1. Trans dyke blues

They gave her a canvas.
And asked her to paint.
Down in her head,
In her sacred profanities,
she saw someone.
She painted them.
          Them, in each others hands.
In their small home.
Home.

She grew flowering vines around the painting.
She grew, flowing into that girl she drew
She grew, wilted, regrew, rewilted

Joyful, playful, holy, insane
A little bit of un-sacredness
yet sacred the same.

2. Ode to a night of aching arms

That one night in peak Delhi summer
We talked all night on the phone
You were restless about your bass tone
My hands ached from holding the phone, till
6 AM  in the morning.

I didn’t mind.

Delhi is approaching winter, my love.

My pen aches to write for your bass.
My hand aches to ache,
holding the phone till
6AM in the morning
Again.

3. Sabr… dear heart…sabr

This Eid
There is no waking up to shower at 4, cold.
There is no riding with 5 people on a
motorcycle.
There is no table with banana leaves on,
covered in beef biryani.
There is no rush to the eidgaah.

Here I sit,
in my tattered cargos and corduroy jackets,
Couple of tears on my cheeks
Reminiscing the eids gone

Can the transsexual Eid?

In 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalized consensual and private same-sex relationships in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India- – a landmark judgment that overturned the Supreme Court’s own ruling in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation which upheld the now notorious Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Even though the Navtej judgment was momentous, it was merely the first step in the long fight for LGBTQIA+ equality- a step that should never have taken the Indian courts so long in the first place.

But even after Navtej, the journey for LGBTQIA+ acceptance has not been easy in India, especially for those living in small towns and rural areas. A lack of LGBTQIA+ friendly-spaces and radio silence on the issue of sexuality and gender identity has made it difficult for not only society to accept the LGBTQIA+ community, but also for LGBTQIA+ people to come to terms with their own identities. But in spite of these challenges, LGBTQIA+ activists across the country have continued to work tirelessly to change laws and mindsets alike. Back in 2017 (even before Navtej), Opposition party politician Dr. Shashi Tharoor tabled an anti-discrimination and Equality Bill in the Indian Lok Sabha that is comparable to the Biden Administration’s recently introduced Equality Act. However, unlike Biden, Tharoor wasn’t able to pass his Bill, ostensibly because of its radically transformative nature.

More recently, the BJP-led Central Government slammed efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in India by responding rather acerbically to three separate petitions seeking to secure these very same rights. The Government stated same-sex couples in India did not have the fundamental right to marriage because the Navtej judgment merely decriminalized ‘a particular human behavior’. Rather, the Government said, marriage in India should remain restricted to ‘biological men and biological women’.

The Government’s counter-affidavit also claimed that “Western ideas cannot be imported to the Indian context”; yet failed to prove how the idea of same-sex marriage was inherently ‘Western’. In fact, the terminologies of “western”, and “eastern” themselves are contested and require significant academic deconstruction. To merely claim that something is “western” or “eastern” is indeed a sign of intellectual laziness. The Government’s argument falls apart further when one considers the curious cases of two Asian, non-Western countries– Taiwan and Thailand. Taiwan not only legalized same-sex marriage back in 2019 but is now on track to legally recognize international same-sex marriages . Thailand is also considering expanding the scope of marriage to also include same-sex relationships. Moreover, rich historical and sociological evidence of the existence of same-sex marriage in India has been well-documented by scholar Ruth Vanita in her 2005 book Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West. This affirms that there is nothing quintessentially ‘western’ about same-sex marriage in India.

Two more of the Central Government’s arguments are grossly egregious. The first has to do with the Government’s labelling of sexual orientation as a “particular human behaviour” and the second is the Government’s idea of marriage as constitutive of a union between only ‘biological’ men and women. If we consider the first argument, we see that the Government’s line of reasoning is false because sexual orientation is not a behaviour, it is an integral aspect of one’s identity. Here is an excerpt from the Navtej judgment that drives this point home: “Sexual orientation is immutable, since it is an innate feature of one’s identity, and cannot be changed at will. The choice of LGBT persons to enter into intimate sexual relations with persons of the same sex is an exercise of their personal choice, and an expression of their autonomy and self-determination.” So, if one’s orientation is indeed intrinsic to one’s being and concomitantly, can’t be changed, then why should homosexuals be denied the same legal rights that their heterosexual counterparts enjoy- which includes the legal recognition of marriage? Ironically, arguments of ‘behaviour and choice’ are never made against heterosexuals because they constitute the majority in society, so much so that their sexual orientation is not only seen as the de facto ‘normal but also codified in multiple personal laws in the country that recognize various forms of opposite-sex unions. Yet, not a single law in India exists that recognizes LGBTQIA+ unions.

I wonder whether it is even morally justified for a country that prides itself (no pun intended) in the diversity and the multiplicity of its people, to deny a large section of these very same people equal rights?

The Government also claims that marriage can only be between a “biological man” and a “biological woman”, yet fails to define what a ‘biological woman’ is. In 2019, the Madras High Court ruled that the meaning of the word ‘bride’ in Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act “cannot have a static or immutable meaning”. Rather, it had to be expanded to include not just biological women, but also Transwomen, Transgender people, and intersex people. The Court further opined that the Constitution was a living document that needed to evolve with changing times in order to be relevant; furthermore, in Shafin Jahan v. Asikan K.M., (2018) it was already decided that “the right to marry a person of one’s choice is integral to Article 21 of the Constitution”. Why then, were these progressive arguments not made to grant equal rights to same-sex couples? Expanding the scope of marriage to same-sex couples does not take away anyone else’s rights. Rather, it makes for a more inclusive and diverse family unit. For a community that routinely experiences stigma, discrimination, and ostracization in Indian society, legalizing same-sex marriage would have been one way of rectifying historical wrongs. To argue that same-sex marriages could somehow cause “complete havoc with the delicate balance of personal laws in the country” (as the Government has also stated in its counter-affidavit) is gaslighting, plain and simple.

It isn’t surprising that valiant displays of compassion, courage, and love still threaten the small-minded and cold-hearted.

Swipe right swipe left
Swipe right swipe left
A monotonous motion
Almost like marching
Left right left right
Only with much less motive
And some misplaced purpose
We may have even forgotten about

Occasionally there is a “Boom”
You matched it says..
if it’s on Tinder
You get a room
If it’s on Bumble
You always fumble
Ok Cupid
Could get morbid
The apps never ending
It’s just a business machine
Making us hope there is someone out there
Looking for you

What have we become in this digital age
Staring at screens lying on our couches
Shopping for people like for things
Is this the future of the human touch
Not really wanting beyond this much..?

Orange may be the new black
In the digital date world
You better be ready for that ghosting attack!

Image credit: Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

During the scene when Sweety (Sonam Kapoor) narrates her idea of romance to Sahil (Rajkummar Rao), I found myself laughing. I felt all that oozing sentimentality to be utterly cheesy, a conveniently reductionist and flawed mapping of cliched Bollywood romance to same-gender desire.

But, later, at the point when the big reveal came for the straight audience, it struck me that this film is indeed a political one; that Shelly Chopra Dhar and Gazal Dhaliwal have taken a conscious stand to subvert the whole experience of watching an emotional and romantic Bollywood drama. I came to that realization precisely when Sahil laughs at Sweety’s disclosure. Echoing him, the straight men around me in the theatre also laughed uproariously. The laughter spelled  for Sweety what it has for people like her (and us) since time immemorial: humiliation and shame.  I realized then that the intention of Shelly and Gazal has been to reclaim the space that we queer people have always been told does not belong to us.  The right to love on our own terms.

By setting the story in a small town of Punjab, they have made this even more important and clear. Sweety in that scene, quite frustratedly, asks Sahil, “Why do you all think in just one direction?” Now, ask any queer person. You will know we are assumed straight by default. It doesn’t even occur to heterosexuals that we may not fit into the rigid boundaries of love and desire that they have constructed to uphold the patriarchy.

