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Mostrando postagens com marcador Hijras. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Hijras. Mostrar todas as postagens
quinta-feira, 18 de fevereiro de 2010
domingo, 17 de janeiro de 2010
sábado, 16 de janeiro de 2010
segunda-feira, 11 de janeiro de 2010
Hijras in Karachi, Pakistan
These two wanted money so I have given them 100 ruppees for a Photo.
Eunuchs are quite visible and tolerated in Pakistan.
In the culture of the Indian subcontinent, a hijra (Hindi: हिजड़ा, Urdu: حجڑا) is usually considered a member of "the third sex" — neither man nor woman. Most are physically male or intersex, but some are female. Hijras usually refer to themselves linguistically as female, and usually dress as women.
Although they are usually referred to in English as "eunuchs", relatively few have any genital modifications.[1]
The Hindi word "hijra" may alternately be romanised as hijira, hijda, hijada, hijara, hijrah and is pronounced [hidʒɽaː], between "heejra" and "heejda". An older name for hijras is kinnar, which is used by some hijra groups as a more respectable and formal term. An abusive slang for hijra in Hindi is chhakka.
In Bangla "hijra" is called hijra, hijla, hijre.
A number of terms across the culturally and linguistically diverse Indian subcontinent represent similar sex/gender categories. While these are rough synonyms, they may be better understood as separate identities due to regional cultural differences. In Tamil Nadu the equivalent term is aravanni, aravani, or aruvani. In Urdu and Punjabi, both in Pakistan and India, the term khusra is used. Other terms include jankha. In Gujarati they are called Pavaiyaa (પાવૈયા).
In South India, the goddess Yellamma is believed to have the power to change one's sex. Male devotees in female clothing are known as Jogappa. They perform similar roles to hijra, such as dancing and singing at birth ceremonies and weddings.[2]
The word kothi (or koti) is common across India, although kothis are often distinguished from hijras. Kothis are regarded as feminine men or boys who take a feminine role in sex with men, but do not live in the kind of intentional communities that hijras usually live in. Local equivalents include durani (Kolkata), menaka (Cochin),[3] meti (Nepal), and zenana (Pakistan).
Hijras are widely referred to in English with the term "eunuch", although LGBT historians or human rights activists might label them as being transgender.
These identities have no exact match in the modern Western taxonomy of gender and sexual orientation. Most are born apparently male, but some may be intersex (with ambiguous genitalia). They are often perceived as a third sex, and most see themselves as neither men nor women. However, some may see themselves (or be seen as) females,[4] feminine males or androgynes. Some, especially those who speak English and are influenced by international discourses around sexual minorities may identify as transgender or transsexual women. Unlike some Western transsexual women, hijras generally do not attempt to pass as women. Reportedly, few have genital modifications, although some certainly do, and some consider nirwaan ("castrated") hijras to be the "true" hijras.
A male who takes a "receptive" or feminine role in sex with a man will often identify as a kothi (or the local equivalent term). While kothis are usually distinguished from hijras as a separate gender identity, they often dress as women and act in a feminine manner in public spaces, even using feminine language to refer to themselves and each other. The usual partners of hijras and kothis are masculine men, whose gender identity is as a "normal" male who penetrates.[5] These male partners are often married, and any relationships or sex with 'kothis' or hijras are usually kept secret from the community at large. Some hijras may form relationships with men and even marry,[6] although their marriage is not usually recognized by law or religion. Hijras and kothis often have a name for these masculine sexual or romantic partners; for example, panthi in Bangladesh, giriya in Delhi or sridhar in Cochin.[3]
Becoming a hijra is a process of socialization into a "hijra family" through a relationship characterised as chela "student" to guru "teacher", leading to a gradual assumption of femininity. Typically each guru lives with at least five chelas; her chelas assume her surname and are considered part of her lineage. Chelas are expected to give their income to their guru, who manages the household. Hijra families are close knit communities, which often have their own houses.
