Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the concerted effort by the Muslim rightwing in Kerala — including leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and some Muslim-run websites — to ridicule, vilify, denigrate and demonise Muslims who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a tragic irony that while the minority Muslim community[Read More…]
“Amend the Special Marriages Act to allow for marriages between people of the same sex (or between people who may be inter-sexed, or have undergone sex-change surgery, and any others). All consequential legal benefits of marriage should extend to gay marriages as well, including the right to adopt children, to execute a partner’s will, to inherit, etc. Same-sex couples should[Read More…]
Understanding what has commonly been viewed as dysfunctional or repressed sexuality is now coming to light, at least among youth. As per the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), an Asexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction, and Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It may be considered a sexual orientation or[Read More…]
The Indian State never tires of pontificating and appealing to alleged Naxalites/ Maoists/ terrorists/ militants/ separatists/ freedom fighters to shun violence, come under the Indian Constitution and adopt parliamentary path. The LGBTQIA movement has been peaceful; legal & constitutional; and democratic. Why is Parliament then vary of discussing the Gay Manifesto? By way of partial repeal of Section 377 Indian[Read More…]
ABVA members wearing black T-shirts addressing the press at the Ashoka hotel, New Delhi during the Second Asia Pacific AIDS conference, November 1992 In April 1994 ABVA filed a Civil Writ Petition no. 1784 of 1994 titled AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan vs. Union of India and others in the Delhi High Court (DHC) asking for striking down inter alia entire[Read More…]
© Reuters A trans individual’s fight for survival begins from their adolescence. Majority of them are relinquished by their families, denied formal schooling, and have severely confined access to employment opportunities. They are constrained into begging and sex work to make an earning. Additionally, there is a perennial verbal and sexual maltreatment in the community. Even quality medical care[Read More…]
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused hardships among people, and even more so, for the most marginalised groups in the society. At a time when even the more privileged groups began scouring stores for food and medicines, one could realize the plight of the transgender community seeking rations and medicines only to face discrimination and harassment. As always, shopkeepers sent them[Read More…]
Touted as one of the biggest milestones in the movement by the LGBTQA community for equal rights, the abrogation of section 377 of the Indian penal code in 2018 by the Supreme Court was considered as a landmark judgment with an expectation that the situation of those people will considerably improve. However, even after 2 years of the judgement, the[Read More…]
Recently, actor Samyuktha Hegde and her friends were assaulted by All India Congress Committee member and civic activist Kavitha Reddy at Bangalore’s Agara Lake. Reddy can be seen in videos put up by Hegde on her Instagram threatening to hit the women if they wore “such” clothes, charging at the women to hit them, inciting a mob to shame them[Read More…]
By Dr. P. S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal The rights of people with different sexual orientations – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual needs to be respected; all the laws that criminalise or discriminate against the LGBTQIA community should be abolished. India should pass laws that allows marriage among same sex and LGBTQIA communities. – A People’s Manifesto for[Read More…]
The political left, and much of mainstream feminism, is characterized by an analysis of how systems and institutions shape our choices, a critique of capitalist media, and a commitment to a scientific/materialist worldview. But when faced with radical feminism’s compelling critiques of patriarchy, leftists and many feminists routinely abandon those principles. Radical feminist critiques of prostitution, pornography, and transgender ideology[Read More…]
In the current squabble on the liberal/progressive/left side of the fence over so-called “cancel culture”—in which one open letter in favor of freedom of expression led to a rebuttal open letter in favor of a different approach to freedom of expression—I can offer a report on the experience of being canceled. Several times over the past few years I’ve been[Read More…]
At the very outset we at ABVA would like to make a simple point that the LGBTQIA community – which constitutes about 7 to 8% of the population as per the Supreme Court Johar judgement of 2018 – has tasted a measure of freedom and identity only in the last few years starting from NALSA judgment of 2014 whereby the[Read More…]
For those of you who don’t know the meaning of those alphabet letters, here you go: lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer, alternative sexually. Now, I will add that there are lots of lesbian seagulls. So don’t imagine for a moment please that we are alone in alternative sexual behavior. I read a factual article on the topic. One of my[Read More…]
September 6th, 2018 will perhaps be memorable in the history of socio-political struggles in India, not only as an achievement of LGBTIQKHA+ organising and movement, but as a legitimization of principles of democracy, the fundamental rights of equality, justice and freedom. Freedom of choice, right to form ‘companionships’, ‘be it physical, mental, sexual emotional’ (all quotes from Navtej Singh Johar[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shobha Aggarwal & Dr. P.S. Sahni 11 August, 1992: ABVA organized the first ever protest demonstration in India condemning police atrocities on gay people, at Police Headquarters, New Delhi Twenty-five years ago in November-December 1991, the AIDS BhedbhavVirodhiAndolan (AIDS Anti-discrimination Movement, ABVA) brought out the first Report titled ‘Less Than Gay’ on the status of homosexuality in India,[Read More…]
It is time to pivot the plus. The very symbol that has served as an anachronistic additive for the LGBTQIA community has woefully subtracted. The very “+” that has elucidated the “freedom” that comes along with identifying as LGBTQIA has heretofore restricted. That is, the very image of the “+” has not invited intersectionality into the conversation but invalidated identities. It has not[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
