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.
Also read: How the Lockdown Brought Back Memories of Dysphoria Before Leading me to a Breakthrough
On Creating Queer-Affirming Workspaces
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.”
Also read: How to be a Good Ally at the Workplace
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
Also read: A Gaysi Guide to the Workplace for Queer Folx
Intersectionality and Breaking the Binary
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.
Also read: A Beginner’s Guide to Sexual Health: Sexually Transmitted Diseases
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!
