‘Femininities’ and ‘masculinities’ are terms that are variously theorized, contested and claimed by academics as well as activists. Central to such theorizations, contests and claims are attempts to historicize the terms, (re)define their cultural parameters, and highlight multiple meanings and practices associated with them. In recent times, the Indian academia has witnessed a spate of conferences on masculinities. Yet, how do we talk of masculinities without interrogating their charged negotiation/inter-relation/friction/connection with femininities?

On a different note, with the Supreme Court upholding one’s right to gender expression (National Legal Services Authority v Union of India), a wide spectrum trans* subjectivities have been visibilised while many others remain invisibilised. So then, how is law enabling/disabling construction of femininities and masculinities? With these contemporary developments as backdrop, this conference seeks to bring activists and academics together to discuss and dialogue about the meanings and practices associated with femininities and masculinities. What are the roles of femininities and masculinities in the production of sex and gender? What role does sexuality play in their productions? How do ‘female masculinities’ and ‘male femininities’ (re)order and/or (re)produce power differentials? How are femininities and masculinities lived and performed through time, place, and space? How are femininities and masculinities interrogated and redefined in activist spaces? What are the exclusions and illegibilities within stereotypical as well as reordered understanding of femininities and masculinities? Within a neoliberal landscape that produces its own market friendly versions of queer lifestyles, how do femininities and masculinities negotiate the market? These are some questions we will seek to address around the following subthemes, including, but not limited to:

Session I – Politics of naming genders: How and why do we name our gender(s)? How is that name discursively produced? Do names have limits, foreclosures? Does the recognition of the third/trans gender influence these limits and/or foreclosures?

Session II – Gender and sexuality as border zones: How are borders between genders conceived? Are they rigid or porous? Are there borders to be passed to reach one’s ‘right’ gender and what role, does sexuality play in this passage? How is one’s sense of gender and sexuality contested in various spaces?

Session III – Fractures in hegemonic femininities and masculinities: How do we read dominant femininities and masculinities? Is it possible to read fractures, disruptions in the ways they are produced, performed? Can they be queered or is queerness in-built in them? How does power operate through them?

Session IV – Femininities and masculinities in the nation-making project: Is there an ideal femininity and ideal masculinity that the nation actively produces? How is it constituted? What are its constitutive others? Have there been changes in these constitution/s? How do gender queerness and different sexualities engage with such constitution/s? How does one locate neoliberal markets in these constitutions?

Session V – (De)constructing femininities and masculinities in popular culture: How do we read the way femininities and masculinities are constructed and produced in films, literature, theatre and other popular media? What are the continuities and disjunctions within popular culture? Are there differentials in the potential of different mediums of popular culture in queering gender binaries?

Session VI – Female masculinities and Male Femininities: How are female masculinities and male femininities experienced and lived? What are their everyday performances? Do their sexualities have a bearing on their gender performances? What would female masculinities and male femininities mean for the sexed body? How do they (re)order power? Does the neoliberal market also produce/co-opt/resist/reshape these femininities and masculinities?

 Session VII – Femininities and Masculinities in Activism: What roles do femininities and masculinities play in social movements? How have women’s movements and queer movements interpreted/questioned/challenged different masculinities and femininities? Are there points of intersections? Are there commonalities/differences in standpoints? Has academic activist collaborations influenced these standpoints in any way?

Session VIII – Intersectionalities: How are femininities and masculinities experienced/negotiated through class, caste, ethnic, religious and other specificities? Do such locations and specificities by themselves and in combination influence the power of negotiation? Are these aspects somehow woven into hegemonic gender notions also, or do they signify a radical shift, a point of departure?

Session IX – Performing Femininities and Masculinities: Queering femininities and masculinities through live performance such as plays, dance, music and similar cultural forms.

We are inviting abstracts along with a short bio-note from students, research scholars, teachers, development architects, and activists on any of these sub themes. The abstracts should reach us by 23^rd May 2015 at sapphoqueerconference@gmail.com. The abstract should be between 250 to 300 words. Papers in English and Bengali will be accepted. Selected participants who submit their papers in Bengali are requested to submit an English translation as well.  There is no registration fee. Outstation participants will be provided with AC 3-tier train fare and accommodation on twin sharing basis. Authors of selected abstracts will be communicated by 23^rd June 2015. The deadline for completed papers is 15^th August 2015.

Please note: Papers to be presented at the conference should be unpublished before. Due to logistical constraints, Sappho for Equality can only bear costs of travel, food, and accommodation for one outstation participant per paper/performance. Sappho for Equality may publish the papers in future. In that case the authors will be informed if their papers are selected for publication. For further clarification, please contact: Poushali Basak (Ph: 9477171817 / Email: poushaly.b@gmail.com) or at 033-24419995 (Tuesday-Saturday 12-8pm & Sunday 12-6pm).

