28 April 2009
Transsexual Activist Makes Bid in Indian Elections
The world's largest democracy goes to the polls today for the first phase of multi-stage parliamentary elections. By mid May, 714 million voters will cast ballots at 800,000 polling stations. There are, all told, 1,715 candidates for office. But one of these political hopefuls is unlike any other candidate India has ever seen. Her name is Daya Rani Kinnar and she is a transsexual activist.
From the Hindustan Times:
Kinnar is a popular figure in Ghaziabad and will stand for election as an independent candidate. “I don’t mind taking on all the political heavyweights. I was born in Ghaziabad and people know me. I don’t have children. I will work only for people. I am going to give a tough fight to Rajnath Singh, who is an outsider. The sitting MP did nothing for the constituency,” Kinnar said.
Kinnar, founder of Sarva Samaj Sewa Samiti (a welfare organisation), promises a safe, developed Ghaziabad district.
Although illiterate, Kinnar is confident. City roads are already lined with her banners and hoardings. In these, she appears with a bindi on her forehead and head draped in a sari.
She is banking on the electorate’s disenchantment with politicians. “I am just like a ‘no-vote option’ button on electronic voting machines,” she said.
Unfortunately, the Indian press identifies her as a "eunuch." Still, just the fact that she feels empowered to put herself in the public lime light is itself a remarkable achievement in a society known for conservative cultural mores. This video from Russia Today reminds me that one courageous person can help break these barriers.
17 March 2009
23 February 2009
A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico
By MARC LACEYPhotos by Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times: AT THE DEBUT Carmelo López Bernal, 13, at the recent annual town-wide muxe celebration, the occasion for his first appearance in the identity of a girl.
SEE MORE PHOTOS
Mexico City — Mexico can be intolerant of homosexuality; it can also be quite liberal. Gay-bashing incidents are not uncommon in the countryside, where many Mexicans consider homosexuality a sin. In Mexico City, meanwhile, same-sex domestic partnerships are legally recognized — and often celebrated lavishly in government offices as if they were marriages.
But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) — men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.
“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.
Anthropologists trace the acceptance of people of mixed gender to pre-Colombian Mexico, pointing to accounts of cross-dressing Aztec priests and Mayan gods who were male and female at the same time. Spanish colonizers wiped out most of those attitudes in the 1500s by forcing conversion to Catholicism. But mixed-gender identities managed to survive in the area around Juchitán, a place so traditional that many people speak ancient Zapotec instead of Spanish.
Not all muxes express their identities the same way. Some dress as women and take hormones to change their bodies. Others favor male clothes. What they share is that the community accepts them; many in it believe that muxes have special intellectual and artistic gifts.
Every November, muxes inundate the town for a grand ball that attracts local men, women and children as well as outsiders. A queen is selected; the mayor crowns her. “I don’t care what people say,” said Sebastian Sarmienta, the boyfriend of a muxe, Ninel Castillejo García. “There are some people who get uncomfortable. I don’t see a problem. What is so bad about it?”
Muxes are found in all walks of life in Juchitán, but most take on traditional female roles — selling in the market, embroidering traditional garments, cooking at home. Some also become sex workers, selling their services to men. .
Acceptance of a child who feels he is a muxe is not unanimous; some parents force such children to fend for themselves. But the far more common sentiment appears to be that of a woman who takes care of her grandson, Carmelo, 13.
“It is how God sent him,” she said.
Katie Orlinsky contributed reporting from Juchitán, Mexico.
See Documentary film on the Muxes:
03 February 2009
03 December 2008
Bangalore: Sex change racket - Financer arrested
Bangalore City police have today arrested a financier for his alleged involvement in a major sex change racket in the city.The police, who had busted the racket yesterday with the arrest of two eunuchs for kidnapping a boy and coercing him into prostitution after his sex was changed, had succeeded in arresting kingpin Rajanna from the city and they were on the look out for a doctor, who operated the boy in Andhra Pradesh, the sources said.
They said the ninth standard student had been identified as Chandrashekhar of T Dasarhalli in the city. He was taken to Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh for the sex change in March, when his parents had filed a missing complaint with the police.The racket involves in kidnapping, castrating and eventually forcing them into begging and prostitution.
