Vani Vishwanathan on Disability, Sexuality & Rights – TARSHI

Sexuality is a part of being human, yet for many people with disabilities, it remains a topic surrounded by silence, stigma, and invisibility.
In this film, we hear from Vani Vishwanathan, co-lead at TARSHI, a Delhi-based organization that has worked for sexual rights of persons with disabilities for over 30 years. This film is about agency, pleasure, safety, and the right to make choices, for everyone.
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Uh I’m Vani Vishwanathan, I am uh one of the co-leads at TARSHI which stands for Talking About Reproductive And Sexual Health Issues.

TARSHI is a 30 year old uh NGO that works on various aspects of sexuality
and SRHR which is Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

And uhh we understand sexuality as being influenced and interacting with multiple aspects of people’s lives: class, cast, uh geographical
location and one of that of course being disability.

So as a sexuality and rights organisation, we are keenly aware of how disability and sexuality uh intersect.

And in our years of uh experience and working with people with disabilities, we have understood that sexuality features low in the supposed list of concerns that should apparently matter to people with disabilities because
we’re thinking about accessibility, we’re thinking about education, livelihood and in that why is sexuality even something to uhh you know, it’s not high up the list.

Then.. uhh there are, there’s like a wide variety of ways in which sexuality and disabilities intersect so on the one hand sometimes people with disabilities are seen as people who are sexless, you know?

Who’s going to think about sex or having sex with people with disabilities?

What kind of sexuality concerns matter to them?

And on the other hand they may also be thought of as over sexed, you know, people who cannot control their urges you know, so the questions
are like, “oh I have a young boy on the autism spectrum in my class, he just doesn’t know, he goes to a corner and he masturbates”.

There is this variety in which sexuality is seen in, in the context of people with uh, disabilities.

And often the questions come down to issues of sexual uhh and reproductive health and, and in very, seen in very narrow ways, right?

So how do we manage menstruation of women with disabilities, because for the care providers and family members, it is seen as this problem that needs to be controlled, because uh who’s going to teach her how to manage her periods?

Who’s, for people who cannot sort of understand this concept of managed uhh menstruation on their own then you know we don’t want to get into that problem so why don’t we just get a hysterectomy done to like not have to go through this at all?

Even when it comes to sexual abuse often the question is around how do we make sure that consequences of abuse are not faced by the person
rather than giving them the tools they need to stay safe, giving them the information to uhh you know protect themselves uh from abuse.

So the uh question is often around, “How do we make sure somebody doesn’t get pregnant?” rather than, “How do we make sure that this person knows how to keep themselves safe?”, “How do we empower them to say no?”, “How do we teach them to uh differentiate and, and you know, look at what are responsible sexual uh choices to make?”

One thing with person with disabilities is because they’re often
seen as people not deserving of of sexual intimacy or as having a sexuality.

The general perception is that whatever kind of sexual attention you get you should just go with it.

So um you know, how do we uhh have sexuality education that includes people with disabilities and diverse disabilities because uh you know the same type of education is not going to work for different uh uh people on wi-with different disabilities.

So how do we make sure that this information is tailored for someone who is able to umm, process this uhh information in a way that makes sense for them.

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How can parents and society better understand and support the sexual rights of young people with disabilities?

When it comes to being a parent of a child with a disability, no matter what the disability is, I think one thing to begin with would be to look at how are we looking at disa…disability and sexuality.

Do we only look at issues of protection from violence and abuse and like uh sexual and reproductive health concerns or do we also acknowledge that sexuality is a central aspect of being for humans you know whether or not they have a disability?

So when we look at sexuality as something that is eq- as equally applicable in the lives of people with disabilities as it is in the lives of people without disabilities, that is when we look at what kind of resources, what kind of education or tools we need to give our children with uhh disabilities the right to a safe, healthy and happy life including a safe, healthy and happy sexual life.

