An LGBT themed quiz Maitreyi Gupta, Shamika M and I hosted at the Mumbai Quiz Festival in February 2016.
AVs will not play due to format of uploading here.
3. Mumbai Quiz Festival would like to thank…
Suvajit Chakraborty
Somnath Chanda
Prateek Chaturvedi
Abhinav Dasgupta
Anannya Deb
Sachin Deshpande
Aditya Gadre
Karthik Ganesh
Devang Ghia
Shubhankar Gokhale
Govind Grewal
Avinash Mudaliar
Maitreyi Gupta
Vikram Joshi
Jagdeep Kannarath
Aniket Khasgiwale
Atul Mathew
Debasish Misra
S. Venkatraghavan
Prasann Potdar
Rajiv Rai
Francis Rodrigues
Vinoo Sanjay
Ashoke Sanyal
Samrat Sengupta
Sundesh Shetty
Geetha Siva Narayanan
Anand Sivashankar
Nikhil Sonde
Ramachandran Srinivasan
Sumant Srivathsan
Gautham Subramaniam
Vibhendu Tewari
Pravin Varma
AND….Sumeet Pai
4. As well as our regular supporters…
Imran Ahmad
Ramesh Athreya
Siddhartha Banerjee
Sahil Barhate
Salil Bijur
Rajeev Chakravarthi
Soumyadipta Chanda
Anubhav Chatterjee
Tathagata Chatterjee
Amit Das
Prithwish Datta
Aniruddha Datta
Samrat Dutta
Subin Gafoor
R. Jayakanthan
Anant Kamath
Rahul Kottalgi
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Kunal Malhotra
Movin Miranda
Siddharth Misra
Ashwin Murali
Vinay Nidige
Balaji Padman
Sudhir Pai
Yogesh Pai
Jyoti Prakash Panda
Snehashis Panda
Amit Pandeya
Vivek Patel
Navin Rajaram
R. Ramakrishnan
Rohit Rao
Bivash Rath
Hemil Shah
M. Shamika
Shantanu Sharma
Meghashyam
Shirodkar
Ankit Soti
Varun Suresh
Arish Tavadia
Srinath TB
Harita Thacker
Aswath Venkatraman
5. Not to forget…
The Income Tax Department, Ministry of Finance, Government of India
The Consulate General of the United States of America, Mumbai
Navy Wives Welfare Association, Mumbai Chapter
The University of Mumbai
SIES College of Arts and Commerce
Goklibai College
Nehru Centre, Mumbai
Pinstorm
Rajyog Bar and Family Restaurant
6. Some ground rules
• 40 questions in total. 1 point per question. 1 point each when 2 answers
are asked for.
• Questions 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 are star marked and will be
considered in case of a tie-breaker.
8. This phrase was coined in 1993 by a popular comedian as a quip in a situation where
his previous statement could be perceived as homophobic.
It has since evolved and is popularly used to cover up any bigoted gaffe. It is sometimes
followed by the line, “Some of my best friends are <insert offended community name>”.
A parody on both homophobia and excessive political correctness, what phrase are we
talking about, and who coined it?
Q1.
10. Q2.
“From Gay to Gei: The Onnagata and the Creation of X's Female Characters” describes
the evolution of X, an art form created in 1603 with an all-women crew.
Between 1629 and 1877, women were banned from X by the erstwhile rulers because
the performances became ribald and the women allegedly engaged in sexual activities
with their patrons. The same happened when good-looking adolescent males with high-
pitched voices were used.
X would have died out but for the introduction of Onnagata in the 1650’s. Onnagata
were male performers past their adolescence, who were forced by law to reduce their
physical attractiveness.
What is X?
12. Q3.
The lady pictured here ran the Mumbai Marathon in
2015 to raise Rs. 1.5 lakh for the Humsafar Trust, an
NGO that works for the LGBTQ community in the socio-
legal space.
She was in the news a few months later for her solution
to her desire for a Tamil Brahmin vegetarian son-in-law
with a love for animals.
Name her or her offspring (full name) - and her solution.
