Are there safe spaces for the invisible queer disabled community?

Nearly three months ago, the Gaysi Family—a safe digital space for members of the queer community—posted an artwork by Ritika Gupta. In a 2021 article for the digital media platform Women’s Web, titled The Agony Of Being Queer AND Disabled In India, Kanav N. Sahgal, a communications manager at Nyaaya, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and an LGBTQ+ activist, wrote: “The queer community, while heterogeneous in composition, is oddly homogenous in representation. Very few queer people from Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, Muslim and disabled backgrounds find themselves in positions of power, authority, and visibility in activist and non-activist queer spaces.” The article lists the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities both visible and invisible—from lack of access to quality care to social stigma and little support for emotional health. “Disabled queer folks might have different ways of accessing queer circles, resources, structures of dating and platonicity— something that might be more readily available to non-disabled queer folk,” they wrote in an article. Shreyasi Pathak and Priyanka D’Souza —an artist duo travelling through crip+queer time that hosts the Instagram page Resting Museum Resting Museum, started by D’Souza in 2020, “was based on the lack of spaces of rest—mental and physical—for the queer disabled community.