News
Why queer spaces often fail South Asian women
Homosexuality stigmatization often compounds discrimination in conservative cultures
Uncloseted Media published this article on Dec. 16.
By NANDIKA CHATTERJEE | “I want to change your last name to make it sound whiter,” Sonali “Alyy” Patel remembers her white girlfriend saying to her while they were spending a quiet evening at home.
Patel felt a wave of grief wash over her. “I [have] to give up my South Asian-ness in order to be in a queer relationship,” she remembers thinking.
Patel and her girlfriend had been dating for some time and were sketching out a future together, even starting sentences with, “When we get married.” But as they built a foundation, she continued to feel marginalized because of her Indo-African heritage.
“I remember I was in [my girlfriend’s] household, and her father made a comment that was racist to brown people,” Patel told Uncloseted Media. When her girlfriend called him out, Patel remembers him responding by saying, “You were racist before you started dating a brown girl.”
Patel, a 29-year-old researcher and LGBTQ activist living in Vancouver, Canada, says comments from girlfriends and society kept popping up. So she began investigating them academically and went on to create the Queer South Asian Women’s Network.
In a 2019 study she published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Patel conducted in-depth narrative interviews with nine queer South Asian women in Toronto. She found that these women routinely experienced microaggressions, erasure and pressure to conform to white, Western queer norms, with one participant being told her queerness wasn’t that important during a conversation with her partner. Another said she was advised by friends and family to stick to other people of color when it came to dating.
This discrimination is often compounded in many conservative South Asian cultures where homosexuality is still stigmatized and viewed as a violation of religious or family values. In addition, women are expected to uphold family honor through modesty, heterosexual marriage and self-sacrifice.
A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that only 37 percent of Indians believe homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared to majorities in most Western nations.
In Patel’s experiences in queer circles, she believes that what often felt like a visceral sense of South Asian identity loss was actually enforced assimilation. “I had no language or framework to understand that this was racism. I grew up in a white town. … People were very openly racist and okay with it,” she says. She adds that in addition to facing racism in LGBTQ spaces, South Asian women face rejection for being queer at home.
“Our families are like, ‘Haha no, you’re not gay,’” she says.
Coming out
Patel says coming out poses unique challenges for South Asian women compared to women of other ethnicities.
In a 2025 study in the Canadian Review of Sociology, Patel interviewed 40 queer South Asian women in Canada and found that staying closeted can protect them from judgment from family and community.
This leaves these women vulnerable to contrasting pressures where their LGBTQ circles want them to come out.
“There was a participant who [was told by another] queer woman who was white that she just needs to ‘try harder to come out to [her] family,’” says Patel. “But that’s not how it works. [She] did try coming out to them, [but] they didn’t listen.” When she did come out, she was told by her family, “You’re not really gay.”
“Our culture prizes silence, sacrifice and family reputation over individual truth, so falling in love with a woman isn’t just about your personal life,” Suja Vairavanathan, a life coach in Essex, England, who works with South Asian women, told Uncloseted Media. “It feels like you’re challenging an entire system.”
Vairavanathan, who grew up in a traditional Indian family, came out later in life.
“For me, it wasn’t a typical ‘I always knew’ story. I didn’t grow up identifying as gay or even questioning my sexuality,” she says. “I spent 20 years in a marriage, raising kids, living what looked like the ‘right’ Tamil woman’s life. Then I fell in love with my best friend, who happened to be a woman.”
After Vairavanathan left her marriage, she came out in a TikTok video where she is smiling ear-to-ear with on-screen text reading: “You’d have to be a little delulu to think that a 42-year-old Tamil divorcee, mum of two sons, eldest daughter, recently turned gay woman had the audacity to show up on social media and live life unapologetically.” Her caption added: “Yet here I am.”
While there were many positive comments on the video, Vairavanathan says the backlash from many folks in the South Asian community was intense: “I had comments calling me ‘a disgrace,’ saying I’d ‘ruined my family’s name,’ even messages telling me I was ‘corrupting Tamil culture’ or that I must have been ‘brainwashed by the West.’ People reduced my whole life to a scandal just because I chose to live honestly.”
Internalized shame
This community rejection can be painful. “It wasn’t strangers attacking me. It was my own people, speaking the same language I grew up with, who decided I didn’t deserve respect anymore. And that hurts in a way racism from outsiders never could, because it feels like rejection from your own bloodline,” says Vairavanathan.
Mental health professionals who work with South Asian clients say that collectivist traditions, where family reputation is often prioritized over individual expression, can lead to the stigmatization of LGBTQ identities.
