Being Queer in India | Sonal Giani | TEDxIMIB

The speaker will speak about their journey of being a self taught activist, film maker and public speaker through sharing her lived realities. She will share her experience of exploring these field through a queer lens. She will delve on her learning’s from being in the center of the Indian queer movement, and founding two Mumbai based support groups – ‘Yaariyan’ and ‘Umang’. She will also explore what it has meant to make films on the Indian queer community which is largely censored and misrepresented. She will end with speaking about what it has meant to be speaking publicly about her journey as an out bisexual woman on forums which have been both homophobic and supportive. The talk will essentially be focused on what the challenges were and how she navigated through them. Sonal Giani is an LGBTQ activist and filmmaker. She is the co-founder of youth LGBTQ initiative "Yaariyan" and Mumbai based support group "Umang" - a safe space for lesbians, bisexual women and transpersons. She has appeared in numerous talk shows, documentaries and films. Preferred pronoun is She/Her and she identifies as a bisexual woman. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx