India’s queer future deserves more than donor-driven change

While the recently established Pride Fund is just one step toward building a democratic, inclusive capital for India’s queer community to grow financially, we are still far from helping shape a more equal land of opportunities 

For decades together, the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights across the Global South has operated within a complex matrix of nationalism, cultural discourse, and international influence. In countries like India, queerness has often been negotiated not just through law and society, but through the funding pipelines that enable visibility, safety, and survival. From the colonial era criminalisation of queer existence to the HIV/AIDS-era influx of Western aid, the economic fate of queer communities has long been tethered to the politics of external capital.

Today, we are witnessing another shift—one that threatens to deepen precarity even as it creates new possibilities. Major cuts in funding, especially from conservative administrations in donor nations like the United States, are rippling outward. In early 2025, a sweeping freeze on U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) aid forced the abrupt shutdown of India’s first three trans-led health clinics—the Mitr clinics in Hyderabad, Thane, and Pune. These closures reveal more than just a loss of resources—they expose the fragility of queer infrastructure built on foreign funding, and the persistent imbalance in how queer life is valued and politically negotiated across borders.

Yet, amid this uncertainty, something else is unfolding. Across India, queer communities are beginning to reclaim the levers of economic power—through mutual aid, grassroots financing, and purpose-built funds such as Pride Fund, designed to serve those long excluded from mainstream venture capital and philanthropy. These efforts are more than stopgaps. They represent a critical reimagining of what queer financial autonomy can look like when it is not tied to alterations in foreign policy or imperial rescue logics.

There's been an evolution of global queer funding—from growing its roots in colonial control and biomedical intervention, to its contemporary geopolitical agendas. LGBTQIA+-led financial initiatives are resisting gatekeeping and building systems of care on their own terms. The Pride Fund, a pioneering India-based investment initiative by three queer professionals at the intersection of business, community organising, and DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) advocacy, is one of the voices that critiques but also provides a vision for capital that affirms, redistributes, and empowers.

The evolution of queer economies in India: A history of challenges and change

In India, the volatile interplay of local struggle and foreign influence has shaped not just how queerness is perceived, but also how it survives. From colonial laws to biomedical funding logics, queer life has often been defined in terms of legality, pathology or risk. The result is a long, uneasy history in which capital arrives not as an ally, but as a force of gatekeeping—powerful enough to shape agendas, yet fragile enough to disappear without warning.

The 19th-century imposition of Section 377 by the British colonial rule was the beginning of legal erasure of queer intimacy, institutionalised in a way that made visibility synonymous with vulnerability. In the late 20th century, a different kind of visibility emerged under the banner of global public health. As the HIV/AIDS epidemic became more pronounced, international donors began to pour money into India, targeting so-called “high-risk” groups. Aid flowed not toward self-determination, but toward surveillance, containment, and compliance. The queer community was not seen as one deserving of joy, creativity, or political freedom—but as a vector of disease, a demographic to be managed.

Queer historian and political worker Mario da Penha (he/him), says early decades of HIV-focused funding played a crucial, even if complicated, role in shaping India’s queer organising infrastructure. “In the late 1990s and through the first couple of decades of this century, institutional funding by international donors was vital in building and sustaining a network of queer non-profits and local community organisations across India,” he explains. Though the primary task was to combat HIV/AIDS, the work “promoted a politicised awareness about queer marginalisation within Indian legal and social structures.”

Nevertheless, this funding brought infrastructure—sometimes the only infrastructure queer people could access. NGOs grew across India around the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Clinics began offering STI care. Community-based organisations became skilled at writing grant proposals, navigating compliance regimes, and translating needs into donor language. But, this also created a parallel economy of survival—one where success was defined by metrics, not movements. It also left many behind: trans, Dalit, Adivasi, working-class, and disabled queer folks. The most marginalised were often tagged as too "messy" to be funded.

That politicisation had tangible effects. As Mario recounts, it was HIV/AIDS activism that seeded the earliest legal challenges to Section 377. Groups like AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) and the Naz Foundation found themselves at odds with a legal system that criminalised the very populations they were trying to support. Their efforts—backed by donor infrastructure—created not just health interventions, but political momentum.

But the politics of funding was never neutral. As Mario points out, even as NGOs grew, internal rifts deepened. “By the end of the early 2000s, there was increasing tension between queer non-profits, mostly led by queer men, and transwomen who felt disempowered and under-represented in the leadership structures,” he says. Categories like "men who have sex with men"—a creation of donor taxonomies—blurred identities and erased the specificities of hijra and kothi communities. These tensions were not just semantic. They were about power: who got to lead, who got resourced, and who got written out.