This process may culminate in a religious ritual that includes emasculation (total removal of the penis, testes and scrotum in men). Not all hijras undergo emasculation, and the percentage of hijras that are eunuchs is unknown. The operation—referred to by hijras as a nirvan ("rebirth") and carried out by a dai (traditional midwife)—involves removing the penis and scrotum with a knife without anesthesia. The cry and wail of the target is covered with huge trumpting. In modern times, some hijras may undergo a vaginoplasty, allowing them sexual fulfillment through vaginal intercourse, but such cases are rare. The American transsexual activist Anne Ogborn became an initiated Hijra in 1993. She is the first westerner to be a member of the Hijra community.[7]
Most hijras live at the margins of society with very low status; the very word "hijra" is sometimes used in a derogatory manner. Few employment opportunities are available to hijras. Many get their income from performing at ceremonies, begging, or prostitution — an occupation of eunuchs also recorded in premodern times. Violence against hijras, especially hijra sex workers, is often brutal, and occurs in public spaces, police stations, prisons, and their homes.[8] As with transgender people in most of the world, they face extreme discrimination in health, housing, education, employment, immigration, law, and any bureaucracy that is unable to place them into male or female gender categories.[citation needed]
Hijras have earned an income from the Indian government for collecting taxes from the villages and cities, the most effective method ever employed by the India government in collecting taxes still used in some cities.[citation needed]
Hijras are often encountered on streets, trains, and other public places demanding money from young men. If refused, the hijra may attempt to embarrass the man into giving money, using obscene gestures, profane language, and even sexual advances. Hijras also perform religious ceremonies at weddings and at the birth of male babies, involving music, singing, and sexually suggestive dancing. These are intended to bring good luck and fertility. Although the hijra are most often uninvited, the host usually pays the hijras a fee. Many fear the hijras' curse if they are not appeased, bringing bad luck or infertility, but for the fee they receive, they can bless goodwill and fortune on to the newly born. Hijras are said to be able to do this because, since they do not engage in sexual activities, they accumulate their sexual energy which they can use to either bestow a boon or a bane.
Many modern hijras, faced with health concerns and discrimination, have become politically active. For example, the All-India Eunuchs’ Welfare Association was formed in 1993-94, as well as HIV/AIDS awareness groups to combat health problems within their communities. One such group is the Dai Welfare Society, a mutual aid society formed in 1999 in Mumbai by and for hijras. The group estimate that half of hijras living in Mumbai have HIV.[9] Another group is the Hijra Kalyan Sabha.
Other hijras have been elected to high political positions; Shabnam Mausi became India's first hijra MLA in 1999 (as an independent), only 5 years since hijras have been able to vote.[10] Another hijra, Kamla Jaan, was elected as mayor of Katni, while another, Meenabai, became the president of the Sehora town municipality, the oldest civic body in the state of Madhya Pradesh.[11] In 2005, 24-year-old hijra Sonia Ajmeri ran for state assembly on an independent ticket to represent the estimated 40,000 eunuchs in Gujarat. The wave of hijras entering politics has not been without controversy. In November 2000, Asha Devi was elected mayor of Gorakhpur, a post reserved for a woman. The city had a population of approximately 500,000 as of 1991. She was unseated when a court decreed that she was a man,[12] but was later reinstated.
In Bangladesh, some NGOs have already started their welfare works for hijra & other sexual minorities. Bangladesh Association for Gays(BAG) or Gay-Bangla is the first Internet based organization which supports hijra, kothi, panthi & other sexual minorities. Recently Queer-Bangla has started to support hijra community. In Khulna city, hijra community has started some social works like HIV/AIDS awareness.
Commonly Hijra-rights groups also support gay rights issues in the Indian subcontinent, but this is a newly-emerging situation.
The ancient Kama Sutra mentions the performance of fellatio by masculine and feminine people of a third sex (tritiya prakriti).[13] This passage has been variously interpreted as referring to men who desired other men, so-called eunuchs ("those disguised as males, and those that are disguised as females"[14]), male and female transvestites ("the male takes on the appearance of a female and the female takes on the appearance of the male"),[15] or two kinds of biological males, one dressed as a woman, the other as a man.[16]
During the era of the British raj, authorities attempted to eradicate hijras, whom they saw as "a breach of public decency".[17] Anti-hijra laws were repealed; but a law outlawing castration, a central part of the hijra community, was left intact, though rarely enforced.
In Hindu contexts, hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, and/or Shiva.
In Tamil Nadu each year in April/May, hijras — or aravanis, as they are called there — celebrate an 18-day religious festival. The aravani temple is located in the village Koovagam in the Ulundurpet taluk in Villupuram district, and is devoted to the deity Koothandavar. During the festival, the aravanis reenact a story of the religious epic Mahabharata: the mythical wedding of Lord Krishna (who had assumed the form of a woman) and Lord Aravaan, son of Arjuna, followed by Aravaan's subsequent sacrifice. They then mourn Aravaan's death through ritualistic dances and by breaking their bangles. An annual beauty pageant is also held, as well as various health and HIV/AIDS seminars. Hijras from all over the country travel to this festival. A personal experience of the hijras in this festival is shown in the documentary India's Ladyboys, by BBC Three.
It is also believed in India that the hijras rush to celebrate the birth not only for their financial benefit only but also to check whether the new born child is intersexed. If it is intersexed, which is extremely rare, then they would go to any length to recruit him/her in their group.
sexta-feira, 13 de novembro de 2009
Indian eunuchs given separate IDs
Eunuchs are feared and reviled in equal measure
India's Election Commission has given eunuchs an independent identity by letting them choose their gender as "other" on ballot forms.
The commission said it had received representation from various individuals and interest groups on the subject.
So far, eunuchs were forced to put down their gender as either male or female.
There are about 500,000 eunuchs in India. Known as hijras, they comprise the hermaphrodite, transvestite and transsexual communities.
