Sappho for Equality is the only registered organization in Kolkata, Eastern India that works for the rights and social justice of individuals with non-normative gender-sexual orientations, identities and expressions, especially persons assigned gender female at birth. It uniquely works to create bridges between the so-called normative and non-normative populations in our society and positions gender-sexuality within existing development discourses.
As an outcome of the constant self-questioning, Sappho for Equality was created in October of 2003; a platform formed as a response to the movement that came from within. The first registered Non-Government Organisation of eastern India was born that openly and specifically began engaging with gender-sexuality (LGBTQ) rights movements in India with feminist perspective.
Sappho for Equality is an inclusive platform that does not discriminate on the basis of caste, class, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, geographical location, education and any other social categories.
Furthermore, any individual who, accepting all differences is committed against gender-sexual discrimination and believes that basic human rights cannot be denied to anyone based on their gender-sexual orientation, can become part of this organization. We want the larger civil society beside us because the us/them divide is nothing but a ploy of heteropatriarchy. In our politics, nobody is 'them', we are 'us'.
SAPPHO
It was in the June of 1999 that Eastern India's first self-support group for lesbian, bisexual women and transmasculine persons started - Sappho. The naming came from a legacy of history and literature; Sappho the poetess of Lesbos island in Greece, in the 6th Century BC, the first woman who spoke of love for other women through poetry, and Sappho in Kolkata created to uphold the right of that special utterance. It was not just talking about desire, it was an urge to live a life of their choice and an attempt to find similar lives and people to come together and share the good and bad, the dreams and desires of a same sex loving existence.
Today Sappho is not just limited to Kolkata, it has members from various suburban spaces as well as residents of other cities, non-resident Indians and non-Indians as well.
A safe space for living - with this hope Sappho's journey enthused towards a movement to speak the language of rights. The conflicts of movements on the one hand and creating a safe space for community members on the other, Sappho has been tirelessly questioning, debating and growing inside and out.