Months later, I remembered a friend who got a teddy bear and said that he will gift it to the person he loves. People around him curiously asked him whether his lover was a ‘‘he’ or a ‘she’?’ This question seemed to have put the person on a spot, made him a bit uncomfortable. The person tried his best to refer to their partner using gender-neutral pronouns. This was the beginning of my understanding of the role pronouns played in providing an inclusive space for everyone to express their true self and whom they love.

In 2021, at my workplace in Bhopal, I met a person called Gadha who had come from Kerala. We quickly got along as friends. We would hang out and talk about our professional and personal aspirations, families, food habits, literature, cinema, amongst other interests. When you move to a new city, finding such friends could provide an anchor to help you sail through the ups and downs of a new environment. In the company of someone you trust, you can share your innermost experiences, morals, joys, aspirations, failures, and fears..

In one of our meetups, I found Gadha anxious and upset. As a friend, I tried to talk and help. Gadha shared that the primary cause of her worry was the fact that they were frequently misgendered by those around them! Gadha is a non-binary person and prefers the pronoun they/them though everyone would refer to them as ‘she/her.’

Though aware of various gender identities, I still took it casually until this incident. This incident deepened my realization of the emotional harm that misgendering can do. This realization was different from what one would have by reading about this subject. This was different because it prompted me not just to agree with what is being said, but to see a friend’s distress first hand and to change my own ways of addressing individuals like Gadha.

For others who are non-trans/cisgender, this brings great privilege. Being called ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ correctly all the time is something one may take for granted, and fail to appreciate the feelings of someone who does not have this privilege. Imagine yourself in the place of someone who lives in a world where they are constantly misgendered. How difficult it must be to put up with it? Being mindful of someone’s gender is the very least we can do. It does not take much effort, but surely requires a will, and an intent, of avoiding hurt to fellow humans. Gadha themself says that avoiding to misgender is not really different from avoiding to crush someone’s feet.

Relationships we share with our friends, colleagues and peers is a powerful tool to learn the human experience. Because of my friend, I now keep envisioning and working towards a world where people like them (my friend) are never misgendered. Gender sensitivity should also be extended to someone’s partner, in that we do not assume the partner’s gender, or insist on knowing it. Using gender-neutral language and asserting one’s pronouns out there, is a small step in this direction that will eventually contribute towards a culture of gender sensitivity and inclusion.

Gadha now is doing well. Besides the necessity of using correct pronouns, I have learnt many other things in their company – from making a good Kerala style curry to learning about various scholars and their work in the field of gender studies and psychology.

Let us keep knowing, befriending and learning from people like Gadha.

Notes:

• Gadha’s name and photograph is used with their consent.
• I acknowledge and thank Dr. Ameya Bondre for his inputs and support while writing this piece.
• Gadha’s photo: courtesy author
• Featured image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Orinam congratulates Neelam on this initiative and looks forward to further episodes. View the videos below:

It was a Saturday morning. I shut the door to my room on some pretext, went into the bathroom, and began reading out numbers on my phone screen. The number sequence was random, and I read each sequence out in different voices. First slower, pausing and extending the way I pronounced each digit. Next, breathier and huskier than my usual staccato. Then high pitched once, but quickly abandoned, because it sounded like I was being squeezed by a vice.

I was trying, and miserably failing, to sound like a woman. My voice, which at some point in the past I had intentionally broken to make myself sound bass and deep, was now unmistakably masculine. The kind of voice that could and did do radio voiceovers. So why was I trying to sound like a woman?

Because I am.

And because I am attracted to women and wanted to get on to LesPark, a lesbian dating app that not only demands you look feminine, but that you sound feminine too — in sum, that you prove you are indeed all oestrogen and no testosterone.

Which meant that I, transwoman me, was an inferior, second-class citizen in the world of LesPark.

***

Till I was 17, I did not have a word for who I was, or could be. I did not know I was a transgender girl. But as a 16-year-old, I discovered the internet. Those were the days of dial-up, of VSNL’s multiple gateway connections to the big blue yonder. And in between searching for games to play, attempting to learn HTML by copying code from other sites, and trying to find people to talk to, I hit upon what at the time felt like a novel idea: pretending to be someone else.

I had stumbled into a chatroom that was meant for frank conversations between women, and was strictly off-limits to men. And so on Yahoo, a girl I became. I borrowed liberally from my classmates’ lives to invent an alternate backstory for myself. I expected I would be found out immediately. I feared what I was saying and how I was saying it would be seen through for the thin façade they were, and I would be shamed forever. But that did not happen. Yahoo’s chatrooms became my second home, and its people my mentors, my crushes, my fantasies and, over time, my friends.

As tentative friendships firmed up, I followed each of my chatroom friends to their personal profiles. Jumping from link to link, I learnt of interests, hobbies and terms that were new to me. Transvestitism was one such. After a little digging, I landed upon a chatroom dedicated entirely to this ‘interest’, where I found validation for deeply hidden, very frightening thoughts I had always had. I found community.

One of the first people I befriended on this chatroom was a middle-aged former sales executive from Portland, Oregon, who in their late forties underwent hormonal transition and began life anew. Frank became Francesca and she called herself a transwoman. I knew, then, who I was.

This understanding was neither liberating nor comforting. Teenagers do generally go through a period of rebellion, of questioning their identity, of challenging authority and received wisdom. But to realise that a deeper, more fundamental aspect of myself was based on a shaky foundation — and that others took for granted who I was, while I wasn’t sure of it myself — was painful, confusing, and exasperating.

Questions. Doubts. One remained, a thorn forever in my flesh: did this explain why, even though I had crushes on other girls, I didn’t act on them?

***

It was another Saturday, one of those lazy afternoons. A colleague-turned-friend and I were sitting in the balcony of a coffee shop; she was smoking, I was trying not to cough over mine. In a distracted, offhand way, she spoke about her crushes and disappointments, her possible-loves and maybe-loves. It was a regular, innocuous conversation, but it soon triggered a bit of pain; a sense of melancholy for a past me.

Growing up cisgender[1], a person can experience the various joys and trials of an adolescence in which their identity and assigned gender are in fairly close sync. And with this understanding comes the feeling of being attracted to, and more importantly, being attractive to, other people. Of being someone who is sought as a romantic or sexual partner.Of having a bit of confidence in their body. Even growing up transgender, if the realisation that one is trans comes early enough, one can perhaps feel some degree of attractiveness.

One can talk about boyfriends and girlfriends, of maybe-wives or possible-husbands. One can look back on those people who sought you, those who pushed their luck once or twice to no avail, or those who gave you the space you needed. One can talk about the boy who categorically stated to your mother that he couldn’t possibly drop you home before 2 am. One can talk of the girl who came home one night, offered to help you through a bad breakup, and stayed on to be your next love.

All that, I never had. Oh yes, in the future I may. Once, if-when-maybe, I transition.

But I have never experienced young love. That hot-blooded, hot-hearted feeling of being someone’s sole pursuit. Of being wooed, of having someone come home and meet my parents, to ask if they can take me out for a movie, for a dinner, on a date.

Growing up with a distorted understanding of my own identity, I felt a deep-seated anxiety and a sense of shame about my own body. This, together with a conditioning that prevented me from being either a complete rebel or a total conformist, meant that all I could do was experience the life of a teenager at a distance. Experience it vicariously, falsely.

I never had any one coming home to ask me out. I did not have any girl friends, giggling and whispering in my room discussing potential dates. I haven’t had, and will never have, a girl trying to sneak a kiss while my parents are downstairs.

