Breaking the Binary: a LABIA research study

In 2009, LABIA began a research study that attempted to understand more about gender through the lives of queer persons assigned gender female at birth. We travelled across the country to several cities to meet LBT groups and individuals from both urban and rural areas for interviews and group discussions.

This study explored how gender plays out in public and private institutions and the multiple ways in which interlocking systems of heteronormativity, casteism, class and ableism are enmeshed within patriarchy to create exclusion, marginalisation, pathologisation and violence. It illustrates the multiplicity of ways in which people live gender and testifies that even if there are gender laws, in a just world there can be no gender outlaws. This study has also been a successful experiment in collective research and writing.

In 2013, we published the report titled Breaking The Binary: Understanding concerns and realities of queer persons assigned gender female at birth across a spectrum of lived gender identities. The key findings of the report were shared in public meetings in six cities around the country (ed: including Chennai). We also translated and published the report in Hindi in 2014. In July 2015, Zubaan published a book based on this study titled No Outlaws in the Gender Galaxy, which is now available in bookstores and online.

The English report has been up on our website for free download since its release. We would now like to make both the Hindi and English reports accessible to a wider audience and are extremely grateful to Orinam for putting them up. We can be reached at labiacollective@gmail.com and some of our earlier work is available at www.labiacollective.org

Click here for Breaking The Binary, English

Click here for Breaking The Binary, Hindi