91 thoughts on “Queer as a Desi”

1. Moornam, “This is something that happens over time, and it’s a never-ending process.” I agree but how is this process to happen if someone doesn’t start it? You don’t grovel for acceptance, but you do have to express a need for for the support of the people closest to you. Otherwise you’re stuck hiding your own identity because of the fear of being rejected. Or you assert yourself and don’t give a damn for the other person’s opinion and lose those relationships. I’ve tried both, not in the context of sexuality, but neither worked very well. That’s why I think pride months work; any thoughtful debate they foster is much better than ultimatums. Unfortunately, at least in the Desi community, sexuality hardly ever fosters anything thoughtful.

2. This thread reminds me of a comment one talking head, I think it was Andrew Sullivan, made. The gay rights/gay marriage debate is over…in one generation. In other words, young people have embraced gays as equals to such an extent that it is the majority opinion. Gay marriage is inevitiable. And this thread adds proof.

   I mean even I–and I’ve been called a homophobe, fascist, racist, McCarthyist, etc. I support Bush, believe in neo-colonialism, am glad the US dethroned Allende and installed Pinochet, think affirmative action is wrong, unconstitutional, and violates the ’64 civil rights act,etc–even I support gay marriage.

   And since gays aren’t economically disenfranchised, as Anuja points out, they’ll find themselves–in one generation–in a much better place than blacks in the US find themselves now.

   I know it still hard now, especially being desi, but in the long run, you’ve already won.

3. you do have to express a need for for the support of the people closest to you.

   This is what I cannot understand. Why do you need to use others’ support as a crutch? You’re an adult, presumably financially independent. Stand up on your own. Make your own choices, the world be damned.

   If there is any illegal hindrance from others or from the State – I would be the first to stand up and fight on your behalf. But when it comes to mushy stuff like “acceptance” and “understanding” – I have no time or patience.

   M. Nam

4. You don’t call a bunch of religious Hindus/Muslims over to dinner and serve Beef/Pork, do you?

   No, I’m a vegetarian. But I have no problem picking meat out of the curries I eat when I’m dining in a non-veg household. And I don’t think any less of them either.

5. Manju writes: >>even I support gay marriage

   I think I know what you mean, but allow me to elaborate my thoughts on this…

   Gay marriage does not need support, just as the sky does not need support to be blue. Gay marriage is. It’s as simple as that. Marriage, according to me, is a societal institution – not a state institution. The Government has neither the right nor the obligation to approve/reject any marriage. Marriage is what people dear to you consider to be. You can marry two women and three donkeys, and if everyone around you accepts it – it’s marriage. On the other hand, if you marry a person within your caste and religion, with horoscope matching, but the person does not suit your near and dear ones – then it’s not marriage. A man and woman exchanging garlands alone in the middle of a forest/desert is not marriage.

   In short – your marriage is not enough if it is accepted by you. It’s only complete when accepted by folks around you.

   M. Nam

6. “In short – your marriage is not enough if it is accepted by you. It’s only complete when accepted by folks around you.”

   doesn’t that contradict what you said earlier about not needing people’s acceptance or am i misinterpreting what you said? why shouldn’t marriage also be exempt from societal approval?

7. Gay marriage is inevitiable.

   That’s so 2005 😉

   I mean even I–and I’ve been called a homophobe, fascist, racist, McCarthyist, etc. I support Bush, believe in neo-colonialism, am glad the US dethroned Allende and installed Pinochet, think affirmative action is wrong, unconstitutional, and violates the ’64 civil rights act,etc–even I support gay marriage.

   Ok that’s it, Moor Nam, you’ve got no excuse now, good sir!

8. Lives have been ruined, wars have been fought, civilizations have ended because of this line of thinking.

   Really? I thought more lives, wars, civilizations etc were ruined over the inability of two or more parties unwilling to reconcile despite historical grievances.

9. Whoa Neha, I didn’t realise the future is here. Next up, Jesusland.

10. You are a typical example of the weak willed, pathetic specimen of Hindu untermenschen. The Assertive Hindu Nation is better off without your kind.

    I’m making a saffron tee right now, it says “Spoor Lam chastised my kundi and all I got was this revolutionary t-shirt”.