Eunuchs are feared and reviled in many parts of India, where some believe they have supernatural powers.
The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi says the election commission's recognition of eunuchs as an independent group is a first step towards an official recognition of the community which has so far remained on the margins of society.
'Readily agreed'
"The commission has duly considered the request and has decided to allow eunuchs and transsexuals to indicate their sex as 'Other' where they do not want to be described as male or female," the Election Commission said in a press release.
"Necessary instructions have been issued to all electoral registration officers through the chief electoral officers of all states and union territories (areas directly administered by the central government in Delhi) to give effect to the above decision of the commission."
The commission said it had received several representations from individuals and groups to include eunuchs in the electoral rolls with a separate identity.
"When the representations came, we readily agreed," Times of India newspaper quoted Election Commissioner SY Qureishi as saying.
"Why should a section of the population be left out? The decision will help in mainstreaming a section of the population," he said.
Most eunuchs earn a living by collecting cash gifts from people during marriages and child births.
But in recent times, with the decline in their traditional roles, many have been forced to work as commercial sex workers.
However some have contested elections and entered the public arena.
But correspondents say these success stories are rare.
quinta-feira, 30 de julho de 2009
A question of identity
by Urvashi Butalia
The noted thinker J Krishnamurthy once asked: ‘Why do you identify yourself with another, with a group, and a country? Why do you call yourself a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or why do you belong to one of the innumerable sects?’ He went on to answer his own question: ‘Religiously and politically one identifies oneself with this or that group, through tradition or habit, through impulse, prejudice, imitation or laziness.’
Continuing his critique of the trap of identity, Krishnamurthy went on to say that once one aligns oneself thus, such identification puts an end to all creative understanding, and then one becomes a mere tool in the hands of political or religious leaders. Although one might argue with Krishnamurthy’s concern that adopting an identity and feeling part of a collectivity on whatever basis inevitably leads to exploitation by those in power, there’s little doubt that he is right about the ways in which identities constrain people.
Nonetheless, we can’t escape the fact that identities can also be personally, politically and socially important — as ways to mobilise around a particular issue or articulate a sense of oppression, or to escape the silence of isolation, or indeed to claim a place in society. And they don’t always have to be focused around religion — instead many things provide the basis of solidarities around identity: Gender, caste, sexuality, to name only three. And even here, things are not that simple. Let me explain.
I have, for many years now, been working with a eunuch, Mona Ahmed. For Mona, her identity as a eunuch is both a trap and an escape. When asked, she will say she is neither male nor female but she is the third gender. She is not heterosexual but she is not homosexual either — although for some years in her youth she did have a longish homosexual relationship.
Until the age of 18 she was a man — although she felt that her real self was female. Then she had herself castrated — as she said, ‘happily losing all the trappings of maleness’. Some time after that, she went one step further and had a sex change operation so that today she has a female body. Often, in the company of men, Mona assumes a male identity, and becomes Ahmed Bhai, and then, with women, she becomes female and becomes Baji, or Mona, or simply Behan. This shift in identity is sometimes only made through the name, and at other times, it’s done via clothes — a mardana salvar kameez or a zenana one.
During the many years that I have known Mona, I have met many young men in her home and it has taken me a while to understand that several of them are in the process of transiting from one identity (male) to another, possibly female, or perhaps to one of the many in-between identities (kothis, hijras, transvestites, msms and so on) that lie along the trajectory from one to the other.
More, everyone is not looking for just one, fixed identity: For some the occasional foray into another identity is what sustains them, and allows them to live what is called a ‘normal’ life, as well as explore alternative sexualities. At an organisation working on HIV/AIDs I met an engineer. Married, and with two children, this young man came to the NGO every Sunday afternoon for a few hours during which he shed his male identity, donned a sari and blouse, and ‘became’ the woman who lived inside him all week.
So what is identity really? Is it a trap? An escape? Is it enabling and empowering or the opposite? There’s no easy answer to this question. What we can say with some certainty is that identities are never only ‘natural’ and never only assumed, and that they are always shifting, sometimes expedient, and usually overlaid with many different layers. So, an identity that takes alternative sexuality as its base may be overlaid with a religious identity, or a class identity, or a caste identity.
Further, I think it’s not wrong to say that in some ways all identities are fearful of their ‘others’ for these latter raise difficult, uncomfortable questions. ‘Straight’ people often find gay and lesbian people difficult to understand and dismiss them as somehow being ‘unnatural’ — and if you ask them who prescribed heterosexuality as ‘natural’ they have no answer. And people of alternative sexualities often find their ‘others’ difficult to deal with.
Some years ago at a large international health meet in Delhi, a lesbian friend and I were watching a group of transvestites perform on stage. Their open, explicit sexual gestures and moves were somewhat difficult for a largely Indian and female audience to take, but my friend had another objection to them.