We spend most of our lives in exhaustion and frustration, many times unable to respond to that ridiculous assumption, regardless of whether we are ‘out’ or not. And that is what the first half of the film does. It questions that default understanding. It challenges the status quo. The initially-ambiguous sexuality of Sonam is not a tool to give some big surprise for the audience. It is, in fact, a tool to hold a mirror to the audience’s biases, to take a dig at them. And there can not be a better way than to cleverly wrap it in the same format of mushiness that they seem to be lapping up for centuries now!

Arguably, this is not the first mainstream Bollywood film to have shown love and romance between women. In 2014, we had Dedh Ishqiya. Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi were brilliant in that. But, the language of that movie was different. It had an intelligent screenplay. But, there was no big reveal in there: the queer text blended in quite organically with the plot. And for me, that was quite disappointing. Not because it was a bad movie. Not because I want an out and loud message. I love movies that do not shout. But then, for me, who had been waiting to see romance between women on the big screen, the queer angle seemed to be just masked in there. In the last five years, I have asked several straight people if they had realised that the two characters were lovers. Most of them have said no. Especially, the straight men. I was disappointed for that. That they are lovers will just be a secret within the community and their allies. Like the men in the film, audience outside of the community will stay ignorant and be indifferent to the desire between the lead women. I thought this is how the mainstream queer drama, especially about women, will end up moving on. Either in subtleties or being the ones that showcase only the tragedies or violence.

Now keeping this in the context, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga challenges this same notion. The heteronormative understanding is that everyone is straight by default. That is exactly why this is an important film, one that has taken so many years to arrive. The climax is the most intelligent one I have so far seen. For sure, it ends on a sentimental note of acceptance, love and inclusion. But, this does not make it any less important. Because, despite all these dramatic moments, the film asks some vital questions. The way the climax unfolds by itself is an intelligent format. It is a play in the film that Sahil directs to tell the world about Sweety and her love. Sweety plays herself. As this play reveals its secrets, you see the audience in the film storming out in anger. They call it a shame. I thought it was a clever way of holding a mirror to the mindsets of the audience watching the film in real life. It felt like the film was putting the its audience in a spot.

There was a palpable sense of nervousness in the auditorium during those sequences. While the parents watching the play in the film covered the eyes of their children, the boy next to me sat wide eyed watching it with full intensity. I don’t know what he made of it. May be was happy that he had found a Sweety. But, I definitely know this – even if he doesn’t stand up for the Sweety in his class, he would probably not be the one who makes her life miserable.

In 1996, Deepa Mehta’s Fire kicked off a huge controversy in the cities of India. I was in 8th class then and had witnessed the whole drama created by the Hindutva fringe elements across the country. I do not remember seeing such large scale protests in Chennai as it was quite detached from the reach of Hindutva fringe elements. But, I was definitely left confused. Even the Sun TV channel that strictly reviews only Tamil films had picked this up and gave its verdict. I don’t remember the reviewer taking any moralistic stand. But, she ended with a note that the heat of the film is so strong that it could erase the human life form altogether from Earth. What could be so wrong in a film that also voiced the rights of women to love each other? A few days later, during some conversations, my mother had explained to me what the film was all about. It was in a very non-judgmental tone. She had just stated the facts about the film. And also, in passing, told me that there are people like that. Now, that should be such a privilege. To have an education about sexual orientation from your mother. But, that afternoon, unable to make sense of all the unfairness around me, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried in fear and confusion. I had decided that this life was going to be one long struggle with loneliness. And that the film was A rated made it even more difficult for me, as it was beyond my reach at that point.

In Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, we have come a long way from Fire. But what is also vitally different from the likes of Fire is what Sweety says in the film. She tells her Dad that she wants this play to go on for the sake of many lonely children unable to make sense of who they are in a world that treats them as abnormal. I immediately thought of that boy who cried in the bathroom, some 23 years ago. This film makes a conscious and political choice to tell those children that Sweetys exist and that they are not alone in this journey. And she even says that this play should be taken to all small villages and towns so that the Sweetys there could have a voice.

As the movie ended on a happy note and rolling credits went on, I sat unmoving in my seat next to my comforting queer friend, and wept covering my face. I cried for that 13 year old lonely boy and all those children like him. I cried in relief and happiness for that boy, who had by then decided that he is not wanted in this world. I cried because what Sweety said could finally begin to heal that boy’s broken spirit. And because, 23 years after that lonely afternoon inside a locked bathroom, he has finally found a Sweety. In a city that is roughly 350 kilometres away from where his heart, soul, and some of the bruises lie.

Thanks to Rajat S. for consent to use his art work in this article.

On the evening of Friday, March 2, 2018, Coimbatore saw the public screening of ‘Ladies and Gentlewomen’, a Tamil documentary film. Directed by Malini Jeevarathnam and  produced by Pa. Ranjith’s Neelam Productions, ‘Ladies and Gentlewomen’ is the first effort in the history of Tamil cinema to break the silence around the dynamics and body politics of lesbian relationships, which are often socially stigmatised. Also screened were ‘En Aasai En Kanavu’ and ‘Won’t the Real Transformers please stand up?’, two short films on the lives of transmen and transwomen.

These screenings were organised by Queerbatore, a collective formed in 2015 by a few individuals who were part of the Orinam mailing list and network. Queerbatore is now an active WhatsApp group and offline space for people belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community who either live in Coimbatore or have a personal/professional association with the city.

The event commenced with a song rendered by Shyam, a volunteer of Queerbatore.

The song was followed by the screening of Malini’s film.

Post-screening, Vivek Kumaran gave an informative presentation on gender and sexuality to make the audience aware of LGBTQIA+ terminologies. Vivek also urged the audience to  be sensitive, respectful and accepting of persons with diverse identities and to address them by their preferred choice of pronouns.

This was followed by the panel discussion featuring Kalki Subramaniam, Selvam, Vinodhan,  Malini Jeevarathnam, Saurabh Masurkar, and Srijith Sundaram.

Representing the transwomen, transmen, intersex, lesbian, gay and ally communities, these panelists come from different walks of life. What they have in common is their extensive and passionate work for the welfare of the LGBTQIA+ community through their engagement with art, theatre, film, media, activism, advocacy and life.

The intention of this interaction between the panelists was primarily to make people within and outside the community aware of the diversity of identities that exist under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Kalki, Srijith, Malini, Selvam, Saurabh and Vinodhan passionately spoke of the challenges, breakthroughs and experiences in their personal and professional circles. The audience was also encouraged to accept whoever they feel they are and to live without the fear of anyone.

Most of all, this event was an Out and Loud call to people from all sections of the society to stand up and unite against oppression on the basis of sex, gender, caste, race, appearance, personal choices or, for that matter, violation of any human right. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

In the video excerpt below (courtesy Prasanth), Kalki speaks about gender stereotypes within the community, followed by a discussion with Srijith on queer history and intersectional activism.

Thanks to the Queerbatore volunteers who shared the images above.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties; Coalition for Sex Workers, Sexual and Sexuality Minorities’ Rights; Payana; ASQ; Swabhava Trust; LesBit; Jeeva; Karnataka Transgender Samiti; Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum; Sarathya; Swatantra; Ondede; Sangama; QAMI and QCI condemn the irresponsible, sensational and salacious reportage by media houses on the issue of LGBTQIA+ rights.

On Wednesday, July 5, Bangalore Mirror published on its front page a news item titled “All hell breaks loose as two women wed in Koramangala”. The news item proceeded to give a one-sided account of the women’s relationship. It published salacious details about how their relationship started and went on to falsely claim that the women had gotten married. Further, the news item mentioned two quotes from lawyers saying that they were in an “unnatural union” and would be “punished”, and only one from a lawyer, who was misidentified, saying that same-sex relationships per se are not criminalized under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code 1860.

At the same time, Public TV, a Kannada news channel, also obtained the contact details of one of the women, and called her to appear on their show. When she refused, stating that she wished to keep her life private, the reporter from Public TV told her to “wait and see”. Subsequently, Public TV uploaded perfunctorily blurred pictures of the women on their Facebook and Twitter feed, with captions insinuating that they were in an incestuous relationship. Public TV continues to harass one of the two women by constantly calling her and demanding that she appear on this show.