11. Sin, I’m glad you showed up. I always have enjoyed your intelligent, concise, and mature discussion.

    Neha– please make a batch of those tees, and sell them to pay for the SM server move 🙂

12. I think there should be t-shirts that say “Ask Me About My Assertive Saffron Balls.”

13. But I have no problem picking meat out of the curries I eat when I’m dining in a non-veg household. And I don’t think any less of them either.

    cringe

    I can’t even deal with getting a slice of plain if they’ve “consolidated” and put several varieties on one pan, if one of said varieties is non-veg. Oy.

    :+:

    Anyone who is excessively preoccupied with what others do with their assholes should remove the stick from their own, since that usually remedies their problem. Also, we’ve been “othered” our whole lives, we have no right to “other” anyone else because of something as innate as sexuality; if we do, especially when they look like us and have thus suffered similar trials? For shame.

14. Hi everyone,

    I started reading this thread after there were already a number of posts, and I’m trying to catch up. I have a request: please please please attribute your blockquotes! At least a number, if not the author and number!

    tankoo

15. Live and let live – I was also freaked out by homosexuality in my younger years, thanks to a strict Hindu/Jain upbringing. But years of living in NYC and SF (ie exposure to some real people) took care of that. People are born the way they are. We of the darker complexions have enough to deal with – let’s not create more discrimination.

    “Beta, this is a western thing, there were no such people when i grew up in Ahmedabad”, etc.

    OK, dad. They were there, you just did not know it! What are “hijdas” after all??

    Neha (off the main point), picking meat out of curries, as well-founded as that may be, does not qualify as veg (speaking as one former serious lover of the pork/beef/etc). The juices still seep in. Just say no next time – tis’ OK!

    Peace.

16. Manju:

    And since gays aren’t economically disenfranchised, as Anuja points out, they’ll find themselves–in one generation–in a much better place than blacks in the US find themselves now. I know it still hard now, especially being desi, but in the long run, you’ve already won.

    Just to clarify, identities are complicated. Many lgbt people are also economically disenfranchised. The reason why I wanted to make the ‘recognition’ versus ‘redistribution’ distinction was because you seemed to be suggesting (contrary to what ur saying above)that lgbt are the ‘true global outcasts’. I was arguing that being an ‘outcast’ in this world isn’t just about lack of recognition, but also lack of socio-economic mobility/advancement.

    Also, I think it’s way too early for the kind of optimism ur exhibiting. Civil unions, or equal marriage, between same-sex couples are just beginning to be recognized. In some cases, there are indications of regression, eg. Canada, which is why there is nothing ‘sad, undignified, contradictory, or even dangerous’ about embracing affirmative identities.

    But ultimately, I do agree with you in some part. As humans, we should one day be able to get a place where we don’t need to positively affirm marginalized identities.Also, I think you’re misreading Fanon, he’s an existential humanist, and you might actually agree with him more than you think, philosophically anyway, whatever ur disagreements about his advocation for violence in Algeria.

17. MoorNam,

    On the other hand, if you marry a person within your caste and religion, with horoscope matching, but the person does not suit your near and dear ones – then it’s not marriage. A man and woman exchanging garlands alone in the middle of a forest/desert is not marriage……In short – your marriage is not enough if it is accepted by you. It’s only complete when accepted by folks around you.

    I must disagree. A marriage is only “real” if one marries the right person for the right reasons. Anything else is fake, a “compromise”, or a cynical “business arrangement”.

    And I second post #56 in that your views here apparently contradict your earlier comments about “the rest of the world be damned”.

18. an aside but the record must be corrected on frantz fanon. earlier, in a response to dutty brown boi, manju said:

    Fanon is an example of what I’m talking about. He starts out as part of a liberation movement then embraces racial identity as a means to counter the colonial psychology. But in it he lays the foundation for a new repression and his flirtations with totalitarianism is quite predictable.

    you are incorrect; it’s the reverse. fanon was a clinician and an analyst of colonial psychology first (Black Skin White Masks, 1955), then became part of a liberation movement.

    second, fanon never “embraced racial identity” in the first place, whether early or late in his career. what he did was to take seriously the psychological part of the colonial relationship and the way that colonialism exploited race to affect the psychologies of the colonizer and the colonized. he understood how the psychology of race helped prolong colonialism. but his answer to that wasn’t to call for race-based liberation, but to encourage national political liberation.

    peace

19. Neha (off the main point), picking meat out of curries, as well-founded as that may be, does not qualify as veg (speaking as one former serious lover of the pork/beef/etc). The juices still seep in. Just say no next time – tis’ OK!

