Neurodivergent & LGBTQ+ Co-architecture of CSE

I'm seeking to solve common problems like Gender-based Violence (GBV); Online GBV (OGBV); utter disregard of men and masculinities in SRHR conversations; unilateral focus on women in Gender and Development approaches and government policies/projects/programmes in most countries, even those that have legalized the existence of LGBTQ+ folks like in India; gaps between policy formulation/project planning/laws and its implementation like how in India the police itself assaults LGBTQ+ folks on the basis of inexistant laws, without filing FIRs, making them sign documents without giving them the opportunity to read it, supporting parents in the abuse and forced marriages of their LGBTQ+ children; and dowry system that's done under the wraps, even by police officers and decision-makers, even though it has been criminalized.

As it's clear from the above paragraph, this is a whole set of interconnected and complicated problems with a lot of nuances. The repetition and worsening of these problems shows that something is wrong the formulation, implementation, monitoring and/or evaluation of the efforts taken towards solving these problems. As we all know, these efforts are often often unilaterally made using top-down approaches by the existing systems and institutions. Moreover, these systems and institutions often retrace the efforts and progress they have made, with no scientific evidence or backing when they go on about data and statistics in any consultations and panel discussions, leading to worse outputs and outcomes than before like in America and India right now.

Even after ratifying international agreements like CEDAW, publishing of reports by various organizations like the '8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities' by UNFPA; the Lancet Commission on Peaceful Societies through Health Equity and Gender Equality; etc., declarations like the most recent one at G-20 turn out with crores spent on a "discussion" that doesn't even give attention to mental health, as if people aren't the ones that make systems and institutions and their mental states doesn't affect all other efforts these countries have apparently agreed to make. Evidently, these are issues that affect the whole world and not just a particular community and region and there are more than enough statistics to attest to this. Thus, it shows an underlying inadequacy and deeply ingrained tokenism in our systems.

I'm saying this out of personal knowledge as a G-20 Co-Branded Event, organized by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, PMNCH and UNICEF India in New Delhi, participant where even though the tokenism, ableism and genderism was rampant, I still remember us discussing mental health at length which should have rightfully made to the declaration. But since it didn't, it just reaffirms how efforts like these skirt the surface and tend to make a farce of leveling the ground when what it really needs is to plucked, disposed of and destroyed from its roots, so that exploitation, marginalization and discrimination like these doesn't take root again.

My solution to these problems is to make CSE mandatory in all educational institutions as part of their curriculum. I envision a curriculum that starts from consent, communication and pleasure and then address the risks out of it when pleasure, consent and communication aren't well-established rather than starting from risks from the get-go, unlike the case for most curriculum plans or project perspectives. Implementing this isn't easy and would need extensive campaigns and great pressure put on governments, which is slowly building up.

But these campaigns and pressure that builds up often ends up being inadequate not just in the fact that it prioritizes risks, not realizing that it works only in the short-term, but in the fact that it most often separates and singularizes women, when they and their struggles are also influenced by the societies they live in which composes of men and masculinities, LGBTQ+, disabled and neurodivergent folks. Thus, I envisage putting the spotlight on and holding space for these folks who often don't even get the benefits of positive discrimination.

The curriculum and campaign needs to be co-created with these folks, especially youth, in the presence of subject experts, educators and health professionals, including mental health experts, rather than just including them in consultations after the curriculum is all designed like what happened in the recent National Curriculum Framework (NCF) in India. Thus, this solution asks for the combination of lived experiences, professional knowledge, innovative and candid ideas and qualitative data to be equal to PhD-level expertise that it's able to represent itself at decision-making, planning and formulation tables with credibility.

As much as I hope to present this solution as a Catalyst 2030 Solution Circle in the SDG Conclave in Bangalore in December 2023, I cannot assure that it wouldn't be ignored, thanks to the systemic ableism, genderism and tokenism. Thus, we would need the co-operation and resources of NGOs with connections to the government, intergovernmental organizations like UNICEF India and their data collecting chatbot U-Report and more to collect data, yes, but also to create spaces for co-architecture at the national and global level and be the leaders/coordinators of implementation at the regional and grassroots level for bottom-up implementation.

To support this solution and avoid further issues, it's integral to have an inbuilt Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) system/experts at the planning, implementation, output and outcome levels, who would periodically release this data to the public. This is in addition to the Gender Budgeting which would be mandatory and the gaps identified and the learnings gained due to such a system should be filled, integrated into systems and modified through implementive research with would progress with the findings of the MEL team(s).

My solution will inevitably improve the lives of every single person its benefits reaches, especially school/college-going students and their families and communities, but I mainly plan to focus on those people that get the least space and opportunities to voice themselves. Often, LGBTQ+ people only get to voice themselves in programs specifically structured for them thanks to most policies/programs/projects singularly focusing on women and girls and in the recent times, men and masculinities a bit. This doesn't help erase the phobia and discrimination faced by LGBTQIA+ people and rather exacerbates it because the way it's now, most people consider LGBTQ+ issues as a rare unknown person's issue rather than something that affects them or their own, which can be incredibly toxic. It's the same as how most men only realize the importance of GESI for women and girls once they have a sister or a daughter, which makes LGBTQ+ issues all the more important. More details should also be included in the curriculum as to the possible ways of how a person could be intersex, than just limiting it to a single sentence as it's done in the textbooks of today, and for people to notice early signs of being intersex, even without karyotype testing.

