Long thread about "hijacking queer spaces", stay with me:
Firstly, I don't care any less about the stakeholders of various institutions across Mumbai after 2020 Pride. If you are reading this and getting offended in advance, the world doesn't revolve around you. Get over it

Being a queer student of Humanities, I have read extensively about the growth of the movement in India as well as globally but does that make me THE EXPERT on queer lives and rights? HELL NO. Being Queer brings along lived experiences that statistics or TED talk cannot vouch for.

There can never be one queer identity. That is a monolith full of discrepancies. But over time the idea of being queer has been "represented" by cis-gay men in major circles around the country. They want to decide what is right or wrong for the community, for every single being.

Now you can come at me and say oh but we have women on organizing boards and what not but tell me one thing, HOW MUCH DO YOU HEAR THESE WOMEN? Where are the trans folks? Where are the enbys and gender non-conforming folks? Where are the aces?

Firstly, to all the first wave of queer activists in the country. I understand the hardships you faced coming out all those years ago and standing by your identity and activism but wasn't the point of doing that was to make it easy for queer folx after you? What drove your fight?

Why are you becoming the thing that you fought against all those years ago? Values evolve. They will definitely not evolve in the direction you want because that is not for you to decide. The idea of being Queer is evolving in the country forever and you really gotta keep up.

and when you get the women, the trans people, and everyone else on the spectrum, you HAVE TO listen to them. They are not your token gay man on one panel in a whole festival. We all come from a very different location, our traumas are different than yours, we do want our rights.

You cannot be queer in isolation. It meets all kinds of politics of being - Caste Politics, Religion Politics, Gender Politics, Class Politics and more. Your "inclusive society" cannot systematically continue abuse in various forms (in this case, deadnaming). That is erasure.

I know all of you hate Twitter, think people here are hollow-brained and "rant" for a living but I'm someone who has worked with many individuals from your inner circles, admired them and also critiqued them when it was time. That is how you grow as a community.

As a young person trying to belong, this community increasingly excludes people. You want them to be a certain type of gay, docile and keeping their politics away. You want them to draw boundaries between who they are inside vs outside said "queer spaces" that you "create". Like?

I'm sorry but you need to really keep up. Being on all those panels where you knew you didn't belong but sat there anyway has sort of blinded your objectivity. Stop speaking for others. It is 2020. Pass the Mic.

In an increasingly difficult time on a personal and global level, don't become another problem. If you cannot accept that people can have views that are different to yours then that is your personal problem. In the lieu of subverting the system, you are becoming it.

Stop policing how individuals younger than you should act/speak/be. That is ageist and reeks of foul power. You had your Bombay Dost. We have our Twitter. This is where we find our solidarities, despite the cacophony of trolls. This is where we stand against cancel culture.

But we do not tolerate TERFy behaviour. Stop acting like you are the de-facto controllers of everything. You cannot "apparently" dead name someone. You cannot say they have "hijacked" our space? Is this your inclusion? is this how you plan on nurturing a community? By othering?

To hell with your notion of "community" if you think it is yours to keep and cannot be negotiated with by people from varying identities and social positions without being labelled as "hijackers". You sound exactly like the homophobes you fought against.

You can ask me - what was the point of this thread? But, what was the point of your transphobic statement? Saying sorry is not that hard. Doing better is not that hard. Being inclusive is not that hard. Stop making everything about yourself for starters. That should help begin :)