History Made: Menaka Guruswamy Becomes India’s First Openly Queer MP

Veteran lawyer Menaka Guruswamy has surpassed all previous records as the first openly queer Member of Parliament in India. Representation and inclusiveness have always been key areas where India has fallen short, hence this move is a giant step towards these aspects. She and other 18 newly elected and re-elected members took the pledge as Rajya Sabha MPs on 6th April.

Menaka Guruswamy is one of the MP members invited by the All India Trinamool Congress. Getting a seat in Parliament is a giant leap for the political and social landscape of India. Oath-taking session was held with the presence of Rajya Sabha Chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan, Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju along with wishing new members, they also recognized the importance of their roles.

The lawyer earned national and global recognition on the case of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India. This ruling led to the reading down of Section 377 of the IPC and therefore the decriminalization of homosexuality in India in 2018. Apart from the case, she is known for being one of the senior advocates of the Supreme Court and has strongly stood for constitutional law and civil rights throughout.

After she became a lawyer in 1997, she first began working alongside former Attorney General Ashok Desai. Guruswamy was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and Gammon Fellow at Harvard Law School. Besides, she has taught at several leading universities like Yale, Columbia, and NYU. She and her partner and Besides, she has even been a visiting professor at the likes of Yale, Columbia, and NYU. She and her partner and fellow lawyer Arundhati Katju were listed by TIME among the 100 Most Influential People in 2019.

MPs promising their loyalty were drawn from West Bengal Maharashtra Tamil Nadu, and Odisha, thus achieving a geographical diversity of representation across the country.

While a few people see Guruswamy's accession to Parliament only as a political accomplishment, in fact, it signals a much larger change in terms of the inclusion and visibility of the LGBTQ+ community in India's democratic institutions.