User:Anjali K Patalia/sandbox

= QueerAbad = QueerAbad is an online support group of LGBTQIA community of Ahmedabad city. It seeks to create a safe space and support for the city's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersex and asexual communities and its allies. It is responsible behind organizing Gujarat's first queer conference 'Sambandh: West Zone queer conference'.

Objectives
This QueerAbad is a key of awareness which works because of belief, response and great micro-managing or to organize the LGBTQIA rights in India. This queer parade held for the reasons that queer people want to show their parents that only my life is not different from you, there are many who live as I am. One of the famous designer Sushant Mahera of them, who also brought his parent with him for  this purpose , majority of people in conference were being LGBTQIA [ Lesbians ,Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Allies] participated with great enthusiasm.

These queer people’s   major goal is to take  these conversations to the next level and analysis queer arbitration and concerns about common issues relating to the community and from holistic perspective .their parents are still not confirm about what their children status meant, and in some other situation parents don’t want to accept their sexual orientation. The main purpose was not decriminalizing article 377 that supposed to legalize gay relationship in India, this would definitely applicable at logistic level but it cannot completely change social acceptance, this acceptance would only come with awareness in the society’s pool of knowledge. So this kind of Queer parade is held to achieve society acceptance at extent level with their reality. Through this Queer parade they forgot their stress about their life in few hours and these people has chance to let their hair down to revel in their chosen identities without any hesitation of being judged. And this Queer parade turn into pleasant surprise moment in their lives. These Queer people never want to be labeled based on their relation or sexual orientation they seek that their work speaks as it does for most others because “if there is no acceptance at the person’s workplace, it will affect his\her performance at work.”

Intense of this queer conference held over two days, that develop awareness in the society mainly focused to concern deeply upon issues of –“Queer Orientation in culture” and “its existence in literature and cinema”. In the parade, they caring   placards with amazing slogans – “it’s not queer to be Queer”, “it’s never too straight”, “my body my right” and “some are born in their bodies- other have to fight for it”. Through this conference, many people are changing their attitudes. Now society is gradually opening itself by acknowledging the Queer as one of its own child.

History and Reason
Section 377 of Indian penal code states that “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man; woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

But as this section was introduced during British rule so in 2009 this section was declared to be illegitimate. However in December 11, 2013 the Supreme Court invalidated this judgment and hence it faced a lot of opposition. Also the LGBT community do not get the right and equality that non LGBT people get. To fight for this there were queer associations formed in some places of India like Mumbai, Delhi, Tamilnadu, Bangalore.

In Gujarat Shamini Kothari and Anahita Sarabhai, decided to start the first queer association of Gujarat. With an aim to build a platform for LGBTQIA community and provide them with a safe space they formed Queerabad – a queer group association in June 2016. They named it Queerabad not only because of the city association but also because of the fact that 'abad' also meant 'cultivated place' which they rightly felt was needed for the queer scenario. The main reason to form this group was to get answers to the questions as ‘how to ease parents into one’s sexuality’, ‘what does it mean to be queer identifying’, ‘representation of queer in art and culture’. Due to severe lack that was felt in the lives of queer in Ahmedabad and because of not getting recognition they thought of forming this organization.

With fast developing Ahmedabad in respect of all sorts of cultural events like drama, comedy, poetry, and so on there came a thought in minds of both Shamini and Anahita that this was the right time to build a queer space in Ahmedabad and hence ended up with the formation of Queerabad.

With this thought and formation of Queerabad, they started with its first event of poetry reading at the Natarani cafe and later organised a three days event Sambandh- The West Zone Queer Conference at the Darpana academy followed by first Queer pride parade from Kanoria art center to Darpana academy of performing arts in Ushmanpura with 17 paper presentations and about 150 participants and a queer mela on 17th February where there was an open mike event for stand-up performances, poems, monologues and even singing and dancing.

Events
Queerabad organised its first event of reading poetry. The organizers Shamini and Anahita expected about 25 to 35 people to be present at the event but surprisingly about 100 people turned out at the Queer poetry reading.

Later the members of Queerabad also organised a talk where Amruta Patil gave a speech and there was a workshop by Alok Vaid Menon. Queerabad organizes a monthly meeting called “Ask what you will” during which people ask questions anonymously and others try to answer them.

Queerabad once also came up with a “Queer Erotica Reading” where an excellent discussion carried on.

The three days event-Sambandh which was the first west zone queer conference also included paper presentation on topics like “How queer is queer enough”, “Maharanis with a pink mirror. Gulabi Aaina” and “The LGBT struggle in India” along with the Pride march soon after the conference ending in a fair.

Queer mela that was arranged on 17th of February came up with open mike events comprising of stand up performances, poetries, monologues and some singing and dancing too by the members of the community. At the workshop held during the three days event the key note address was delivered by Brinda bose, the associate professor, centre for English studies at JNU. The chairing of the plenary session was done by Akshay Khanna who is a social anthropologist and an activist.

Apart from all these events Queerabad was also working on a Queer zine which was titled as “Tilt” and was published around the time when the Queer pride was organised. Also the information booklets comprising of information regarding mental health, trans identities and the definitions of the whole spectrum was published at the same time when the magazine was published.

Recently on 14th of April, 2018 Queerabad collaborating with the Nomad Café Film Club organised a special screening of “Ka Bodyscapes”, a Malayali film directed by Jayan K. Cherian.

Above all these events Queerabad will in future be organizing many more events for the LGBT community and their upbringing.