In case anyone is doubtful about the repercussions of such irresponsible reportage – one of the women was fired from her employment with immediate effect, within a few hours of the Public TV report.

As civil society organisations that work on the rights of LGBTIA+ individuals, we are horrified at the absolute lack of concern that media organisations demonstrate for the lives of people that they are reporting. We know that this is an incident that involves tremendous amounts of domestic violence and abuse. We are also aware that these women are living in constant fear for their lives. They have endured domestic violence, police harassment, and threats to their lives, and had achieved a semblance of peace for themselves. However, the actions of media houses have shattered this hard-earned respite, and now they are again forced to be on the run.

This is not the first time that media houses in Karnataka have chosen to report in this manner. TV9s reporting on Operation Anandi had devastating impact on the lives of the transgender women involved, some of whom continue to languish in jail. Media houses refuse to acknowledge actual human lives in their reportage, and absolve all responsibility for consequences. Every time a media house publishes a report like this; LGBTQIA+ persons are pushed further into the closet, and are made more vulnerable to violence.

Moreover, we understand that the police themselves have leaked much information to the media. It is disconcerting that in spite of closing all formal proceedings, the police continue to interfere in the lives of these women, and are harassing them using the media.

As a group of civil society organisations concerned for media reportage and its impact on the rights of LGBTQIA+ persons, we are calling for a press conference tomorrow, July 6, 2017, at 1 pm, Bangalore Press Club.

Organisations: People’s Union for Civil Liberties; Coalition for Sex Workers, Sexual and Sexuality Minorities’ Rights; Payana; ASQ; Swabhava Trust; LesBit; Jeeva; Karnataka Transgender Samiti; Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum; Sarathya; Swatantra; Ondede; Sangama; QAMI and QCI

Timeline of media coverage (credits Rōmal Lāisram)

Bangalore Mirror published this on July 5: http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/cover-story/all-hell-breaks-loose-as-two-women-wed-in-koramangala/articleshow/59448986.cms

Public TV goes live with the story a few hours later, claiming an incestuous relationship and highly sensationalises the story: http://publictv.in/father-files-complaint-against-homosexual-techie-sisters-in-bengaluru/

News9/Deccan Herald and TheNewsMinute call up activists for directions on how to respond to the story:

News9 responds positively like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5LVfgU6pCQ

TheNewsMinute responds satirically: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/completely-out-their-depth-bengaluru-cops-counsel-lesbian-couple-instead-helping-them-64710

Deccan Herald decides to avoid the story altogether.

Public TV airs a special (link not yet up, but this smaller package will show you enough how terrible the reportage is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnGBVsHu3p0 | It was also their ‘breaking news’ in the) 10:30pm bulletin)

Asmita came out to herself at age 12, while a student in her hometown in Bardhaman. Growing up, she internalized prevailing notions that homosexuality was unnatural. “But later when I started gaining more and more knowledge, I started understanding and getting my identity clear”, she says.

A national-level badminton player and photography enthusiast, Asmita has been actively involved in campus activism around gender-based discrimination.

When asked about her decision to represent AISA, she said “AISA gave me a platform to uphold my identity in front of the students of JU”, noting that Left parties had, by and large, responded positively to LGBTIQ+ issues. Incidentally, the first reported out LGBTIQ+ candidate, JNU’s Gourab Ghosh, also contested as a Left party candidate in 2013.

As a key election issue, Asmita is championing the cause of LGBTIQ+ acceptance in society, both on- and off-campus. She wants to counter myths that same-sex desire and transgender identities are unnatural, and to mobilize public opinion against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. She strongly feels that basic sex, gender and sexuality education, including LGBTIQ+ issues, should be given to school-going students. She asks that admission in educational institutions be accessible to all, based on their aptitude, with no discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Asmita said that JU is relatively LGBTIQ+ friendly as Indian university campuses go, and she has not personally faced any problem on campus due to her identity. She noted that transgender people face much more difficulty. She also questioned the prevailing practice of marking all transgender people as “third gender” on admission forms, a category that not all identify with.

Other issues in Asmita’s election manifesto include proper functioning of the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) on campus, and 24×7 availability of sanitary napkin vending machines in all women’s restrooms.

Her accomplishments notwithstanding, Asmita has a long way to go. She is not yet certain about the profession she would take up in the future. Her parents still do not accept her. “I still need to struggle with my family and in neighborhood to [get them to] cope with my identity”, she signs off.

* Readers: please let Orinam know if there have previously been any other out queer women students contesting campus elections in India.

A comprehensive list of Orinam blogposts on educational institutions and LGBTIQA+ issues is at https://new2.orinam.net/resources-for/educational-institutions/from-the-blog/.

This line from Terribly Tiny Tales inspired the following piece of art by Rajat Saini, a 22 y.o. undergraduate student in Delhi. Check out his other work on the FB page ‘श्यामश्वेत : colors of life’ here.

It was a Saturday morning. I shut the door to my room on some pretext, went into the bathroom, and began reading out numbers on my phone screen. The number sequence was random, and I read each sequence out in different voices. First slower, pausing and extending the way I pronounced each digit. Next, breathier and huskier than my usual staccato. Then high pitched once, but quickly abandoned, because it sounded like I was being squeezed by a vice.

I was trying, and miserably failing, to sound like a woman. My voice, which at some point in the past I had intentionally broken to make myself sound bass and deep, was now unmistakably masculine. The kind of voice that could and did do radio voiceovers. So why was I trying to sound like a woman?

Because I am.

And because I am attracted to women and wanted to get on to LesPark, a lesbian dating app that not only demands you look feminine, but that you sound feminine too — in sum, that you prove you are indeed all oestrogen and no testosterone.

Which meant that I, transwoman me, was an inferior, second-class citizen in the world of LesPark.

***

Till I was 17, I did not have a word for who I was, or could be. I did not know I was a transgender girl. But as a 16-year-old, I discovered the internet. Those were the days of dial-up, of VSNL’s multiple gateway connections to the big blue yonder. And in between searching for games to play, attempting to learn HTML by copying code from other sites, and trying to find people to talk to, I hit upon what at the time felt like a novel idea: pretending to be someone else.

I had stumbled into a chatroom that was meant for frank conversations between women, and was strictly off-limits to men. And so on Yahoo, a girl I became. I borrowed liberally from my classmates’ lives to invent an alternate backstory for myself. I expected I would be found out immediately. I feared what I was saying and how I was saying it would be seen through for the thin façade they were, and I would be shamed forever. But that did not happen. Yahoo’s chatrooms became my second home, and its people my mentors, my crushes, my fantasies and, over time, my friends.

As tentative friendships firmed up, I followed each of my chatroom friends to their personal profiles. Jumping from link to link, I learnt of interests, hobbies and terms that were new to me. Transvestitism was one such. After a little digging, I landed upon a chatroom dedicated entirely to this ‘interest’, where I found validation for deeply hidden, very frightening thoughts I had always had. I found community.

One of the first people I befriended on this chatroom was a middle-aged former sales executive from Portland, Oregon, who in their late forties underwent hormonal transition and began life anew. Frank became Francesca and she called herself a transwoman. I knew, then, who I was.

This understanding was neither liberating nor comforting. Teenagers do generally go through a period of rebellion, of questioning their identity, of challenging authority and received wisdom. But to realise that a deeper, more fundamental aspect of myself was based on a shaky foundation — and that others took for granted who I was, while I wasn’t sure of it myself — was painful, confusing, and exasperating.

Questions. Doubts. One remained, a thorn forever in my flesh: did this explain why, even though I had crushes on other girls, I didn’t act on them?

***

It was another Saturday, one of those lazy afternoons. A colleague-turned-friend and I were sitting in the balcony of a coffee shop; she was smoking, I was trying not to cough over mine. In a distracted, offhand way, she spoke about her crushes and disappointments, her possible-loves and maybe-loves. It was a regular, innocuous conversation, but it soon triggered a bit of pain; a sense of melancholy for a past me.

