April 6, 2026 (IMP/AGENCY): Renowned constitutional lawyer Dr. Menaka Guruswamy created history by becoming India’s first queer Member of Parliament, taking the oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Dr. Menaka Guruswamy was elected from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) from West Bengal, and her election to the Upper House marks the first LGBTQ+ representation in the government.
Guruswamy played a key role in the 2018 Supreme Court case that struck down parts of Section 377, effectively decriminalising homosexuality in India. Born in Hyderabad in 1974, she built a distinguished career after studying at the National Law School of India University, Oxford (Rhodes Scholar, BCL and D.Phil.), and Harvard Law School.
She also taught as visiting faculty at Yale Law School, NYU School of Law, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and served as a B.R. Ambedkar Research Scholar and lecturer at Columbia Law School, focusing on constitutional design in post-conflict democracies.
In 2019, Foreign Policy named her among the 100 most influential global thinkers, and she appeared alongside fellow lawyer Arundhati Katju on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people.