Of course, these experiences can be criticised as shallow teenage crises, as puppy love. As western ideas of adolescence. But I grew up with people for whom all these things happened. I have friends from later in life whose conduct and bearing have been informed and influenced by their teenage loves and lives.

Not for me.

Whatever a person’s teenage experience of love or sexual awakening was, good or bad, it paved a path for their adult pursuits. All I had were fictions and inefficient facts culled from hastily put together books.

And so it was that as an adult, I did not feel capable of acting on my debilitating, deeply felt, crushes.

***

I have always been aware of dating websites. They have been in the background of all my internet forays. A hook here, a line there, asking to reveal all, with the promise of a soulmate, or at least a partner for sexy times.

I’d tried a few too. From my early twenties onwards for nearly a decade, I left personals on Craigslist, drafted profiles on Match.com, and attempted to navigate the world of hook-ups in the pre-smartphone area.

To glorious non-results.

These early shots at dating online were my over-sincere attempts to conform to the male gender assigned to me at birth. And so I strutted out and acted the ‘sensitive cool dude’ I knew I wasn’t. Then I gave up, accepting what teenage me had realised long ago. I was a woman, dammit. And it was as a woman that I must find love. Or even friends.

And so, aged 30 but feeling like a 17-year-old girl, I went online to OkCupid.com and created Nadika’s first dating profile.

It was a kick.

It was a deep emptiness in the bottom of my stomach.

It was exhilarating.

It was confusing.

Today’s OkCupid is vastly different from what it was in 2012. Back then, you could be either Male or Female. Two choices. Oh and you had to have photos that were of you, and mainly of your face. So I wasn’t male, but was I entirely female? Wouldn’t the lie be blatantly obvious the minute I uploaded a picture? I was deeply insecure about the photos I had. They were all of me solidly performing the masculine. But I poured my heart into the profile, and for photos, I reverted to my favourite source for pictures of myself, even today: Second Life.

Second Life (SL) is an immersive, massively multiplayer online game that creates a virtual world in which users interact with each other through avatars, or online selves. For me, it was not just a game. It became an existence, a life. On SL I could craft a woman me. I could give her all my aspirations and hopes, fears and loves.

So I created her; I created me. I gave her a shape that I wanted for myself and a body that I could both covet and be inspired by. She was — I was — tall, just the right amount of curvy, deeply tanned, brown skinned, curly haired, and as feminine as I could never be. SL became my vent for frustration, a space for my art, a boudoir to explore my sexuality, and my personal photo studio.

Back on OkCupid, I had no way of limiting who could see my profile — an option that users have on the platform today. So I got random men, mostly from India, trying to strike up fraandships with me. With some really awful opening lines. ‘Hi. I am not into transgenders. Penpal ok?’ was perhaps the least insulting, least transphobic of the messages I got.

This was about six months after I returned from the UK with my heart and soul still stuck there. I was set on going back to transition. But the UK Border Agency and the global economy didn’t see it my way. I was in the midst of a depressive, self-denying spiral, and confusion was the order of the day. Fear and self-loathing gained the upper hand, and my OkCupid profile lasted all of four months before I pulled it down.

***

In 2014 I came out.

Or rather, I opened the closet a bit and invited a few friends in. This had two immediate effects. One, my depressive spiral improved a little and I could sleep better. Two, I restarted my OkCupid profile.

In the meantime, I had graduated from a basic Nokia phone to an HTC Android device, which allowed me to operate my many lives and online identities without having to stay awake 24 hours a day.

The smartphone freed me.

OkCupid, Tinder, and Facebook were all now just a 3G connection away. Google, Android and Gmail enabled me to express my opinions, and my gender, easily. There was a reverse side to this coin. I lived in constant fear of outing myself accidentally. Worse was the fear that colleagues, social media contacts, cousins who were more active online than they let on, and people with free time and no scruples would go out of their way to connect my two identities and expose me.

Even today this manifests itself in what I do or don’t put up on Twitter and how many photos, and which photos, are seen on OkCupid. And for a long time, this fear was present in my indecision over Tinder. It was irrational but I thought having both OkCupid and Tinder on my phone would lead me to be outed almost instantly.

Tinder is a location-based dating app, widely used for short term dating and hook-ups. It plugs into your Facebook profile to find you potential matches based on a variety of parameters: interests, pages you like, people on your friends list, and more. In early 2014 I had deactivated my ‘male’ Facebook profile. Tinder was tied to my ‘female’ or real profile. I was a woman, and I was looking for a date.

It was therefore natural that Tinder would throw up the name and picture of a male colleague. In an office that was heavily mainstream in its understanding of gender and sexuality, an office where women tended to be one of the boys and the boys went out of their way to be manly men, the last thing I needed was a colleague to see my Tinder profile.

If Tinder showed me my colleague as a potential match, would I, therefore, be on his list? As a transwoman, in my yellow kurta and lipsticked self? Just the possibility of this was a rude shock, and one that coincided with one of my periodic bouts of melancholia. And so, off Tinder I went. I deactivated my profile, uninstalled the app, and tried to purge all my photos from the internet.

My self-imposed exile did not last long. The desire for, nay, the need for a meaningful, significant relationship outweighed my paranoia, and a few months later, I took cautious steps to revive my Tinder account.

***

In theory, I am a pansexual. I am also a demiromantic. In other words, all kinds of people could potentially float my boat, but I need conversations. I need camaraderie and cuddles first. And so in my early OkCupid and Tinder days, I requested potential matches from both the available genders. Men and Women. Never mind that I was swiping left 100% of the time on the men and swiping right about 60% of the time on the women. I just felt more attracted to females of the Tinder species.

There’s a Twitter account called Tinder Problems where users share screenshots of everything from messages that escalate quickly to interesting outcomes of hook-ups. The account showcases a range of behaviours human beings express in the hope of love, sex, and companionship. But one Tinder problem the account did not feature was the worst of them all.

No one new near me.

Everyday.

Every time.

I would open up the app to be greeted by little concentric circles exploring the depths of the internet and coming back with nothing to report. Meanwhile, friends of friends were juggling multiple successful hook-ups and relationships.

Straight women and gay men seem to have the most success on Tinder — according to my limited sample of data. There just seem to be more men on Tinder. And some of them are pretending to be women.

Was I, despite my self-determined gender and my obviously feminine clothing (and rather wordy explanation of my gender and sex) also one of them? Was this how other women were seeing me? As a man trying to impersonate a woman? I knew only too well how common that was.

Because I was on Brenda.

Easily one of the least elegant, most ungainly of the apps I’ve used, Brenda was touted as one of the earliest lesbian dating apps. It sure seemed like it.

Grid-shaped Brenda comprises squares upon squares of people from everywhere, including far away Singapore and car-drive-away Bangalore. In a review of Brenda, Lisa Luxx writes, ‘Brenda is a bit like the discard pile in a game of rummy. Doesn’t mean the cards are no good, but they’ve just not worked out for anyone else who’s had them yet.’

To me, it felt not only like the cards weren’t working out, but that someone had changed the game: we weren’t playing rummy any longer, but a form of severe poker. And the bluff was to know who you could trust and whose profile you should ignore. A surfeit of CGI hearts with lightning streaks, roses in all colours of the rainbow, plus dogs, cats, and photos of celebrities made up half the grid. The other half were anime characters, close-up shots of shoes, and occasional pictures of men.