Growing up cisgender[1], a person can experience the various joys and trials of an adolescence in which their identity and assigned gender are in fairly close sync. And with this understanding comes the feeling of being attracted to, and more importantly, being attractive to, other people. Of being someone who is sought as a romantic or sexual partner.Of having a bit of confidence in their body. Even growing up transgender, if the realisation that one is trans comes early enough, one can perhaps feel some degree of attractiveness.

One can talk about boyfriends and girlfriends, of maybe-wives or possible-husbands. One can look back on those people who sought you, those who pushed their luck once or twice to no avail, or those who gave you the space you needed. One can talk about the boy who categorically stated to your mother that he couldn’t possibly drop you home before 2 am. One can talk of the girl who came home one night, offered to help you through a bad breakup, and stayed on to be your next love.

All that, I never had. Oh yes, in the future I may. Once, if-when-maybe, I transition.

But I have never experienced young love. That hot-blooded, hot-hearted feeling of being someone’s sole pursuit. Of being wooed, of having someone come home and meet my parents, to ask if they can take me out for a movie, for a dinner, on a date.

Growing up with a distorted understanding of my own identity, I felt a deep-seated anxiety and a sense of shame about my own body. This, together with a conditioning that prevented me from being either a complete rebel or a total conformist, meant that all I could do was experience the life of a teenager at a distance. Experience it vicariously, falsely.

I never had any one coming home to ask me out. I did not have any girl friends, giggling and whispering in my room discussing potential dates. I haven’t had, and will never have, a girl trying to sneak a kiss while my parents are downstairs.

Of course, these experiences can be criticised as shallow teenage crises, as puppy love. As western ideas of adolescence. But I grew up with people for whom all these things happened. I have friends from later in life whose conduct and bearing have been informed and influenced by their teenage loves and lives.

Not for me.

Whatever a person’s teenage experience of love or sexual awakening was, good or bad, it paved a path for their adult pursuits. All I had were fictions and inefficient facts culled from hastily put together books.

And so it was that as an adult, I did not feel capable of acting on my debilitating, deeply felt, crushes.

***

I have always been aware of dating websites. They have been in the background of all my internet forays. A hook here, a line there, asking to reveal all, with the promise of a soulmate, or at least a partner for sexy times.

I’d tried a few too. From my early twenties onwards for nearly a decade, I left personals on Craigslist, drafted profiles on Match.com, and attempted to navigate the world of hook-ups in the pre-smartphone area.

To glorious non-results.

These early shots at dating online were my over-sincere attempts to conform to the male gender assigned to me at birth. And so I strutted out and acted the ‘sensitive cool dude’ I knew I wasn’t. Then I gave up, accepting what teenage me had realised long ago. I was a woman, dammit. And it was as a woman that I must find love. Or even friends.

And so, aged 30 but feeling like a 17-year-old girl, I went online to OkCupid.com and created Nadika’s first dating profile.

It was a kick.

It was a deep emptiness in the bottom of my stomach.

It was exhilarating.

It was confusing.

Today’s OkCupid is vastly different from what it was in 2012. Back then, you could be either Male or Female. Two choices. Oh and you had to have photos that were of you, and mainly of your face. So I wasn’t male, but was I entirely female? Wouldn’t the lie be blatantly obvious the minute I uploaded a picture? I was deeply insecure about the photos I had. They were all of me solidly performing the masculine. But I poured my heart into the profile, and for photos, I reverted to my favourite source for pictures of myself, even today: Second Life.

Second Life (SL) is an immersive, massively multiplayer online game that creates a virtual world in which users interact with each other through avatars, or online selves. For me, it was not just a game. It became an existence, a life. On SL I could craft a woman me. I could give her all my aspirations and hopes, fears and loves.

So I created her; I created me. I gave her a shape that I wanted for myself and a body that I could both covet and be inspired by. She was — I was — tall, just the right amount of curvy, deeply tanned, brown skinned, curly haired, and as feminine as I could never be. SL became my vent for frustration, a space for my art, a boudoir to explore my sexuality, and my personal photo studio.

Back on OkCupid, I had no way of limiting who could see my profile — an option that users have on the platform today. So I got random men, mostly from India, trying to strike up fraandships with me. With some really awful opening lines. ‘Hi. I am not into transgenders. Penpal ok?’ was perhaps the least insulting, least transphobic of the messages I got.

This was about six months after I returned from the UK with my heart and soul still stuck there. I was set on going back to transition. But the UK Border Agency and the global economy didn’t see it my way. I was in the midst of a depressive, self-denying spiral, and confusion was the order of the day. Fear and self-loathing gained the upper hand, and my OkCupid profile lasted all of four months before I pulled it down.

***

In 2014 I came out.

Or rather, I opened the closet a bit and invited a few friends in. This had two immediate effects. One, my depressive spiral improved a little and I could sleep better. Two, I restarted my OkCupid profile.

In the meantime, I had graduated from a basic Nokia phone to an HTC Android device, which allowed me to operate my many lives and online identities without having to stay awake 24 hours a day.

The smartphone freed me.

OkCupid, Tinder, and Facebook were all now just a 3G connection away. Google, Android and Gmail enabled me to express my opinions, and my gender, easily. There was a reverse side to this coin. I lived in constant fear of outing myself accidentally. Worse was the fear that colleagues, social media contacts, cousins who were more active online than they let on, and people with free time and no scruples would go out of their way to connect my two identities and expose me.

Even today this manifests itself in what I do or don’t put up on Twitter and how many photos, and which photos, are seen on OkCupid. And for a long time, this fear was present in my indecision over Tinder. It was irrational but I thought having both OkCupid and Tinder on my phone would lead me to be outed almost instantly.

Tinder is a location-based dating app, widely used for short term dating and hook-ups. It plugs into your Facebook profile to find you potential matches based on a variety of parameters: interests, pages you like, people on your friends list, and more. In early 2014 I had deactivated my ‘male’ Facebook profile. Tinder was tied to my ‘female’ or real profile. I was a woman, and I was looking for a date.

It was therefore natural that Tinder would throw up the name and picture of a male colleague. In an office that was heavily mainstream in its understanding of gender and sexuality, an office where women tended to be one of the boys and the boys went out of their way to be manly men, the last thing I needed was a colleague to see my Tinder profile.

If Tinder showed me my colleague as a potential match, would I, therefore, be on his list? As a transwoman, in my yellow kurta and lipsticked self? Just the possibility of this was a rude shock, and one that coincided with one of my periodic bouts of melancholia. And so, off Tinder I went. I deactivated my profile, uninstalled the app, and tried to purge all my photos from the internet.

My self-imposed exile did not last long. The desire for, nay, the need for a meaningful, significant relationship outweighed my paranoia, and a few months later, I took cautious steps to revive my Tinder account.

***

In theory, I am a pansexual. I am also a demiromantic. In other words, all kinds of people could potentially float my boat, but I need conversations. I need camaraderie and cuddles first. And so in my early OkCupid and Tinder days, I requested potential matches from both the available genders. Men and Women. Never mind that I was swiping left 100% of the time on the men and swiping right about 60% of the time on the women. I just felt more attracted to females of the Tinder species.

There’s a Twitter account called Tinder Problems where users share screenshots of everything from messages that escalate quickly to interesting outcomes of hook-ups. The account showcases a range of behaviours human beings express in the hope of love, sex, and companionship. But one Tinder problem the account did not feature was the worst of them all.

No one new near me.

Everyday.

Every time.

I would open up the app to be greeted by little concentric circles exploring the depths of the internet and coming back with nothing to report. Meanwhile, friends of friends were juggling multiple successful hook-ups and relationships.

Straight women and gay men seem to have the most success on Tinder — according to my limited sample of data. There just seem to be more men on Tinder. And some of them are pretending to be women.

Was I, despite my self-determined gender and my obviously feminine clothing (and rather wordy explanation of my gender and sex) also one of them? Was this how other women were seeing me? As a man trying to impersonate a woman? I knew only too well how common that was.

Because I was on Brenda.

Easily one of the least elegant, most ungainly of the apps I’ve used, Brenda was touted as one of the earliest lesbian dating apps. It sure seemed like it.

