Hijra, Marriage and the Law
On 24 May, 2010, in Peshawar, Rani, Malik and 45 other people were arrested for holding a wedding ceremony. Rani is a known Hijra (third gender/trans woman) while Malik is a cisgender man who also had two previous marriages. Both Rani and other prominent members of the Hijra community...Read More »
آسکر وائلڈ کے نام
آج ایک بار پھر
مجھ سے میری شناخت کی بابت
دریافت کی گئی ہے
گویا مجھ سے میرے ہونے کی
گواہی مانگی گئی ہے
اور میں خود پر آئد فردِ جرم
کو سن کر اب
بیٹھا سوچ رہا ہوں
کہ کیسے خود کا دفاع کروں
کیونکہ...Read More »
My Body is My Instrument
I have two eyes, a tongue, a nose, and a pair of lips –
Uncircumcised –
I see ethnicities, speak of my own, taste the soils and whimper
My womb is an oven – for cookies, bread, rice and lentils
It doesn’t need
semen wisdom to fire it;
a wooden...Read More »
Ins Kromminga: A Conversation
Below are excerpts from an interview I did in November, 2009, with a fascinating artist and activist, Ins Kromminga, who initiated a process in me, simple and obvious, and yet complicated and hardly ever embarked upon vis-à-vis the politics of gender and sexuality. Ins has challenged the routine of the...Read More »
Elle Woods: On the Other Side of Oppression
As a pro-feminist queer who whole-heartedly endorses radical feminism, I took myself to task for admiring the ‘post-feminist’ film Legally Blonde when I saw it the other day. Is Elle Woods, a bubbly ultra-pink sorority girl who survives the rigors of Harvard Law while being true to herself, an...Read More »
Being Belindas
The mirror hangs before me
The mirror hangs before me
My long face stares back at me
a pointed chin
whose rounding I dread
A tiny forehead
gleaned from the thick mass
of black hair surrounding it.
At the black hair
now streaked with red
I oscillate between
fascination and...Read More »
All Oppression
It’s been a while. We at Chay Magazine have been reassessing, rethinking, revamping and also resting and recreating as we figure out where and how to take this publication. Much has happened in the months since you last heard from us. Much of it has been horrible, such as...Read More »
A Gay of No Importance
It has been an audacious and difficult decision for me to finally come out and accept my gaiety. Coming out has seemed like deliverance from my every sin, for which I will be pardoned and will start living happily hereafter.
But I forgot that life isn’t a fairy tale...Read More »