The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Michigan in Color 8 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022 On Sunday Jan. 26, student organizers from the Indian Amer- ican Student Association and the United Asian American Orga- nizations came together to host an intimate dialogue about the re-examination of South Asian Queerness — a much-needed first of its kind. Before the event was underway, I sensed something irresolute in the air of the dimly lit Hussey Room at the Michi- gan League. Though, more likely than not, it was just me and my unfamiliarity with safe Queer spaces that also reflected my eth- nic identity. To ease my nerves, I channeled my inner reporter and quickly introduced myself to IASA Social Awareness Co-Chairs Meghana Kandiraju and Sahana Prabhu and IASA Co-President Shaunak Puri, who welcomed me and shared their enthusiasm in hosting this unique event. As folks settled down, Kan- diraju and Prabhu encouraged attendees to speak to one another about their experiences with the LGBTQ+ community — as an ally or as a member — in the realms of mainstream media, fam- ily dynamics and cultural values. Though the prompt was unmis- takably catered to a predominant- ly cishet audience, individuals shared their support, their qualms and their collective desire, among other things, to slowly integrate what little media representation does exist for Queer South Asian people into the purview of their most immediate families. Within the South Asian culture, especial- ly within family dynamics, exists deeply rooted gender norms and general nonacceptance of Queer identities. This discourages many Queer South Asians from coming out, and for the lot that do, there often remains the underlying familial expectation of eventual cisheteronormative marriage. One individual went on to express how she felt it her duty as a cis- gender, straight woman to talk to her family about Queerness under her relative privilege of social and cultural security. As she and other cishet people indulged in their well-intentioned sentiments, when it came around to the Queer attendees, there was a notable stoicism among their responses. For my half of the table, learning about Queerness was a matter of personal experience. The Co-Chairs then delved into the forgotten sexual diversity of South Asian culture dating back to the Kama Sutra and early Tamil Sangam literature. The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text full of prose and poetry on sexuality, eroticism and emotion- al fulfillment in life. As Kandi- raju and Prabhu noted, both these precolonial texts had segments dedicated to the homosexual rela- tions of their time, but were often overlooked by the enactment of restrictions and fines that grew more punitive well into the Medi- eval empire, the Mogul empire and the British empire. They went on to explain the effects of British colonial rule on Queer rights, which started with the Offenses Against the Per- son Act in 1861. This act codified consensual and nonviolent sod- omy under physical and sexual acts of violence, resulting in a life sentence. Further, it begot Sec- tion 377 of the Indian Penal Code which directly criminalized any intercourse “against the order of nature,” including consensual homosexual activity. The law was only recently ruled unconstitu- tional in 2018. In response to this historical context, many attendees started to realize much of the current anti-Queer sentiment within the diaspora stems directly from its legal implementation due to Brit- ish colonialism. Next, Puri introduced the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 which specifically targeted “eunuchs,” a stigmatizing colonial term that refers to individuals who do not conform to British ideas of mascu- linity and gender. This inherently ostracized the Hijra community as well, a once venerated, diverse community of intersex people, asexual people, non-binary peo- ple and transgender people that held important religious and gov- ernmental authority during the Mogul empire. In the late 20th century, people across the South Asian Diaspora advocated against this law and for the recognition of the Hijra community. Then, in 2014, the Indian Supreme Court finally recognized Hijra and transgender people as a “third sex,” or “third gender” as indi- cated by the language used by the court system. This legal recog- nition served to safeguard their rights under the Constitution and laws made by Parliament and the State Legislature, and it marked a huge human rights victory sig- nifying the expiration of another legal British influence. Still, conscious perpetuation of social harm against the Hijra com- munity and South Asian Queer people continues today. Historical legal progress only goes so far to protect individuals from rampant hate crimes, damaging stigma and forced invisibility within and out- side the diaspora. There’s something really cathartic in learning about the gradual Queer liberation in South Asia through the renunciation of colonial legislation, and Kandi- raju explained it perfectly when I came up to her later: “There is such a rich and deep history with regards to South Asians and Queerness. However, when these two identities are brought up, they are often seen as mutually exclusive — but this clearly isn’t the case,” Kandiraju said. Clearly. And clearly, there’s a long way to go, but maybe Queer- ness was never meant to feel so alienating within South Asian existence. Queerness is a multi- tude of things that transcends any single identity or experience, just like the diaspora itself. The South Asian experience is inherently polylithic among its eight differ- ent countries, but ethnic assimila- tion to the model minority myth, a white supremacist ideology that upholds cisheteronormativity, diminishes this diversity. It leaves little to no room for intersectional identities, let alone Queerness. South Asian cishet individuals who implicitly subscribe to the model minority myth thus use this idea in order to perpetuate Queerphobia within the diaspora. Even so, recognizing the impor- tant roots