Listen to this reading...

The ‘Gender binary’
is stuck in our brains
like dried shit on a shoe.
But it wasn’t always like this.

*
Brought up in a Hindu home,
when being Hindu felt cool.
Not many friends at school,
but a troop of gods
in my room.

And my gods grooved.
They danced
through the house -
glittering eyes and feet
painted gold, blue,
pink and green.
Gods and goddesses
undefined genders,
limbs entangled.
Unrepenting.

I turned through comics
slow, then quick.
Eyeing up every pleat and fold,
raising one foot off the ground,
arms outstretched,
being Shiva, Kali, Rama.

These stories,
my stories,
where female and male would run
into each other.
Ardhanarishvara,
my nonbinary god then
and now -
I didn’t bat an eyelid.

I dressed up:
Krishna’s warm blue skin,
heavy framed eye-lids,
silky aqua feathers,
strong femme man.

I danced:
Mother Kali,
skulls around my neck,
tinfoil blade in hand,
razing demons to the ground.

I was both
and neither,

aged 5
knowing
my queer gender.

Year 1;
real school.
‘Are you a boy or a girl?’
‘Why you got a boycut?’
‘Where’s your pinafore?’

I fail to be girl.
They don’ t let me forget.
To muffle the whispers
I wear a navy beanie.
An attempt to hide myself.

‘It’ll grow back
real quick. Don’t you worry love’
Miss Clay says.
‘OK’
I reply.

aged 6
struggling away
my queer gender.

About Gayathri & Theeba

Gayathiri (she/they) is a freelance arts-based sex and relationships educator and writer based in the UK. Working with School of Sexuality Education and Decolonising Contraception, she aims to create decolonising and inclusive spaces for underserved communities. Gayathiri is the founder of Inclusive Tamil Arts - an online community space for people of all sexualities and genders, to create and celebrate inclusive Tamil arts and culture. (@unembarrassable, @inclusivetamilarts)

Theeba (she/her) is a mixed media artist who uses analog and digital techniques to explore Tamil identity. (@coco.crafter)