Grid-shaped Brenda comprises squares upon squares of people from everywhere, including far away Singapore and car-drive-away Bangalore. In a review of Brenda, Lisa Luxx writes, ‘Brenda is a bit like the discard pile in a game of rummy. Doesn’t mean the cards are no good, but they’ve just not worked out for anyone else who’s had them yet.’

To me, it felt not only like the cards weren’t working out, but that someone had changed the game: we weren’t playing rummy any longer, but a form of severe poker. And the bluff was to know who you could trust and whose profile you should ignore. A surfeit of CGI hearts with lightning streaks, roses in all colours of the rainbow, plus dogs, cats, and photos of celebrities made up half the grid. The other half were anime characters, close-up shots of shoes, and occasional pictures of men.

Brenda was remarkable in that it was the app I used the least and on which I had no conversations with anyone — save one person who told me she was a lesbian through and through, and refused talk to me. No amount of arguing that I was indeed a woman worked. I didn’t blame her though, because I was fending off seriously probing questions from people who my instincts warned me were douchey men. ‘I am never good at pickup lines, what works on you?’ went a message from one anime-fronted user. ‘What is trans, are you shemale?’ wanted to know another. ‘I want lesbian sex,’ proclaimed one. Well, at least they were looking for it in the right place.

That was the end of Brenda. Poor woman. She meant well, but she wasn’t for me.

***

A few months ago, GooglePlay suggested I might like LesPark, an app that invites you to ‘Expand your lesbian social network.’ I really needed such a network. A lesbian friend of mine once said to me, ‘Being queer is an identity, being a lesbian is a practice.’ I laughed at it then, as I pegged it for a joke meant to cheer me up. But what if it was true? What if, indeed, being a lesbian was a performance and a practice, and one had to constantly ‘be at it’ to be truly seen as a lesbian?

And so LesPark was duly downloaded and installed.

By this time, pictures and profile info were no-brainers. I’d been socially transitioning for a while, and I had some selfies to add to my usual Second Life pictures. This in turn gave me some confidence in my identity, allowing me to develop some banter and get my story down to an art form. My politics and my choices had firmed up rather nicely too. So hit me with everything you have, Lisa of LesPark!

She did.

Points system. And Gender Verification.

It works like this. You get a point for every day you log into LesPark. The points determine who you can talk to. No points, no conversations. Everyone I wanted to talk to had way more points than I did, and so I could do nothing more than bookmark their profiles for posterity. Meanwhile, interesting-appearing women would send me messages, but given that they had fully verified profiles and a glut of points, I could not respond. The points system essentially made it impossible to even reply to a message, let alone start one myself.

LesPark also insists that only genuine, ISI-tested, Agmark-branded, made of 100% pure ghee lesbians (and bisexual women) can use the app. To this end, they came up with Gender Verification.

It works in three stages. First is voice verification. You read out a sequence of numbers from within the app, which is recorded and sent to the moderators for review. If your voice sounds feminine enough, you go to the next stage. Video verification. You shoot and submit a video of yourself. If they’re satisfied, you move to the third and final stage. ID verification. You upload a video of yourself holding an ID card. The name, picture and gender-marker on the ID card should match those on your profile.

No amount of twisting, contorting, forcing pitches and breathing could alter my deep bass voice. Stage 1 fail. Which meant, simply, that LesPark was a fail as far as I was concerned. Anger and resentment bubbled in me. Transwomen with deep voices are women too. Transwomen can be lesbians too. This was transphobic. This was anti-feminist. This was, simply, not cricket. LesPark had to go.

This moment marked a growing up. While I might have hankered after a romance or a relationship, I was not going to stand for trans*-exclusionary, discriminatory behaviour — be it by an app or by a person. And so, that Saturday afternoon, I emerged from my room a lot surer about who I was, what I wanted, and what I was not willing to do to get it.

***

By mid 2014 I was slowly getting over my colonial hangover. On OkCupid, I stopped vainly searching for partners, lovers, and friends from the UK and began looking for people closer to home. By this time, the app had progressed a fair bit, and I started to have more control over my expressions, visibility, and photos. Despite its continuing binary blue and pink colour scheme, OkCupid realised that there were perhaps more genders out there. I began having conversations with some very interesting queer women, slowly developing friendships with a few people I met. And by this time, I also had a couple of matches on Tinder.

These were uncharted frontiers and I was scared to move forward. I was afraid I would be rejected for being too masculine or not trans enough. Or spurned because I was boring or normal or like a million others. I was afraid my politics and motives were too banal, too everyday, for the amazing people I was beginning to crush on. These wonderful people were reading so many authors I’d never heard of, had seen so many great films, were doing so many wonderful things to bring life and light into some of the darkest corners of the world. They were everything I was not. Surely, none of these people would want to be friends with me, let alone date me.

Inexplicably, they did. They really wanted to be friends. Perhaps out of pity. Or maybe I fit a box they had to tick off. Whatever the reason (and I wasn’t going to dive deep to find it), I now had a network of queer women friends.

Approaching my 33rd birthday, I had my first date. And thus far, my only one. I have thought and re-thought about mentioning this. Do I talk about it? Do I not owe them the privacy they obviously deserve, and the chance to veto what is being said about them?

I will only say, then, that it was an OkCupid match.

[1] The terms ‘transgender’ and ‘cisgender’ are derived from Latin. Trans means to move, or moving; Cis means the opposite. So a transgender person is someone who ‘moves’ from one gender to the other, while a cisgender person is one who ‘stays’ in their assigned gender.

[2] Credits: this piece was originally published by Deep Dives as part of the series Sexing the Interwebs and has been republished with kind consent of the author.

Special Feature for International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO-T 2014)

You know… when you ask me about the formation of Sappho, it opens a floodgate of memories for me. By the time I was 20-21, I wanted to move to a new city, make a fresh start, so suffocating it had become. Yes, I had discovered myself long back. Today I have crossed 50. When I was 16- 17, falling in love was itself such an exceptional and almost forbidden act and here was I, who couldn’t fit in anywhere. I found myself attracted towards women… an attraction which I could not suppress. At school, while I, being the tallest girl in class, was the last bencher, Akanksha (my partner) was the first bencher. Though I have known her since we were in Class V, back then we were not friends. Much later, while I was in Patiala, she wrote to me after her father’s demise and we reconnected. Anyway… I spoke about my orientation to only one friend, a very dear friend. She felt so scared for me that she strongly advised me not to disclose this ‘secret’ to anyone. She feared that if I disclosed this to anyone, people would ostracise me. I am in touch with her to this day. We do not get to meet but are still very good  friends. When the Section 377 verdict came, she called me twice but I could not take her calls for some work. The third time she called, she only said, “I know you are busy but just wanted to know whether you are all right.” So [it’s] that kind of a bond.

When I was 21, I decided that I needed to confront my reality: yes, I am a lesbian. Mind you, I knew the term… learnt it in the first year of college from a friend. I had also read that famous article by Navratilova but I don’t remember reading the ‘L word’ in that article. I decided I would go out and become financially independent and would obviously not marry. A huge advantage I had was I was born into an extremely liberal family. My parents rarely imposed their decisions on me. So I went off to Patiala to work as a trainee in the R and D department of an industrial house. Later I cleared a test and got absorbed.

I have struggled a lot in life. After Patiala, my next stop was Patna, in the reference section of Times of India but I resigned following some ethical differences, about which we can perhaps talk off the record. I was back in Kolkata. I started selling sarees and then cleared an entrance test with a public sector organisetion, and that’s where I have been working since 1993. After Akanksha wrote to me in Patiala, our correspondence continued. We started meeting. I was posted in Durgapur. She was from an extremely orthodox family. Her mother’s word was the last word. Her family was trying to get her married. Even my parents gave an advert in the matrimonial. Once I found out, I confronted my father and emphatically told him that I would not marry. I hadn’t spoken about my orientation yet. Plus, I had already been through a string of failed relationships. So I was extremely circumspect but nevertheless got into a relationship with Akanksha in 1993.

