Mili | Personal Story
Look At Me Like You’d Look At Us
© Goethe-Institut Delhi
Does our visibility come at a cost? How can inward and outward queer gaze be freeing not only for individuals but also for the community? More so, what is the extent of such freedom? How do we hold ourselves accountable? This essay is an exploration of such questions. The essay explores the idea of freedom through a queer gaze.
Understanding Queer Gaze as a Tool of Freedom
This essay is an exploration of how the concept of queer gaze has been an integral part of queer lives. More so, it explores the question of whether queering of the gaze becomes a tool of freedom. I’d like to alert the reader, this essay does not hold answers, but merely questions. I intend for this piece to be a dialogue, rather than a monologue. I wish to be corrected, held accountable and constructively criticised within the community.
This is a two-part essay with the first part being a discussion on what queer gaze means to us and the second part being a deeper indulgence with the idea/tool of queer gaze.
PART 1
I define queer gaze as antithetical to the Male gaze or the “Cis-Het” Gaze. This is, of course, a heuristic definition. A heteronormative view of the queer body is a horrible objectification. The blame must be credited to our conditioning. We’ve been indoctrinated by the ideas of how we look, how we act, how we are and hence, we try hard when we unlearn these ideas to not replicate the same unto ourselves, and unto others.
When I say queer gaze, I simply mean an anti-structure vision of the society and our bodies that it embeds. I wish to look at myself, my friends and my relationships without conventional rules. It’s easier said than done of course. Very fundamentally, queer gaze is how we look at the world as queer people.
For the sake of ease, I understand queer gaze as inward and outward.
An inward queer gaze would refer to how one sees and questions oneself — is one queer enough, is one queer and still “hetero-coded”, are there unfair standards of queerness maintained within and outside the community, are these standards a result of our own roles in projecting our trauma onto ourselves as individuals and members of the community? I wish to explore despite being trapped in a closet in most spaces, do we still think of ourselves as somewhat free in queer circles? There still remains a hierarchy in the queerest of spaces when there are intersections of caste, class, race and ability. Can a queer gaze free all of us from the shackles of hetero-patriarchal structures?
The outward queer gaze would be our understanding of ourselves and others through tangible things — like the consumption of art, media, and even people. With the “online” queer people, we have the privilege of exploration of our identities through movies and tv shows. Even books and art help us understand ourselves better. However, the aspect that hinders with freedom to understand our identities is access. Queerness is freeing as long as people with the same access flock together, is it? One can’t expect to look at society through the eyes of a Netflix TV show and call it queer gaze — this is a normative trap that our queerness and queer gaze is striving to destroy. Our freedom to access is a limitation.
How we look at ourselves is a very pertinent question. Our view of ourselves is often muddled with how we are viewed by the society around us. The spaces around us have social divides of gender, sexuality, class, caste and ability (and more). When we pick one dimension of our space, say queerness, it’s a cross-sectional cutout. Queerness inhibits class, caste, ability. Hence our queer circles set some standards of queerness (based on other intersectionalities) and create hierarchies within the community. These unfair standards of queerness are also based upon multiple issues — like body type, access to information, visibility, “correct” ways of being queer in certain spaces. There are too many moral rules in the community these days that restrict fluidity of our queerness. Morality and queerness do not go well together. This structure of our queer (supposed to be anti-structure) spaces mimics a normative society (heteronormative).
While I do understand that even the individuals who replicate behaviours of setting standards of queerness come from their places of trauma, there is a need to unlearn as a community, and not just as individuals.
These realisations can be small. For example, one’s active realisation of their queer identity might have been looking back and thinking, “Oh! Perhaps, one was attracted to someone beyond heterosexuality”. But then as one grows and interacts with the community, realises that their queer identity means a lot more as a part of the larger queer circle, their first interaction with queerness might have just been friendship- queerplatonic, so to speak!
We get stuck in patterns and cycles of behaviours of our own and others. As Manas, one of the people I spoke to says, “It becomes about the survival of the fittest. If you’re not attending enough queer 'parties', you don’t belong.” And other people also had similar experiences. However, most queers agreed to having been coerced into adhering to certain norms of queerness so they could fit into such exclusive queer circles.
Priyamwada recounted one of their experiences at a huge-scale queer event organised at one of Delhi’s most posh malls by a very big dating app company and a queer magazine: “When I walked into the venue, my first thought was I should’ve dressed up more androgynous than I had. This is a very messed up first thought to have at a queer event.” According to them, they feel like they owe androgyny to the people who perceive them… alas! This is a common feeling among queer people, especially who get to have access to elite queer circles to feel some sense of belonging, although there is none.