    My daily diet would be classified as lacto-ovo vegetarian. Perhaps not so strict but I don’t mind that, I do it out of habit and health. If the juices seep and make me less of a veg then so be it. If I’m hungry and there is no other choice then I will pick that meat out. It isn’t a big deal to me.

    end of hi-jack

20. I know I’m the gazillionth person to say this but great post Siddhartha!

    MANJU (although this is not all to you and I’m mainly writing this because I just had an exam on political philosophy and can’t get to sleep):

    Franz Fanon does NOT say that we never had some conceptualised individual sameness of identity but that what matters is how we become ourselves in the real world, through interactions with others and the images we create/export/internalise from that communication. for queer desis the assertion of their identity does not create “a new repression” but a previously invisible/misrepresented expression :-).

    to use an overused lgbt image, it’s kind of like adding another colour to the rainbow, so the rainbow is not diminished, only made prettier. the colour is itself/rainbow at the same time…also that way we can have better parties, cooler clothes, nicer clubs and more fabuliciousness.

    i do see where your coming from but think it is v unfair to tell LGBT desis ‘you’ve already won.’

    gaining equal legal rights and representation is not winning a prize, it is claiming a long-denied right that is totally supported and required by the liberal principles you espouse.

    there are different ways in which people can be disempowered which are not related to how rich they are. consider the UN’s universal declaration of human rights, written after the mass genocide of european jews who were in the highest rung of their society’s economic ladder.

    i don’t think you’re a racist, bigot etc. as you obviously have a different view on how to get equality…

    i just think that activism should never be replaced by complacency, and activism should mos’ def’ be applauded in a cold, cynical and apathetic world that works against its existence.

    “we are the singers of songs, and the dreamers of dreams.” (Willy Wonka, preferred political theorist of postpostmodernists).

    KEEP IT LOUD AND PROUD! 🙂

21. Trikone is a great group and much needed.

    As for disenfranchised…I can’t say for sure, but having to wake up in a world where the majority feels justified in calling you a pervert, a freak or mentally ill makes me think that perhaps that queer Desis, regardless of their location or their wealth, are not as “enfranchised” as it has been suggested.

22. Of course I want to be liked by them. Which is why, when I make choices, I make sure that it’s palatable to them. Indeed, even while making small purchases I ask for their opinion and approval.

    What a way to live life, yaar. Sure, asking for advice and respecting family is a big plus, but seeking their approval on EVERYTHING? What for? Is there no individual agency here?

    On the other hand, you seem to want to be free to make your own lifestyle choices, without getting their approval first, and yet still want them to accept your lifestyle. Isn’t that self-centeredness?

    No, this isn’t “self centeredness” or egotism. Families should understand that each member of the familial unit is an individual, too. And as long the member is not doing anything hurtful, deceitful, or dishonest, I see no reason why families en large shouldn’t accept differences within their family.

    Families are important, and their support and understanding at the minimum is always desired by almost every human being. But people who are at the mercy of autocratic families are in a situation that is very frustrating.

23. Whenever I thing about gay rights, the old fashioned first-generation Indian in me recoils at the liberalism of giving homosexuals equal rights. Then I think of little, ole me – first-generation Indian, accented I am sure, peddling my services to mainstream Americans in the 70’s and 80’s and awarded every contract I pitched.

    The funny thing about discrimination is you can’t be surgically precise. Try discriminating against anybody and it will eventually seep into every class and type of people, including the group populated by my bright, vivacious 13-year old brown daughter growing up in a predominantly white Anglo-Saxon America.

    I guess I support gay rights.

24. I have to point out that Desis such as Moornam are constant berated for expressing racial pride on here, and yet so many people think that “queer pride” is an acceptable concept.

