ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with how queer identities are captured in the present-day Marathi language to allow those identifying with them to adequately articulate their identities. To do this, I employ the concept of laingik alpasankhya, or sexual/gendered minorities, used by Bindumadhav Khire. Khire's concept is effectively a triad and allows thinking about each of the three aspects of queerness—identity based on genitalia, identity based on gender phenomenology; and identity based on sexual orientation—mentioned above without reductionistically prioritizing one of them. I argue that this concept has the potential to move beyond the debates on decolonization and translatability of ‘Western’ categories in a South Asian/Indian/Marathi context. While other accounts have crucial but nonetheless limited explanatory power, laingik alpasankhya is (1) colloquially descriptive and understandable without much difficulty; (2) politically useful to make demands, both policy-related and otherwise; and (3) theoretically robust to capture a certain understanding of queerness necessary to distinguish it from non-queerness if we wish to retain the specificity and meaningfulness of the term.
