LGBTQIA+

Queering mental health is necessary to respond to the needs of queer clients by incorporating the stressors inherent in living on the margins of a heterosexually defined world.

As a queer woman of colour, I was able to locate that sense of solidarity in queer fan-fiction produced by queer fans and fandoms of colour.

Its been a year since the scrapping of section 377 and this week, we go back to school to learn our much needed queer alphabets.

Entering in 2018, the Netflix series Queer Eye, has gained significant popularity due to its groundbreaking content which defies historically set conventions of gender identity at large.

Too many articles have already discussed the nitty gritties of the “historic judgement” and the aspects of Section 377 it decriminalizes, I understand that there is an ocean’s gap between “law in text” and “law in context”.

But why is it that despite the decriminalization of section 377 in India and the ad-campaign by StayUncle, companies like OYO, Trivago, Booking.com, have kept mum on their stance of providing Queer friendly hotels, especially for same-sex couples in India?

There is an intimate relation between how spaces are formed, how gender is formed within it and how gender guides formation of the space.

The new Transgender bill makes sexual offence against a transgender person, punishable with as little as 6 months to a max 2 years in prison.

A series of betrayal of assurances and a convolution of a law that would do nothing for the trans community and would rather snatch away the bare minimum that existed. The Transgender Persons (Protection Of Rights) Bill, 2019 bill fails the community on various accounts.

Last year, the apex court of the country nullified the section 377, thereby decriminalizing every person who engages in non-heterosexual relations. But law reform does not instantaneously translate into societal reform, and India is the finest example of that.