In the journey from Zakir to Aqsa, I have lost many things-

1. I have lost my immediate family. Other than my mother, I do not have any meaningful relationship with any of my family members. My brother and his family have boycotted me. I need not elaborate on the importance of having a family. I don’t have one.

2. I have lost my relatives. I have no communication with any relative and have not met anyone for many years now. They are not aware of my transition. All my family members and relatives are blocked on social media. Do you enjoy the company of your uncles, aunts, and cousins? I am not even allowed to meet them. I have stopped going to my hometown of Mumbai and my relatives are not allowed to visit me here by my family.

3. I have lost my friends. I have lost some of my closest and best friends simply because I decided to be myself.

4. I have lost money. Transition is not a cheap affair, especially since the facilities are not available in govt hospitals. I have invested lacs of rupees in my transitioning.

5. I have been afraid of losing my job. Yes, you read this right. However progressive may we call ourselves, I was afraid I may lose my job because the name on my degrees doesn’t match my new legal identity.

6. I have lost social connections and respect. It is difficult, exhausting and uncomfortable to be brave everyday, to explain to every person and to face their reactions. How do you avoid this? You retreat into a shell. I may appear confident but I am a timid tortoise who wants to go back to my shell in a jiffy at the smallest of sign of danger.

7. I have lost security. Being a non-passing trans woman puts me at risk of verbal, physical and sexual harassment every living day of my life. Not all fears come true but not all fears are invalid.

8. I have lost respect and popularity. Many many people who used to appreciate me previously now don’t even look at me and their eyes speak to me what they think about me.
An abomination.

9. I have lost my ability to be a biological parent. In the current circumstances, that is not feasible. I have lost the right to contact my nephew who was also my foster child and whom I raised for 5 years

10. I have almost lost the chance of finding a loving life partner. It is very rare for persons like me to find a suitable match – a loving life partner who would accept me and love me the way I am. All I get are creeps.

Now, though I have lost so many things, I am happy and satisfied with my decision.

And if, hypothetically, I were in a similar situation again, I would choose what I chose, again.

 

 

 

Asmita came out to herself at age 12, while a student in her hometown in Bardhaman. Growing up, she internalized prevailing notions that homosexuality was unnatural. “But later when I started gaining more and more knowledge, I started understanding and getting my identity clear”, she says.

A national-level badminton player and photography enthusiast, Asmita has been actively involved in campus activism around gender-based discrimination.

When asked about her decision to represent AISA, she said “AISA gave me a platform to uphold my identity in front of the students of JU”, noting that Left parties had, by and large, responded positively to LGBTIQ+ issues. Incidentally, the first reported out LGBTIQ+ candidate, JNU’s Gourab Ghosh, also contested as a Left party candidate in 2013.

As a key election issue, Asmita is championing the cause of LGBTIQ+ acceptance in society, both on- and off-campus. She wants to counter myths that same-sex desire and transgender identities are unnatural, and to mobilize public opinion against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. She strongly feels that basic sex, gender and sexuality education, including LGBTIQ+ issues, should be given to school-going students. She asks that admission in educational institutions be accessible to all, based on their aptitude, with no discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Asmita said that JU is relatively LGBTIQ+ friendly as Indian university campuses go, and she has not personally faced any problem on campus due to her identity. She noted that transgender people face much more difficulty. She also questioned the prevailing practice of marking all transgender people as “third gender” on admission forms, a category that not all identify with.

Other issues in Asmita’s election manifesto include proper functioning of the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) on campus, and 24×7 availability of sanitary napkin vending machines in all women’s restrooms.

Her accomplishments notwithstanding, Asmita has a long way to go. She is not yet certain about the profession she would take up in the future. Her parents still do not accept her. “I still need to struggle with my family and in neighborhood to [get them to] cope with my identity”, she signs off.

* Readers: please let Orinam know if there have previously been any other out queer women students contesting campus elections in India.

A comprehensive list of Orinam blogposts on educational institutions and LGBTIQA+ issues is at https://new2.orinam.net/resources-for/educational-institutions/from-the-blog/.

Gender rights activist and members of the LGBTQ community came together under the banner of Delhi Queer Pride banner, for a protest vigil for Tara, which took place at Jantar Mantar on November 14.

Dhrubojyoti, journalist and activist based in Delhi, addressed the protestors in New Delhi saying that Transgender persons just like other oppressed groups like Dalits or Adivasis or homeless persons, have been bearing the brunt of police violence. “LGBTQ persons, like me, with the privilege to move around in cars, who are not homeless, who do not beg or engage in sex work as a means of sustenance are the ones who are tolerated by society if not accepted entirely.” It is working class trans persons like Tara who are oppressed by the hetero-patriarchal structures of society with aggressions amounting to physical and sexual violence and even death.