    Gautham’s point is worth contemplating. SpoorLam routinely mocks MoorNam as some sort of proto-fascist because of his perceived Hindu Nationalist leanings. Mutineers cheer him on not only b/c he’s funny, but (as good humor should) he’s apparently revealing a larger truth—that MoorNam’s arguments are a slippery slope that logically ends with Hindu fanaticism. But gay pride (or black pride for that matter) has no such slope. Why?

    Because gays are clearly oppressed while Hindus are…well, here’s where it gets complicated. Couldn’t we see Hindu nationalism as post-colonial India reasserting itself after years of domination? Maybe the Gujurat riots were a response to Islamic terror, like Palestinian terrorism is a response to the Israeli occupation, or Black Panther violence a reaction to FBI terrorism (as Sleepy opines in post #25).

    The victim/oppressor dichotomy is not always as clear-cut as many would have us believe. Victims who seek an exemption from the “white pride” taboo must remember that they are not always going to be a victim, and how they handle their empowerment is based largely on whether or not they realize it is the individual that is the most vulnerable minority. Too many “liberation” movements have proved to be anything but, as the history of post-colonial Africa shows.

    But, of course, the above political dynamics aren’t really in play regarding gay pride, which seeks personal liberation from the shame of being gay. So what if they have a little pride? What’s the harm?

    I was listening to an interview with Steve Perry, a Principal of a successful charter school that’s been embraced by Bill Cosby (who’s been harshly criticizing modern poor black culture). He tells of students who are literally afraid to correctly answer questions in class for fear of being perceived by their peers as acting white. He speaks of the use of the “N-word,” which, as we know, began as an attempt to invert a symbol of oppression and has now come to it’s logical conclusion as evident in rap videos and magazines; a whole generation of young blacks accepting the worst stereotypes of them as true, but now being “proud” of it. What was advertised as liberation ended up being a form of enslavement.

    Which is why I’m not a cheerleader for Queer Pride. This ugly, separatist and confrontational word betrays, at the very least, a lack of the dignity that was central to MLK and Gandhi– who knew how to make the suffering of their own people the sufferings of all humanity. I see may gays embracing the worst stereotypes about themselves (that of the hyper sexual gay man) while others have extreme vitriolic reactions toward dissenters like Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia. Because they seek to define an identity for a whole diverse group of people, these identity movements inevitably become rigid and often turn against their own, as evidenced by many post on this very site (brown sahib, brutha on brutha violence.) My own impression is that individualism will win out, especially since most gays are not at odds with capitalism. Nonetheless, my warning is that like political “liberation” movements, personal ones can end up to be anything but.

25. Manju:

    Your interpretation of Moornam and Hindu nationalism seems to be right on. I don’t understand why respecting and standing up for Hinduism automatically lumps you in with the BJP and Shiv Sena. In fact, they are probably the most un-Hindu people around, they just use the symbols to incite the masses. Many Christians, Muslims, etc. on this site preach their gospel and they are treated with respect, but any time anyone brings up anything about Hinduism that doesn’t involve caste oppression, Sati, child marriage, eating cows, or some other stupid issue the Western Media obsesses over, they are automatically mocked and labeled fundamentalist. India’s problems are mostly the result of hundreds of years of foreign occupation (by not just Europeans but also Mughals, who were many times worse), overpopulation, and extremely segmented educational and economic advancement. Though I hate her book, Arundhati Roy points out that many Christians (and Muslims) in India observe the same restrictions and prejudices in regards to caste, making it hardly a “hindu-only” problem. Point being, everything that’s wrong with India is not because of the Hindus, and there is a great deal of wisdom and value in our ancient teachings, which is why they are so in vogue these days.

