Paper short abstract:

This paper will critically examine the journey of a LBT collective in Kolkata and document how and to what extent the city creates the space for politics and conversations of plural sexualities.

Paper long abstract:

From naming themselves as Sappho to voicing solidarities against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, this paper will critically examine a journey where relationships are forged, identities are re-constructed and protests are voiced across issues in the city of Kolkata. This is the journey of a lesbian collective in Kolkata. I begin by locating the group in relation to other already existing women's collectivities in the city, and also within the broader sexuality rights discourse of activism in India. The organisation claims that its initial goal was 'to provide a safe space for women with same sex preference, and that it gradually moved into 'a rights-oriented movement to fight discrimination and hatred against marginalized women with same sex preference', with its struggle being 'not against individual heterosexual people but against heterosexism.' Taking cue from these claims, this paper aims at understanding primarily through Sappho's publications the kind of spaces that the organization has created or helped retrieve for the women. The central question the paper engages with is: How has the organization enabled in making spaces within the personal sphere by forging new relationships, as well as within the political sphere by claiming entitlements and opportunities? More generally, the paper is an exploration of the city of Kolkata (which has had a Communist government for the longest period of time in postcolonial India) and how its public spaces and civil society have re-imagined sexual politics.