I. Self

It started thus for me:

During school days, my teachers perceived extra grace in my dance movements and selected me to play the role of the female consort of a male deity in a stage play. They also spared me, as they did with girls, the corporal punishment they freely employed on boys.

Ever since, a series of unconnected events have kept reinforcing that I am different.

Some of these are,

Observing me walk in front of him, my uncle cautioned me to change my gait, lest people call me a ‘lady’.

Classmates started walking beside me mimicking my walk, accompanied with claps and catchy movie songs that described the gait of a young woman, “nadaiya… ithu nadaiya…” and “aiyo … mella nada mella nada … meni ennagum?”

I got called by different female nicknames. And one that tweaked the spelling of my name, Shankari.

Boys in class would re-enact movie sequences treating me as a woman and holding me in an endearing clasp or brutal grip, depending on whether they were playing hero or villain.

While removing stains in my hand, a maternal aunt wondered out loud why my palms were unusually soft.

A boy seated next to me in one of our crowded classrooms called out friends to touch me and feel the softness of my skin. I was touched and rubbed by a number of boys who vehemently agreed with the first one.

Two of my neighbours were irritated with my soft nature, and started hitting me regularly, till I broke down inconsolably one day.

A classmate started interacting with me in an overtly physical manner; nuzzling and teasing my face with his fingers and winking at me. I reacted with ignorance at first, followed by shock, and then with curiosity at what new things he might do. Finally, when I began to like the attention, he pulled away scolding me for not resisting him all these days. That left me thoroughly confused, and thereafter suspicious of the intentions of anyone who showed any signs of intimacy towards me. I was only able to speak to my mother about this twenty-five years after the incident.

My cousins suggested that I join ‘people like me’ who live in groups in some huts nearby.

A male teacher sent shivers down my spine when he subjected to me a sudden unwanted bad touch, and kiss.

The list goes on, but now all these other people have moved on in their lives leaving an indelible mark on me. Strangers still point at me on the road. Recently, a group of boys let out a peculiar sound on seeing me walk by. After the usual shock, I decided I should not let this affect me anymore. I went briskly and sat next to them, as if daring them to touch! You know what happened next?

They all fell silent.

Part II. Incident on a Train

It was a day  I regretted I being at that precise location: the upper berth of an unreserved compartment of Jolarpet Express heading towards Chennai. A vantage point from where I could observe the behavior of those around me.

I was engrossed in a book, as I usually am during train journeys, when I became aware of  intermittent laughter, hustle and bustle around me. The tone of mockery in the voices was all too familiar, and my senses alerted me that something was amiss.

On the floor of the compartment, standing below me, was a short, bulky and dark-complexioned man in his twenties, wearing pants and a shirt, the fingernails on one hand painted a dark red. He was being smothered on all sides by a  group of laughing, jeering men, who addressed him as ‘Bajji’. One of the men said something in his ears in a seemingly endearing tone. Bajji rebuked the man in a way that suggested the man was known to him, and tried to push him away. Only to end up entangled in the arms  and gropes of more men.

What I saw after that was too much to bear. A tall man kept grinding  against Bajji from behind, while holding the latter’s shoulders and simultaneously engaging him in conversation. A few others made comments  that were not  audible in the noise of the moving train. At the next station, a passenger seated below got down, leaving his place vacant. Bajji’s ‘peers’ generously offered the seat to our Bajji. But wait, it was not the vacant seat they offered, but the lap of another man who had occupied it by then. The man behind him firmly  clasped Bajji by his waist, while the man who was nuzzling him called in a man with curly hair to join in the action. This curly-haired man took his position in front of Bajji. Now Bajji was captive, positioned in a such a way that he was imprisoned by male bodies—for I would not like to call them human beings, after witnessing what they next did to him. The man who had Bajji on his lap, tightened his grip around Bajji’s waist. The curly-haired man began squeezing Bajji’s chest. Bajji tried to push those fingers away but his hands were then promptly restrained by another man. It was neither affection nor curiosity. It was utterly cruel abuse!

My own prior experiences of harassment made me feel that Bajji needed help, but multiple thoughts held me back. What if I had misunderstood the situation? How could I, on my own, confront a group of passengers? What if these people were an organized gang of traffickers?

I looked at the co-passengers seated around me. Most were sleeping or completely unconcerned by what was happening.

