TW: sexual assault, suicide.

“There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left… whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” –Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

As a kid, I was forced to go for Classical Dance classes twice a week to a space that was rigorous in imposing gender binaries. At the time, I didn’t have the language to understand myself as a gender nonconforming transgender person. I didn’t know how to name the humiliation I felt in the tightness of a uniform that exacerbated my dysphoria as I performed a femininity that was never mine to keep.

After years of unlearning, several existential crises and lots of therapy, the intolerable awkwardness that spread from the classes to dancing at dimly lit parties, has translated into a letting go: I’ve grown to love dancing no matter how ridiculous I look in my shoulder-shrugging moves.

But the thrill of each beat recedes to reveal grief: How many of my queer, gender nonconforming and trans siblings will never get to live in this joy?

Arvey Malhotra was a jewelry and nailpaint artist who died on 24 February, after repeatedly navigating the violence and bullying in cisgender-heteronormative and ableist barriers uprooted against him as a grade 10 student of Delhi Public School Faridabad, India.

Arvey’s love for his parent, Aarti Malhotra, was a force so powerful that the world was threatened by how it questioned the fragility of a reputation built on unimaginable coldness and normalized violence.

When Aarti filed a complaint to the school, about how Arvey was sexually assaulted by nine students in the school bathroom, the school had threatened to expel Arvey: one of many instances of institutional gaslighting. When Arvey and his parent addressed the inaccessibility created by the school’s lack of resources, citing Arvey’s dyslexia, the school refused to offer a scribe and blamed them for fabricating mental distress.

Continued: https://www.pixstory.com/story/justiceforarvey-the-concept-of-gender-euphoria-isnt-just-about-trans-folks1659016720/119702