JOIN USA queer case of liberation
What does it mean to be “queer”, “liberated” and “free”? In a postmodern context, these are all contested terms, and according to social work scholar Cameron McKenzie, queer liberation has three strands. The first is anti-assimilationist. This strand refuses to adhere to the heteronormative and cis-normative scripts set by society. Following this logic, queers should not necessarily strive for societal respectability and instead, strive to promote difference and heterogeneity. Rather than trying to “fit in” and be “accepted”, queers should instead ask the radical question of why they are excluded from mainstream society in the first place, and why heterosexuality and cis-normativity are so entrenched in society that even queer activism continues to revolve around heteronormative issues like marriage and adoption.
Anti-assimilationist?
This strand poses an interesting dilemma for gay couples seeking to have their marriages recognised by the state, for, on the one hand, such debates typically occur within the framing of monogamy, while on the other, these debates also do very little to advance a radical queer agenda that has the potential to question the purported significance of an institution with a demonstrated history of queer exclusion. Interestingly, in 2019, the Madras High Court held that a transwoman does have the right to have her marriage to a cis-man recognised under the Hindu Marriage Act. However, this recognition would not extend to other personal laws or transmen married to cis-women or same-sex couples. So, while this judgement may have been somewhat progressive, recent debates around same-sex marriage in the Delhi High Court show that Indian courts are still hesitant to recognise other types of queer marriages. This leaves the question open — is a queer person truly assimilationist for wanting to have their marriage recognised by the state? Or are they actually anti-assimilationist for precisely the same reasons? Given how conservative Indian society is, perhaps the legal recognition of queer marriage could in fact be seen as radical. Pew survey data from 2021 on religious segregation in India show that while most Indians are generally accepting of having neighbours from other religious communities, they are not accepting of inter-religious marriage within their own communities, with 65% of Hindu men, 67% of Hindu women, 76% of Muslim men and 80% of Muslim women opposing inter-religious marriages. The validity of these findings play out in a new book edited by Sanjoy Chakravorty and Neelanjan Sircar titled Colossus: The Anatomy of Delhi, which used 2015-16 survey data from the Centre for the Advanced Study of India–National Capital Region (CASI-NCR) to find that support for inter-caste and inter-religious marriage remained low across generations in the national capital region (as opposed to it increasing with time). Neither the Pew survey nor the CASI-NCR survey considered attitudes towards same-sex marriage, but given the long history of criminalisation and repression of gay identities in India, it is quite plausible that social acceptance for such marriages would also be abysmally low, let alone acceptance for queerness or homosexuality in general.
Interlocking inequalities
The second strand of queer liberation, as highlighted by McKenzie, is meant to be intersectional. This strand should seek to understand interlocking inequalities that affect people and communities not only on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but also on the basis of caste, class, religion, disability, and language (among other identity markers). The push by the Trans Rights Now Collective to implement horizontal reservations for transgender persons is a good example of this. As it stands now, all transgender persons, including Dalit
transgenders, OBC transgender people, and Scheduled Tribe Transgender people are all clubbed together under the blanket category of “Other Backward Class”. However, Grace Banu, founder, and director of the Trans Rights Now Collective, poignantly pointed out that “We have different caste backgrounds and many of us are facing caste-based oppression within our own community too.” Eventually, the Karnataka government did come around to becoming the first state to provide a 1% reservation for transgender persons in employment for civil services across caste categories as a result of an intervention filed by Jeeva, an organisation working on the rights of transgender persons and sexual minorities in Sangama vs State of Karnataka. But other state governments and the centre still need to come around to it.
Pinkwashing
And finally, the third strand of queer liberation relooks the political economy of queerness. It rejects both homocapitalism and consumerism and recognises that liberation is possible outside the sphere of the economic marketplace. The increasing backlash against private companies and some non-governmental organisations engaged in rainbow marketing during Pride Month is a good example of this (this practice is also called ‘pinkwashing’). And yet, cities and urban spaces — sites of heightened consumerism — remain contested spaces for queer people. This is because cities are spaces where queer people are oftentimes afforded the anonymity and freedom to express themselves in ways they typically cannot in smaller towns and villages.
However, as Sanjoy Chakravorty and Neelanjan Sircar point out in Colossus, cities like the national capital region also replicate and exacerbate inequalities. This begs the question of whether liberation is truly possible in a homocapitalist urban context, given that sexuality and gender identity aren’t the only markers that define a person. A 2001 fact-finding report on human rights violations against sexual minorities in India, published by PUCL-K, proposed a slew of reforms to protect the lives and dignities of LGBTQIA+ people in India. Some of the proposed legal reforms included the repealing of IPC Section 377, the legalisation of same-sex marriage, the adoption of comprehensive civil rights legislation that includes sexual orientation and allowing for gender-self-identification. As it stands today — more than 20 years later — only the first and the latter have been partially accomplished (IPC 377 wasn’t completely repealed, it was watered down in Navtej Singh Johar vs Union of India. And in the National Legal Services Authority vs Union of India, the Supreme Court guaranteed the right to self-identification, however, the extant Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020 continues to pose some restrictions. While it remains unclear which strand of liberation is best suited to advance the needs of India’s queer community, it is very clear that the journey ahead will take time.
(The author is a Programme & Communications Manager at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and Nyaaya and can be reached at sahgalkanav@gmail.com)