WHaQ!

We're Here and Queer! Lesbian, Bi, Trans, and Questioning Women in Bangalore INDIA

[itsdcat]

[returnthegayze]

Promise me that I will matter if I don’t shave. Promise me that I will matter if I don’t wear a dress. Promise me that I will matter if I don’t wear makeup. Promise me that I will matter if I am not fabulous. Promise me that I will matter if I am not visible. Promise me that I will matter...

[transgirlnextdoor]

[queerkhmer]

As the debate on same-sex marriage continues in Western nations, including the United States, Thailand could become the first country in Asia to legalize gay marriage. Thailand is known for its liberal acceptance of sexuality, but the draft same-sex marriage law is not without controversy. This is a traditional Thai wedding, except there is no groom. There are two brides. This ceremony is only symbolic because Thailand, like all of Asia, does not recognize same sex marriage. But a draft law later this year could change that and make Thailand the first Asian nation to legalize gay marriage. Nonetheless, Arisa Thanommek and her partner Pacharee Hungsabut say they were not interested in waiting. “We…we [will] not wait. Because we [are] ready.  Our family is ready,” she said

[queerkhmer]

I noticed that women of color are one of the biggest spearheads of recognizing LGBTQ relationships. Happy Pride Month to Thailand!

[water-veiled]

My eldest daughter, Suldana, is in love with another woman. She is eighteen and she spends her days working at our kiosk selling milk and eggs, and at night she sneaks out and goes down to the beach to see her lover. She crawls back into bed at dawn, smelling of sea and salt and perfume. Suldana is beautiful and she wraps this beauty around herself like a shawl of stars. When she smiles her dimples deepen and you can’t help but be charmed. When she walks down the street men stare and whistle and ache. But they cannot have her. Every day marriage proposals arrive with offers of high dowries but I wave them away. We never talk about these things like mothers and daughters should; but I respect her privacy and I allow her to live.

Diriye Osman, “Fairytales For Lost Children.” (via ashgureey)

[neighborhoodss]

[homolesbians]

Q

[beautifulsouthasianbrides]

Lesbian Indian Wedding:Rani+Sonia

Finally I come across my first ever Indian lesbian wedding. I’m super happy to be coming across this wedding. This is Epic because I’ve been getting so many asks about a Lesbian Indian wedding. So happy they got married in Mexico the location is stunning.

Video by:Wedding Caletas

[masalachannel]

Beautiful!

[probablyabisexual]

My heart goes out to my Kyrgyz Muslim friends who are promoting LGBT rights in their country. There are two organizations that I know of: Kyrgyz Indigo and Labrys. If this bill becomes law it will allow the arrest and fining of anyone who openly promotes for LGBT rights. It would also make it difficult for journalists and researchers to report on the inequalities queer Kyrgyz people experience.

People around the world have been taking pictures of themselves with a sign stating a message of support with the hashtag #supportLGBTkg

[allahmademequeer]

Everybody make dua for the folks in Kyrgzstan

[whaqbangalore]

LGBT people in India stand in solidarity with our Kyrgyz brothers and sisters!

[intrestingsnippets-blog]

Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It’s about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel “same sex” or “same gender” attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?). But queerness doesn’t stop there. This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than “gay” or “lesbian” or “bisexual.” A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who, given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to define their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy. Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDs and other STIs. Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don’t like in bed. We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don’t expect one person to be able to fulfill all our diverse needs, fantasies and ideals indefinitely. Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed. Queer doesn’t mean “don’t label me,” it means “I am naming myself.” It means “ask me more questions if you curious” and in the same breath means “fuck off.”

What Queerness Means To Me « Tranarchism (via findingitwithin)

[bi-privilege]

informational diagram on the inner workings of bisexuals

[whatthehecksasalad]

BLESS

[whaqbangalore]

bi pride! There's no wrong way to be bisexual 

[theartoftransliness]

Young, gifted and trans: 12 inspirational trans leaders under 30

[whaqbangalore]

From the oldest to the youngest, each member offers a unique peek into what makes us essential to the progress of society.

[cats-and-cardigans]

Fiction:

Babyji by Abha Dawesar

Blue Boy, by Rakesh Satyal

Funny Boy, by Shyam Selvadurai

Ode to Lata, Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

The Paths of Marriage, by Mala Kumar

The Pregnant King, by Devdutt Pattanaik

Quarantine, by Rahul Mehta

She of the Mountains, by Vivek Shraya

The Two Krishnas, by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

The World Unseen, by Shamim Sarif

Non-Fiction & Anthologies:

AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India, by Amartya Sen and various authors

Because I Have A Voice: Queer Politics in India, edited by Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan

Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love, and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India, by Parmesh Shahani

Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures, by Gayatri Gopinath

The Invisibles, by Zia Jaffrey

A Lotus of Another Color, by Rakesh Ratti

Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West by Ruth Vanita

Made in India: Decolonializations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National Projects, by Suparna Bhaskaran

Same-Sex Love in India, edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwal

Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes: Sexualities, Masculinities and Culture in South Asia, by Sanjay Srivastava

Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You, by Devdutt Pattanaik

Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics, by Naisargi Dave

Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, by Ruth Vanita

With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India, by Gaytri Reddy

[tinierpurplefishes]

Partial map of cultures throughout history and around the world who accepted alternate sexualities and gender identities. Click the picture for the source.

[whaqbangalore]

We're part of something huge!

[whaqbangalore]

Hey followers! We're glad you're here! Got a question about identity, Bangalore, WHaQ or being queer in India? Ask away! We're here for you!

[counterstorytelling]

[therealstarfire]

“I am a lesbian woman of Color whose children eat regularly because I work in a university. If their full bellies make me fail to recognize my commonality with a woman of Color whose children do not eat because she cannot find work, or who has no children because her insides are rotted from home abortions and sterilization; if I fail to recognize the lesbian who chooses not to have children, the woman who remains closeted because her homophobic community is her only life support, the woman who chooses silence instead of another death, the woman who is terrified lest my anger trigger the explosion of hers; if I fail to recognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contributing not only to each of their oppressions but also to my own, and the anger which stands between us then must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt or for further separation. ********I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you.***********”

- “The Uses of Anger” by Audre Lorde http://www.blackpast.org/1981-audre-lorde-uses-anger-women-responding-racism#sthash.vbvwfcUh.dpuf (via mixedleanbh)dre 

[returnthegayze]

We wanted to take a moment today, on the heels of India Day (‘Indian Independence Day’ on August 15) to acknowledge the violent and often glossed over history at the foundation of the Indian nation-state and continues to pervade India’s politics. The rise of Hindu Nationalist power over...