LSR’s Queerosity spreads awareness on LGBTs

Pointing out that the group was an ‘informal collective’, the member added, “This group came together in August, a lot of collectives and groups have come together on university campuses — in Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University — as a result of the Supreme Court judgment. There is a lot of anger against the government for its regressive stand on Article 377. We have no hope of the issue being taken up in Parliament. We want to shame the government and the court for taking up such an archaic stand on the issue.”

According to members of the collective, the group is not even looking at getting recognition from college authorities.

“Recognition would mean that certain bureaucratic procedures will have to be adopted by the group. So, we are not seeking recognition from the college. This is a cultural society which will raise issues of queerness, transgender-ism, gay-ism, lesbian-ism. It is a heterogeneous group which has LGBT members as well as LGBT supporters. There is a complete mix of students. Our effort is to sensitise and raise awareness,” the member added.

The group plans to collaborate with other such groups on campus to organise events in the “hope of breaking the silence on this issue”. While gender societies at the university and the college level already exist, members of Queerosity felt that not enough attention was being paid to the concerns of the LGBT community.

“Although we have a gender group in college — the Women’s Development Cell — which at times dealt with lesbianism, etc in its own right, it became restricted to looking at women’s issues and gender violence,” the member added.