COURSE TEMPLATE

Queerness & the Law

V Year, B.A., LL.B.(Hons.), III Trimester

Kunal Ambasta
COURSE DESCRIPTION

The present course is offered as an optional Seminar and aims to study the intersections of
law and queer individuality/queer communities. It looks at how social conventions and legal
policy govern, regulate, and recognise queerness, and how the latter responds to its socio-
legal treatment.
The Seminar will try to uncover how the image of the „Queer‟ is constructed and reinforced
between social ideas, cultural identities, and the law. Queerness here refers to forms of
sexuality and gender expressions that fall outside accepted imaginations of societal
existence. This would include gender identities beyond the male-female binary, inter-
community expressions of intimacy, same sex intimacy, and chosen family structures.
The Seminar will also explore how queer individuals and communities have engaged with
the law to have forms of expression and existence recognised. The language of rights now
formally covers several aspects of queer existence. While it is crucial to study the causative
factors of the turnaround in legal treatment of queerness, the course will also cover the
effects of legal recognition on ideas of queerness itself. It is worth studying whether
identities are now being tailored to achieve aspirational homogeneity, which seeks forms of
recognition in the law that mirror conventionally non-queer social structures. In this sense,
we will look at whether legal recognition and the language of rights works to limit the
radical potential of queerness, to more palatable and socially acceptable forms, that carry
forward non-queer ideas of propriety and culture.
The course is designed to engage with inter-disciplinary literature. Students will be expected
to read sociological, literary, and legal texts. A part of the course material will also be visual,
in the form of excerpts from cinema and archival footage.
Classroom instruction will be based on discussion of pre-assigned materials, and also
engagement with civil society activists.
COURSE OBJECTIVE(S):

It is expected that, through this course, students will gain an understanding of the social and

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political economy of the law in dealing with particular axes of marginalisation. They should
also be able to capture the ways in which the law may create and perpetuate marginalisation,
and how it may offer recourse to it.
It is hoped that the course will also open up ways of engaging with inter-disciplinary
material in the law, and further understanding of a legal and political movement which is
recent in origin and continuous in the present context.
EVALUATION PATTERN
Class participation – 10 marks; Seminar paper submission – 60 marks and oral examination
– 30 marks
Total – 100 marks
BASIC READINGS
Martha Nussbaum, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law
(Oxford: OUP, 2010).
Arvind Narrain, Alok Gupta eds., Law like Love (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2011)
WEEKWISE DISTRIBUTION OF COURSE SYLLABUS (10 WEEKS)
WEEK 1 – ( 4 hours)
What is Queerness? How do the „queer‟ and the „normal‟ define themselves in society and
the law?

Introduction, Law like Love, Arvind Narrain, Alok Gupta eds., Law like Love (New Delhi:
Yoda Press, 2011).
Paul Boyce, “The Object of Attention”, p.184, in Sanjay Srivastava ed., Sexuality Studies
(New Delhi: OUP India, 2013)
Queen Empress v. Khairati, (1884) ILR 6 All 204.
WEEK 2 – ( 4 hours)
Queerness and Public Imagination in India

Ruth Vanita, Saleem Kidwai eds., Same Sex Love in India, p.217-248 (New Delhi: Penguin
Books, 2008).
Shohini Ghosh, “Bollywood cinema and queer sexualities”, p.55-68, in Robert Leckey et al
eds., Queer Theory, Law, Culture, Empire (Oxford: Routledge, 2010).
Discussion on the documentary, „The Celluloid Closet‟. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-TUF_GN_r8

WEEK 3 – ( 4 hours)
Queerness as Existence & Politics

Siddharth Gautam et al, Less than Gay (New Delhi: ABVA, 1991). Available
at:https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1585664/less-than-gay-a-
citizens-report-on-the-status-of.pdf
Arvind Narrain, Gautam Bhan, Because I Have a Voice, p.1-29 (New Delhi: Yoda Press,
2005).
Revathi, “A Hijra‟s Own Story”, p.225-230, in Arvind Narrain, Gautam Bhan, Because I
Have a Voice, p.1-29 (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2005).
Rebecca J.Rosen, “A Glimpse Into 1970s Gay Activism”, The Atlantic (2014). Available at:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/a-glimpse-into-1970s-gay-
activism/284077/
WEEK 4 – ( 4 hours)
The Queer Rights Movement in India

Siddharth Gautam, supra.

Martha Nussbaum, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law,

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Perface, Chapter 2 (Oxford: OUP, 2010).
Arvind Narrain, “Queering Democracy”, p.3-24, in Law like Love, supra.
WEEK 5 – ( 4 hours)
Queer Rights in Court: Mapping Naz and Beyond

Naz Foundation & Ors. v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi, 160 (2009) DLT 277.
Transcripts of the Naz arguments: https://pad.ma/documents/OM/30
Jyoti Puri, “Decriminalisation as Deregulation”, p.141-160, in Sexuality Studies, supra.
Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation & Ors., (2014) 1 SCC 1.
Transcripts of final arguments: http://orinam.net/content/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/Naz_SC_Transcript_2012_final.pdf
WEEK 6 – ( 4 hours)
Queer Rights in Court: Contd.

NALSA v. Union of India, AIR 2014 SC 1863.

KS Puttaswamy v. Union of India, AIR 2017 SC 4161.
Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, AIR 2018 SC 4321.
WEEK 7 – ( 4 hours)
Queer Rights as Human Rights: Constitutional and Comparative Perspectives

Rohit De, A People’s Constitution, (Princeton University Press, 2018).

Alok Gupta, “Section 377 and the Dignity of Indian Homosexuals”, 41(46) EPW, 2006.
Nicholas Bamforth, “An „imperial‟ strategy? The use of comparative and international law in
arguments about LGBT rights”, p.157-172, in Queer Theory, Law, Culture, Empire, supra.
WEEK 8 – ( 4 hours)
Reflecting on the Movement Thus Far

This week will be dedicated to having conversations with activists and archivists based in
Bangalore who have been associated with the queer rights movement. We will also have
some archival material presented from the QAMRA archive. Proposed invitees: Arvind
Narrain, Jayashree, and Rumi Harish.
WEEK 9 – ( 4 hours)
Queer Rights post S.377

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019

Discussion on the Petition challenging the Act.
The Petition is available here: https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-369551.pdf
Same Sex Marriages
Discussion on the Petition challenging the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
The petition is available here: https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-369544.pdf
WEEK 10 – ( 4 hours)
Towards Non-Familial Kinship in the Law

Ellen Ann Anderson, “Transformative Events in the LGBTQ Rights Movement”, 5(2)
Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality, p. 441 (2017).
Janet R. Jakobsen, “Queer Relations: A Reading of Martha Nussbaum on Same-Sex
Marriage”, 19 Colum. J. Gender & L., p.133 (2010).
Seminar Papers

Seminar papers should be original, analytical pieces of writing, exploring one or several of
the themes in the course. Interdisciplinary inquiry is encouraged, but not necessary. Students
are free to observe and analyse intersectional viewpoints on the queer rights movement, or to

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critique the movement itself, using legal methods and research.
Prescribed Word limit for seminar paper – not more than 4000 words
Guidelines to students

Students should only take the course if they are interested in the subject matter. They will be
expected to read the materials in advance of the class, and to participate with informed
viewpoints. Students will also be expected to be present for class throughout the trimester,
and absenting themselves will result in a reduction of the class participation marks,
irrespective of how extensively they participate when present.

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