On the AAHNA South Asian therapy website, they write that understanding taboos associated with sexual orientation “is crucial for effective therapeutic practice, as they can significantly influence mental health and well-being.”
Balancing dual identities
Jiya Rajput, a British Indian content creator and founder of the QPOC Project, says the balancing act of her sexual and racial identity can be tough: “Being both South Asian and queer sometimes feels like having two vastly different identities,” Rajput told Uncloseted Media. “I have tried my best to blend my queerness with my desi identity. However, it is not often easy, with stereotypes and prejudice sometimes making me feel out of place.”
This balancing act may involve navigating stereotypes and racism inside queer spaces, which can have negative mental health outcomes. A 2022 survey of LGBTQ Asian Americans found that discomfort with one’s race or ethnicity within queer communities was associated with lower psychological well-being for those who consider their racial identity important.
Dating as a queer South Asian woman
Balancing this dynamic can make dating challenging. A 2023 study revealed that queer Asian American women are frequently subject to rigid racial dating preferences, with most preferring to date within their own racial group, often as a reaction to feeling fetishized or rejected from white queer spaces.
And even dating within communities of color presents its own set of challenges. “Racism is not exclusively a white people’s issue,” Patel says, noting that she experienced subtle discrimination with another girlfriend who was Punjabi.
“[She] was genuinely trying to relate with me, she just couldn’t,” she says.
Patel remembers her girlfriend holding many assumptions, such as the belief that all South Asians share the same cultural traditions, such as Bhangra, a lively Punjabi dance, or Garba, a traditional Gujarati folk dance performed during festivals.
“It comes from a place of just wanting to be seen for their own culture,” Patel says, noting that many people of color aren’t accustomed to being truly heard or understood. “There’s so much excitement in dating someone from a different background that sometimes you forget to actually listen and receive the culture through their lens.”
When South Asian women do decide to date white women, Patel says it can feel like one “should just assimilate … and try to keep the pressures of being brown [and] growing up in a stricter, possibly patriarchal, culture at bay.”
These pressures in queer spaces caused Lavina Sabnani to leave her culture behind in an effort to feel accepted.
“It felt wrong to push away everything my ancestors carried with them for so long,” Sabnani told Uncloseted Media. “There’s a standard of whiteness at Pride, at lesbian parties, at cultural and social clubs. … Me and the other brown girls never get noticed. It was like you’re invisible within a community where you’re supposed to be counted in.”
“Being a lesbian South Asian means breaking the mold in every possible way,” says Hubiba Ali, a first-generation Pakistani American, self-described “butch lesbian” and food scientist from Chicago. “Pakistani women I was raised around don’t wear boyish clothes, have short, cropped hair, thick muscles, and hairy legs. They do not eat with gusto, laugh and joke boisterously, or take up space. I gave up a lot of my birthright participation in my culture in order to live free.”
Underrepresented and under researched
To make change, Sabnani says South Asian representation in queer spaces is essential. But it’s not happening yet. According to GLAAD’s “Where We Are on TV” 2024-2025 study, Asian Pacific Islanders represented only 11 percent of LGBTQ characters on broadcast, 2 percent on cable and 14 percent on streaming.
Even shows that strive for diversity, like “The L Word: Generation Q,” fail to include South Asian characters. “They had everyone — Black, Latinx, East Asian — but not a single South Asian woman,” says Patel.
She recalls a dating app called Her that featured an image of two white women kissing — one of whom had a tattoo of a Hindu deity.
“They’ll use our gods, but not our faces,” she says.
Outside of Patel’s research, little information exists about racism and homophobia toward queer South Asian women.
And even in queer nightlife, Ali describes feeling sidelined. She says that while there are a few South Asian LGBTQ organizations in Chicago, finding meaningful representation is hard even in those scenes.
“They tend to be hosted in a part of town colloquially known as ‘Boystown,’ which semantically already does not center women or lesbians,” she says. “The events are usually held at gay bars for gay men.”
Finding acceptance
Patel says that to make spaces truly inclusive, folks need to “start by listening to queer brown women, understanding our unique challenges, and amplifying our voices.”
And despite all of these challenges, many queer South Asian women are still surviving and building a more inclusive future.
Artists like MANI JNX, a British Punjabi indie musician, are using music to explore queer South Asian love, trauma and joy. And visual creators like Mina Manzar are building online communities through art. “Funnily enough, here in NYC, so far from Pakistan, is where I’ve found the most vibrant and beautiful South Asian queer community,” Manzar told Uncloseted Media.
