LGBTQ Activist Organizations as ‘Respectably Queer’ in India: Contesting a Western View

Abstract

This study contests the distinction of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) organizations suggested by earlier scholars as ‘respectable’ — i.e. normalizing, professionalizing and conforming to the dominant cultural and institutional patterns — and ‘queer’, meaning challenging the cultural and institutional forces that ‘normalize and commodify differences’. Using Bernstein's model of identity deployment, it is found problematic to distinguish LGBTQ organizations this way because when the actions of LGBTQ organizations are more complex to describe, it is not warranted to conflate identity goals with identity strategies — whether normalizing (respectable) or differentiating (queer). To examine these concerns, a qualitative inquiry was used to study five LGBTQ organizations in India where the intersections of post‐colonial ethnicity, gender, social class and sexuality offer an intriguing context through which to study queer activism. Based on the findings, it is argued from a post‐colonial perspective that when the socio‐cultural and historical existence of non‐homonormative queer communities and practices is strong, LGBTQ organizations challenge the heteronormative and/or other forms of domination to become ‘queer’. But they may simultaneously become ‘respectable′ by conforming to the diversity politics of non‐profit business, donors, and social movement organizations they seek support from, and turn out as ‘respectably queer’.

What’s so ‘queer’ about coming out? Silent queers and theorizing kinship agonistically in Mumbai

“…Ghosh (2015: 53) has eloquently articulated in work on queer activist organizations in India, that there is an uncomfortable binary between respectability and queer organizing in the West, where the West’s preoccupation with the mutual exclusivity of respectable and queer confuses the means of queer organizing with its intended effects. The same could be true for theories of kinship and queerness.…”

A gay reflection on microaggressions, symbolic normativities, and pink hair

“…Similarly, homonormativity can be viewed as a lens of investigating LGBTQ employees' performances and relationships and categorizing them into those who are acceptable and those who are not, as an approach mediated and inspired by the heteronormative foundations (Duggan, 2003; Rosenfeld, 2009). Such outlook might play into the instigation that some LGBTQ employees are better than others, as well as sustain dominant power relations that lack intersectionality (Burchiellaro, 2020; Ghosh, 2014). In microaggressions, this is visible in verbal indications that aim to curate how employees identifying as sexual minorities should look, behave, discuss their life, and express their LGBTQ identity.…”

Adapting Psychiatric Case History Taking Practices for Indigenous Transgender Communities

“…Common identifications include: (a) effeminate gay men, (b) transsexual individuals (usually male to female), and (c) transvestite and intersex individuals. 1–3 Mal 4 also mentions “Chhibris” who are biologically fit females with “fake” Hijra identity.…”