Brenda was remarkable in that it was the app I used the least and on which I had no conversations with anyone — save one person who told me she was a lesbian through and through, and refused talk to me. No amount of arguing that I was indeed a woman worked. I didn’t blame her though, because I was fending off seriously probing questions from people who my instincts warned me were douchey men. ‘I am never good at pickup lines, what works on you?’ went a message from one anime-fronted user. ‘What is trans, are you shemale?’ wanted to know another. ‘I want lesbian sex,’ proclaimed one. Well, at least they were looking for it in the right place.

That was the end of Brenda. Poor woman. She meant well, but she wasn’t for me.

***

A few months ago, GooglePlay suggested I might like LesPark, an app that invites you to ‘Expand your lesbian social network.’ I really needed such a network. A lesbian friend of mine once said to me, ‘Being queer is an identity, being a lesbian is a practice.’ I laughed at it then, as I pegged it for a joke meant to cheer me up. But what if it was true? What if, indeed, being a lesbian was a performance and a practice, and one had to constantly ‘be at it’ to be truly seen as a lesbian?

And so LesPark was duly downloaded and installed.

By this time, pictures and profile info were no-brainers. I’d been socially transitioning for a while, and I had some selfies to add to my usual Second Life pictures. This in turn gave me some confidence in my identity, allowing me to develop some banter and get my story down to an art form. My politics and my choices had firmed up rather nicely too. So hit me with everything you have, Lisa of LesPark!

She did.

Points system. And Gender Verification.

It works like this. You get a point for every day you log into LesPark. The points determine who you can talk to. No points, no conversations. Everyone I wanted to talk to had way more points than I did, and so I could do nothing more than bookmark their profiles for posterity. Meanwhile, interesting-appearing women would send me messages, but given that they had fully verified profiles and a glut of points, I could not respond. The points system essentially made it impossible to even reply to a message, let alone start one myself.

LesPark also insists that only genuine, ISI-tested, Agmark-branded, made of 100% pure ghee lesbians (and bisexual women) can use the app. To this end, they came up with Gender Verification.

It works in three stages. First is voice verification. You read out a sequence of numbers from within the app, which is recorded and sent to the moderators for review. If your voice sounds feminine enough, you go to the next stage. Video verification. You shoot and submit a video of yourself. If they’re satisfied, you move to the third and final stage. ID verification. You upload a video of yourself holding an ID card. The name, picture and gender-marker on the ID card should match those on your profile.

No amount of twisting, contorting, forcing pitches and breathing could alter my deep bass voice. Stage 1 fail. Which meant, simply, that LesPark was a fail as far as I was concerned. Anger and resentment bubbled in me. Transwomen with deep voices are women too. Transwomen can be lesbians too. This was transphobic. This was anti-feminist. This was, simply, not cricket. LesPark had to go.

This moment marked a growing up. While I might have hankered after a romance or a relationship, I was not going to stand for trans*-exclusionary, discriminatory behaviour — be it by an app or by a person. And so, that Saturday afternoon, I emerged from my room a lot surer about who I was, what I wanted, and what I was not willing to do to get it.

***

By mid 2014 I was slowly getting over my colonial hangover. On OkCupid, I stopped vainly searching for partners, lovers, and friends from the UK and began looking for people closer to home. By this time, the app had progressed a fair bit, and I started to have more control over my expressions, visibility, and photos. Despite its continuing binary blue and pink colour scheme, OkCupid realised that there were perhaps more genders out there. I began having conversations with some very interesting queer women, slowly developing friendships with a few people I met. And by this time, I also had a couple of matches on Tinder.

These were uncharted frontiers and I was scared to move forward. I was afraid I would be rejected for being too masculine or not trans enough. Or spurned because I was boring or normal or like a million others. I was afraid my politics and motives were too banal, too everyday, for the amazing people I was beginning to crush on. These wonderful people were reading so many authors I’d never heard of, had seen so many great films, were doing so many wonderful things to bring life and light into some of the darkest corners of the world. They were everything I was not. Surely, none of these people would want to be friends with me, let alone date me.

Inexplicably, they did. They really wanted to be friends. Perhaps out of pity. Or maybe I fit a box they had to tick off. Whatever the reason (and I wasn’t going to dive deep to find it), I now had a network of queer women friends.

Approaching my 33rd birthday, I had my first date. And thus far, my only one. I have thought and re-thought about mentioning this. Do I talk about it? Do I not owe them the privacy they obviously deserve, and the chance to veto what is being said about them?

I will only say, then, that it was an OkCupid match.

[1] The terms ‘transgender’ and ‘cisgender’ are derived from Latin. Trans means to move, or moving; Cis means the opposite. So a transgender person is someone who ‘moves’ from one gender to the other, while a cisgender person is one who ‘stays’ in their assigned gender.

[2] Credits: this piece was originally published by Deep Dives as part of the series Sexing the Interwebs and has been republished with kind consent of the author.

This article is only a personal reflection on some of my life experiences. I do not claim to be a philosopher or a sociologist who can answer all questions about how the society should deal with gender categories. Nevertheless, I venture to state it is commonsense that we need to look beyond the binary. I feel fortunate to be associated with support groups and organizations like Orinam and Nirangal that welcome all gender and sexual minorities without trying to label individuals.

We live in a society in which men and women are not yet treated equally in all situations. In most jurisdictions, we still need to implement affirmative action so women will have the same rights as men. It is not practical to disregard gender altogether. At the same time, I feel as a society, we need to recognize that not everyone fits into this binary model. Further, it is important for everyone to have the freedom to choose activities that interest them and express themselves in various social situations without undue constraints because of the gender assigned to them.

How are we going to do that? How are we going to ensure that everyone has the same rights but still protect women from harassment by men? We might not have answers to everything, but at the minimum, I think, we should be asking the right questions. As Maggie says in ‘The Opposite Sex … Is Neither!’, “a civilization is more well-known by the questions it asks than by the answers it comes up with” (re-quoted by Kate Bornstein). I would like to contribute my small bit to the advancement of our civilization by raising a few questions on gender and presenting my experiences here.

The day I was born everyone around me was happy and in a mood of celebration. In retrospect, I feel they were unduly concerned about certain aspects of my body which I don’t feel should determine how I live my life. Let me make it clear: it is not just my parents or family members who had the question “is it a boy or girl.” This is still the first question people ask while talking about a newborn in our society. I don’t find asking or answering this question a problem by itself, but I feel strange about the emotions and feelings that are commonly associated with this question. The first thing a mother or father asks is “do I have a boy or girl?” Even those parents who proudly say they will be equally happy with a boy or a girl will not readily accept that their child is not identified as either boy or girl at birth. Fortunately or unfortunately, the doctor decided that I was “male”. There was no ambiguity about my biological sex. So, people around me assumed that I would grow up to be a good “man”.

Some people are born with body parts they don’t feel comfortable with, but my concern is a bit different. Right from the earliest days in my life that I am able to remember, I never understood why so many things we are supposed to do in life are based on having or not having certain body parts. While it may be required to record what type of genitalia is present at birth—because it is not the same for every child—I don’t see any reason why a child should be dressed in a certain manner or given only certain types of toys to play with based on that. After all none of the toys meant for a child is not supposed to be operated using those very same body parts. Why then do we even distinguish between boys’ toys and girls’ toys?

