Menaka Guruswamy, a senior Supreme Court advocate, has become India’s first openly queer Rajya Sabha MP, nominated by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
At 51, she joins five women among TMC’s 13 upper house MPs and has pledged to champion equality, fraternity, and non-discrimination.
Born in Hyderabad in 1974, Menaka Guruswamy is a distinguished lawyer with degrees from the National Law School of India, Oxford (BCL, DPhil), and Harvard (LL.M.). A Rhodes Scholar and Gammon Fellow, she has taught at Yale, NYU, Toronto, and Columbia, and briefly worked at New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
She began practising in India in 2009 and became a senior advocate in 2019. Guruswamy and her partner Arundhati Katju were named among Time’s 100 most influential people in 2019. Guruswamy is best known for her role in the landmark Section 377 case, where she successfully argued for LGBTQ+ rights, overturning the colonial-era law that criminalised homosexuality. During her July 2018 plea, she highlighted the violation of fundamental rights, delivering a powerful argument that reportedly left the Supreme Court courtroom in stunned silence.
