When Adarsh E, known as Aadhi, received news that his poetry collection Pennappan had been included in the syllabi of both Calicut University and Mahatma Gandhi (MG) University, his joy knew no bounds. It wasn’t only because his name now sat alongside greats like Kumaranasan, Changampuzha, and Sugathakumari in the textbooks. For Aadhi, the honour also symbolised something else — a victory for the queer and Bahujan political movements he is a part of, and fights for.
A doctoral scholar, Aadhi received the prestigious Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in the Young Poets category in 2024 for Pennappan.
But Aadhi’s school years were starkly different. He was subjected to bullying and taunting by students, and even teachers, for his effeminate nature.
After post-graduation, Aadhi enrolled for Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) at Government College of Teacher Education, Kozhikode — a period that felt like an uncomfortable return to his school days. By the second year, he wanted to drop out of the course. “The teachers were very queerphobic and their prejudices reflected in their teaching,” he says.
So bad was his experience that he eventually filed a case against the college authorities. Aadhi laments the irony — a space that is supposed to mould future educationists being regressive and stuck in their ways.
One of the main reasons people hesitate to come out in their academic spaces is because the process also results in an unwanted sexualisation of the person’s identity, Aadhi notes. In his opinion, this is also an evident reason behind the lack of queer representation in the teaching community.
Kerala, the first state in the country to have a transgender policy, introduced academic reservation for transgender students in 2018. Two seats in all undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Arts and Sciences colleges were reserved for them. Unsurprisingly, the reservation policy didn’t put a stop to institutions displaying an anti-queer stance towards students. A renowned women’s college in Kottayam district was accused of denying admission to transgender students in 2019.
The Kerala government has also introduced initiatives like Mazhavillu, Varnam, and Saphalam, all aimed at providing financial assistance to transgender students for diploma, undergraduate, and Masters courses.
Rithisha, a first-year doctoral scholar at the Kalady University, started her transition into a trans woman in class 12. Rithisha echoes Aadhi’s sentiments about the relatively better queer-inclusive environment that the University holds.
“For example, even though the University doesn’t have a separate transgender hostel, the students can choose between the men’s or women’s hostels. The University has gender-neutral toilets too,” she says.
The Kalady University is not the norm, but the exception. Gender-neutral infrastructure, like toilets, is absent in most colleges across Kerala. Maharajas College in Ernakulam announced in 2024 the introduction of unisex restrooms as part of their gender inclusivity campaign. The move, applauded as a key step in representation, also had its fair share of critics who cited reasons like the safety of cisgender women students.
Rithisha reckons that there is more opportunity for the younger generation in this time and age to educate themselves about queer identity and politics, owing largely to social media. Yet, she feels that social media has had the opposite effect, spewing more queerphobic and cis-heteronormative content.
While Rithisha’s is a success story, she points out that the number of transgender students who have been forced to drop out of college due to institutional queerphobia in Kerala is alarmingly high. Such cases don’t get much mainstream attention, she says, mainly because of how normalised they are.
According to the All Kerala Higher Education Survey (AKHES) Report of 2021-22, published in March 2024, the total enrolment of students across various college and university-level institutions in Kerala was 10,01,281. Out of this, only 114 students (1.14%) were transgender.
Muhammed Unais, a queer activist from Kollam, recollects a queerphobic experience he faced from his college in Thiruvananthapuram during his post graduation in 2016. The college denied him permission to hold an open seminar on LGBTQIA+ rights.
A queer educator’s role is very crucial, Unais says, as they can educate the student community on critical queer theory more effectively. This he says with the experience of having worked as a guest teacher at a high school for a few years after completing a B.Ed course.
A 2019 study conducted by Queerala, a Kerala-based organisation for LGBTQIA+ communities, called out the universities in Kerala for not implementing the 2016 update of the anti-ragging policy of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which includes ragging on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. While much has improved in the five years since then, reports of ragging on queer students are still not uncommon in academic spaces in the state.
Arjun Geetha, a trans man, recollects that the environment at MG University, where he did his undergraduate and postgraduate courses, was so uncomfortable that he chose to wait till he left the space to start his transition process.
“I struggled with expressing myself throughout my time at [MG University], especially when it came to my clothing choices. Occasions like Onam that others celebrated merrily were a nightmare for me because I was expected to drape a saree, which I wasn’t comfortable in at all,” Arjun adds. His hostel life there was no different, having had to face harassment from the authorities due to his gender identity.
Arjun’s trials involving his alma mater have still not ended, eight years after the completion of his course. Although he has changed his gender from female to transgender in official documents like Aadhar and PAN, the University has been delaying the process of making the same change in his degree certificates.
