Gender
Issue in Focus: Money, Money, Money – Must be Funny
A few days ago, we were doing a self-reflective exercise at work on what gives us power, how we demonstrate power, and what (or who) has power over us. Surprisingly, but not much, I found money featuring across the board for me: be it through financial independence or financial constraints. Power, as exercised by me or as exercised over me, has been intricately tied with my sexuality – ranging from job options to travel decisions to reproductive choices – and money seemed to lord over it all. It wasn’t the only lord, but it was quite a powerful lord.
By Vani Viswanathan
Issue in Focus: Hackers and High Heels
Adeanna Cooke:
International model, featured in Playboy,
Established hacker and amateur computer programmer.
By Shikha Aleya
June 5, 2016
Issue in Focus: Desire and the Discourse on Difference
Diversity, I think, can be a deceptive word. On the surface it carries the promise of plurality and multiple possibilities. Yet, it is deployed in ways that simply reinscribe normative two-gender stereotypes and heteronormativity.
By Shweta Krishnan
Issue in Focus: Beyond Ramps and Restrictions
Accessibility begins with access, enabled or denied, to concepts and ideas. At the core, beyond the architecture of the real and virtual worlds, it is about the architecture of the ways in which this access is broadened, to not only accommodate, but to nurture, the myriad expressions of human minds and bodies.
By Shikha Aleya
August 3, 2017
Issue In Focus: A Travelling Sexuality
Travel and sexuality throws up different thoughts and feelings for us all. For me, it threw up the term travelling sexuality. I like it. Travelling sexuality. It sounds exotic or intellectual, adventurous, dangerous, depending on who you are and how you live life. A travelling sexuality could describe the way we evolve as sexual beings, shifting and changing identities.
By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2016
Issue in Focus
There are different narratives where lie hidden worlds of codified feelings, justifications, a reason to buy or not buy into injustice, or othering.
By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2023
Issue in focus
Companions take many forms. Using the word very loosely here, a companion is anyone the self is connected to, anywhere, at any point in time, from a family member, to a stranger on a train.
By Shikha Aleya
November 15, 2022
Issue in Focus
Expanding contexts give the word ‘movement’ different meanings and value. Physical, conceptual, technological, relationship, emotional, mental, power, knowledge, ability, access, may be amongst the contexts immediately identified.
By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Is Digital Colonisation Redefining the Understanding of Agency, Bodily Autonomy, and Being Human?
Apart from systematic exclusions faced by individuals, evidently the mandatory use of a biometric-based digital ID has also reshaped the understanding of an individual’s agency and right to bodily autonomy. Gender and sexuality seem to no longer be matters of an individual’s right to privacy. With digitisation, disclosure of one’s gender and sexuality has become a hindrance to accessing one’s rights.
By Brindaalakshmi. K
Interview: Shruti Arora
There may already be another organisation in the community to share resources with but for community-led initiatives, a shared perspective on Safe, Inclusive, Sexuality-Affirming (SISA) spaces is also important. Sometimes when the shared perspective is not there, that becomes a challenge.
By Shikha Aleya
January 3, 2022
December 1, 2014
Interview: Pawan Dhall on his own journey of building communities – Part 1
In this issue of In Plainspeak, we interview Pawan Dhall, Founding Trustee of Varta Trust, queer activist, writer and social researcher. He is also the editor of the Varta webzine, promoting and sustaining dialogue on gender and sexuality, across diverse groups of people. As Pawan says, “We are all strung together on a spectrum of gender and sexuality, and we don’t have to be fixed at a single point on the spectrum throughout our lives.”
By Shikha Aleya
Interview: Nandini Rao
Feminist, activist, writer, counsellor and trainer, Nandini Rao, focuses on issues of gender-based violence and discrimination, sexuality and disability and on incest and child sexual abuse.
By Shikha Aleya
May 1, 2018
Interview: Manjula Pradeep
Manjula Pradeep is a lawyer and former Executive Director of the Navsarjan Trust, a grassroots organisation working to empower Dalits…
By Sonia Dhawan
October 3, 2017
Interview: Gender And Popular Science
Popular science stories can be exciting, educative and a lot of fun to read. But sometimes we come across that…
By Shweta Krishnan
October 1, 2014