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Stigmas attached to trans people’s identity make them vulnerable to harassment and violence in their homes, schools, workplaces and in public. Instead of protecting their rights, existing laws not only ignore their needs and realities, but also criminalise them. With a conservative estimate of 4.88 Lakh transgender persons in India (as per the 2011 Census), these violations affect a large number of people.
Written by Gee Imaan Semmalar and illustrated by Kruttika Susarla, with support from Choice, the brief has been published in the light of the hugely problematic Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016. It can be used by anyone looking to expand their knowledge on laws and policies for the transgender community, or by trainers in gender workshops and trainings to further dialogue and action to expand rights provision and violence prevention in different ways.
The publication was compiled and published in September 2019, marking one year of the historic Supreme Court judgement on Section 377 decriminalising homosexuality. The anthology aims to bring together a range of voices critiquing the judgement for the political possibilities it offered, while also reflecting on the many ways in which the judgement fell short.
In its celebrations of Women’s History Month, TYPF conducted an interview-series called “Movers and Shakers: In Conversation with History”. By engaging with feminist individuals from across the country, we hope to revisit significant moments and gain new perspectives on our understanding of history through the experiences of these remarkable women.
Chayanika Shah has been involved in the autonomous women’s rights movements since the late 1970’s. She started off by actively campaigning against hostel regulations for women students while studying in IIT Bombay, after which she joined the Forum against Oppression of Women. Since then, she has been an active participant in various significant protests, campaigns, and national conferences. She joined Stree Sangam, which is currently is known as LABIA – A Queer Feminist LBT Collective. Currently, she has taken voluntary retirement from teaching Physics at a college in Mumbai, and is still active as ever in women’s movements across the country.
Shannon: What led to you getting involved in the women’s rights movement?
Chayanika: I always feel old when I have to talk about things like this, which is why I’m smiling! I think that I have known of women’s groups and been a part of them since 1979, which is when the first round of groups started getting formed in Bombay. So I was a student at that time, studying in Bombay, and the first women’s march I remember was in 1980.
Chayanika: Yes! So by then Forum against Rape had already formed. And I remember seeing their poster in our campus. One of my first memories of being part of a protest demonstration is from 1981 or ’82 when a young kid had been raped by a policeman at one of the local stations here. But outside of that, I think one of the first campaigns that we did was on campus, which is much like the Pinjra Tod that is happening today, which was about changing the rules in our hostel.
I studied in IIT and the hostels were named Student Hostel 1, Hostel 2, up to 9, and then there was the Ladies Hostel. The first fight we had was in ’78 when we said we wanted the hostel to be renamed Hostel 10, which we managed to do. Then, we also had this curfew time where we had to be back inside by 10:30pm, I think. And we just decided that we didn’t believe in any of these rules, and we broke them! And the inter-hostel movement was another thing we fought for, and we managed to implement it too.
The first campaign I remember that was feminist in character was in ’78 or ‘79. And then subsequently, the groups had started forming in the city, and I joined the Forum around 1983. So I’ve been around since then, and so is the group and we continue to meet even now.
Shannon: So you have actually seen the entire movement from its very genesis to its growth over the past couple of decades.
Chayanika: Almost 4 decades now, so most of my life actually. It was also post-Emergency, so many other things were also happening, and not just the women’s movement. There were many other struggles that went on alongside the women’s groups, and many of the people in the women’s groups came from those movements. However, I joined the women’s groups and then went on to other movements from there.
Shannon: And movements regarding LGBTQ issues?
Chayanika: For me, the articulation of the queer voice within women’s movements dates back to ‘87 as a campaign issue. But conversations around being lesbian, and the knowledge of lesbian women within the groups was there even when I had joined. For example, the Forum would meet in a household of two women, who we all knew were a couple. And for me the fact that they met in a lesbian couples’ home made me think that this group is welcoming to lesbian women and that all was fine. My understanding at that time was also that we didn’t need to be very open and out, and that I don’t need to label myself; I can be in a relationship with whoever, it really does not matter. But there was a lot of conversation, and there was a feminist understanding of sexuality and of relationships. Though there was an acceptance of being lesbian, there was no foregrounding of issues. So one felt that there was space within these groups to be who you are to a certain extent, but there were no campaigns that were being taken up.
“My understanding at that time was also that we didn’t need to be very open and out, and that I don’t need to label myself; I can be in a relationship with whoever, it really does not matter… there was a lot of conversation, and there was a feminist understanding of sexuality and of relationships.”
