When you’re neither ‘Dalit enough’ nor ‘queer enough’, which place do you call home?

PUBLISHED ON

Jul 30, 2024

PERSONAL ESSAY

Jul 30, 2024

The explosive intersection of being Dalit and queer

Written By

Shoi

When you’re neither ‘Dalit enough’ nor ‘queer enough’, which place do you call home?

From an early age, my Dalitness was tied at the hip to shame. I was taught to hide my Dalit identity in public-a common practice in Dalit households like mine. I spent my early childhood with my grandparents in Krishnanagar, a village in Nadia, West Bengal. At age 10, I moved to Kolkata with my parents.

Whether in Krishnanagar or in Kolkata, phrases like "kauke bolish naa amra SC" (don't tell anyone we are SC), "Mukherjee der bagane khelte jabe naa" (don't go to the Mukherjee's backyard to play, they don't like it), and "tor bondhura jane naa toh amra eshob khayi?" (your friends don't know we eat these things, right?) were subtle yet constant reminders to keep my caste a secret.

But whether or not I spoke about it, I was always Dalit. My family celebrated our Dalitness in the kitchen. Outside, we concealed it under a thick veil in an effort to protect ourselves from the omnipresent gaze of caste.

Dreams of equality were distant. To the 'Uchu Jaat' (upper castes), we were always the 'nichu jaat' (lower caste) regardless of our education or achievements. I tried to dissociate myself from my community in an empty attempt to be accepted as an equal. But the further I moved away from my Dalitness, so did any sense of belonging.

As I grew older, I leant that the imposed caste shame did not come from my ancestors as the caste system claims, but from societal ideals of beauty, civility, and acceptable behaviours set by oppressor castes. I struggled with the idea of 'normalcy, often questioning whether I could ever fit within its definition.

When I started realising that I was queer, I felt even more distanced from 'normal'. I realised it only accommodated cis-heteronormativity in its definition.

My mother, a gold medallist Bharatanatyam dancer, ensured that I studied dance too. In one such dance class in Kolkata, I met 'her'. I had a garden of butterflies in my stomach whenever she spoke to me.

I was 14 years old then. When most of my dance class peers talked about 'boyfriends', the two of us quietly exchanged glances and 'accidentally' brushed our hands. Around her, all I wished for was to be embraced, desired, and accepted.

I only had stolen moments of queer love in the form of after-school strolls, rare hand-holdings, secret kisses, and binding my chest with a crepe bandage or texting her, "tuition er por dekha korbi?" (will you meet me after tuition class?). But in a few months, the social conditioning I grew up around even in a big city like Kolkata-that queerness was a 'sickness'-caught up with her and she walked away.

From my childhood to my late teens, I wondered if she was right. Maybe it wasn't okay to be queer. The lack of queer-trans visibility or the caricatured portrayal of queer characters in popular culture I had access to made me feel unseen and isolated. The desire to avoid being a target of transphobia became a driving force behind me hiding my queer identity.

Life planted the seed to open up about being gay when I was in Class 8. One day, classmates in my co-ed school in Kolkata were gossiping about homoerotic tension between One Directions Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. One of my friends said, "What's wrong with being gay?" Later that day, she and I secretly confided in each other that we might be gay. For the first time, my queerness was seen, perceived!

Studying in a girls school during Class Il and 12 helped me accept my queerness even more. Queer relationships were all around me in school, even if it didn't carry labels like 'gay' or 'lesbian'. But it was the Supreme Court judgement decriminalising homosexuality in 2018, when I was studying my undergrad in Jadavpur University, that gave me the courage to be open about being queer.

Contributors

Shoi

Author

Photographer

Shoi

Illustrator

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PERSONAL ESSAY

The explosive intersection of being Dalit and queer

From an early age, my Dalitness was tied at the hip to shame. I was taught to hide my Dalit identity in public-a common practice in Dalit households like mine. I spent my early childhood with my grandparents in Krishnanagar, a village in Nadia, West Bengal. At age 10, I moved to Kolkata with my parents.

Whether in Krishnanagar or in Kolkata, phrases like "kauke bolish naa amra SC" (don't tell anyone we are SC), "Mukherjee der bagane khelte jabe naa" (don't go to the Mukherjee's backyard to play, they don't like it), and "tor bondhura jane naa toh amra eshob khayi?" (your friends don't know we eat these things, right?) were subtle yet constant reminders to keep my caste a secret.

But whether or not I spoke about it, I was always Dalit. My family celebrated our Dalitness in the kitchen. Outside, we concealed it under a thick veil in an effort to protect ourselves from the omnipresent gaze of caste.

Dreams of equality were distant. To the 'Uchu Jaat' (upper castes), we were always the 'nichu jaat' (lower caste) regardless of our education or achievements. I tried to dissociate myself from my community in an empty attempt to be accepted as an equal. But the further I moved away from my Dalitness, so did any sense of belonging.

As I grew older, I leant that the imposed caste shame did not come from my ancestors as the caste system claims, but from societal ideals of beauty, civility, and acceptable behaviours set by oppressor castes. I struggled with the idea of 'normalcy, often questioning whether I could ever fit within its definition.

