The Choice

Becoming a Hijra in India is both dangerous, and also life fulfilling. There is no protection for Hijras in India, so they have to figure out ways to live safe lives without the government’s protection. The people who become Hijras are aware of this, yet they choose to fulfill a part of their lives that needs to be filled-the woman part. There are many ways that Hijras can become a part of the community, some are taken as children when they are born a hermaphrodite or have genital deformities, and others choose to run away from home at some point in their lives. They are unhappy living as men, or they just don’t feel like it’s who they are at heart.

Living as a Hijra does become somewhat easier when they come to a community of Hijras. Most Hijras live in communities composed almost entirely of Hijras. Inside these communities there are families. They are fictive kinship families, but for the Hijras, most of who are abandoned by their families, they become their family. Each family has a head of the family, a Hijra who is older and more knowledgeable, called a ‘guru’, and their “children,” or ‘chela,’ younger Hijras who they have taken in. There are mother-daughter, sister-sister, and all sorts of other female relationships within one community. Because most are abandoned by their families when they become a Hijra, the community replaces what they lost.

Along with being abandoned by their families, most Hijras also had childhoods that were confusing and unhappy. They felt like girls, yet their parents told them that they were men. “My childhood was torture,” says Xavier Ammal, a Hijra. She had to leave her family at age 13 because her parents didn’t want a ‘woman’ for a son. When they return to visit their families later in life, most families pretend they don’t have a child, or simply refuse to see them. Luckily, the Hijras still have their fictive kinship families to return to. These communities are the safe havens for the Hijras, and are the only place they are pretty much safe.

Works Cited:

Image from: http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/archive/aruvani.html

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 23, 2008.

Johnson, Samantha
n.d. Castration. Electronic Document, http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/ae/fulltext/32.htm, accessed October 23, 2008.

Maguire, Paddy
2005 Ms World. Electronic Document, http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/archive/aruvani.html, accessed October 23, 2008.

Operation

Living in a society where you are tormented, bullied, and harassed can’t be much fun, yet the half a million Hijras in India choose this lifestyle. Why would someone choose this? It can’t be fun, having to beg for money, or being a prostitute. But the thing is, they don’t have a choice. Since their government won’t accept them as a gender, meaning that up until recently they had a hard time acquiring passports, there isn’t much choice. As I read more about the Hijra culture, I am beginning to be able to understand them better. Every culture has people who are forced to do whatever it takes to put food on the table for their loved ones. For the Hijras, they have to turn to prostitution, begging, and the tax collecting mentioned in a previous blog. Being the average white American female (physically and mentally), I can’t imagine feeling like I need to change my sex in order to be my true self.

For the Hijras, although it is a difficult choice, and a life that they would normally not choose, it is the correct choice, because it is who they really are. It is not a good life, as many have said in the readings I have done, but it is a true life. For many transsexual people in the United States, an operation is not done, or just not considered. For Hijras, an operation is the final step in their transformation, although there are many today who are either hermaphrodites, have genital disfiguration, or just choose not to have an operation, however the majority have some sort of operation done. The operation the Hijras receive, as mentioned in the previous blog, is considerably different from the customary American one. This makes the Hijras even more frightening for some people, because they don’t quite have proper looking female genitalia, yet they look and act like females, and they are mentally female. Choosing this life and surgery is one of the most un-understandable things for me.

Works Cited:

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 22, 2008.

Rellis, Jennifer
2008 “Please Write ‘E’ in this Box” Toward Self-Identification and Recognition of a Third Gender: Approaches in the United States and India. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 14(2):223-258.

YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC-k27Kvtrw

To change or not to change...

As I said in my last blog, I will be spending this entry discussing the differences between American transvestites and the Hijras of India. According to Mary Ann Horton, 1 in 187,000 men will have female to male surgery in the United States every year. This means that about one male for every 1500 men born will be diagnosed as a transsexual, with 60% of them getting sex reassignment surgery (SRS). In India, the ratio of Hijras, who are recipients (for the most part), of male to female SRS, is 1:375. For every 375 people, there is one male to female SRS recipient. Compared to about one in 750 for the United States, that number is astounding. One reason for this may be that it is phenomenally easier for SRS in India than in the United States.