I am trying to understand how we are seen. Rajeev talks about being in situations where they’re automatically assumed to be the top in situations, because they’re perceived as masculine in their gender expression. It’s either this with other queer people, or it’s the stares in the metro where they’re not perceived as masculine enough if they’re wearing jewellery or nail paint. There is a constant fetishization of the queer body when looked through a binary gaze. At this juncture, I’d also like to make it clear that academizing queer experience also consists of objectification. I’m still trying to navigate where the line is between queer people trying to understand themselves and queer people having to look at themselves through Wikipedia in order to be able to comprehend where they stand. If anyone has an answer, I’m all ears.
Experiences like these, naturally, systematically traumatise queer people. There doesn’t have to be a big traumatic event for them when there is organised harm being caused. Once again, I call a kinder view of the self to play, the onus of healing from such trauma and replication of similar trauma by the traumatised isn’t on one particular individual. It’s on the entire community. This sort of abolitionist view may begin to help alleviate our pain as a community.
Queerness is anti-establishment. Queer gaze, hence, is viewing ourselves beyond establishment. Moral institutions outside the community outcasted us as the “other”. Moral institutions within the community are causing further othering, doubled and tripled by the caste, class and ability-based divides.
I define queer gaze as antithetical to the Male gaze or the “Cis-Het” Gaze. This is, of course, a heuristic definition. A heteronormative view of the queer body is a horrible objectification. The blame must be credited to our conditioning. We’ve been indoctrinated by the ideas of how we look, how we act, how we are and hence, we try hard when we unlearn these ideas to not replicate the same unto ourselves, and unto others.
When I say queer gaze, I simply mean an anti-structure vision of the society and our bodies that it embeds. I wish to look at myself, my friends and my relationships without conventional rules. It’s easier said than done of course. Very fundamentally, queer gaze is how we look at the world as queer people.
For the sake of ease, I understand queer gaze as inward and outward.
An inward queer gaze would refer to how one sees and questions oneself — is one queer enough, is one queer and still “hetero-coded”, are there unfair standards of queerness maintained within and outside the community, are these standards a result of our own roles in projecting our trauma onto ourselves as individuals and members of the community? I wish to explore despite being trapped in a closet in most spaces, do we still think of ourselves as somewhat free in queer circles? There still remains a hierarchy in the queerest of spaces when there are intersections of caste, class, race and ability. Can a queer gaze free all of us from the shackles of hetero-patriarchal structures?
The outward queer gaze would be our understanding of ourselves and others through tangible things — like the consumption of art, media, and even people. With the “online” queer people, we have the privilege of exploration of our identities through movies and tv shows. Even books and art help us understand ourselves better. However, the aspect that hinders with freedom to understand our identities is access. Queerness is freeing as long as people with the same access flock together, is it? One can’t expect to look at society through the eyes of a Netflix TV show and call it queer gaze — this is a normative trap that our queerness and queer gaze is striving to destroy. Our freedom to access is a limitation.
It becomes about the survival of the fittest. If you’re not attending enough queer 'parties', you don’t belong.
While I do understand that even the individuals who replicate behaviours of setting standards of queerness come from their places of trauma, there is a need to unlearn as a community, and not just as individuals.
These realisations can be small. For example, one’s active realisation of their queer identity might have been looking back and thinking, “Oh! Perhaps, one was attracted to someone beyond heterosexuality”. But then as one grows and interacts with the community, realises that their queer identity means a lot more as a part of the larger queer circle, their first interaction with queerness might have just been friendship- queerplatonic, so to speak!
We get stuck in patterns and cycles of behaviours of our own and others. As Manas, one of the people I spoke to says, “It becomes about the survival of the fittest. If you’re not attending enough queer 'parties', you don’t belong.” And other people also had similar experiences. However, most queers agreed to having been coerced into adhering to certain norms of queerness so they could fit into such exclusive queer circles.
Priyamwada recounted one of their experiences at a huge-scale queer event organised at one of Delhi’s most posh malls by a very big dating app company and a queer magazine: “When I walked into the venue, my first thought was I should’ve dressed up more androgynous than I had. This is a very messed up first thought to have at a queer event.” According to them, they feel like they owe androgyny to the people who perceive them… alas! This is a common feeling among queer people, especially who get to have access to elite queer circles to feel some sense of belonging, although there is none.