As for Patel, she has found a relationship with a Tamil woman that is grounded in mutual respect and cultural exchange. “I’ve learned how to make Tamil food, I’m learning the language, and she comes to Garba with me and dances every year,” she says. Their shared commitment to honoring each other’s traditions illustrates the importance of genuine cultural understanding in queer relationships that goes beyond surface-level acceptance or stereotypes.
Her hope is that the commitment to understanding that she has developed with her partner can become more reflective of how society tries to understand the experiences of queer South Asian women.
“Let’s just address each racialized group as a different racialized group and give them some damn visibility,” Patel says. “It’s not that hard.”
Australia
Australia lifts additional restrictions on LGBTQ blood donors
Gay, bisexual men, trans people in long-term monogamous relationships can now donate
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Lifeblood) has lifted additional restrictions on LGBTQ people who want to donate blood.
The Star-Observer, an Australian LGBTQ newspaper, reported new Lifeblood rules that took effect on Monday will allow “gay and bisexual men and transgender people in long-term monogamous relationships to donate blood and platelets for the first time.”
The new policy defines “long-term monogamous relationships” as those that are at least six months.
All potential donors — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity — will answer the same questions about recent sexual activity.
“Previous donor rules prevented many people from the LGBTQIA+ community from donating blood or platelets if they’d had sex within the past three months,” said Lifeblood CEO Stephen Cornelissen in a press release that announced the new policy. “These latest changes mean many gay and bisexual men and transgender people in long-term, monogamous relationships will become eligible to donate blood or platelets for the first time.”
Lifeblood in 2025 ended its blanket ban on sexually active LGBTQ people from donating blood.
Rodney Croome, an Australian LGBTQ activist who is the spokesperson for Let Us Give, a campaign that has championed the changes, donated blood on Monday.
“After three decades of advocacy, and for the first time in my life, I was able to donate blood today,” said Croome in a Facebook post that showed him donating blood. “From today, gay men, and bisexual men and transgender women who have sex with men, are able to give blood without the traditional three month abstinence period. All donors are now asked the same questions about sex regardless of the gender of our sexual partners.”
Croome in the post said “there are still problems with the new donor regime,” but said Let Us Give will continue to work with Lifeblood.
“Those who may have not been monogamous in the recent past should not be subject to a six month wait time,” he wrote. “Three months is considered more than enough in the UK, US and Canada. It should be here too. People on PrEP and trans people also face continued barriers. Let Us Give will continue to work towards greater equity in donation.”
European Union
Top EU court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law
Ruling issued days after voters outed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
The European Union’s top court on Tuesday struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian MPs in 2021 approved Act LXXIX of 2021.
“It shall be forbidden to make accessible to persons who have not attained the age of 18 years advertisement that depicts sexuality in a gratuitous manner or that propagates or portrays divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality,” it reads.
The European Commission in 2022 challenged the law. Sixteen EU countries — Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden — joined the lawsuit. The European Parliament also supported it. Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for his part, said his government would defend the law.
The EU Court of Justice heard the case in 2024.
A press release that announced the ruling on Tuesday said Hungary “acted in breach of EU law.”
“The court finds, for the first time, a separate infringement of Article 2 TEU (Treaty on European Union), which lists the values on which the (European) Union is founded and which are common to all the Member States,” it reads. “The aspects of the amending law targeting content which portrays or promotes deviation from the self-identity corresponding to the sex assigned at birth, gender reassignment, or homosexuality constitute a coordinated series of discriminatory measures which are in breach, in a way that is both manifest and particularly serious, of the rights of non-cisgender persons — including transgender persons — or non-heterosexual persons, as well as the values of respect for human dignity, equality and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”
“Consequently, that law is contrary to the very identity of the (European) Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails,” notes the press release. “Hungary cannot validly rely on its national identity as justification for adopting a law which is in breach of the values referred to above.”
The Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights group, said the ruling “is a milestone for the protection of human rights in the European Union, and it is also a historic victory for LGBTQI people in Hungary.”
The court issued its ruling nine days after Péter Magyar ousted Orbán in Hungary’s elections.
Orbán took office in 2010.
He and his government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown that included laws that banned Pride events and other public LGBTQ events. (Upwards of 100,000 people last June denied the prohibition and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.)
“Those amendments constitute a particularly serious interference with several fundamental rights protected by the (EU) Charter (of Fundamental Rights), namely the prohibition on discrimination based on sex,” notes the court’s press release.