Naithik Gopi, who transitioned into a trans man five years ago, lives in Bengaluru and is happily married. He recounts similar horrid experiences he faced during his undergraduate days more than a decade ago at a women’s college in Kerala, prior to his transition. The hostel warden went so far as to invade his personal space, inspecting his room and personal belongings; ‘accused’ him of being homosexual; and relocated him to a separate hostel — experiences that made him feel isolated and ostracised throughout the course. He joined a post graduation course at St George’s College, Kottayam, soon after, where the environment was equally bad, if not worse, forcing him to drop out in the first semester itself.
The doctoral thesis of Nandu Parvathy Pradeep, submitted in 2024, was on the subject Decrypting heteronormativity in the Indian academia. Nandu’s journey of becoming an openly queer, bisexual educator started with her struggle with her sexuality during the early years of her college life in Kerala, to eventually understanding and identifying with it.
Except for a few academicians like gay poet and teacher Hoshang Merchant, queer educators find it hard to create a space for themselves in academia, says Nandu. A case in point is the tragic life and death of Ramchandra Srinivas Siras, a gay teacher at Aligarh Muslim University. More recently, in 2017, LGBTQIA+ rights activist Ashley Tellis was removed from his position as Associate Professor in a prominent college in Bengaluru, allegedly for “hurting the sensitivities” of undergraduate students from heterogeneous backgrounds.
According to the 2021-22 AKHES report, of the 54,898 faculty members teaching across universities and affiliated colleges in the state, only 10, that is 0.017%, belong to the transgender category.
Nandu speaks about the undisguised anti-queer practices prevalent in Kerala colleges, especially from her experiences during her undergraduate course (2009-12) at a women’s college, including the college's hostel. “The student counselling sessions and the moral science classes in the curriculum blatantly called homosexuality a sin.”
As a teacher of English Literature herself, Nandu touches on with frustration the lack of queer representation in the texts they teach.
“Even if we make the needed updates to the texts, I doubt whether a teacher without an open mind will do justice to them,” she says. Educators have to be aware, unprejudiced, and accepting of queer theories and the community before they can pass on knowledge to students, Nandu adds.
The NALSA judgement of 2014 and the decriminalisation of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2018 have influenced queer individuals’ coming out in the last decade or so, says MN Parasuraman, a college teacher working in Kerala for nearly two decades now.
For him, coming out as bisexual happened over time, and involved several steps. It was in 2015 that he felt comfortable enough to come out as bisexual in the academic space.
College and university campuses have made proactive efforts to increase queer participation, says Parasuraman. He credits the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government for creating a better representation for the queer community in various sectors in Kerala, including higher education.
Parasuraman picks out a few instances, such as a workshop aimed at formulating a handbook for queer-friendly campuses in collaboration with Kerala Youth Leadership Academy, organising pride marches, or forming rainbow clubs in colleges.
Although he hasn’t had to deal with many unpleasant experiences from his peers in academia, Parasuraman says that their silent queerphobia can often be sensed.
Even as queer representation in academia increased in the past decade, there’s still a dearth of the community’s presence in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in Kerala. Dr Anuradha Krishnan, a trans woman who is a dentist by profession, attests to this. Anuradha herself had a mixed bag of experiences during her college years.
Having faced a lot of harassment and hardships during her school time, Anuradha became more vocal about her identity as a trans woman during her second year of the course, at PMS Dental College, Thiruvananthapuram. Although she didn’t face many issues from the college management, her batchmates weren’t the most understanding of her circumstances.
Due to the harassment from her batchmates, Anuradha took a break from her studies in 2016, two years into her course, before returning to college after the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually completing her studies in 2024.
“My classmates the second time around were accepting about my identity. I also had a student mentor who supported me a great deal and raised matters on my behalf with the management. The year I graduated, I gave a talk at the college on gender identity and my own experiences,” she says with a hint of pride in her voice.
For the past two years, queer researcher Prijith PK has been working with the Kerala Knowledge Economy Mission, an initiative that aims to provide gainful employment to 20 lakh people over five years in various sectors and job verticals across the state. Prijith currently heads the Diversity Inclusion Department of the project, which includes providing job opportunities for transgender individuals.
According to Prijith, although reservations in job sectors can create a difference in the employment scope for trans persons, it is more important to develop an organic presence of the community across the various work sectors in the long run. He takes the example of the state government’s initiative to employ transgender persons in the Kochi Metro at the time of its launch, which has currently dwindled to just two employees.
Prijith also stresses the importance of a larger queer representation among administrators and policymakers, as they can bring about more impactful changes.
Aadhi reflects that the queer movement in Kerala commenced with the strong participation of the marginalised and the underprivileged stratas in our society. For one, he points out, the pride campaigns initially couldn’t have been conducted without the involvement and support of the sex workers, a group that is severely ostracised and cut off from mainstream society.