I am trying to understand how we are seen. Rajeev talks about being in situations where they’re automatically assumed to be the top in situations, because they’re perceived as masculine in their gender expression. It’s either this with other queer people, or it’s the stares in the metro where they’re not perceived as masculine enough if they’re wearing jewellery or nail paint. There is a constant fetishization of the queer body when looked through a binary gaze. At this juncture, I’d also like to make it clear that academizing queer experience also consists of objectification. I’m still trying to navigate where the line is between queer people trying to understand themselves and queer people having to look at themselves through Wikipedia in order to be able to comprehend where they stand. If anyone has an answer, I’m all ears.
Experiences like these, naturally, systematically traumatise queer people. There doesn’t have to be a big traumatic event for them when there is organised harm being caused. Once again, I call a kinder view of the self to play, the onus of healing from such trauma and replication of similar trauma by the traumatised isn’t on one particular individual. It’s on the entire community. This sort of abolitionist view may begin to help alleviate our pain as a community.
Queerness is anti-establishment. Queer gaze, hence, is viewing ourselves beyond establishment. Moral institutions outside the community outcasted us as the “other”. Moral institutions within the community are causing further othering, doubled and tripled by the caste, class and ability-based divides.
PART 2
Our appreciation of media and art is influenced by our identities and vice-versa. This raises important points of discussion in the case of “online queers”.
Most queer people with immense access/who haven’t had to struggle for access to media act like fanatics… It’s a little worrying, honestly, to see adult and intelligent human beings bully other less privileged human beings over the idiot box in their mobile phones…
I asked people about their first queer references other than themselves, their experiences. Priyamwada’s first reference was a song by Sufjan Stevens. But this sort of access to media was only available to them when they moved to a bigger school and bigger city. Rey’s first experience was through the character of Shikhandi/Shikhandini from Mahabharata, that they’d watched on Indian television as a child. Most people knew of queerness through the slurs and profanities used around to bully/as jokes in schools. Some other queer people I talked to, knew there was something called “gay” through the mainstream Bollywood movie, Dostana. But most representations of queerness to Indian kids, especially those from smaller towns and lesser (if at all) educated families come from derogatory views.
And with the diversity of background of queer people, when there is a necessitation of having watched or listened to or read of queer media and art, it becomes “homonormative” so to speak. Imagine, you’ve come to a big college for the first time. You find there is an entire collective of queer people, people who’re like you. Then, you find out that all the people in that collective have watched art films like Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together or have watched Orange is the New Black when the seasons were coming out (pun intended!). But because you don’t know what a Wong-Kar-Wai cinema is or where to watch a show like orange is the new black, you’re not really talked to by your newly found queer peers. Why? Because you’re so uninformed and you don’t show pronouns in your Instagram bio. Ultimately, you are left with this empty belongingness that feels as lonely as it did when you didn’t know any other queer people.
Are you only worth queerness if it’s quantifiable in the number of TV shows you watch or books you read? It’s bad because a lot queer people still have to hold themselves to and look at themselves through solely these standards, if they dream about fitting in.
Rajeev told me that the only word he knew to express himself as was “gay”. As a teenager, to them, being gay meant someone who wears women’s clothing The word “queer” came to their vocabulary only after they started college in University of Delhi, where they could interact with a more privileged and informed set of queer people.
Further, just like one might happen upon better terminology to express themselves (even to their own selves) very much later in life, people also evolve with their queerness with time. Time is a very important factor, which also needs to be looked at queerly. As discussed earlier, one’s first reference to queerness in retrospect might not be something that’s explicitly queer (like a love story of two gay men). It might be something like 13 reasons why, as it is for Rajeev- “I associate ‘living your life as dictated to you’ with queerness, as I look back.”
I’d like to take a slight diversion here for my bisexual friends — most people coming to terms with their sexuality later on in life use this term called “bi-curiosity”. And to each their own, but this is a small but gross example of how even questioning sexuality and gender requires you to see if you could perhaps be queer enough. I find it saddening that bisexuality is not readily available as label, you have to prove to yourself that you’re worth the label. It’s a very similar exploration of your gender too. Of course, it’s associated with dysphoria and self-doubt, that’s natural, but this isn’t a commentary on people who suffer through it. It’s a commentary on all of us as a community. Almost all the queers feel like they’re constantly wronged by the community.
We don’t have sustainable mechanisms or tools to have complete freedom. In fact, queer gaze is not enough a tool either. I’m privileged enough to know what a niche concept like this means and can bank upon it to earn bread and butter, but this is not revolutionary.