What if there was a society which felt the blood group is very important and said all babies who have blood of type A must be made to wear red clothes and those who have type B should be made to wear blue clothes, and so on? You would think that is absurd, but I can argue that in various situations it would be more meaningful to differentiate people by blood group rather than by the genitalia. In most social and work situations, there is no legitimate reason for the other person to be concerned about your gender. For example, a person working in a bank is not expected to do anything as part of their professional work using the body parts based on which a gender is assigned to them. However, if someone in the bank meets with an accident, it would be more useful to know what type of blood they have and not what type of genitalia they have. So, why not name people in such a way that we know their blood group—and not their gender—by just hearing their name? Blood group is of course a hypothetical example. People have been treated differentially because of the circumstances they were born in—race, skin color and caste (specifically in India). We now agree that such differentiation is unethical, but as a society we have not done much introspection about the impact of assigning a gender to a child.

In one of the earliest observations a teacher has written in my school report, there is a remark which reads “does not mingle with other boys.” I do not have the opportunity to interview that teacher now. But from the language used, I can only guess that they decided I am a “boy” and I was supposed to mingle with other “boys”. My failure to do so was something unusual. I remember that I used to like many games and activities that were typically reserved for “girls” and did not feel comfortable being forced to participate only in “boys’” activities. I did not want to become a girl either. I could not understand why a child has to be a “boy” or a “girl”. I just wanted to be an “awesome child”: not an “awesome boy”, not an “awesome girl”. Society would not accept that and this created a lot of practical problems. I was lucky to be in a coeducational school. I am fortunate to have liberal-thinking parents, although they find my non-conformance to social norms like gender a challenge at times. While in school, even though boys and girls were generally seated separately, on occasion, I was allowed to join a group of girls for studies or other activities. Even then, certain boys would try to create problems for me because they felt I was trying to impress the girls, while I was just trying to explore our shared interests.

My biggest challenge was with sports. Boys and girls were separated for physical education instruction .Unlike girls, boys were expected to participate in aggressive and physically-demanding sports. Boys may—in a certain sense—have greater physical strength than girls, but there is no rationale why I should have been expected to participate in more aggressive sports just because I was assigned male. I could not join the girls as it might make them uncomfortable and teachers definitely felt it was inappropriate. But “boys” like me who did not exhibit such brute force during physical training were branded as “weak” and “girly” which was not only demotivating then but, in retrospect, must’ve also been insulting to girls as such. The strange thing is that certain boys would do anything and everything to avoid being told they are girly, and the teachers felt this was a good way of motivating them to do well in sports. Though I was not particularly keen on identifying as a girl, I cherished being different from the other boys. So, I started to deliberately act like I was physically weak. Consequently, I never took part in competitive sports in school. As an aside, it has taken me a long time to realize the importance of physical activity. I have tried the gym, and I now swim regularly to keep myself healthy.

While I was studying in high school, I woke up one day listening to the news on the radio. It was about the end of apartheid in South Africa. I was excited to hear the voice of Nelson Mandela. I was happy to hear that the nation had decided that they would no longer have separate bridges and public parks for blacks and whites. A few days later in our history class we studied about how Ambedkar struggled to end discrimination based on caste in India. While I was still feeling elated about the achievement of human equality in various societies, my school suddenly announced that boys and girls were to use different staircases from that day on. This was shocking to me. There was no reason why they should have come up with this new policy. Some teachers felt such segregation was required to improve the morality of the students. There were two staircases to access the classrooms in the second floor and they were at two ends of the building. The policy of segregation meant that on most occasions both girls and boys would have to walk much longer to reach their classrooms. Some people protested against it because it caused a lot of inconvenience, but I felt the imposition of this policy was a violation of my rights at a much deeper level: they infringed on my freedom to use a staircase because of how they perceived my gender. Students were using staircases only to climb up or come down the building. Even if there were any isolated cases of misbehavior they should have been dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I felt it was not only stupid but also inhuman for my school administrators to impose such a policy of segregation. Nevertheless I was a mute spectator at that time to this victory of Victorian morals over both common sense and basic rights.

Now I feel I must speak up against such irrational and inhuman practices. In a sense, I am still learning to be more assertive. More recently, when I was working in a corporate environment, I was given feedback that I should try to be like the other “men” so everyone could feel comfortable. While I was not assertive enough to protest against it, I just ignored the feedback. I was lucky that they did not bring up this issue again during the course of my work in that organization although I continued to be myself. I am not sure if I responded to it in the best possible manner, but at least I did not allow others to dictate how I should express myself.

I have been much happier during the last few years primarily because I got involved in the LGBTQI movement. I now interact with people who have similar interests. However, not everyone working for the welfare of gender and sexual minorities understands or accepts fluidity. Sometimes I happen to meet people who want to put me into a category like gay or trans. There is a clear binary into which the world wants to fit people like me. For example, even our languages don’t have a common third-person singular pronoun that is not gendered.

I am just a person. Why do others need to categorize me as either “he” or “she”? I feel gender is fluid: it can change based on time or situation. While I understand that for some of my transgender friends, it is very important for them to transition to their target gender, I would want people to understand that I don’t have a target gender. In my exploration of life, as well as my understanding of gender, my purpose is not to reach a destination but to just enjoy the journey. I am not here to discover an identity that fits me. I just want to keep exploring ways of expressing myself that makes me feel satisfied; without harming others, of course.

Some people think that fluidity means they can fit me into whatever identity they feel best suits me. Typically, I am asked, “So if you are not trying to become a woman, why do you want to wear women’s clothing?” There are multiple ways of looking at it: one perspective is, what is wrong if I dress like a woman? That is what I feel like doing at the moment. Another perspective is, why do men and women need to dress differently in the first place? By this perspective I also want us to question the relevance of gender. While most of the times I try to explain, sometimes I just ask them back: “How does it bother you? In what way is my dress affecting you?”

I am much happier now that I have started accepting myself. I feel I can share my experiences in the hope that it could benefit others. Most people live with gender dysphoria; they are not comfortable with at least some aspect of gender assigned to them. For example, a girl who is not allowed to study in an out-of-the-town college because no other girl in the neighborhood has done that or a boy who is discouraged from wearing nail polish because “boys” are not supposed to do that. I want to reiterate that the right to gender expression is a basic right—an integral part of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression and the fundamental right to equality. This is something that should concern not just certain individuals like me who don’t want to be identified as male or female. This is something that should be of concern to every single human being. Sometimes, people ask me what is so significant about wearing nail polish? Why do you have to talk about fundamental rights here? Parents telling their child not to wear nail polish because of the gender assigned to the child are at once violating both the right to equality and the right to freedom of speech and expression the child is entitled to. The body parts of the child have nothing to do with how the nails can be colored. This is as absurd as saying that a child should never wear a red shirt because he or she has long fingers. Some people might argue that though arbitrary and absurd, such a parental injunction would not by itself violate constitutional rights as no serious harm is done. It is not just that the child cannot color their nails but the consequence is that the child cannot participate in several meaningful social interactions just because of the gender assigned to them. Imposing norms such as use of nail polish, prevents the child from expressing their own identity. Therefore, I feel this is a violation of fundamental rights.

One other personal question that I find difficult to answer is “What is your gender identity?”. To those who insist on me mentioning a label, I usually say “genderfluid”. However, I don’t think there is any label that exactly describes me. I personally view gender as a performance rather than as an identity. I tell people, if I look feminine to you, call me “she”, if I look masculine to you, call me “he”. I don’t care what you think about my identity as long as you treat me with respect and dignity. I have a problem with someone only when they try to interfere with my right to express myself. In fact, I don’t even feel gender should have much relevance in my life. As long as I have the right to wear clothes of my choice, participate in activities that interest me, and associate freely with people who have similar interests, it does not matter to me if others think I am man, woman or someone of another gender.