The boy revealed that he had gone to Kadapa and underwent a couple of surgeries and got his sex changed before being named as Shilpa. The only son of labour Venkatappa was then forced into the business of prostitution and begging. The money he collected from the day was given to Rajanna, who had financed his surgery in Kadapa. Rajanna had also made the arrangement of Rs 50,000 for the breast transplant in a city hospital.
The boy has been admitted to Victoira hospital for rejuvenating his genitals. The Chief Minister's office has come forward to bear the medical expenses for the operation, they added. According to a report, there were about 25,000 transgenders in the city.
Source: http://mangalorean.com/
Bangalore November 10, 2008
Photo: Anita Khemka
A beautiful story titled Paal (gender)
Kollywood will be witnessing a new genre of film. The transgenders seem to be setting foot almost everywhere from television anchoring to arts. This time, it’s a new film starring a transgender heroine. The film is titled Paal also meaning gender in Tamil. It is the story of the neglected state of transgenders in the society today. The director of the movie Shivakumar to understand what it felt like to be a transgender has spent a full two months with them in Mumbai. The result of this two-month hunt was Ms Karpaka, who has now been roped in as the heroine. ‘Paal’ will launch choreographer Kadhal Kadas as a hero and paired with him will be Karpaka. Yet another interesting feature is that the assistant director of the movie is Living Smile Vidya, another transgender who rose to fame with her book, I am Vidya, recently. ‘Paal’ is based on the relationship between the lead pair and how Karpaka fears letting out her original identity to the man she loves and thus avoids him and his love. Karpaka plays the role of a short film maker. Whether she is accepted by the society she belongs to, and the man she loves, forms the climax. The shooting of this film is progressing well and slated for an August release.
see more photos of Ms Karpaka
08 July 2008
I was imprisoned in a male body, until a surgeon's knife cut me free
By Gazal Dhaliwal
Photo: Sanjay Ahlawat
Soon after I turned 13, my mirror stopped being my friend. The school uniform added a compulsory turban to my head, and nature added hair to my face.
Clothes were nice if they were my mother's and long hair was fine when it was in plaits, instead of being wound inside a turban. Games were fun as long as they were 'Teacher' and 'Housekeeping' and not cricket; preferred companions were girls and not boys. But then I was Gunraj from Chandigarh, today I am Gazal, 25.
And if you just looked at my picture again to check how masculine (or feminine) I look now, I will not blame you. It is the most natural reaction from a society, which unconsciously enforces a rigid distinction between genders. Any blur on this line is generally laughed at. Yet, I must tell you the story of my gender change, my liberation. Because there are thousands of people who feel trapped in their bodies. They hide instincts for fear of rejection, uncertain whether it is right to feel and want what everyone around them finds wrong. I want people to know how I survived 25 years in a role I did not choose for myself. A role which I played day after day without any hope of the curtain falling.
When I was often told that I was girlish, I was totally confused. The condescending voices opened taps of guilt deep inside, but somewhere even deeper, rivers of happiness sprang from that acknowledgment of my true self. But the happiness made me feel guiltier because no one told me that it was all right to be happy.
One of my happier childhood memories is of a school drama, in which I played a female character. During rehearsals, I was the most excited actor. Dressed in a pretty skirt for the performance, I told my father that I would be adjudged the Best Supporting Actress, if my performance was good. Best Supporting Actor, he corrected. I argued and tried to pick holes in his argument. But reason and logic were on his side; I only had a mess in my head. A transsexual child is forever trapped in this quest for identity, and in finding ways to evade the mocking laughter and derogatory names hurled by taunting peers. There is a sinking feeling all along that I do not fit in, that I never will fit in.
Puberty is a tough time for everybody, a time when one tries to understand one's sexuality. In that age of unanswered questions, I distinctly remember getting goosebumps watching a provocative music video by a male pop singer. And in the numerous sleepless nights that followed, it dawned on me, for the first time with a sense of absoluteness, that I was different, and would always be. For years to come, I was to think how unfair it was of God to make me gay.
