Transgenders
SOCIOLOGY
A RESEARCH PAPER ON COMMUNITY FORMATION OF TRANSGENDERS
Submitted to : Professor Kannan, Department of Sociology, TNNLS Submitted by : Reuben Philip Abraham Roll No.: 48 Class : 1 st Year Semester : 1 The Tamil Nadu National Law School
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
AIM AND OBJECTIVES :
This research paper is an attempt to understand the concepts of the early stage of a transgender and how they slowly develop and gets attached to the larger community, also an insight into the life they lead , the violence they face.
RESEARCH ISSUES :
What are the different stages that a transgender go through in their early life?
What do the transgenders do for a living?
How are the transgenders victims of violence and discrimination?
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
This research paper is limited in the sense that it mainly tries to understand the early life and different stages of a transgender and give an outline on the life they lead.
SOURCE :
The researcher has primarily referred to secondary sources such as books and articles while writing this research paper.
MODE OF CITATION :
A uniform mode of citation has been used throughout this research paper which is based loosely on the style prescribed in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.
ABSTRACT
Most of us, at some point or the other, have encountered eunuchs, or Hijras or Kinnars as they are called, in trains, crowded streets or subways clapping loudly, singing, dancing and taking baksheesh in exchange for blessings. Unfortunately, that is only how far our knowledge goes about them. What is even more unforgivable is that we refuse to see beyond those ridiculed faces and notice that there is more to them than this stereotyped image.
Eunuchs, or hijras as we Indians call them, are of course victims of social narrow-mindedness. Cast out for a fault not of their own, they are the hated beings of our society.
1Currently, there are approximately 50,000 to 1.2 million hijras in India. Ostracized since birth, they are forced to create a marginalized community of their own, to live at the fringes of society. This marginalization does not ’just happen’. It is done by all of us ‘normal’ people, daily.
They are a victims of violence , injustice, discrimination or in other words their life has turned out to be a living hell. The coming out of these transgendered community , the early stages , how they realize they are different have been explored in this paper.
INTRODUCTION
Identity is constructed within a range of potential social options. The dominant Western system of gender has made it difficult for those whose gender falls somewhere between or outside of the binary system to understand and accept themselves or to be recognized as socially legitimate. Gender is achieved in social interaction with others, and to achieve accountability as a social actor, one must enact gender in ways that are socially recognizable and decodeable . But gender is also "a feature of social relationships, and its idiom derivesf rom the institutional arena in which those relationships come to life". Further, gender and gender belief systems are inherent components of the social infrastructure. Consequently, gender- and we would argue, gender identity-is learned and achieved at the interactional level, reified at the cultural level, and institutionally enforced via the family, law, religion, politics, economy, medicine, and the media. Gender identity is established early in life. As an internalized aspect of self, it is virtually immutable (Kohlberg 1966). Those who, for reasons not yet understood, internalize a gender identity that is not congruent with genital configuration or who wish to enact gender presentations that do not coincide with sex are often sanctioned because they fail to enact gender in socially prescribed ways, thereby challenging the cultural and structural social order.2
Thereby such a group of people who fail to enact gender identity and hence challenge the very pillars of family and society are called Transgenders, Eunuch or Hijra (in South Asia or mainly in India).
CORE CHAPTER
A Fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation :3
STAGE 1: ABIDING ANXIETY
The first stage of this fourteen-step model of transsexual identity formation involves a sense of abiding anxiety about one’s gender and sex. This sense of not feeling right in one’s social role and/or body may be traced back to one’s earliest memories, or it may develop slowly over time at a later stage of life. Most commonly, transsexed people report that this sense of gender anxiety has always been with them even before they were able to say what it was that was making them uncomfortable. Eventually, it becomes clear to such individuals that the source of their anxiety lies in gender relations. It will often begin simply as a feeling of generalized discomfort around people, a sense of not fitting in or of being socially awkward. However, over time, the sense of unease becomes more clearly focused, probably because such individuals come to recognize that their preferences are for companionship and/or activities socially expected from people of another gender than the one to which they have been assigned at birth. Females prefer the activities and/or companionship of males; males prefer to be with females doing the things that females usually prefer to do.
In a highly gender dichotomized world, this is enough to make a person have trouble living comfortably as their assigned gender because others will rarely either witness or mirror them accurately. The more pronounced the mis- match between their gender preferences and society’s expectations, the more pervasive will be their feelings of abiding anxiety and the greater their psychological and social difficulties will become. Over the course of many years this kind of abiding anxiety can accrete until it becomes unbearably difficult to function in society.
STAGE 2: IDENTITY CONFUSION
ABOUT ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED GENDER AND SEX4
One response to the realization that one does not fit in well with others of their gender, when one cannot find others like themselves to mirror them, is to question whether one really is supposed to be their assigned gender or sex at all. Children may become quite completely convinced that they are in the wrong gender and the wrong sex and may proclaim loudly to others that they are actually members of the preferred gender and sex. However, parents, teachers, and peers will routinely do everything in their power to disabuse them of such ideas because they witness them as belonging in their originally assigned gender and sex. This kind of social and psychological pressure to conformity is usually enough to cause children to either temporarily abandon or hide these kinds of gender thoughts from others and/or from themselves. Although they may still believe that they really are or should be another sex and gender, many children simply stop talking about it, fantasize a different future for themselves and wait for puberty to bring about the changes that they believe are their due.
Adolescents and adults may also respond to abiding gender anxieties by feeling confusion about the appropriateness of their originally assigned gender/sex. Because they will have learned and internalized more completely the social rules of gender, they are even less likely to speak of their gender confusion publicly. Teens and adults will understand that there will most probably be a great deal of stigma attached to any proclamations about doubts that they may be having about the correctness of their originally assigned gender or their originally assigned sex. They will know the social rules which insist that one’s sex unequivocally determines one’s gender. They will understand that to claim otherwise is to invite others to think of them as crazy. At any age, the social and psychological realities will at first push most individuals into hiding. Children, adolescents, and adults will often react to these feelings of identity confusion by trying harder to make themselves conform more exactly to social expectations about appropriately gendered behaviors.
STAGE 3: IDENTITY COMPARISONS
ABOUT ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED GENDER AND SEX5
Identity confusion will commonly persist and coexist with the next stage,identity comparisons. At this stage, individuals are generally accepting of the fact that the physical sex of their body has mandated their gender status and they attempt to find ways to successfully navigate between social expectations and their own needs for self-expression. During this period, individuals will try to find more comfortable ways to live as their originally-assigned gender while also expressing some of their feelings of belonging to another gender. They know what sex and gender they are and will try on alternative forms of gender expression which will allow them to better fit within the social expectations of their originally assigned gender and sex statuses.
This stage involves comparison in the sense that individuals compare their inner feelings to various types of alternative behaviors and identities that they have known others of their gender and sex to exhibit. If the comparisons wear well, they may adopt those ways of being and stay with them for a short while, or for the remainder of their lives.
When successful, this strategy can result in individuals feeling both more witnessed and better mirrored because they can be recognized as a known type of man or woman. They can exhibit more of their inner selves for others to witness and they can find ways to share more common ground with others of their originally assigned gender and sex, thus seeing more of themselves mirrored back. If comparisons fail, individuals will keep searching for an answer to the question, “Who am I?”
STAGE 4: DISCOVERY
OF TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM6
There comes a time in the life of every person who will one day identify themselves as transsexed or transgendered when they first learn that transsexualism or transgenderism exists. Some people learn of transsexualism or transgenderism at an early age. For most people this event takes place later in their lives, after many years of living with feelings of abiding anxiety, identity confusions and identity comparisons. For some people, the knowledge that transsexualism or transgenderism exists comes as a godsend which immediately crystallizes the feelings with which they have been living for many years. For many it is an “Aha!” kind of moment where everything that they have been feeling finally falls into place. Finally, they have found a mirror in which they can see themselves. Who they feel themselves to be makes sense to them for the first time. They have a name for what they feel and a possible course of action.
For most people, this realization constitutes the beginning of another cycle of identity confusion and comparisons Some people will immediately accept that they are transsexed or transgendered and run through the next four steps in a matter of seconds. They will more or less immediately, and with great relief, accept that they are transsexed or transgendered.
Others may take many years to come to terms with their feelings.