Here’s what she said: ‘It really annoys me to watch this kind of thing. Not for the overt sexuality of it, I don’t have a problem with that. My problem is that we queer women have fought so hard for this kind of public space to make ourselves heard, and here come these people who just usurp it. And it’s not even that I mind so much but the fact is that they are men and they have no solidarity with, or political commitment to women.’
I wasn’t sure what to say to her then, and I’m not sure what to say even now. I think we have to acknowledge that identities are important, and when assumed politically (whether on the basis of sex or religion or whatever) they enable us to make our voices heard, but I think we also have to recognise that they are not an end in themselves.
Mobilising on the basis of identity — as women, queer people, dalits — enables us to have a voice, to make demands, to make ourselves seen and heard, but we have to recognise that somewhere built into that articulation is a future when such articulation will not be necessary, when society will understand the need for and importance of multiple and shifting identities.
(The writer is an author and director of Zubaan publishers, New Delhi)
The noted thinker J Krishnamurthy once asked: ‘Why do you identify yourself with another, with a group, and a country? Why do you call yourself a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or why do you belong to one of the innumerable sects?’ He went on to answer his own question: ‘Religiously and politically one identifies oneself with this or that group, through tradition or habit, through impulse, prejudice, imitation or laziness.’
Continuing his critique of the trap of identity, Krishnamurthy went on to say that once one aligns oneself thus, such identification puts an end to all creative understanding, and then one becomes a mere tool in the hands of political or religious leaders. Although one might argue with Krishnamurthy’s concern that adopting an identity and feeling part of a collectivity on whatever basis inevitably leads to exploitation by those in power, there’s little doubt that he is right about the ways in which identities constrain people.
Nonetheless, we can’t escape the fact that identities can also be personally, politically and socially important — as ways to mobilise around a particular issue or articulate a sense of oppression, or to escape the silence of isolation, or indeed to claim a place in society. And they don’t always have to be focused around religion — instead many things provide the basis of solidarities around identity: Gender, caste, sexuality, to name only three. And even here, things are not that simple. Let me explain.
I have, for many years now, been working with a eunuch, Mona Ahmed. For Mona, her identity as a eunuch is both a trap and an escape. When asked, she will say she is neither male nor female but she is the third gender. She is not heterosexual but she is not homosexual either — although for some years in her youth she did have a longish homosexual relationship.
Until the age of 18 she was a man — although she felt that her real self was female. Then she had herself castrated — as she said, ‘happily losing all the trappings of maleness’. Some time after that, she went one step further and had a sex change operation so that today she has a female body. Often, in the company of men, Mona assumes a male identity, and becomes Ahmed Bhai, and then, with women, she becomes female and becomes Baji, or Mona, or simply Behan. This shift in identity is sometimes only made through the name, and at other times, it’s done via clothes — a mardana salvar kameez or a zenana one.
During the many years that I have known Mona, I have met many young men in her home and it has taken me a while to understand that several of them are in the process of transiting from one identity (male) to another, possibly female, or perhaps to one of the many in-between identities (kothis, hijras, transvestites, msms and so on) that lie along the trajectory from one to the other.
More, everyone is not looking for just one, fixed identity: For some the occasional foray into another identity is what sustains them, and allows them to live what is called a ‘normal’ life, as well as explore alternative sexualities. At an organisation working on HIV/AIDs I met an engineer. Married, and with two children, this young man came to the NGO every Sunday afternoon for a few hours during which he shed his male identity, donned a sari and blouse, and ‘became’ the woman who lived inside him all week.
So what is identity really? Is it a trap? An escape? Is it enabling and empowering or the opposite? There’s no easy answer to this question. What we can say with some certainty is that identities are never only ‘natural’ and never only assumed, and that they are always shifting, sometimes expedient, and usually overlaid with many different layers. So, an identity that takes alternative sexuality as its base may be overlaid with a religious identity, or a class identity, or a caste identity.
Further, I think it’s not wrong to say that in some ways all identities are fearful of their ‘others’ for these latter raise difficult, uncomfortable questions. ‘Straight’ people often find gay and lesbian people difficult to understand and dismiss them as somehow being ‘unnatural’ — and if you ask them who prescribed heterosexuality as ‘natural’ they have no answer. And people of alternative sexualities often find their ‘others’ difficult to deal with.
Some years ago at a large international health meet in Delhi, a lesbian friend and I were watching a group of transvestites perform on stage. Their open, explicit sexual gestures and moves were somewhat difficult for a largely Indian and female audience to take, but my friend had another objection to them.
Here’s what she said: ‘It really annoys me to watch this kind of thing. Not for the overt sexuality of it, I don’t have a problem with that. My problem is that we queer women have fought so hard for this kind of public space to make ourselves heard, and here come these people who just usurp it. And it’s not even that I mind so much but the fact is that they are men and they have no solidarity with, or political commitment to women.’
