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Content Warning
OPINION
Nov 29, 2024
What the experiences of trans men can teach us about masculinity
By
Aayaan Singh Jamwal
Equating masculinity with toxicity is a dangerous, transphobic attitude that leads us away from collective liberation.
Content Warning
STORY
Nov 8, 2024
Understanding the queer vote in India
By
Sweta Daga and Anirudh
We conducted 32 in-depth interviews with queer people across the country to find out which political parties they voted for and why.
Content Warning
OPINION
Oct 29, 2024
Move over resilience porn: Re-imagining the margins
By
Parth, Aritra, and Tanvi
Mainstream narratives of the trans and gender-diverse people tend to focus on resilience in the face of hardship. It is time to move past this one-dimensional narrative and ask why the hardships never seem to go away
Content Warning
ESSAY
Oct 23, 2024
The quiet resilience of Bijli of Vijay Nagar
By
Manvendra
In the hustle and bustle of a busy North Delhi neighborhood, a trans woman asserts her identity while grappling with the precarity of life and livelihood.
Content Warning
STORY
Oct 11, 2024
The delicate balancing act of being queer and Sikh
By
Hardeep Singh
Equality of all is one of the founding principles of Sikhism. In practice though, patriarchy and heteronormativity reign supreme.
Content Warning
STORY
Oct 5, 2024
Why caste matters when we talk about trans people begging
By
Sudipta Das
Many transgender people in India face discrimination in accessing livelihoods. Yet, those from marginalised castes are more likely to end up begging for a living.
Content Warning
PERSONAL ESSAY
Sep 23, 2024
When a neuroqueer person walks into a gynaecologist's clinic
By
Aindriya Barua
When Indian gynecological healthcare fails to see beyond the gender binaries, where do the neurodivergent queer bodies find care? Where does the rainbow rise?
Content Warning
STORY
Sep 18, 2024
How a law created to protect minors neglects queer realities in India
By
Sudipta Das
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act is being misused by families to control the identity of their child who might be queer and to threaten queer organisations who step in to support the minor.
Content Warning
STORY
Aug 28, 2024
Why trans people need to be included in abortion laws
By
Sudipta Das
Trans and nonbinary people cannot access abortion safely in India. Now, the growing anti-choice movement is making matters worse for everyone.
Content Warning
PERSONAL ESSAY
Jul 30, 2024
The explosive intersection of being Dalit and queer
By
Shoi
When you’re neither ‘Dalit enough’ nor ‘queer enough’, which place do you call home?
Content Warning
STORY
Jul 24, 2024
Love and loss in Multai
By
Naina Bhargava
Queer love is often forbidden in small town India. Two women, separated by caste, class, and religion, dared to defy the order.
Content Warning
STORY
Jul 19, 2024
The painful road to corporate employment for India's trans youth
By
Mahima Jain
Large companies roll out DEI hiring drives for transgender persons. But sustainable employment hardly follows.
Content Warning
STORY
Jul 13, 2024
How binary healthcare in India neglects nonbinary transition
By
Sudipta Das
The enforcement of binary ideas of transitioning in the Indian medical system deprives nonbinary folks of life saving and gender affirming medical care.
Content Warning
PERSONAL ESSAY
Jul 10, 2024
Transitioning from a good boy to a loose woman
By
Katyayini Saksham
Transitioning from one gender to another requires grappling with a whole new set of absurd social norms.
Content Warning
PERSONAL ESSAY
Jul 1, 2024
Are fat people welcome in the queer world?
By
Hemakshi
Taking up space is a radical act of liberation for fat people, who face systemic discrimination wherever they go, including queer spaces.
Content Warning
INTERVIEW
Jun 24, 2024
Exploring queer mental health and healing in Northeast India
By
Sudipta Das
A multilingual anthology by The Chinky Homo Project and Mariwala Health Initiative captures nuanced and revealing narratives of what it means to grow up and live as an LGBTQIA+ person in Northeast India
Content Warning
STORY
Jun 13, 2024
How India continues to deny its genderqueer citizens access to toilets
By
Sudipta Das and Navin Noronha
Patchy implementation of laws, lack of awareness, and stigma leave genderqueer Indians vulnerable to violence in their battle to fulfil a basic human need.
Content Warning
COLUMN
Jun 8, 2024
The gendering of desi queer porn
By
Sayantan Datta
Desi lesbian and ‘transgender’ porn transgress societal norms of gender and sexuality, but fail to challenge the heteronormative ideals of family and marriage.
Content Warning
STORY
May 31, 2024
There’s someone just like you: The possibilities of trans loving trans
By
Sudipta Das
The becoming assertion of trans persons loving each other
Content Warning
ESSAY
May 28, 2024
With queerness, we learn that friendship can sustain life
By
Shruti Sunderraman
Understanding the critical role of friendship through the lens of queerness.
Content Warning
STORY
May 15, 2024
The harrowing queer struggle of accessing STI care in India
By
Gangadharan B
Stigma and ignorance about the diversity of LGBTQIA+ communities in the Indian medical system continue to exact a hefty toll on LGBTQIA+ folks.
Content Warning
COLUMN
May 9, 2024
Producing and consuming desi gay porn in India
By
Sayantan Datta
Authenticity and affirmation lie at the heart of desi gay porn’s continuing popularity. But will the hunks make the cut?
Content Warning
CRITIQUE
Apr 25, 2024
In Modi’s India, no structural gains for queer rights, only symbolic victories
By
Saptarshi Mandal
The BJP has sought to use tokenistic patronage of the LGBTQIA+ communities to create new Hindutva allies.
