On the 8th day of the Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence, Prajnya, along with Orinam, had a roundtable discussion with members from the LGBTQIA+ community, media persons, policy-makers, and other important stakeholders/practitioners who gave a number of important inputs on making public spaces more LGBTQIA+ inclusive. The session was moderated by Dr. Ramakrishnan (he/they) and had Harish Subramanian (he/him), Ar.Muhilann Murugan (they/them), Natasha (she/they), Raj Cherubal, Sonal Shah, and Shreya, who gave us their perspectives on accessibility and inclusivity in public spaces.
The opening statements of the discussion were on how public spaces in Chennai don't just include beaches and parks but also comprise libraries, public restrooms, museums, government-run healthcare facilities, places of worship as well as transportation facilities. However, for the queer community, these spaces are getting increasingly surveilled and hostile for anyone who does not conform to gender norms. Additionally, when we talk of public spaces, it is essential to talk about shelters as well. There are shelters for those who are homeless; a lot of queer people face homelessness but have very few places to stay.
"There is intersectionality when it comes to safe spaces. Spaces can be safe. But for whom, and where?"
This powerful opening line resonates with the lived realities of LGBTQIA+ folks. This makes it critical to navigate how spaces can be safe. As a collective, a city or a state, it must stand for something, either through colours and murals, or through history and identity. We all access the same public spaces, but what is 'safe' for one doesn't necessarily translate into 'safe' for another. A city, should hence, allow its citizens to welcome people. It shouldn't be designed to make spaces exclusive, but should instead practice affirmative action like making queer stories a part of the city's history. The city needs queer folks; it needs to give space for communities to gather and talk about things. But also, it shouldn't keep queer folks away from having conversations. An instance that was cited is that hospitals could allow queer people to talk about STDs, STIs or one's sexual health; one need not be queer to know about the same. For this, cities must be inclusive, and that can happen only if there is a queering of cities. The city needs queerness.
Even small steps will go a long way in making cities queer. A very important way to do that is to work on queer-friendly spaces, especially for toilets. Most public toilets have signages of 'male' and 'female'. How is that gender-inclusive? Why aren't people taking such (important) but small actions to make spaces inclusive? Another way of addressing this issue is by creating spaces for queer folks to discuss safely. Madras has two important beaches - Marina and Besant Nagar. However, in Marina, one cannot stay past 9 PM and the lighting is very poor. It is open throughout the day and night and a sense of 'belonging' is not really present there. Folks have to face the judgment of the police and other people who adhere to cis-heteronormative ideals. In contrast, Besant Nagar is a smaller space with lighting but is not open throughout the day. Marina is important for queer folks, in particular, because homes aren't safe spaces for all. So, there is a dependency on public spaces. Making public spaces queer-friendly is just a small step to make us feel like we aren't invisible; we are heard and we are seen.
But, to navigate through this, it is important to break down what inclusivity in public spaces is all about? Is it just about working on inclusive spaces for queer folks, or for anyone from the marginalised community? When you work on making public spaces accessible for the queer or trans folks, you are not just making spaces accessible for the most marginalised identity, but for everyone else - that is how policies must be seen. It is also a reality that currently there is no visibility for folks from the LGBTQI+ community. Most representations, with a few exceptions, adhere to cis-heteronormative ideals; there is a glorification of brahmin upper-caste histories, with a sequential and simultaneous erasure of queer lives. A few simple ways to pass the mic to queer folks is by making them engage in the processes of development of the city - painting murals, giving them livelihood opportunities, setting up signboards that talk of queer lives, or something as simple as having an LGBTQIA+ flag in public spaces. There needs to be an immediate and increased focus by the government to help queer folks reclaim public spaces through sensitisation of employees as well.
The voices of the queer community were met with an openness to take this dialogue further by various stakeholders who engaged in the roundtable. They stressed how public spaces and its design can be seen as a metaphorical 'colour picture'. There must be initiatives and affirmative action taken by the State to showcase, focus and highlight different arts and music in order to make spaces safe, and spread awareness. While listing the many ways of making spaces safe, accessible, and inclusive can be done at ease, engaging with those in power is a difficult process. One of the reasons for this is that decision-makers often come with heteronormative conditioning; it takes a lot of negotiating to work on inclusive infrastructure that is accessible to all. To add to this is the limitation of lack of literature and research on the accessibility of queer folks to public spaces and public transportation. An important point that was mentioned is that queer folks must be at the centre of these decisions. Whether public spaces can work or not is something that requires inputs from the community. Because this doesn't just increase visibility but also tells us whether the public spaces are working.
The audience raised a number of perspectives, experiences, and opinions on the discussion. They highlighted how the decision-makers often view the end-users to be an upper-caste, upper-class man, while other groups have to adjust. This can be overcome only if one listens to the community and builds a coalition with the end-users and the local government. Because, on paper, quite a few policies with their global and fancy terminologies appear inclusive, but if there is no implementation plan in place, the fancy terms mean nothing. The discussion circled back on the importance and necessity to make public spaces inclusive for the marginalised.
The discussion closed with what was considered a top priority to make public spaces accessible, safe and inclusive. For this, it is essential to break down what we understand as inclusive space. How do we make people know that queer folks are not invisible? There is a common notion that LGBTQIA+ folks are sexual deviants and only talk about sex work. These problematic notions exist because of the erasure of queer lives. We must also push for conversations on queerness and on raising visibility. It is also essential to understand that marginalisation and violence are systemic, with intersections of caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, romantic orientation, to name a few.