I wasn’t sure what to say to her then, and I’m not sure what to say even now. I think we have to acknowledge that identities are important, and when assumed politically (whether on the basis of sex or religion or whatever) they enable us to make our voices heard, but I think we also have to recognise that they are not an end in themselves.
Mobilising on the basis of identity — as women, queer people, dalits — enables us to have a voice, to make demands, to make ourselves seen and heard, but we have to recognise that somewhere built into that articulation is a future when such articulation will not be necessary, when society will understand the need for and importance of multiple and shifting identities.
(The writer is an author and director of Zubaan publishers, New Delhi)
A tragically complicated love story
By: Chetan R 2009-07-10 Bangalore
Swathi and Sneha were men who became women in the hope of finding male lovers. They've now found each other and want to marry
Two Bangalore men, convinced they were women, spent a fortune on sex change surgery. But neither found a husband.
They now want to marry, and be Bangalore's first same-sex couple to be legally united. The recent court verdict legalised homosexuality, but it still doesn't allow same-sex marriage.
Swathi (23) and Snehaprabha (25) didn't know each other when they were men. "I had always wanted to fall in love with a man," said Swathi, a man till three years ago. "But would that happen in our society?"
After becoming a transsexual (one who has undergone a sex change), she fell in love with Sneha.
Sneha, a man five years ago, had been similarly searching for a partner.
"As we both sailed in the same boat, we started falling in love," said Swathi.
That now makes them a lesbian (transsexual) couple.
College change
Swathi, who once dreamt of becoming a doctor, was a male till class 12.
At 18, he decided to become a woman and spent over Rs 2 lakh on sex reassignment surgery. Similarly, Sneha underwent the operation five years ago.
'We live a painful life'
You may now kiss the bride: Swathi and Sneha
"We had to face a lot of humiliation when we changed our sex – even our families rejected us," recalled Swathi. "But we kept it secret till recently."
Love happened three years ago while they worked as community mobilisers with an NGO called Samara.
Hard life
Each of them earns Rs 4,000 a month from Samara.
They also earn a bit from prostitution.
Besides economic stability, they are also struggling on the personal front since they can't marry legally.
"We live a painful life," said Swathi. "We don't earn enough as we aren't treated like other women."
Swathi and Sneha don't get good job offers. "That's why we have no choice but to be in the sex trade. If we were treated like normal women, we wouldn't be in that profession," Swathi explained.
Activists fighting for the sexual minorities are coming forward to help the couple.
"They deserve equal rights," said Akkaipad-mashali, an activist. "Though the Delhi High Court decision is welcome, we have a long way to go."
He said he would take up their case as "there are hundreds of Swathis and Snehas fighting for their rights to marry and adopt children."
The agony of bending gender
Transsexuals go through tremendous psychological pressure both before and after their sex change, say doctors.
"They are under pressure as they feel trapped in a body they don't want," said Dr Padmini Prasad, a leading Bangalore sexologist. "Hence, there are procedures to be followed before they undergo surgery. Psychiatric assessment is one of them."
They are also tested for the new gender role. "In a few cases like this, they are in conflict both before and after the change," said Padmini.
Swathi and Sneha were men who became women in the hope of finding male lovers. They've now found each other and want to marry
Two Bangalore men, convinced they were women, spent a fortune on sex change surgery. But neither found a husband.
They now want to marry, and be Bangalore's first same-sex couple to be legally united. The recent court verdict legalised homosexuality, but it still doesn't allow same-sex marriage.
Swathi (23) and Snehaprabha (25) didn't know each other when they were men. "I had always wanted to fall in love with a man," said Swathi, a man till three years ago. "But would that happen in our society?"
After becoming a transsexual (one who has undergone a sex change), she fell in love with Sneha.
Sneha, a man five years ago, had been similarly searching for a partner.
"As we both sailed in the same boat, we started falling in love," said Swathi.
That now makes them a lesbian (transsexual) couple.
College change
Swathi, who once dreamt of becoming a doctor, was a male till class 12.
At 18, he decided to become a woman and spent over Rs 2 lakh on sex reassignment surgery. Similarly, Sneha underwent the operation five years ago.
'We live a painful life'
You may now kiss the bride: Swathi and Sneha
"We had to face a lot of humiliation when we changed our sex – even our families rejected us," recalled Swathi. "But we kept it secret till recently."
Love happened three years ago while they worked as community mobilisers with an NGO called Samara.
Hard life
Each of them earns Rs 4,000 a month from Samara.
They also earn a bit from prostitution.
Besides economic stability, they are also struggling on the personal front since they can't marry legally.
"We live a painful life," said Swathi. "We don't earn enough as we aren't treated like other women."
Swathi and Sneha don't get good job offers. "That's why we have no choice but to be in the sex trade. If we were treated like normal women, we wouldn't be in that profession," Swathi explained.
Activists fighting for the sexual minorities are coming forward to help the couple.
"They deserve equal rights," said Akkaipad-mashali, an activist. "Though the Delhi High Court decision is welcome, we have a long way to go."
