WHaQ! meeting, June 5th 2011

This was a meeting we'd been waiting for for ages and ages and ages. Diana had showed us the trailer for Deliver Me back in December, so we've been waiting to see the real thing like hungry hippos for six whole months.

Deliver Me is a great first effort, thematically coherent, and thought-provoking in unexpected ways. I'm not going to spoil the movie for those of us who haven't seen it, but I think that even if you don't agree with the movie's central conceit the characters and their principles are going to stay with you well after the end.

There were one or two new faces on Sunday, and Diana had brought some of her cast and the cinematographer along, so there was some discussion about technicalities - and a lot of discussion of the difficulties of making the movie on a limited budget as a non-professional crew.

This took up nearly two hours, after which we mostly broke up to head for FOOD and DRINKS -

- but not before we made a fairly important socialisation change. WHaQ! members have been meeting fairly regularly in Tavern on Wednesday nights, but lately - for many, many reasons, some of us have been thinking that it's not a nice a place as it used to be. SO we're shifting venues. Those of us who want to just hang out, chill, and talk outside of the formalities of the meetings are invited to our new Thursday hang out - if you weren't at the meeting, and aren't on the mailing lists, send an email to whaqbangalore@gmail.com to ask for details. The new place sounds awesome. (This also means that anyone who goes to the Good As You meetings on Thursdays can head straight from Swabhava to drinks with the rest of the gals instead of heading home or going to Koshys - which is a nice place, don't get me wrong, but it's excellent to have so many things to do!)

----------------------------------------------------------------

Gurl in the World has already blogged this, but please, take a look, pass it on: help a mother reunite with her children, who've been kept hostage from her for the past year.

WHaQ! meeting, May 8th 2011

I got there early, and opened the garage door all by myself while wearing a sari - look, I keep saying it, and it i still true: I deserve COOKIES. People trickled in on time, starting with N., who is new and came by on the off-chance that we would have a meeting today. Nice timing, us! We also had a few old familiars, people who've been missing, away, busy for a while, and it was nice to finally put a face to the often-dropped names.

1. I had just come from a wedding, so marriage was on my mind.

• Brazil recently granted same-sex unions the same broad rights as non-same-sex marriages, the ruling was passed on the 5th of May, in Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil has recognised same-sex unions for a while now, and is largely, at least on paper, an LGBT-friendly nation. (Brazil also has a very high count of violence against LGBT people, so take this how you will.)
• Minnesota, somewhere in the U.S. of A., is currently debating same-sex marriage laws, yay or nay, and I link you to this. It is awesome and speaks for itself. AWESOME. This is for those of us who are fighting against religious prohibitions (encoded in nominally secular law, which sucks big time) against our collective right to be married and recognised as married and granted the same privileges the state grants same-sex unions.

1. MOVIES. Our Beloved Leader has loads of lezzie movies, and we are agreed that we should watch 'em. (She is also going to share a few with Vinay, who runs movies every Saturday at Swabhava at 6 p.m., because he mostly has and shows BOY movies, not that there is anything wrong with BOY movies, only sometimes I want a woman or two in there. Just for variety.) So we're having a showing this Sunday, 15th of May, at the Swabhava office. 4 p.m.
2. Books. OBL has books, which we shall maneuverer, hopefully, into the Swabhava office. OBL and Vinay must do the negotiating for this, so it is really out of our hands.
3. Sunday was Mother's Day. HUGS to all the Mothers out there.
4. There was some discussion about South Korea (we had a visitor from South Korea who knew her stuff) - the scene (underground but existent), the bars, the culture. The Bangalore scene was judged slightly more open, while the Delhi scene was active but invisible, since Delhi is a horribly unsafe place for women to anything at al, much be less openly queer.
5. OBL leads us to this article in DNA: "My favourite part of being lesbian is the exhilerating sex". No need to explain this one, right?
6. The Chennai Pride march is going to happen sometime in June, most likely in the last weekend (the 26th). Maybe we WHaQ! members could go? As a group? It will be fun, even though it is Chennai. (Sorry, Chennai-ites.) More discussion on going later, possibly on the group mail.
7. Chitra (who gave me permission to name her on the blog, thanks, Chitra! :) ) is a bike racer with several wins under her belt (quotable quote: "Dude, I kicked your ass!"). She drove from Chennai to Bangalore - no, seriously. Dykes on Bikes chic. She intends to attempt the world record for travel within 24 hours on a bike - from Chennai to Tiruvanthapuram and back. That's over 1,700 km. Sometime by the end of this month. Good luck! :D

This didn't happen at the meeting, but I am including it in here:

Uganda is passing a ban on homosexuality - The "Kill the Gays" bill. It will make killing LGBT in Uganda a crime punishable by death. I'm not sure how helpful petitions are, but have a look at the All Out petition and sign it. Uganda is a pretty horrible place as it is to be LGBT as it is; no one needs this kind of shit.

And since this post was ultra delayed, as well as the posts I've promised you already, here is the Sorry Puppy again. I'm trying, and I'm sorry, it's just that my life and my health have been evil and down the last few weeks. I'm sort of back. More to come soon. :D

In Last Week's Group....Marriage!

We talked alot about marriage: what it means, what it can be, what it should be, what it could be, where it's headed, and if it's for the Queer community.

Thoughts? Comments? Here's where to discuss it.

Smell and Being Gay

We brought this up in last week's group session and discussed it with lots of zeal and zest. I found a little article about the study, just now so I thought I'd share it. Interesting, no?

I've always said, it's the way women smell that makes me love them. Here's physiological proof!