STAGE 5: IDENTITY CONFUSION
ABOUT TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM7
Most people who will one day identify as transsexed or transgendered recall their discovery of transsexualism or transgenderism as a significant event in their lives. Such people may not immediately begin to actively engage with the idea as an option for themselves. They may retain the idea as a precious touchstone to which they return from time to time until they are prepared to begin to consider its relevance to their own lives. Over time, the idea of transsexualism or transgenderism takes on more and more significance and they begin to wonder if they might be transsexed or transgendered themselves, thus entering a stage of identity confusion. In order to help with the identity confusion that such questions engender, people will begin to seek out further information about exactly what it might mean to be transsexed or transgendered. Thus they will begin to engage in a deeper level of both external and internal inquiry as a response to their initial discoveries.
STAGE 6: IDENTITY COMPARISONS
ABOUT TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM
Once individuals have begun to entertain the possibility that they might be transsexed or transgendered, the next step is to try to come to a more definitive conclusion. At this stage the focus is on comparisons between oneself and transsexed and transgendered people, between oneself and people from one’s originally assigned gender and sex, and between oneself and people of the gender and sex to which one might be moving. The point of these comparisons is to determine which comparisons provide better likenesses. During this stage, people who will one day identify as female-to-male transsexed or transgendered will increasingly find that they have more in common with men and female-to-male transsexed and transgendered people than with women. By the time persons reach this stage it is highly likely that they have already largely abandoned any attempt to identify with feminine women. Thus their starting point will most likely be in their identities as masculine women, often as butch lesbians. When they make such comparisons they increasingly focus their attention on the ways that they feel alienated and different from those who once were their reference group. Increasingly they find that the concerns of women do not mirror their own whereas those of men increasingly do. As they start to recognize that they may be transsexed or transgendered, they will simultaneously start to disengage from their identities. Some may feel satisfied with transgendered as an apt description of who they are. Others may feel that to be insufficient and may move into the next stage of exploration.
STAGE 7: TOLERANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY8
For some people, the stages of identity comparison and identity tolerance are very brief and overlapping. For them, the relief offered by the possibility of a transsexual or transgendered identity is so great that they are able to come to a rapid tolerance or even acceptance of that identity almost as soon as they become aware of it. Formost people, however, taking on such an identity is a more gradual process. After learning of transsexualism or transgenderism and going through stages of confusion and comparison, most individuals who come to identify themselves as transsexed or transgendered will come to a stage of identity tolerance wherein they begin to accept that the label of transsexual or transgendered probably is a fitting description of who they are. This in-between stage of “I am probably transsexual” or “I am probably transgendered” is used by many people as an avenue to allow them to come to terms with the enormity of what it means to identify oneself as transsexed or transgendered. During this and the next stage, people more thoroughly disengage from the gender and sex to which they were assigned at birth. Those who are coming to identify as transsexed start to be able to say to themselves and to others that they are probably headed toward a change of gender and of sex. It is during this stage that the identity of transsexual or transgendered starts to take prominence over any other.
STAGE 8: DELAY BEFORE ACCEPTANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY
Many people who are on their way to accepting themselves as transsexed or transgendered enter into a period of delay until they have enough information about themselves and about transsexualism or transgenderism that they can be sure that it offers them the correct solution to their gender discomfort. During this stage of delay, individuals engage in various techniques of reality testing to see if they can fully embrace an identity which until this time they were merely tolerating as a possibility . Individuals searching for an identity which can bring them to peace within themselves need to feel that they are seen for who they are. Male-bodied people may follow a similar kind of exploration but are less commonly able to receive witnessing of their gender identity within already established relationships with either women or men and are more likely to have to rely on more fleeting or superficial kinds of relations such as flirtations or anonymous sexual encounters for their confirmations. When intimates are unable to provide that kind of witnessing, people may tarry longer in the stage of delay, perhaps temporarily choosing some other descriptive label for themselves, such as queer. Conversely, when a relationship predicated on one’s originally assigned sex and gender does not work out, individuals may also see the reason for the failure as being grounded in inappropriateness of their originally assigned sex and gender.
Those individuals who are fortunate enough to make contact with transsexed and transgendered people through support groups, the Internet, social contacts, or conferences have an invaluable resource available to them. Through various kinds of self-revealing discussions, they can avail themselves of the opportunity to compare their own feelings and experiences with those of people who have already adopted a transsexed or transgendered identity
The stage of delay has another function for many male-to-female people. Many males who crossdress also come to question whether they might be transsexed and also go through stages of identity confusion, identity comparisons, and identity tolerance. At any of these stages some males become overwhelmed with shame and fear about the social and psychological implications of their expressions of their femininity. Periodically those feelings become expressed in episodes of radical retreat from any expression of femininity during which time all clothing and accoutrements of femininity are purged from their lives. Many males who crossdress and never will become transsexed follow this pattern as do many who do ultimately become transsexed. It is not unusual for an individual to repeat this pattern of purging and re-approach several times over a lifetime.
STAGE 9: ACCEPTANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY9
The full acceptance of oneself as transsexed or transgendered marks still another beginning. By the time people have reached this point, they have gathered enough information and have worked through enough of their emotional anxieties about the subject that they are able to say to themselves and to others, “I am transsexual” or “I am transgendered.” For some people, this stage comes very quickly–almost simultaneously with the discovery of transsexualism or transgenderism. For others, the path to this point can be much more difficult and lengthy. For all, the implications of the acceptance of such an identity are enormous. For some people, there is nothing but tremendous relief at finally knowing who one is and what one needs to do about it. For most people, however, the acceptance of such an identity is a much more mixed blessing. Generally, by the time people reach this stage they have complicated lives involving multiple commitments predicated on their being a particular gender and sex. The prospect of reconstituting those family, business, love, friendship, and casual relationships through a gender and sex change will be daunting to say the least. Whatever the implications may be for particular individuals, all who reach this stage are confronted with the task of whether to begin the process of transforming themselves, and if so, when and how to go about it.
STAGE 10: DELAY BEFORE TRANSITION
Having come to the decision to call oneself transsexual or transgendered is only a first step. Not everyone who comes to this realization will immediately, or ever, decide to take action on it. Not all transsexed or transgendered people undergo physical or social transitions. For a variety of reasons, such as health, family, or financial considerations, some people decide that their circumstances do not warrant changing their gender or sex, or that they will only take advantage of some of the possible transformative options. For those who do decide to proceed, commonly they experience another period of delay during which there are many practical steps which must still be accomplished. Few people at this stage know exactly what is involved or how to go about it. They may have general information about how others have accomplished their transitions, but they must take some time to find out the minutiae of exactly what needs to be done in their own case and how to do it. Most people must make an enormous number of personal and practical arrangements. Family, friends, employers, co-workers, business associates and bureaucrats may need to be informed of the impending changes. Money will need to be saved. Arrangements will need to be made with various counselors and medical personnel. Psychic readiness must be achieved. Those individuals who have access to strong support systems during this stage may be able to move through this stage quickly.
During this period of delay, transsexed and transgendered people will move further in the process of disidentification with their originally assigned gender and sex. This can be an especially trying time in its own way. At this point, individuals have come to accept themselves as transsexed or transgendered, yet the people around them may witness no outward differences. However, individuals at this stage will identify more strongly with members of the gender and sex into which they are moving and they will begin to actively engage in anticipatory socialization. By so doing they begin to learn new ways of being in the world and are able to picture themselves experiencing what it might be like to live their new lives. They may be able to incorporate some of these new skills into their pre-transition lives, but in many cases this will be impractical. The disjuncture between what individuals can foresee for themselves and what they can enact may be difficult to bear.
STAGE 11: TRANSITION10
Having decided to make a transition, having learned what needs to be done, having told everyone who needs to be told in advance, having established or relinquished commitments as appropriate, having gotten the necessary resources lined up, transition may begin. This stage may encompass changes in social presentation of self, psychotherapy, hormonal treatments, and a variety of surgeries which together accomplish gender and sex reassignment. Some people will feel that they have begun transition as soon as they make the mental decision to do so. Others will feel that transition begins only when they start psychotherapy or when they start to make observable changes to their presentation. Different individuals engage in different strategies for transition. Some will opt for the minimum that will effect a change in how they are perceived by others.
Others will require every kind of transformation possible before they will feel completely transitioned. Some people will feel that they have completed transition as soon as they find themselves consistently witnessed and mirrored as the gender and sex with which they identify. Others will feel that they are still in transition until they have completed all desired hormonal and surgical transformations. This can mean that the transition stage can be very short for those who can make a satisfactory transition entirely through changes to their social presentation, or it can last many years for individuals who require complete hormonal and surgical transitions.