Over time, trans leaders began to push back, demanding not just inclusion but autonomy—funding that was specific, representative, and led by the communities themselves. Some change followed. “There has been some measure of success here,” notes Mario, “but we still have a long way to go,” especially in acknowledging the needs of queer women, trans men, intersex persons, and the asexual community—groups still rendered invisible in many funding conversations.By the 2010s, India’s queer movement made global headlines—first in 2018 with the decriminalisation of same-sex relations, followed by increasing calls for marriage equality and trans rights. But the foundation was still on shaky ground. Organising—the work of building community networks, mobilising resources, and creating structures for collective care and resistance—was over-reliant on foreign grants. Grassroots work depended on the goodwill of donor governments. While legal wins were celebrated, the money that underwrote queer survival remained conditional—subject to the whims of political tides thousands of miles away.

In early 2025, those tides turned sharply. As Donald Trump swept the US elections, the change in administration triggered a freeze on major international aid disbursed via USAID. Within weeks, India’s first three trans-led clinics—pioneering spaces for gender-affirming care and community health—were forced to shut down. These closures were not just budgetary setbacks, but warning bells. Services that had taken years to build, disappeared almost overnight. What was left in their place was the old truth: no matter how carefully queer communities build, they are still building on someone else’s land.

Mario saw this coming. “Even before this closure,” he recalls, “Indian queer nonprofits were being urged by donor agencies to set up businesses that would help them self-fund their social enterprises, perhaps anticipating a situation like one that would arise when Republicans are in government.” It wasn’t just the U.S. pulling out—other countries, including the UK, had also scaled back development funding. “Some queer groups I know of have made public appeals and secured emergency donations that will tide them over a few months,” Mario says. “But they too will have to evolve and rethink where their funds are sourced from over time.”

How queer communities in India are funding themselves

This collapse has clarified something vital: aid was never going to be enough. It could fund outreach, treatment, perhaps even advocacy—but it could not  redistribute power. And power is what’s needed now—not just to keep queer people alive, but to allow queer life to flourish on its own terms.

Across India, communities are refusing to wait for external validation. Informal care networks are stepping in where institutions have failed. Artists, organisers, and entrepreneurs are building their own economies—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of defiance. Mutual aid groups are pooling resources. Collectives are running community kitchens, distributing medicines, and paying rent. This is not charity; it is a practice of autonomy. It is a refusal to let survival be mediated by bureaucracy.

A new financial tool has emerged: The Pride Fund, launched in early 2025, is India’s first structured philanthropic investment fund created by and for LGBTQIA+ communities. The Fund is backed by founding patrons Radhika Piramal (she/her), the Keshav Suri Foundation, and Godrej, with anchor support from Dasra and the Godrej DEI Lab, under the leadership and guidance of Parmesh Shahani. Designed to bridge the persistent funding gap experienced by queer communities and queer-affirmative organisations, it offers three years of patient philanthropic capital to grantees. Its model is grounded in trust-based philanthropy and community accountability, with decisions led by a panel of queer leaders and allied philanthropists.

Rather than funnel money through the same elite networks, the Fund intentionally directs capital toward LGBTQIA+-first organisations operating in underserved geographies and demographics—places where queer life is vibrant but underfunded. Grantees are vetted through rigorous yet community-sensitive assessments. Transparency is woven into the process through structured quarterly and annual reporting—but without the extractive paperwork that often drains small organisations.

Queer people in India have never been strangers to building from the margins. But with capital that is patient, politically-aware, and community-led, they are now building a future that isn’t borrowed,funded by the very people who will live it.

Building queer financial autonomy: Inside India’s Pride Fund

The Pride Fund offers a model rooted in solidarity and structural change. It represents a collaboration between queer leadership and legacy institutions, beyond symbolic gestures.

“I have enjoyed a degree of wealth and educational privilege, being born into a business family. I faced fewer challenges accessing capital and leadership opportunities,” shares Radhika Piramal. As the Managing Director of VIP Industries, Radhika has led one of the country’s largest luggage brands since 2009. Navigating India’s overwhelmingly masculine corporate landscape as an out- lesbian, however, came with its own set of reckonings. “None of the companies or leading philanthropists in India are very familiar with queer issues. Only two of the top 50 philanthropists give to queer NGOs,” she says, adding,  “I felt my role could be to act as a bridge between corporate CSR and queer-led NGOs.”