Content Warning
STORY
Apr 11, 2024
Situationally Mute
By
Tejaswi Subramanian
The unspoken experiences of queer disabled folx accessing medical care in India
Content Warning
EXPLAINER
Mar 27, 2024
Access intimacy in therapy shelters queer disabled hope
By
Anna Maria
What access intimacy is and how some therapists are incorporating it in their practice to make it inclusive of queer and disabled people.
Content Warning
STORY
Mar 13, 2024
How a trans woman found herself through her chosen families
By
Sejal Patel
Muskan was stifled by her biological family. Her chosen families, despite their transience, helped her grow
Content Warning
ESSAY
Mar 6, 2024
Where do the quiet gays go?
By
Shruti Sunderraman
Not all queerness is loud. Quiet queerness has always been here.
Content Warning
CRITIQUE
Feb 14, 2024
Caste under the quilt
By
Dhiren Borisa and Akhil Katyal
A Dalit-Queer critique of Lihaf recovers a world of meaning lost in its translation, reminding us that desirability is shaped by caste.
Content Warning
STORY
Dec 21, 2023
Why India’s trans people want horizontal reservation
By
Mohsina Malik and Ashish Kumar Kataria
Systemic discrimination deprives trans people of education and employment. Horizontal reservation promises a foot in the door.
Content Warning
STORY
Dec 13, 2023
Why gay men in India turn to chemsex
By
Joshua Muyiwa
Lack of support and inclusion within queer communities can drive some gay men seeking intimacy into rooms of drug-fuelled sex.
Content Warning
PERSONAL ESSAY
Nov 18, 2023
How I transformed my body by becoming my own fairy godmother
By
Aniruddha Mahale
Six months, sobriety, and perseverance — the true story of my transformation, from flab to abs
Content Warning
BOOK REVIEW
Nov 16, 2023
100 years of representing same sex intimacy in Hindi literature
By
Chintan Girish Modi
On the Edge offers a fascinating window into the evolving literary representation of same-sex desire in India.
Content Warning
INTERVIEW
Nov 7, 2023
How Kinshuk Gupta queers Hindi literature
By
Chintan Girish Modi
Doctor and writer Kinshuk Gupta on his debut collection of Hindi short stories about queer life in India and challenges of representing LGBTQ+ stories in Hindi publishing
Content Warning
STORY
Oct 31, 2023
How Manipur’s ethnic violence ripped a queer friendship apart
By
Schulu Duo
The collapse of a deep Meitei–Kuki friendship shows how Manipur’s nascent queer movement is fraying, threatening its hard-won gains in the violence-torn Indian state.
Content Warning
INTERVIEW
Oct 24, 2023
Iqbal Ali on Faith and Relearning History Through Queer Heritage Walks
By
Jaishree Kumar
Walking between the narrow bylanes of Old Delhi, Iqbal Ali leads queer heritage walks to revisit and rewrite the city’s heritage through a queer lens, and what Indian history owes queer persons.
Content Warning
STORY
Oct 17, 2023
The very queer cookery of food in India
By
Saachi D’Souza
How queer communities in India build and maintain their heritage through food
Content Warning
BOOK REVIEW
Oct 10, 2023
A queer coming of age set in 90s India, with a mythological edge
By
Kinshuk Gupta
A novel exploration of consent, intimacy, love and acceptance in Shastri Akella's dazzling debut The Sea Elephants
Content Warning
STORY
Oct 3, 2023
Living and loving in the absence of sex and romance
By
Priyanka Chakrabarty
Aromantic and asexual people are doubly invisible — both in the cishet and queer worlds.
Content Warning
BOOK REVIEW
Aug 17, 2023
Agency and vulnerability of hijra lives in rural Odisha
By
Chintan Girish Modi
Vaibhav Saria’s book Hijras, Lovers, Brothers, opens a crucial conversation about where hijras live under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.
Content Warning
BOOK REVIEW
Aug 2, 2023
The untamed gaze of Fatima Asghar on loss and belonging
By
Saurabh Sharma
Through the lens of three Muslim-American children, When We Were Sisters sits the poignant intersection of grief, South Asian queer identity, and growing up too soon
Content Warning
STORY
Jul 21, 2023
Queer Christians in India cautiously rebuild relationships with their churches
By
Joshua Muyiwa
Driven away by anti-homosexual stigma, some queer Indian Christians are slowly returning to the fold – helped by some churches’ efforts to make safe spaces for them
Content Warning
STORY
Jun 6, 2023
Queer Literature for Children is Changing Minds in India
By
Chintan Girish Modi
Indian parents and community libraries are turning to queer literature for children to help them be sensitive to varied sexual and gender identities
Content Warning
INTERVIEW
May 9, 2023
Onir on Strengthening Queer Gaze in Cinema
By
Anmol Arora
The award-winning director of critically-acclaimed films like “I Am” rejects the cisgender-heteronormative gaze and advocates for queer narratives told by queer people themselves.
Content Warning
STORY
Apr 18, 2023
Seen-Unseen
By
Riddhi Dastidar
In cities like Lucknow and Varanasi, multiple barriers prevent queer women from accessing safe mental healthcare. Some of them turn to their community for comfort.
Content Warning
STORY
Jan 30, 2023
Long Shadows in the Sunset
By
Vijayta Lalwani
With limited support structures, India’s LGBTQIA+ community has to work harder to plan for ageing and infirmity.
Content Warning
STORY
Nov 22, 2022
No Place Like Home
By
Manu Moudgil
Transgender persons in India constantly negotiate their identities with the spaces they grow up in, live in, or move through in search of a home within and outside.
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