But thankfully God did not leave me without anything. Today, I do not value academics much, but through my growing up years, I was considered a "bright child", "good orator" and a "very disciplined student". But for me my worth was in my singing, writing and histrionics. Recently, when I met my ex-schoolmates and teachers, they had high opinions about my student days. Said one, "Gunraj, I used to think it so unfair that you had every enviable quality in you." While another said, "I wouldn't have imagined you as anything, but a truly happy child."
I give my family the entire credit for still having been able to retain a sane mind. My stress found an equal opposition in the love I constantly got from my parents, my extended family and later, my friends. Initially, my parents could not comprehend how a boy could feel like a girl, yet they never gave up trying to understand, and never gave up on me. They would ask me to try and change the way I thought. I would wail: "It is not about the way I think, it is about the way I am. I do not choose to be like this, Papa. I was born this way. Why don't you go and try living as a member of the opposite gender?"
They did not punish me even when they found out that I would impersonate a girl and chat to strangers over the phone. When I ran away from home before my board exams, they brought me back and loved me even more. My brother, sister and relatives stood by me and held me tight when I teetered at the edge of a precipice.
The board exams went well, so did the entrance exams and I was admitted to a well-known engineering college. Thus I went to spend four years of my life in a boys' hostel. I was prepared to be an oddity there, ready for the remarks-"Always goes to the bathroom to change!" "Speaks so effeminately!" "Walk is so girly!" What I was not prepared, however, was for the severe ragging. Despite those unmentionable horrors of the first year, those four years are the most beautiful time of my life. In the cacophony of mocking voices and laughter, there were a few precious faces, which became my dear friends. I think it was in those years that I started realising that it was all right to be happy with myself. College life gave me freedom and the chance to explore my extra-curricular interests. Besides singing, debating and directing college plays, I would sneak out and watch late-night movies and go on trips with friends.
After completing college, I found myself sitting in the massive office of a software giant, gazing at the computer screen. A studio apartment, the company bus, my desk and the office dormitory summed up my entire world. I was rated among the top 10 per cent of the company's 20,000-strong work force. I never objected to an 18-hour workday because it kept me from the jeering whispers in the corporate hallways.
It was hard to trust anyone now. The fear of rejection kept me from accepting anybody new in my life. I desperately wanted to run away again, but I realised that the only thing to run away from was my own self. There were times, however, when the pangs of loneliness were so acute that I would look for a companion in gay websites. I would also meet men occasionally, but they were looking for a 'man' in me-my whole life had been about not being one. Gradually, I understood that gender dysphoria is not the same as being gay. While the causes of stress in both conditions might be similar to an extent, the conditions themselves are quite different.
A homosexual man, for instance, might have no problem in wearing a formal shirt and tie to office every day, while that particular dress code of my company was one of the three main reasons I decided to quit! My extremely peaceful and dull place of posting was the second. The third reason was an attempt to 'fit in' somewhere.
So I moved to Mumbai-my city of dreams. I was doing a one-year diploma in filmmaking. I was I happy that I had made the right career choice, and filmmaking was a sedative to the pain I could never completely learn to live with.
A year passed in a flash, and it was time to choose subjects for our final documentary films, which had to be made in groups of six. When I proposed 'Transsexuality' as a theme, only two friends who knew my condition raised their hands in support. That was perhaps the most important moment of my life. Soon enough, three more friends joined in, and the group was complete. The title suggested was 'To Be or Not To Be'. It sounded perfect, but something inside me said that it would change. The new name occurred to me the next morning-To be… ME.
I had never had any plans of coming out of the closet for the film; but that was the case with all the transgenders we met. Soon I realised that I was expecting others to face the demons, which I could not face. Now it was time to accept, love and celebrate being myself. Almost magically, the day I decided to face the camera, we started discovering others who were willing, and even excited, to share their stories! In my heart, I knew it was God's way to tell me that He supported my decision. To Be… ME turned out to be the best film of the year.
I had been reading about Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) for many years, but my research for making the film had reassured me that it was not only all right to be happy, but it was my right to be happy. "So, when are you going for it?" was the first question my father asked after seeing the film. And ever since that question, there has been no looking back.