14. Q4.
The premier travel guide for gay vacationers and travel enthusiasts lists gay-friendly
hotels, restaurants, bars, spas, resorts and cities of interest - including the anti-gay laws
that are applicable there. It has been published continuously since 1970 by a firm in
Berlin.
It is named after a Stanley Kubrick movie which had several homosexual undertones
between its 2 lead actors - including a scene cut by the censors of them bathing together
and feasting on oysters and snails while caressing each other.
Name this travel guide.
16. Q5.
In January 2014, in response to her father's attempts to have her marry a man - and
offering any man 80 million GBP to do so - Gigi penned an open letter to her father in
the leading newspaper of her Asian city causing a hailstorm of publicity. An excerpt:
Which city was this and what is Gigi's last name?
Dear Daddy,
I thought the timing was right for us to have a candid conversation… (etc)
However, I do love my partner Sean, who does a good job of looking after me, ensuring I am
fed, bathed and warm enough every day, and generally cheering me up to be a happy, jolly girl.
She is a large part of my life, and I am a better person because of her… (etc)
I’m sorry to mislead you to think I was only in a lesbian relationship because there was a
shortage of good, suitable men in X.
There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me.
Wishing you happiness.
Patiently yours,
Your daughter, Gigi.
18. Q6.
Who was the Sahitya Akademi Award winning lyricist for this song?
The lyricist died half way through the making of this film - so two other songs were
written by another lyricist. He is also known as the father of another Sahitya Akademi
Award winning lyricist.
(last names will not do)
20. Q7.
Identify the two voices you hear.
The interviewer later apologized to the interviewee on her daytime television show for
making him feel so uncomfortable when he clearly did not want to talk about the giant
elephant in the room.
22. His sexuality is ambiguous throughout much of the television show; he has allegedly
had sexual liaisons with both men and women, but he is never explicitly identified by
any sexual label. It is revealed he had an experience with homosexuality in college.
His wife and him are only depicted having sex once in the entire run of the show.
Slate.com journalist Hanna Rosin noted: if (_____ and ______) were a real-life
Washington couple and they were found each to be having an affair, he would be
accused of being "secretly gay, turned on by women only when he can use them for a
pure power play".
All doubts were removed by a scene in the third season where we find out he is
definitely bisexual.
Identify this character.
Q8.
24. The original meaning of X comes from Middle Low German where it means an eating
companion or someone who eats at the same table. In the late 1500's, male pirates
living in Tortuga in the Caribbean married each other due to lack of female company
and the French government had to ship in prostitutes to try and dissolve such unions.
The French word for such relationships gave rise to the nautical usage of the word.
What is X?
Q9.
26. Q10.
M. Lamar, pictured here, is a composer,
musician, performer and multimedia artist.
He has also notably played a small role in
certain flashback scenes of a popular TV series
which debuted in 2013.
Lamar’s better-known sibling has a much more
significant role in the same series and has even
featured on the cover of TIME magazine.
Who is M. Lamar’s famous sibling and what
was unique about their roles in the series?
27. A10. Laverne Cox. Lamar played the role of Sophia as a
man.
Laverne is transsexual and plays Sophia Burset, a transgender inmate in Orange is
the New Black.
Cox and Lamar are identical twins - Lamar played the role of Sophia as a man before
and during her sex-change procedure.
28. When X was pregnant in 1939, she sought a pediatrician who would allow her to
breastfeed her child. She sought to implement this with her child after observing the
benefits of breastfeeding on demand while conducting research in the South Pacific.
She approached Y who agreed to this then unconventional practice. In turn, Y wrote
about it in his revolutionary book that encouraged parents to breastfeed their children
among other things.
ID X and Y.
Q11.
29. Margaret Mead after 3 very happy
marriages to men self-identified as
bisexual and had 2 very close female
relationships till her death.
She maintained that an individual's
sexual orientation may evolve
throughout life.
A11. Margaret Mead. Dr. Benjamin Spock.
30. In 2009, Ben and Jerry's renamed one of their most popular ice
cream flavours to support legislation of gay marriage in their
home state of Vermont.
The ice cream contains fudge covered and peanut butter filled
pretzels – and gets it’s evocative name from the effect it has on
people who indulge in it.
Name the ice cream flavour before and after the change.
Q12.
