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Worlds Within Queer Worlds: Presence, Politics and Diversity
People marching at queer pride, with colourful clothes on

There is no singular way of being queer or performing queerness. We are all products of converging and diverging histories and our queerness is shaped by forces tangible and intangible in the everyday.

By Sohini Chatterjee
May 1, 2019
Worlds Within Queer Worlds: Presence, Politics and Diversity
Who would we be if we weren’t trying to survive? A Conversation on the Survival Myth
A photograph of a bench on a rocky-slightly bushy terrain. The bench is facing the other direction, which stretches out into wilderness. The sky in tinged with purple, blue, yellow, and pink.

What does it mean to hold space and extend compassion to ourselves and our  communities? Rachel Cargle reminds us to ask ourselves: who  would we be if we weren’t trying to survive? Similarly, what would care and vulnerability look like if we weren’t trying to survive? The anarchy of queerness constantly and necessarily resists the capitalist engineering of the Survival Myth: one that wants us to endure an isolated life instead of embracing it with the radically transformative joy of togetherness. Caring for yourself precedes, succeeds, and exists alongside caring for the collective.

By Rukmini and Soumya
July 19, 2021
Who would we be if we weren’t trying to survive? A Conversation on the Survival Myth
When The Stigma Attached to Sex Deprives Women of Worker Status
Sex work and class: poster for the film 'chameli'

This stigma of caste, class and sexuality is a pervasive amalgamation of socio-cultural mindsets that take root and function in myriad complex ways, and paint working women in broad, sweeping, agency-less brush strokes.

By Mahika Banerji
June 1, 2019
When The Stigma Attached to Sex Deprives Women of Worker Status
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
An illustration of a woman looking in the mirror, with adornments. She is wearing a pink hat with a feather, and blue long hair.

This thought-provoking, luminously illustrated The School of Life video reminds us of self-compassion being essential to building our own selves up, and being a safe space where we can extend the same love and imagination to our vulnerabilities, insecurities, fears, and doubts as we do to our friends.

By Curated Content
July 5, 2021
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
Video Page: Being Laxmi: ‘I belong to the hijra, the oldest transgender community’
It's a still from the video, Laxmi, is smiling and wearing a pink bindi and saree, a silver nose pin. They have long hair, open in the photo and is wearing sindoor on their forehead.

Community – your friends, family, neighbours – can be a source of great strength and support. However, in exchange for…

By Curated Content
July 1, 2017
Video Page: Being Laxmi: ‘I belong to the hijra, the oldest transgender community’
The Politics of Self Care and Feminism
On a pink background, an illustration of a person of colour with black curly hair. On each side are plants, hanging and potted including leaves, cacti, and flowers. The person's arms are wrapped around their torso.

In a time when reason is more valued than emotion, unravelling and understanding the politics of self-care becomes all the more fundamental for us, and the movements we seek to develop and build. When our bodies, our emotions and our needs become weapons to be used against us, acts of defiance become rooted in thinking about your self and how we practice it. I find I am faced with more questions than answers, but I also know that asking the questions is the first step to finding the answers

By Curated Content
July 19, 2021
The Politics of Self Care and Feminism
The Nun Within: Reflections on our self-care workshops with activists
A photograph of a woman sitting indoors. She has cropped white-grey hair and is looking upwards. She is wearing a black full-sleeved top and her palms are open outwards. She is wearing a black necklace and is smiling. In front of her, a person is half-visible, clad in black, holding out their palms. There are red chairs on the side, and at the back, a person with black short hair, wearing a white top and mask, using a phone, is sitting.

I know that the lives of many human rights defenders are under continuous threat, that sometimes it is impossible to sleep or to enjoy a moment of peace because of the harassment coming from the outside. What I address in this text is our internal disposition as activists, and the ideas that stop us from taking care of and holding ourselves together.

By Rosa Posa Guinea
July 19, 2021
The Nun Within: Reflections on our self-care workshops with activists
The importance of family
A black and white photograph of an infant’s hand resting on an older individual’s outstretched palm.

Family, immediate and extended, is usually who you turn to. They are the ones who provide stress relief and reduce anxiety by boosting self-confidence and self-esteem and providing a protective shield. There is a sense of belongingness in good times and in bad.

By ElsaMarie D'Silva
November 2, 2020
The importance of family
Rezubian, Bi or Straight?
Picture of a Japanese drag queen. She wears a big blonde wig and holds up a pink card.

Employing a direct line of questioning in a booming voice, a tall drag queen shining in a blood red sequinned gown, strides to our table and shoots the question at us. I am not entirely sure how to respond and neither is my friend.

By Niyati Dave
March 1, 2016
Rezubian, Bi or Straight?
Review: The Gaysi Zine is Envelope-Pushing, Occasionally Flawed, and Gorgeous
Painting of a woman sitting on a WC in a bathroom.

At the Delhi launch of the fourth edition of The Gaysi Zine, on January 21st at Max Mueller Bhavan, a…

By Guest Writer
February 1, 2016
Review: The Gaysi Zine is Envelope-Pushing, Occasionally Flawed, and Gorgeous
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
A photograph of a room with one window. The photo showcases the room as semicircular and has a black floor with a window reflected, and brown-white brick walls with a sunlit window.

Pandemics have a profound psychological impact. They are known to disrupt one’s sense of safety, security, certainty, control, concordance, and…

By Ansha Patel
July 5, 2021
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
Notes on seeing each other through
A photograph of the eye of a needle and many differently coloured threads passing through it, on a black background.

…even if people have little in common, once they enter these spaces of solidarity, they are connected to a larger community. These spaces become wellsprings of an unspoken sense of safety and mutual support between individuals of communities that share a sense of having been othered.

By Soumya Jayanti
November 16, 2020
Notes on seeing each other through
Negotiating Expression
An abstract painting of teal squares with splashes of orange, white, blue and yellow.

I am still coming to terms with my own femininity, as with new learnings I find myself regaining many facets of my personality which were lost while trying to ‘act like a man’ and ‘act tough’.

By Ambica Naithani
March 1, 2022
Negotiating Expression
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
A graphic illustration with a black, inky tree with branches outlined by a silhouette of a face.

Ageing vaginas in ageing female bodies are joked about. But a vagina shouldn’t have the task of pleasing anybody but itself first. To begin with, we’ll have to love and respect our vaginas in order to pleasure them. Love them just as they are. If they feel a little dry, don’t despair. Use a lubricant or a little coconut oil. If my labia are unshapely, they’re still my labia and respond very nicely to gentleness and tenderness. If I don’t love and respect my ageing body, in need of gentle, loving, patient care, then who will, for God’s sake?

By Nighat Gandhi
July 5, 2021
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
Musings of a Sexuality Educator
Many question-mark shaped lights thrown together to give an effect of darkness, and two of them glowing. One is blue and the other is yellow.

To be a support system is to be a safe space for them where they can reflect upon, experiment with and understand themselves. A space where people not only come to terms with their individual selves, sexual or otherwise, but also where they become increasingly aware of their own rights.

By Anannya Chatterjee
November 2, 2020
Musings of a Sexuality Educator
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