He said he would take up their case as "there are hundreds of Swathis and Snehas fighting for their rights to marry and adopt children."
The agony of bending gender
Transsexuals go through tremendous psychological pressure both before and after their sex change, say doctors.
"They are under pressure as they feel trapped in a body they don't want," said Dr Padmini Prasad, a leading Bangalore sexologist. "Hence, there are procedures to be followed before they undergo surgery. Psychiatric assessment is one of them."
They are also tested for the new gender role. "In a few cases like this, they are in conflict both before and after the change," said Padmini.
domingo, 5 de julho de 2009
India y Tailandia reconocen por ley un tercer sexo
04-07-2009
India y Tailandia reconocen por ley un tercer sexo
Tailandia – (EFE)
En 2005, el gobierno de Tailandia adhirió un tercer sexo a los pasaportes de sus ciudadanos: E, de Eunuco; En la India, hay una tradición milenaria por los Hidrja, que son hombres vestidos de mujer
Gays, lesbianas, bisexuales y transexuales celebran hoy el día del orgullo gay, desconocedores en muchos casos de que en otras partes del mundo como en la India o Tailandia existe un tercer sexo, reconocido socialmente e incluso a veces por la ley.
El tercer sexo incluye a personas que no se consideran ni hombres ni mujeres, sino pertenecientes a un sexo intermedio.
"La homosexualidad es un paraguas muy grande bajo el cual se encuentran no uno, ni dos, sino tres sexos distintos" , explicó a Vijai R. Nair, vicepresidente de la organización india Udaan Trust que defiende los derechos del tercer sexo en Bombay.
En marzo de 2005 el tercer sexo fue añadido como categoría sexual en el registro de pasaportes de la India, al añadirse la categoría E, de Eunuco junto con la F (femenino) y M (masculino) .
En la india los 'hijra' (palabra en urdu que significa hermafrodita) son hombres vestidos de mujer que se relacionan con otros hombres o con otros hijras. La tradición hijra tiene miles de años de antigüedad y está presente en los escritos sagrados de la religión hinduista.
Otro representante de Udaan Trust, Akshey Kumar, indicó que son una minoría social muy fácilmente identificable: "tienen un dialecto y costumbres propias en la que todos sus miembros son musulmanes, a pesar de que muchos se dedican a la prostitución o a la brujería para subsistir. Muchos de ellos están castrados: los eunucos" .
Según anunciaba el jueves el Tribunal Superior de Nueva Delhi (TSD) la homosexualidad ya no está criminalizada en la India, un paso adelante para la integración del tercer sexo, más aceptado en países budistas como Tailandia.
Los Kathoey en Tailandia son biológicamente hombres, pero se consideran a sí mismos mujeres atrapadas en un cuerpo que no es el suyo.
La religión budista, basada en la tolerancia, hace posible que los Kathoey sean respetados en la sociedad tailandesa como un sexo a parte. Su transformación comienza en la niñez, antes de convertirse en adolescentes.
En Occidente, el concepto 'tercer sexo' está atribuido a la transexualidad, a un cambio de un genero a otro (de masculino a femenino o viceversa) .
"En sociedades más 'modernizadas' se impone una bipolaridad sexual que no existe. Pensamos que estamos más avanzados pero estamos demasiado condicionados al concebir el género como algo meramente biológico y no como algo social" , afirmó Beatriz Espejo, fundadora del colectivo de transexuales de Cataluña.
Esta metamorfosis sexual intermedia que desafía las leyes del xx y el xy está latente en muchos otros lugares. En algunas regiones del sur de México existen los muxe (término proveniente de la palabra española mujer) , personas nacidas con un sexo masculino que adquieren un aspecto de mujer y suelen emparejarse con otros hombres y formar familias.
"Al no tener una sexualidad definida, aquellos considerados como tercer sexo asumen el papel de madre, padre, esposa o esposo independientemente de su sexo biológico, a menudo alternando roles" , precisa Vijay R. Nair
Muchos recurren a operaciones de cirugía estética, pero no con el deseo de cambiar de sexo a uno masculino o femenino, sino con la intención de manifestar físicamente una identidad definida por un sexo diferente.
El concepto del tercer sexo también aparece en la historia de la antigua Grecia a través del mito de Hermafrodito (hijo de Afrodita y Hermes) en el cual Salmacis, el espíritu de un lago, obsesionada con la belleza de Hermafrofito se abrazó a él y pidió a los dioses que los fusionaran a ambos, creando así un individuo de doble sexo.
En las poblaciones de indios americanos de Estados Unidos, los berdache, o dos espíritus, afirman poseer el espíritu masculino y el femenino simultáneamente.
En las culturas samoana, filipina y polinesia algunas familias educan a sus hijos para convertirlos en miembros del tercer sexo desde que son niños.
