Feb 2025 at the Lab: India’s Queer Futures & More?

We are still picking rainbow glitter out of our hair. The Lab’s first event of 2025, India’s Queer Futures, happened yesterday. If you were there: we love you. If you weren’t: we missed you and have a teaser for you below. ??

1. Come to our next event. It’s next month. We insist.?
2. Read on about DEI in the world. There’s a lot of good news with the bad.?
3. Check our stories about the The Naz Foundation (India) Trust and IIT Bombay’s queer cell.

MAIN STORY

Women at Work 2025

On Friday, March 7, you’re invited to our next public event at Godrej One in Vikhroli, Mumbai.?We’re collaborating with the Centre for Economic Data & Analysis, Ashoka University and are so excited to be hosting the renowned economist Dr Ashwini Deshpande . She’ll release CEDA’s study of women returning to work after career breaks (friends in HR, we know you think about this five times a day – you have to be there to hear her). Expect exciting conversation on labour force participation, reflections on the current gender landscape in corporate India, and our paths to progress. More details about that soon. We hope you’ll be there. Register here or RSVP at [email protected].?

QUIZ

In which year was one of the first petitions against Section 377 in India filed??

A. 2009

B. 1999

C. 1994

D. 2018

Scroll down to see if you got it right!

“As someone who is different from the community I advocate for, I feel a unique sense of responsibility and privilege. Being an ally allows me to amplify their voices and share stories that resonate universally, showing the world that people from the PwD community live lives just like anyone else—with dreams, hard work, and immense potential.” — Pavithra Y Sundareshan (Founder and Managing Director, Vindhya e-Infomedia Pvt.Ltd in conversation with journalist Annie Philip , writing for the DEI lab

NEWS FROM US

What's the Group Been Upto

• Running together: Our colleagues are so inspiring. From across the Godrej Industries Group, many of them —representing Godrej Agrovet Limited , Godrej Consumer Products Limited , and Godrej Capital — joined and completed an inclusion run at the Tata Mumbai Marathon before we were fully awake that weekend. Teach us your ways.??
• New stories: Read our new story on Saathi - IIT Bombay —the queer collective of IIT Bombay to learn about how the Saathi team is making their campus more inclusive. Also: Here’s our interview with Anjali Gopalan of the The Naz Foundation (India) Trust .?
• C.R.E.W. cut: As part of Godrej Properties Limited ’ focus on creating an equitable workspace for women, they launched the Mumbai chapter of their resource group for women in real estate. Shrayana Bhattacharya (we love feminist economists, can you tell?) spoke at the event, with a bunch of other amazing speakers. Also: On 12th February, our very own Zoya (They / Them) will be speaking at this webinar on ‘Evolving LGBTQ+ Landscape in the US & its Implications for Corporate India’ by Pride Circle . ?
• Bringing you the tea: Properties also unveiled the very first EqualiTEA Café, inaugurated by the inspirational Geetika Trehan , their north zone CEO. Operated by individuals with speech and hearing impairments, this café is more than just a space for a beverage—it’s a symbol of what’s possible when inclusivity is put into action. They’re welcoming 17 individuals with speech and hearing impairments into support roles across four sites, with Indian Sign Language interpreters present round the clock to aid them. Welcome, colleagues!?
• Field study: Godrej Industries Limited (Chemicals) hosted students in their Ambernath factory to mark International Education Day, where they talked through deeply nerdy engineering insights and life-saving safety awareness procedures. Reminder: have you seen their fabulous “4 to 40!” short film??
• Crop right now: Godrej Agrovet Limited launched a weekly series, ‘Women in Agriculture’ celebrating the strength, stories, and successes of women in the sector. Also: They conducted a session on financial literacy, participation & decision-making for women for their all-woman ERG WeForShe, and Godrej Jersey launched WINGS 2.0, welcoming 13 brilliant young women into the world of sales. Also check how they marked Human Rights Week here.??
• Root and STEM: Our lab teammate Roshni S Iyer attended a consultation organised by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India to discuss DEI and accessibility in STEM. We were so grateful to be able to share some of our lessons in this space at this important forum. More details here and here.?
• Community culture: Godrej Consumer Products Limited ’ teams in Argentina and Chile partnered with NGOs to give back to their communities. In Chile, they joined hands with Fundación Cerro Navia Joven to distribute hygiene kits to children and in Argentina, they collaborated with Mocha Celis to provide hygiene kits to the transgender community. Amor!??
• Value growth: Check out this series by Godrej Capital on making a culture built on fairness, respect, and recognising value in each of us. In this clip, Vikrant Pratap, CC & Operations, reflects on his experience: “There’s no scope for discrimination here.” Capital’s also partnered with the Women Entrepreneurship Platform to enable women entrepreneurs to chart their own course.?

