Chettiar (2015) conducted a study on “Problems Faced by Hijras (Male to Female Transgenders) in Mumbai with Reference to Their Health and Harassment by the Police”. The Male to Female (MTF) Trans-genders in India commonly known as the Hijras are one of the hardly researched, abused, scorned, and callously neglected groups in Indian Society. This paper was part of the doctoral research submitted to the University of Mumbai entitled ‘The Status of Hijras in Civil Society: A Study of Hijras in Greater Mumbai.’ The objectives of this paper were to showcase briefly the socio economic status of hijras and to understand the problems faced by them with specific reference to their health and the harassment hijras face due to the Police. An exploratory …show more content…
The Truth about Me is the unflinchingly courageous and moving autobiography of a Hijra (Eunuch) who fought ridicule, persecution and violence both within her home and out- side to find a life of dignity. Revathi was born a boy, but felt and behaved like a girl. She feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body. All she wanted was to be a woman, to be considered a woman by society.In telling her life story, Revathi evokes marvellously the deep unease of being in the wrong body that plagued her from childhood. Her life became an incredible series of dangerous physical and emotional journeys to become a woman and to find love. It is an honest autobiography which depicts life as a hijra in India. A community that is feared, ridiculed and ill-treated in so many ways.It is a peek into lives of our sexual minorities who have struggled so hard to gain acceptance, ill-treated by society, by the law enforcers,shackled by our archaic laws, looked down by their own families, no means of earning a living, etc. The story opens in small village in Tamil Nadu. Doraisamy was the youngest of five children – the fourth boy. He grew up shy, culturally effeminate, with an inclination to dress as a girl and do traditionally female activities around the house – the domestic chores, the games, the singing and dancing.Doraisamy spends his childhood years with a growing unease as he tries to negotiate his body’s incongruity with his inner desires and natural talents.In his mid-teens he met a group of like-spirited men, who introduced him to visiting hijras. Doraisamy stole some money and an earring from his mother, and ran away from home. As Revathi, she could dress, walk, and talk as a woman. But she is, of course, a hijra, that liminal third-sex, and so she was constrained to live and earn in specific places, in specific manners. The story follows Revathi’s life as she moved from city to city,
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2007. Print.
Chilwane, Desire. "Recognizing Transsexuals: Personal, Political and Medicolegal Embodiment." Journal of International Women's Studies 12.4 (2011): 158+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 13 Oct. 2011
She is sorely bruised, but cannot talk about it, which typifies the domestic abuse that women, and the girl child suffer. Some women are forced into silence because they want to keep their family together, while others are silence because the society blames them in the end. Turtle’s silence mirrors the author’s experience in her younger years as a rape victim. She could not talk openly on it because she was blamed for the rape which was labelled ‘acquaintance rape’ (Critical Companion 6). Lamenting what Turtle had gone through as a child, Kingsolver wrote, “The Indian girl was a girl. A girl, poor thing. That fact had already burdened her short life with a kind of misery I could not imagine” (The Bean Trees 25). Here, the author shows that being a girl usually herald an uneasy life, and this theme is explicated throughout the rest of the
To conclude, I chose this article as I found the discussion point interesting and wanted to bring to more people’s attention some of the underlying discrimination that is embedded in U.S. culture. Although transgender people are in the minority, they are no less than myself. I believe strongly that they deserve the same rights and opportunities that are presented to me daily. This article is relevant to the issues of Cultural Anthropology as it addresses questions surrounding gender stereotypes, gender discrimination, gender performance as well as relationship ties and kinship.
Across the globe, gender systems vary in ways that often exclude individuals who don’t identify within their realms. From the binary structure of the West, to the ternary system of India, there are many ways in which societies conceptualize gender. Gender systems are generally considered inherent to humanity, and are seldom questioned or altered. This has led to the marginalization and discrimination of individuals who diverge from the implemented structure.
Residing in a country where one is born as an illegitimate child and is rebuked upon their presence nearly everyday can be mentally and emotionally heartbreaking, specifically when the individual is a child growing up with no initial love or care. , Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is a powerful novel stressing the follies of eastern society and worldwide ignorance. He delves into the archaic ways in which women’s rights are dealt with through the eyes of the women themselves, providing an influential emotional impact on the reader. The novel’s unlikely heroine, provides insight into the ways in which identity can serve to be a hindrance. According to Charles Cooley’s looking glass self-theory, identity is the result of the concept in which we earn to see ourselves as others do. From early on in her life, Mariam was given the identity as an illegitimate child. Due to her illegitimacy she was never accepted into a family and wasn't nurtured for. She was not able to attain a rightful place in her parents lives or her husbands. Her mother never lets her forget that she ruined her life and deserves nothing, constantly reminding her of her illegitimate birth. Mariam’s father never accepts her into his life and treats her as a hidden sin leading Mariam to believe that due to her illegitimacy she can never be accepted in her fathers home. Her husband never lets her forget her illegitimate beginnings and blames all her faults on the circumstances of her birth, which make her to believe that she will never be accepted for who she is. The following characters all keep Mariam from achieving true happiness, as none of them accept he and she fails to become apart of a family.
