Roopbaan

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Roopbaan" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Roopbaan (Bengali: রূপবান), founded in 2014, was a Bengali language LGBT-focused magazine in Bangladesh, the first of its kind.^[3][4] It also organizes projects and events, runs a website, and describes itself as a "non-profit, non-political, volunteer-based platform for LGBT individuals and their allies."^[5] Roopbaan's print magazine and public events were disrupted when co-founder and publisher Xulhaaz Mannan was murdered in 2016, though the last issue of this magazine was published in August 2014.^[4][6][1]

Bangladeshi researcher and writer Hadi Hussain described the public impact of Roopbaan in Gaylaxy magazine:^[7]

"When Roopbaan was launched back in 2014 ... the most striking thing for me was the fact that it was a Bengali language magazine printed into hard copies. The message was clear – instead of limiting it to a virtual English-centric socially privileged group, the magazine aimed to reach the average Bengali speaking literate person with a message of diversity, tolerance and acceptance. It was no less than a heroic attempt to do so as it not only increases the visibility but also one's vulnerability, especially in a society where state's inability to control Islamist militant groups had already created a dangerous nexus for local human rights defenders. But all this couldn't deter…[Roopban]…from doing their work as they continued to arrange social support group meetings, workshops, talks, trainings and rainbow rally to claim the space denied to individuals who don't subscribe their lives and identities to the hetero-normative rules of the world."^[7]