Así se demuestra que hay personas con poderes camaleónicos capaces de metamorfosearse y crear un sexo nuevo, libres de los estereotipos que definen muchas de las sociedades actuales.
Peter, un af'afafine -el tercer sexo samoano-, explica en un testamento que publica la Associación Affafine de Samoana (Samoa Faafafine Association) que su vida se asemeja a la de una mariposa: "empecé mi vida como una versión afeminada de un niño enfermo sólo para más tarde transformarme en un precioso af'fafine" .
Fonte: Sentido G
domingo, 24 de maio de 2009
Accept history and move on
Fonte/ Source: www.expressbuss.com
by Vaibhav Saria First Published : 16 May 2009 01:44:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2009
One has always bristled when the media captures the stories of Hijras contesting for seats during the elections in the most sensationalist, offensive and unhelpful manner. They call them the “odd man in the race” and seem stunned by the fact that the hijras would have any interest in politics. It makes me wonder what notions of being a hijra are being assumed by the media that leads them to think of them and politics as two domains that are exclusive. Hijras do not reside in caves locked away from the world — it would be hard for the police to harass them there — they too drink water, use buses, and mediate the high prices of food in the face of poverty. There is a history of hijras participating in the politics and I am not talking about yesteryears where they held important positions in the small principalities in the pre-colonial times — I am talking of much more recent times.
The All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha fought for over a decade to get voting rights, which they finally got in 1994. In 1996 Kali stood for elections in Patna under the then Judicial Reform Party and gave the Janata Dal and the BJP a bit of a fight. Munni ran for the elections as well from South Bombay that year. They both lost, but that is not the point; the point is that 13 years of Hijras participating in the political rigmarole should be enough for everybody to get used to the idea and to take the proposal seriously instead of dismissing it under offensive headlines.
After the defeat of Kali and Munni, three years later we saw Kamla Jaan run and win the position of the mayor of Katni in MP. Then there was Shabnam Mausi, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2002 as well. In the huge political machinery, Heera won a seat at the city council of Jabalpur, Meera won a similar position in Sehora, and so did Gulshan in Bina. In December 2000, Asha Devi became the mayor of Gorakhpur, and Kallu Kinnar was elected to the city council in Varanasi. I am sure there are many more low level, inconspicuous bureaucratic positions that were held by the hijras but did not whip up any excitement for the media — not to mention the cases where they were probably threatened, bullied and killed to prevent them from running for seats. This brings us to the current elections, which has Mangesh Bharat Khandye running for the Thane Lok Sabha seat.
When the media does report hijras running for seats during elections, their tone of
surprise undermines this entire 15 years of history of the hijras taking part in the political process; always voraciously and often successfully. The point they seem to miss out is that some of these hijras — Kamla Jaan, Asha Devi, Shabnam Mausi won elections, they were elected to their seats — why would this happen if they had nothing substantial to say, nothing substantial to do. And what’s more Kamla Jaan even got jubilant reviews for her work as the mayor of Katni — she had fixed bus stations, sunk tube wells, and fixed
drainage pipes.
My point is that one needs to see how worries regarding safe water, proper drainage and bus stations form the entirety of everyday concerns for a large part of the country — even when we speak of blindingly shining India. Hijras by their marginal position in society (poor, harassed, ill treated, facing the hatred in all “respectable” eyes) can see what is going wrong with the country — wrongs that rarely make the headlines if it does not affect the middle class. Asha Devi and Kamla Jaan were removed from their position two years ago because they had contested elections as women as the seats were reserved for women and the law did not think they were women. The intelligent thing would have been to legislate and reserve the seat for non-males and give more people an equal chance as this country preaches but rarely practices.
I am sure everybody knows this myth from the Ramayana. Rama was followed by men, women and hijras to the forest where he was exiled. When he came to the river that separated the kingdom and the forest he had asked all the men and the women to return and they did so. The hijras remained and they waited for 14 years and Rama, then blessed them by making them the rulers during kalyug. I have no reason to believe that this is not kalyug. There are dogs that bark in sequestered hate about chopping the hands of the Muslim citizens of the country and in contrast, what the hijra politicians are offering seem much more appealing.
— Vaibhav Saria is a doctoral student
at Johns Hopkins University researching
HIV and AIDS in India. He can be contacted
at vaibhavsaria@jhu.edu.
by Vaibhav Saria First Published : 16 May 2009 01:44:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2009
One has always bristled when the media captures the stories of Hijras contesting for seats during the elections in the most sensationalist, offensive and unhelpful manner. They call them the “odd man in the race” and seem stunned by the fact that the hijras would have any interest in politics. It makes me wonder what notions of being a hijra are being assumed by the media that leads them to think of them and politics as two domains that are exclusive. Hijras do not reside in caves locked away from the world — it would be hard for the police to harass them there — they too drink water, use buses, and mediate the high prices of food in the face of poverty. There is a history of hijras participating in the politics and I am not talking about yesteryears where they held important positions in the small principalities in the pre-colonial times — I am talking of much more recent times.