Transition can be both an exhilarating and a trying stage. During this stage individuals can spend long stretches of time during which their gender and sex are not easily recognizable to themselves or to others. On the one hand, to not know who one is, to not be known as who one is, can be extremely unsettling and difficult. On the other hand, to daily watch oneself moving out of a life which has been an enduring source of anxiety and into a life which promises to be more authentic and fulfilling can be a source of great wonder and joy. Transition also means the leaving behind of a way of life. This departure from the total experience that comprises living as a woman or a man can be felt as a kind of death of a huge part of oneself. Thus, transition also frequently brings with it a kind of grieving for the person that one once was but no longer will be.
However, during transition people can also become dramatically invigorated by the magnitude of the transformational changes they are undergoing. After living a lifetime being unable to fully express themselves, they feel themselves to be finally righting what has been so wrong in their lives. As other people start to see them as they see themselves, the confirmation of having their self-image witnessed and mirrored back to them can feel like a beacon in a darkness which has too often dominated their lives to that point.
STAGE 12: ACCEPTANCE
OF POST-TRANSITION GENDER/SEX IDENTITY11
Transition need not be completely accomplished for a person to start to accept themselves as the gender and sex into which they are transitioning. For many people, the acceptance of a transsexed identity is identical with the acceptance of themselves as actually being a member of another gender and sex even if their bodies and lives do not yet display that truth to others. Many people, however, do require more concrete evidence before they are able to accept that they have arrived on the other side of the great gender divide. At first, their sense of themselves as their reassigned gender may seem somewhat fraudulent or artificial even to themselves. They may feel that their claim to membership is unsteady and easily challengeable due to the recentness of their transition, because of the approximate nature of their physical transitions, and because of the fact that they required transitional procedures to gain them their claim in the first place. Over a period of months and years, individuals living as their new gender and sex learn to more deeply and profoundly understand what it means to be a person of that gender. As they accumulate a greater storehouse of experiences their sense of themselves as truly and authentically a member of their reassigned gender becomes deeper and more stable. Furthermore, as time passes and they find that they are readily and routinely witnessed and mirrored as who they feel themselves to be, many of the old anxieties and fears finally slip away to be replaced by a more serene self-acceptance than had ever before been possible. Many people find that their feelings of gender dysphoria are supplanted by feelings of gender euphoria.
STAGE 13: INTEGRATION12
Most people who have undergone gender and sex transitions become seamlessly integrated into society at large. This is usually a gradual process, although it is generally more readily accomplished by female-to-male than male-to-female individuals. As transsexed people become more able and more comfortable functioning as unremarkable men and women in their everyday lives, the facts of their transitions and of their transsexuality become less salient. As time passes and as transsexed people become more firmly embedded in their post-transition lives, they and most of the people around them will tend to allow the past to recede until it only rarely intrudes upon life in the here and now.
Integration also takes place on another level. As the post-transition years elapse, many transsexed individuals come to better appreciate that they have found great benefits in the lessons of the first parts of their lives. Many people find that although a gender and sex transition was the right choice for them, they do not wish to abandon all of their connections to their previous lives. At first, while identity acceptance is still becoming firmly established, any hint of one’s previous way of life may seem as a threat to the establishment of a credible post-transition identity Thus, many post-transition individuals find their way to a more comfortable type of androgyny than they could have ever entertained in their originally assigned gender and sex. In other words, once they find themselves firmly established in the right gender and sex they also find themselves able to create a life for themselves which allows them to integrate their pasts with their post-transition lives. STAGE 14: PRIDE13
Pride, as it is used here, implies both a personal sense of pride in oneself and a political stance. Persons who exhibit trans identity pride are open about their transsexualism or transgenderism in situations where it is relevant and speak up on behalf of transsexed and transgendered people when an occasion lends itself to such advocacy. Some people who demonstrate trans identity pride make working for transgender political rights the focus of their lives, whereas many others more quietly and privately work toward greater social understanding and acceptance.
Those transsexed and transgendered people who achieve a sense of pride in themselves do so against a backdrop of widespread fear, intolerance, and hostility toward transpeople. The pride of transsexed and transgendered people thus has to be seen as a ongoing accomplishment in the face of the relentless shaming that society most frequently inflicts upon transgendered people. Until such time as society at large achieves greater gender integration, the achievement and maintenance of identity pride of transpeople as a whole and as individuals will require continual effort and vigilance.
HIJRA- THE THIRD SEX
A CLEAR IDEA :
In India, the transgender community is popularly known as Hijras. In the culture of South Asia, hijras /eunuchs are designated male at birth people who have feminine gender identity, adopt feminine gender roles, and wear women 's clothing. The Hijra sanaths also known as chhakka in Kannada and Bambaiya Hindi, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu. In Pakistan, the hijra gender role includes true intersex people (khusras), crossdressers (zenanas) and eunuchs (narnbans). Hijras are also known as Aravani/Aruvani or Jagappa in other areas.
A eunuch is a man who ( by the common definition of the term) may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences. In some ancient texts, “ eunuch” may refer to a man who is not castrated but who is impotent , celibate, or otherwise not inclined to marry and procreate. But linking this concept to the hijras , majority of them do not undergo castration though some do as a religious initiation rite into the hijra community known as nirwaan
14Hijras/Eunuchs have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period, onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual, and part survival.
In South Asia, many hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have sustained themselves over generations by "adopting" young boys who are rejected by, or flee their family of origin.[5] Many work as sex workers for survival.
The word hijra is a Urdu-Hindustani word, derived from the Arabic root hjr in its sense of "leaving one 's tribe," and has been borrowed into Hindi. The Indian usage has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite," where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition." However, in general hijras are born with typically male physiology, only a few having been born with male intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirwaan, which refers to the removal of penis,testicles and scrotum. THE REALITY
I personally feel that to understand the reality and hardships faced by a hijra , there is nothing better than listening to one’s story themselves. From the story we will able to understand , How the community comes together? , Are they discriminated? , What do they do for a living ? , Are they victims of violence?
Sachin’s story 15
My name is Sachin and I am 23 years old. I am the fifth child in a family of four elder sisters. As a child I always enjoyed putting make-up like “vibhuti” or “kum kum” and my parents always saw me as a girl. I am male but I have only female feelings. I used to help my mother in all the housework like cooking, washing and cleaning. Over the years my sisters got married, my parents became old. I was around seventeen years. I started assuming more of the domestic responsibilities at home.
The neighbours started teasing me. They would call out to me and say “why don’t you go out and work like a man?” or “why are you staying at home like a girl?” But I liked being a girl. I felt shy about going out and working. Relatives would also mock and scold me on this score. Everyday I would go out of the house to bring water. And as I walked back with the water I would always be teased. I felt very ashamed. I even felt suicidal. How could I live like that? But my parents never protested. They were helpless.
Then one day my parents asked me to leave the village to avoid the shame. “Go work somewhere else”, they said. I don’t know how to read or write, I never went to school, how would I ever get a job? That night I cried a lot. I realised that for my parents respect in society was much more important than their own son. I drank some rat poison, hoping to kill myself. But I started throwing up which woke my parents up. They rushed me to the hospital where I recovered. I told my parents, “You wanted me to leave, I have nowhere to go. No education. No skills. I wanted to kill myself.”
After this incident, I decided to leave home. One night, I took my suitcase with five shirts and five pants. With Rs 500 in my pocket I left for Tirupathi. I sat outside the temple and cried. Then an old man came and asked me why I was crying – I told him my complete story. I told him that I like wearing sarees, make up, flowers in my hair. He heard my story and told me about the hijra community. He asked me to go and join them. That was the first time I heard about the hijras.
Later on I was sitting outside the temple, wearing a shirt and pants but with some make-up, when someone picked me up and asked me to come along to his hotel room. I had sex with him. He was very nice. He was leaving that evening but had paid for the hotel room till the next morning and asked me to stay there till the next morning. He also gave me Rs.200.
Since I had the room to myself that night, I went out in the park and managed to pick up two more guys. I brought them back and had sex with them in my room. They both gave me Rs.100 each. This changed my life. I suddenly realised that I wasn’t useless. I could take care of my self, I could now live – through sex work.