32. Sara Josephine Baker was a physician who worked in the areas of public health and
child care especially in the immigrant communities of New York City. In 1907, she was
appointed Assistant Commissioner of Health of New York.
As part of her job, she twice helped track down X who was presumed responsible for
infecting 51 people and killing 3 people due to the infection.
ID X (will accept either of two names)
Q13.
34. Identify both speakers – who are discussing what they believe was the cause of
September 11th attacks in New York City.
Q14.
35. Jerry Falwell later backtracked after a huge public backlash saying “If I left that
impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.”
A14. Jerry Falwell. Pat Robertson.
36. Samba, the son of Krishna, is the patron of eunuchs and
transgenders – in the Mausala Purana, he is described
as dressing up in female attire to infiltrate female-only
gatherings and seduce them.
When he is discovered by some rishis crossdressing and
pretending to be a pregnant woman, he is cursed and
gives birth to _______ which end up causing the end of
the Yadu race when formed into something else.
Who/What did he give birth to?
Q15.
38. Inspite of their antipathy to each other due to past history of the LGBT community
being banned from using the word Olympics for their games (inspite of events like the
Police Olympics and the annual Rat Olympics) , the organizers of the Gay Games (as
they were renamed) and the Olympic Games successfully lobbied together to allow one
group of previously banned foreign athletes into the USA to participate in both the 1994
New York City Gay Games as well as the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.
Which group was this?
Q16.
39. The USA banned HIV positive people from visiting the USA also till President Obama
and Congress changed the law.
A16. HIV positive athletes.
40. Q17.
Connect and add the latest to the list:
VJ Andy – Television anchor
Begum Nawazish Ali – Television chat show host
Laxminarayan Tripathi (Laxmi) – Activist/TV personality
Vivek Mishra – Nude Yoga exponent
Rohit Verma – Fashion designer
Imam Siddique – Ad film maker/TV personality
Bobby Darling – TV personality
42. Italian scientist Silvano Vinceti led a group of scientists who tried to determine the
cause of death of the person whose bones they exhumed. It was concluded that the
person died of lead poisoning.
The prolonged exposure to lead in paint changed his behaviour and led to violent mood
swings. It was also mirrored in the style of his paintings – many of which featured
young men who were his lovers.
Identify the painter.
Q18.
48. In the Quran, homosexuals are referred to as the “Qaum ______” (People of ______)
where the blank is a name evocative of the story of the punishment of “sin” by God.
Fill in the blanks.
Either English name or Arabic name will do.
Q20.
50. You will hear the opening choral part of a piece of music. Most versions you have heard
omit the opening and closing choral parts.
Identify the piece of music and the very talented composer of the same – though he had
a tragically unhappy marriage to a woman, he is known to have been gay. Homophobia
in his home country has till date refused to identify him as a LGBT icon.
Q21.
52. This Pennsylvania born author X of "Q.E.D." and "Three Lives", which were
breakthroughs in English-language fiction due to their open treatment of lesbianism,
was the long-time companion of Y.
Y primarily remained in the background inspite of publishing books like “The Y
cookbook” which had the famous recipe for marijuana fudge which later on became
known as Y brownies.
Y finally became known by the publication by X of Y' "memoirs" in 1933 under the
teasing title The Autobiography of Y. It became X's bestselling book.
Name X and Y.
Q22.
54. This superheroine was introduced in the 1950s as a implied romantic partner to
another superhero – who’s comics were having a tough time selling as most people
understood him to be gay.
She was however largely a creative failure and had faded from the limelight by the
1980’s.
The character was reimagined as the lesbian former lover of longtime supporting
character Renee Montoya in 2006. Both iterations have the civilian identity Kathy
Kane, heir to a vast fortune,
Who is she?
Q23.
57. Based on a certain project, "Common Threads - Stories from the ________" won an
Academy award in 1989 for best feature-length documentary.
This project has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize since it was started in June
1987, and has also raised more than $3 million for local AIDS charities till date.
The project is now so large that it has only been shown in Washington DC over the past
15 years – since it was first showcased on October 11, 1987.
What are we talking about?
Q24.
58. Created by the NAMES Foundation to honour a different person who died of AIDS on
each of 44,000 pieces.
