Anti-Caste is Not Enough: Our Spaces Must Be Actively Queer-Liberatory

16/06/25

At India Labour Solidarity, our commitment to anti-caste politics is foundational. We come together as workers, students, organisers, and artists who know that Brahminism is not just a historical injustice, it continues to shape our everyday lives and define ourselves as anti-caste as a result of this.

But a hard truth confronts us: even in spaces built to resist caste oppression, queer people, especially queer people from Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi (DBA) communities continue to be made to feel unsafe, unheard, and unseen.

This is a call for us to reflect and to act. Because anti-caste organising that is not explicitly queer-liberatory is incomplete and complicit.

Queer members of our community have raised concerns about being spoken over, misgendered, dismissed, or made to feel like their concerns were “too much.” At times, they’ve been told to not be so “politically correct,” or had their identities treated as a burden on collective organising.

These are not individual failures. These are structural failures that emerge when our politics do not actively centre those at the intersections of caste, queerness, gender, and class. When queer and trans people from DBA communities express discomfort or ask for accountability, they are often seen as disruptive or overly sensitive. We also see a pattern that when queer people come up with ideas and opinions they're sometimes belittled. This subtle (and not-so-subtle) dismissal reinforces hierarchies within our movements the very hierarchies we claim to fight.

Caste and Queerness Are Interlinked

Caste has always regulated desire, marriage, kinship, and gender roles. Queerness inherently resists these structures just as anti-caste politics do. To be queer and DBA is not to live a separate identity, but to embody multiple resistances at once.

When queerphobia or gender-based dismissal occurs in our spaces, it is not just a social misstep. It is a continuation of caste-based violence that we are fighting against in a different form. The liberation we seek cannot be partial or selective. If our movements exclude or belittle queer voices or tolerate hostility toward them we are not dismantling Brahminical power; we are simply reshaping it.

A Collective Commitment

As a UK-based collective, we are concerned by the British state's increasing hostility toward the trans community, particularly in light of the 2025 Supreme Court ruling, which was strongly influenced by anti-trans lobbying. This decision comes at a time when many trans people already feel unsafe and unsupported in their daily lives.

As a result we are reaffirming our stance on this topic so people who are associated with our collective know where to stand on queer liberation and decide if they wish to be associated with us as a collective. 

None of this is easy work. But it is necessary. Liberation must be uncomfortable especially for those with relative privilege. And the burden of that discomfort must not fall solely on those already marginalised.

This article is not a criticism from the outside, it is a commitment from within. We recognise that spaces like ours must do better. We must hold ourselves to a standard that reflects the world we are trying to build: one rooted in dignity, solidarity, and the deep understanding that none of us are free until all of us are free.

We are not calling for punishment. We are calling for transformation. To that end, we will be developing:

Community guidelines that explicitly name casteism, queerphobia, misogyny, and ableism as unacceptable.

Developing safeguarding practices for our spaces, especially in informal hangouts and events.

Approaching harm and conflict through transformative justice principles, prioritising repair, dialogue, and mutual accountability.

Resisting the idea that queer and trans concerns are “divisive” or “secondary” to anti-caste work. They are central.

Queer liberation is anti-caste. Anti-caste is queer.

There is no middle ground.