From Tirupathi I moved to Bangalore where I made friends with some hijras. They helped me get a job at Bangalore Dairy in Hosur Road. There were three shifts of 8 hours each. I had the night shift. I would try to be very masculine at work, walk and talk like a man but people still noticed that I was effeminate, they realised that I was a hijra. In fact one of the employees came to me and asked for a blow job. I refused saying that I was a man and not a hijra.
In the Dairy I had just one friend, who I was very close to but it was nothing sexual. During the night shift most people would go up and sleep on the terrace. This friend of mine called me to sleep next to him on the terrace one night. As I went to sleep, some one just took my hands and cupped them on the floor and four guys one after the other had anal sex with me. I realised later that this friend of mine was making money out of it. Next day the inspector of the dairy knew all about what had happened on the terrace. Instead of helping me, he screamed at me and fired me from the job.
I moved in with an old friend of mine from the village, who gave me shelter. Getting a job was very difficult. Wherever I went they asked for qualifications and a smart appearance, neither of which I possess. Finally I got a job in one office. The owner needed an office boy who would also have sex with him. I co-operated. But I wasn’t satisfied doing both of these things and the pay was also very low. So I just decided to do sex work directly. But sex work was not easy. The police would just come in the night, see me walking in “satla” (drag) and would just hit me with a lathi. I became scared of even walking on the streets.
Then I learned about my rights. Things like one should not have sex in public spaces but try and have it in private spaces. Then Preethi asked me to join her. She introduced me to everyone and this way I started helping other kothis and hijras who were doing sex work.
I once called my parents after years, they cried a lot. I said I can’t come home because you are embarrassed of me. Then my parents suggested that I come home in the night instead of coming during the day. I followed their advice and went to visit them for the first time after I had left home. I reached home in the night. We had a great time, we ate in the night, talked a lot, and it felt good to be back at home. But suddenly it was nearing dawn and my parents asked me to leave before sunrise.On my next visit I learnt that my parents had heard from other people that I had become a hijra in Bangalore. This time they interrogated me and my mother insisted that I show her proof that I haven’t been castrated. I had to undo my pants in front of my mother, which was very embarrassing. I am an akwa. My mother was very relieved.
I am beginning to see a change in the way my family treats me. Now because I am earning, my mother wants me to stay at home. When I go back to the village, no one says anything, because I am earning now. My mother asks me for a fan, a tape recorder, a new stove. I have been giving them money for all this. I have also bought jewellery and other presents for my sisters’ kids.
Sex work is not always easy. Often, clients having sex with me would reach an orgasm and then quickly runaway without paying. I used to go to the park to pick up customers. Once I met a man but he was a police officer. He asked me to come and have sex with him. I asked for Rs.50 but he said that he would only give me Rs.20. I said o.k. and started sucking him. But after he came he just walked away. I stopped him and asked him for my money but he said that he won’t pay. I told him that I would complain, and he laughed at me stating that I had no proof. Then I showed him the condom, tied carefully in a knot that still had his sperm. He said, “who knows that it’s mine?” and left the place.
Once a customer picked me up and took me in his car on the Ring Road. We got off the car in the middle of the road and went into the bushes. After he had had his fun, the customer went into the car first, telling me to wait and come out in five minutes to avoid suspicion. But the minute I came out of the bushes the man drove off in his car leaving me alone at 10 p.m. in the middle of the Ring Road. What scared me most was that my pants and shirt were in his car. I was staying with friends in a rented apartment and so I had to change my clothes. I could not go back home in the “satla”. I was terrified. Then suddenly a policeman came and caught me. He took me back in the bushes and asked me to take all my clothes off. He wanted to see if I could get my penis up. I was completely naked and terrified. Then he started hitting me with a lathi. I begged on his feet to leave me. I also gave him Rs.100.Then he asked me to leave in a naked condition, refusing to return my clothes. But as I turned I could sense that he was getting sexually aroused. He wanted to fuck me. I didn’t have a condom. I didn’t even like taking it in the backside. Then he hit me very hard. He covered my mouth with his hand and started fucking me. He was very big, and without a condom, it was all so painful. My ass was bleeding. I could feel blood going down on my thighs. The policeman shouted at me, saying “Hey, stop crying. I will hit you again if you cried”. Then he lifted me, asked me to bend and fucked me more. Finally he was done and he left, thankfully leaving my clothes with me.I put on my “satla” and was walking slowly on the street. I was under a lot of pain. But unfortunately it wasn’t over yet. A small tourist van came and stopped in front of me on the road. There were around seven people in it, two sleeping and the others drinking and smoking. They asked me what I was doing in the middle of the night and dragged me into the van.They forced some alcohol down my throat and also forced me to smoke. I got a bit drunk. Then they took an empty bottle, broke it in half against the car window and gashed my arm with it. I bled very badly. I still have these two huge marks on my hands. My right hand was full of blood. They wanted to have sex with me. I was tired and angry. I screamed. I said “you want to have sex with me, o.k. then all of you can have sex with me”. I was tired of fighting it.
They stopped the car, took me into the field, put me down and started having sex with me. I was forced to have anal and oral intercourse with all of them, one after the other, even sometimes together. I was still bleeding. After it was all over, I just lay there exhausted and completely lost. I stopped thinking. It was already dawn, 5 a.m.I somehow dragged myself to a hijra’s house close by. I woke her up and she took me inside, gave me a lungi and a shirt to wear. She washed me, nursed me and took me to the hospital. This incident took place in 2001, after which I learnt an important lesson. I never wear satla during sex work now. I only wear satla in hijra functions.
I have moved on now. I now help other kothis and hijras by teaching them and giving them all the information that I have learnt. I don’t believe in any god any more (Hindu or Muslim). They have never helped me at all. Now I have my own hands and I do sex work and fend for myself.
CONCLUSION
When we look at the above story , we get a clear idea about the life the transgenders face. In the early stages of their life , we can see the confusion they face and the struggle they go through. They have the hard job of convincing their parents that they are not what they think they really are.In this context I would like to give importance to the point how their Family itself is the institution which brings in the unjustice and discrimination into their lifes
16Most media portrays the family as a haven in which the individual finds fulfillment, love and peace.Underlying this discourse on the family is the presumption that it is an essential structure even for the protection for the protection of human rights, including the rights of liberty and dignity. However, for the hijra and kothi communities the experience of the family is frighteningly different. The institution of the family plays a significant role in the marginalization of hijras and kothis. Instead of protecting their child from the violence inflicted by the wider society, the family in fact provides an arena to act out the intolerances of the wider society. Those who violate the existing social codes which prescribe how a man is to behave are subject to daily humiliation, beatings and expulsion from the family itself.
In this context of extreme violence and intolerance, the only cultural space available for transgenders in India is the hijra community. Given the enormous sense of isolation faced by the hijras, particularly in close-knit communities in the villages, the only solace or hope is when they get to know that there exist other people like them who live in the bigger cities. This in turn contributes to the formation of the hijra community as a largely urban phenomenon.
In the story we can see how they have been mistreated by police or the public in general, How they are a regular victims of violence and rape. As these Hijras have no other option than mainly resort to prostitution and begging for sustaining their life , everybody sees them through a third eye , where only discrimination and injustice prevails. The very law have been pushing them to the corners through Acts like Criminal tribes Act,1871 , Section 377 of the IPC.
I personally feel that the government needs to take this issue very seriously. India claiming to be a democratic and fair country , such issues reflect the negligence of the ruling government. I personally feel that Hijras or transgenders in whole should be given the status of a third sex. I say so because , through such an act , they will be able to an identity for themselves which is the most fundamental pillar for gaining a position ,respect and status in the society.
I would like to conclude by praying and believing that Indian people to shun their belief that being a transgender is all about begging and prostitution. We need to break free from our narrowed mindsets and realize that all a transgender desires is a life of dignity- just like you and me. BIBLIOGRAPHY
List of scholarly articles referred to :
1. Witnessing and Mirroring: A fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation
Author : Aaron H. Devor, PhD
Available at : http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf
2. Are they not humans?
Author : Abhishek Kumar Jha
Available at : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990256
List of websites referred to :
1. www.pucl.org
2. www.wikipedia.com
Bibliography: List of scholarly articles referred to : 1. Witnessing and Mirroring: A fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation Author : Aaron H. Devor, PhD Available at : http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf 2. Are they not humans? Author : Abhishek Kumar Jha Available at : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990256 List of websites referred to : 1. www.pucl.org 2. www.wikipedia.com
A RESEARCH PAPER ON COMMUNITY FORMATION OF TRANSGENDERS
Submitted to : Professor Kannan, Department of Sociology, TNNLS Submitted by : Reuben Philip Abraham Roll No.: 48 Class : 1 st Year Semester : 1 The Tamil Nadu National Law School
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
AIM AND OBJECTIVES :
This research paper is an attempt to understand the concepts of the early stage of a transgender and how they slowly develop and gets attached to the larger community, also an insight into the life they lead , the violence they face.