REPORT: AGAINST ALL ODDS

The report ‘Against All Odds: Advancing equity for India’s LGBTQIA+ communities’ was launched at India’s Queer Futures. Dasra ’s research highlights the critical role of civil society organisations in bridging divides within India’s LGBTQIA+ movements. Check out the report here. Check out the inaugural grantees for Pride Fund (a pathbreaking new fund for queer-led grassroots organisations in India) here.

IN MORE NEWS

News from India and the World

• Namita Bhandare , writing for Hindustan Times, explores why American companies are making a mistake by scaling back their DEI programmes and argues that Indian businesses should take note of this shift and maintain their commitment to these initiatives. Plus: Not everyone in the US is scaling back their DEI efforts. We’re particularly happy to see how E.L.F. BEAUTY is publicly talking about their work.
• Thailand has become the first Southeast Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, marking a historic milestone after years of activism. Over 1,800 same-sex couples wed on January 25, 2025, celebrating with mass wedding events across the country, including a large ceremony in Bangkok.
• K N Renuka Pujar has made history, becoming the first transgender person to be appointed as a guest lecturer at a university in Karnataka. The 27-year-old's groundbreaking achievement marks a major milestone for equal opportunities in academia.?
• The Supreme Court of India has said that high courts, state governments, and Union Territories must ensure the construction and availability of separate toilet facilities for men, women, persons with disabilities (PwD) and transgender persons across all courts and tribunals in the country.?
• In September 2024, the Telangana government introduced India's first government recruitment and social welfare initiative specifically for transgender individuals. Lavpreet Kaur shares an account of the lives of some of the 39 transgender traffic inspectors in this story for The Hindu.
• Arpika Bhosale writes about the consequences of coming out at work and how queer inclusion is evolving in corporate India, and interviews some queer icons in business.
• Natalie Stechyson writes about the disproportionate unpaid work women do in the private sphere, breaking down the insights from a new longitudinal study by a team at University of Alberta. Check out the study here.??

GODREJ ONE BOOK CLUB

Footprints of a Queer History: Life-Stories from Gujarat

by Maya Sharma

Maya Sharma is an LBT and women’s rights activist who has worked on documenting the lives of queer people from marginalised classes and geographies for over four decades. This book follows her and her organisation, Vikalp, and tells stories of queer individuals she encountered along the way. Set in Gujarat, the book uses letters, news reports, and personal accounts to explore the lives of queer local folks. It's a narrative marked by personal journeys, political consciousness, socio-legal struggles, friendships, and love: a deep inquiry into the unexceptional acts of everyday being and living from marginalised queer people that we don’t often hear.?

You can check out the book here and learn more about Vikalp here.

FOOTER

Quiz Answer: C. 1994?

The earliest challenge to Section 377 dates to May 1994, when AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) filed a petition in the Delhi High Court. This petition was triggered by an incident at Tihar Jail, where Kiran Bedi, the then Inspector General (Prisons), refused to supply condoms to inmates, arguing that doing so would promote homosexuality, which she claimed violated Section 377. In response, ABVA filed a writ petition asking the court to declare Section 377 unconstitutional and demand the distribution of free condoms in prisons. You can check more details here.??

• Become a Led By Foundation Fellow: After empowering 1200 Indian Muslim women with professional and leadership development, the LedBy Foundation is ready to take on 2025. If you’re a high-potential, ambitious Indian Muslim woman currently working and with at least 1 to 3 years of paid, full-time experience eager to hone your leadership skills, the LedBy Corporate Leaders Fellowship may be for you. Apply here, and more details here.
• Watch: Subasri Krishnan , curator of the Urban Lens Film Festival at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements , makes a list of five exceptional films that deals with women accessing public spaces. Check it on Third Eye Portal’s Instagram here. Plus: January is over but this heartwarming and inclusive ad from V-guard is guaranteed to make you smile. Plus plus: You have to check out Cured, a powerful documentary that follows the fight that led to homosexuality being delisted as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973. You can watch it here.
• Listen: The Lab’s own Parmesh Shahani was a featured guest on a podcast by Avatar, hosted by Dr Saundarya Rajesh , Founder-President, AVTAR Career Creators . Check out their conversation on transforming culture, innovation, and impact here.?

Contributors: Gayatri Shanbhag , Maanvi . , Pulakita Mayekar , Rajeev Anand Kushwah , and Supriya Nair .??

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