On January 18, 2025, Varta Trust’s mental health peer counsellors organized a community dialogue called ‘Queer Worldmaking in the Face of Conversion Therapy’ at Kalinath Angan in South Kolkata. A report on the dialogue (Queer Worldmaking as a Form of Resilience) was published in the February 2025 issue of Varta. The authors of this series of articles participated in the dialogue as speakers. Meera Dhebar, a researcher and therapist based in Canada, was visiting Kolkata. She co-presented with Aritra C., a clinical psychologist and doctoral researcher based in Kolkata. This article series, based on email exchanges between the authors after the dialogue, is their way of extending the conversation on queer worldmaking into the pages of Varta. Look out for the series over the next few months.
Read the first article in the series here. The authors began with an exchange of ideas around queer worldmaking and queer elders, and dealing with the challenge of conversion therapy. They build up on these ideas in the second article.
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Dear Aritra
I agree that our intergenerational and interdisciplinary connection is indeed fascinating. But when you refer me as an ‘elder’, I then question if that adequately applies to me. Because in our Indian culture, elders are those older than us who we must demonstrate respect to, bowing our heads and bringing our hands together. This respect is demanded, expected and cannot be transgressed, and has a substantial effect on our families. While this respect for elders is important, if we live together in shared households, it can also be difficult when the older person does not provide reciprocal care and respect for younger members of the community. This creates households with complex and difficult dynamics. I prefer a different way of conceptualizing being an elder.
So, what does it mean to refer to someone or to me as a ‘queer elder’? Like you, I also did not have access to anyone, especially when I was first trying to understand myself. Later, I tried to learn and understand the different parts of my identities through reading the works of others and through my work. The question before me now is how can we queer the concept of an elder to be more meaningful for what younger queers like yourself are needing?
I like to borrow some learnings from our Indigenous Two-Spirit communities in Canada, where a Two Spirit person upholds great responsibility to their relations. I have witnessed substantial change and growth over my queer life, and have contributed as and where I could, to transformation, to make circumstances easier for others to bear. What I really want to do is ensure that our queer members of all life situations and identities can survive and continue to grow into their own communities and families. Too many are still dying, whether at the hands of others, or of their own; too many are still told that who they are is wrong, problematic, a sin, something to be solved and stopped. This is what I want to change, and as we know it takes a movement of many people to work together in solidarity.
When we talk of the pain and trauma of conversion therapy, this is also an area where I feel compelled to intervene and stop this horrific practice. Aritra, we both know people who have gone through this, and we have learned from them about the torturous outcomes and consequences. It is heartbreaking to think that wanting to live as who we are is still considered to be something to be ashamed of and to remain hidden. So, as someone older, I also want those younger to know that it is possible to not just survive, but to thrive, to find love, to create a chosen family, and to also continue to strive for change.
Some of these concepts of making change were learned through my social work education, and by seeing what other advocates were doing around me. I now see it as my responsibility to support others to understand their queer histories and the resiliencies which inform their lives, and to continue to learn how to be an activist and a change maker.
I would like to discuss this more with you, as I have not thought about this much till now. What do you need to see in queer elders? How can we support you and others in who you are and the work that you are doing?
With peace and love
Meera
Dear Meera
You got me really thinking about the concept of ‘elders’ and how we can ‘queer’ it. Wow! That surely caught me off-guard! However, I love the direction that our conversation is taking.
My first thoughts are around ‘worldmaking’ in itself. I am privileged to pick this term from you. I think what I need to see in queer elders is for them to leave the world in a better place than they found it in. I think you are already doing that in your capacity as you have described. It makes a lot of sense to me to hold on to this perspective of leaving behind a kinder, safer and more inclusive world. The reason I like it is because it can offer a lot of possibilities in terms of actions. It is not an abstract idea hovering over your head, but includes sustained efforts at worldmaking as a process. That is very engaging to me as a concept.
I was also thinking that I may be an elder too to some of the younger queer folks. Therefore, I am prompted to think about how I am engaging in this worldmaking myself. Am I leaving spaces better than I found them? Am I striving towards small actions that can create ripples in these spaces? Am I having the hard conversations if I can afford to? In essence, am I leaving a better world for those who are younger than me? As an ethos, I feel that this can be the route to building wonderful intergenerational solidarities, a force I imagine to surface in worldmaking, where it is not an individual effort, but collective consciousness, making and unmaking.
I am particularly hooked to the aspect of reciprocity of care. While you did talk about whether elders give reciprocal respect and care to younger individuals, I also wonder how much we actively think about caring for queer persons who are older than us. My experience at Varta Trust as a trainer along with my colleague Megha (we run a collaborative gender-focused initiative called the G-STOP) has been very fruitful in this regard. We were both training a batch of queer mental health peer counsellors on how to provide support for elderly queer people which led to interesting dialogues. This is part of my worldmaking – encouraging peer supporters across ages to show up better for queer older persons and by prompting queer elders to show up for each other.
In fact, I think worldmaking can be the antidote to conversion therapy, where we routinely invest in a world that is suited for queer thriving and authenticity. Maybe in that world, there will be more love and less shame, more acceptance and less tolerance, possibilities in abundance and maybe that will make us somewhere better. This is a process over time, this is not a day’s work. However, it is a vision worth holding on to, while we continue to intervene to stop harmful practices for good!
In solidarity
Aritra
To be continued.
Main photo credit: Pawan Dhall. Email icon credit: Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash
