Calm goes queer in Shillong

Happenings, Jun '15
Rebina Subba reports on the queer happenings at the ‘4th Shillong Creative Arts Literature & Music Festival’ held from May 13-16, 2015

Shillong, May 17, 2015: The ‘4th Shillong Creative Arts Literature & Music Festival’ that concluded at the State Central Library here yesterday broke new ground by including issues of HIV, substance abuse and diversity in gender and sexuality. An entire day on May 15 was devoted to the literary, legal and activist dimensions of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people in India.

Pride and angst in Chennai

My Story, Jun '15

The Chennai pride march, now in its 7th year, is headed towards a wider social horizon, writes moulee

Photo credit: moulee

It all started with a single tweet. In early 2013, I tweeted criticising the politics between the queer groups in Chennai. The following week I was in the pride planning meet, discussing how to organise that year's pride parade. The Chennai pride parade (which started in 2009) was then organised by the Chennai Rainbow Coalition (CRC) – an informal collective under which all the organisations, groups and collectives that worked for queer rights in the city gathered.

Naming it right

Advice - Disability, Jun '15
In this second article in a new series on disability, Shampa Sengupta questions stigmatizing and fancy labels for persons with disabilities and calls attention instead to their identity and rights

Masudur Rahman Baidya was a double amputee who crossed the English Channel – he died at a very young age in April this year. At a memorial organised by West Bengal’s largest disabled people’s organisation, where Masudur Rahman Baidya served as one of the Vice Presidents, a renowned athlete (who was not disabled) paid homage to this great achiever.

She said that she never considered Masudur Rahman Baidya “a disabled person” because of the triumphs in his life. With due respect to her point of view, somewhere down the line it began to seem that ‘being disabled’ was a curse and the concepts of achievement and disability did not go together.

Celebrating outliers

Vartanama, May '15
By Pawan Dhall

Among dictionary synonyms for ‘outlier’ are words like ‘non-conformist’, ‘maverick’, ‘eccentric’, ‘dissident’, ‘iconoclast’ and ‘outsider’. According to Wikipedia, in statistics, outliers are data points that are further away from the sample mean than what is considered reasonable. Outlier data points may indicate faulty data, errors in statistical or mathematical procedures or inapplicability of certain theories. But they may also exist because that is the reality and not because of any anomaly, bell-shaped normal curves be damned. Moreover, statisticians value outlier data quite a bit and take great care before deleting or excluding them, if at all they do so and thank god for that!

Engendering change – bit by bit

Insight, May '15
By Biswa Bhusan Pattanayak, Randhoni Lairikyengbam, L. Ramakrishnan

On May 15, 2015, a group of 36 transgender people from Angul district of Odisha obtained their gender identity change affidavits with support from local lawyers. Thirty-four chose to identify as transgender and two as women. What is the context and significance of this event, and what does it mean for the future of transgender rights in India? Members of Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), a national NGO that facilitated this process in Odisha, share their experiences.

Signature campaign in Manipur for a transgender welfare board.
All photo credits: SAATHII 

In response to a 2012 petition filed by the National Legal Services Authority concerning transgender rights, the Honourable Supreme Court of India delivered the landmark NALSA judgement on April 15, 2014. The apex court recognized the need for granting full citizenship, regardless of gender assigned at birth, protecting rights and making provision of social entitlements for transgender individuals. Following the judgement, the central and state governments were directed by the apex court to implement its recommendations within six months, that is, by October 15, 2014. See inset below for excerpts on the key recommendations made by the Supreme Court.

Senior living: Coming of age

My Story, May '15
Pallav Bonerjee on his tryst with psychology, people and destiny – the fifth in a series of personal narratives

Around June last year, I got an opportunity to acquaint myself with a new concept that seems to be catching up quickly with many elderly in India today. It concerns and seems to address many pressing issues that the elderly face on a daily basis. This concept is known as ‘senior living’ and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional old age homes.

Margarita with a straw that is not straight

Cinemascope, May '15
By Niladri R. Chatterjee

One of the first things one realizes after even a casual acquaintance with feminism is that in a patriarchal society the male body is constantly projected as the only truly abled body. So, in a very basic sense patriarchy declares the female body as fundamentally disabled. Psycho-analysis tells us that this disability is a lack – the absence of the penis! So, by virtue of not having a penis, a woman is handicapped anyway. Hence, the benevolent patriarchal care and concern for the female body – those poor, weak things that are incapable of taking care of themselves. This handicap is, as it were, intensified if she has sight, hearing, speech, motor skills or any other impairment.