Welcome to Shuddhashar’s Free-Thought podcast. In this episode, we highlight the special issue on LGBTIQ+ rights in a conversation between guest editor Shakhawat Hossain Rajeeb and contributors Orchi Lohani and Ibtisam Ahmed. The three discuss the realities of queer activism and solidarity, and how platforms like Shuddhashar play a crucial role in supporting marginalized voices. …
In the early days of Shuddhashar, there was excitement around new ideas, different ways of looking at the world, and information that challenged our societal assumptions. Day by day, our mentality shifted because we were opening up. Some subjects are very difficult to write about. There are so many scattered events, contexts, and emotions …
A publisher’s disclaimer about LGBTIQ+ solidarity Read More »
Across the region, it seems like the advocacy, awareness and lobby efforts of LGBTI+ organizations are falling on deaf ears with government after government not taking things forward at the needed speed. Discussing and advocating for the rights of LGBTI+ people in the Western Balkans is a “recent phenomenon” when looked at from an …
Current state of organizing in the times of increased opposition in the Western Balkans Read More »
We should (re)consider how the homophobia, transphobia, and fear of queerness of the colonial past are incorporated with our social and cultural environment and subsequently shaped domestic discourse of sexuality and gender. Therefore, we have to choose queer emancipation that includes socio-economic transformation rather than assimilation to existing societal and structural norms. For years, …
To believe that greater visibility on the part of LGBTQ individuals—however courageous their actions might be—will lead inevitably to greater enlightenment or tolerance in these regions/countries is a form of magical thinking. On the weekend of February 27, 1988, nearly 200 gay and lesbian activists met in Warrenton, Virginia, a small town 50 …
The Political Is Personal: Limitations to Coming Out as a Social Justice Strategy Read More »
Queer visibility and coming out has to be seen through organizing experiences and power struggles that are currently unfolding in Bangladesh and how they are shaped by histories of gender and sexual communities in the region. Visibility is the chicken-or-egg question that divides queer organizers in Bangladesh. In global LGBTIQ+ politics, “coming out” has …
The Politics and Meanings of “Coming Out” in Bangladesh Read More »
White gay men in gay spaces do not have to carve out or create a narrative to legitimize being in that space; they simply exist. Gay men of color are constantly unpacking the consequences of double rejection, the ostracization that comes from both their race and whitewashed gay spaces. Gay male spaces are rooted …
Since I founded the first European intersectional network of the kind, which is hybrid [1] and at the junction of queer[2] activism, feminism, and an inclusive intellectual or artistic approach, our international movement has moved to another level of expertise. I have lived and grown up partly in France and partly in Algeria. I …
Intersectional, inclusive, and contemporary Islam: A personal reflection Read More »
SOGIESC identities in most South Asian countries continues to be driven by a Eurocentric lens. The equal rights movement in the South Asian region has seen several milestones in the last decade. Issues related to sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) are increasingly becoming part of the mainstream civil rights …
Law-making in South Asia on Intersex Rights: Breaking free from the binary Read More »
In their dance of privileges and ignorance, Savarna Hindu queers benefit from, and hence have supported, the capitalist structures that have violated other marginalized communities. India is a casteist society, and class has been a product of this caste division. Given the dominance of Savarna (Upper caste) scholarship, voices, and access to resources, caste …
Just behind or left behind by the queer movement in India? Read More »
But as we have recoiled and adapted to organize virtually, how have our aspirations for physical spaces evolved? In present-day Bangladesh, there is no doubt that infinitely diverse populations of gender & sexually variant people do exist beyond the realms of and sometimes even in the cracks and shadows of law, order, prejudice, and …
