Voices
Human beings are not brains in jars, but are fundamentally shaped by their perception of and interaction with the worlds around them, through their physical bodies and their sensory encounters.
To be politically queer in a new language is an intoxication of all senses, revelation, outrageous freedom.
I soon realised how central language is to our understanding of the world, and how language constitutes the limits and possibilities of our experiences and identities.
The aim of this piece is to bring to light the inherent queerness marking Baul folk music in Bengali, an oral undocumented spiritual expression that transcends heterosexual impositions and classism.
What gets silenced today isn’t just what’s obscene – it’s what’s inconvenient. What doesn’t sell. What asks us to take sex seriously or differently.
Because we also understand and acknowledge the power of a single step forward, we decided to deep dive into working with sign languages for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and including them in the safe abortion rights dialogues.
Language itself is being plugged as a resource, to be shared with those who share similar politics, or if not, at least to move them along in that direction. And people who speak, think, love and live differently are targeted as “the other”.
Words weren’t always needed – we were content in each other’s quiet company, letting stillness speak. It took me years to realise that their home was my first classroom, and love was the language we spoke.
भाषा सिर्फ अभिव्यक्ति का माध्यम नहीं है, यह पहचान, संबंध और संघर्ष का भी ज़रिया है। भाषा सामाजिक संरचना, पहचान और सत्ता-संबंधों को दर्शाने का भी औज़ार है।
जब मैं इस बात पर विचार करता हूं कि मैंने क्या सक्रिय रूप से दबा दिया था और लगातार भूलने की कोशिश की थी, तो मुझे एहसास हुआ कि मैं अपने बारे में क्या सोचता हूं, इसे परिभाषित करने में भाषा कितनी ज़रूरी थी। मौखिक दुर्व्यवहार और धौंसियाना बर्ताव ने गैर-मानक व्यवहार, समलैंगिकता और क्वियरनेस के साथ मेरी पहचान बना ली।
Gender has perplexed me throughout life. I never quite understood femininity or masculinity much – I mostly lived in what other people thought I was. One thing I did know always is that I never, ever, want to be seen as a man. But can I still hold masculinity?
…we must also address men’s relationships with their spouses, other men, women and children in the community, and importantly, their own emotional selves to transform fatherhood. Therefore, engaging with men as fathers must involve a holistic understanding of their socialisation, emotional world, and position within patriarchal structures.
In the fast-paced digital world of clickbaits and instant gratification, where you can be ‘cancelled’ or ‘trending’ within the same minute, the very act of men talking to other men about alternative masculinities, has the ability to disrupt hierarchies of power, to disrupt the algorithm, to disrupt patriarchy.
I have dealt with having a non-masculine body since the time I was a teenager. I have questioned my sexuality and how it interacted with my non-masculine body.
Unlike many trans-masculine people who identified as lesbians/tomboys/butch pre-transitioning, I refused to abandon my ‘lesbian’ identity post-transitioning. A negotiation that took time to flourish.