The Impact of Western Society onto the Identity Politics of Sexual and Gender Minorities in Colonial and Post-colonial India

Abstract

Western concepts of (homo)sexuality and (trans)gender identities have affected and still affect the understanding of these phenomena and the creation of identity politics in a non-Western cultural context that already had established different models of understanding gender and sexuality. This text deals with the influence of Western society on the identity politics of sexual and gender minorities in colonial and post-colonial India, investigating the problem of hybridization of the indigenous gender and sexual identity minorities. It also explores the emergence of identity, community and activist forms of struggle characteristic for Western culture and which are found in post-colonial India as the result of modern globalization processes.