South Asians make up the largest minority group in the UK, with British Asians making up 9.3% of the population. It might surprise you, then, that 2023 marks only the third South Asian Heritage Month in the UK.
South Asian queer history is rich, from kinky Mughal paintings of women repurposing carrots as sex toys and the renowned carvings in many Hindu temples of orgies, to the revered hijra (often translated as ‘third gender’) communities across the subcontinent, who are invited into homes to bless newborns. Yet with both South Asian history and LGBTQ+ history frequently overlooked, the same is true of the intersection of the two.
Dr Rohit K Dasgupta is an academic at the University of Glasgow. Together with Dr Churnjeet Mahn, he worked on the Cross Border Queers project, which sought to uncover and celebrate the rich history of British South
