Understanding transgender people has been one of the most sensitive and complicated topics in my life since I was a child. My first impressions of transgender people were negative. They were called Hijra, Chakka, Ali, 50-50 and a variety of other names. I used to feel strange when I saw them begging on the streets, causing problems for my friends on long train journeys, and making strange physical gestures. The negativity has only grown as a result of the way they are portrayed in Indian films. I used to feel a variety of emotions about them, including confusion, fear, and sadness. However, I was unable to comprehend what makes them the way they are.
Understanding Transgender People
When I read the book ‘I Am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey’ written by a transgender person Ms. Vidya, my perspectives were shaken. Throughout the book, she describes a slew of difficulties she faced as she transitioned from male Saravanan to female Vidya. During the same time my work took me to the United States on business. To my surprise, I discovered that one of my colleagues, a well-respected technical expert, was a transgender person. It was inspiring to see a transgender person become an engineer and be accepted by society. I was still perplexed as to why they ended up begging on the streets or becoming prostitutes only in India.
Meanwhile, one of my buddy and school friend finished his MBBS. He, too, has developed a strong aptitude for reading since we graduated from high school. When we used to meet during our breaks, we used to discuss a broad variety of topics. When the topic of transgender came up in one of our conversations, I began bombarding him with questions. As a doctor, he understood the difficulty I was experiencing in understanding transgender people. He began by discussing how a transgender person experiences a disconnect between their mental and physical gender identity. For example, a male body with a female mind or vice versa.
I kept asking him questions, and he patiently answered them. To help me understand better, he asked me a simple question: “How do you feel when you’re wearing a very tight dress that you were forced to wear but don’t like at all?” I responded, “Of course I will feel very uncomfortable, and I want to change it as soon as possible.” Furthermore, he clarified that it is exactly how a transgender person feels about their gender identity. He also stated that there are numerous causes for this phenomenon, varying from physiology to hormonal aspects. There is no logical conclusion to provide reasons for why a specific individual feels that way.
While many people face the transgender challenge around the world, the situation becomes especially complicated in countries such as India. Transgender people, and even the LGBTQ as a whole, do not receive the societal acceptance they deserve. After overcoming numerous obstacles, transgender people are forced to choose between begging and prostitution in order to make a living. Apart from these two, there is little they can do because the entire system is against them, including family, friends, the education system, the legal system, and the broader professional ecosystem. When it comes to transgender people in India, there seem to be three major issues, in my opinion.
Issue 1: Declaration
The first challenge is when a person (male or female) declares themselves to be transgender. Given Indian societal structures, parents cannot see their child (let us use a son as an example, throughout this post) coming out as transgender. Even educated people are unaware of gender identity issues. The majority of them simply cannot comprehend why their son is behaving in this manner. There are a lot of expectations on him and do well in school and in their career. Immediate family members have no idea what internal struggle or challenge their son is going through between mind and body in terms of gender identity. Most of them end up concealing this. The popular escape route is to get him forced to marry in the hope that everything will settle down. This, in fact, exacerbates the problem, resulting in a slew of other issues after the marriage. In most cases, the son abandons the family because they can’t take the mind-body battle any longer and want to be free as soon as possible.
Issue 2: Gender Transition Process
The problem does not end here. Assuming the son is able to come out as transgender, the second major challenge is the gender transition process. To facilitate the gender transition, a well-structured medical and legal process should be in place. It is completely absent in India. In the majority of cases, the transgender person seeks assistance from other members of the transgender community. To get rid of their gender identity, they seek the help of self-appointed doctors to remove male genitals. Many of them lose their lives or are permanently infected as a result of the surgical process not being performed by a qualified doctor.
In order to complete the transition, hormones must be administered in addition to physical surgery. Because of the gender duality battle, they are subjected to a great deal of mental trauma during this time. Mental health professionals must provide the necessary counselling in order to ease these difficult times. In India, the entire medical ecosystem is absent. They are compelled to take poorly organized routes, which leaves them in a pitiful state because they do not complete the transition process well.
Issue 3: Social Acceptance
After going through the painful and incomplete gender transition process with self-appointed doctors, some relief sets in as they are able to shed their male identity. The next obstacle is societal acceptance. They have almost no acceptance in society, even when it comes to finding housing in the form of renting houses. Because education and employment opportunities are limited, they end up living as a group along with similar transgender persons. There are only two options for employment: begging or prostitution. Because they believe gender liberation is far more important than these challenges, they end up in a downtrodden and challenging life.
However, there are some good developments in recent years. The Supreme Court of India issued a landmark decision in 2018 by accepting LGBTQ people and providing them with legal rights. Some small pockets of good news are emerging in the form of transgender people becoming political leaders, television anchors, police officers, journalists, and so on. In comparison to Western countries, we have a long way to go in terms of accepting and integrating them into the mainstream. Regardless of the reasons, they should be granted basic human rights and be treated with dignity.
Conclusion
The way transgender people are treated in our society exemplifies the need for more societal changes. Parents should be made aware of the importance of transgender understanding, and the freedom to come out as transgender should be encouraged. By assisting with gender transformation, the medical and legal ecosystems must be transformed significantly. In a country with such a diverse and complex society as India, I know it will take a long time to achieve. We’ve only just begun.
The goal of this post is to share what I’ve learned with a larger network. If you’ve made it this far, my humble and sincere request is that you treat them with dignity and respect whenever you come across them in any form. Empathy is a simple but important step toward a better future for transgender people.
A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step.