of Queerphobia within our culture does not absolve us of the responsibility to actively fight against it today. For the second segment of the presentation, UAAO President Gina Liu delved into the redefi- nition of Queerness and Queer activism within the diaspora. She started off by recognizing the his- torically derogatory definition of the word Queer as well as its rec- lamation in Queer liberation. She then explained how non-western countries are othered for their lack of conformity to western ide- als, and in turn, homosexuality has now been duped into white progressiveness and ulterior pink- washing under what is refered to as “homonationalism.” Through homonationalism, nationalist regimes operate under the guise of progressiveness by associating homosexuality with their ideals. In their ostentatious performance of Queer liberation, they distract attention from their more oppressive policies. Israel’s campaign as the “gay mecca” of the Middle East is an extreme example of how pinkwashing is used to violently advance Zion- ist, anti-Muslim rhetoric. This ongoing campaign is a direct PR attempt to overshadow violence against Palestinians as a whole while aggrandizing Israel’s Queer rights agenda as the ultimate lib- erator of Palestinian and Arab Queer people. Similar strategies are utilized by the radical right in the United States to push across conserva- tive agendas while remaining palatable to woke America. Queer liberation in America is thus pos- ited as the savior of young Queer immigrants, and being Queer as a member of a non-white diaspora is erroneously propogated as a privilege of white progressiveness unattainable in the homeland. This perception of mutual exclusivity between being a Queer person and South Asian, to many families, means that the adoption of such “western ideals” takes away from traditional culture. When South Asian immigrant parents say, “We’re not American in that way,” they are telling us that Queerness is contradictory to our heritage — yet precolonial his- tory teaches us that we are inher- ently South Asian in that way. After introducing the facade of western Queer politics, Liu importantly made note of the oft- invisible histories of South Asian Queer people and Queer activism in the United States. She indicated the presence of same-sex relations as early as the first wave of Indian immigration in the 1880s particu- larly among Punjabi men, while explaining how, as mentioned in Nayan Shah’s book “Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexu- ality and the Law in the North American West,” they were often accused of crossdressing by white men because they did not conform to expressions of European man- hood. Additionally, she mentioned the role of publications such as Trikone Magazine and Anamika Magazine in celebrating Queer identities across the diasapora and aiding the decriminalization of sodomy in many countries. All this to say that seeing our- selves in history is important, and in some ways, validating, but his- tory itself is seldom exhaustive. Liu wrapped up by reminding audience members that there is inherent value in our own expe- riences as we navigate very cis- heteronormative and colonized spheres, saying, “Even if none of this existed, even if (this was) the first generation of Queer Asian people, that doesn’t make (your) experiences any less impactful or relevant.” It was 8 p.m. on the Saturday before Winter term began, and I was sitting on my bed at home in Chicago unraveling my box braids — the most recent hairstyle I had that soon grew outdated for me after a few weeks. I was planning on having a peaceful night filled with self-care practices and HBO movies, but as soon as I finished undoing my braids, I got a text from the hairstylist who was sup- posed to do my hair: “Sorry, I have to cancel tomorrow, something came up.” While it may seem inconsequential for her to cancel on me, reading this text made my stomach drop. Usually, I prefer to wear protective hairstyles when- ever I can because they require less maintenance, which is per- fect considering how busy my day-to-day schedule is. I wanted to do this before coming back to campus because I knew I would quickly become busy as soon as I got to Ann Arbor. But having my stylist cancel on me completely threw a wrench in my plan. Before panicking, I immediate- ly texted my usual go-to stylist, and she regrettably informed me that she was on vacation. Next, I called a friend, asking if she could do my hair, and she apologetically told me that she wouldn’t have the time to do so before classes start- ed. Lastly, I even tried booking a hairstylist that I’d found on Insta- gram, with whom I immediately made an appointment when I saw an opening … just for her to can- cel on me within the hour. I soon became fed up with trying to find a new stylist to do my hair — I was leaving at 6 a.m. the next morn- ing for Ann Arbor, and my options were slim. I was left with only one choice: I had to get it done myself. I immediately went to my bath- room and started brainstorming what to do with my hair. I knew I couldn’t attempt a style that was too complex considering the limited time that I had. Every time the frustration with my hair reaches a new peak, I always grab my scissors, only half-jokingly thinking about shaving my head entirely. It would surely be a lot less work to deal with. I’ve expe- rienced this moment too many times before — getting frustrated with my hair to the point where I just don’t want to deal with it any- more. During my sophomore year of high school, I was invited to an extravagant 16th birthday party at a bowling alley for one of my friends. On the morning of the party, I woke up and instantly knew I was going to have a bad hair day. With every style I tried, I grew increasingly annoyed with my hair, and finally, I texted my friend that I woke up with a sore throat and that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the party. In hind- sight, my hair didn’t look that bad, but I was so bogged down by the idea that I had “difficult” hair that I had just given up complete- ly for