Transgenders In India

This introductory volume studies the challenges faced by the transgender community in India. It traces the history of the representation of the community in Hindu texts to understand the evolution of their status within Indian society. The book looks at various themes such as the concept of establishing identity through the processes of 'coming out' and 'transitioning’ and analyses how race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, nation, religion, and ability have cross-influenced to shape the transgender experience and trans culture across and beyond the binary. Lucid and topical, the book debunks myths and critiques the stigma and discrimination surrounding the transgender community. It will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of gender studies, queer studies, exclusion and discrimination studies, political science, sociology, social anthropology, and South Asian studies.

This book engages with the discourses on human rights as they apply to the transgender or the hijra community in India, capturing not only their larger struggle for legal rights and dignity but also their personal hardships. It situates the issues and concerns of the Indian transgender community within a global context to explore the extent of social justice in independent India. By narrating stories of individuals, local movements and activities of groups like the Association of Transgender/Hijra in Bengal (ATHB) and others, the book gives context to the changes that globalisation has brought to the narrative around transgenders in India. This shift has challenged their marginalisation and has led to stories, films and queer individuals like Chapal Bhaduri – the jatra rani – and the iconic filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh to flourish and become relevant. This book brings these literatures and personal stories to the fore, allowing readers to perceive the changes and the challenges that Indian society faces when it comes to ensuring the rights for transgender people. This volume will be of interest to scholars of gender studies, queer studies, literature and social work along with readers who want to engage with the transgender movement and community in India.

1. Introduction, 2. Transgenders as Depicted in Hindu Mythology and in Tamil Literature, 3. Intersex and Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, 4. Transgenders - Physiological Parameters, 5. Transgenders - Psychological Parameters, 6. Role of Tamil Community in the Development of Thirunangai Communities – A Profile, 7. Social Exclusion Of Transgender, 8. Kalki Subramanian – A Profile, 9. Conclusion. - PREFACE - The legal, economic and social marginalization of transgender affects every aspect of their lives. Social exclusion is reflected in laws that do not acknowledge the existence of transgender, either as a third gender or as people who wish to transition from male to female, or from female to male. Without legal protection, transgender is vulnerable to daily violence and discrimination, with cumulative impacts. Some impacts are visible, such as the HIV epidemic among transgender in many parts of the world. Most impacts are insidious, with transgender, their families, and communities left to support each other and struggle for their rights. Human rights experts have offered guidance on how to apply existing human laws. From a young age, many transgender people experience social rejection and marginalization because of their expression of their gender identity. This social exclusion affects their self-perception and sense of worth. It may contribute to depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol use, self-harm and suicide. Young transgender people are particularly vulnerable to homelessness, unemployment and economic instability, as they often depend on family and educational institutions for housing and other resources .This is mainly due to the fact that their inherent complexities in physiology which does not gel with their psychology deprivation of everything in their life.

A Scientific Aspect of Transgenders depicts the life, problems, livelihood, social position, language, customs and other information about the transgender community and people belonging to other parallel sexual communities in picturesque language. The book is an analytical and fundamental study. It deals with the life of transgender people as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and inter-sex persons. The authors have put special emphasis on the Fourth Gender by discussing LGBQI in a separate unit. There is a belief that all the transgender people are sexually congenital. But the truth is that they are not born but made. Their code language, marriage, sexual life, rituals, their movement in this country and abroad and the cause of their suicidal trend have been explained in this book.

Transgender India: Understanding Third Gender Identities and Experiences provides the first scholarly study of hijras, transmen, and other third gender Indians from the perspective of a range of disciplines in the behavioral and social sciences, as well as the humanities. This book fosters a dialogue across academic fields, as authors cross-reference each other’s chapters, comparing and contrasting their views of transgender experience and identity in India. This multidisciplinary approach helps readers understand the complex interplay of factors that have led to discrimination against third gender individuals, as well as paths forward to a more equitable and just future, in ways that go beyond the perspective of a single academic field. This multidisciplinary approach is the book’s most distinctive feature in comparison to existing works limited to individual fields such as anthropology, investigative journalism, and history. The broad scope of Transgender India is relevant to scholars and students in diverse disciplines who seek a greater and more nuanced understanding of the behavioral and societal impact of these issues.

The anthology Transgender in Indian Context: Rights and Activism is written as a plea for transgender community in India neglected and deprived for long. The anthology with an effort to touch the soft corner of Indian hearts for this invisible class, tries to lay bare almost all those factors which are responsible to stigmatise their life and show almost all requisites through which this community so long denied to social positioning can meet dignified life on both familial and sociatal surface. The anthology has covered twenty well-explored articles on this serious issue which is the need of the day. Some of the articles in this anthology dealing with popular transgender autobiographies have endeavoured to explore the real life experience of transgender community in India showing their hard struggle to come into societal surface from their hidden marginal existence. Authors are very deep and sincere to articulate their ideas and hopefully see the service of humanity though their esteemed works in this anthology. About the Author: Dipak Giri- M.A. (Double), B.Ed. - is a Ph. D. Research Scholar in Raiganj University, Raiganj, Uttar Dinajpur (W.B.). He is working as an Assistant Teacher in Katamari High School (H.S.), Cooch Behar, West Bengal. He is an Academic Counsellor in Netaji Subhas Open University, Cooch Behar College Study Centre, Cooch Behar, West Bengal. He was formerly Part-Time Lecturer in Cooch Behar College, Vivekananda College and Thakur Panchanan Mahila Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal and worked as a Guest Lecturer in Dewanhat College, West Bengal. He has the credit of qualifying U.G.C.-N.E.T. two times. He has attended seminars on national and state levels sponsored by U.G.C. Along with this book on Transgender in Indian Context, he has also edited six books: Indian English Drama: Themes and Techniques, Indian English Novel: Styles and Motives, Postcolonial English Literature: Theory and Practice, New Woman in Indian Literature: From Covert to Overt, Indian Women Novelists in English: Art and Vision and Homosexuality in Contemporary Indian Literaure: Issues and Challenges. He is a well-known academician and has published many scholarly research articles in books and journals of both national and international repute. His area of studies includes Post-Colonial Literature, Indian Writing in English, Dalit Literature, Feminism and Gender Studies.

When Revathi's powerful memoir, The Truth About Me, first appeared in 2011, it caused a sensation. Readers learned of Revathi's childhood unease with her male body, her escape from her birth family to a house of hijras (the South Asian generic term for transgender people), and her eventual transition to being the woman she always knew she was. This new book charts her remarkable journey from relative obscurity to becoming India's leading spokesperson for transgender rights and an inspiration to thousands. Revathi describes her life, her work in the NGO Sangama, which works with people across a spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations, and how she rose from office assistant to director in the organization. Today she is an independent activist, theatre person, actor and writer, and works for the rights of transgender persons. In the second part of the book, Revathi offers the reader an insight into one of the least talked about experiences on the gender trajectory: that of being trans men. Calling several female-to-male trans persons her 'sons', Revathi puts before us their moving, passionate and sometimes tragic stories of marginalization, courage, resistance and triumph. An unforgettable book, A Life in Trans Activism will leave the reader questioning the 'safe' and 'comfortable' binaries of male/female that so many of us take for granted.