Tara, like lot of other trans-women, was a sex worker. Does that dilute her right to live with dignity? The police harassment meted out against her was under the garb of her being a sex worker. Before she died, she faced torture at the police station where she was told by the police “to go out and die as nobody will mourn your death”.

Whether Tara was killed or forced to kill herself, we are still to find out.

But why is it that we need a death to evoke empathy and agitate? Oppressed groups have been constantly brutalised by the state and society, but it is only when someone dies, that our blood boils. Women get raped and molested almost every day in India, but we needed a Nirbhaya, to take to the streets and demand accountability from the state. Agitated at the apathy of state and society towards oppressed groups, Bittu Karthik, scientist and activist, said, “Tara and a lot of trans-women and sex workers have been harassed and abused. But nobody takes these incidents of aggression seriously. Tara was killed by the same oppressive forces. Maybe we need a death, a murder.”

“Recently in Hyderabad”, said Karthik, “There was a spate of attacks on transgender sex workers by a group of men to extort money. Even after a number of FIRs and constant pleadings with the police, there was no action taken. It was only when one of the trans-women was killed by this group, that people started protesting and police arrested the men. It is just how public sympathy and attention works. We strive to provide retrospective justice to the ones who died under oppression by forces that we did not combat.”

It is important for us to understand the relationship of marginalised communities and police violence. The widespread impunity with the police to harass, curtail and control certain identities is the reason for Tara’s death. Even after the landmark judgment in NALSA v Union of India, oppression and violence towards trans* individuals continue.

Members from Pinjra Tod, a feminist movement against patriarchal domination of public spaces, expressed their rage towards Tara’s death saying that our patriarchal societies permit only certain kind of bodies – the male, able-bodied, upper class- to enjoy public spaces  like the streets at night. The ‘other’ bodies- women, trans persons – are subjected to suppression and violence as a measure to control those bodies and limit them to a certain periphery. “Dignity of women is attached to their choices of clothing and the time of the night they take to the streets. We are told that it is only bad women who go out at night and then they are subjected to violence, which they presumably asked for. Tara’s death is an example of this narrative.”

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association of JNU expressed their solidarity and rage towards the incident and condemned police violence towards trans-persons saying, “It is a reflection of the patriarchal, brahminical society that oppresses every disadvantaged group to maintain this status quo. We must resist such acts.”

Shambhavi, member of Dhanak – a student led LGBTQ collective in JNU, expressed her rage towards such ‘dispensable’ identities by citing instances of micro aggressions on campus where students deal with discrimination on a daily basis. She also cited the case of Najeeb and the apathy of the institution towards the case.

While we express our agitation and resistance towards these acts of violence, we must also resist and challenge the institutions that perpetuate these forms of violence. In a hyper-masculine, patriarchal society that is bifurcated on the lines of class, caste and gender, these acts of violence are mere expressions of a much larger problem. Vqueeram, activist and professor, articulated the pain and anger of Hijra and Thirunangai individuals by addressing the structural injustices on these identities every single day so much so that it becomes a matter of life and death. “When people say Hijras are in-betweens, I think they are- in between life and death.”

“The narrative is such that is acceptable that certain lives are dispensable,” said Dhrubojyoti.   “Let us not find novelty in violence and choose to fight only when someone has died. Is it that we are angry only because Tara was burnt alive? Are the acts of violence against marginalised groups every single day not moving enough for us to stand in solidarity?”

Republished from TheWire.in with consent of the author.

Today is Coming Out Day 2016 and I would like to tell you a little story.

It took me 27 years to admit I wasn’t straight.

15 of those years were spent in me being a teenager in denial: fending off whispered catechism-class speculations that I was lesbian and generally being a homophobic transphobic everything-phobic asshole.

8 of those years were spent being a shit ally. The “LGBT folks have a mental condition let’s have a pity party” ally. The ally that equated polyamoury with untrustworthiness. The ally that said her crushes on women were a result of being in all-girls’ institutions all her life and see, see, this is why you should send your daughters to co-ed schools. The ally that ignorantly misgendered Brandon Teena after watching “Boys Don’t Cry” and said “the most traumatic thing about the rape is that it was proof that she wasn’t a man”. Even as I write this down I cringe, partly because I am still guilty of misgendering people, and still struggle to ask about what pronouns they prefer. Partly because how dare I.

Five of those years were mired in confusion, self-loathing and pain. I was a newly married woman who still didn’t know if she was bi or not. Who went to Queer Pride meetings masquerading as straight because would I be lying if I said I was bi? I tended to like men more. Did that mean I wasn’t, what about that part that loved women. Where did it lie? Where could I place it?

And what was I going to tell my husband? That his wife had an entire side to her that he had no clue about? Would he feel cheated? Disgusted? Would he be afraid that I would cheat on him? By then I’d seen enough internet links on bi-phobia and bi-erasure, heteroflexibility, discrimination, to fear that he would either mistrust me or joke about threesomes. By then I was hardly sure myself what I was.