Focus on pleasure would also give space for sexual exploration, asexual people and people who engage in kink. Kinksters could also be a huge resource when it comes to ingraining the principles of consent and communication than most other people. They could also help dispel the stigma surrounding unconventional sexual practices in a symbiotic way, adding to the benefit of kink-integrated practices of combating sexual trauma. This could also benefit and accommodate the special needs of disabled and neurodivergent people as sexual beings.

To address the specific needs of neurodivergent and disabled people, like those of people experiencing certain kinds of gender dysphoria and intersex people with certain variations, it would need series of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) on a regional and/or community level and then bring their consolidated views to the decision-making table by representatives from their communities itself rather than outsiders like how it's often done inadequately. Including their needs into the curriculum will help people without such needs to learn how to accommodate those that have such needs and also help and respect the needs, tastes and interests of the people around them, while making the target groups feel represented and help them make informed decisions. In addition to needs, educators, counsellors and students themselves should be equipped with the knowledge to notice signs of neurodivergence and institutions should have the knowledge, resources and willingness to circulate simple but accurate tests indicating at neurodivergence like RAADS-R for Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). 

It's also to be noted that it's not just about accommodating the needs of those underserved but it's also about acknowledging the fact that there is an incredible lot to learn from their thoughts, feelings, tastes, struggles, mistakes, neuro-pathways, joys and euphoria, that could assist in making other systems incredibly enriched.

Our team, right now, is made of 4 people of various of the previously mentioned underserved identities, meaning that our focus is largely derived from personal struggles and consequential knowledge. But it's not limited to just that as we have advocates, activists and social entrepreneurs in our midst who are affiliated to various organizations and networks, which also assist in expand our skills and using them at the field. This shows that our team is always open to learning, unlearning and relearning and is constantly progressing and refining our ideas. 

One of our members is a cis-gender man and social entrepreneur who has been working for years for menstrual health and awareness in underprivileged communities of Bihar, while constantly battling the toxic masculinity imposed on him by his family and community. Another is a transman with ADHD, strengthened by his experience of having to battle the backlash from this family for 6 years before getting a formal ADHD diagnosis. The last is again a cis-gender young man from a business background, with interest in social issues, who was integrated into the team for expert industry-specific support.

As for me myself, I was born and brought up in the Middle Eastern countries of UAE and Oman and returned to India 6 years ago. I have deep-running interest in Southeast Asia due to which I learned Korean and is now learning a few other languages. Their media representation of LGBTQ+ folks is notable, while the condition of their women is not much different from the underserved condition in India. I'm also a patient of sleep epilepsy and recently started suspecting ASD for which most of the clinical tests I have taken show towards a positive result at the average ASD level. This realization has helped me understand my traumas better, though I regret not having the knowledge, resources or systems to get diagnosed earlier which would have prevented a lot of my traumas from coming into being, especially to the point of contemplating suicide. But realizing it atleast now has helped accelerate my efforts of connecting with the neurodivergent community better which has led to me noticing the perpetual lack of NGOs working in the grassroots of India to help neurodivergent youth and people with invisible disabilities. 

I'm also conducting a research on the 'Issues of Intersex People in India' to better understand their issues since there's a perpetual lack of any data on it on a national level, resulting in a void of action. In all of these efforts, me and the ADHD transman of our team is constantly supported by the Youth Ke Bol pan-India coalition that works on SRHR and Quality of Life. Further, all of us are supported in the structuring of the solution and guided by Catalyst 2030 India Chapter - NAISE.

Most of all members of our team has been part of consultations, reviews, FGDs, campaign designing, project analysis, board and steering committee meetings, social entrepreneurship and more in the same sectors as we plan to focus on. That, I believe was the testing phase which led to us identifying what worked and didn't, leading us to identifying this solution. Moreover, it's already happening in small ways through international NGOs and intergovernmental organizations. What we are planning to do is expanding its scope, including clearer aspects and introducing inclusive nuances in a larger-scale, so that it isn't a choice anymore but rather a systemic practice that's part and parcel of the system to the point of inevitable for it to function. It also takes into consideration how the existing systems expect youth to almost "always" volunteer their efforts without remuneration, even when it isn't explicitly indicated as volunteering work. This, we have come to understand, is a huge barrier to bringing about comprehensive SRHR, as people are just too busy making the ends meet. Thus, for our solution, the fact is rather that the testing has gone on for too long that it could almost be too late.

Simply putting it, there are a lot of solutions, to the point of innumerable, targeting at mothers, women and girls and even men. But very few would target an autistic transmasculine non-binary pansexual person like me. Though I'm able to get pregnant and give birth to a child, I would not prefer to be addressed as a 'mother'. Thus, I, and many like me, don't relate to the solutions/policies/projects/programmes, so called, designed for 'our' welfare. That in itself limits our access to availing and ensuring our welfare. Hence, our solution uses the existing system to catalyze broader positive impact and tackle the decades of exclusion we have been going through as minorities within minorities. That's what this solution and its innovation means to us.

I expect such a curriculum to teach children how to love and accept people different from themselves and question, teach and communicate in healthy manners with their families and communities when they try to teach them to hate, pity and/or exclude someone just for being who they are.

We are starting out as a Solution Circle as part of the Catalyst 2030 India Chapter - NAISE and will be presenting this solution at the SDG Conclave in December 2023 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.