The Importance Of Queer Politics

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The differences between race and gender are socially constructed. However, not everyone can conform to the same ideas surrounding difference race and gender roles. In Naisargi Dave’s paper on Queer Politics in Contemporary India and Smadar Lavie’s essay on Gender, Race, and Bureaucratic Pain, both authors discuss how people use different forms of agency to gain power in in their society and government. This paper will aim to analyze these papers, as well as to demonstrate the similarities and differences between them.
Naisargi Dave’s paper on Queer Politics in Cotemporary India focuses on the importance that activism and agency has on the power and influence that the LGBTQ community has in India. Overall, the paper attempted to illustrate …show more content…

The first exercise seeks to establish the idea that it is not acceptable to exclude people who identify themselves as a member of the LGTBQ community. Instead, activism seeks to promote awareness and acceptance for these members so a sense of cohesion in the community can be created. This can be practiced on the individual level by teaching members of society the importance of accepting different beliefs. Activism is used as a method for LGTBQ citizens to feel included in society and to not feel ashamed of their identity. Overall, queer activism is focused towards searching for and cultivating ethics (Dave 2011, 5). Several arguments against the LGTBQ community claim that same-sex relationships are morally wrong. Queer activism aims to refute this claim by stating that people should be allowed to be with whomever they love. It is important to note that queer activism in India tried to establish its own set of beliefs that are different from the ‘Western’ views towards lesbianism (Dave 2011, 10). This was done to prevent Western imperialistic views from dictating what is acceptable in

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