Casteless Queer

This article takes the form of a deliberate monologue addressed to the figure of the ‘casteless queer’ in Nepal and South Asia due to the structural silences that make dialogue impossible. Drawing on Sharmila Rege’s theorisation of ‘casteless gender’ and feminist standpoint theory, it conceptualises the casteless queer not as a fixed identity but as a location that can be inhabited across caste and ethnic positions. Through a critical reading of Nepali LGBTI+ and queer activism, the article shows how queerness is routinely articulated as independent of caste, Indigeneity and class, even as activism is densely populated by Adivasi-Janajatis and other marginalised groups. Centring Nepal’s specific sociopolitical history, it challenges the conflation of Nepal with India and resists both the erasure and romanticisation of Indigeneity, insisting on its entanglement with caste. The article ultimately argues that the universal queer subject in South Asia is a distortion of the casteless queer and calls for a reorientation of queer studies that foregrounds Indigenous and Dalit epistemologies as sites of theory making.