A Tamil version of this piece translated by Arthi Vendan is available on eanil.com

I’ve reached that stage where the heart does want what the heart wants, and the brain is tired of explaining. I’m at a stage where it has become too hard to explain; where I’m tired at the thought of even having to explain. I do understand your concerns, but the choice between life and death is simple. It’s life. It gets slightly more complicated when you need to kill a part of yourself in the hope to live a little, and that is where I am stuck. Sex change isn’t about the biology alone. It’s about everything that biology makes happen. Unfortunately, in our patriarchal society, we’ve grown conditioned with genders, and a million things revolve around it. If I were born as a girl, my life would have been fundamentally different right now. Good or bad? I can’t say. But different, yes. Frankly, I will never be able to explain this decision, and honestly I shouldn’t have to.

How I wish this was just about boobs and a vagina. How I wish this was just a six hour long ordeal in the hospital and a few months* on hormone replacement. How I wish I had the choice, the liberty to be, to just be. How I wish that my decisions did not have to be governed by society’s estimate of what’s a safe risk and how I wish I had the courage and the capability to do this a lot earlier in life. How I wish I did not have to reassure myself, and then many others, of the path I’m taking. The fact is that if I need to explain so much to everyone of what I intend to do with my body, it’s not only for their concern of me going on the wrong track but also for their concern of losing ‘Mayank’; a male entity in their life, and they would have absolutely no idea about how to deal with this. While I would transition biologically into something I have always wanted to be, people around me would not transition into having this new person in their life. Maya will have to rise from the ashes of Mayank, and that is a sad reality. Transition has a huge cost, and I’m not half as concerned about the financial costs of this decision. Transition comes at the risk of losing everyone and everything.

The other thing I’m warned about is falling into a debt trap. Here is my answer to it: I can be rich and successful at 30 but I can’t be a young girl at that age. The average age for gender reassignment is mid-life and I don’t want to spend the most beautiful years of my life in the state I am in right now: half alive and half dead. It might seem like a big deal, but it is a big deal for you. For me, it seems the most natural and obvious thing to be doing even if it means risking everything I currently have, for frankly, the dream to transition is all that keeps me going every day. If I kill that dream for another few years there will be no light I’d like to see. Justice delayed is justice denied, they say. This is justice for me. If I emerge victorious by the end of this battle I would have known my purpose of life and known I fulfilled it and if I’m able to inspire someone else, I would be happy that I even existed.

There is, however, a different kind of sadness that makes my chest heavy. The sadness of letting Mayank go. I’m not quite sure about how things will change, but things will change somewhat. It will be the end of an era and the beginning of something unknown. As of tonight, I have no plans at all on how to do it. I’ve thought about fundraising for it in part, and setting that as precedence for other trans people as a possible way to walk the road towards freedom. I’ve thought about the hassles of taking a predatory loan, and the vicious cycle of debt. I’m not sure how this is going to happen, but there are two things I am most certainly sure about.

One, I am not going to be ashamed of my male identity, it is and always will be an integral part of my lessons in growing up and two, I will be absolutely public about my battle against gender norms. It stopped being just about me a long time back and we’ve established that safely.

I remember when I came out, and everyone was extremely supportive. It started to change when I started talking about sex change, and when I wore a saree and posted a picture of me in that saree on social media. That changed quite a few minds. The unimaginable felt more real, and it felt more natural. It was as if, the saree was meant for me, and I was meant for it. It was the perfect amalgamation of my heart’s desires with what my body partially reflected. I was not even one bit scared or apprehensive about it. I was not even one bit concerned about what people on the streets would think. Not knowing the local language does surely help ignore anything. But I walked in pride and I knew that. I walked on the streets of an alien city knowing that isolation and separation from familiarity gave me an unprecedented space for walking with utmost freedom and confidence for I did not have to fear judgment or anticipate questions. I did not for perhaps the first time in my life have to think about what people will say, people I care about. The only thing that I had to worry about was if I pulled off that saree with the grace it deserve, and oh well, that waist did justice to it.

In my observations and limited understanding of life, I’ve come to value this infinite sense of freedom and self-reliance far more than any comfort that materialism can possibly offer. Surely a Mercedes makes it easier to complain about the grief of not being content with life, but nothing beats the empowerment that self-reliance bestows on you. I understand this is a crazy idea, but all great things started with a crazy idea. It’s now or never really for me. I’ve swum too close to the shore to succumb to a whirlwind of sadness in a violent ocean of melancholy. I refuse to give up or give in. In either case, there will be an end of me. I’d rather give my true self a real chance than live with the guilt of not having even tried.

Sex change, two words for you, story of my life. Whether it’s a happy ending or just an ending, I would have lived a life through it, even if I fail miserably; I would have lived for once. The brevity of this attempt will not matter, nor would the result for the joy of a true and genuine attempt at reaching the shore of that deserted island to start fresh from would offer me the solace that no amount of artificial comfort ever can. This is my farewell to 23 years of being, trying to be, pretending to be and for days to come, trying to give being a chance. It’s not easy saying goodbye to two decades of memories, some you remember and some remain forever. There are people, events and places that travel with you irrespective of the realms you transcend and that will always stay with me.

For now, if you ask me, how is this going to happen and when is this going to happen? Let’s just pretend I have a plan.

* Editors’ note: While some hormones for transgender women such as anti-androgens are stopped after orchidectomy (removal of the testes), estrogen therapy is generally lifelong, to reduce the risk of osteoporosis and other serious health issues. In practice, many trans* people do not have access to lifelong hormone therapy.

a) It is good that the judgment recognizes ‘transgender’ broadly to encompass various prominent regional and trans-regional communities/identities like Hijras, Kothis, Aravanis, Jogappas, Shiv Shaktis, etc., (pgs. 11, 56, 109, 110), and also at least *tries* to recognize the diversity and variety in these communities, which may not conform to a singular pre-set idea of what being ‘transgender’ means. This means that potentially it could serve as a strategic tool to advocate legal rights for and counteract gender/sexuality-based discrimination against a range of persons and communities, including gender variant LGB people. However, as several people have already pointed out, trans men and trans masculine spectrum people are mentioned far less (only on pgs. 35 and 61 so far as I could find), and one wonders whether the benefits of the judgment will reach out to them as much. Already in the media coverage, one can see how it has been largely taken to pertain to Hijras and their recognition as a ‘third gender’; and at several points the judgment almost conflates ‘transgender’ with ‘hijra’, e.g. the repeated use of the phrase ‘hijra/transgender’ (pg. 128).