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Tools for Exploration of Sexuality

When it comes to tools for children with disabilities, it could range from teaching them how to manage their menstruation to teaching them umm how they can masturbate in a way that is safe for them, that is private and giving them the information so they know how to differentiate between public and private spaces, what kinds of touch are okay for themselves, what kinds of touch are okay when you do it with somebody else.

And this is information that let’s say for a person on the autism spectrum, is kind of given anyway right, like we uh schools that that uh teach children with autism do encourage them in terms of what is behaviour that’s okay to do in public, how, what kinds of touch or interaction with other people are okay.

So the same way we introduce these topics also with issues related to sexuality.

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The Intersection of Disability and Sexuality

These days there’s been a lot of growing work on the intersections between sexuality and disability, and one area where I’ve seen a lot coming up is with physical disabilities.

So whether it is locomotor disabilities or uh sensory um impairments for example, there is an attempt to build vocabulary in Indian sign language on topics related to sexuality.

Where perhaps the issues become a little tougher are uh with intellectual uh disabilities and with psychosocial disabilities.

How do we build standardised ways of approaching these, and the level of customisation and adapting them to the needs of that individual, there, work still needs to be done.

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How do social norms around marriage and dating affect people with disabilities?

So for people without disabilities by the time they hit a certain age, the societal expectation is that they get married, then you know after a few years they have children like their whole life is kind of charted out.

But for people with disabilities especially women, umm the, their right to be you know wives or their right to be parents is severely questioned because they don’t fit the norms of what society considers a good wife or a good mother, whether biological or adoptive uh mother.

And even when it comes to dating, there are very few spaces where children and young people with disabilities get to socialise with a wide circle.

When it comes to dating you know, often it helps to have confidence to speak with people, to meet people from different you know walks of life, different, doing different things, having fun.

And these are things that are often denied to children and young people with disabilities as they grow up you know either because of lack of accessibility you know.

Which, which how many restaurants allow us to uh you know go with someone who uses a wheelchair or if I have a, another kind of locomotive disability or uh where do I learn to talk with people who are very different from me?

So these are skills that are essential to dating which just somehow don’t uh are not easy for people with disabilities to build.

And a lot of times if they do end up going on dates there is a sense of oh you should be grateful I’m dating “someone like you” which is a very uhh which, which can put me in a very vulnerable and under-confident kind of a space which is just giving a lot of scope for abusive uh behavior from the other party to me.

Then one more very uhh logistical issue is the lack of privacy, right?

Um if I want to uh, if I’m a person with disability that wants to just kind of get frisky with someone you know, make out with somebody, have a kiss, very often I may not have that kind of privacy or even to masturbate.

Very often young people with disabilities are not given their own kind of private space to explore their own uh bodies.

So these are small things that kind of add up in the larger scheme of things when it comes to disability and sexuality.

Marriage is one of the most socially legitimised ways in Indian society to have sex, and if marriage as an option is kind of denied to people
with disabilities then that closes off um an avenue where one can sort of hopefully, safely explore their sexuality.

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What barriers do individuals with intersecting identities face in navigating their sexuality?

Just as disabilities are diverse and sexuality is influenced by multiple things, this intersection also of course is affected by the level of education one has access to and the kinds of identities one brings.

So for queer persons with disability, this is the coming together of many
things that you know societies are just still not able to uhh fathom.

So when it comes to learning about my own self you know, as a queer person or as a person with disability, I don’t have access to information or resources that ever show someone like me.

I have very few role models to kind of look up to, to say hey, what they’re doing kind of resonates with me or I can um, these are some things I can take away from um this person.

It’s also quite hard for queer persons with disability to come across uh sexuality education resources that cater to their kinds of needs or even find sexual and reproductive health services that bring together these two intersections.

You are a queer person who may require advice or services on safer sex or on specific uh sexual and reproductive health issues, but to find people who cater to the needs of queer persons and queer persons with disabilities, so even understanding what kind of medication can I give them, what kind of uh physical setup do I need in my clinic to be able to cater to someone like this or well even have uh sign language interpretation, so these are some more issues that are very specific to queer persons with disabilities.