LGBTQIA

Brushstrokes: Digital security guide: How to protect yourself on dating apps
An illustration of a ruled sheet. The lines are orange in colour. In the middle is a smartphone with a woman's face and torso on the display. She has curly brown hair and is wearing a blue turtleneck. Underneath is written, Lu, 28, and the symbols of Swipe Yes or No and two other buttons as on a dating app interface. On either side of the smartphone are flowers with stems and leaves. The flowers are red, and two in each bouquet. Above, in big letters, outlined in black and coloured in bright green: How to Date Online Safely. And underneath the smartphone illustration, in black, "Online dating can be fun. But there are some risks. Malicious actors can use your profile to blackmail, hurt, or harass you. This guide contains helpful tips and resources to protect you'
Brushstrokes: Digital security guide: How to protect yourself on dating apps

Online dating can be great fun but it comes with some risks. This quirky and in-depth Digital Security Guide by Access Now on How to Date Online Safely tells us how we can engage with fellow dating-app users while making sure we are safe from harm.
By Curated Content
May 15, 2021
Brushstrokes: Digital security guide: How to protect yourself on dating apps
Brushstrokes: Dear Sex-Ed Textbook
A screenshot from Robot Hugs' comic. The background is purple and has a figure wearing a darker purple shirt and grey pants. Their hair is green and they are looking curiously and confusedly at the illustration of the female reproductive system to their left. The figure of the reproductive system is coloured in light and dark shades of pink and has a black question mark in the middle. The text, to the right of the figure, says "But I am already whole and complete, and I am not full of empty spaces."
Brushstrokes: Dear Sex-Ed Textbook

Robot Hugs gives us a glimpse into the doubts and confusions they grappled with while growing up, and unravels the tightly wound preconceptions in culture influenced by, and at the same time, influencing scientific and medical imagination.
By Curated Content
June 15, 2021
Brushstrokes: Dear Sex-Ed Textbook
Brushstrokes: Closets
A part of the webcomic ‘Closets’
Brushstrokes: Closets

Robot Hugs, in their insightful comic, take on closets as inherently oppressive structures built to uphold what is acceptable and…
By Curated Content
July 1, 2020
Brushstrokes: Closets
Brushstrokes: Ageing and Sexuality
A photograph by Sujata Setia. A couple stands under a blue umbrella, holding each other, in a field.
Brushstrokes: Ageing and Sexuality

Capturing moments of tenderness between these couples as they shine with affection, comfort, and laughter, Sujata’s photo-series reminds us that we don’t simply fall in love, but with time, nurture and strengthen intimacy.
By Curated Content
March 15, 2021
Brushstrokes: Ageing and Sexuality
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
Book cover for Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal. The cover depicts two women dressed in traditional salwar kameez standing on either side of a series of magenta buildings, enveloped by a silhouetted dome shape of a gurudwara with a deep bluish-purple backdrop. The margins are a dense criss-cross pattern in golden. Two short review extracts are aligned to the top left and top right corners
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

The story is so well told and is written with such a light, deft hand that it is almost easy to miss what makes it so quietly radical. To review it within the scope of exploring the coming together of literature and sexuality we must begin with its central cast of characters – the widows.

By Sheena D'Lima
January 3, 2022
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
BLOSSOMING INTO A GARDEN: SPIRITUALITY, SEXUALITY AND ALL-CONSUMING QUEER LOVE IN ‘PUU’
‘Puu’ webcomic
BLOSSOMING INTO A GARDEN: SPIRITUALITY, SEXUALITY AND ALL-CONSUMING QUEER LOVE IN ‘PUU’

Puu, an episodic comic (consisting of 92 serialised episodes) created in 2016 by Nabigal-Nayagam Haider Ali – going by Nabi online – is woven together with vast, expansive threads of similar intense spiritual moments and reflections on devotion, faith, and love.
By Rohini Banerjee
January 4, 2021
BLOSSOMING INTO A GARDEN: SPIRITUALITY, SEXUALITY AND ALL-CONSUMING QUEER LOVE IN ‘PUU’
Biscuit tin
On a pink background, a blue gift-wrapped box with a bow
Biscuit tin

I keep on hold the colours and prints to wrap you in gentle delicate flowers or little cartoon lions and boys with fists that say Bam and Super / until I know what lies between your legs the cigar or the smile of consolation if you’re the first
By Shikha Aleya
December 1, 2020
Biscuit tin
Being of Queer Age
A photograph of an old tree, its roots spread out on the surface, entwined.
Being of Queer Age