As I hesitated, mustering the courage to intervene, I waited for a cry from Bajji, an audible confirmation of his distress, so I could also cry out loud and alert people to his predicament. But to my surprise, Bajji mustered a wan smile every time some atrocity was committed on his person. Now and then he would wipe his eyes, as if to prevent tears from rolling down. Perhaps he had learned that crying would only provoke further abuse.

The worst part was yet to come. A loud-voiced bystander asked the men surrounding Bajji what they were doing. One of them replied that they were auctioning Bajji off. A few quoted prices on him, much to the merriment of the group. One of them remarked that the auctioneer could earn a fortune through Bajji. I looked helplessly at Bajji. I noticed that he forced himself to join in the laughter, as if wanting to belong to the group! Perhaps he had been socialized to be manly and face the abuse without shrinking or running away.

The train then reached Arakkonam junction and he asked one of his ‘friends’ to help him get his bag from the luggage rack. A tall man pulled down the bag and handed it over to Bajji who then scurried away.

I am still struck by the violence of the episode.

Do such incidents happen every day? How long will Bajji, and others like him, survive these attacks and insults?

Or, was I over-reacting about something over which no other co-passenger worried?

Why did circumstances place me so close to such a harrowing event?

How should I respond if I were to find myself in such a situation again?

never learned how to pee standing up
confine a gesture, choke a feeling
in that house run by women of color and conviction
who let me play with skydancers and gender
make a runway out of the walk from the shower
each towel revealing infinite possibilities
to be fabulous

so i thought that embracing myself
after years of stifling this fag,
her lisp, her sway
thought being true to you would be easier
mean returning to my sister, my mother
re-building home in this body
that place they demolished with their
masculinity and pornography

but instead got their:
“mascs only”
“straight acting plz”
and matching body fascism
an entire army of men mistaken as an oppressed community (lol)
wielding dicks like knives
translating the bruises on their backs into
butch and peck // misogyny the only
outfit you took out of your closet with you

~*~*~*SO*~*~*~**
it’s not us it’s you dearieeee !!!
your masculinism ain’t cute honeyyy
bout to subscribe you to this
» FEMMEIFESTO «
until further notice you will be receiving all of the updates

1)
No matter how many people who look just like you you
sleep with, you will still
never feel comfortable in that body
if you consume penis as pill
getting handjobs like handcuffs
shackling yourself to a uniform you mistake as body
fucking: the only way you let people inside of you.
Remember here is something sacred about a curve, a hair, these mortal parts of us that differentiate bodies from billboards
Until you remember that you will always be left wanting more: this is how the market continues to colonize your desires.

2)
Your backwards caps and fitted tanks aren’t cute nor subversive. Rather, they are an attempt to pass as the very men who beat you. This is a strategy used throughout history: where the oppressed become the oppressers. The incorporation of homosexuality in these images is not unique: patriotism and empire have always been the result of men jerking off together. Our attraction to you, therefore, is because your body has been branded as part of a militarized national project that keeps us sexualizing the very institutions that annihilate our capacity for social change.

3)
What you mistake as dancing is indicative of how severely white supremacist patriarchy has incarcerated your body and quarantined your mind from your hips. Your pathetic attempt to ‘twerk’ to “Run the World (Girls)” is neither suave nor becoming because 1) You do actually run the world 2) Your situational appropriation of black womyn’s lexicon and experience to fashion your identity is not a deployment of anti-racist allyship, but rather is a part of a structure of global anti-blackness that oppresses millions of people across the world 3) It speaks to how boring you would be off of the dance floor… So imma take this ‘friend zone’ as a site of resistance from you and your basic PH18 ass.

4)
To the femmes, the sissies, the fags, the gurls know that your beauty cannot be translated into gender. Never forget that the reason they hate you is because they have built a cage around their heart and called it a six pack. Never forget that your ancestors were once regarded as holy not only because of the composition of your body, but because of the way you gave healing to your communities. So see your femme as a collective process of empowerment not a hedonistic guise of neoliberalism. Despite your glory do not forget that you are not a queen. This sacred position is reserved for your mother and all the womyn who have paved the way for you. Never forget that your femme may be more palatable than others’ because you have the privilege to have been assigned male as birth.

5)
The revolution will be fabulous: it lies in your strut, your drop, your limp wrist. So keep doing your hair, keep clashing those colors! Your body is not frivolous or excessive, but rather the canvas where you can show what is to come in a world without time or labor. Nevertheless, do not let material possession restrict the way you articulate your femme – that feeling deep inside of you that cannot be bought at Urban Outfitters or any other corporation that profits off of self-inadequacy.

August 19, 2013 (c)

Republished with consent from Alok’s tumblr.