    On a side bar, in my view, terrorism is just word used to incite people. There are a lot of myths perpetuated by the Western media that “terrorists” are some evil mutation of dark people (both on the inside and outside), when actually all terrorism really boils down to is violence against civilians. Terrible? Yes. Restricted merely to those we call “terrorists”? Absolutely not true. We are currently bombing the shit out Iraqi civilians, not to mention the fact they NEVER attacked Americans. Is that Terrorism? Israeli soldiers consistently use American-made advanced weapons on unarmed Palestinians. And yet the PLO is a “terrorist” organization. Timothy McVeigh personally killed over 200 Americans, partly because of his affiliation with radical militant groups like the Michigan Militia. But because he’s American (or white) he’s not a terrorist. He’s just a psycho. Why are we so eager to label these people? So we can establish some artificial distance, so that we believe that somehow we are superior. The fact is, America is just like any other country. All you have to do is look at recent history (Waco, Guantanamo, Abu Graib etc) to know that here, in the home of democracy, we kill, torture, and degrade people, whether innocent or guilty. This is not intended to be some sort of anti-american rant; I’m just pointing out that we have no moral high ground to be judging the actions of others. Dropping bombs on people from planes is not morally superior to strapping the to your chest. Both are disgusting and wrong.

26. Manju:

    you’re right that sometimes people who are perceived as the ‘majority’ do sometimes get berated by others for their views. however i don’t think that reclaiming and reshaping your own identity is a bad thing, or that it leads to situations like that of ‘modern poor black culture.’

    what’s the basis of blaming the black pride movement for entrenching black poverty? the black pride movement does not glamourise being uneducated and poor, it worked and still works against an implicit other movement that promotes being rich and educated as being white. just because there is no movement labelled ‘white pride’ does not mean that there are not forces from the wider community that are internalised by kids growing up.

    the pride movement was meant to work alongside economic reforms and redistribution to help reduce the problem of poverty. that never happened, except on a small scale through affirmative action which helps individuals but neglects communal problems.

    people who ‘own’ negative stereotypes are not representative of identity politics, which is about recognising that an unfair identity is placed on minority groups by the majority, and recreating a new positive identity.

    pointing to rap and hip hop music is a classic example. except for a few artists like kanye west and common, black artists who do not conform to the ‘pimps and ho’s don’t hate the playa hate the game nigga’ stereotype are left outside of a mainstream music industry that is dominated by white males. so who’s perpetuating the negativity here?…

    the problem with the neutral individualism you’re looking for is that none exists. those who rely on this look at western liberalism which is as culture-specific as identity politics.

    queer desis show that we are shpaed by many contexts. they are part of both queer culture, desi culture, western culture etc.

    Maybe the Gujurat riots were a response to Islamic terror, like Palestinian terrorism is a response to the Israeli occupation, or Black Panther violence a reaction to FBI terrorism

    how are unofficial movements that work on a small scale against state-terrorism comparable to state-sanctioned and funded actions against a minority religious group that just like other religions has a fundamentalist vein?

27. fascinating discussion. siddhartha, thanks for posting about this. i flinched when i saw the post, warily anticipating the discussion that might follow. it’s been interesting reading the comments. just a few thoughts…

    1) For those discussing franz fanon, yay! 2) Poor moornam, if you need to get acceptance and permission for your smallest decisions in your life, well, i don’t have anything more to say. 3) Dear manju, i guess queer desis have “already won”. i guess, in your world, we really should be thankful and shouldn’t be making any more noise. i get it. 4) For the commenters who posted things like “what people do with their assholes shouldn’t matter” just an fyi… very well intentioned but lgbt rights aren’t really about what folks do in bed. lgbt issues/rights are about respect and about loving “love”. To reduce lgbt issues to what people do in bed is a bit reductive. 5) And lastly, floridian, thanks from the bottom of my heart for sharing your train of thought, you made my day:

    Whenever I thing about gay rights, the old fashioned first-generation Indian in me recoils at the liberalism of giving homosexuals equal rights. Then I think of little, ole me – first-generation Indian, accented I am sure, peddling my services to mainstream Americans in the 70’s and 80’s and awarded every contract I pitched. The funny thing about discrimination is you can’t be surgically precise. Try discriminating against anybody and it will eventually seep into every class and type of people, including the group populated by my bright, vivacious 13-year old brown daughter growing up in a predominantly white Anglo-Saxon America. I guess I support gay rights.

    :>

28. Mutineers cheer him on not only b/c he’s funny, but (as good humor should) he’s apparently revealing a larger truth—that MoorNam’s arguments are a slippery slope that logically ends with Hindu fanaticism. But gay pride (or black pride for that matter) has no such slope. Why?