The pride march that was recently held in Thiruvananthapuram had a significant presence of Ambedkarites and members from several Dalit rights organisations. At the forefront of the march was a bullock cart symbolising social reformer and leader Ayyankali’s anti-caste gesture.
Prakrithi NV is a trans woman from an Adivasi community in Wayanad, one of the first queer persons from her community to have completed college education. She acknowledges the complexities involved as a queer person from a tribal background. While her family is accepting of her identity now, it took her a long time to make them understand it.
But Prakrithi feels that traditionally, queerphobia was never the norm in her community. It is more of an “acquired stigma”, she says, caused by the overlapping of her culture with mainstream practices. She is now looked upon by several other young queer individuals from her community. “I advise them to focus on education first before they can create a safe environment for themselves to come out.”
Being a queer Adivasi person made her realise two different sides of marginalisation during her student days, Prakrithi says.
Malavika Binny, the head of the Department of History at Kannur University and a Dalit and queer rights activist, thinks that intersectional representation of the queer community in the academic space is the need of the hour. It is important to understand that the invisibilisation and other challenges faced by a marginalised queer student within the academic space are far worse than that by someone from a more privileged socio-economic background.
“When you talk about intersectionality, you cannot erase the intersectional oppression. Many rights that were earlier denied to the Dalit community, are denied to the queer community now. For the same reason, you may find queer individuals hiding their Dalit identities and vice versa as well. Same goes for the denial of opportunities too. A queer Dalit person is several levels more disadvantaged than someone with either of those identities,” she says.
But changes are happening for the better, Malavika feels. Kerala, she says, is a place where the pride movement has at least attempted to address caste as well, compared to the larger picture across the country. The subaltern families here have been relatively more accepting of queer children, especially in the recent past.
As for achieving better representation in the higher education spaces, one possible solution is the introduction of deprivation points, in her opinion. “If you belong to two different marginalised identities, the concept of deprivation points on both those identities can ensure a better chance of representation, rather than you having to choose one sort of reservation over the other.”
Reshma Bharadwaj, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at the Kalady University, notes that spaces like a college campus are quite complex in the way multiple forms of marginalisations intersect.
Kerala has implemented social reservation more effectively than other states in the country, but this also means that there’s a rigid set of rules for reservation in higher education. Rather than aiming for an administrative change, the intersectionality of class, caste, gender, sexuality, disability, and other marginalisations has to develop organically for an adequate queer representation, says Reshma.
At the same time, she stresses that there's still a long way to go to make every single queer person on the campus feel welcome. Making radical changes to embrace queer-inclusive learning is easier said than done.
“Whether it’s queer identity or gender studies in general, we simply cannot include subjects beyond a certain number in our curriculum. Ultimately, it must be in sync with the rest of the country,” says Reshma.
She reckons that the queer-sensitive space developed at Kalady University is a result of both the conscious efforts taken by the administration over the years and other gradual changes that have happened alongside. An example for this is the queer-inclusive policy implemented in the University. Additionally, gender sensitivity training and counselling sessions are consistently conducted, aiming at educating the faculty.
However, both transgender representation and inclusive infrastructure are lacking in most college campuses, Malavika observes. The lack of trans-inclusive infrastructure demotivates trans students' from getting admission, and college authorities use this absence of trans students as an excuse to not make their facilities more trans-inclusive.
In her opinion, even the inclusion of topics aimed at creating awareness on gender and sexuality in the academic curriculum doesn’t bridge the disconnect — the topics rarely enter discourse outside of classrooms.
“Another interesting aspect I have noticed is, even among students within our classrooms, men appear more uncomfortable while discussing critical theories than women.”
As Ritisha rightly points out, representation of queer people in social and political platforms is integral to bringing the community to the forefront. In early 2024, the transgender community appealed to the Kerala High Court for reservation in Public Service Commission (PSC) appointments. In November 2024, the High Court issued an order to the state to provide reservations for transgender persons in public employment within six months.
Despite transgender reservation in colleges being introduced more than five years ago, in no college can you find a double-digit representation in the category, Parasuraman laments.
The current generation is certainly better sensitised towards queer community’s challenges, he suggests. “One of the motivating factors for my decision to come out was that I realised I owed the queer community more, as an educator and as someone who could bring about change.” Through the years, many of his students have reached out to him, especially over text messages, thanking him for giving them the confidence to embrace their queer identity, Parasuraman says with pride.
Representation of the queer community amongst academicians and policymakers is an equally important factor in the larger picture, Reshma emphasises, adding, “But this can only happen gradually, as [Kerala] is still in the era of the first generation of openly queer students in academia.”
Bharath is an independent journalist, researcher, and documentarian based in Thiruvananthapuram, specialising in longform features. He focusses on topics of social, political, and cultural importance, particularly pertaining to Kerala.