Feminism
The glorious heights of self-actualisation to which some words beckon us, the promises lying within others, it’s all language.
What is the language, across languages, that we associate with sexuality? Is it healing? Empowering? Does this language comfort and console? Does it lift you up and make you feel good about who you are?
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.
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”.
These are their words, their vision,
a blade that left a cut in my veins
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.
It’s time to scrape off the thick dark crusts of carelessly slapped-on murky hues of toxic masculinities and to bring out the brushes and the paints to paint masculinities in their true and glorious colours of life, freedom and love.
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?
My assertion of my gender was not because of masculinity, it was because of the feminism which I practised – and that gave me this chance to come back to what I was. To assert what I was and to assert what I am.
…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.