ABSTRACT
This chapter is positioned within the continuity of a slowly growing literature on sexuality and especially the LGBTQI+ movement in Bangladesh. It takes an analytical look at the processes of categorisations and labelling in the context of identity politics and sexuality with a particular focus on gender, class and location. It reflects on the LGBTQI+ movement in Bangladesh to understand whether identity-based frameworks can do justice to people’s complex sexual lives, particularly in societies that require terms with more nuances to accommodate variant gender and sexual practices with respect and acceptance for all. It aims to show how hierarchies and politics around identity, age, gender, class, and locations are as real as the genuine motivations around the cause of organising such a movement in Bangladesh. It demonstrates that a rigid, international framework of gender and sexual identity that lacked contextual relatability linguistically and culturally failed to challenge the deeply ingrained taboos around sexuality in Bangladeshi socio-religious culture. Although the international movement helped in creating visibility and aided with network building, the chapter argues that identities reliant on categorisation and labelling of groups also brought threats and risks to activists’ work without generating sufficient allies and/or support from the common people.