RESEARCH ISSUES :
What are the different stages that a transgender go through in their early life?
What do the transgenders do for a living?
How are the transgenders victims of violence and discrimination?
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
This research paper is limited in the sense that it mainly tries to understand the early life and different stages of a transgender and give an outline on the life they lead.
SOURCE :
The researcher has primarily referred to secondary sources such as books and articles while writing this research paper.
MODE OF CITATION :
A uniform mode of citation has been used throughout this research paper which is based loosely on the style prescribed in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.
ABSTRACT
Most of us, at some point or the other, have encountered eunuchs, or Hijras or Kinnars as they are called, in trains, crowded streets or subways clapping loudly, singing, dancing and taking baksheesh in exchange for blessings. Unfortunately, that is only how far our knowledge goes about them. What is even more unforgivable is that we refuse to see beyond those ridiculed faces and notice that there is more to them than this stereotyped image.
Eunuchs, or hijras as we Indians call them, are of course victims of social narrow-mindedness. Cast out for a fault not of their own, they are the hated beings of our society.
1Currently, there are approximately 50,000 to 1.2 million hijras in India. Ostracized since birth, they are forced to create a marginalized community of their own, to live at the fringes of society. This marginalization does not ’just happen’. It is done by all of us ‘normal’ people, daily.
They are a victims of violence , injustice, discrimination or in other words their life has turned out to be a living hell. The coming out of these transgendered community , the early stages , how they realize they are different have been explored in this paper.
INTRODUCTION
Identity is constructed within a range of potential social options. The dominant Western system of gender has made it difficult for those whose gender falls somewhere between or outside of the binary system to understand and accept themselves or to be recognized as socially legitimate. Gender is achieved in social interaction with others, and to achieve accountability as a social actor, one must enact gender in ways that are socially recognizable and decodeable . But gender is also "a feature of social relationships, and its idiom derivesf rom the institutional arena in which those relationships come to life". Further, gender and gender belief systems are inherent components of the social infrastructure. Consequently, gender- and we would argue, gender identity-is learned and achieved at the interactional level, reified at the cultural level, and institutionally enforced via the family, law, religion, politics, economy, medicine, and the media. Gender identity is established early in life. As an internalized aspect of self, it is virtually immutable (Kohlberg 1966). Those who, for reasons not yet understood, internalize a gender identity that is not congruent with genital configuration or who wish to enact gender presentations that do not coincide with sex are often sanctioned because they fail to enact gender in socially prescribed ways, thereby challenging the cultural and structural social order.2
Thereby such a group of people who fail to enact gender identity and hence challenge the very pillars of family and society are called Transgenders, Eunuch or Hijra (in South Asia or mainly in India).
CORE CHAPTER
A Fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation :3
STAGE 1: ABIDING ANXIETY
The first stage of this fourteen-step model of transsexual identity formation involves a sense of abiding anxiety about one’s gender and sex. This sense of not feeling right in one’s social role and/or body may be traced back to one’s earliest memories, or it may develop slowly over time at a later stage of life. Most commonly, transsexed people report that this sense of gender anxiety has always been with them even before they were able to say what it was that was making them uncomfortable. Eventually, it becomes clear to such individuals that the source of their anxiety lies in gender relations. It will often begin simply as a feeling of generalized discomfort around people, a sense of not fitting in or of being socially awkward. However, over time, the sense of unease becomes more clearly focused, probably because such individuals come to recognize that their preferences are for companionship and/or activities socially expected from people of another gender than the one to which they have been assigned at birth. Females prefer the activities and/or companionship of males; males prefer to be with females doing the things that females usually prefer to do.
In a highly gender dichotomized world, this is enough to make a person have trouble living comfortably as their assigned gender because others will rarely either witness or mirror them accurately. The more pronounced the mis- match between their gender preferences and society’s expectations, the more pervasive will be their feelings of abiding anxiety and the greater their psychological and social difficulties will become. Over the course of many years this kind of abiding anxiety can accrete until it becomes unbearably difficult to function in society.
STAGE 2: IDENTITY CONFUSION
ABOUT ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED GENDER AND SEX4
One response to the realization that one does not fit in well with others of their gender, when one cannot find others like themselves to mirror them, is to question whether one really is supposed to be their assigned gender or sex at all. Children may become quite completely convinced that they are in the wrong gender and the wrong sex and may proclaim loudly to others that they are actually members of the preferred gender and sex. However, parents, teachers, and peers will routinely do everything in their power to disabuse them of such ideas because they witness them as belonging in their originally assigned gender and sex. This kind of social and psychological pressure to conformity is usually enough to cause children to either temporarily abandon or hide these kinds of gender thoughts from others and/or from themselves. Although they may still believe that they really are or should be another sex and gender, many children simply stop talking about it, fantasize a different future for themselves and wait for puberty to bring about the changes that they believe are their due.
Adolescents and adults may also respond to abiding gender anxieties by feeling confusion about the appropriateness of their originally assigned gender/sex. Because they will have learned and internalized more completely the social rules of gender, they are even less likely to speak of their gender confusion publicly. Teens and adults will understand that there will most probably be a great deal of stigma attached to any proclamations about doubts that they may be having about the correctness of their originally assigned gender or their originally assigned sex. They will know the social rules which insist that one’s sex unequivocally determines one’s gender. They will understand that to claim otherwise is to invite others to think of them as crazy. At any age, the social and psychological realities will at first push most individuals into hiding. Children, adolescents, and adults will often react to these feelings of identity confusion by trying harder to make themselves conform more exactly to social expectations about appropriately gendered behaviors.
STAGE 3: IDENTITY COMPARISONS
ABOUT ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED GENDER AND SEX5
Identity confusion will commonly persist and coexist with the next stage,identity comparisons. At this stage, individuals are generally accepting of the fact that the physical sex of their body has mandated their gender status and they attempt to find ways to successfully navigate between social expectations and their own needs for self-expression. During this period, individuals will try to find more comfortable ways to live as their originally-assigned gender while also expressing some of their feelings of belonging to another gender. They know what sex and gender they are and will try on alternative forms of gender expression which will allow them to better fit within the social expectations of their originally assigned gender and sex statuses.
This stage involves comparison in the sense that individuals compare their inner feelings to various types of alternative behaviors and identities that they have known others of their gender and sex to exhibit. If the comparisons wear well, they may adopt those ways of being and stay with them for a short while, or for the remainder of their lives.
When successful, this strategy can result in individuals feeling both more witnessed and better mirrored because they can be recognized as a known type of man or woman. They can exhibit more of their inner selves for others to witness and they can find ways to share more common ground with others of their originally assigned gender and sex, thus seeing more of themselves mirrored back. If comparisons fail, individuals will keep searching for an answer to the question, “Who am I?”
STAGE 4: DISCOVERY
OF TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM6
There comes a time in the life of every person who will one day identify themselves as transsexed or transgendered when they first learn that transsexualism or transgenderism exists. Some people learn of transsexualism or transgenderism at an early age. For most people this event takes place later in their lives, after many years of living with feelings of abiding anxiety, identity confusions and identity comparisons. For some people, the knowledge that transsexualism or transgenderism exists comes as a godsend which immediately crystallizes the feelings with which they have been living for many years. For many it is an “Aha!” kind of moment where everything that they have been feeling finally falls into place. Finally, they have found a mirror in which they can see themselves. Who they feel themselves to be makes sense to them for the first time. They have a name for what they feel and a possible course of action.
For most people, this realization constitutes the beginning of another cycle of identity confusion and comparisons Some people will immediately accept that they are transsexed or transgendered and run through the next four steps in a matter of seconds. They will more or less immediately, and with great relief, accept that they are transsexed or transgendered.
Others may take many years to come to terms with their feelings.