The EU since Orbán took office has withheld upwards of €35 billion ($41.2 billion) in funds to Hungary in response to concerns over corruption, rule of law, and other issues. Magyar has said he will work with Brussels to unfreeze the money.
ILGA-Europe Deputy Director Katrin Hugendubel urged Maygar’s government to repeal the law.
“With this ruling, the CJEU (The EU Court of Justice) is confirming what we have been saying for six years,” said Hugendubel. “There is now no excuse for the Commission not to require Hungary to quickly withdraw the law. Hungary cannot enter a post-Orbán era without repealing this legislation, including the Pride ban.”
“If Péter Magyar truly aims to be pro-EU, he must place this at the top of his agenda for his first 100 days in office, as an essential part of his EU facing reforms,” added Hugendubel.
National
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
Pushback against community members who support Trump is not unusual
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 18.
This story was written in partnership with Gay Times Magazine.
By EMMA PAIDRA | When Evan decided it was time to tell his boyfriend that he voted for Trump, he couldn’t get the words out. “I was stuttering for 20 minutes straight on the phone,” he told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Once he finally worked up the courage, he was met with pushback: “He made fun of me. … He called me a racist and a white supremacist,” says Evan, a 21-year-old math major who lives in Long Island, N.Y.
That pushback isn’t unusual: According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 83 percent of queer men typically vote Democrat. One key reason gay men swing left in 2026 is because of the Trump administration and MAGA-aligned politicians’ track record on LGBTQ issues. Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument and shut down the LGBTQ-specific option on the 988 youth suicide hotline.
Because of this, many of the fewer than one in five LGBTQ men who cast their ballot for Trump in 2024 face judgment for their political affiliation.
“People think that I hate myself for being gay, and that I’m a gay traitor. … I wish there were more gay conservatives or moderates,” says Evan, who requested to use a pseudonym due to fears over retaliation for his political views.
Navigating dating and relationships as a gay Trumper
Nick Duncan, 43, can relate to Evan’s fears about being an open Trump supporter: “I mostly get hatred. I’ve never lost a conservative friend because I’m gay, but I’ve lost all of my gay friends because I’m conservative,” says Duncan, a hospitality executive who lives in Miami. “I’ve divorced myself from what I refer to as the Alphabet Mafia.”
Duncan says he feels so unwelcome by the LGBTQ community that he’s hesitant to attend certain queer events. “Nowadays, I would never go to a Pride event,” Duncan told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I don’t feel that I would be safe.”
Despite these concerns, Duncan doesn’t hide his political views when looking for love. “I’m in a long-term relationship now, and when I have been on the dating market, I’m very open and upfront about [my political views]. So I think it just weeds out most people who would have an issue.”
For Evan, political differences have been a source of tension in his relationship even before he told his boyfriend who he voted for. “When I first met him, he asked me if I liked Trump. … He was kind of scaring me. So I said, ‘I don’t know,’” Evan recalls. “He said, ‘Good answer, because if you said yes, I couldn’t even talk to you.’”
Since revealing his conservative identity, Evan has had multiple arguments with his boyfriend about politics. “This guy, who I’ve been dating for almost a year, he’s way too far left. … The first proof is he thinks there’s more than two genders,” says Evan. “I tried telling him there were only two genders, and he got mad at me.”
Though Evan believes there are only two genders, research suggests that gender is a spectrum allowing for multiple gender identities.
Proud gay Trump supporters
According to a 2025 report from Pew Research Center, 71 percent of LGBTQ adults view the Republican Party as unfriendly towards LGBTQ Americans. Duncan thinks these critiques are unreasonable: “The Republican Party is not nearly as anti-gay as [leftists] believe,” he says. “The Trump administration has plenty of openly gay people in the administration, and Trump actually supported gay marriage before it was cool.”
Gay members of the Trump administration include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as Tony Fabrizio, a pollster and strategist. Additionally, Trump did tell the Advocate in a 2000 interview that though “the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman,” he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
But since then, Trump has appointed Supreme Court Justices who have denounced marriage equality and Cabinet members with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Pam Bondi.
Duncan says part of the reason he isn’t worried about Trump’s anti-LGBTQ track record is because he doesn’t view being gay as the most important part of his identity: “The most important part of who I am is as a father.”
Duncan is not alone: A 2020 report from the UCLA Williams Institute School of Law found that Republican lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely to feel connected to other parts of their identities than their sexual orientations.
Evan doesn’t identify with the community at large and does not like to be referred to as “LGBTQ” or “queer.”
“I realized I’m normal. I’m not LGBTQ,” he says. “I’m just gay.”
