The roughly fifteen-year-old queer South Asian movement in the U.S. is comprised of both first and second-generation immigrant activists, and works in solidarity with LGBTQ movements in South Asia. Mainstream and conservative South Asian organizations have attempted to discredit South Asian LGBTQ organizations by claiming that the usage of English labels like "lesbian" and "gay" only reflect an alignment with the non-immigrant Western LGBTQ movement. The assertions that queer identity are a strictly American or "Western" phenomenon is one that immigrant queers, in particular, are called upon to challenge constantly.

The roots of identity politics in Western enlightenment liberalism have enabled movements to emerge that prioritize individual identification with constructs like "lesbian" and "gay," and have served to marginalize other analytic frameworks -- most regularly, that of class. The characterization of the South Asian queer movement in the U.S. as a second generation movement that has more ties with the American LGBTQ movement than with the lineage of South Asian progressivism is emboldened by the material ways in which many mainstream LGBTQ organizations have not prioritized class, caste or race in their critiques.

From: Samar Magazine

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