The first discussions that I remember were in ‘82, when at a meeting in Delhi there was a creative workshop called Kriti and there was a closed-door meeting of lesbian women. So within women’s groups you always knew who they were and what conversations were happening, but the public face of the women’s groups never spoke of lesbian issues. These issues came up in ‘87, when a couple got married and were thrown out of their jobs. That was the first time that, as women’s groups, we wrote that it wasn’t alright and that people should not be losing their jobs because of relationships. That was the first public conversation on this issue. And for the Forum, amongst us there has been conversation in the context of personal laws. So when you talk about laws around marriage, we have constantly spoken amongst ourselves about all kinds of relationships; relationships as a part of heterosexual marriages, as well as lesbian and gay relationships. These conversations have been a part of our understanding of marriage, family.
Shannon: So, what do you think led to this space being created, where these issues weren’t just talked about amongst people who were actively affected by it, but was being put out on to a public platform?
Chayanika: I think that in the history of the autonomous women’s movement, we have had about 7 conferences. In the fourth conference in Calcutta in ‘89, there was a meeting of single women. These non-married women got together and spoke, and in this meeting some lesbian women also came out to each other in a larger unknown group… At the Tirupati conference [in ‘92], there was a session on sexuality, where there was a lot of discussion on lesbianism. But there was a separate meeting for ‘women who loved women’ – that’s the term we used then. So ‘women who loved women’ met separately, and that was the first time that we were saying to a larger audience of women’s movements that there is a presence of women who love each other, who want to find a space for themselves. It wasn’t very easy, we faced a lot of backlash for doing that in that conference… but there was also support. And I think that started off a discussion.
Also, in the 90’s, two things happened. One was HIV AIDS and the groups that were organizing campaigns, and conversations about sexuality were opening up due to work around this issue. Second was that a lot of queer people were coming back. This was unlike the earlier years when many left the country because they found that they could not live as “lesbians” in India. In contrast in the 90s, younger people who came out while studying outside came back to India and said that ‘we are here and we don’t want to lead hidden lives, we want to be out there in the open’. And so for the first time in the early/mid 90’s, women in the Forum started saying that they are lesbians and were open about it outside of the group. Organizing of groups of lesbian women for lesbian women by lesbian women pushed the women’s movements to be more open about it.
“…in the 90s, younger people who came out while studying outside came back to India and said, “we are here and we don’t want to lead hidden lives, we want to be out there in the open.””
From then to now, I also find a lot of people have actually shifted somewhat in their understanding of sexuality. And not just around sexuality, but on issues of genders as well, to talk of non-binary genders and so on.
Women’s movements have their blind spots, like all of us do, but there has continuously been pressure from within and outside to keep moving in our understanding. It doesn’t come easy to everybody but at the same time I think that if I look around and see other movements, I find that the women’s movements in the articulation of morality has shifted quite a bit, and moved quite a bit on the issue of different and diverse sexual orientations. And I think it’s starting to move on diverse gender identities as well.
Shannon: So that was going to be my next question; the entire discussion of homosexuality began with ‘women who love women’. How did it grow from being about ‘women who love women’ to a wider umbrella of issues?
Chayanika: So the issues of all queer people, have become issues of the women’s movements. But the women’s movements itself has not really opened itself up to talk of all genders. So men, as in cis men, are not really a part of the women’s movements in the same organic manner as women, that is cis women, are. In the sense that when we talk of homosexuality, we primarily reach out to lesbian women, not gay men.
As far as issues go, I think for LABIA itself, it has been a learning curve. Because while we have people amongst us who do not feel like women, we didn’t have the language of how to articulate it. I think in some way our feminism also restricted us. I mean, feminism allows us to be any kind of women right? So then if somebody is not fitting in, the older feminism taught me to say that I’m a different kind of womaen. But now, it has pushed us to start looking at gender very differently. So with LABIA, we learned over the years the image politics of non-binary genders. From seeing different kinds of women to seeing gender beyond the binary has come from meeting people who are different and learning from them. Today I would say I feel ashamed to say that as feminists we never looked at transwomen as women, and that was our mistake, our narrowness of vision. We saw them all the time (at least as hijras) but never saw their issues as women’s issues. And I think that it finally happened because they told us that “you are not looking at us, look at us”.
“…I feel ashamed to say that as feminists we never looked at transwomen as women, and that was our mistake, our narrowness of vision. We saw them all the time but never saw their issues as women’s issues. And I think that it finally happened because they told us that “you are not looking at us, look at us.”