    Identity politics just is–whether or not it is “good” or “bad” depends on the context. This should be obvious from such extremely different examples as Nazism and the Black civil rights movement, both of which mobilized large numbers of people behind an ideological identity. To put all groups of identity-based communities in the same box without looking at the purpose for which those identities are used (e.g.. to fight disempowerment; to opress people; to marginalize others) or at the amount and manner of power wielded by the people making up that identity community seems completely disconnected from social reality.

29. Manju:

    He speaks of the use of the “N-word,” which, as we know, began as an attempt to invert a symbol of oppression and has now come to it’s logical conclusion as evident in rap videos and magazines; a whole generation of young blacks accepting the worst stereotypes of them as true, but now being “proud” of it. What was advertised as liberation ended up being a form of enslavement.

    But Manju, it sells, there’s demand for this identity, so why shouldn’t they be proud of it? How can it be ‘enslavement’ when P.Diddy is one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry? He’s basically a media mogul and he did it by capitalizing on his identity. Now why shouldn’t young black men look up to that? It’s not as bad as you think man, mainstream hip hop doesn’t pretend to be a victim, it’s about ‘Movin on Up’….about bling bling.

30. Anjua:

    How can it be ‘enslavement’ when P.Diddy is one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry?

    The sociopolitics of the hip hop industry are a lot more complicated than that. Ask any underground/semi-underground hip hop artist (or give yourself some aural pleasure and just listen to Black Star- it discusses all the elements of racial identity that we’ve discussed here).

    Manju makes an interesting point:

    My own impression is that individualism will win out, especially since most gays are not at odds with capitalism. Nonetheless, my warning is that like political “liberation” movements, personal ones can end up to be anything but.

    While I give due acknowledgement to the fact that class privilege does afford people considerable agency, class privilege for people of color, women or queer identified folks does not mean they have achieved equality on a race, gender or sexual identity basis. It just means they have either circumvented the said issues, or they have capitalized on an image of those identities that the mainstream finds palatable. How can “bling bling” on a black guy symbolize racial liberation if it comes from child slaves in Africa stuck in a system that sublimates racism and colonization into economic imperlialism? Similarly, how good is Aishwarya’s creating a global consciousness of India in the 21st century if she reverts to the same old “We are the land of kama sutra” BS? And how can Will and Grace symbolize sexual identity liberation if the show perpetuates the mainstream image of queerness being nothing but wealthy, materialistic, hypersexual and flam (Oh! and I forgot, only male homosexuality)?

    It’s like “You people are ok, as long as you agree to be our minstrels and buy our stuff.” People, let’s dance and not shuffle.

31. Manju:

    Yeah, I understand the logic behind taking the N-word or the word “Queer” and turning it around by using it as a badge of honor, but there is still something very sad, undignified, contradictory, or even dangerous, about it.

    To add to Dutty Brown Boi’s response to that, I also want note that “queer” is a term that is used because it is all-encompassing.

    Within today’s active queer community, sexuality is seen as entirely different from gender. Sexuality refers to social intercourse, and gender is a societal construct that just happens to consist of two categories, one “male” and one “female”, that are supposed to be opposites.

    The categories of “gay” and “lesbian” are orientations based on a male-female gender dichotomy, and I guess saying “queer” is better than saying LGBTIQ, especially considering the enormous diversity within the queer community. I have cisgendered and transgendered (pre and post-op) friends who are firm in their gender as male or female, but queer their sexuality. Yes, it is possible to be a straight male or female, and still be flexible in your sexuality. And then I have friends who have an exclusive preference in their partner, but will not allow themselves to be called gay, straight, lesbian, etc. because they queer their whole gender (“gender-queers”, “gender-fucks”), invalidating those terms altogether.