When I started realising that I was queer, I felt even more distanced from 'normal'. I realised it only accommodated cis-heteronormativity in its definition.

My mother, a gold medallist Bharatanatyam dancer, ensured that I studied dance too. In one such dance class in Kolkata, I met 'her'. I had a garden of butterflies in my stomach whenever she spoke to me.

I was 14 years old then. When most of my dance class peers talked about 'boyfriends', the two of us quietly exchanged glances and 'accidentally' brushed our hands. Around her, all I wished for was to be embraced, desired, and accepted.

I only had stolen moments of queer love in the form of after-school strolls, rare hand-holdings, secret kisses, and binding my chest with a crepe bandage or texting her, "tuition er por dekha korbi?" (will you meet me after tuition class?). But in a few months, the social conditioning I grew up around even in a big city like Kolkata-that queerness was a 'sickness'-caught up with her and she walked away.

From my childhood to my late teens, I wondered if she was right. Maybe it wasn't okay to be queer. The lack of queer-trans visibility or the caricatured portrayal of queer characters in popular culture I had access to made me feel unseen and isolated. The desire to avoid being a target of transphobia became a driving force behind me hiding my queer identity.

Life planted the seed to open up about being gay when I was in Class 8. One day, classmates in my co-ed school in Kolkata were gossiping about homoerotic tension between One Directions Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. One of my friends said, "What's wrong with being gay?" Later that day, she and I secretly confided in each other that we might be gay. For the first time, my queerness was seen, perceived!

Studying in a girls school during Class Il and 12 helped me accept my queerness even more. Queer relationships were all around me in school, even if it didn't carry labels like 'gay' or 'lesbian'. But it was the Supreme Court judgement decriminalising homosexuality in 2018, when I was studying my undergrad in Jadavpur University, that gave me the courage to be open about being queer.

Around the same time, I started dating someone. Since there was no easily accessible representation of queer love to share with her as tokens of affection, I started creating them. I started with drawing sketches of her, me, and other queer bodies like ours. Soon, with her and my friends' encouragement, I started posting my queer illustrations online.

I was out in the open as a queer person, but my Dalit identity stayed in the shadows. But this changed during my college days. Initially, I never allowed myself to feel angry at the indifference of upper-caste peers who took their caste privilege for granted because, as my mother said, "eromi hoy" (this is how it is). But when the rage caught up with me, it helped me decide not to hide my being Dalit anymore.

I thought when my Dalit and queer identities meet, they will intersect powerfully; like two tributaries merging to become a river. But this wasn't an intersection. It was an explosion.

My Dalit and queer identities coexisted but were never friends.

In Dalit spaces, there was no room for my queerness, and in queer spaces, caste was invisible. Neither space embraced all of me. Patriarchy and homonegativity within the Dalit community left little hope for my queer hopes and desires to be understood. Dalit spaces could offer me a sense of communal belonging, but there I was a Dalit 'woman'. My trans nonbinary self felt unwelcome.

For example, in my Dalit and Tribal studies classroom at a reputed institute, sometimes, I felt seen for being Dalit, but was teased for being queer. Many Dalit peers believed that queerness was an upper-caste concept. Many treated the idea of a Dalit person being queer as an oxymoron. They dismissed my intersection of caste and queerness as two different politics' and repeatedly discouraged discourse around it.

So I tried to find solidarity with queer folks. But queer spaces forced me to hide my Dalit identity. Many queer or Pride mixers and events were too expensive, displaying their caste-blindness. If I wanted to attend them and access the opportunity to be openly queer in public, I was forced to spend Rs.500 while hiding the fact that I was Dalit.

More than often, I was asked to intellectualise and offer explanations about what it means to be Dalit and queer; satiate savarna curiosity. But this line of questioning was often intrusive and invalidating. "Agar tum queer toh tum kaise Dalit ho sakte ho?" (If you are queer, how can you be Dalit?] or at a Mumbai queer mixer, an upper caste person asked, "You are here, we are sharing space, you have access to many spaces like these. How do you justify reservation?"

These experiences compounded the explosion of my intersectionality. It stemmed from my relentless search for home, acceptance, and solidarity, coupled with the exhaustion from this endless pursuit. As writer and activist Maya Angelou said, "The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

But I don't run from this complexity anymore. Coming out as both Dalit and queer has strengthened my resolve to defy and redefine ideas of normalcy. My definition transcends heteronormativity, binaries, caste, and shame. My normal is inclusive and intersectional. It is resilient; it is a revolution.

I don't feel powerless —I am as fierce as a kalbaisakhi (pre-monsoon storm) and as powerful as a ghurnijhor (cyclone). Embracing this strength, I continue to seek spaces where I can fully be myself, allowing my Dalit and queer identities to coexist with pride.

CREDITS

Writer and Illustrator

Shoi (they/them) is an Dalit Queer illustrator and social work professional who uses art and other mediums of advocacy to build conversation, representation and visibility.

Editor

Shruti Sunderraman (she/her) is a journalist, writer, editor and strategist who splits her time between Bombay and Bangalore. She has edits and bylines in culture, health, gender and science across several publications over the last 10 years.

Producer

Ankur Paliwal (he/they) is a queer journalist, and founder and managing editor of queerbeat.

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