Shannon: At this point, do you think there’s a space where trans-issues are maybe seen at the same level as issues that concern cis women, or is there some sort of disconnect between the two?
Chayanika: At one level there’s no uniformity, I think. A person can make comments making distinctions between trans and cis women. Some might say that trans-women have had the experience of male privilege, and that cis women are ‘real’ women, and so on and so forth. But for us at LABIA, when someone says that they are a woman, they are a woman. It doesn’t matter, because they are all equally women. If someone says they are a man, then they are man. If someone says they are neither, they are neither. Nobody has any business to then rate their experiences in a hierarchy. Yes, our experiences of the patriarchal world are different; it’s different for a Dalit and for a Brahmin woman. And I don’t think difference means hierarchy. There is a difference in our experiences, but that doesn’t make one real and the other unreal; it doesn’t make one intense and the other less intense. I don’t think that’s how one understands it.
“…when someone says that they are a woman, they are a woman… If someone says they are a man, then they are man. If someone says they are neither, they are neither. Nobody has any business to then rate their experiences in a hierarchy. ”
Shannon: So has intersectionality made it easier for everyone to talk about their own issues? Because one is aware of the fact that even as women, one experiences patriarchy in different ways.
Chayanika: We have learned intersectionality through doing this work. I say that because in this conversation I took only the track of cis women, of homosexual women, and of transgender women. But it was in our work within the women’s movements that issues of all like tribal, dalit and Muslim women came up, and the issues of women coming from marginalized groups and from conflict regions. Each one of them has told us that all women are different. And in my experience of being a woman, there are commonalities but there’s a vast amount of difference too. I think that the richness of listening to all these experiences has taught us intersectionality. That we today cannot speak of women as singular category is something that we have learned through all of this. And then in that narrative, trans-ness and disability is adding layers to see how complex every woman is, or every man or every person is. And how everyone’s gender is constructed by all of these together.
But then to say that we cannot talk about women, but talk of persons, is not the jump we make. And that is the difficult terrain; that you recognize that there is a gendered hierarchy in this world and there are still people who are being marginalized merely because of gender, but at the same time, marginalization has many other layers as well. So you are trying to work through this very messy terrain of seeing how to build solidarity between cis heteronormative women and the very marginalized women from all these other various categories. How to build solidarity across intersections is the real struggle. I think, that’s the most challenging bit.
Shannon: Do you think there is a connect between the digital space, where women’s and LGBTQ rights movements have gained ground, and the physical space where issues around these areas manifest or transpire?
Chayanika: I don’t know how much I understand of the digital space because it keeps transforming so fast. But I do feel that there are a lot of younger people today who have benefited a lot from having the internet and social media, to reach out and meet people and feel agitated in different ways. So if I look at the 80s, I think that ‘who did anyone really have to turn to?’ And I know that in 2015 they can find someone. I don’t know if it’s enough or if it reaches everybody, but there is a large chunk of people who are able to reach out to each other and also build a community. So that I recognize as a contribution of the digital age.
At the same time however, I don’t know if this is what makes communities. When I am this individual who is struggling to make sense and fight my battles within the isolation of my family or in a village, I don’t know if this kind of [digital] community helps. You need to have physical community. I put myself in the category that can manage without having my family or community support me; I don’t need that validation, as I am privileged enough to be autonomous. Autonomy itself is a privilege. And if I’m autonomous, then the digital community is enough for me and I can survive because I know that there are many people like me. But if I’m not able to do this transition – and I speak specifically about people from marginalized sections – I think when there is a larger maligning of community, then I seek to remain in it and if in that community I don’t find support, then this ephemeral support from the virtual does not really cut it. We need to do more, and there’s no getting away from doing more. It has become easier to reach out to a larger section, but even then, I think that a physical community is essential, and we have to spend more time building on it.
Shannon: So I had read this somewhere and I wanted your opinion on it:
“Younger Indians tend to be more tolerant towards gays. These twenty-somethings are a part of an emerging urban middle class that is connected to the rest of the world. Their numbers are not large enough to make a difference now, but half of the population is under 30, so in the long run, the demographics are favorable for the LGBT movement.”
Do you think there is truth in this statement?