32. shruti,

    I have cisgendered and transgendered (pre and post-op) friends who are firm in their gender as male or female, but queer their sexuality. Yes, it is possible to be a straight male or female, and still be flexible in your sexuality. And then I have friends who have an exclusive preference in their partner, but will not allow themselves to be called gay, straight, lesbian, etc. because they queer their whole gender (“gender-queers”, “gender-fucks”), invalidating those terms altogether.

    wow. you’ve taken the whole discourse to a higher level — like argentina’s play in the world cup. damn! i thought i was more or less up to speed on the distinctions and identifiers. far from it! thanks for educating a brother.

    peace

33. You’re welcome 🙂

34. I’m really happy to see this topic blogged on, and I really hope that people attend the conference (and by extension, Pride)! Reading through all these comments has been… lengthy, but a few things stuck out. Because I’m late on the boat, comments will unfortunately jump around a lot:

    why do queer desis feel like they are in some unusually difficult position?

    I wonder why straight desis ask questions like these. I wonder, isn’t this rather obvious, and if not, what is unclear or mystifying? Unusually difficult compared to whom?

    On the subject of Pride (briefly and unphilosophically): Every day is pretty much Straight Pride Day, so if folks want to get together and rally, I am all for it. I think it’s easy, as someone who identifies as hetero/straight, to brush aside issues of queer equality. People point to the popularity of gay marriage and go “oh look, equality.” While gay marriage is super important, it also ignores the fact that people are murdered every day in this country, from liberal SF to (presumably) conservative Colorado for either being, or being perceived as, queer. And murder is just the most extreme example of violence. Pride is about community, safety, empowerment, love, and celebration. I think the world could use more of all of those things.

    Black Power I think there’s been a huge misreading of the (US) Black Power movement on the part of the anti-pride apologists. I would recommend delving a little further than popular media imaging of the “scary” Black Panthers and instead trying some critical reading in Black thought, especially in internationalist thought. It becomes even more interesting if you throw in the UK Black Power movement, which had a super strong desi twist to it in the early 70s through 90s.

    And Shruti, I’m so glad you introduced the topic of the all-encompassing’ness of “Queer” identity. I also have friends who hate locking themselves into the rhetoric of hetero gender binaries. When we throw in being gender queer I think we have to really challenge ourselves to reorient not only our views of ourselves and masculinities/femininities, but also how we view equality, justice, and acceptance.

35. Shruti:

    The sociopolitics of the hip hop industry are a lot more complicated than that. Ask any underground/semi-underground hip hop artist (or give yourself some aural pleasure and just listen to Black Star- it discusses all the elements of racial identity that we’ve discussed here).

    I was being sarcastic with my comment.

36. I guess saying “queer” is better than saying LGBTIQ, especially considering the enormous diversity within the queer community…Yes, it is possible to be a straight male or female, and still be flexible in your sexuality.

    Heh…it’s always interesting to talk to other queers about what “queer” means. I’ve gotten to the point where I use it two different ways–one is the first definition you’re offering, which is basically an identity category label. The other is political in nature and about your attitude towards relationships and the ideology behind insistence on heterosexuality. I try not to blur the two, to the extent that I can avoid it, because same-sex attraction seems a slightly different thing to me than a way of thinking/living that politically challenges ideas like “marriage,” “family” etc., though the two often overlap. Perhaps this means we’ve made progress.

37. Don’t know if anyone else caught the Sundance docu on Charles Busch; (s)he of Die Mommie Die Fame. Anyways, they showed this shaky video of someone Chuck B. cites as one of his earliest influences – a performer called Bina Sharif at an East Village dive called the Limbo Lounge . Bina , a FOB with our beloved Bombay English accent, you go girl. I wonder where you are now …..

38. Has anyone seen the B rate Bollywood movie, “Girlfriends”? It is about two lesbians and a guy.

39. Club La Zeez & SATRANG

    PRESENT
    Belly Bolly 4
    Total Masti & Hips Shaking
    
    The South Asian & Arabic LGBT dance event coming back for the fourth time at La Zeez  and hosted by SATRANG after three successful events playing the best  and hottest remixes of Indian / South Asian , Arabic ,and International world hits .
    Enjoy La Zeez exotic dance shows with belly dance and bollywood flavors and meet  the coolest LGBT South Asian and Middle Eastern crowd in Southern California and Los Angeles
    
    Saturday , July 12th
    
    10pm - 2am  
    $10
    
    @
    
    The STONE DANCE BAR - 5221 Hollywood blvd , between Western and Normandie
    Hollywood , Ca 90027
    visit us also at 
    http://www.myspace.com/la_zeez_dance
    

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