Understanding Queer
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In a time when most of us have misunderstood the ‘Q’ in LGBTQI, a session on 'Understanding Queer' organized by Nazariya was something to look forward to. Rituparnah Borah from Nazariya as the facilitator along with panelists Aditi A (queer poet) and Jaya Sharma (queer kinky activist”), made up for an exciting panel.
Starting from the origin of the word ‘queer’ to how, today, it “is a way of reminding us how we are looked at by the world",lBorah kick started the discussion. Giving an extremely vivid example of how the margins in a notebook are always considered the place for all the messy work to be done while the answers lie outside the margins, Borah reflected on the marginalization of the ‘queer.’ It was repeatedly iterated by the three speakers that it is important to understand that not all LGBT people are ‘queer’ because a lot of them give in to and conform to societal norms. Jaya Sharma took over to say ‘queer’ can’t be seen as an ‘umbrella term’ for sexual and gender identities and that it has a meaning even without bringing in LGBT. With this, she went on to say that BDSM is not what Fifty Shades tells us and that ‘consent’ is a central force. In her well-worded poetic monologue, she affirmed that "Maybe I feel kinky is queer because the dominant can dominate only when I submit." and talked about how BDSM is considered regressive even by a lot of feminists because of the assumption that “humiliation can’t be hot.” She mentioned that it is commendable on the part of the MH administration to host the Gender Mela but it is important that is supports the Pinjra Tod movement. She closed with a list of pointers in order to “qualify for queerness.” |
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Aditi A opened with a beautiful elocution of how, in order to understand the meaning of words, we are coded to be “dependent on what they are not, to know what they are.” She then went on to say that the word ‘queer’ for her is a “third space, outside the binary.” She talked about how she maintains a distance from the academic and theoretical approach to ‘queerness’ and how there is a need to challenge/ attack the campus politics. She then split up between her lesbian identity and her queer identity; the former speaking of her sexual orientation and the latter of her activism. Going to an all-girls’ convent school, she highlighted how the game of ‘hide and seek’ with the usage of pronoun ‘she’ in her first poem, queerness and poetry went hand in hand for her from the beginning. She called for a more engaged and aware approach to surroundings for one to be ‘queer’ and not attending Gender melas. She ended with her poem titled ‘Privilege’:
Privilege
They always ask us so who’s the man who’s the woman I tell them,
Listen, I don’t think we have the privilege to pretend to be what we’re not when we’re too busy being people we really are
Listen, I tell them I don’t think we have the privilege to play with things we don’t believe in when we’re too busy feeling, fighting breaking, breathing and believing
When they ask us so who’s the man who’s the woman
I say, listen we don’t have the time to live in boxes when we’re too busy gazing the skies
You don’t have the privilege when you’re too busy digging burrows you call homes and we call burying holes
Listen, we’re too busy fucking and fucking your gender roles.
The session ended with a round of questions and comments from the audience. To one of the questions, Aditi replied that being queer is a big responsibility and you wake up every morning with the thought, “What more should I queer today?" To a question that said “In a nutshell, can it be said that queerness is subjective?” Jaya Sharma replied that it is but she’d still defend her idea of queerness. And I’d like to add to it by saying that defending one’s own idea of queerness is welcomed and justified when one is also welcoming enough to let others justify/defend their stand because ‘queerness’, out of all else, doesn’t work on the basis of exclusion or set standards. As Borah said,“"It isn’t about mainstreaming LGBT, but about bringing queer in the mainstream.”
Privilege
They always ask us so who’s the man who’s the woman I tell them,
Listen, I don’t think we have the privilege to pretend to be what we’re not when we’re too busy being people we really are
Listen, I tell them I don’t think we have the privilege to play with things we don’t believe in when we’re too busy feeling, fighting breaking, breathing and believing
When they ask us so who’s the man who’s the woman
I say, listen we don’t have the time to live in boxes when we’re too busy gazing the skies
You don’t have the privilege when you’re too busy digging burrows you call homes and we call burying holes
Listen, we’re too busy fucking and fucking your gender roles.
The session ended with a round of questions and comments from the audience. To one of the questions, Aditi replied that being queer is a big responsibility and you wake up every morning with the thought, “What more should I queer today?" To a question that said “In a nutshell, can it be said that queerness is subjective?” Jaya Sharma replied that it is but she’d still defend her idea of queerness. And I’d like to add to it by saying that defending one’s own idea of queerness is welcomed and justified when one is also welcoming enough to let others justify/defend their stand because ‘queerness’, out of all else, doesn’t work on the basis of exclusion or set standards. As Borah said,“"It isn’t about mainstreaming LGBT, but about bringing queer in the mainstream.”
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