Law, Theatre, Queerness, Repair I Author: Love & Reparation (https://t.co/R6AnDxnmOC)I PhD Candidate @IILAH_UniMelb
Sep 6, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I was 13 when I first fell in love with a boy. I didn't realize it then. I only knew that I was willing to learn 9th grade Sanskrit without any prior knowledge of the language just to be in a class with him. (1/9)
I was 16 when I fell in love with another boy. This time, I knew what it was, but was able to successfully convince myself it was a phase - or even better, that it was a one-off kind of love, that I'd just as easily fall for a woman. (2/9)
Jul 13, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
On a break from the Supreme Court's #Section377 hearings, a very unexpected barometer of change. (1/5)
Six years ago, as the hearings in Suresh Kumar Koushal began, I came out to my parents. They reacted with anger and sorrow, then took me to a psychiatrist who informed all of us that homosexuality was a mental disorder which he could cure with aggressive treatment. (2/5)
Jul 12, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The third day of the #Section377 Constitution Bench hearing was a mix of pointed arguments from the lawyers arguing for decriminalization and horrific hate speech masquerading as submissions from the respondents who finally began their arguments. Thread on Respondents' arguments.
As with the 2012 hearings, there was little substance in what they actually had to say. Unlike the 2012 hearings, the judges did not allow these digressions to go on for long.
Jul 11, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Day 2 of the #Section377 Constitution Bench hearings also featured some of the most powerful court craft I have had the privilege of witnessing, courtesy @MenakaGuruswamy (Thread)
It wasn’t the fact that she was the first female lawyer to speak in a testosterone packed litigation (and courtroom), though that was crucial. It wasn’t the fact that she made it a point to address the sole female judge on the Bench time and again, though that was significant.
Jul 10, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Today's #Section377 hearing at the Supreme Court was empathetic and invigorating, a far cry from the 2012 hearings that reduced the LGBT community to a series of acts, then refused to provide any kind of safeguards against state abuse because who after all was targeted? (Thread)
In the Koushal Court in 2012 , the two judges constantly interrupted counsel with outright irrelevant digressions on what constituted "carnal intercourse against the order of nature", the fig leaf of a phrase that targets LGBT persons under section 377 #Section377
