How ‘Queer Calls’ is creating space for LGBTQIA+ voices

CHENNAI: Amidst growing debates about who gets to tell whose stories, Samathuva Chennai under Empowering Communities Through Education (ECTE), in collaboration with Goa-based organisation Storiculture, are creating active spaces for people from the queer community to tell their own stories. Queer Calls began as a small project to do something ‘fun and impactful’ during Chennai Pride. The project has now taken off as a mini Instagram series, with an extended version up for release this September.

Stressing the necessity for people from the community to tell their stories, Vijay Gnanaprasad, the founder of ECTE, says, “We did not want to appropriate their stories but create a space to express and learn. The larger goal lies in educating the public about the queer community, their history, and familiarising people with the language of being seen and heard. In the extended version of Queer Calls, we will be focusing on each queer term from the glossary to make language and conversations welcoming and inclusive.”

Speaking about making the Tamil language more inclusive, Sanjevi Jayaraman, Instagram content creator and the face of the project, says, “The words exist, there is already a dictionary with all these words. However, it is invisible. The masses do not know it. What we need to do is to popularise them.” Apart from being part of this project, Sanjevi explains Tamil queer terms on his social media page through Paal Pudhumai 101.

The 15-part reel series, now live on Samathuva Chennai’s Instagram page, depicts a simple phone call from a PCO booth - a ‘queer PCO booth’. People call their friends, their colleagues, their late parents, and sometimes, their younger selves. The call is a conversation they couldn’t have in real life, conversations they’ve been forbidden to have. “It is a PCO because PCO booths are at the centre of public and private life in a city,” says Vijay. Dee, the designer of the booth, adds that she reimagined a PCO booth to be a safe space for queer folk to be vulnerable. “The booth has a lot of pride colours, apart from memes and caricatures. I added colours from the Trans and Pride flags. I imagined the space to be welcoming for us to let out, to be ourselves.” Dee called her late father from the booth.

The experience of shooting for the series has been cathartic and reassuring, say many from the community. Naveenraj, a doctor by profession, who will be featured in the series’ upcoming episodes, says his motivation behind being featured was to educate. As someone with severe mental health issues and depression, he wanted to tell his people that they are not alone. While doing it, he felt a sense of accomplishment. “I wanted to tell my story to the community, reassuring them that they are not alone in their depression and their thoughts about suicide. I wanted to work with the community to find and make therapists more queer-affirmative,” he says.

Amal Pillai, an artist and sustainability activist, reaffirms the idea that when they speak up, people learn. “I was heavily bullied during my college years, and I have always resented my college mates for that. However, it was later that I realised the bullying and hostility came from a place of unawareness. My call was to my classmates, to educate them, to tell them my story so they don’t repeat what they did to me. This was also a way of forgiving them, but also immortalising my story forever.”

Sanjevi, who came on board, explains how Queer Calls makes the city accessible to those who are pushed to the margins and silenced. “I love Chennai. I know everything about the city at the drop of a hat. I had to leave my city because it didn’t feel right or safe for me, as I couldn’t find a space for myself, nor was the language available. Now, when I see organisations like Samathuva Chennai and ECTE, it is very reassuring. When they approached me for the project, it was an opportunity I could not miss.”

Resonating with the same sentiment, Vijay believes it is also up to the government and the GCC to make Chennai inclusive. “Under the 74th amendment of the Constitution, along with town planning, schools, and health care, even art, culture, and history fall under the GCC’s purview. The city’s history is also queer history. I strongly believe that any initiatives to celebrate queer history, culture, and existence should come from the corporation. Our attempt is to make the corporation notice us and take up more proactive roles in establishing schools, healthcare amenities, and other projects supporting the community. We need them to allocate budgets for us, to work towards the well-being of the community too. A city belongs to everyone, irrespective of how one identifies. We are all Chennaiites,” he adds.