Evan’s desire to be seen as “normal” rings of Vice President JD Vance’s 2024 comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he said Trump could win the “normal gay” vote. During this same interview, Vance suggested that parents of genderqueer children use their children’s identities as a rejection of having white privilege. Vance received significant backlash for these comments, with the Human Rights Campaign responding to the vice president’s remarks over X.
Some gay Republicans see the GOP as more friendly
For Chris Doane, 56, voting Republican is the only choice that makes sense, as he believes voting for a Democrat goes directly against his interests as a queer man. “Conservatives don’t want to murder gays. They want them saved,” he says. “Muslims vote Democrat, because if the Democrats win, they get to stay [in the U.S.], they get to take power, and they will murder gays brutally with a smile on their face,” says Doane.
Doane’s comments are unfounded and display racist stereotypes peddled by far-right American media: One study from the Brennan Center for Justice compiled data from 1984 to 2020 and found that racial resentment is more prevalent on the right than on the left.
Doane was raised in a conservative family in Bryan, Texas, and isn’t out to his family because he fears that they won’t accept him. For him, voting Republican is part of his heritage. “I was told, ‘Don’t ever let Democrats in control. They’ll ruin our country,’” he says. “That’s pretty much what they did, and that’s why President Trump is working overtime to straighten it all back out.”
Trans rights and gay Republican men
Though Doane and other gay Republicans hold a range of views, a common thread is a hesitancy around trans rights. So, they align more with the Trump administration, which has railed against the trans community with Trump’s policies and rhetoric.
For example, Doane sees being able to transition as a matter of personal freedom but thinks gender-affirming care for trans kids is a step too far.
“When it comes to transgender, I have nothing against that. I just believe that when you make that transition, it should be at a point where your brain is fully developed … and you’re actually going to enjoy that transition,” he says.
He also holds the view that for a trans person to be accepted as their correct gender, they must fully physically transition. “If you’re gonna transgender, transgender all the way. If you’ve still got male parts on you, you don’t belong in the women’s dress room.” However, research suggests otherwise, with a 2025 study indicating that policing bathroom access can lead to mental distress in trans youth.
Duncan has his own doubts.
“I disagree with the integration of gender ideology and radical wokeism into the LGBT community. You are free to live under any delusion you so desire. You’re not free to require me to live under your delusion as well,” he says. “But if somebody wants to live as a man or a woman, however it is, I firmly believe they have the right to do that. I would never get in the way of it.”
Duncan also believes that education about LGBTQ people should be limited in schools. He sees adolescence as a fundamentally confusing time, and believes an education about LGBTQ communities would “add on layers of confusion.” This belief seems to be in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which has banned education on gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida’s classrooms from pre-kindergarten until the end of eighth grade, though there are exceptions for health lessons.
“It’s okay to tell kids that some boys like boys, some girls like girls, some people like both. But it just needs to be kept vague and general,” Duncan says. “However you are is okay. We don’t need to expose children to gay media because if you’re gay, you’re going to know.”
Duncan does not believe heteronormative bias in mainstream media is a problem, though a study published in Equity & Excellence in Education found heteronormative biases in schools may harm queer students. “The vast majority of people are heterosexual, and a functioning society is built on a heteronormative bias,” he says. “It is important to understand that we are the extreme minority and society is not responsible for conforming to us.”
They approve of Trump and don’t see him as a threat
While LGBTQ Americans see the Republican party as unfriendly towards queer people, Duncan and Doane aren’t worried about being stripped of their rights. Duncan says the 2015 passage of gay marriage solidified his equal rights. “We have marriage as gay men. I have every right that a straight man does,” he says.
Doane also feels that his rights are secure under Trump 2.0 and approves of the president so far. “I voted for that great, big, beautiful wall because we were being overrun by illegals,” he says. Doane also approves of U.S. interventions in Iran and Venezuela, though he criticizes Trump for “leaving [Venezuela] way too soon.”
Similarly, Duncan is generally approving of Trump’s handling of immigration. “I don’t love what we’re doing as far as deportations, but we had to get some control over the illegal population,” says Duncan. “I wish there was another way, but I can’t think of it.”
Duncan and Doane are certainly in the minority as queer men who approve of Trump, but as far as they’re concerned, Trump is delivering on his promises. “Overall, I’m happy,” says Duncan. “I’m getting pretty much exactly what I voted for.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated that Trump told the Advocate in 2000 that legalizing gay marriage was “only fair.” That was incorrect. He told the publication that he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
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