THERE are moments in a nation鈥檚 history when silence bears more weight than slogans. In post-uprising Bangladesh, a country navigating political rupture and renewal after the fall of long-standing authoritarian rule, the language of reform rings loudly across press briefings and policy drafts. Yet parallel to this public performance of transformation runs a quieter, more insidious current: absence. Not merely the absence of policy clarity or institutional coherence, but the calculated exclusion of those deemed too inconvenient to include鈥攏amely, individuals and communities whose identities are shaped by gender diversity, queer embodiment, ethnic or religious nonconformity.
As the interim government and newly formed coalitions articulate a vision of democratic rebirth, gender-diverse, queer, and trans citizens remain in a familiar predicament: present in symbolic terms, yet excluded from material influence. This essay is not a disavowal of political change in Bangladesh. Rather, it offers a closer reading of what that change omits, what it structurally resists, and what it actively displaces under the guise of inclusive nationalism.
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From uprising to governance
THE student-led uprisings of 2024 signaled a potent shift in Bangladesh鈥檚 political terrain. Amid escalating discontent, civil resistance, and mass mobilisations, the regime long associated with authoritarianism fell, leaving a vacuum rapidly filled by transitional actors drawn from civil society, academia, and a younger generation of movement leaders. Within weeks, a new coalition emerged, claiming to represent a generational rupture from the past. It promised transparency, decentralisation, and an inclusive ethos.
For many, this transition inspired cautious optimism. Could this be the moment when those long pushed to the margins might finally be invited into the heart of national decision-making?
But rhetorical transformation alone does not dismantle exclusion. Nor does a shift in leadership necessarily reconfigure the architecture of power. In reality, the emergent coalition has replicated many of the same patterns that have long structured political life in Bangladesh, particularly the dominance of cisgender, Bengali, Muslim men in leadership roles and representational spaces.
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Hegemony of normative power
WHILE symbolic appointments of women and youth activists have offered a cosmetic nod to diversity, the core of political authority remains tethered to a narrow demographic identity. This is not merely a question of representation. It reveals how statecraft in Bangladesh continues to be shaped by the hegemony of normative masculinity, ethno-nationalist homogeneity, and religious majoritarianism.
In this configuration, gender-diverse people, ethnic minorities, non-Muslims, and queer communities are rendered structurally invisible, not through direct legal exclusion, but through institutional disinterest, discretionary silences, and carefully curated symbolic gestures that substitute presence for power.
This dynamic has recently come into sharper focus with the publication of the Constitutional Reform Commission鈥檚 report on May 27, 2025. Among the Commission鈥檚 13 proposed reform categories for a revised national constitution, one, 鈥榩luralism, diversity, and inclusive citizenship,鈥� was notably rejected by every major political party involved in the reform negotiation. The report, which initially aimed to elevate pluralism as a fundamental constitutional principle, encountered unanimous resistance.
This unified dismissal is telling. While political parties were deeply divided on electoral reform, federalism, or transitional justice mechanisms, they stood in collective agreement to omit a category that would have explicitly recognised and institutionalised difference, whether in terms of gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or language. In translation: the concept of inclusion remains politically toxic, and the presence of gender-diverse and queer people in national discourse continues to be framed as excess rather than as a democratic necessity.
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Visibility without power
THIS constitutional omission is not an isolated event. It reflects a broader trend across political and social institutions, where progressivism is performed through optics but disavowed in substance. Aesthetic gestures such as platforming diverse faces or issuing statements on rights are often deployed without accompanying structural commitment.
A particularly telling moment occurred earlier this year, when a young LGBTQ+ activist was briefly named to a new political coalition鈥檚 founding team. For a moment, his inclusion sparked hope: that a gender-diverse figure could occupy visible leadership in the post-uprising landscape.
But within days, his name was quietly removed from official party materials. No explanation was offered. Conversations with party insiders revealed that his open identity had triggered unease among party elders. His removal functioned as a warning: participation is allowed only if one remains silent, palatable, and politically convenient.
This is the politics of containment, not inclusion. It offers proximity without access, presence without voice.
This logic of conditional inclusion reproduces itself across institutions. Even as queer and trans people are used to signal openness 鈥� particularly to international donors or urban liberal constituencies they remain unprotected in daily political life. In recent months, several high-profile youth leaders, once seen as progressive allies, have used social media platforms to circulate anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Their comments, often cloaked in religious or cultural terms, have been met with silence by their parties.
No disciplinary action. No public rebuttal. Just silence. That silence functions as permission 鈥� and it is lethal in its consequences. It not only signals that queerphobia is politically acceptable but also reinforces that gender-diverse lives are negotiable, expendable, and dispensable in the name of national consensus.
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Shrinking the political imagination
THE exclusion of gender-diverse and queer communities is not merely representational 鈥� it is epistemological. When a narrow set of identities monopolises political power, we lose not just voices but frameworks. Gender-diverse organisers often bring with them radical models of governance grounded in care, interdependence, and justice 鈥� models shaped by survival, not supremacy.
Their exclusion, therefore, limits what is possible: in policymaking, in social transformation, in imagining futures that break from patriarchal and casteist legacies. Bangladesh today finds itself at a pivotal crossroads. It can continue to rehearse the old script of respectable nationhood, defined by majoritarian masculinity, ethno-national uniformity, and developmental consensus, or it can begin to build a new grammar of governance. One that sees pluralism not as a threat, but as a foundation.
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Future is already negotiated
THE removal of one activist from a party鈥檚 founding charter may seem like a footnote. But it is a microcosm of a larger political logic 鈥� one in which gender-diverse, queer, and minoritised people remain too 鈥榙iverse鈥� to lead, too inconvenient to trust, too expendable to protect.
If Bangladesh is to take its rhetoric of transformation seriously, it must go beyond the language of openness and commit to the hard work of restructuring power. Inclusion must cease to be conditional. Pluralism must cease to be optional.
Until then, the silence will continue to speak louder than the slogans.
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Tara Asgar is a Brooklyn-based Bangladeshi transgender artist, educator and activist. Her transdisciplinary work engages themes of gender, migration, and community justice across South Asia and its diasporas.
