A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
This photo feature gives us a glimpse into the lives of women from around the world at their diverse places of work: “Teachers, farmers, businesswomen, politicians, mothers, law enforcers – women and girls contribute every day in many visible and invisible ways.”
Rath Wang is a founding member of Nijiiro Diversity (Rainbow Diversity), Japan’s first non-profit organization promoting LGBT equality in the workplace. He leads the Ernst and Young Unity Network for LGBT employees and allies in Japan. Rath appeared at number 4 in the OUTstanding and The Financial Times 2015 listing of The Top 30 LGBT Future Leaders.
Comicbooks sell us the fantasy of larger-than-life superheroes, the victory of good over evil, the promise of fighting for a better, inclusive world. But alas, when it comes to the characters themselves, this very inclusivity is often nowhere to be found.
“Every type of body is beautiful, and more importantly every type of body is different,” says artist Veer Mishra while describing Body, his series of illustrations. This ‘difference’ is the essence of what he tries to portray through his art.
मैं अपनी यौनिकता को अपनी पहचान का अलग हिस्सा नहीं मानती। मैं अलग व्यक्ति नहीं हूँ क्योंकि मैं एसेक्शुअल हूँ। यह सिर्फ़ आकार देता है कि मैं कौन हूँ, वैसे ही जैसे मेरी राजनीतिक राय या धार्मिक विश्वास मेरे दुनिया के प्रति नज़रिए को आकार देते हैं।
I personally feel that any cause, specially one like kink that is in its nascent stages, needs its own space to grow, to affect enough people, before it merges with the larger cause of queerness, or sexuality, or even humanity.
From my experiences, I find that diversity is not an end unto itself. Instead, it is a tool for reflection, a mirror that shows not only who we, and the society we live in, are in the present, but what we aspire to be in the future.
Feminine energy is supposed to be yin, receptive, gentle, intuitive,and fulfilling. Masculine energy is supposed to be yang, active, fast, fierce, emptying, goal-oriented and focused.
In Pixar’s short film Purl, a pink ball of yarn – a stand-in for anyone who’s ‘different’ – is faced with this dilemma in a workplace context (the analogy would work in other contexts as well).
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.
For the two-part interview section of this month’s In Plainspeak, Shikha Aleya spoke to a few individuals who continue to push the boundaries of their work, art, and social norms, and expand the understanding of diversity and sexuality.
Diversity, I think, can be a deceptive word. On the surface it carries the promise of plurality and multiple possibilities. Yet, it is deployed in ways that simply reinscribe normative two-gender stereotypes and heteronormativity.
The researchers also concluded there was no evidence that children raised by a single parent or same-sex couples were less competent or well-rounded than other children. If anything, studies of single-parent families show these men and women are more flexible in their parenting styles than they are given credit for.
In my 27 years of existence, I’ve embodied various personas and roles. Even today, I behave slightly differently in the office, around parents, at a party and when I’m alone in my room. In the mornings I’m often a lawyer, whereas during evenings I become an artist.