Jagmeet looks at you with a frank stare. His face covered in thick facial hair and glossy curls that tumble down his slim waist as he stands stock-still in stiletto-heeled boots. He holds his arms out as if to draw attention to the Y-front briefs. In another image, Rajbir (identifies as trans male) looks to the side, the defiant uptilt of their chin emphasised. A section of coiled ends of their braids skirt the left nipple, and a rose stands in place of a navel. “When I imagine characters, I also think of their names and attributes; their gender, sexuality, clothes, where they would shop and so on. 

Thankfully, in Sikh culture, a lot of names are gender-neutral, which helps,” says illustrator Jasjyot Singh Hans. He is talking about his fabulous ensemble of Sikh queer and femme characters dressed in finest fashion in his latest zine titled, Sikh Femmes in Sick Fashion ($500, jasjyotjasjyot.com).