One For All And All For One: Feminists & The Queer

As the Supreme Court gears up to hear a petition against #Section377, here is a poem that talks about how this fight is equally for all of us.

As the Supreme Court gears up to hear a petition against #Section377, here is a poem that talks about how this fight is equally for all of us.

The Supreme Court of India began reviewing petitions challenging a colonial-era law outlawing “un-natural” sex, on Tuesday, 10th July 2018. The hearing gives us all hope that ‘equal opportunities and rights for all genders’ may be achieved one day. I am a Feminist and proudly stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.

Here is a poem I have written about how the struggle for equality is not a struggle of the LGBTQ+ community’s alone.

Equality does not discriminate.
The rights of the woman or man
Or the queer one’s fate
Is not for the supreme power
To calculate.

There is need to educate.
Being born as a girl
And not a boy, does not make you inadequate.
Being queer is natural,
It’s not a joke or illness, so don’t humiliate.

We must contemplate.
Why the queers are not allowed
To procreate.
They also can’t marry or parent
Lest they contaminate?

Accept, don’t differentiate.
Let her race wearing her spikes
Or lead in her heels in a corporate
She can choose to marry or not
Or celebrate her same sex soul mate.

Recognize talent that’s innate.
Why stare at her ‘assets’
Or laugh at his effeminate voice to subjugate?
Equal pay for equal efforts
Should be a basic mandate.

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Victory is but a stalemate.
Misogyny and Homophobia
Reduce us to slave state.
The same traditions and customs
Also make you suffocate.

Time to embrace and liberate.
Aren’t we all
Just as ‘queer’ as we are straight?
Ditch the binary. Adopt the plural.
Let us give our gender norms an update.

We won’t yield. So don’t dominate.
We are unified against oppression.
We won’t let you manipulate.
Feminists and the Queer- we have but one aim,
Patriarchy, soon you shall disintegrate.

The destination of a Feminist and the LGBTQ+ community is the same, then why should our journeys be different?

Author’s Note: When I use the word queer in quotes, I refer to it being strange or odd. But when I use it without quotes, I refer to the umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual and/or not cisgender.

The poem was first published here.

Image source: pixabay

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About the Author

Ashwini S Menon

Like any other writer, I am always on the lookout for those golden words that can touch people's hearts. But more often than not, I just write so that my soul can speak. Either read more...

14 Posts | 39,501 Views

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