In the United States, when a transsexual person would like to have SRS, whether male to female or female to male, they are required to undergo psychological evaluations, to determine that they are prepared for the surgery and life after the surgery. Once they have cleared the evaluation, they pick out what they want their new “parts” to look like, since it is essentially cosmetic surgery. This is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Hijras. When a Hijra realizes that they are in fact a woman, they are generally young, and they don’t get a psychological evaluation. They get opium and milk, and then a quick painful slicing with a knife.

There are fundamental differences, and one might say it is because the United States is more technically or surgically advanced than India, but it is actually the culture that is the major divider. In India, although there are severe difficulties for the Hijras, they are more socially accepted than in the United States, and it is more widely accepted that people may be born in the wrong gender. Although they are not recognized by the government, and only recently were able to identify themselves as “E” (for eunuch), on their passports, there is a culture for them in India, which there is not in the United States. They exist, but people don’t generally know about them, and have a harder time accepting the fact that they exist in our culture.

Works Cited:

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 21, 2008.

Horton, Mary Ann
2008 The Prevalence of SRS among US Residents. Electronic Document, http://www.tgender.net/taw/thbcost.html#prevalence, accessed October 21, 2008.

Rellis, Jennifer
2008 “Please Write ‘E’ in this Box” Toward Self-Identification and Recognition of a Third Gender: Approaches in the United States and India. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 14(2):223-258.

Baby Taking

In the 9^th century BC, eunuchs (Hijras) first appeared in China. Nowadays, there are not any left in China, but they make up part of India’s population. In India, they are not accepted by the government, and are unable to receive passports or driving licenses. They are also unable to get jobs like other people. They make a living by begging, dancing, blessing, and prostitution. The people of India believe that the Hijras possess special powers that allow them to bring luck and fertility to a person. When a baby is born, the Hijras are always there quickly to bless the baby. What interests me most about this, is that occasionally the baby will be born a hermaphrodite, or with genital deformities. When this happens, the Hijras say that the baby is one of them, and they need the baby. The families of these just born children usually hand the baby over to avoid humiliation in the community. The fact that parents can just hand their newborn over is completely over my head. I cannot understand it at all. They hand their child over into a life that won’t be that great.

Families don’t just desert the children when they are babies though. If at any time in their lives a Hijra announces that they are in fact a Hijra to their families, they will also be disowned then. The fact is though, that the Hijras don’t choose to become a Hijra, they are born that way. As one Hijra said, “A Hijra has a man’s body, but the soul of a woman.” The Hijras do not choose to become Hijras; it is what feels natural to them. We cannot choose who we are, or who we would like to be. The transvestites in American undergo a much different gender transformation than that of the Hijras. In my next blog entry I will be exploring the differences.

Works Cited:

Image from:
http://www.ecostreet.com/blog/ethical-fashion/2007/07/14/baby-gowns-new- fashion-or-old-favourite/

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 20, 2008.

Harvey, Nick
2008 India's Transgendered-the Hijras. Electronic Document, http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2008/05/hijras-indian-changing-rights, accessed October 20, 2008.

“Please ostracize me”

In our culture, we automatically assume that just because someone looks “butch” that they are a lesbian or different from the others. In India, there is a culture that fits right into that stereotype, with the exception that they are not at all “butch”. They are transvestites who have not had the Western style sex reassignment surgery, but who live, ostracized for the most part, as women. I will be exploring this culture, the Hijras, and attempting to understand why a person would want to live in this culture, where they have no security from the government, and are not even recognized by the government socially.

People don’t choose to be ostracized. It is not a decision that people make. The Hijras, who are ostracized, are not choosing to become a Hijra just so they can be ostracized; they are doing it because they need to, and because they are not happy the way they are as a man. One of my younger sisters is a tomboy. In American culture, being a tomboy is generally accepted. She is not a cross dresser, and she does not want to become a man. She simply likes to dress in comfortable clothes, and play sports. She is not ostracized because of this either, because it is who she is, and people can generally accept this. The Hijras are somewhat the same. They want to be who they really are: in their case, that is women, in my sister’s case, a tomboy. The difference though, is that the Hijras are ostracized for this, and they go to remarkable lengths to achieve their desires. In America we also have transvestites. They are not nearly as ostracized by the public as Hijras in India are. People can dress however they want to, that does not change their gender or make them into someone we should ostracize. What makes a difference though, is what people will do to become who they feel they really are. This is what I will be exploring during through this blog.

Works Cited:

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 19, 2008.