b) That brings me to the question of gender identity and recognition. The judgment has been much lauded for upholding “transgender persons’ right to decide their self- identified gender”, whether as male, female or third gender/transgender, and for asking states to grant such legal recognition (pg. 128) – without mentioning a requirement for surgery or hormones at least at that precise part of the judgment. However, the judgment is very unclear, confused and even conflicted on the procedures for granting such recognition, and contradictorily veers between gender self-determination and biological essentialism. At one point it cites the Argentina model which allows for self-identification without requiring medical certification, a model which has been lauded by many trans* activists. Yet at other points it seems to suggest that ‘psychological tests’ would be necessary (pgs. 45, pg 84), which is potentially very problematic given the constraints of how diagnosis of gender dysphoria works in psychiatry and medicine, as it is often based on binary and linear models of identification, which works for some but not other trans/gender variant people. At one point it even seems to stipulate the biologically essentialist requirement that surgery to change ‘physical form’ would be necessary for recognition as (trans) male or female, even if not for ‘third gender’ (pg. 108, “we are of the opinion that… a person has a constitutional right to get the recognition as male or female *after SRS*, which was not only his/her gender characteristic but has become his/her physical form as well”, my emphasis.) Since it passes the onus for legal identity recognition on to central and state governments, it seems likely that different states will interpret it in their own ways and will fix the procedures that they deem fit, which probably means that procedures will be haphazard, will vary between states, and that there will probably be quite a bit of gender policing by state bureaucratic mechanisms (determining who can be third gender, who can be recognized as transitioned male or female, etc.) – and requirements like surgery and hormones might well come back (which are unavailable to many trans* people, and many don’t want them). This also means that trans*/gender variant people will have to negotiate various bureaucratic mechanisms and arbitrary rules regarding gender recognition in order to get the legal i.ds they would likely need to access welfare measures like reservations in jobs or education.

c) Lastly, continuing on the topic of procedure, on page 129 the judgment defers to the Expert Committee constituted by MOSJE (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) for suggesting measures and recommendations, which probably means that the MSJE report  will provide the concrete procedural guidelines that are missing in the SC judgment. Now, the MOSJE recommends on pg. 34 of its report that ‘Certificate that a person is a transgender person should be issued by a state level authority duly designated or constituted by respective the State/UT’, and these state-appointed committees will comprise a psychiatrist, social worker, two transgender representatives, etc. Again, this suggests that the “transgender persons’ right to decide their self- identified gender” as male/female/third will not be accessible easily after all, and will be subject to the requirement to ‘prove’ one’s gender identity to the bureaucracy as per its rules – the MOSJE rejects the simpler option that one could just submit affidavits by oneself and one’s friends as proof of one’s sincerity and honesty in declaring their gender. Again, this suggests there will be quite a bit of identity policing, and requirements like surgery/hormones may return especially if one wants legal recognition as the ‘opposite’ gender. Also, as my friend and sister Sumi (secretary, Moitrisanjog Society Coochbehar) pointed out, there will probably be a lot of petty politics and cut-throat competition regarding which transgender people get to be on these certifying committees, and people will probably accuse each other of being ‘fake hijras’ or ‘part-time TG’ and thus not really transgender, and so on, just like what has already happened in the case of TG funding in HIV-AIDS. But these are some inevitable perils of the biopolitical recognition of identity as the basis for rights and citizenship; one can only hope that the political horizon of trans*/hijra/kothi/FTM/butch (etc.) communities will hopefully go beyond such biopolitics, even as we stake our rightful claim to identity-based rights and recognition.

For more analyses of the NALSA vs. Union of India 2014 judgement, visit https://new2.orinam.net/resources-for/law-and-enforcement/nalsa-petition-tg-rights-india/

He was stark naked in the bathroom, razor in hand, and had shaving foam covering his entire torso. Blood and the white of the foam together made a royal mess. Even then, with his heart racing at the sight of blood, he could not help but think that it looked delicious in a way. Like someone had thrown red velvet cake splat on Chinna’s chest. To get some ice, he would have to go to the kitchen, but before that he would have to wipe himself clean and cover himself properly. When he poured water over himself and let it wash away all the foam, he could see his chest hair still sticking to him in patches. He had only been half way through the shaving when he cut a nipple by mistake. The bleeding refused to stop, and it stung. He held the breast firmly in his hand, and it only made him bleed more. Without a moment’s thought, he tried to do what he had always done whenever he cut his fingers while chopping vegetable, and much earlier while using shaving blades to sharpen pencils at school.

He tried to squeeze his breast up towards his lips and suck the wounded tip. He couldn’t. However much he lowered his head, pressed his chin to his chest and stuck his tongue out towards his nipple, he couldn’t make them meet. He threw his head back in frustration, flung the razor away, slid down the wall, and cried silently, mouth wide open.

Sharpening pencils was one thing. But is altogether another thing to use the blade to blunt your edges, smooth out the sharpnesses that both mark you to the world and also flip around to cut you from the inside, like a revolving double-edged dagger that, in its great speed, looks like a benign spinning ball of the self. The more you send it out into the world to let yourself be seen , the greater is the vehemence with which it comes back to shred your to smithereens.

In the spacious studio apartment, Chinna stood at the kitchen counter, with his back to Ron, heating milk for coffee. Though they have only been going out for a few weeks now, he was used to Ron’s quiet, unobtrusive presence in the house whenever he came. He usually sat down with some book while Chinna did his own work. Sometimes Ron just dozed off, lying flat on his back right there on the mattress on the floor, with the pages of some open book embracing him over his chest. Looking at him during some of those times, he has wondered if Ron managed to drop into everyone’s life so quietly, without raising a ripple.

But today was going to be a challenge, thought Chinna. It could throw even Ron out of balance. How could I have sex with him today without letting him in on how much I hate my body right now, that I would rather close my eyes and will myself to be someone else? Chinna feared one of two things could follow such a disclosure. A conversation. This perpetual celebration of talking, this belief in clearing things out by talking, as if words ever really had that kind of power – he had no energy for that, at least, at the moment. Or it could be a shrinking back and rejection that he feared. He didn’t have energy for that either.

He felt sex was not such a good idea then, but then he wouldn’t know unless he tried. Usually, he avoided sex when he felt so unsure of who he was.  But it might have to be different today. As he leaned over the counter, he looked down to check for blood stain on his shirt. He had done that the entire afternoon, sitting across from Ron at the restaurant. He was afraid that there might suddenly be a splatter of blood spreading across his chest, giving him away.  No blood.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked, turning around. Ron looked up from the book he had opened randomly in the middle. “Yes! Thank you!” he smiled.

Chinna wrapped a towel around his waist, threw another one over his shoulders and walked out of the bathroom. Before stepping out of the bedroom, he opened the door gently and peeped out to see if his mother, who was visiting, was in the living room, and if he would be bombarded with questions for taking ice cubes from the freezer. She didn’t seem to be around. On the way to the refrigerator, he caught through the corner of eyes his quick reflection in the full-length mirror propped against a wall in the living room. His quick, tiptoed run took him a few steps ahead, but he halted on his track and took a few quiet, slow steps back, turned his head alone to the left and stood looking at himself, in profile, in the mirror. He lifted slightly the towel that lay over his shoulders covering his nipples. When he thought he could not see clearly, he took off the towel completely, but before doing that he looked in the direction of the kitchen to make sure his mother was not around. She didn’t seem to be.

Focussing again on his sideways reflection in the mirror, he thrust his chest out a little and made his nipples look prominent and imagined that they pierced the sky in front of him, making a small tear in some invisible but persistent layer he could one day step out of.  This made the arch of his back pronounced, and his butt too stretched out into a deeper curve, into a bigger bubble. Lifting both his hands simultaneously, he touched himself on both his nipples, felt the alert areola reacting to the recent touch of the blade, he held the curve of his breasts on his palms for a second, and brought his hands down to his waist and took them around his ass.  Then he threw the towel back around his neck and walked swiftly to the fridge.

