reading queer South Asian literature | Femme in Public poetry chapbook

Gargi Sharma
3 min readMay 5, 2019

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(possibly pt. 1 of the South Asian queer lit I read this year)
this is a no transphobia zone

from the website: What feminine part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to survive in this world? At what point does femininity become synonymous with apology? Who hurt the people who hurt you? Let’s figure it out.

Femme In Public (2017) is a collection of poetry by nonbinary artist Alok Vaid-Menon. In the author’s words it “is a dream of what it could look like to celebrate transfemininity in public — both in ourselves and for the people who desire us (by which I mean: everyone, across time, always).”

Femme in Public poetry chapbook

Femme in Public is available as a digital download for USD 6 on Alok’s website. (this is obviously not an advertisement) below are some notes i made while reading the 35-page long chapbook:

Femme in Public is likely the best book I’ve read this year. Alok’s writing is harrowing and somehow full of optimism.

“but i have stopped traffic simply by going outside.
i have suspended time. i have made everyone watch. i
have shed every category, word, and lie. i have etched
myself so deep inside, they will never forget me.

i have found a way to live forever.”

erasure = visibility = hyper-visibility = alienation and othering from one’s self = invisibility

“i have come to the conclusion then, that the only place i am allowed to exist is a photograph…EXHIBIT B: HOW INSPIRATIONAL! (read: i would never)”

I am reminded of Grace Neutral’s video about the ‘beauty revolution’ in Brazil — a person being interviewed said people like us are beautiful on the internet. beautiful on the internet means weird in real life. it means people point and mock and take your pictures without your consent. you’re that girl.

“the difference between “gender” and “sexuality” is a
fiction
let’s be more specific: is a love story.
is who gets taken home and who is left alone.

the more visible i am the more invisible i am.
the more feminine i am the less desirable i am.
the more honest i am the more lonely i am.”

beauty is fabulosity is weirdness is undesirability.

they will forget you, you will never forget them.

othering is dehumanising. your bias is your personal problem, but it is my personal experience.

i wish i could “love myself ” out of systemic oppression.
trauma is a structure, not a feeling.

positivity culture is trash. it delegitimises. it dehumanises. it invalidates. and it evades accountability.

and now the part that hit closest to home:

THEY WILL TRY THEIR BEST TO DESTROY YOU AND CALL IT LOVE

They write about the experience of growing up in a South Asian culture:

How so many of us will spend our entire lives grieving
not only the loss of our childhood, but the loss of what
we could have been.

Sometimes I wonder who I could have been, who we
could have been, if we had a world that didn’t require us
to destroy our queer child in order to get here?

When I look at a movement that hungers for recognition
from the very people who disown us I remember that we
are grieving.

we are grieving. we are constantly justifying our existence. our humanity. our place in the world. i recently attended a talk on the importance of intersectionality in the queer community in Amsterdam. in response to a question on negotiating one’s space in an oppressive society, they said no one has the right to question the authenticity of one’s experience. it not a negotiation. we are not the subject of a debate. they declaimed when you don’t see yourself represented, you don’t know if you have the right to exist.

wonder what it
would mean to have someone else
empathize with our suffering
for once in our goddamn life

*this year I’m making a conscious effort to read more queer South Asian writers. I want to read at least twenty LGBTQIA+ fiction and non-fiction works based in South Asia/written by South Asian writers (including writers of South Asian origin and heritage). You can find my goodreads list here. please feel free to add books you love (and which don’t demonise/fetishise brown queer experiences) to the list. suggestions are always welcome.

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Gargi Sharma
Gargi Sharma

Written by Gargi Sharma

climate justice + data justice (she/her)

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