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.
Also read: Queer Students On Returning To Offline Classes As Colleges Reopen Across India
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.
Also read: On College, Freedom, and Finding Myself
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.
Also read: Assam School Denies Trans Student Education After Their Private Social Media Post
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.