Injustice at Every Turn: A Report from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Rep. National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2011. Web. The Web. The Web.
Hijras include such minorities as eunuchs, hermaphrodites, transvestites, transsexuals, and homosexuals and “literally means neither male nor female”2. Most hijras undergo a secretive castration operation as part of their religious rites. Because of this secrecy it is unknown as to the exact number of hijras in India. They are described, and describe themselves, as the “ ‘third sex’ – somewhere inbetween and beyond male or female”3. They see themselves as existing inside and above society. Even so, theirs is a day-to-day existence.
"Pakistan allows transsexuals to have own gender category." Host Aleem Maqbool. BBC News. BBC Online. 26 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
As we compare the traditional women versus modern women, we perceive differences and similarities. Prachi fights for a belief system that controls her meanwhile Ruhi struggles with self-identity and depends on the beauty pageant to empower her as an Indian woman. Prachi defends Hinduism but at the same time, is Hinduism that restrains her from becoming “modern.” Ruhi on the other hand considers herself a very modern girl and she values freedom therefor the pageant is a road to liberation for her. Both girls struggle in distinct ways but their goal is similar, to shape their countries future.
It focus on the on experience of the 20 participant that happened to their lives while in the workplace. Bender-baird have done well made questions for 20 participants to have a comparable result like “what does employment discrimination look like for transgender people?” and what would policies and looks like on transgender people?. Bender-Baird attempts to explicity elaborate the success stories of the participants but discriminations still occurs and the most obvious form that happens among her participants is in the form of Harrasment. Under this chapter Bender-Baird discussed about Termination, unemployment and underemployment among transgender people. The lack of federal laws protecting her participants before makes them vulnerable in discrimination. Like, the example she gave at the first part of the book and stories of her participant that presented on this chapter. The data Bender-Baird presented on this chapter are well organized and gave an insight about the biases even with the limitation of data can gathered. The particular concerns of participants on this book are also the same problems on many study that have been conducted in regards of transgender discrimination in the work place and daily living. The particular concerns are the dress code on workplace, using bathrooms and identity documents. The author gives important of having a holistic approach trough out
The differences between race and gender are socially constructed. However, not everyone can conform to the same ideas surrounding difference race and gender roles. In Naisargi Dave’s paper on Queer Politics in Contemporary India and Smadar Lavie’s essay on Gender, Race, and Bureaucratic Pain, both authors discuss how people use different forms of agency to gain power in in their society and government. This paper will aim to analyze these papers, as well as to demonstrate the similarities and differences between them.
Growing up during a time of violent political upheaval in Sri Lanka, Arjie travels an especially bittersweet journey into maturation in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy. The adults in Arjie’s extended family mostly belong to an older, more conservative generation that attempts to fit Arjie into society’s norms. The adults that Arjie meets in the community through his family are individuals who prompt him to see past the confines of his childhood, and it is Arjie’s peers who give him the extra push to understanding himself. With guidance from his extended family, his adult friends, and his peers, Arjie is able to discover his identity through understanding the impact of race and gender on his life.
For example, some men and women may identify themselves as transvestites which are men who dress in women’s clothing. Others may consider themselves as transgendered. Transgender individuals are men and women who wish to or have undergone genital surgery to become the opposite sex. Lastly, citizens are able to associate themselves with the intersex group. Intersex groups are people whose genitals are not clearly male or female. India identifies individuals that fall into the third sex category as hijras. Some believe that hijras are men who worshiped a Hindu goddess by sacrificing their genitals and promising to live without sexuality (Brannon 2015). Hijras are also believed to have power to confer fertility and are often invited to special events (Brannon 2015). India is not the only country that believes third sex citizens have spiritual callings on their
In North America, LGBT rights are often discussed through institutions, social media, and organizations supporting such cases. However, one can notice that leaving this North American mindset results are dramatically different in attitudes towards LBGT issues. This literature review will be centering on LGBT rights in India, and will focus upon the Supreme Court decision that upheld Section 377 of the Indian Constitution and repealed the Delhi High Court’s ruling. This research paper will additionally investigate the exact timeline of each decision by highlighting the history of Section 377 of the Penal Code of India, the ruling of the Delhi High Court in 2009 and finally what the Supreme Court’s ruling was in December of 2013. Moreover, it will focus and discuss the discourse behind why the Supreme Court reinstated criminalizing gay sex in the country. Lastly, this research paper will offer a critical perspective by addressing a possible solution in order to gain awareness and take a stand against the Supreme Court for reinstating criminalization of gay sex in the country.