That bridging is the beating heart of The Pride Fund. Unlike typical donor-driven foundations that maintain top-down hierarchies, this fund operates as a community-anchored philanthropic vehicle—fundraising from individuals, corporations, and foundations globally, and redistributing resources to grassroots queer-led NGOs across India. “Let’s use all our class, caste, education, and wealth privilege,” recalls Radhika, telling herself after the 2023 Supreme Court decision denying marriage equality for same-sex individuals in India—a “deeply, deeply disappointing” verdict. “Maybe since the courts have failed us at this time, we should do some good philanthropic work,” she adds.

Keshav Suri, Executive Director at the Lalit Suri Hospitality Group and founder of the Keshav Suri Foundation, brings a parallel lens. “We need to stop looking at queer philanthropy through the lens of pity. It’s not about ‘oh these poor people, let’s give them a little money.’ It’s about saying—here’s a population that’s been systemically denied access to capital, and we’re correcting that.” Keshav, who has long been vocal about pinkwashing in corporate India, is clear that this fund isn’t for optics. “We’re not interested in rainbow logos for Pride Month. We want sustained, meaningful investment that builds capacity for queer communities to lead their own futures.”

Queer funding in India: Bridging gaps within the community

The focus on capacity-building also demands an intersectional eye—particularly when it comes to gender within the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. “It is absolutely true that even within the queer community, gender impacts access to funding,” says Radhika. “Lesbians and trans folks often do not have the same social networks or access to capital that some gay men may have.” The Pride Fund, she emphasises, ensures that its selection panel—comprising queer individuals from diverse identities—equitably represents NGOs working on lesbian and trans issues, not just MSM- or HIV-focused services. “Some NGOs focus on all members of the queer community. Others focus on lesbian visibility. We ensure a good cross-section—by geography, by community, by need.”

Keshav agrees: “When we talk about inclusion, we must interrogate our own biases within the community too. Philanthropy cannot reproduce the same hierarchies we’re trying to dismantle.”

Despite launching in a moment of global contraction in LGBTQIA+ funding, The Pride Fund is already shifting narratives. Its first cohort of eight NGOs span a range of focus areas—from trans health access to lesbian collective organising. More so, they represent a strategic blueprint: not just visibility, but infrastructure. 

“Finding mentors who understand your journey can be hard if you’re queer,” admits Radhika. “I’ve often relied on senior queer folks for personal guidance, and straight mentors for business advice. But what has made the biggest difference is community—finding people I can be vulnerable with, dream with.” In building the Pride Fund, both she and Keshav are creating exactly that: a container for queer dreams. 

Why India’s queer communities need more than just funding

However, funding is not neutral, but a political tool. In post-colonial contexts like India—where caste, gender, and sexuality continue to shape access to resources and representation—the control of capital is intertwined with the reproduction of power. Philanthropic institutions, even those with progressive missions, often operate from frameworks set by those who hold structural privilege. When funding is predominantly allocated through top-down priorities—decided in boardrooms far removed from lived realities—it risks maintaining, rather than dismantling, the very hierarchies it claims to address.

This critique is not a dismissal of The Pride Fund’s significance; quite the opposite, in fact. Its emergence is a necessary intervention in a landscape where queer communities, especially trans- and lesbian-led initiatives, are chronically under-resourced. But it isn’t an ultimate solution either. It invites a crucial line of questioning: Whose voices are still left out? Who gets to set the agenda? And how do we create conditions for self-determined, long-term organising—especially for those at the sharpest intersections of marginalisation, including Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi queer folks?

As feminist scholars and movement-support organisations have long argued, the sustainability of social change depends not just on funding availability, but on its politics—on who controls it, how it’s distributed, and to what end. Reports make clear that most funds favour short-term, project-based grants over deep, long-term capacity-building. And that this tendency often sidelines the most radical, autonomous organising in favour of institutionalised forms of "impact."

India’s queer movement does not exist in a vacuum—it is shaped by these same forces. If we are to build a truly liberated future, we must advocate for a shift in the funding ecosystem itself—one where capital flow is community-led, intersectional, and highly accountable. One where autonomy is not an afterthought, but a baseline.

Ultimately, it’s not just about who is getting funded—it’s about who gets to imagine, lead, and own the future they’re building. The Pride Fund may be a beginning, but the road ahead demands we go further, together.

Curated by Gaysi Family

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