Chayanika: I do think that younger people are more open. Younger people of a certain class, or from a certain region – say in a city like Bombay or from the middle and upper middle class – are growing in a neo-liberal world, where they believe in the concept of choice and think that it’s cool to be able to make choices of this nature. So I would agree with the first part of the statement; they are more tolerant. But at the same time, I think that difference is not really tolerated. For example, I may be tolerant of gays but I might also ask them not to show their gayness too much. I’ll tell them not to be so outwardly gay, to not flaunt it. We see young people looking the same across the board – where they have similar clothes or the same hair – so of course when someone is different, it stands out. So I don’t know how much of it has to do with tolerance. I mean, you do what you want to do in the bedroom but when it comes to the outside, or walking with me, or me welcoming you into my home, I don’t see that tolerance. I feel that the tolerance is very superficial. They might say yes to gay marriage, but if tomorrow I say that the meaning of being queer also includes toppling monogamy, then I don’t know how many people will agree. If I keep my public image of queerness like a heterosexual married couple, then yes, I am welcome. But if I will overturn any of these assumptions, then maybe not. Let’s see.
Shannon: Thank you, this has been incredibly insightful. Would you like to say some closing words?
Chayanika: Some words of wisdom? Well, I do think that the times we are in today are very challenging. If I look back and see the past 40 years, I feel that this is the most difficult time in terms of bringing about change. Even though I was too young to participate in any movement, I did witness the Emergency. And I think that these are tougher times than that and I think we all know the reasons why it is worse. I do feel that the voice of the margins is more strident at this time, and that is a cause of hope. My concern in these days and times is purely of how to build solidarity across differences. We may not agree with each other but we have to make it work so that society doesn’t move backwards. But I do feel a lot of hope.
Pride and Queer Movements in India – An interview with Debolina Dey
In this with The YP Foundation, Debolina Dey, a professor of English Literature at Ramjas College in the University of Delhi talks about pride, and the diversity of queer movements in India. Debolina further discusses about the importance of the participation of young people in queer movements, as well as the importance of the presence of older queers. She addresses the need to address mental health issues and the importance of safe spaces, and also comments on intersectionality and the need to form solidarities and alliances with other movements. Lastly, she also reflects upon her experience of teaching at Ramjas College.
Pride and Poetry – In conversation with Akhil Katiyal
In his interview with The YP Foundation, Akhil talks about poetry and politics. He also talks about the differences within the queer movements in the country, the change in student politics around queer rights and issues, as well as the organisation of Pride in Delhi.
Akhil teaches creative writing at the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University Delhi. He is the author of ‘How Many Countries Does the Indus Cross’ and ‘Night Charge Extra’, and is also known for his book ‘The Doubleness of Sexuality: Idioms of Same-Sex Desire in Modern India’.
Pride and Poetry – In conversation with Akhil Katiyal
In his interview with The YP Foundation, Akhil talks about poetry and politics. He also talks about the differences within the queer movements in the country, the change in student politics around queer rights and issues, as well as the organisation of Pride in Delhi.
Akhil teaches creative writing at the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University Delhi. He is the author of ‘How Many Countries Does the Indus Cross’ and ‘Night Charge Extra’, and is also known for his book ‘The Doubleness of Sexuality: Idioms of Same-Sex Desire in Modern India’.
The Queer Muslim Project – An interview with its founder Rafiul Alom Rahman
Rafiul Alom Rahman is the founder of The Queer Muslim Project (2017) of the Delhi University Queer Collective (2014). In an interview with Avali and Arunima from The YP Foundation, he talks about the challenges of organising around queer issues and politics within university spaces. He discusses the problem of non-recognition by university officials and the difficulty of having a space to hold discussions. He also reflected upon the queer movement in India where due to its restriction to urban spaces, it becomes representative of people with certain privilege, creating a wall. However, he is happy about the intersections that are coming up and demanding inclusion, for instance, Dalit queer rights. Rafiul also talked at length about the importance of The Queer Muslim Project – not only in the lives of Muslim-queers, but also in the larger socio-political context of the country.
How the Trans Act and MTP Amendments 2021 Interact
By Simran
What is gender-inclusive healthcare?
Gender-inclusive services make it possible for individuals in need of sexual or reproductive health services to feel at ease and protected. Gender-neutral washrooms, forms and paperwork including columns for ‘preferred pronouns’ instead of the two binaries, and adding gender identity to the non-discrimination policies are a few examples of inclusive healthcare practices that have helped queer people. Recognizing the person as a whole is at the heart of the development of patient-centered care. When we speak of such services, we do not simply focus on the design of the intervention and affirmative action strategies. These are necessary to ensure the integration of inclusive programmes into the developmental efforts that encompass every gender identity. We also focus on re-examining existing fundamental social structures and institutions that uphold exclusive services of healthcare and reforming them. This results in loss of power through various agencies of caste, class, race, sex, socio-economic backgrounds, and more.
