Aditya Bandopadhyay is a lawyer and LGBTQ rights activist in India, helping to challenge anti-sodomy laws, establishing advocacy organizations and providing legal services to HIV/AIDS organizations.
Bondyopadhyay has been an activist for the LGBTQ rights since 1993. Bondyopadhyay played a leading role in the movement to decriminalize of sodomy in India. He also works with the HIV/AIDS movement in South Asia for prevention intervention of male to male sexual transmission and for care support and treatment issues of people living with HIV and MSM. As part of his work he has been associated with the Lawyers Collective, one of India’s leading Human Rights Groups, and with the Naz Foundation a London-based agency that has helped set up over forty community owned HIV projects for MSM in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. He also coordinated the Secretariat of the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health ] from its inception in October 2006 until December 2008. In 2001, he represented four employees of the NAZ Foundation and Bharosa Trust who were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy and possession of obscene material after a raid of their offices. He also ensured the unsealing of the offices after the raid and the continuation of organization's work. He was also part of the legal team that aided Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s leading LGBTQ rights organization, in defending a challenge to their existence and functioning brought before the Nepali Supreme Court. He was part of the legal team that researched and drafted the petition filed in the Delhi High Court challenging the constitutionality of India’s anti-sodomy law, Section 377 Indian Penal Code. This petition resulted in the 2 July 2009 decision of the Delhi High Court decriminalizing homosexuality in India and reading down the Section 377 to imply that it shall not apply to private adult consensual sexual activity. Bondyopadhyay was the first Asian and the third queer person in the world to testify before the United Nations Committee on Human Rights in 2002, against the state supported and sponsored oppression of sexual minorities in India. His testimony was the third testimony the UN had heard to date relating to abuse on account of sexual orientation. He has conducted extensive research on Human Rights violations of sexual minorities in South Asia, and regularly tours the region to conduct legal/Rights literacy training and workshops with Sexual minority groups. As part of his HIV activism he also continues to work for the Human Rights concerns of other affected populations like sex workers, transgender people, drug users, and HIV positive people. He is the Director of , an LGBT Human Rights organisation based in Delhi, India, working to secure equal citizenship rights for all sexual minorities in India. He is a founding member of the and sat on its steering committee from its inception in 2007 until May 2014. He is a member of the Governing Board of APCOM. Bandopadhyay helps run the Harmless Hugs collective, organizing for LGBT rights in India as well as serving as an adviser to various international development agencies.
Publications
; A study into the life situation of Sexual Minority persons in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shale Ahmed ; Violence and hope in the lives of Kothsi; co-authored with Vidya Shah and photographs by Parthiv Shah ; Study into the violence faced by Kothis and MSM in six cities of India and one city in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shivananda Khan ; The impact of legal, socio-cultural, legislative and socio-economic impediments to effective HIV/AIDS interventions with males who have sex with males in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shivananda Khan
