The full-transcript of Kokila Annamalai’s speech at Pink Dot 14 may be found below.

Transcript of Kokila’s Speech at Pink Dot 14

I dream of a queer movement that will settle for nothing less than our collective liberation. Freedom from oppressive laws, including those that criminalise sex workers, discard drug users and stigmatise people living with HIV. Freedom from violence and surveillance. Freedom from authoritarian control that seeks to dim our shine and diminish our power. Freedom from systems that exploit our labour and the planet, while keeping us from lifesaving resources like housing, healthcare, and community.

I believe in a queer movement that fights for queer migrant workers, queer youth in rental flat neighbourhoods, older, disabled queers. That fiercely protects every precious life on the margins, that shows up and works in solidarity with all emancipatory struggles.

I care about a queer movement that celebrates deviance and countercultures, that doesn’t wrinkle its nose at public toilet sex or campy queers. I don’t care for some of us to be included in social structures that continue to harm and neglect so many others. I don’t care for us to be included if it means we have to assimilate.

Today, schools continue to punish and abandon our kids. The military traumatises so many of our young people. State-controlled media writes us out of history. They want our shame and silence, but they cannot have it. They want our shame and silence, and that is why pride is radical. Pride invites us to fully possess our magical, shapeshifting bodies and desires. When we are unashamed, we are irrepressible, ungovernable.

If we allow it to, queerness can free us all. Queer kinship can teach us to take care of each other beyond narrow notions of family. Queerness is life-affirming, gorgeous, revolutionary, and irreverent to authority – and I want us to never forget it. We do not request for our freedom, we do not plead for acceptance, we do not wait for approval. We do not surrender our bodies and relationships to state regulation. We do not need to bargain with the architects of our oppression. Your dignity and mine are non-negotiable.

I want – together with all of you – to imagine fabulous possibilities, a future that belongs to all of us. I want to reclaim what is ours. We’re here, we’re gloriously queer, and we do not fear.

You can watch the video of her speech at the following link:-

You may follow Kokila on Instagram and her blog, Learning from the Margins.

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