New Delhi, June 14 -- Writer Kazim Ali begins his introduction to On the Brink, an anthology of queer writing from South Asia, with a question: "Why the word 'queer' when that is a word others have used to describe us and not always kindly?" Recently, a bench of the Madras High Court echoed the same sentiment recently while delivering a judgment: "Any standard dictionary defines this word as meaning 'strange or odd.' To a homosexual individual, his/her/their sexual orientation must be perfectly natural and normal... Why then should they be called queer?"

Over the centuries, the word assumed various shades of meaning, but it was during the 20th century that it began to be claimed by people who broke sexual norms. Members of the Bloomsbury...