I came out to my husband two days after the 2013 Supreme Court verdict on Section 377, when he asked me why the verdict disturbed me as much as it did. It’s horrible, yes, he said, and it makes absolutely no sense, but you haven’t gotten back to normal since then. What happened?

I told him.

He was shocked when he heard this, and tried too hard to pretend nothing had changed for two days after. It hurt more than I would care to admit and I was sure everything I was afraid of had just happened. There were times when I wondered whether I should have just shut up.

Well I’m glad I didn’t because on the third day he asked me if we could talk and sat me down. He said a lot of stuff I don’t exactly remember now. But one thing stood out, and it was this: “You really only get to know what kind of ally you are when someone you love comes out to you. I’m sorry. This is who you are and I wouldn’t want you to change a thing.”

He has not budged from that stand since. There have been, quite literally, times when he has read up and listened and asked, listening with an excited kind of interest. There have been times when he has asked me if I would like to be with a woman. When I was pregnant, he wrote me an emotional letter telling me if I ever wanted to express my being bi, I should. “It won’t change anything between us, Anu. We will always be husband and wife”.

Our relationship is messy, complicated, sometimes sweet and sometimes stormy, but I know for a fact that this is a man I can trust. A man who has taken me for all I am and loves me because of it all, not inspite of it. He is my biggest source of validation.

Three of those years have been spent embracing this part of me that I spent so long rejecting. Spent delivering smart zingers to peoplr who call me bi-curious because I have never slept with women (not that my track record with men was any better) (cmon, “nine years is a long time to be just curious” sounds pretty clever I think). It’s been spent learning to respect the way people see themselves because a man I loved once did that to me. It’s been spent loving myself and loving everyone. It’s been spent learning and accepting that I still don’t know shit. And you know what? That’s okay. You learn something new everyday.

Edit: Someone asked me to what end my speaking out was. What purpose did it serve? Good question. When I was a little girl I could have done with a voice like this. There are kids who cannot come out, will never come out, can never envision support. Well, look below, my darling one. See what you will find. Support. Love. Acceptance. Know that you will find it whenever you are ready to do so, please. <3

This piece was originally posted on Anu’s FB timeline.

Hear my story,
Turn a deaf ear, shy away
Walk past, plugging me out,
Cry or console my loss,
Chide me, ask me to shut up.
Ignore me.
I still shriek of injustice
I am but a woman.

Call me the goddess, your alter ego,
The prostitute or the slut,
the feminazi,
The woman you can only
dream of bedding, or
The whore you fucked
last night,
Or your mother
I am multiple orgasms
I am but a woman.

Shred my ego to pieces,
revel in chivalry
Or slap me down
grovelling in the gravel
Mould me to your choice
I will be the lady
and the bitch
I am everything.
I am but a woman

Ban my blood and
own my womb
Taboo my body
for three whole days
Seed it with lust the next
I choose to be childless, to bleed freely
I am but a woman.

Don’t love my love handles,
put me down with my weight
My full grown body
an eyesore.
Try me into body issues
I will not fit in
I am but a woman

Say I am too modern,
Outrageous, or too traditional
to suit your tastes
Judge me with the size of my bindhi
Or the way I drape my
Sari just below
my navel, or the swiftness
with which I cover my head
when seen,
Or my six inch heel.
I am the permanent outcast
I am but a woman.

Thrust upon me
masks of masculinity
Penis-obsessed,
your hard rock ego boosts with
each sloppy kiss-
That testosterone high
Fails to stir me enough
I prefer women
I am but a woman.

Shivapriya first read this poem at the Queer and Ally Arts Festival on May 8, 2016, in Chennai. It was subsequently published in FeminismInIndia.

Did she cut off her thaali?
Cutting off her thread of secrets,
Did she slip off the metti?
Slipping away her regrets,
She did not have to,
“I want the freedom and the girl!”
With girlfriend in hand,
She never agreed to a marriage proposal.

Did she get disowned?
Father would rather have a son,
Mother would rather have a married daughter,
Did she end up without a home?
Homeless, however not a soulless being,
She carries her home with her wherever she goes,
With that her many closets.

She gained new friends,
A makeshift family,
Yet she misses her relatives,
Her dearest Amma and Appa,
She never could shut them out of her heart,
No matter how hard she tried,

Even if they coldly shamed her,
Amma and Appa are not callous,
A weighted silence,
A small reunion,
“Eppothum iruppaai nam kanmaniyaaga”*

Photo credit: Subhalakshmi

Thaali – the wedding necklace
Metti- toe rings
Amma- Mother
Appa- Father
*“You shall always be our loved one (literally, precious like an eye)”