The discourse surrounding gender-inclusive services have historically progressed in binaries, where we discuss men and women instead of the individual. Recently, there has been a growth in perspectives that focus on an unsexed discourse, keeping in mind the history of dissimilar societal positions for men, women, and queer identities. The discourse still refrains from using terms such as ‘citizen’ and is hesitant to use the term ‘individual’ as they are stereotypically considered to be male-oriented in its implications among traditional societal contexts. There is an urgent need to reform gendered systems that we have embraced since childhood and later realise are concepts we want to unlearn and relearn in our efforts to be inclusive and equitable.
A glimpse into India’s inclusivity in healthcare infrastructures:
When we look at India’s gender-inclusive health programmes, Tamil Nadu and Kerala stand out as one of the first states to have introduced comprehensive transgender welfare policies. In 2015, Kerala conducted a survey to map out the issues trans people face in their state and implemented a rights-based policy to comprehensively approach issues of healthcare, employment, education, violence, and political participation.
In 2016, Himachal Pradesh moved to set up medical boards at the district and state levels for supporting transgender folks. The same was then followed by Jammu and Kashmir, but they faced vehement backlash on the existence of a medical board to determine an individual’s identity by offering ‘transgender certificates’.
How does the Trans Act fit into all this?
Equality in its widest context is frequently substituted for a narrower, more limited interpretation. Communities with varying interests frequently use the notion of equality abundantly while advocating for their personal agendas. This holds the potential to hinder the work done to support queer people in obtaining an equal position in society. Queer activists have been very vocal about how the central government’s Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act 2019 does not comply with the NALSA judgment’s unique benefits.
The Trans Act calls for the formation of a District Screening Committee, that will include a medical officer and a psychiatrist, to identify an individual’s trans identity. The act denies self-determination of gender identity by stipulating a medical screening, which is deemed “progressive” but instead stigmatises trans issues and treats gender identity as a subject of external verification by District Screening Committees that encompass medical branches on the board.
It infantilises trans people and pushes them in more vulnerable positions by asserting that if a parent or immediate family member is “unable to take care of a transgender”, with no age requirement specified in the law, they should be transferred to a rehabilitation center. The law further neglects to administer affirmative action to rectify historic oppression and exploitation.
The law itself has often been called transphobic and discriminatory by various trans individuals. It neglects to address the institutionalised oppression faced by trans people in India through a rights-based attitude. Instead, the law suggests rehabilitation as a guideline, which in itself is completely discriminatory to transgender and intersex groups. This Act was widely protested against throughout the nation until 2019 and its repercussions further blur the guidelines and laws under which a trans person may avail of healthcare services.
Reproductive healthcare and the MTP Act.
Another concern for genderqueer people looking to avail of gender-inclusive reproductive healthcare facilities is the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. It is important to note that the amendment to MTP Act (2021) uses the word “women” throughout, although access to abortion services is critical not only for cisgender women but also for transgender, intersex, and gender-diverse persons.
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act states that the pregnant woman has to get the consent of one medical practitioner for pregnancy up to 20 weeks, two medical practitioners for pregnancies up to 20-24 weeks, and a medical board for pregnancies more than 24 weeks. Therefore, medical service providers have the power to make the final call on administering the abortion. Several accounts have been documented where the doctor has refused to let a woman obtain an abortion, whether it be for religious purposes, their personal bias, abortion offered only if the woman agreed to contraception or sterilisation, or demanding the spouse or parent’s consent.
While the MTP Act specifies that women don’t need consent from their parents or spouse to obtain an abortion, this is still practiced by various healthcare professionals. In many cases, informing a spouse or parent can put pregnant women at risk of violence. Requiring a doctor to authorise an abortion instead of allowing it based on the pregnant person’s consent is a violation of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence of reproductive autonomy by the healthcare professional.
The MTP Act is exceedingly cis-heteronormative. There is no clarification provided for how queer individuals can access abortion services. It is incredibly concerning how women themselves face numerous issues while trying to access safe abortions in India; the reality of such is far worse for queer people. It raises various questions and concerns regarding how doctors would be trained to understand queer requirements and handle cases with sensitivity if they are trained at all. Several health care services, practitioners, and insurance providers do not offer gender-inclusive care, which would aid in closing the accessibility gap.