The conversion of the noun (adult) into the verb form (adulting) implies that ‘adulting’ is more performance than inevitability. Which is to say, there is no intrinsic understanding of ‘adulting’; it is something that can be learnt over time.
By Roshan Roy
March 15, 2021
Being of Queer Age
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse
Photo of a smartphone screen displaying the logos of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Clubhouse.
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse

In theory, the concept of the app is a great one – it provides women, queer people, and people belonging to oppressed castes the tea-stall, cigarette-shop type of public spaces for conversation that are available to upper-caste cis het men. The relative anonymity acts like a safe cover, and the app affords a certain autonomy and agency to marginalised people to regulate the kind of conversation that goes on in rooms moderated by them.
By Srishti Gupta
April 1, 2022
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
A green-bue gradient photograph of a field of grass and white flowers.
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care

But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.
By Rukmini Banerjee
July 5, 2021
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
A ‘girly’ feminist
Two dandelion flowers in a glass vase on a pink background.
A ‘girly’ feminist

Desiring motherhood meant veering into a more ‘girly’ territory, a notion that I had simultaneously been fighting and trying to embrace since childhood. I had understood that to be a feminist I had to be independent, be wary of men, dislike families and relationships.

By Anubha Sarkar
December 1, 2020
A ‘girly’ feminist
A pandemic, self-care, and collective care: Experiences from TARSHI
On a light pink background, typography: at the top of the page in black bold and capital letters: HERE IS HOW TEAM SELF-CARE AT VARIOUS ORGANISATIONS LOOKS LIKE. Below it in roman black font: “We pause and take break from the online world” / “We consciously decide to take days off to relax, and also put a safe space in practice where we have individual and collective well-being check-ins regularly!” / “Closing work at 4pm sharp every day. No emails/calls on Saturdays and Sundays. All social activities optional. A week’s break every 6-8 weeks.” / “No Meetings Friday (try to adhere to it as much. On the left side, in letters one under the other, in capitals: SELF CARE MATTERS. On the right down corner, a triangle coloured orange with pale yellow lines across, and on the top left corner, a green leafy pattern.
A pandemic, self-care, and collective care: Experiences from TARSHI

The pandemic has put us through interesting times, to say the least – of reflecting, learning, realigning, thinking about what really matters, a time to pause and care for ourselves with kindness. At TARSHI, we’re just delighted to have been able to do the same – while also sharing something of what we’ve learnt with you.
By Vani Viswanathan
July 19, 2021
A pandemic, self-care, and collective care: Experiences from TARSHI
A Guide To Affordable Mental Health Care For The Queer Community
On a blue background, an illustration of a person sitting cross-legged, in lighter blue, with 6 arms outstretched over the other. From each arm emanates a light blue line and shapes. Different objects circle the person such as a yellow-orange open book, a black mobile phone, a yellow sun with rays, a glass of water in light blue, a pink pen, a pink cup, a sheet of white paper outlined in pink with the lettering YOU'RE ENOUGH, a black watch. On the top right, in capital yellow letters: PERSONAL TOOL KIT. On the bottom right, in roman black letters: Instructional guide / Health and hygiene / Personal diary / Visual reminders / Phone apps. Under it, in yellow roman font: (Find detailed instructions on the website)
A Guide To Affordable Mental Health Care For The Queer Community

In a country like India where both mental health and non-binary identities are topics that are neglected despite being essential parts of an individual’s identity, it can be quite challenging to navigate through issues regarding the same. Accessibility to affordable and quality mental health services is a serious difficulty that the queer Indian population faces.
By Curated Content
July 19, 2021
A Guide To Affordable Mental Health Care For The Queer Community
A GARDEN OF ONE’S OWN
A photograph of a stone structure and archway on a rocky terrain
A GARDEN OF ONE’S OWN

Therapy gives us tools and time, but the actual work of dismantling the forest is ours as we are the only persons with access to that forest. So queer affirmative therapy validates our beliefs and helps us identify the poison, cut it down, dissect it, unroot it.
By Poorva Parashar
January 4, 2021
A GARDEN OF ONE’S OWN
A Garden of One’s Own
An image of a rocky, dusty terrain with two semi-circular stone structures with spherical rocks in the middle.
A Garden of One’s Own

Therapy is a space to heal and grow. It helped me to accept my identity as an anxious, cisgender, South Asian, bisexual woman. Moreover, I have come up with the perfect response next time someone asks me, “But why do you think you are bisexual?”
By Poorva Parashar
August 3, 2020
A Garden of One’s Own
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