A year-and-a-half ago, I started my gender reassignment procedure, which will probably go on for another year. Frankly, this period of transformation is not one of the most convenient-socially, physically or emotionally. I was fortunate to be hired as an assistant by a veteran filmmaker and the staff at my office is truly godsend. They do their best to understand the issue and go out of their way to ensure my comfort in this period of transition. In the last 20 months my inner-self is slowly, but surely, taking its form in the mirror. I am thrilled to get compliments that I have always pined for, and it is musical to hear the taxi driver ask, "Madam, kahaan jaana hai?"
On October 19, 2007, my male genitals were replaced by female genitalia through vaginoplasty. Dr Chettawut performed the surgery in Bangkok. Currently, I down four tablets a day, a part hormone therapy, which has to be continued throughout my life. I am also undergoing electrolysis for removal of facial hair. This will continue for one more year. Finding myself cost me around Rs 5.5 lakh, including Dr Chettawut's fee of $7,000.
Thailand is renowned for male-to-female SRS. In my three-week stay, I saw patients of different nationalities, races and ages. Dr Chettawut performs around 20 vaginoplasties every month. It melted my heart to see a middle-aged woman accompanying her 'husband' for 'his' surgery. The 'husband' was a transsexual woman. I had read on the internet about such cases, where a spouse turns into a companion for a transsexual person, but to actually see it was like witnessing the purest form of love.
The surgeon's certificate identifies me as an "infertile female". Both are strong words. For most, the first might be stronger; for me, it is the second one. Being a mother, after all, is not just about the ability to give birth. Being transsexual, also, is not just about looking masculine or feminine. And the condition itself is not psychological. The bottom line is that gender dysphoria needs a medical correction. And an SRS is only as unnatural as any other surgery.
The sooner a transsexual person can start their gender reassignment procedure, the easier is the transition, and the better, the visible results. But at the same time, one must be mature enough to understand one's priorities. If 'infertile' is the stronger word for you, or if you're doing this for anybody except yourself, think again!
I still have a lot of catching up to do. I badly need to get some humour and spontaneity into my life. Then there is an urgent need to catch up on clothes, shoes, earrings and makeup. But there is this one thing I caught up with, recently and not many people do that-Life!
Published in 'The Week' dated 09-03-2008
Visit Ghazal's Blog http://gazalhopes.blogspot.com/
Photo: Sanjay Ahlawat
Soon after I turned 13, my mirror stopped being my friend. The school uniform added a compulsory turban to my head, and nature added hair to my face.
Clothes were nice if they were my mother's and long hair was fine when it was in plaits, instead of being wound inside a turban. Games were fun as long as they were 'Teacher' and 'Housekeeping' and not cricket; preferred companions were girls and not boys. But then I was Gunraj from Chandigarh, today I am Gazal, 25.And if you just looked at my picture again to check how masculine (or feminine) I look now, I will not blame you. It is the most natural reaction from a society, which unconsciously enforces a rigid distinction between genders. Any blur on this line is generally laughed at. Yet, I must tell you the story of my gender change, my liberation. Because there are thousands of people who feel trapped in their bodies. They hide instincts for fear of rejection, uncertain whether it is right to feel and want what everyone around them finds wrong. I want people to know how I survived 25 years in a role I did not choose for myself. A role which I played day after day without any hope of the curtain falling.
When I was often told that I was girlish, I was totally confused. The condescending voices opened taps of guilt deep inside, but somewhere even deeper, rivers of happiness sprang from that acknowledgment of my true self. But the happiness made me feel guiltier because no one told me that it was all right to be happy.
One of my happier childhood memories is of a school drama, in which I played a female character. During rehearsals, I was the most excited actor. Dressed in a pretty skirt for the performance, I told my father that I would be adjudged the Best Supporting Actress, if my performance was good. Best Supporting Actor, he corrected. I argued and tried to pick holes in his argument. But reason and logic were on his side; I only had a mess in my head. A transsexual child is forever trapped in this quest for identity, and in finding ways to evade the mocking laughter and derogatory names hurled by taunting peers. There is a sinking feeling all along that I do not fit in, that I never will fit in.