STAGE 5: IDENTITY CONFUSION
ABOUT TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM7
Most people who will one day identify as transsexed or transgendered recall their discovery of transsexualism or transgenderism as a significant event in their lives. Such people may not immediately begin to actively engage with the idea as an option for themselves. They may retain the idea as a precious touchstone to which they return from time to time until they are prepared to begin to consider its relevance to their own lives. Over time, the idea of transsexualism or transgenderism takes on more and more significance and they begin to wonder if they might be transsexed or transgendered themselves, thus entering a stage of identity confusion. In order to help with the identity confusion that such questions engender, people will begin to seek out further information about exactly what it might mean to be transsexed or transgendered. Thus they will begin to engage in a deeper level of both external and internal inquiry as a response to their initial discoveries.
STAGE 6: IDENTITY COMPARISONS
ABOUT TRANSSEXUALISM OR TRANSGENDERISM
Once individuals have begun to entertain the possibility that they might be transsexed or transgendered, the next step is to try to come to a more definitive conclusion. At this stage the focus is on comparisons between oneself and transsexed and transgendered people, between oneself and people from one’s originally assigned gender and sex, and between oneself and people of the gender and sex to which one might be moving. The point of these comparisons is to determine which comparisons provide better likenesses. During this stage, people who will one day identify as female-to-male transsexed or transgendered will increasingly find that they have more in common with men and female-to-male transsexed and transgendered people than with women. By the time persons reach this stage it is highly likely that they have already largely abandoned any attempt to identify with feminine women. Thus their starting point will most likely be in their identities as masculine women, often as butch lesbians. When they make such comparisons they increasingly focus their attention on the ways that they feel alienated and different from those who once were their reference group. Increasingly they find that the concerns of women do not mirror their own whereas those of men increasingly do. As they start to recognize that they may be transsexed or transgendered, they will simultaneously start to disengage from their identities. Some may feel satisfied with transgendered as an apt description of who they are. Others may feel that to be insufficient and may move into the next stage of exploration.
STAGE 7: TOLERANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY8
For some people, the stages of identity comparison and identity tolerance are very brief and overlapping. For them, the relief offered by the possibility of a transsexual or transgendered identity is so great that they are able to come to a rapid tolerance or even acceptance of that identity almost as soon as they become aware of it. Formost people, however, taking on such an identity is a more gradual process. After learning of transsexualism or transgenderism and going through stages of confusion and comparison, most individuals who come to identify themselves as transsexed or transgendered will come to a stage of identity tolerance wherein they begin to accept that the label of transsexual or transgendered probably is a fitting description of who they are. This in-between stage of “I am probably transsexual” or “I am probably transgendered” is used by many people as an avenue to allow them to come to terms with the enormity of what it means to identify oneself as transsexed or transgendered. During this and the next stage, people more thoroughly disengage from the gender and sex to which they were assigned at birth. Those who are coming to identify as transsexed start to be able to say to themselves and to others that they are probably headed toward a change of gender and of sex. It is during this stage that the identity of transsexual or transgendered starts to take prominence over any other.
STAGE 8: DELAY BEFORE ACCEPTANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY
Many people who are on their way to accepting themselves as transsexed or transgendered enter into a period of delay until they have enough information about themselves and about transsexualism or transgenderism that they can be sure that it offers them the correct solution to their gender discomfort. During this stage of delay, individuals engage in various techniques of reality testing to see if they can fully embrace an identity which until this time they were merely tolerating as a possibility . Individuals searching for an identity which can bring them to peace within themselves need to feel that they are seen for who they are. Male-bodied people may follow a similar kind of exploration but are less commonly able to receive witnessing of their gender identity within already established relationships with either women or men and are more likely to have to rely on more fleeting or superficial kinds of relations such as flirtations or anonymous sexual encounters for their confirmations. When intimates are unable to provide that kind of witnessing, people may tarry longer in the stage of delay, perhaps temporarily choosing some other descriptive label for themselves, such as queer. Conversely, when a relationship predicated on one’s originally assigned sex and gender does not work out, individuals may also see the reason for the failure as being grounded in inappropriateness of their originally assigned sex and gender.
Those individuals who are fortunate enough to make contact with transsexed and transgendered people through support groups, the Internet, social contacts, or conferences have an invaluable resource available to them. Through various kinds of self-revealing discussions, they can avail themselves of the opportunity to compare their own feelings and experiences with those of people who have already adopted a transsexed or transgendered identity
The stage of delay has another function for many male-to-female people. Many males who crossdress also come to question whether they might be transsexed and also go through stages of identity confusion, identity comparisons, and identity tolerance. At any of these stages some males become overwhelmed with shame and fear about the social and psychological implications of their expressions of their femininity. Periodically those feelings become expressed in episodes of radical retreat from any expression of femininity during which time all clothing and accoutrements of femininity are purged from their lives. Many males who crossdress and never will become transsexed follow this pattern as do many who do ultimately become transsexed. It is not unusual for an individual to repeat this pattern of purging and re-approach several times over a lifetime.
STAGE 9: ACCEPTANCE
OF TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDERED IDENTITY9
The full acceptance of oneself as transsexed or transgendered marks still another beginning. By the time people have reached this point, they have gathered enough information and have worked through enough of their emotional anxieties about the subject that they are able to say to themselves and to others, “I am transsexual” or “I am transgendered.” For some people, this stage comes very quickly–almost simultaneously with the discovery of transsexualism or transgenderism. For others, the path to this point can be much more difficult and lengthy. For all, the implications of the acceptance of such an identity are enormous. For some people, there is nothing but tremendous relief at finally knowing who one is and what one needs to do about it. For most people, however, the acceptance of such an identity is a much more mixed blessing. Generally, by the time people reach this stage they have complicated lives involving multiple commitments predicated on their being a particular gender and sex. The prospect of reconstituting those family, business, love, friendship, and casual relationships through a gender and sex change will be daunting to say the least. Whatever the implications may be for particular individuals, all who reach this stage are confronted with the task of whether to begin the process of transforming themselves, and if so, when and how to go about it.
STAGE 10: DELAY BEFORE TRANSITION
Having come to the decision to call oneself transsexual or transgendered is only a first step. Not everyone who comes to this realization will immediately, or ever, decide to take action on it. Not all transsexed or transgendered people undergo physical or social transitions. For a variety of reasons, such as health, family, or financial considerations, some people decide that their circumstances do not warrant changing their gender or sex, or that they will only take advantage of some of the possible transformative options. For those who do decide to proceed, commonly they experience another period of delay during which there are many practical steps which must still be accomplished. Few people at this stage know exactly what is involved or how to go about it. They may have general information about how others have accomplished their transitions, but they must take some time to find out the minutiae of exactly what needs to be done in their own case and how to do it. Most people must make an enormous number of personal and practical arrangements. Family, friends, employers, co-workers, business associates and bureaucrats may need to be informed of the impending changes. Money will need to be saved. Arrangements will need to be made with various counselors and medical personnel. Psychic readiness must be achieved. Those individuals who have access to strong support systems during this stage may be able to move through this stage quickly.
During this period of delay, transsexed and transgendered people will move further in the process of disidentification with their originally assigned gender and sex. This can be an especially trying time in its own way. At this point, individuals have come to accept themselves as transsexed or transgendered, yet the people around them may witness no outward differences. However, individuals at this stage will identify more strongly with members of the gender and sex into which they are moving and they will begin to actively engage in anticipatory socialization. By so doing they begin to learn new ways of being in the world and are able to picture themselves experiencing what it might be like to live their new lives. They may be able to incorporate some of these new skills into their pre-transition lives, but in many cases this will be impractical. The disjuncture between what individuals can foresee for themselves and what they can enact may be difficult to bear.
STAGE 11: TRANSITION10
Having decided to make a transition, having learned what needs to be done, having told everyone who needs to be told in advance, having established or relinquished commitments as appropriate, having gotten the necessary resources lined up, transition may begin. This stage may encompass changes in social presentation of self, psychotherapy, hormonal treatments, and a variety of surgeries which together accomplish gender and sex reassignment. Some people will feel that they have begun transition as soon as they make the mental decision to do so. Others will feel that transition begins only when they start psychotherapy or when they start to make observable changes to their presentation. Different individuals engage in different strategies for transition. Some will opt for the minimum that will effect a change in how they are perceived by others.
Others will require every kind of transformation possible before they will feel completely transitioned. Some people will feel that they have completed transition as soon as they find themselves consistently witnessed and mirrored as the gender and sex with which they identify. Others will feel that they are still in transition until they have completed all desired hormonal and surgical transformations. This can mean that the transition stage can be very short for those who can make a satisfactory transition entirely through changes to their social presentation, or it can last many years for individuals who require complete hormonal and surgical transitions.
