sometime last year
Queer Struggle
The queer struggle is meant to be a site for challenge, for radical solutions, a space where one questions caste, class, ethnicity and gender. And yet that is one space where we seem to reinforce gender stereotypes by casting the world within the binary construction of man and woman and any one who does not fall within that or has one or more of the attributes that we assign either category as transgender. So what we are not accounting for are other experiences and choices of gender non conformity or expressions of gender/sexuality that are not bound by man or woman or heterosexual or homosexual.
So the identity alphabet soup too is also constructed as LGBTI and everything else that is added on are regional variations – kothi, jogappa, panthi etc.
Are we also then buying into what is seen as man and woman and attributing to them certain characteristics that place them firmly within the terrain of this binary construct?
What is queer then? Should it be inclusive of all sexualities, identities, behaviours and anyone who transgresses all norms that have been laid down by society, tradition, law whatever or should we reduce to only those who subscribe to the classification that has been laid down by us – LGBT?

Queer struggle now is also being defined only as the struggle for the reading down or repeal of 377 as though once that is done all our troubles will be over. As the law stands and the way the law plays out, the people affected are the men who transgress existing norms of what is considered the “correct” desire for them to have. Therefore it is the men who are in public spaces – and now even the internet has acquired a geographical space- parks etc. who are penalized or preyed upon. They occupy this space by virtue of them having the necessary sexual organs to call themselves men but by virtue of behavior or practices or identity they immediately lose the superior position that has been accorded to them through that great institution Patriarchy! Women do not occupy any space – public or private; they are not meant to express desire; and they are not meant to act out any emotion that they may feel. So conversations around women and sexuality have always been severely limiting unless one talks about it in the context of rape or disease. The discussion around 377 has had the effect of silencing all discussion around the women and desire issue since we seem to have prioritized the legal issue before the others. 377 has not been used to threaten women in quite the mass scale that it has been used against men, mainly because the women are not in any of the spaces where they may be a recognition that there is a transgression. But the question of women loving women exists and is not being given much focus because it is more challenging in many aspects. They have to out themselves as sexual beings in the first place and at the same time out themselves as sexual beings that break out of the compulsory heterosexuality mode. That renders them doubly deviant and enhances the chances of violence against them.

Staying silent when the 377-debates rage on has been a political choice that has been reached. Why would one ask for attention and ask for penalization given that the government has such strong views on what is correct and incorrect and believes in policing people. Look what happened in Sri Lanka for instance: Sri Lanka has a similar provision to Sec 377 in its Penal Code. The changes to the Penal Code were recommended in the context of the need for amendments to the law to protect the victims of incest, marital rape, sexual harassment and the exploitation of children. Though gay rights groups and human rights activists such as the late Neelan Thiruchelvam clearly opposed the continued operation of Sec 365A of the Penal Code arguing that the provsion was archaic, the amendment broadened the ambit of acts considered criminal under the law. The term 'man' was changed to 'person' and 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature' became act of 'gross indecency with any person.' Thus, a provision, which did not apply to lesbians in its colonial avatar, was actually expanded to include lesbians in the wake of this reform rather than ceasing to apply to gay men. That is definitely not something that is desired in the context of India where homo sociality is the order of the day.