I was transferred to Kolkata in 1998. It was my dream to start a support group where people could come and at least speak their hearts out. At least they would not have to keep running around like me, because of their orientation. Akanksha wasn’t too sure back then. Of course she had her reasons. After her father’s death, her family had become almost bankrupt and she was the primary breadwinner. I, on my part, too had been through difficult straits. She did not want us to be in a spot but I was adamant. If nothing else, I would walk it alone. I was quite desperate as this was already my 6th job. She did join me thinking she would ensure that I would not get into any trouble but of course later, she became a stauncher activist than me. I found a helpline number of Sangini (India’s first lesbian helpline) in a magazine. The number used to be operative once a week. One day, we planned a visit to Delhi… went there, called Sangini but could not meet anyone. Back then, they did not have any website, neither was any postal address advertised. When we asked the operator if they had any facilitator in Kolkata, she replied even if they had, they would not give us any address for privacy and security reasons. In any case, they did not have any facility in the city. You can, therefore, well imagine the situation. How underground we were! We came back. Then we came across Counsel Club’s (a now defunct LGBT support group in Kolkata) phone number and PO box number in the Sunday magazine. We contacted them and became a part of that space. While on an individual level, it was quite refreshing to meet people who shared similar concerns, at the end of the day it was an extremely masculinist space. We could not relate. There were other issues too. How does a homosexual man relate to a homosexual woman? Is their non normative sexuality enough to bridge the material differences of gender? And to this, when you add money matters, how do their power dynamics play out?

However, we realised that the media was giving us some attention. So I spoke to Akanksha and decided that we would give an interview (imagine the time period, the risks it entailed, our respective jobs, family!). The media would have to prominently display the Club’s address. With the Club, we got into an understanding that they would give us the letters written by women. Imagine the coincidence… at the same time, Nupur and Mallika wrote to Stree Sangam in Bombay. Veena Fernandez, who had heard of us from Pawan (of Counsel Club), forwarded him the letter and we got it from him. Another woman, Julia Dutta, contacted me on my landline number (she got it from Vina) and told me that she knew two other women from the city who she had met at a retreat on Madh island. That’s how I met Preeti and Sheena. Anandabazar took our interview in March, 1999, a few months after Fire released. On 2nd April that year, Nupur and Mallika came to our place. We were wondering about when the interview would appear. We were sure that more people would contact us once it was in print. The interview came on 4th April, 1999. We received around 35 letters from women. The six of us divided the work among ourselves. We were on one page about creating an informal and safe space where you could talk freely and reach out to and connect with people like you. Preeti and Akanksha started brainstorming about our logo and the six of us named our space, Sappho. We used to function from our tiny pad in Santoshpur. Within three months of publication of the interview, we were twenty odd people and it was decided that Sappho would have its first official meeting on 20th June that year.

The experience of buying this flat itself is one story, I must tell you. Back then, HDFC bank used to charge 17.5% interest for home loan. There weren’t too many options for home loans. So when we jointly applied for the loan with HDFC, their consternation knew no depths. The number of hassles we had to face… the vice president told me, “Just for once, say she is your cousin. I will give you the loan right away.” But I refused. “We are not sisters. We are friends!” Ultimately the loan was sanctioned in my name. When I registered the flat, I put it in the will that following my death, she would get the flat and after her death, our respective brothers could spot sell it and divide the money. Later, when we bought our new flat, we had to face a similar situation yet again, this time with SBI. They did not have any such precedents. Akanksha and I were individually asked the same questions to see whether our answers matched. Ultimately, the loan was sanctioned. After us, many same sex couples got loans citing our example but today of course they only ask for your salary slip.

I have seen some M to Fs talking so much about exploitation suddenly taking on a masculinist tone and swearing at network meetings where projects are allotted! But I cannot keep quiet when I see a girl working for an LGBT forum being made to sign a voucher for Rs. 2200 and then being paid Rs. 1400! Such a lot of noise about exploitation but who will look within?

Anyway, coming back to our meetings, I have always been very particular about the accessibility of the space that we created. People have left the group, not being able to communicate across classes but I have always tried to keep the elite vs. non elite debate at bay. We have already been otherised. Should we indulge in the same politics among ourselves as well? Okay, you are uneducated, you are from a slum, so will I not eat with you? On one hand, we are saying that we do not want outhouse status, who are you to mainstream us when we are already part of it? And then on the other hand, should we hierarchise on the basis of class?

Coming back, the moment, it was Sunday, girls started arriving from the morning. They would stay the whole day, chat with us, eat with us. But those were days of dire straits. Repaying the bank loan, repaying loans taken from other sources, there were days when, because we had to buy 10 eggs in the morning, dinner would be puffed rice for the two of us. We had bought a bed for which we were paying an EMI as well. One Sunday, everybody scrambled onto the bed and suddenly I found that the occupants were descending. The bed had hollowed out! This kind of a situation lasted till 2000. However, the joy of being with these girls compensated for all the hardship. I still vividly remember our first meeting. One of our girls acquired the keys to a flat owned by an NRI person. All of us went to his flat. That day it was raining cats and dogs. We ordered biryani. Some of the girls took off their drenched clothes and wore the NRI’s overcoats. We cried and laughed and talked. What happiness to discover so many people like us! But of course, as time passed, we realised that sharing each other’s joys and pains was not enough. One needed to address this systemic oppression. I may have been from a liberal family but the stories of violence was mind numbing. We used to always insist that it was absolutely imperative to be financially independent. And here were parents who went to the employers and told them that their daughters were lesbians so that they would be sacked and lose their financial autonomy (and thus come back to the family fold!). There were others who disowned their daughters. A girl’s mother had an eye surgery. One day her friend’s mother took ill and the girl came to visit her. It was late. She would stay back and leave at dawn the next day. Just for this reason, her mother threatened to wrench out her lens. She would rather remain blinded than see her daughter settle with another woman. There was a structure to this kind of oppression and it did not matter if you were a 20 year old girl or a 32 year old, educated and independent woman. It was, therefore, an absolute necessity to be a part of the women’s movement. That is why, immediately after the formation of Sappho, we became part of Maitree ( a network of women’s groups in West Bengal). Nupur and Akanksha went to meet them and the first question some of them had was ‘what do lesbians look like’. Nupur and Akanksha pointed at themselves and these people were thoroughly shocked. Our point was simple. When a father disowns her daughter, do you condone this violence because she is lesbian or do you term it domestic violence? We tried to punch holes into the whole bogey of food, shelter and clothing first and sex later. If a girl loses her home because of her orientation, she will automatically lose food, shelter and clothing. At the 7th Autonomous Women’s Conference in Salt Lake stadium, I raised the question ‘what action were the women’s organisations taking when, in a single year, 26 lesbians committed suicide in the South?’ A veteran feminist tried to tell me off, saying that I was trying to dictate the motion. I said if stating facts is construed as such, so be it. We would not allow them to hierarchise the issues, we could not afford to be left at the margins. We would not play into their power dynamics. They challenged us to arrange accommodation for the 2500 participants at the conference. We lived up to it, but back then, we were small and an activist used to taunt us, pointing to the fact that we were incapable of providing monetary support to the Conference. Today, the same activist marvels at the fact that we can engage in serious academic projects and also have fun dancing and making merry. This is just to show how our struggles have – problematically but surely – become a part of the women’s movement. However, the politics of power dynamics continues. In the 2013 commemoration of Jyoti Singh’s horrific rape, Maitree’s leaflet did not have a word on homosexuality, despite the Supreme Court judgment. We had to bring out our own leaflets. We have taken up their duplicitous stand on Section 377 at the Maitree meeting.

“The same patriarchal flamboyance without any political agenda! Look at the images of the international prides, rather nude marches! Gym toned, waxed chests on display! Mind you, I am not raising a red flag of Indian culture here! But my question is simple and basic. What is your sociocultural location? Where are the people who you meet everyday, who live on the margins? How are you incorporating their realities into your pride?”

