Sara Rashid

Bangladesh’s recognition of the hijra community as “third gender” is one performative policy.

Ekattorer Dinguli forces one to acknowledge the dire reality of ethnic and religious violence, and the harsh legacy of colonial oppression and divide that has ruptured the fabric of the South Asian subcontinent since 1947.

I slip right back into the chaos I was raised alongside, and it feels like a reunion with a childhood friend.

On my worst days, any type of physical intimacy ends in hellish claustrophobia; I’m buried under layers of shame, wrapped in an endless cycle of revulsion at my body, and I can’t escape.

Despite all her flaws, Dhaka is still the home that loves with reckless abandon

Maa, all the things I’ve been silent about are all the things that could’ve saved me.

“Don’t let strangers touch you.” And yet it is seldom strangers, I learned long before I was a teenager, who do you harm.