Transition can be both an exhilarating and a trying stage. During this stage individuals can spend long stretches of time during which their gender and sex are not easily recognizable to themselves or to others. On the one hand, to not know who one is, to not be known as who one is, can be extremely unsettling and difficult. On the other hand, to daily watch oneself moving out of a life which has been an enduring source of anxiety and into a life which promises to be more authentic and fulfilling can be a source of great wonder and joy. Transition also means the leaving behind of a way of life. This departure from the total experience that comprises living as a woman or a man can be felt as a kind of death of a huge part of oneself. Thus, transition also frequently brings with it a kind of grieving for the person that one once was but no longer will be.
However, during transition people can also become dramatically invigorated by the magnitude of the transformational changes they are undergoing. After living a lifetime being unable to fully express themselves, they feel themselves to be finally righting what has been so wrong in their lives. As other people start to see them as they see themselves, the confirmation of having their self-image witnessed and mirrored back to them can feel like a beacon in a darkness which has too often dominated their lives to that point.
STAGE 12: ACCEPTANCE
OF POST-TRANSITION GENDER/SEX IDENTITY11
Transition need not be completely accomplished for a person to start to accept themselves as the gender and sex into which they are transitioning. For many people, the acceptance of a transsexed identity is identical with the acceptance of themselves as actually being a member of another gender and sex even if their bodies and lives do not yet display that truth to others. Many people, however, do require more concrete evidence before they are able to accept that they have arrived on the other side of the great gender divide. At first, their sense of themselves as their reassigned gender may seem somewhat fraudulent or artificial even to themselves. They may feel that their claim to membership is unsteady and easily challengeable due to the recentness of their transition, because of the approximate nature of their physical transitions, and because of the fact that they required transitional procedures to gain them their claim in the first place. Over a period of months and years, individuals living as their new gender and sex learn to more deeply and profoundly understand what it means to be a person of that gender. As they accumulate a greater storehouse of experiences their sense of themselves as truly and authentically a member of their reassigned gender becomes deeper and more stable. Furthermore, as time passes and they find that they are readily and routinely witnessed and mirrored as who they feel themselves to be, many of the old anxieties and fears finally slip away to be replaced by a more serene self-acceptance than had ever before been possible. Many people find that their feelings of gender dysphoria are supplanted by feelings of gender euphoria.
STAGE 13: INTEGRATION12
Most people who have undergone gender and sex transitions become seamlessly integrated into society at large. This is usually a gradual process, although it is generally more readily accomplished by female-to-male than male-to-female individuals. As transsexed people become more able and more comfortable functioning as unremarkable men and women in their everyday lives, the facts of their transitions and of their transsexuality become less salient. As time passes and as transsexed people become more firmly embedded in their post-transition lives, they and most of the people around them will tend to allow the past to recede until it only rarely intrudes upon life in the here and now.
Integration also takes place on another level. As the post-transition years elapse, many transsexed individuals come to better appreciate that they have found great benefits in the lessons of the first parts of their lives. Many people find that although a gender and sex transition was the right choice for them, they do not wish to abandon all of their connections to their previous lives. At first, while identity acceptance is still becoming firmly established, any hint of one’s previous way of life may seem as a threat to the establishment of a credible post-transition identity Thus, many post-transition individuals find their way to a more comfortable type of androgyny than they could have ever entertained in their originally assigned gender and sex. In other words, once they find themselves firmly established in the right gender and sex they also find themselves able to create a life for themselves which allows them to integrate their pasts with their post-transition lives. STAGE 14: PRIDE13
Pride, as it is used here, implies both a personal sense of pride in oneself and a political stance. Persons who exhibit trans identity pride are open about their transsexualism or transgenderism in situations where it is relevant and speak up on behalf of transsexed and transgendered people when an occasion lends itself to such advocacy. Some people who demonstrate trans identity pride make working for transgender political rights the focus of their lives, whereas many others more quietly and privately work toward greater social understanding and acceptance.
Those transsexed and transgendered people who achieve a sense of pride in themselves do so against a backdrop of widespread fear, intolerance, and hostility toward transpeople. The pride of transsexed and transgendered people thus has to be seen as a ongoing accomplishment in the face of the relentless shaming that society most frequently inflicts upon transgendered people. Until such time as society at large achieves greater gender integration, the achievement and maintenance of identity pride of transpeople as a whole and as individuals will require continual effort and vigilance.
HIJRA- THE THIRD SEX
A CLEAR IDEA :
In India, the transgender community is popularly known as Hijras. In the culture of South Asia, hijras /eunuchs are designated male at birth people who have feminine gender identity, adopt feminine gender roles, and wear women 's clothing. The Hijra sanaths also known as chhakka in Kannada and Bambaiya Hindi, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu. In Pakistan, the hijra gender role includes true intersex people (khusras), crossdressers (zenanas) and eunuchs (narnbans). Hijras are also known as Aravani/Aruvani or Jagappa in other areas.
A eunuch is a man who ( by the common definition of the term) may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences. In some ancient texts, “ eunuch” may refer to a man who is not castrated but who is impotent , celibate, or otherwise not inclined to marry and procreate. But linking this concept to the hijras , majority of them do not undergo castration though some do as a religious initiation rite into the hijra community known as nirwaan
14Hijras/Eunuchs have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period, onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual, and part survival.
In South Asia, many hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have sustained themselves over generations by "adopting" young boys who are rejected by, or flee their family of origin.[5] Many work as sex workers for survival.
The word hijra is a Urdu-Hindustani word, derived from the Arabic root hjr in its sense of "leaving one 's tribe," and has been borrowed into Hindi. The Indian usage has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite," where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition." However, in general hijras are born with typically male physiology, only a few having been born with male intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirwaan, which refers to the removal of penis,testicles and scrotum. THE REALITY
I personally feel that to understand the reality and hardships faced by a hijra , there is nothing better than listening to one’s story themselves. From the story we will able to understand , How the community comes together? , Are they discriminated? , What do they do for a living ? , Are they victims of violence?
Sachin’s story 15
My name is Sachin and I am 23 years old. I am the fifth child in a family of four elder sisters. As a child I always enjoyed putting make-up like “vibhuti” or “kum kum” and my parents always saw me as a girl. I am male but I have only female feelings. I used to help my mother in all the housework like cooking, washing and cleaning. Over the years my sisters got married, my parents became old. I was around seventeen years. I started assuming more of the domestic responsibilities at home.
The neighbours started teasing me. They would call out to me and say “why don’t you go out and work like a man?” or “why are you staying at home like a girl?” But I liked being a girl. I felt shy about going out and working. Relatives would also mock and scold me on this score. Everyday I would go out of the house to bring water. And as I walked back with the water I would always be teased. I felt very ashamed. I even felt suicidal. How could I live like that? But my parents never protested. They were helpless.
Then one day my parents asked me to leave the village to avoid the shame. “Go work somewhere else”, they said. I don’t know how to read or write, I never went to school, how would I ever get a job? That night I cried a lot. I realised that for my parents respect in society was much more important than their own son. I drank some rat poison, hoping to kill myself. But I started throwing up which woke my parents up. They rushed me to the hospital where I recovered. I told my parents, “You wanted me to leave, I have nowhere to go. No education. No skills. I wanted to kill myself.”
After this incident, I decided to leave home. One night, I took my suitcase with five shirts and five pants. With Rs 500 in my pocket I left for Tirupathi. I sat outside the temple and cried. Then an old man came and asked me why I was crying – I told him my complete story. I told him that I like wearing sarees, make up, flowers in my hair. He heard my story and told me about the hijra community. He asked me to go and join them. That was the first time I heard about the hijras.
Later on I was sitting outside the temple, wearing a shirt and pants but with some make-up, when someone picked me up and asked me to come along to his hotel room. I had sex with him. He was very nice. He was leaving that evening but had paid for the hotel room till the next morning and asked me to stay there till the next morning. He also gave me Rs.200.
Since I had the room to myself that night, I went out in the park and managed to pick up two more guys. I brought them back and had sex with them in my room. They both gave me Rs.100 each. This changed my life. I suddenly realised that I wasn’t useless. I could take care of my self, I could now live – through sex work.
