The Self is what we may think of as the beingness and the whatness of a person – an amalgamation of body, mind, heart, spirit, and experience. This amalgam is not made once and for all; we are, all the time, making and unmaking ourselves and being made and unmade by people, events, circumstances, and the conditions of our lives. Through it all there is a sense of “This is me” that runs deep. What does the Self bring to Sexuality and what does Sexuality bring to the Self?
Shikha Aleya offers us the idea of the Self being not a single portrait but rather a collage of portraits, a Self made up of many selves. After all, we are more than just a composite of our gender, caste, class, sexual identity, etc. We live in a world made up of structures and systems that affect us in particular ways and, up to a point, we can choose how to engage with them, hopefully in ways that affirm our sexuality.
What if we can’t choose? What if we are dispossessed of choice, of freedom, of joy? In a government mental hospital, in a slum, in a village, in a family, told how to walk, what to feel, how to be? Ratnaboli Ray takes an unflinching look at the frames of reference that put people in shrinking boxes and then expect them to expand: “Self doesn’t solo-emerge. It ignites, or fizzles, in worlds we craft.” As Ratna succinctly puts it, “ Change those worlds…” One of the structures that has immense power to change worlds is the law. Unfortunately it seems to do that sometimes, with chilling immediate effect, for the bad. Kanika Batra in the first part of a two-part article focuses on Indian writing about self and sexuality within the broad context of recent legislation. Part Two, coming next month, will be on South Africa.
Lives change for many reasons and change may bring in its wake often unexpected consequences for the Self. We have two accounts from presentations at The Naz Foundation (India) Trust’s Queer Mental Health Academic Conclave held on January 24, 2026, that were later developed as articles for In Plainspeak. Vihaan needed to go back to live with his family. Staying was not a ‘choice’. In a first-person account, Vihaan reframes queer freedom, family and survival in India, drawing attention to the fact that the relation between self and sexuality is contingent on how care, resources and collective support are organised. Imaan Hegde played professional football. After transitioning, he could no longer do so, not for want of desire or ability, but for the lack of safety, acceptance and inclusion for transpeople in professional sports. Imaan made a tough choice between the sport he loved and the self he needed to express. He knew it would hurt, but did not know it would hurt so very much.
Life sometimes, as they say, sucks. Fiction and poetry offer us a fresh lens to look at the self and sexuality. Taarina Therese Chandiramani intriguingly uncovers, after years of careful looking away, a realisation of great importance. Abdullah Erikat after much questioning finally understands the source of his attraction and the underlying truth of his being.
In Hindi, Imran Khan writes about sexuality being a core part of identity and self-understanding, and how it is only when there is societal acceptance that we can live authentically and freely. And we re-publish Wesley D’Souza’s article translated into Hindi by Eesha on how through playing different roles in theatre he came to acting like himself.
We make and unmake our selves, and we are made and unmade, time and again. From rainbows to muddy patches, and, sometimes, back to rainbows.
Shikha Aleya interviews Dr. Tanaya Narendra aka the knowledgeable and ebullient Dr. Cuterus. Tanaya talks about her experiences, the way young people approach relationships with themselves and their sexuality, what she has learned from the many interactions she has with diverse sets of people, and how important it is for us to be able to be just as we are. Her mantra? No yucking anyone’s yum (as long as it is consensual and does not cause harm, of course).
If only there were many more people who practised that, but unfortunately, yucking the yum does happen. Most often, when we are subject to scrutiny, as Cat D points out. With the Trans Law of 2026, it is, perhaps, the time to ask once again, who and what is being scrutinised, by whom and how? What is the logic of such scrutiny and what are assumptions that underlie it? What does it do to our self? Similarly, in Part 2 of a two-part article, Kanika Batra takes us to South Africa and to the question of whether gender-affirming health care and legislation really lead to social acceptance. What are the systems that support a sense of trans-formed self? And, an interesting yum – among sangomas (African traditional healers), are trans-formations physical or spiritual, or both?
In a no-holds-barred article, Sreeku, connecting the gagging of the tongue with the silencing of the self, makes a cogent argument for why we need to resurrect the mother tongue in order to resurrect the (sexual) self. Sometimes, as Writika Manocha shows, it is not the lack of language but the lack of respect for who we are that gags us. Writika exposes the insensitivity of an academic interview panel that, amidst many other offensive questions, wanted to know whether “queerness is natural or a state of mind”. That’s a definite yuk!
But, somehow, yumminess is way stronger. Devanshi Panda writes evocatively about the tangled messes of contradictory things that we all are and how we can sit with these complexities to accept and love ourselves as a beautiful amalgamation of these multiple aspects of ourselves. Gurveen Khanuja retraces the steps of her personal journey from being an unsure, uncelebrated big-bodied child to becoming someone who now knows what her values are and what she wants for herself. For the child who lives in each of us and for the children we interact with, Riya Parikh reviews The Boy Who Wore Bangles and introduces us to little Bhargav and his rainbow-coloured bangles, and to what it is like to let the self expand and to inhabit desire and curiosity in the present rather than in some far off future.
In Hindi, Imran Khan writes a deeply personal reflection about his own childhood and the importance of language in enabling self-discovery and finding and asserting personal agency. In translation, we have Surbhi Dewan’s article about how, after realising that she was free to make her own self-hood, she became “a multi-dimensional, living, breathing specimen who I could identify with.” A human rainbow, in other words.
Until next time, let your own rainbow-colours sparkle!
Cover image by In The Making Studio on Unsplash
