gender non-conforming attitude and campiness liberated me from the shackles of heteronormativity that always repressed my queerness.
Years later, when I watched Pardesiya, I still remember how a small child in Kathmandu (me) found joy in a woman who unabashedly flaunted her sexuality and desires without inhibition or fear of judgment. And how I hoped to be like her when I grew up.
WandaVison ranks on the top of my list out of all the TV shows that have been produced by Marvel Studios so ambitiously and dare I say, overconfidently. It was an audacious project in the sense that it was challenged with the task of establishing a ‘diversity of genre’ within the Marvel cinematic universe and it was expected to not only maintain but also set standards for Marvel’s creativity and efficacy beyond the superhero action niche; and WandaVision nailed it! Not to mention that it was Marvel’s first project after Endgame — that adds a different sort of pressure considering the cinematic glory that it had achieved.
Through the course of the show, we transition from ‘what life can be’ to ‘what life is.’ That in itself is a heart-shattering theme, even without the context of Wanda’s tragedy. To dream of a perfect life knowing that there is no easy elevator that could transport you to this wonderland and there is only so much possibility that you might actually live it during this lifetime, is the real pity. Someday the delusion will fade and your imagination will disintegrate. As Thanos so wisely put it: “Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same”.
Wanda protects her idealistic world by distancing it from the outside world, which in he
