The Inequality of India's Queer Spaces

While the U.S. Supreme Court is still debating same-sex marriage, public opinion has already come down in its favor. For many, the striking down of the Defense of Marriage Act last year ushered in a new chapter in the history of the LGBTQ-rights movement. In this new era, queer spaces—decades-old bars and iconic clubs—have been shutting shop, giving way to more integrated spaces, embedded into the urban mainstream.

But on the other side of the world, in India, such queer spaces exist in the shadows of the city—transient and shifting. And not everyone has equal access to them. “Our Stonewall movement has just started,” says the gay rights activist Mohnish Kabir Malhotra, referring to a 1969 uprising in New York City that became a symbol for the LGBTQ struggle around the world.