My SRHR Dream for India

    As a queer individual assigned female at birth (AFAB), SRHR is a topic that’s close to my heart but at the same time, I also understand how broad of an umbrella it is. That’s why I concentrate on areas where my expertise is the largest. This is something I hope others too follow because misinformation and misconceptions is an extremely problematic and widespread issue in India, with dire consequences, some of which are unintended, when it comes to SRHR. 

1. Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) 

    The aforementioned issues, I believe, are exacerbated by the lack of CSE in India, with the extremely limitedly available sex education being skipped or limited to students AFAB, effectively increasing the taboo, stigma, shame and making the shroud of secrecy even darker. Thus, at the root, making CSE, with a shared risk and pleasure-based focus, rather than singularly the former, mandatory in educational institutions from elementary schools is essential. 

    Having a pleasure-based focus is essential, in addition to the risks, because we, as a society, need to acknowledge the fact that people engage in sex and explore their sexuality for their pleasure and happiness, be it sexual or otherwise. Like in any other journey of self-discovery, this exploration comes with its risks. So, addressing only the risks without the pleasure that pioneered it would be like treating the symptoms of a disease without even giving regard to the causative factor of the disease, not that pleasure is a disease though. Bringing pleasure into the sphere of vision is also going to create visibility and validation for people who differ from the conventional understanding of intercourse/coitus, thus effectively addressing a lot of mental health and relationship issues due to initiation of conscious and purposeful communication. From the perspective of a person who engages in kink and with ‘pain’ for a fetish, I can guarantee that basic scientific awareness of pleasure and the knowledge that it can mean different things to different people provides a depth to the concept of ‘Consent’ and understanding of ‘Bodily Autonomy’. 

    I’d also like to propose building a general awareness of Puberty Blockers and Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), addressing both its risks and benefits, to give children and people the assurance and awareness that it’s possible and okay to be different. 

        2. Medical Industry 

We all know that the medical industry is a tight nut to crack. But it being what it is doesn’t invalidate my experiences of bodyshaming and being given partial to no information. And these aren’t singular incidents because, as an SRHR Activist and a friend to numerous marginalized folks, I have heard stories of numerous lived experiences of public bodyshaming, unnecessary surgeries, withholding of information, and disaffirmation, bordering harassment.  

Though a lot of these issues can be tackled by CSE, more complicated issues call for updating the outdated, defective and insufficient medical syllabus. Among these ‘complicated issues’, one in my expertise to address is the SRHR of Intersex people. 

To understand this completely, we need to understand that, unlike popular belief, people can be intersex not just due to ambiguous genitals but also due to hormonal and/or genetic variations, which amounts to more than 45 ways of being intersex. Leaving the unnecessary surgeries done on the first group of healthy infants, other groups wouldn’t even know that they’re intersex until they’re into their puberty or never. This means that a lot of us could be intersex and never even know it. While one of the reasons for this being the lack of research done into the SRHR of intersex people due supposedly few people being born as such, it’s also to be acknowledged that most of us live our lives without doing karyotypic testing. I’m not advocating for it since it’s an expensive procedure. But I’m advocating for the possibility of a person being intersex to be considered, atleast when they encounter failure even after numerous rounds of IVF or when they have other reproductive issues which are unexplained or not explained enough by modern medicine or often ignored by the medical community.  

Ofcourse, I can’t give citations to medical journals to attest to all these arguments since no research have been done into these issues, which brings us back to the problem in question that needs to be addressed. Even after research are done into these matters, I might be wrong about some of these since I’m not a medical professional. But talking to the President Elect, Dr. Jaydeep Tank, of FOGSI, I atleast know that my concerns are valid and would like them addressed.