Lesbi-honest, love is love: New book highlights invisible stories within the LGBTQIA+ community

Just days ago we hear of two women cops in Pune forced to cancel their wedding because of societal and familial pressure The world feels unkind to any love that looks different And yet in the same week we chance upon Homo And Juliet Yoda Press Rs 499 a collection of real queer and lesbian love stories in which we get to see women as well as nonbinary trans folk find their happy endings Hope surges anewAmong the eight stories is the author Dr Shruti Chakravartyrsquos own recollection of how she and Pooja her partner of nearly nine years came to be together But before she could find love Dr Chakravarty had to find and embrace her own identity as a ldquoclassic oldfashioned butch lesbian who believes loving a woman is the most glorious gift she could have gotrdquoldquoEach love story is different Mine begins when I was 13 and in love with my best friend a girl This was in 1993 I immediately internalised it as something very shameful dirty And of course I hid it from everyonerdquo recalls the queerfeminist activistThe book features seven other couples whom the author has met either socially or through workldquoAnd then I went on to study psychology where I was promptly told from the textbook of abnormal psychology that homosexuality is a deviance It was only when I was 23 and finally took myself to a psychiatrist to get lsquocuredrsquo that he looked at me and said lsquoYou are normalrsquo That was my changing pointrdquo says Dr Chakravarty a therapist with over two decades of work in gender sexuality and mental health She is Chief Advisor at the Mariwala Health Initiative and faculty for the Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice course and holds a PhD from TISS on queer intimaciesItrsquos her PhD thesis from which this book springs in an effort to throw light on those who are most invisible and marginalised even among the already marginalised LGBTQIA community lesbians nonbinary and trans peopleKnown on Instagram as pawlyamorous the ldquoelder lesbianrdquo she said it has worked for years to throw some light on love and joy looks like for them The bookrsquos tone is similar to her Instagram content where she talks frankly about relationship dynamics queer joy and mistakes ldquobaby queersrdquo tend to make in their journey of selfdiscovery She also answers a lot of questions that allies or curious straight people have secretly wondered aboutLike is being with a butch all that different from being with a man and are you really lesbian is yoursquore attracted to a masculine woman The answer of course is a resounding ldquoYesrdquoldquoMen and masculinity are unfortunately pitched as one and the same thingrdquo Dr Chakravarty says ldquoThe butch woman is often misunderstood as a man without ever getting the social and systemic power that a cishet man has Thatrsquos why itrsquos all the more hurtful to call her a man because yoursquore actually ridiculing her A femme gets this in visceral wayshellip This is the only kind of masculinity she is attracted tordquoNeither do butch and femme indicate gender roles within the relationship she stresses ldquoWe do not have a blueprint for roles in the relationship unlike cishet folk So everything is decided by the couple on the basis of each personrsquos strength and what gives them confidence One person might enjoy driving more another might be a better cook It takes more work to figure all of this out but itrsquos worth itrdquoAnd butchfemme is not the only dynamic one can observe in lesbian relationships there are plenty of femmefemme and masc for masc couples out there tooldquoQueer identity is all about fighting the binary imposition we are not trying to mimic it in our relationshipsrdquo Really butch or femme are about gender expression and how a woman might present to the world she explainsOther stories in the book are just as complex from translesbian love to asexual partnerships to femme invisibility and surviving heartbreak unrequited loveWersquove come a long way since she was a scared teenager in the rsquo90s trying to hide her love for women as a dirty secret Section 377 is no longer law of the land and we are free to love whomever we choose This is something Dr Charakvartyrsquos generation has fought hard for And yet the world is no easier to navigate ldquoThere has been a lot of regression to rightwing politics across the world and whatever rights we have won there is no way to tell if someday those will be snatched again Itrsquos an uncertain world that young queer people face todayrdquo she saysAnd thatrsquos why itrsquos all the more crucial to bring this book out as evidence of what successful queer love can look like mdash even if that doesnrsquot always meet societyrsquos standards for successful love ldquoMarriage is not the destination we say as long as we can be together we are trying to also figure out how to be together In the book quite a few folk say lsquoI donrsquot know how long this will last but I work every day to be with herrsquo Someone else says the question of lsquohow long will I be with herrsquo is moot in such a hostile society If we reach a point where we are not happy with each other we will harmoniously say goodbye in a dignified way We donrsquot ask lsquohow longrsquo we say lsquohow are we going to be togetherhellip what is important to us what are our shared valuesrsquordquo she saysAs for queer marriage rights ldquoI personally feel that marriage is an extremely unequal and oppressive structure I would not want queer people to imitate the marriage structure as it exists today I believe however that all people mdash queer or heterosexual mdash should have partnership rights so they can love the way they want to That includes being able to make medical decisions for each other end of life decisions get a loan togetherhelliprdquo