Today, people know us, invite us at national events, but the period between 1999 and 2004was an acid test. None of our members were willing to come forward and give their address to help us register Sappho. But things gradually changed. We knew that we would not receive any state funding. Our first foreign grant came in 2005 and we started making giant moves. During the pre-fund period, we concentrated on outreach work. British Council gave us a platform and Sappho made its first public appearance here. Immediately, a lot of NGOs, which would otherwise not pay us attention, turned up. Anuradha Kapoor of Swayam volunteered to give us a helpline number which would be operational for a couple of hours, once every week. We printed leaflets with sentences like, “Being a woman, do you love another woman? You are not alone…” We pasted these stealthily across the city.

Anandabazar refused to publicise our number because apparently this would come under obscenity laws while the hotlines for masseurs and escort services won’t! Later, the number was incorporated within an article. More calls started coming. We started creating referral networks with the HRLN (Human Rights Law Network), Swayam for cases of domestic violence, homes for girls abandoned by their families, Gana Unnayan Parishad, Sanlap, Sanhita, etc. However, I felt that unless we dialogue with the larger society on issues of sexuality, a lot of violence would go unabated. That is how Sappho for Equality was formed, outside of the Sappho space. This was the end of 2002. Right at the outset, we were very clear that when we would apply for registration, we would underline in bold that we were an LBT (lesbian, bisexual and transmen) collective. There was no question of cloaking facts, even if it meant a tough time at work. It was important to reach out to the mainstream.

So, Sappho still continues to be the informal space for interactions while Sappho for Equality (SFE) is the forum for activism. Anybody, irrespective of gender or orientation, can become its member. All the members of Sappho are members of SFE but not vice versa. So this means that Sappho members who do not want to be open about their sexuality can still come to SFE and meet other people or even take part in activism because there is a cloak that SFE is open to all.

“I know an educated woman who was raped by her doctor and threatened into silence. “Corrective rape” is such a common phenomenon. This girl was repeatedly raped and finally her only recourse was to get married and settle abroad. She had a box full of lesbian magazines which she read in the lurch. Finally, she has summoned the courage to walk out of her marriage and be herself. So many lesbians commit suicide. We do not even get to know about all of them.”

When we applied for funding, we did not have an idea about how to write proposals but soon picked the ropes. Mama Cash (an organisation that provides funding support to activist groups working for the rights of women, girls, and transgendered people) granted us an amount in 2005 but it took us four years to get FCRA! Those years were so tough. However, what I want to highlight here is how the politics of funding has completely changed the dynamics of the queer movement. When we started off, the whole discourse was around HIV and AIDS. We consistently tried to bring in an alternative voice to this paradigm. What about the violence against lesbian and bisexual women? Why should the F to M be invisibilised, just because they are not as susceptible to HIV as gay men, transwomen and MSMs (men having sex with men)? At the end of the day, gender becomes important here… and how it hierarchises the non normative sexualities too! I have seen some M to Fs talking so much about exploitation suddenly taking on a masculinist tone and swearing at network meetings where projects are allotted! But I cannot keep quiet when I see a girl working for an LGBT forum being made to sign a voucher for Rs. 2200 and then being paid Rs. 1400! Such a lot of noise about exploitation but who will look within?

It also depends on how you perceive yourself. We have never allowed funders to dictate terms to us. We have been extremely transparent about our financial transactions and tell our funders not to intimate us before coming for checks. It was with that first grant from Mama Cash that we had set up the Chetana Resource Centre (books, reading materials, audio visual documents). The name is ‘Chetana’ because firstly, it was a camouflage for who we were actually. Secondly, keeping budgetary constraints and our work in mind, we had to rent a space in a homely locality. By then, due to our projects and some media attention, some people were already aware of Sappho. So, openly displaying that name could become an issue. We would take Professor Ratnaboli Chatterjee with us so that landlords would give us some weight. We got a small room by a septic tank for a few hundred rupees. Then a friend’s mother rented out her space to us. How can I forget such friends?

You know what… I don’t believe that there is a uniform, one whole LGBT movement. Where is the B? They do not even exist in the discourse! They are often shunned as opportunistic, getting the best of both the worlds. But imagine the pain they go through when their male lovers do not trust them because they like women while their female lovers feel insecure because they also like men or may get married; such a lot of distrust from both sides when they might truly love both. Where are their issues, their voices? I attribute that partly to the fact that no bisexual leader emerged who could show a new way. And then there is L vs. G and T is of course a different ball game altogether! That’s where all the money is. What we are witnessing is an ‘NGO-isation’ of a movement. Look at the proliferation of identity labels. Earlier, they were all referred to as hijras, now we hear about kotis, transwomen. It has become a herculean task for people like us to establish that T also includes female to male.

This whole HIV business has become cancerous and now what we are witnessing is a multiple organ failure! I want to ask these NGOs, how will you function when there is an HIV vaccine? Your politics begins with what should come last: fund. How many hijras are there? Out of them, how many are transwomen, how many kotis, how many MSMs, out of the MSMs, how many are married, how many are HIV positive? The list goes on! More quantitative data upon data! Why is there no talk of educating these people, trying to provide them sustainable living conditions, an economic way out? Yet, I hear voices saying what’s the use of education when sex brings more money! After 40, when they do not even get clients for sex, who gives them shelter? You are not even equipped to understand how you are being deprived and exploited but you will shout for funds and more funds! There are those who are educated and do sex work for money. They exercise a certain degree of autonomy, but do these people have that autonomy? Can they say no to clients who refuse to wear condoms? Today, Manas Bangla (a network of 13 community based organisetions supported by the West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society, working with MSMs and transwomen) has disbanded and if rumours are to be believed, there was massive corruption. Every week, you will hear of 2 to 3 deaths from AIDS. Who takes responsibility for these deaths? In such a mess, how does one even begin to bring the lesbian narrative, which has already been cast aside by the HIV brigade? They do not even have a feminist perspective.

However, times have changed. Public spaces are coming up where people from different organisetions can meet and interact, exchange ideas. That’s why the addas organised by Kolkata Rainbow Pride Festival (KRPF) are important to me. These are not just everyday interactions. They have a political agenda. Even if 60 people turn up for these discussions, at least they will get to hear something different. Last year, we also participated in the Pride Walk. We have always maintained that we do not want our movement to reach a point like ‘buy one cream, get one free’ schemes offered on International Women’s Day. This has been our stand against commodification. We are all for visibility and that is why we march with ‘Lesbian Rights, Human Rights’ posters on women’s day, but visibility of the cause and not the person, that is more important. Do you want to become an object or the subject? The ideology of the pride is what is problematic.

The last year, when they came up with the theme, ‘Violence against women’, we became a part of it. This was a public space and we loudly claimed it with slogans but it was the slogan that was important, not the individual. What ultimately became of the pride walk is a different matter, of course. I wanted to give feedback but there was no feedback meeting. I did not see the theme running through the walk apart from the leaflet, which was shabbily written. There was no sense of history or perspective.

Is it enough to just crunch numbers on the HIV-affected? It was a miniature version of the international gay pride events. It was like the difference between Bollywood and Tollywood. The same patriarchal flamboyance without any political agenda! Look at the images of the international prides – or, rather, the nude marches! Gym-toned, waxed chests on display! Mind you, I am not raising a red flag of Indian culture here! But my question is simple and basic. What is your socio-cultural location? Where are the people who you meet every day, who live on the margins? How are you incorporating their realities into your pride? We come back to the question of homo-nationalism. We raised this issue long back.

Yes, I also agree with you that it is a precarious walk, but I believe in becoming a part of the system and raising a critical voice. Our girls went to the American Centre for the mask-and-poster-making workshop prior to the pride march, but what is important here is the kind of posters we made. Did our slogans question the hegemony? Majority of our funds come from the US and Europe. But the question is, are they dictating the terms of our work? Will our work benefit our community or the funders? We are not ready to open fake data centres in every district of the state because we do not have enough infrastructure to furnish you with authentic quantitative data. We will only do qualitative research. A country where girls do not even get to exercise the choice of getting married but are simply married off, where scores of lesbians continue to be married off, where is the scope for quantitative analysis? Also, is the girl willing to publicly identify herself as lesbian?