Conclusion
When we get down to understanding the implications of normalising the use of exclusionary language in public policies, it can lead to various detrimental consequences. While it may not be explicitly transphobic or hateful, it does equate to marginalised and oppressed individuals being further denied access to resources and safe healthcare facilities. Healthcare professionals are not only misinformed and prejudiced in their practice due to lack of training and cultural norms, but medical centres are also not equipped with proper methods to help queer people get the correct interventions they require.
Transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and other genderqueer individuals need access to comprehensive reproductive health care as much as anyone else.
About the Campaign
This article is a part of a campaign that highlights the various barriers queer-trans* individuals face in accessing basic, abortion-based healthcare services and the role the MTP Act plays in it. It also speaks extensively of how these challenges affect the Indian demographic and the country’s current healthcare framework.
This campaign has been created by Simran, a Media Campaign Fellow with The YP Foundation.
About the author
Pursuing their Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, working as a Content Writer at The Swaddle, Copywriting at Lekh Haq, and graphic designing on the side, Simran (they/them) loves dipping their toes in every opportunity they can find. They were inspired to participate in TYPF’s SAFE Campaign to bring more attention to queer reproductive health issues.
The On-ground Reality of Gender-Inclusive Healthcare
By Simran
What are some barriers gender-queer people face while accessing reproductive healthcare in India?
While abortion is legal in India, it is currently accessible by a very small bracket of pregnant people. The Trans Act 2019 also makes it harder to clarify how queer people could access legal and safe abortion services if they fit the criteria stated by the new MTP Act 2021. Protestors have criticised the Trans Act for having the capability to increase oppression, marginalisation, and transphobia. Trans individuals assert that the Act directly breaches the 2014 NALSA judgement, which embraces self-identification of one’s gender. To have one’s identity recognised, trans people must be ‘certified’ by the district magistrate. Due to the extremely exorbitant costs charged at private health centres and the dearth of consideration at public hospitals, gender affirming surgeries continue to stay a distant hope for several transgender people that wish to undergo surergy.
Most healthcare professionals also only receive medical training which is centreed on the binary sex-gender framework and thus do not know how to treat trans people. They are also exceedingly prejudiced and often let it affect their level of care and professionalism. As a result, there have been accounts of doctors refusing to make contact with trans patients or asking them to undress in order to present their body parts as human specimens for their workmates. Apart from a few legislative developments, the de facto journey of trans people encountering the health system continues to remain detrimental, creating a tremendous obstacle to seeking health care.
According to a youth-led evaluation of sexual and reproductive health services in Lucknow, the public health sector severely lacks the infrastructure needed to deliver reliable sexual health services to young adults. Service practitioners are overwhelmed with labor and are extremely traditional once it gets down to delivering sexual health data and facilities. This encompasses emergency contraception, HIV consultation, and abortion facilities. When young adults attempt to utilise such facilities, they are frequently forced to answer intrusive inquiries about their personal lives, such as their marital status and sexuality. It is not only demeaning for them, but it also hinders their health-seeking tendencies.
Are people of varying sexualities able to access these services?
When it comes to sexual healthcare facilities; lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals encounter stigma and discrimination. This is due to cultural and societal perceptions, as well as prejudice associated with sexual actions involving LGB people. Traditionally, health care providers and physicians question women on whether they are married instead of whether they are sexually active. Even when a single cis-woman seeks healthcare, she has to think of the potential consequences such as facing embarrassment, slandering, or bewilderment by service providers.
The circumstance of lesbian and bisexual women who are not married to men is aggravated in this frame of reference, as it becomes unsafe and challenging to divulge that they do not have a male partner. They are also subjected to discriminatory practices due to how they choose to look or dress.
Furthermore, all domestic laws and policies reaffirm a cis-heteronormative family and societal framework, making same-sex relationships unavailable and thus unconstitutional. It, therefore, renders the simple act of seeking healthcare services exceedingly challenging for LGB people who openly express their sexual orientation. It further promotes an environment of exclusion, discrimination, and anxiety, which scars people’s identities and self-esteem and also has a detrimental influence on their overall well-being.