Opening your eyes is a step to begin and we’re late. Queer gaze means viewing our realities beyond the binary, in order to act like that too. When I say queer gaze, I mean looking at our friendships like we are told to look at our blood-family and romantic/sexual partners. I mean looking at people’s intentions and if they’re well-meaning before they’re removed from a certain space. I mean holding people accountable within the community. I mean ridding of personal biases against people who dress differently than you but share your identity. I mean understand how unsafe some queer people are more than others.
Queerness is not meant to be gatekept and fetishized, it’s meant to liberate us. Our inward and outward queer gaze must align.
I reiterate my initial stance: I hope this essay holds us accountable to ourselves and to our community. I urge my reader to question my essay, to question the questions I bring up and to be kind in their accountability. More than anything, I hope my reader is kind in their vision of themselves and find belongingness, I too am trying my best.
Our appreciation of media and art is influenced by our identities and vice-versa. This raises important points of discussion in the case of “online queers”.
Most queer people with immense access/who haven’t had to struggle for access to media act like fanatics… It’s a little worrying, honestly, to see adult and intelligent human beings bully other less privileged human beings over the idiot box in their mobile phones…
Most representations of queerness to Indian kids come from derogatory views.
And with the diversity of background of queer people, when there is a necessitation of having watched or listened to or read of queer media and art, it becomes “homonormative” so to speak. Imagine, you’ve come to a big college for the first time. You find there is an entire collective of queer people, people who’re like you. Then, you find out that all the people in that collective have watched art films like Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together or have watched Orange is the New Black when the seasons were coming out (pun intended!). But because you don’t know what a Wong-Kar-Wai cinema is or where to watch a show like orange is the new black, you’re not really talked to by your newly found queer peers. Why? Because you’re so uninformed and you don’t show pronouns in your Instagram bio. Ultimately, you are left with this empty belongingness that feels as lonely as it did when you didn’t know any other queer people.
Are you only worth queerness if it’s quantifiable in the number of TV shows you watch or books you read? It’s bad because a lot queer people still have to hold themselves to and look at themselves through solely these standards, if they dream about fitting in.
Rajeev told me that the only word he knew to express himself as was “gay”. As a teenager, to them, being gay meant someone who wears women’s clothing The word “queer” came to their vocabulary only after they started college in University of Delhi, where they could interact with a more privileged and informed set of queer people.
Further, just like one might happen upon better terminology to express themselves (even to their own selves) very much later in life, people also evolve with their queerness with time. Time is a very important factor, which also needs to be looked at queerly. As discussed earlier, one’s first reference to queerness in retrospect might not be something that’s explicitly queer (like a love story of two gay men). It might be something like 13 reasons why, as it is for Rajeev- “I associate ‘living your life as dictated to you’ with queerness, as I look back.”
I’d like to take a slight diversion here for my bisexual friends — most people coming to terms with their sexuality later on in life use this term called “bi-curiosity”. And to each their own, but this is a small but gross example of how even questioning sexuality and gender requires you to see if you could perhaps be queer enough. I find it saddening that bisexuality is not readily available as label, you have to prove to yourself that you’re worth the label. It’s a very similar exploration of your gender too. Of course, it’s associated with dysphoria and self-doubt, that’s natural, but this isn’t a commentary on people who suffer through it. It’s a commentary on all of us as a community. Almost all the queers feel like they’re constantly wronged by the community.
We don’t have sustainable mechanisms or tools to have complete freedom. In fact, queer gaze is not enough a tool either. I’m privileged enough to know what a niche concept like this means and can bank upon it to earn bread and butter, but this is not revolutionary.
Opening your eyes is a step to begin and we’re late. Queer gaze means viewing our realities beyond the binary, in order to act like that too. When I say queer gaze, I mean looking at our friendships like we are told to look at our blood-family and romantic/sexual partners. I mean looking at people’s intentions and if they’re well-meaning before they’re removed from a certain space. I mean holding people accountable within the community. I mean ridding of personal biases against people who dress differently than you but share your identity. I mean understand how unsafe some queer people are more than others.
Queerness is not meant to be gatekept and fetishized, it’s meant to liberate us. Our inward and outward queer gaze must align.
I reiterate my initial stance: I hope this essay holds us accountable to ourselves and to our community. I urge my reader to question my essay, to question the questions I bring up and to be kind in their accountability. More than anything, I hope my reader is kind in their vision of themselves and find belongingness, I too am trying my best.