Sec 377 and same-sex desire

For many years, the struggle in India of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT), hijra, kothi and other non-heterosexualities – what this writer terms as 'queer' sexualities – has been fought along the silent margins of both mainstream society and 'progressive' politics. Things have begun to change in recent years, but there is still a long way to go. While certain sections of Indian society have opened up due to the activism of the queer-rights movement, the spaces that queer lives must negotiate in India today remain difficult – in their everyday lives, as well as in their struggle to articulate sexuality as not just as an aspect of identity, but as a deeply held political language in its own right.

Society repeatedly tells us that there is only one kind of acceptable desire – male, heterosexual, within marriage. Social structures further define and defend what can be referred to as the 'hetero-normative ideal': rigid notions of what it means to be a man or a woman, how the two should relate, and the family unit that should result from such a relationship. This dynamic creates a unique kind of universe. A certain type of family is privileged – heterosexual men and women of the same caste, class and religious backgrounds – while any other realities outside this ideal (think single women, widows, sex workers, inter-caste and inter-class couples, along with LGBT-identified people) are punished, subtly and not-so-subtly, through law, medicine, social norms and religion. There is a fundamental principle at work here: those in power create rules and structures that enforce their vision of what is acceptable, and penalise all those that fall outside of these structures. This play of power will sound familiar to those in other political movements, but unlike in the case of gender, caste, religion or statehood, for example, the acknowledgement of such marginalisation on the basis of sexuality is relatively recent.