Interview: Sunil Mohan, Author of Your Stick Will Not Break My Strength

Sunil reflects on identity, masculinity, resistance, and activism in this powerful memoir. In this interview, he discusses gender journeys, solidarity, and rewriting narratives beyond victimhood.

on Mar 12, 2026

Interview: Sunil Mohan, Author of Your Stick Will Not Break My Strength

Frontlist: Your memoir moves beyond a conventional transition narrative. What made you choose a reflective, non-linear way of telling your story?

Sunil: I have always felt that transition of gender or reaffirmation of gender of one’s self, is intensely a very personal journey. Usual transition narrative misses the certain nuances which we might have felt and brings us as victim in front of the state and society. I did not want to do the same.

Frontlist: You question traditional ideas of masculinity even while asserting your identity as a man. How do you personally define masculinity today?

Sunil: I feel, I have gone past the toxic masculinity that is traditionally ascribed to a certain type of body. It is a chance for many of us to rewrite the script of masculinity which is something that caused vast misogyny and violence. We want to be men but not toxic masculine. Apart from that we ourselves were against our fathers, uncles, brothers behaviours and why should we imitate them. We are now getting a chance to not subscribe to that kind of masculinity then we better change.

Frontlist: The book speaks deeply about self-questioning, resistance, and refusal to see oneself as a victim. Why was this stance important for you to establish?

Sunil: I feel that victim narratives have filled the society with

sympathy for us. I need empathy and I am asserting my rights. I don’t need sympathy or empathy to assert my rights. If I don’t question myself then the whole effort of writing this book is in vein. I cannot say anything unless I practice it or live it. Resistance is is the only way of strength for assertion. Only when you have to assert will the society or family or socio-political, cultural institutions will oppose for the systems are built on hetero-normative Brahminical patriarchal structures. Then there is not other way than resistance which will help us assert a life different than this system.

Frontlist: Your journey is closely tied to queer, trans, anti-caste, and feminist movements. How have collective struggles and friendships shaped your sense of self?

Sunil: I first heard from my friend Late Famila, a transgender rights activist that rights cannot be asserted in fragmented boxes. A person has many identities and all those identities are linked. Hence we have to build friendships in the movements too to build comraderies and solidarity. Famila made me think more in terms of our actual lives. If at personal level we do not build these friendships organically we will never be able to understand and respond to each other. Due to these movements, I know where I am privileged and where I am not and based on that I will build my assertion script along with assertion of rights for friends too.

Frontlist: Silence appears as a powerful theme in your writing. What role has silence, chosen or imposed played in your personal and political journey?

Sunil: Silence is for me is a deep introspection of self, could be an escapism as my friend says, a process of assimilating my thoughts for both personal and political journey. I was talking to my friend Rumi (my companion in work for more than 23 years), and thought the role of silence is important in my life in many ways. Imposed silence has led me into more assertive person like in the context of the family when they would not let me express my feelings of love or gender.

Frontlist: Having worked extensively with marginalised communities and documented lived experiences across South India, how did activism influence the way you wrote this memoir?

Sunil: My writing, be it memoir or articles on law, gender or social movements, has always been based on the activism only. I just cannot write theories. It has to be based on my action of work for me. It is these experiences which came together as a memoir for me. I theorise based on my experience and that is a strong point in my talk, thinking, writing and that is the difference which marks my work and also writing.