From Tirupathi I moved to Bangalore where I made friends with some hijras. They helped me get a job at Bangalore Dairy in Hosur Road. There were three shifts of 8 hours each. I had the night shift. I would try to be very masculine at work, walk and talk like a man but people still noticed that I was effeminate, they realised that I was a hijra. In fact one of the employees came to me and asked for a blow job. I refused saying that I was a man and not a hijra.
In the Dairy I had just one friend, who I was very close to but it was nothing sexual. During the night shift most people would go up and sleep on the terrace. This friend of mine called me to sleep next to him on the terrace one night. As I went to sleep, some one just took my hands and cupped them on the floor and four guys one after the other had anal sex with me. I realised later that this friend of mine was making money out of it. Next day the inspector of the dairy knew all about what had happened on the terrace. Instead of helping me, he screamed at me and fired me from the job.
I moved in with an old friend of mine from the village, who gave me shelter. Getting a job was very difficult. Wherever I went they asked for qualifications and a smart appearance, neither of which I possess. Finally I got a job in one office. The owner needed an office boy who would also have sex with him. I co-operated. But I wasn’t satisfied doing both of these things and the pay was also very low. So I just decided to do sex work directly. But sex work was not easy. The police would just come in the night, see me walking in “satla” (drag) and would just hit me with a lathi. I became scared of even walking on the streets.
Then I learned about my rights. Things like one should not have sex in public spaces but try and have it in private spaces. Then Preethi asked me to join her. She introduced me to everyone and this way I started helping other kothis and hijras who were doing sex work.
I once called my parents after years, they cried a lot. I said I can’t come home because you are embarrassed of me. Then my parents suggested that I come home in the night instead of coming during the day. I followed their advice and went to visit them for the first time after I had left home. I reached home in the night. We had a great time, we ate in the night, talked a lot, and it felt good to be back at home. But suddenly it was nearing dawn and my parents asked me to leave before sunrise.On my next visit I learnt that my parents had heard from other people that I had become a hijra in Bangalore. This time they interrogated me and my mother insisted that I show her proof that I haven’t been castrated. I had to undo my pants in front of my mother, which was very embarrassing. I am an akwa. My mother was very relieved.
I am beginning to see a change in the way my family treats me. Now because I am earning, my mother wants me to stay at home. When I go back to the village, no one says anything, because I am earning now. My mother asks me for a fan, a tape recorder, a new stove. I have been giving them money for all this. I have also bought jewellery and other presents for my sisters’ kids.
Sex work is not always easy. Often, clients having sex with me would reach an orgasm and then quickly runaway without paying. I used to go to the park to pick up customers. Once I met a man but he was a police officer. He asked me to come and have sex with him. I asked for Rs.50 but he said that he would only give me Rs.20. I said o.k. and started sucking him. But after he came he just walked away. I stopped him and asked him for my money but he said that he won’t pay. I told him that I would complain, and he laughed at me stating that I had no proof. Then I showed him the condom, tied carefully in a knot that still had his sperm. He said, “who knows that it’s mine?” and left the place.
Once a customer picked me up and took me in his car on the Ring Road. We got off the car in the middle of the road and went into the bushes. After he had had his fun, the customer went into the car first, telling me to wait and come out in five minutes to avoid suspicion. But the minute I came out of the bushes the man drove off in his car leaving me alone at 10 p.m. in the middle of the Ring Road. What scared me most was that my pants and shirt were in his car. I was staying with friends in a rented apartment and so I had to change my clothes. I could not go back home in the “satla”. I was terrified. Then suddenly a policeman came and caught me. He took me back in the bushes and asked me to take all my clothes off. He wanted to see if I could get my penis up. I was completely naked and terrified. Then he started hitting me with a lathi. I begged on his feet to leave me. I also gave him Rs.100.Then he asked me to leave in a naked condition, refusing to return my clothes. But as I turned I could sense that he was getting sexually aroused. He wanted to fuck me. I didn’t have a condom. I didn’t even like taking it in the backside. Then he hit me very hard. He covered my mouth with his hand and started fucking me. He was very big, and without a condom, it was all so painful. My ass was bleeding. I could feel blood going down on my thighs. The policeman shouted at me, saying “Hey, stop crying. I will hit you again if you cried”. Then he lifted me, asked me to bend and fucked me more. Finally he was done and he left, thankfully leaving my clothes with me.I put on my “satla” and was walking slowly on the street. I was under a lot of pain. But unfortunately it wasn’t over yet. A small tourist van came and stopped in front of me on the road. There were around seven people in it, two sleeping and the others drinking and smoking. They asked me what I was doing in the middle of the night and dragged me into the van.They forced some alcohol down my throat and also forced me to smoke. I got a bit drunk. Then they took an empty bottle, broke it in half against the car window and gashed my arm with it. I bled very badly. I still have these two huge marks on my hands. My right hand was full of blood. They wanted to have sex with me. I was tired and angry. I screamed. I said “you want to have sex with me, o.k. then all of you can have sex with me”. I was tired of fighting it.
They stopped the car, took me into the field, put me down and started having sex with me. I was forced to have anal and oral intercourse with all of them, one after the other, even sometimes together. I was still bleeding. After it was all over, I just lay there exhausted and completely lost. I stopped thinking. It was already dawn, 5 a.m.I somehow dragged myself to a hijra’s house close by. I woke her up and she took me inside, gave me a lungi and a shirt to wear. She washed me, nursed me and took me to the hospital. This incident took place in 2001, after which I learnt an important lesson. I never wear satla during sex work now. I only wear satla in hijra functions.
I have moved on now. I now help other kothis and hijras by teaching them and giving them all the information that I have learnt. I don’t believe in any god any more (Hindu or Muslim). They have never helped me at all. Now I have my own hands and I do sex work and fend for myself.
CONCLUSION
When we look at the above story , we get a clear idea about the life the transgenders face. In the early stages of their life , we can see the confusion they face and the struggle they go through. They have the hard job of convincing their parents that they are not what they think they really are.In this context I would like to give importance to the point how their Family itself is the institution which brings in the unjustice and discrimination into their lifes
16Most media portrays the family as a haven in which the individual finds fulfillment, love and peace.Underlying this discourse on the family is the presumption that it is an essential structure even for the protection for the protection of human rights, including the rights of liberty and dignity. However, for the hijra and kothi communities the experience of the family is frighteningly different. The institution of the family plays a significant role in the marginalization of hijras and kothis. Instead of protecting their child from the violence inflicted by the wider society, the family in fact provides an arena to act out the intolerances of the wider society. Those who violate the existing social codes which prescribe how a man is to behave are subject to daily humiliation, beatings and expulsion from the family itself.
In this context of extreme violence and intolerance, the only cultural space available for transgenders in India is the hijra community. Given the enormous sense of isolation faced by the hijras, particularly in close-knit communities in the villages, the only solace or hope is when they get to know that there exist other people like them who live in the bigger cities. This in turn contributes to the formation of the hijra community as a largely urban phenomenon.
In the story we can see how they have been mistreated by police or the public in general, How they are a regular victims of violence and rape. As these Hijras have no other option than mainly resort to prostitution and begging for sustaining their life , everybody sees them through a third eye , where only discrimination and injustice prevails. The very law have been pushing them to the corners through Acts like Criminal tribes Act,1871 , Section 377 of the IPC.
I personally feel that the government needs to take this issue very seriously. India claiming to be a democratic and fair country , such issues reflect the negligence of the ruling government. I personally feel that Hijras or transgenders in whole should be given the status of a third sex. I say so because , through such an act , they will be able to an identity for themselves which is the most fundamental pillar for gaining a position ,respect and status in the society.
I would like to conclude by praying and believing that Indian people to shun their belief that being a transgender is all about begging and prostitution. We need to break free from our narrowed mindsets and realize that all a transgender desires is a life of dignity- just like you and me. BIBLIOGRAPHY
List of scholarly articles referred to :
1. Witnessing and Mirroring: A fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation
Author : Aaron H. Devor, PhD
Available at : http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf
2. Are they not humans?
Author : Abhishek Kumar Jha
Available at : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990256
List of websites referred to :
1. www.pucl.org
2. www.wikipedia.com
Bibliography: List of scholarly articles referred to : 1. Witnessing and Mirroring: A fourteen stage model of transsexual identity formation Author : Aaron H. Devor, PhD Available at : http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf 2. Are they not humans? Author : Abhishek Kumar Jha Available at : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990256 List of websites referred to : 1. www.pucl.org 2. www.wikipedia.com
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