A group of around 30 people from Dalit communities, who identify as queer, have come together for a nationwide project to help others from the community.
The Dalit Queer Project, launched in the first week of October, aims to improve the representation of Dalit queers in all walks of life and emphasise the importance of caste politics in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) politics.
“In our experience we have yet to come across an organisation which is exclusively run by and for Dalit-queer folks. That is both a strength as well as a challenge for our project. As Dalit-queer people, our experiences of both identities vary greatly depending on ability, class, religion, and ethnicity,” said Akunth, a graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and a founding member of the project.
The project members plan to mobilise social media to highlight the Dalit-queer perspectives in the form of art, poems, narratives sourced within the community. The offline engagements would consist community meet-ups, consultations and workshops on issues of identity formation, menstruation, reproductive health and gender.
“The community has forged families outside accepted familial boundaries for decades. We look to establish such ties within the community. Thus, it’s important that our voices are centered as a way of pride and we acknowledge the work of fellow Dalit queer members,” said Rachelle Bharathi Chandran, a Dalit queer and a researcher at Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.