Queer people require access to equitable healthcare services, policies, and research that address their needs. While engaging with medical professionals, gender-queer individuals have encountered and reported various patterns of aggression, prejudice, stigma, and inequitable obstacles in an attempt to access safe healthcare services. As a result, it is imperative to readjust the current sexual and reproductive health structure and facilities in order to provide more equitable, inclusive, and discrimination-free healthcare services.
What are some risk factors India should be focusing on more?
The lack of focus on sexual and reproductive healthcare for people in India becomes apparent with the absence of recent research and attention being paid to the rising issues pregnant people face. While India has announced its aspiration of meeting United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) that help curb India’s maternal mortality rate, the focus still remains only upon women. Additionally, the MTP Act is extremely restrictive; it doesn’t allow every pregnant person to avail of safe abortion services in India. Even with the special clauses placed, pregnant people seeking abortion under the clauses of being minors or being sexually assaulted can be refused by the doctor since each state has the jurisdiction to overlook such cases.
Abortion has been legal for women in India since the early 1970s but rural women are especially at risk of undergoing an unsafe abortion. While privacy is ensured for women over 18, those under 18 are not provided the confidentiality clause, which puts young women (aged 15-19) at the highest risk of fatal consequences from an abortion-related complication. This poses a bigger risk for queer people who may come from queerphobic families or may not wish to come out to their parents yet, since it could invite the risk of violence and even homelessness. The MTP Act is also extremely ableist in nature by allowing no upper gestation limit for the cases where the fetus has an “anomaly”.
Other issues with the MTP Act and its implications on under-served communities:
The MTP Act disproportionately impacts people from marginalised castes (such as Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi folks) and people from rural backgrounds, by mandating a third-party authorisation for abortions after passing a 24-week gestation period. Such authorisations require varying expenses for services and travel which most marginalised communities cannot afford. There are also very few public health centres that provide the necessary facilities to trans folks undergoing transitions through hormones and surgeries, which can also be incredibly expensive. This adds to the barriers queer individuals face while trying to access safe and equitable healthcare facilities in India.
With the current exclusive healthcare practices and use of the language of laws and policies governing our country, it is important to remember that any individual with a uterus, not just a woman, should have safe access to reproductive healthcare facilities.
About the Campaign
This article is a part of a campaign that highlights the various barriers queer-trans* individuals face in accessing basic, abortion-based healthcare services and the role the MTP Act plays in it. It also speaks extensively of how these challenges affect the Indian demographic and the country’s current healthcare framework.
This campaign has been created by Simran, a Media Campaign Fellow with The YP Foundation.
About the author
Pursuing their Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, working as a Content Writer at The Swaddle, Copywriting at Lekh Haq, and graphic designing on the side, Simran (they/them) loves dipping their toes in every opportunity they can find. They were inspired to participate in TYPF’s SAFE Campaign to bring more attention to queer reproductive health issues.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with sex.
In October 2021, The YP Foundation and Agents of Ishq organised the Love, Sex and Data conference to advocate for a pleasure positive approach in research, programmatic interventions, or artistic work with young people. After three days of being behind the scenes and in front of screens talking about all things pleasure at this conference, I lay next to my partner in bed – mildly inebriated and deep in thought. As a masculine person attracted to women and feminine persons, my questions about pleasure and sex are similar to those of cis-het young men and boys – How do I pleasure my partner sexually? What do women like in bed? Can women have multiple orgasms, and if yes, how can I help?
As a sexuality educator, I’ve observed that young men’s concerns about their partners’ pleasure are often intimately tied to concerns about the status of their own masculinity. For instance, in male friendships and peer networks, the ability to pleasure cis-female sexual partners is traded as useful currency to establish their own status and popularity. Alternatively, if young men are not sexually active, desirable, or good in bed, they stand to lose respect, power, and authority. In this context, articulating one’s desires and needs – especially if they deviate from mainstream (read: patriarchal) norms of masculinity is totally unacceptable.
But it’s not just about cis-het boys. This relationship between masculinity, pleasure, and power can leave all masculine persons wholly confused and unprepared to deal with often conflicting experiences and thoughts on sex and desire. There is no space for socially frowned upon sexual desires – like receiving anal sex – without experiencing some form of stress, anxiety, bullying, or violence for young men in this context. But this could be particularly egregious for young transmasculine persons like myself, whose identities and desires are barely addressed, whether in conversations among “men” or in development or sexuality education interventions. Spaces for transmasculine persons to articulate their own relationship to masculinity and pleasure are either mired in stigma or completely absent.
