GLR November-December 2025

in Delhi, builds a stark imagery of the complex expressions of self, guided by the spaces they occupy in the city. Their sto ries sketch out their discomfort and comfort within queer cir cles, the absences of caste discourse, and how it channels desire and sexuality for them. For example, on dating apps, some upper-caste men flaunt their status and explicitly dis courage men of lower castes from applying. For many Dalit Bahujan queer and trans people, caste shame continues to overshadow desire and sexuality. Dhiran Borisa, curator of Across the Nala , talks about his

navigating the city, with all its friendliness to their appearance. Their larger challenge was that navigating life in smaller towns and cities while growing up didn’t allow them any space to un derstand their sexuality. Moving to Delhi gave them that space, freedom, and agency to be as they are while dealing with the economic and environmental challenges of this city. “This is the only city that I have lived in for as long as ten years, and every locality I have been to, I have always found friendly neighborhoods,” they said. “It’s probably because I am a trans femme person, I receive a fair amount of love from

own experiences of being a Dalit gay man and how he has had to hide behind his pro fessorship even to access accommodations in the city, where he would be asked intru sive personal questions. “These questions haven’t been either-or questions of queer ness and caste respectability, but they are en meshed into each other,” he said. “They are reminders of the fact that I’m able to navi

strangers. While I don’t want to discount the discomfort and the violence I have also faced, I just don’t want violence to define my experience of the city.” They say city residents have a familiarity and a greater comfort with trans femme peo ple. “As a trans femme person, existing in different public places has meant everything to me because people also share with you in

Discrimina ti on against Dalit trans people dates back to the colonial era, when the Raj criminalized gender nonconforming people from marginalized castes.

gate these spaces because of the kind of life journey I have had and the position I have come to embody now.” But he adds that he also knows that it’s all fragile: “The way in which the wok eness and the progressiveness or even queerness of the city in vites us into spaces, it is equally humiliating when it wants to show you the door.” Another journal that brings together essays on trans experi ences of urban spaces is Urban Kaleidoscope by the People’s Resource Center. Its associate editor, Krishanu, an upper-caste queer and neurodivergent person, shares a fresh perspective on

ways that is very satisfying,” Krishanu said. “The many ways of existing for gender variant communities has been around histor ically, and that widens the sense of acceptance for me in society.” The experiences of Radhika, Borisa, and Krishanu give a sense of the complex terrain that Dalit trans queer people must navigate in urban India—a landscape in which liberation and exclusion exist in uncomfortable proximity. While cities like Delhi offer unprecedented freedom for gender expression and queer identity, they simultaneously reproduce the very caste hi erarchies that progressive spaces claim to challenge. EL BOHÍO PRESS PRESENTS In its third edition, a groundbreaking book! COMING OF QUEER AGE IN PUERTO RICO by Joseph F. Delgado, author of The Tango of the Shipwreck and That Other Plague “The ethnography of sexual harrassment.” —EFRAÍN BARRADAS “Excellent, compelling book!” —JOHN D’EMILIO

“The author exposes the dark side of Puerto Rico’s hetero-normative culture.” —ALFREDO VILLANUEVA

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