Since the Section 377 verdict, even Anand Grover (the lawyer and member of the Lawyers’ Collective, who led the Naz Foundation petition against Section 377) and other lawyers are talking about filing harassment reports with the police. They have a legal justification, that is to prove that we are not just 25 lakhs strong (the figure quoted by the Central Government in the Supreme Court), but much larger in number; that we are not ‘miniscule’ (as per the judgment). But I have a fundamental problem with this approach. Why will the state not secure the rights of the invisibilised? Where are our fundamental rights? If it is all about coming out, where is the individual’s autonomy to choose whether she wants to publicly speak or not? You know, I can critique a lot more, but when a collective gets a voice, I would rather critique them through intrapersonal communication. Isn’t it more fulfilling to get those very voices to speak differently than to split a collective? For instance, till 2007, we had this bitter pain that these people talk so much about the LGBT movement but women were invisible in their struggle against Section 377. Later, we thought, we should become part of the system and bring in our narratives. Section 377 talks of penetrative sex and therefore technically, lesbians do not come under its purview but let’s not simplify women’s lives. It is no hypothetical situation that a lesbian could be forcibly married and left alone at the in-laws while the husband is working in Gujarat or Maharashtra. The husband comes once a year and gifts her with a child, and sometimes with AIDS, too, from all the unprotected sex he has had. This girl may have a girlfriend who is her only solace. What is penetrative sex here? It is compulsory heteronormativity and being forced to be who you are not. If I start narrating instances of violence, you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Parents blackmailing girls into marriage or else risk being reported to the police… if a boy gets arrested, the parents can secure his release and slap him for ‘unnatural behaviour’ but for a girl, marriage is the worst punishment you can give. A girl may have visited a psychiatrist, against all odds, but even the psychiatrist tells her, “It’s a passing phase. Get married and you will be fine.” I know an educated woman who was raped by her doctor and threatened into silence. ‘Corrective rape’ is a common phenomenon. This girl was repeatedly raped and finally her only recourse was to get married and settle abroad. She had a box full of lesbian magazines which she read in the lurch. Finally, she has summoned the courage to walk out of her marriage and be herself. So many lesbians commit suicide. We do not even get to know about all of them. Girls are paraded naked to prove to the world that they are women. The educated woman might be married to someone working with a multinational while the girl from the lower class to a migrant labourer. But see how their concerns merge. It doesn’t matter whether we are subject to Section 377 or not; there are multiple ways and layers of oppression that need addressing. Since 11/12/13, more and more F to Ms are calling on our helpline. Their situation is no less unique. Firstly, many of them do not want to join organisetions because they feel insecure about losing their lovers in women’s spaces. Also, because they identify themselves as men, they may not connect with women’s organizations. Then, there are those who come to us saying that they are men but not like their male friends who objectify women. Neither can they connect with their misogynist male friends nor can they speak about themselves freely with them. These voices need to be heard. You are right in saying that the resources available for F to Ms are much less compared to resources for M to Fs. But for that we are also at fault. It took us time to understand their issues. I admit that there was a time when I thought they are women and wondered why they do not understand that. It took a lot of reading and research to understand that who am I to ‘fix’ their gender? Of course, now we are more than vocal about trans issues.

Another dimension is that we cannot say ‘let’s begin social reformation after legal reformation is over’. The two have to go hand in hand. There is such a thing as backlash. If you go into numbers, then you will see that countries where homosexuality has been legalised are also the countries where beer bottles are flung at homosexuals; I mean the instances of homophobic violence. Today, when our girls sell Swakanthey (‘In her Voice’,Sappho’s journal) at the book fair, it is an empowering moment for them. A girl may start by selling the issue to a woman who wears junk and has closely cropped hair. Then she will gain more confidence by approaching the woman with the kid and husband and then she may look eye to eye with the maulvi. You are getting my point? The confidence it gives…

It was in 2004 that Sappho participated at the Kolkata Book Fair for the first time. We were in the queue for table allocation (in the Little Magazine section) since morning. Later, when two or three forums that had got tables did not turn up, that’s how we got space. There are forums which are careful about not setting up beside us. There are also people who come to meet us. From 500 copies, today we are putting out 5000. Our girls take the local train and go up to Canning to interact with domestic workers who come to Kolkata each day for work. Sometimes they note our number, sometimes they ask questions, sometimes they talk about the ‘boys’ amongst them… the rich experience of reaching out…you know.

The media is also extremely important for reformation. We have had a very difficult equation with the media. We have always maintained that we will not commoditize our cause. If somebody chooses to paint her face and participate in a rally, that is her individual decision, not Sappho’s. Look at the coverage, post 11./12/13. Only painted faces and effeminate men were clicked. How many images of posters did you see in the coverage? The constant refrain is “377 is about gay sex” and then, when you have marginalised us with your presentation of news around 377, you will now grant us some rights and commoditize us with your coverage. Most in the media are not educated enough. Look at the quality of debate on channels. Everybody is screaming all sorts of things. Who listens, who observes and processes? But one has to work with them. We are planning a sensitisation programme with them. We are also thinking about whether we need to throw cocktail parties! If this is what is required to get well researched coverage, so be it.

This year, our thrust will be on youth mobilisation. We want to take up one sub divisional town and do a programme to reach out to a new audience space. The idea is to create spaces like Max Mueller Bhavan (which has been the venue of Dialogues, India’s oldest LGBT film festival) and the Academy of Fine Arts (an open space outside an art gallery and theatre where a lot of protest meetings have taken place). Also, we want to engage with colleges here, which could be through films or discussions. These programmes were conceptualised before the verdict came but now it is tough and easy in equal measure because there is a polarity; those who are ‘for’ will give you space and those who are ‘against’ will not. Outside of this, we wanted to run a survey with the LBT people on where they see themselves four or five years down the line. It is very important to know what the 20-50 population think, but with this verdict, the survey question might have to be reformulated, addressing a more pressing concern. It will run for a year, I think. We want to digitise our archives and document the helpline. You know, that’s a minefield. We have been feeling that we are losing the stories; they need to be recorded. Also, we want to appoint a counselor, a psychotherapist. Plus, hopefully, we can allocate a decent budget for a film. Our engagement with the police and medical community will continue. These are such violently masculinist spaces, breaking into them, talking about gender, sex and sexuality is such a difficult exercise. But such conversations are also necessary because there is such an astounding lack of awareness.

“Look at the coverage post 11.12.13. Only painted faces, effeminate men were clicked. How many images of posters did you see in the coverage? The constant refrain is “377 is about gay sex” and then when you have marginalized us with your presentation of news around 377, you will now grant us some rights and commodify us with your coverage. Most in the media are not educated enough.”

You know, a few days back, I was in Bangladesh. I had been invited by a group which works with MSMs. There they have to camouflage the whole issue under health. I used to always ask them “when are you going to bring in the women?” Finally, 18 women from different parts of the country came to Dhaka. I was with them for two days. The whole experience took me back 14 years. I shared my experience at Sappho with them, showed them a video clip of Sappho members, and there was an instant connect. Some of them asked me what are masculine women called. Their issues are so basic. I hope I can bring some of them for an exchange programme and do an orientation with them on the basics of sexuality. If they can form and sustain a group, I will feel that I have been to some good.

Today Sappho has grown up. A whole new generation has come up. While it is difficult to accept a lot of changes, there is no other option. We chat, we Skype. We go to coffee shops and spend time with people like us. Connecting has become so much easier. We understand polyamoury, polymorphosity, use queerness as an umbrella political stand…. Even I identify myself as a queer feminist, but how do I define my queerness? Is it just limited to the way I perceive relationships or is it a more rigorous, political goal? One thing that I keep reiterating is ‘let’s step out of this politics of otherisation. If I take LGBT as a unified category, then there is a non LGBT category, if there is a homo friendly category, then there is a category which isn’t. This ‘versus’ can just go on and on. But why can’t I simplify matters and say either you are a good human being or you are not? And those who are not, can they become good? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we thought so?

This interview first appeared in Kindle Magazine.