Contesting heteronormativity: the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender recognition in India and Vietnam.

Recent public debates about sexuality in India and Vietnam have brought the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people sharply into focus. Drawing on legal documents, secondary sources and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the urban centres of Delhi and Hanoi, this article shows how the efforts of civil society organisations dedicated to the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights have had different consequences in these two Asian contexts. The paper considers how these organisations navigated government regulations about their formation and activities, as well as the funding priorities of national and international agencies. The HIV epidemic has had devastating consequences for gay men and other men who have sex with men, and has been highly stigmatising. As a sad irony, the epidemic has provided at the same time a strategic entry point for organisations to struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender recognition. This paper examines how the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender recognition has been doubly framed through health-based and rights-based approaches and how the struggle for recognition has positioned lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in India and Vietnam differently.