I am from Guna, a third-tier town in Madhya Pradesh.
Within the district, there is no visible queer collectivisation. It doesn’t mean that there is no queer desire. Pride parades have played a crucial role in queer expression and desire. The absence of pride parades limits the agency and space to mediate queer desires freely. It was something I could only see on television, an opportunity to express and engage with unapologetic expressions of queerness but out of my reach.
Consequently, I grew up closeted, always scared of what would be there if people knew about my identity. When I came to Delhi for my undergraduate studies in 2017, I initially thought of exploring my identity when I’m independent.
To my surprise, there was discussion around gay and lesbian identities in my sociology classes. Similar meetings took place within the Women’s Development Cell, which felt scary at first. Gradually, I started to engage with them actively.
In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India read down parts of the draconian Section 377 that criminalised homosexuality. It gave me a sense of contentment and individual freedom that I had never experienced before.
I hadn’t talked to anyone about my identity yet, and the Section 377 judgment made me realise that I could be open about it. During that time, the Women’s Development Cell of Sri Venkateswara College (University of Delhi) planned the first-ever pride march on our college campus. I decided to approach them, and we made a plan to make it happen.
After Conducting The First-Ever Pride Parade, I Was Elated
The college experience felt overtly masculine and toxic due to the students’ union’s elections and politics. Engaging with the pride march was refreshing as I met people and activists from the community in a very inclusive, welcoming community space. But conducting the event also meant fighting through many hurdles.
We had to convince our administration why we needed a Pride March. We successfully persuaded them by producing evidence from an anonymous survey that demonstrated that people from the community exist in our college. We were initially hesitant to do the study as we didn’t know the results. Even with anonymous results, the numbers showed queer people on the campus, making me feel less alone.
Personally, the event brought me closer to myself.
It helped me navigate my sexuality and understand certain aspects that I had to go through alone, like expressing my desire or navigating the space and time to come out to my family. I wasn’t ashamed or scared about my identity anymore.
I can never forget that colourful day when everyone was gay and cheerful when people enjoyed their freedom and were in a safe space without fear of judgement. I could relate to them and felt proud.
Contrastingly, within Guna, I always felt scared because I’d hear my friends talk about those folks who were gay within the school or making homophobic jokes. I would just laugh along then but always felt discomforted and scared. I couldn’t muster up the courage to tell them as it might have meant ostracisation or, worse, bullying or harassment.
When I think about the issues I faced in Guna and how Delhi was a more open space, I also realise that Pride isn’t just about rainbow colours. It’s more complex. I remember my friends making homophobic jokes, unaware of my identity. I learned then how gender sensitisation around queer rights isn’t very easy. At the Delhi Pride of 2019, I was shocked to see how the queer community circle can also be elitist and exclusionary structurally because I heard conversations to not turn it into a protest against the Trans Act.
While I loved the joy of marching with everyone, raising slogans, and dancing on queer anthems, there was so much more that was needed to be done.
Our college didn’t have any gender-neutral washroom, a queer-trans support group, or any redressal mechanism for sexual harassment faced by queer and trans people. I realised that the slogan ‘personal is political’ still holds strong.
During Pride 2.0, We Took Things Forward
During Pride 2.0 in January of 2020 (the second edition of Pride March within our campus), we had a panel discussion on ‘Policies for LGBTQIA+ people’ where the panellists discussed the draconian The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. I got introduced to how difficult lives are for queer people, especially for transpersons with a lack of fundamental rights and constant attack on their lives from the society and the state using the law.
There was discussion around not having gender-neutral washrooms, the heteronormative definition of families, non-recognition of other forms of kinship, and the pervasive queerphobia and transphobia within sexist, patriarchal and toxic campus spaces. Because even everyday experiences like going through security check posts of metros are built within male-female binaries.
After two years, there is still no mechanism to safeguard us from discrimination, nor is there any reflection of inclusivity through representation in various student bodies and societies.
It was during this time that we also faced stiff opposition from the college admin, who didn’t want us to have the pride parade dictating it’s an orthodox institution with a temple of God in its vicinity. It was also the time of anti-CAA-NRC protests, another way the lives of marginalised communities were constantly attacked under the guise of welfare, similar to the discussion around the Trans Act. All of this made me realise that while it’s great that we had a space to celebrate, much more was needed.
Pride Taught Me So Much About Queer Politics
While Pride was a joyous celebration of love, it didn’t reflect these issues, which didn’t allow the love of any form to prosper in the first place. And having the event again meant more significant participation. It reflected no action concerning the structural issues we faced. There were conversations, and even though we didn’t know the answers, we raised the right questions.
Through all of these pride related events, I learned about the complexity of queer politics. I felt safe, and my identity was affirmed in Delhi, more than ever in my hometown.
I still lacked the language to express my intersectional identity, which translated to exclusion from elite spaces dominated by privileged castes, cis gay men. I wasn’t aware until then how caste also plays a significant factor. When I went back to my college in October 2021, the empty college lanes with the lack of students felt like the disintegration of my identity.
The pandemic took those spaces away from us, not allowing us to form communities and build solidarities. Queer affirmative spaces on the campus have shaped my complex experiences. Though they celebrate the lovely ways the queer community stands for, they keep the privileged ones at the front, sidelining other minorities. There is a need for more complex conversations around issues the community faces from multiple axes. Pride is important for expression, and campus spaces are the perfect culmination of freedom, expression & conversation about the same.
This is the first part of the three-part series on ‘pride in campus spaces and queer collectivisation as a part of the Justicemakers’ Writer’s Training Program, run in partnership with Agami and Ashoka’s Law For All Initiative. The second and third parts can be found here and here.