Each memorial piece is 3’ by 6’ – the size of an average coffin.
A24. The AIDS Memorial Quilt
59.
60. Besides the first same sex kiss on screen, this 1927 Hollywood movie also had two other
firsts listed – both in 1929, against its name. Name both.
Q25.
61. A25. First Academy award for Best Picture. Only “fully
silent” movie to win Best Picture Oscar.
62. The gay male leather subculture has existed since the late 1940s, when it grew out of
post-WWII biker culture. Early gay leather bars were subcultural versions of
the motorcycle club with Harley Davidson being the gay brand of choice.
These gay clubs reflected a disaffection with the mainstream culture of post-World War
II America. A1953 film with the biker hero wearing tight jeans, a T-shirt, a leather
jacket, and Muir cap promoted an image of masculine independence that resonated
with some gay men who were dissatisfied with a culture that stereotyped gay men
as effeminate – and is considered the inspiration for the leather scene.
Which iconic movie was this and who was the biker hero of this movie?
Q26.
64. Kurt Freund (1957) developed the first device - a penile plethysmograph , which
measured penile volume changes in response to sexually explicit images to distinguish
heterosexual and homosexual males for the Czechoslovakian army.
What was the use the Czechoslovak communist authorities put this technology to?
Q27.
65. A27. To identify people falsely claiming to be gay to get
out of the army draft.
66. Q28.
A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, church bells all over the Netherlands rang out playing a
specific tune before morning services.
What/who were they commemorating?
(Here you hear the bells at Groningen Cathedral)
68. Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882) was an Austrian-born Hungarian journalist
and human rights campaigner.
In Berlin in 1869, he anonymously published a pamphlet with the rather wordy title of
“Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code of 14 April 1851 and Its Reaffirmation as
Paragraph 152 in the Proposed Penal Code for the North German Confederation - An
Open and Professional Correspondence to His Excellency Dr. Leonhardt, Royal
Prussian Minister of Justice.”
In it, he first coined a word which he suggested was preferable to the general slur terms
used till then for the LGBT community in Germany. He also coined a second word to
describe the “preferable” state of being according to the German authorities at the time.
What common words are these?
Q29.
69. He coined the term as preferable to the prevalent terms “sodomite” and “pederast” that
were in use till then.
A29. Homosexual and Heterosexual.
70. Name this 1997 movie based on a Tony Award nominated play. The name is a commonly
used slur in the British Isles for a homosexual man.
The role that Clive Owen played was supposed to be played by another actor – who had
played the same starring role in the original Broadway play.
Name him.
Q30.
73. Kolkata-based sexual rights initiative, The Pratyay
Gender Trust, in association with Uddyami Yuvak Brinda
created something in Shobhabazaar, Kolkata for the first
time ever in history in 2015.
Their creation was inspired from the avatar of Shiva
pictured here.
What is the name of this avatar and what did they create?
Q31.
75. Virginia Woolf wrote a book X that features an androgynous
man who undergoes a sex change from era to era – made
into a movie starring Tilda Swinton in the lead role.
The character (same as the name of the book) was inspired
by Woolf's affair with the poet and novelist Y.
Id X and Y.
Q32
77. The Roman artefact shown here is dated 32AD and was
found in the ruins of Pompeii and features two men having
a rather passionate encounter.
These were used as an alternative to the regular as the
Emperor of Rome would be insulted if the regular items
were used.
What are these artifacts called? And what use were they
put to?
Q33.
79. The Book of Samuel in the Bible describes the relationship between X and Jonathan.
Liberal Biblical scholars believe this was a sexual as well as an emotional relationship
by analysing several verses in the Book.
When they met “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of X, and Jonathan loved
him as with his own soul.” Jonathan then “stripped himself of the robe that was upon
him, and gave it to X, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his
girdle.”
When Jonathon tells X of his father’s plan to kill X as he disapproves of the relationship
- “and they kissed one another, and wept one with another – until X exceeded.”
And finally when Jonathan is killed in battle, X laments “I am distressed for thee, my
brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been to me: thy love to me is wonderful,
passing the love of women.”
Who is X – commonly thought of as being aggressively heterosexual?
