Lately I have found that my cousins during the Puja (the festive season of West Bengal) meet, but they never invite me. This has taken place in recent years. When I tried to learn more about these meetings and in particular why I was left out, I learned to learn that they had alcohol and smoke at these parties. Talk about data, connections and, perhaps above all, everyone is “straight” and “partners”. How can of course a disabled queer person be invited to such a gala assembly? In disabilities, as they perceive, everything revolves around tragedy, lack, sadness, serious medical discussions, therapies, new scientific inventions that would heal/fix the problem, and also about a lot of motivation, willpower, inspiration and “Josh conversations”.
A gay deaf person (the combination itself is quite “absurd” for the capable world anyway) will be in the middle of a conversation in which “adults” smoke, drink and talk about sex – this may be beyond imagination!
Uninvited and invisible: the intimate policy of exclusion
Despite this clear feeling of exclusion, the dynamic of relationship and discrimination is rarely black and white. In fact, it is one of these cousins that, when I prepared and desperately tried to get a suitable Amanuensis that corresponds to all criteria specified by the university, came to my rescue. He introduced me to a friend of him who supported me with the exams. This may underline the fact that exclusion and microaggression often occur in an extremely subtle and differentiated manner. Sometimes they are so subtle that it is difficult to call them themselves.
Stereotypes and silence: the wrong representation of queer disabled life
Media, popular culture, digital platforms, education system – disabilities are visible all over India. I know that this assertion may sound against me, because the involvement of disabilities and disabled people is something against which we, activists, are constantly fighting. But here they let me get it “just”: exactly what we strive for is an authentic recording and representation of the voices of people with disabilities; The abundance of the wrong representation and the soft imposition of the capable neurotypical voices are omnipresent. The mainstream films, bestseller novels, viral roles, YouTube videos, in which disabilities (often the visible, because they are more “sellable”) almost always as “miracle of nature”, “a super script” or as another occasion/occasion for the powerful protagonist to show their greatness. Of course there are also some disabled villains.
Can you imagine a mainstream film or a novel in which the intersection of sexuality and disability is treated with sensitivity? Before you say: “Yes, Margarita with a straw”, let me remind me that it is not a popular mainstream film. We also find the representation of romantic feelings of disabled people in black or barfi, but they are comfortable to explore the “restless water” of sexual pleasure of disabled people.
Obstacles to belonging: inaccessibility in desire, language and community
Most dating apps are inaccessible, especially for those with visual disability. Let us not only take the example of Grindr, an app that is very popular with queer people, not only to find casual “connection obligation”, but also to get in touch with other people from the community. Grindr is designed so that it is not quite compatible with the screen reading software. In addition, these apps are very photothed, which makes it difficult for visually disabled people and even unsafe to navigate them. These inaccessions limit the exposure of people like me to explore the possibilities, pleasure, relationship and identity in a way that goes beyond the expectations of the normative structure.
Here it may be necessary to clarify my position in relation to access and thus make a comfortable, simplified, reductive essential resistant. I am a person with several disabilities and queer; But I am also an employee, male person with access to urban university formation. Because of my significant capital culture/my privileged privileges, I was able to access many discussions (academically or in any other way) about intersectionality, most of which are easily accessible in English.
Here I would like to bring in the challenges for many of my queer disabled friends who do not speak English fluently or have no command about the language and feel most comfortable in Bangla. Stories, discussions, reflections, videos, audio podcasts etc. About this type of intersectional identities are extremely rare in local languages such as Bangla. Since these friends do not get enough exposure to the topic, they cannot be able to claim their own position. You don’t feel safe enough to get out with your overlapping identities. These voices remain unheard of, not recorded, which leads to further involvement and marginalization.
Let me end by briefly talking about my source of support and strength. It’s my mother. Let me tell you that I have never officially got out of my mother. I never had the need to do this. I think she always knew; I don’t know how, but yes, she did it. When I was in class 4 or 5, she brought me to a dance course to train me in Kathak. Incidentally, I had a partial view at the time that gradually deteriorated. I was the only male student in this class. This was around 2000–2001. Although I could not continue it beyond a few classes due to my flat foot, I thought that in his time it was actually an extremely courageous step for a woman from a background to the lower middle class.
This is the same mother who also brought me to different temples, astrologers and of course a variety of doctors to find a solution to my disability. And this simply indicates that our life, experiences, relationships, feelings – is nothing black and white. It is a spectrum – a spectrum that I celebrate because without it the world would have been so boring and monotonous.
This article is part of a joint initiative of feminism in India and Qable for Queer Disability Pride Month. Qable works at the interface of queer and disability equality in law and politics and promotes social integration through culture and legal integration by the community conducted by the community. If you are a QPWD -seek support, Qable is there for you. For all of us, is proud.
Dr. Ishan Chakraborty (He/Sie) is an assistant professor at the Department of English at Jadavpur University. He is a person with deaf blindness,. His research interests include critical studies on disability, translation studies, crip theory, language justice and Bengali and English literature from the 19th century. As a recipient of the Abul Kashem Rahimuddin Samman and the State Award for strengthening people with disabilities (2019), he headed projects on audio books, marginal pedagogy and language justice. He is currently heading the Crip Lit Cards project, which is financed by Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation.
