Who is Menaka Guruswamy, India’s pioneering openly queer Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha?

Guruswamy is renowned for her expertise as a constitutional lawyer. She played a pivotal role in the landmark Supreme Court case of 2018 that resulted in the decriminalization of homosexuality by reading down Section 377.

With her entry into Parliament, Guruswamy joins a small group of legal experts who have moved from the courtroom to legislative positions. Her appointment is seen as a progressive step towards enhancing representation for historically marginalized communities in Indian politics.

Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy took oath today as a Member of Parliament, becoming India’s first openly queer MP. She is known for her role as one of the lawyers who argued in the #SupremeCourt during the case that led to the reading down of Section 377 in 2018.
Guruswamy has… pic.twitter.com/WjIRhr9wqW

— The Quint (@TheQuint) April 6, 2026

Who is Menaka Guruswamy?

Menaka Guruswamy was nominated by the Trinamool Congress and was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal.
Born in Hyderabad in 1974, she has established a distinguished legal career, having studied at prestigious institutions such as the University of Oxford, Harvard Law School, and the National Law School of India University.

Additionally, she has served as a professor at various universities and provided consultation to international organizations, including the United Nations, on human rights matters.

Guruswamy was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and a Gammon fellow at Harvard. She has also been a visiting faculty member at Yale Law School, New York University School of Law, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. From 2017 to 2019, she was the BR Ambedkar research scholar and lecturer at Columbia Law School, teaching on constitutional design in post-conflict democracies.

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Her involvement in the Section 377 case is regarded as one of the defining moments of her career. By advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, she contributed to a landmark judgment that transformed India’s legal and social framework by abolishing a colonial-era law.

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In 2019, she was recognized among the 100 most influential global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and, along with Arundhati Katju, was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people.