Queer
I long for much more than a greater representation of brown women. I long for a complete overhaul of the racial, gendered, and economic systems that structure our suffering.
But I also long for representation of all people, including brown women, who are in love, who are loveable, and who are — in the absence of love — lonely.
I did everything to change my gender expression from masculine to feminine. I started wearing feminine clothes, started growing my hair, and I even had a boyfriend. But the more I pushed myself to be feminine, the more depressed I became.
My entire life has been a struggle of confused identities. I stood at the intersection of gay, Muslim and economic privilege.
While Nishit Saran’s iconoclasm loomed large in his lifetime, his oeuvre as a pioneering queer filmmaker and activist seems to have been largely obliterated.
Lots of things, people, and moments have possibilities for stirring the erotic within us. The bible, the dictionary or the stories on nifty.org may become pre-texts to something new within ourselves and others.
The film has all the makings and trimmings of a commercial thriller – a dynamic story, song and dance, an action-packed climax – and at the same time, it is a cinephile’s film.
Māyā Mridanga infinitely problematises the nature vs. nurture debate that is central to sexuality studies. The novel seems to suggest that a certain kind of male body – feminine, smooth, shapely – is the ideal raw material for making a chhokra out of a biological man. Ustaad Jhaksa, whose life the novel documents[2], repeatedly emphasises on this act of nurturing, moulding and pruning of a feminine male body for which he has fatherly affection as well as a lover’s lust.
By Orinam Apr 13 2020 Post comment To the reader: we recognize that the English-language content below may not be…
For a queer person, or for someone who remains single by choice, everyday existence requires strength and will. That is the embodiment of kun faya kun as a personal philosophy: to manifest the person you want to be through sheer will.
Audre Lorde once said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
A long, long time ago, in a room far, far away, I remember playing at being a mythological hero I…
In November 2015, during the Delhi Queer Pride March, three individuals held up signs that read, ‘Dalit, Queer, Proud’, establishing…
It is true though that ageing has brought home realities about my body that I ignored when I was younger. It has made me mindful of what I value, and what I choose to let go of, without too much of thought or unnecessary angst.
Ritambhara Mehta is with Nazariya, a Delhi-based queer feminist resource group. Nazariya works on issues of gender and sexuality with a focus on issues of queer women and trans* persons.