So, that fateful night when my partner turned to me in bed, stroked my cheek, and gently asked me, “what brings you pleasure?” I began to think.
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As a transmasculine person, I find pleasure in sexual interactions that affirm my gender and masculinity. Therefore, whenever I find myself unable to “fit into” dominant masculine norms and expectations, I become anxious. For instance, a casual remark by a partner about my lack of interest or initiative in sex recently sent me into a depressing spiral. I worried that my lack of interest in sex would mean that I was not masculine enough in a culture where men are always and highly sexual. Combined with my trans* identity, this would further lead to a devaluation of my self determined gender in the eyes of others. These dominant notions of masculinity around sex and pleasure – while already problematic – are particularly harmful to marginalised masculine persons like myself. My relationship with sex and pleasure is complicated by experiences of bodily discomfort and incongruence which can often discourage enthusiastic participation in sexual activities. So while there is a need to challenge dominant masculine notions around sex and pleasure within cis-het masculine spaces, having conversations on pleasure and desire within trans* spaces – which may or may not relate to sex or sexuality at all – is also highly urgent.
But why pleasure? Pleasure is diverse and expansive. Even as I write about my own experiences of sexual pleasure, I recognise that pleasure is neither a homogenous experience tied to sex, nor is transmasculinity a monolith. I spent years looking for resources on sex and pleasure which would support me in navigating my sexual interactions and experiences of pleasure. What I found was either too alien from my own context, not pleasure-affirming, or only focussed on transitioning and STI/STD related information – which, although life-saving and important – does not and cannot encapsulate the diversity of transmasculine experience and desire. Transmasculine persons are not homogenous; and the more space we accord to sharing diverse experiences of sex, sexualities, and pleasure amongst transmasculine persons, the more space we can make for challenging and questioning mainstream discourses of masculinities that focus only on trans* trauma and deny our pleasures, happiness, and humanity.
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While the inability to fit into dominant masculine norms depressed me, the dovetailing of sexual pleasure that I experienced within dominant masculine notions also, excuse the metaphor, left a bad taste in my mouth. After years of engaging in feminist politics, I felt guilty and anxious that my sexual desire seemed to replicate models of “toxic” or “bad” masculinity in bed. This is why, when I tried my first strap-on after ample encouragement from a partner, I felt liberated and conflicted at the same time. The years of trying to unlearn that only penetration is pleasure caused a rift between what I experienced in my body and what had espoused in my mind. Am I being toxic if penetrating my feminine partner is the only thing that gives me pleasure? As a transmasculine person, must I subscribe to the same kind of reflection and unlearning that is expected out of cis-het men? Is that the only way to move towards more affirming and enjoyable sexual relationships for all genders? How do we even define affirming and enjoyable relationships? Is penetrating by virtue tied to dominance and power, and subordination and receiving to a lack of agency? Is that even fair, or accurate? I continue to reflect on these questions, even as I write this piece, and even as I firmly believe that penetration is not central to sex and that penetration is not a pre-requisite to being masculine in bed. It has also prompted more careful introspection on my part into the balance that I, as a transmasculine person, need to have between my relationship to – and internalising of – dominant understandings of masculinities, as well as the acknowledgement of my own vulnerability and marginalisation.
But most importantly, this rumination has led me to ask myself – isn’t pleasure inherently feminist? And if it is, then what would applying a pleasure-affirming lens to self acceptance as a trans* person mean to me? Is it possible to make space for experiences of pleasure like mine, that both challenge dominant notions of masculinity, but also escape prescriptive ideas of what one is supposed to or allowed to enjoy as feminists or people committed to the goal of gender equity? Ultimately, what does it mean to have #PrideInPleasure?
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I remember the first pair of boxers I ever bought. I touched them at the store, felt them against my skin, and thought about the shape they would take on my bedroom floor when I would take them off. I remember the first time I got a haircut that affirmed my gender, that enhanced my sexual confidence, and led to a barrage of selfies I took to put up on my shiny new Tinder profile. I remember the post-orgasm tingling I felt in my toes, the way I giggled in excitement for weeks, looking at my own reflection in the mirror. I remember the first time I had sex, and wondering later whether it even counted as sex, and knowing I had to do it again and again, just to be sure.
I remember these moments as my moments of pleasure.
This article was written as part of TYPF’s digital campaign for Pride Month in 2022. The #PrideInPleasure campaign highlights experiences of pleasure that do not find representation in mainstream media, and amplifies queer voices from the margins.