Q34.
81. Connect the two scenes you see here with a person – listed by Beyonce as one of her
idols – both as a performer and a civil rights leader.
She was the only woman who spoke at Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington
and was also a French military hero for her role in the French resistance.
Q35.
83. Roger Casement was a British diplomat of Irish extraction. Described as the "father of
twentieth-century human rights investigations", he was honoured in 1905 for
the Casement Report on the Congo and knighted in 1911.
Influenced by the Boer War and his investigation into colonial atrocities against
indigenous peoples, he grew to distrust imperialism and became involved with the Irish
Republican separatist movement.
He was arrested and before the trial, the British government intentionally circulated
excerpts from his private journals, known as the Black Diaries, which detailed his
illegal homosexual activities. This material undermined support for clemency for
Casement – he was convicted and hanged in 1916.
What crime was he hanged for in London which led to him being declared a martyr for
the Irish independence cause?
Q36.
85. In the early 1980s, the Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in
the Chicago area. Agents discovered that gay men often referred to themselves as
"friends of X" and they launched an enormous and futile hunt for the elusive “X",
hoping to find and convince X to reveal the names of gay service members.
What they didn’t know that X was a fictional gay icon – whose icon status was derived
from a book – a sequel to a famous 1900 children’s novel written by L. Frank Baum in
which Polychrome ( a character) on encountering X’s friends, exclaims “You have some
queer friends, X" and X replies "The queerness doesn't matter, so long as they're
friends.”
The novel was later made into a 1902 Broadway musical and a 1939 movie as well.
Who is X?
Q37.
86. The book being “The Road to Oz”
– a sequel to “The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz”
A37. Dorothy.
87. The ogee is a curve shaped like a double S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite
senses, so that the ends are parallel.
It is used often in architecture, mechanics and mathematics.
An author chose this shape for inspiring the title of his book – as it is a shape that
“swings both ways”.
Name this novel set in Thatcherite Britain and its Booker award winning author.
Q38.
88. Winner of the 2004 Booker Prize.
A38. The Line of Beauty. Alan Hollinghurst.
89. The Hill of Devi is a non-fiction account written by author X detailing his experience
working as private secretary to Tukojirao III, the Maharaja of Dewas.
After this experience, he wrote his 6th and last novel – arguably his most famous and
successful one due to it’s adaptation into a film in 1984. His 5th novel was only
published decades after his death as it’s homosexual theme meant that no publisher
would touch it at the time. The 5th novel was also made into a movie in 1987.
X was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 13 times in all – but never won it.
Name both novels.
Q39.
90. Both written by E.M.Forster – Maurice was only published in 1971, 57 years after he
died.
A39. A Passage to India. Maurice.
91. According to Ovid, in Greek myth, he was born a remarkably
handsome boy with whom the water nymph Salmacis fell in love
and she prayed to be united with him forever. A god in answer to
her prayer merged their two forms into one and transformed them
both into one androgynous form.
His name is compounded of his parents names, X and Y – and due
to his unique nature, he is considered the god who blesses marriage
as he unites both male and female energies and symbolizes the
coming together in sacred union.
Name the parents (X and Y) of this god.
Q40.
92. The child of course is the god Hermaphroditus – from whom we get the word
“hermaphrodite”
A40. Hermes and Aphrodite.
95. Q8.
In 1977, this lady wrote a book titled The World of Homosexuals.
The book, considered "pioneering", features interviews with two young Indian
homosexual men, a male couple in Canada seeking legal marriage, a temple priest who
explains his views on homosexuality, and a review of the existing literature on
homosexuality. It ends with a call for decriminalising homosexuality, and "full and
complete acceptance—not tolerance and not sympathy".
The lady admits that her interest in the topic was an outcome of her marriage to
Paritosh Chatterjee, who later revealed that he was homosexual.
Name the lady, who was an author of several books, including cookbooks and novels.
97. Q40.
The symbol for X is the same as that for the transgendered
community shown here. It combines the cross used for the
female community with the crescent (horns) used for the
male one.
X was chosen as in Greek mythology he is the father of
Hermaphroditus, who had both male and female sex organs.
Who is X?