Gender
How could I be trans if I didn’t tick off all the correct checkboxes demanded by politics, law, society and even the transgender community itself?
Why must others judge her appearance and grace
When true beauty is not confined to a face?
In a world obsessed with the outer shell,
She knows in her heart inner beauty dwells.
For many people, fashion serves as a vehicle for expressing their unique identities, their political beliefs, and their sexual orientation.
What if we refused to assimilate? What if we collectively decided to dress in a way that made it so society could not render us invisible?
While women’s colleges are certainly a step ahead of other institutions in creating spaces of liberation and encouraging freedom of choice, this rare advantage must expand itself onto the landscape of our entire country.
For women like me, there is an enormous lack of options in addition to the market that relegates us to a corner of ‘plus-size brands’
As clear as I was about my sexuality, I was just as unclear about how I wanted to look and what felt good.
I find that my own clothes are all just pieces of a larger archive I’m slowly constructing: an archive of the women I love, a half-hearted attempt at mimicking what I love.
Food is some sort of extension of our bodies, our identities, and therefore food and sexuality intersect in a myriad ways.
So why do we have to have fixed notions of gender roles and food?
For transgender persons the body is a very critical juncture where a lot of trans politics happens, given the fact that a lot of our identities in terms of gender do not match how we see our bodies.
There’s a difference between ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’. The above instance was obviously of the latter kind. Humour has a complex but integral relationship with queer genders and sexualities, and it has been evolving over time.
You don’t even realise what you’ve said until someone in the group, quick as lightning, hits you with the rejoinder, “That’s what she said!” As you’re trying to make sense of what just happened, the group dissolves into giggles.
I tell them to laugh freely but question as much too. This gives them a sense of sheer relief to be able to ask, talk, question, because, even if it is ‘really bad’, after all, it’s being said in ‘lightness, is it not?
Cricket, football, hopscotch, whatever the game, we have all wanted to be included for the sheer joy not only of exercising body and mind but also of being part of a team, of being noticed and celebrated. Sports and athletics offer us a playground to explore and express parts of ourselves that may otherwise forever lie dormant.