the day. When I was a junior, I did in fact take a pair of scissors to my hair, cutting nearly all of it off and forcibly beginning my natural hair journey. At the time, I got so fed up I felt it would be simpler to start all over from scratch. This moment served as a catalyst for a transformational hair journey in which I had to learn how to do my own hair, rather than relying on my mom to take care of it for me. Since then, I’ve slowly been on the path to becoming better at styling my hair by myself. For the first year, doing my own hair felt incredibly tedious. I endured many long nights and sore arms from just washing, conditioning and trying to style my hair into two-strand twists. Now, I can tell when it’s time to give my hair a detox, I always know when I’m in need of a trim and I have my wash day routine down to an exact sci- ence. However, I’m still a novice at braiding my own hair, so when all of my stylists canceled on me, I was forced to enlist some help. I came knocking at the doors of my two older sisters’ bedrooms and to my relief, they came to the rescue. Around 9 p.m., my sisters began to help me part my hair and braid it down. For over six hours, we watched movies, lis- tened to music and had amusing, yet heartfelt, conversations about relationships and our love lives. We got the chance to spend qual- ity time together, which doesn’t happen as often now that we’re all so busy with our academic and professional lives. I’m not sure if I had ever been more grateful to have two older sisters. By 3 a.m., we were exhausted, and our fin- gers were beginning to cramp, but finally, my hair was done. Even though I knew I’d be running on three hours of sleep, I was filled with the immense relief of not having to worry about my hair for the next few weeks. At the end of it all, my eldest sister turned to me and said, “This was cute and all, but don’t ever let it happen again,” and we laughed. While she didn’t show it on her face, I knew she was glad that she got to spend the time with us as well. A situation that started off as stressful and anxiety-inducing ended in a tir- ing, yet heartwarming, moment between my sisters and me. Trigger warning: this article contains descriptions of murder and gun violence, mentions of gender-based harassment, race- based harassment and sexual harassment. The Asian woman-white man coupling has been a long-run- ning joke and stereotype that is still cycling through the col- lective consciousness of Ameri- can popular culture and online platforms. As much as I hate to admit, there is some truth to the stereotype. Indeed, an Asian woman-white man cou- ple can be spotted frequently on city streets and university cam- puses as well as in other left- leaning spaces in recent years. However, I was not aware of the terrifying existence of a violent incel community online com- posed of East Asian men until fairly recently. This community assembled in response to Asian women dating out of their race at a higher rate than any other gendered racial groups, and perhaps to a lesser extent, their emasculation at the hands of popular culture. Incel is short for “invol- untarily celibate,” a term co- opted by straight, cisgendered right-leaning young men who, due to one reason or another, find themselves deprived of sex and relationships with women. Upon first glance, their strange philosophy and vendetta against women may appear pathetic, but the extent to which they have taken their misogyny is beyond extreme. In several subreddits which are now banned, these men discussed violent revenge plots and fantasies they would insti- gate against “Chads” and “Sta- cies,” which are incel slang for attractive young men and women. “Chads” and “Stacies” are almost certainly racialized, as they are common names for young, white people, and with that whiteness comes implied attractiveness as well as tra- ditional masculinity and femi- ninity, accordingly. Aside from the fact that incels in general are overwhelmingly white, East Asian incels are in a league of their own, as they focus more on their own racial iden- tity. They also especially focus on their female counterparts, blaming their interracial mar- riages as the source of the East Asian incel’s personal misery. One of the most infamous incels was the lone gunman of the heinous 2014 San Diego Isla Vista killing who was of mixed white and East Asian descent. He had released a 140-page manifesto detailing his life and citing his hatred toward his circumstances, such as his mixed heritage and parents’ divorce, as contributors toward his perceived social rejection and misogyny. He then went on to murder his housemates and seven sorority girls at the Uni- versity of California, Santa Bar- bara, whom he considered to be the physical manifestation of “Stacies” and the embodi- ment of the women who reject- ed him. He then went on to murder 2 of his housemates, 1 other man, and 3 sorority girls, before committing suicide. The gunman perceived his Chinese heritage as a deciding factor in his attractiveness, and conse- quently, as the reason for his failure with women. The manifesto was fueled by self-hatred and internalized white supremacy. The gunman attributed his “dorkiness” to his Chinese identity and cited his jealousy towards another fully Asian man receiving attention from a white woman, who was the only type of woman he was attracted to. Him being only attracted to white women, of course, echoed his own inter- nalized racism, as further evi- denced by his resentment for his Chinese mother for her interracial marriage to his father. His self-hatred, mixed with an inferiority complex over full-blooded Asian people, had perhaps manifested in his brutal murder of his house- mates, who too were young East Asian men, as well as the sorority girls. Reexamining South Asian Queerness Embracing my hair with open arms The ricecel phenomenon Design by Reid Graham Design by Janice Lin Design by Zoe Zhang EASHETA SHAH MiC Columnist UDOKA NWANSI MiC Columnist ZOE ZHANG MiC Columnist Read more at MichiganDaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com