He could find no ice cubes, but his mother’s ice pack was in the freezer. He grabbed it, rushed back to the room, latched the door on the inside, and pressed the ice pack to the nipple. It hurt like hell. He sat down on the bed and leaned back on the pillows. He removed the ice pack from this chest and took a good look at himself. The right side of his chest was shaven smooth and clean, and the nipple stood clean and poised, while the one on the blooded side stood surrounded by strands of hair. He was disgusted to see patches of hair still on his half-shaven chest. Still, he ran his fingers over this torso, wondering if he could will himself to like his body as it was. He stopped when his fingers reached the towel fold around this waist. He dreaded what was to come. He knew he would be flooded by a massive wave of disgust, but he braved it and undid the towel. Never before did he hate the irrefutable solidity of the body so much. Its stubbornness, it’s utter refusal to be anything other than what it was hurt him afresh each time. He spread his legs a little, and with vehemence pushed his penis and testicles down with his hands, closed his legs tight, and pulled out his hands slowly. It gave him some comfort not to have to feel them with his hands.

Ron was sitting on the mattress on the floor and looking at Chinna pour coffee into mugs. As Chinna walked towards Ron and gave him his coffee, Ron patted the mattress, signaling Chinna to sit next to him. They sat, their backs against the wall, and just above their heads the bottom rod of the blinds over the window beating against the wall in the wind. Ron had his feet stretched in front of him, and the light through the blinds was now casting moving shadow stripes on his feet and jeans. Chinna too felt like putting his leg out to catch the lines of light and shadow on his feet. And he did. “This would make a great photograph,” said Ron, “just our legs and these stripes of light.” Chinna turned to smile at Ron, who had a twinkle in his eyes when he said, “But this light play will look much better on bare skin. We can be zebras.” Chinna did not say anything in reply, but he turned to look at his legs and gently pulled his trousers up to reveal more of his ankle and lower leg. Ron laughed.

Chinna closed his eyes and touched the tips of his nipples gently with his fingers. As he played with them, his erection threatened to spring up from its confinement between his thighs. So Chinna stopped and waited for it to subside. Then suddenly he squeezed his breasts violently and stopped only when he felt the wetness of blood from the left nipple again on his fingers. With equal vehemence, he crossed his legs at the ankles and pressed his thighs together until everything hurt.

They now lay facing the window, with the light through the blinds casting its stripes on their faces and naked torsos. Black and light and black and light. Chinna had one leg bent and the other leg balanced over the bent knee. Like he was sitting, but had only decided to change his plane. To look skyward instead. He looked at his legs and tried to focus on a part of this light play where a strip of shadow ended and a sheath of light began. Though the plastic strips of the blinds themselves were quite solid with sharp edges, their shadows appeared to have lost their confidence. Their corners were blurred and looked even more vulnerable when they moved in the wind.

Ron turned on his side and propped his head up with a hand. “You are awfully quiet today. Even more than usual. What happened?” he said.

“Nothing really.”

“Then it is something not-so-really? Tell me, tell me,” Ron teased, putting his forefinger into Chinna’s deep navel and tickling it.

With his other hand, he touched Chinna on his neck. Chinna lay, with his eyes closed, his legs crossed at the ankles and his thighs held tight against each other. As Ron’s hand glided over his neck, Chinna clutched at the carpet below with one hand and laid his other hand over Ron’s, that was playing with his navel. Ron’s hand moved down to Chinna’s chest and very quickly to his right nipple.

“Nice. Did you get it waxed?” said Ron.

“No. I shaved. Waxing hurts.”

“Hmm. But it looks like you have hurt yourself shaving too,” said Ron, and brought his head down to kiss Chinna on his left nipple. His tongue moved very gently, but Chinna could still feel the sting from the cut. He winced.

Chinna kept his eyes shut and forced himself to imagine his body otherwise. He thought it should be easy. At any given moment, Chinna could not really bring to his mind an accurate vision of himself as he was. He could never clearly remember himself. Whenever he stood in front of a mirror, there was a moment of “Ah okay,” as if he just recognized himself. So shouldn’t it be easy now, he wondered, to see myself as altogether something else? Not with these sad little hairy absences, but full, rounded breasts, with large areolas stretched out with the fullness of the milk inside. Not with what were dangling between his legs, but something else, something that draws inward. But it wasn’t easy. The body was all too real to be thus willed away.

Chinna chose not to force it, not to fight his body so much. He was holding his body so taut that every inch of him hurt. He decided to let go and relax. Just as he began to loosen his body, his eyes still closed, it happened. He got, for just an instant, that vision. He saw himself inside his eyes just exactly how he wanted himself to look; he saw his body as just exactly how he wanted to see it.

Ron’s tongue continued to play on Chinna’s left nipple while his fingers moved down to his tummy. Chinna felt seized at once by pleasure, pain and panic. As Ron’s fingers explored further down, Chinna relaxed his legs and hoped that the miracle would happen again, that he would get to see himself, at least in his imagination, at least for a split second, as he wanted to be, not as what he was. Till today, he doesn’t know what gave him the courage to trust and let go, to not be on his guard. But that’s what he did.

Until then he had held his body taut like a catapult aiming a sharp attack at god knows what. Much like a boy who has suddenly lost interest in his target and relaxed his aim and dropped down the weapon, he loosened himself. His body remembered the time when he once managed to float on the shallow waters of a sea. Seeing one of his friends just lie back and float, he asked to be held while he tried it too, though he couldn’t swim then. In the very first attempt, he had floated, with no hand supporting his back. He dropped his head back and arched his torso out towards the sky like he was asked to do, and he floated. Chinna had thought at that moment about the rules for trust for different things. When people free-fall during para-jumping, they are asked to arch their head and legs in trust and glory towards the sky, if only to give the monstrous, rushing wind the least resistance possible. On the ground, you are supposed to give yourself to whatever surface is beneath you, let your body drape on it and take whatever shape of letting go it wants. And on water, you let your head down backward, raise your bum, thrust your torso up towards the sky that is suddenly all over, more all-over than ever before.

“Just trust it and let go,” his friend had said then. And Chinna had found that an absolutely natural thing to do. For a while after that, he had consciously called on that bodily memory whenever walking on steady ground felt like a shaky proposition. He drew comfort from recollections of floating, of being held and rocked. But like most experiences, it had slowly receded in significance. Until today. He floated again, even if only for just a tiny moment.

He unclenched his abdominal muscles and released his firm hold on the world. Salt water sloshed against his ears and he could hear no more the clack of the blinds against the window or the room heater resurrecting after a brief rest. All that he could hear was the heady whispers of the sky and the water asking him to trust them. One from below and the other from over him. He was being bounced up and down, and he drank some water. It was incredibly salty and made his nostrils burn. His fingers let go of their claw-hold on the carpet next to him and let water buoy up through the gaps between them. Sensing it was not hard ground that could give away under him any minute, he gifted away his weight, opened his eyes to the bright blue sky over him and breathed out gently and for long.

Right then, Ron pressed down gently below Chinna’s navel and stopped suddenly. Chinna was very confused. He opened his eyes and saw that Ron had risen slightly, propping himself on one elbow, and was looking at where his hand was on Chinna’s body, all the while pressing it down gently at the same spot. When he saw Chinna’s perplexed look, he relaxed, but he did not remove his hand. He smiled awkwardly and said, “Sorry.”
“It’s alright. But what happened?” Chinna asked.
“Oh it is really silly,” said Ron, trying to dismiss it.
“It is okay. Do tell me.”
“No, I am sorry. It might be hurtful.” Ron was really apologetic now.
“No, I can handle it. Tell me.”
“Well,” said Ron, “I think it was a moment of hallucination, but when I pressed my hand down there, it felt suddenly like I was not touching a man’s body.”
“What do you mean?” Chinna smiled and rose slightly, propping himself up on both his elbows.
Ron felt encouraged by Chinna’s smile to go on. “I could have sworn that my hand just expected not to find a cock there. Something else. Does it make sense? I am so sorry. I am blabbering,” he said and looked away in embarrassment.
“No, no, no,” Chinna said and turned Ron’s face back towards him. “It makes sense. It so does. Thank you so much.”