The All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha fought for over a decade to get voting rights, which they finally got in 1994. In 1996 Kali stood for elections in Patna under the then Judicial Reform Party and gave the Janata Dal and the BJP a bit of a fight. Munni ran for the elections as well from South Bombay that year. They both lost, but that is not the point; the point is that 13 years of Hijras participating in the political rigmarole should be enough for everybody to get used to the idea and to take the proposal seriously instead of dismissing it under offensive headlines.
After the defeat of Kali and Munni, three years later we saw Kamla Jaan run and win the position of the mayor of Katni in MP. Then there was Shabnam Mausi, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2002 as well. In the huge political machinery, Heera won a seat at the city council of Jabalpur, Meera won a similar position in Sehora, and so did Gulshan in Bina. In December 2000, Asha Devi became the mayor of Gorakhpur, and Kallu Kinnar was elected to the city council in Varanasi. I am sure there are many more low level, inconspicuous bureaucratic positions that were held by the hijras but did not whip up any excitement for the media — not to mention the cases where they were probably threatened, bullied and killed to prevent them from running for seats. This brings us to the current elections, which has Mangesh Bharat Khandye running for the Thane Lok Sabha seat.
When the media does report hijras running for seats during elections, their tone of
surprise undermines this entire 15 years of history of the hijras taking part in the political process; always voraciously and often successfully. The point they seem to miss out is that some of these hijras — Kamla Jaan, Asha Devi, Shabnam Mausi won elections, they were elected to their seats — why would this happen if they had nothing substantial to say, nothing substantial to do. And what’s more Kamla Jaan even got jubilant reviews for her work as the mayor of Katni — she had fixed bus stations, sunk tube wells, and fixed
drainage pipes.
My point is that one needs to see how worries regarding safe water, proper drainage and bus stations form the entirety of everyday concerns for a large part of the country — even when we speak of blindingly shining India. Hijras by their marginal position in society (poor, harassed, ill treated, facing the hatred in all “respectable” eyes) can see what is going wrong with the country — wrongs that rarely make the headlines if it does not affect the middle class. Asha Devi and Kamla Jaan were removed from their position two years ago because they had contested elections as women as the seats were reserved for women and the law did not think they were women. The intelligent thing would have been to legislate and reserve the seat for non-males and give more people an equal chance as this country preaches but rarely practices.
I am sure everybody knows this myth from the Ramayana. Rama was followed by men, women and hijras to the forest where he was exiled. When he came to the river that separated the kingdom and the forest he had asked all the men and the women to return and they did so. The hijras remained and they waited for 14 years and Rama, then blessed them by making them the rulers during kalyug. I have no reason to believe that this is not kalyug. There are dogs that bark in sequestered hate about chopping the hands of the Muslim citizens of the country and in contrast, what the hijra politicians are offering seem much more appealing.
— Vaibhav Saria is a doctoral student
at Johns Hopkins University researching
HIV and AIDS in India. He can be contacted
at vaibhavsaria@jhu.edu.
sexta-feira, 6 de março de 2009
Homens se travestem em ritual para deusa na Índia; assista
25 de março, 2008 - 17h05 GMT (14h05 Brasília)
Homens se travestem em ritual para deusa na Índia; assista
Centenas de homens travestidos de mulher participam de um ritual religioso único em Kerala, na Índia. O objetivo da curiosa cerimônia é realizar os desejos dos devotos.
Eles visitam o templo da deusa Kottankulangara em procissão, com velas acesas e vestindo roupas femininas que incluem saris e um tradicional robe local chamado settu mundu.
Carregar uma lanterna com cinco velas montadas sobre um pedaço de madeira também faz parte da tradição. Elas são usadas para acender as outras velas do templo.
Assista à reportagem
A tradição de se vestir de mulher teria começado com um grupo de pastores que costumava imitar meninas tímidas e oferecer flores e cocos para a entidade. Um dos rapazes teria tido uma visão da deusa e, então, construído um templo aberto.
Fonte: BBC Brasil
Homens se travestem em ritual para deusa na Índia; assista
Centenas de homens travestidos de mulher participam de um ritual religioso único em Kerala, na Índia. O objetivo da curiosa cerimônia é realizar os desejos dos devotos.
Eles visitam o templo da deusa Kottankulangara em procissão, com velas acesas e vestindo roupas femininas que incluem saris e um tradicional robe local chamado settu mundu.
Carregar uma lanterna com cinco velas montadas sobre um pedaço de madeira também faz parte da tradição. Elas são usadas para acender as outras velas do templo.
Assista à reportagem
A tradição de se vestir de mulher teria começado com um grupo de pastores que costumava imitar meninas tímidas e oferecer flores e cocos para a entidade. Um dos rapazes teria tido uma visão da deusa e, então, construído um templo aberto.
Fonte: BBC Brasil
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