“But you are crying,” Ron said in mild panic. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I am sure I was just imagining it. My mind playing tricks on me. Please don’t cry, Chinna.” He sat up looking very concerned and held Chinna by his shoulders as he covered his face with his hands and wept.

Ron moved closer to him and put his arms around him. He sat there holding Chinna until the weeping stopped, and after.

Hearty congratulations to Living Smile Vidya on being awarded a scholarship by the Charles Wallace India Trust to pursue theatre in the UK.

Smiley is a writer, actor and artist who lives and works in Chennai. Her book  I am Vidya, published in Tamil, has been subsequently translated into English, Malayalam, Marathi and Kannada. She is also an accomplished actor, known for her work with Srijith Sundaram’s Kattiyakkaari production Molagapodi  as well as with other productions and directors. Her art work has won acclaim at both queer and mainstream exhibitions. She has also worked in Tamil and Malayalam movies as Assistant Director.

We also draw the attention of readers to her reflections on being a Dalit transwoman and feminist, in this excerpt of a conversation with Kaveri Karthik and Gee Ameena Suleiman in Bangalore.

that is the first thing they notice about her
probably the only thing
it doesn’t matter who they are
strangers on public transit, clients at work
the man at the grocery store, the lady in the flower shop

that is the first thing they notice about her
probably the only thing
it doesn’t matter where she is
at work, at movies, at a friend’s wedding
in a coffee shop or a crowded elevator

that is the first thing they notice about her
probably the only thing
it doesn’t matter what she is doing
walking, eating, speaking, listening
even if she is helping them

that is the first thing they notice about her
probably the only thing
a woman at the local Desi store, a complete stranger,
once offered her some unsolicited advice with a friendly smile
“use turmeric powder, when you shower. I did.”
“I can tell,” she smiled back, “you could have had a beautiful mustache like me.”

“Guys are lucky because they get to grow mustaches. I wish I could. It’s like having a little pet for your face.” — Anita Wise.

On February 4th, Postnoon, a Hyderabad based daily published a biphobic and a transphobic piece on Hyderabad pride, written by a journalist named Dean Williams.

Dean Williams wrote:

“First up let me say that I am all for gay rights. In fact, I believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry and adopt children (or have them through surrogacy) and the fact that Hyderabad celebrated its first ever Queer Pride parade is truly something to rejoice. Now I have nothing against the transgender community, but unfortunately they are so far behind in their quest for equality that they will hamstring our nascent gay rights movement…”

“As for bisexuals, I’m with Woody Allen, it merely doubles your chances of getting a date on a Saturday night. In India it’s time LGBT lost the B and T, for its own sake.”

Time to drop B and T from LGBT – Dean Williams, Feb 04th 2013

Orinam members L.Ramakrishnan and Vijay Mogli responded to this phobic article.

L.Ramakrishnan says:

Equality for G and L people cannot be attained unless our B and T sisters and brothers are equal too.

Dean Williams’ opinion piece ‘Time to drop the B and T from LGBT’ appears to be based on a flawed understanding of bisexuality and complete ignorance of the transgender community’s successes in the struggle for basic human rights in India.

• Consistent with Woody Allen’s quip, bisexuality (only) refers to the potential to be attracted to men and women. It does not imply that a person HAS to be simultaneously involved with men and women to actualize his or her bisexual orientation. Thus either or both partners in what Williams refers to as a ‘gay’ couple may, in fact, be bisexual. Similarly, either or both partners in what may appear to be a ‘straight’ couple, may be bisexual. One cannot infer the sexual orientation of a person solely from whether their partner is of the same or other sex. Further, sexual orientation exists independently of practices of monogamy, open relationships or fidelity. One can be monogamous and anywhere on the spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual. One can be promiscuous and anywhere on that spectrum, as well. The author would do well to educate himself on basic concepts in sexuality and gender identity before making pronouncements of this kind.

• Transgenders, who are among the most marginalized of the LGBT communities, are the vanguard of the struggle for equal rights in India. Thanks to the efforts of passionate and articulate transgender community leaders, addressing transgender equality in access to education, employment and healthcare is now a strong recommendation in the 12th Five Year Plan of the Government of India. Transgender individuals are included as OBC by the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, are entitled to social welfare benefits and free sex-reassignment surgeries in Tamil Nadu, and can indicate their gender identity separately from ‘male’ and ‘female’ in Indian passports. There is still a long way to go, obviously, in respect to freedom from violence, harassment and exclusion. We – L, G, B, T and allies – are all united in this struggle.

Vijay Mogli says:

The queer rights discourse and movement are deeply rooted in certain core democratic values like liberty and equality that form the bedrock of its advocacy. These core values are safely enshrined in our constitution. Interestingly, both these values are placed one beside the other and not one above the other which means that liberty is not preferentially offered to some chosen few but to everyone with no exceptions. In the same strain, equality is not the prerogative of a privileged few but the right of all, all and all for all times to come. While there have been some cases where these two principles have been in conflict, they have been the rarest of the rare.

While the author of the above article may have earnestly intended to advance the cause of gay and lesbian rights, it is quite not about gay or lesbian rights in isolation. It is about ethically positing our rights as gay and lesbian people – and I speak here as a gay man – in the large scheme of human rights. The rationale on which we demand our fundamental rights as gay or lesbian people is that all that is offered to our straight brethren be also allowed to us. If they are allowed to us why then can’t all those who are denied these rights viz. bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual and queer folks have them? In the course of this struggle for acceptance and justice, we have found enormous and huge support, and courage from our bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual and queer friends by synergizing our efforts and celebrating our myriad hues of gender identity and sexualities. Our movement should, in my view, never stand on a lopsided bias against some who are actually equal social constituents and partner in our progress. Let us not knowingly or unknowingly advance our rights by relegating theirs. It is against the very cause that we espouse.

The author spoke of the transgender community being far behind in its quest for equality. With all respect, this is not factual. Among other things, transgender people in the state of Tamil Nadu are getting formally recognized as a separate gender and are getting their identity and ration cards issued. I do not know of any such progress in terms the receipt of state benefits enjoyed by a single gay or lesbian person in India. The author also spoke multiple reasons like middle class morality, religious dogma and tokenism of closeted celebrities, the indifference of the business community and vote bank politics of politicians as cases in point to advance his argument. But none of them offers us sound logic or a fair reason to exclude our bisexual and transgender fraternity from our journey. His suggestions seem to be based on apprehensions of contemporary social biases and a limiting approach based on fear of failure and not a de-limiting perspective and will to build an equitable and fair society. Yes, in this way that we chose, we will have some difficult, tiresome and vexatious questions to answer from many ill-informed people and loads of discrimination to overcome. Aren’t we doing that very beautifully and confidently – at some levels if not all – already? Most, if not all of our goals as the LGBTIAQ brethren, remain common and hence it makes more sense to rally forces than to part ways. Also, there is no empirical data from statistics or scholarly sociological evidence that establishes the merit of the author’s argument but I respect it as his view point.

Now coming to his Woody Allen view of bisexuals, the Kinsey scale and KSOG should shed light. A very careful reading of his argument should only convince us that he has actually offered more and more reasons for us, the LGBTIAQ community to stay together.