Puberty is a tough time for everybody, a time when one tries to understand one's sexuality. In that age of unanswered questions, I distinctly remember getting goosebumps watching a provocative music video by a male pop singer. And in the numerous sleepless nights that followed, it dawned on me, for the first time with a sense of absoluteness, that I was different, and would always be. For years to come, I was to think how unfair it was of God to make me gay.
But thankfully God did not leave me without anything. Today, I do not value academics much, but through my growing up years, I was considered a "bright child", "good orator" and a "very disciplined student". But for me my worth was in my singing, writing and histrionics. Recently, when I met my ex-schoolmates and teachers, they had high opinions about my student days. Said one, "Gunraj, I used to think it so unfair that you had every enviable quality in you." While another said, "I wouldn't have imagined you as anything, but a truly happy child."
I give my family the entire credit for still having been able to retain a sane mind. My stress found an equal opposition in the love I constantly got from my parents, my extended family and later, my friends. Initially, my parents could not comprehend how a boy could feel like a girl, yet they never gave up trying to understand, and never gave up on me. They would ask me to try and change the way I thought. I would wail: "It is not about the way I think, it is about the way I am. I do not choose to be like this, Papa. I was born this way. Why don't you go and try living as a member of the opposite gender?"
They did not punish me even when they found out that I would impersonate a girl and chat to strangers over the phone. When I ran away from home before my board exams, they brought me back and loved me even more. My brother, sister and relatives stood by me and held me tight when I teetered at the edge of a precipice.
The board exams went well, so did the entrance exams and I was admitted to a well-known engineering college. Thus I went to spend four years of my life in a boys' hostel. I was prepared to be an oddity there, ready for the remarks-"Always goes to the bathroom to change!" "Speaks so effeminately!" "Walk is so girly!" What I was not prepared, however, was for the severe ragging. Despite those unmentionable horrors of the first year, those four years are the most beautiful time of my life. In the cacophony of mocking voices and laughter, there were a few precious faces, which became my dear friends. I think it was in those years that I started realising that it was all right to be happy with myself. College life gave me freedom and the chance to explore my extra-curricular interests. Besides singing, debating and directing college plays, I would sneak out and watch late-night movies and go on trips with friends.
After completing college, I found myself sitting in the massive office of a software giant, gazing at the computer screen. A studio apartment, the company bus, my desk and the office dormitory summed up my entire world. I was rated among the top 10 per cent of the company's 20,000-strong work force. I never objected to an 18-hour workday because it kept me from the jeering whispers in the corporate hallways.
It was hard to trust anyone now. The fear of rejection kept me from accepting anybody new in my life. I desperately wanted to run away again, but I realised that the only thing to run away from was my own self. There were times, however, when the pangs of loneliness were so acute that I would look for a companion in gay websites. I would also meet men occasionally, but they were looking for a 'man' in me-my whole life had been about not being one. Gradually, I understood that gender dysphoria is not the same as being gay. While the causes of stress in both conditions might be similar to an extent, the conditions themselves are quite different.
A homosexual man, for instance, might have no problem in wearing a formal shirt and tie to office every day, while that particular dress code of my company was one of the three main reasons I decided to quit! My extremely peaceful and dull place of posting was the second. The third reason was an attempt to 'fit in' somewhere.
So I moved to Mumbai-my city of dreams. I was doing a one-year diploma in filmmaking. I was I happy that I had made the right career choice, and filmmaking was a sedative to the pain I could never completely learn to live with.
A year passed in a flash, and it was time to choose subjects for our final documentary films, which had to be made in groups of six. When I proposed 'Transsexuality' as a theme, only two friends who knew my condition raised their hands in support. That was perhaps the most important moment of my life. Soon enough, three more friends joined in, and the group was complete. The title suggested was 'To Be or Not To Be'. It sounded perfect, but something inside me said that it would change. The new name occurred to me the next morning-To be… ME.
I had never had any plans of coming out of the closet for the film; but that was the case with all the transgenders we met. Soon I realised that I was expecting others to face the demons, which I could not face. Now it was time to accept, love and celebrate being myself. Almost magically, the day I decided to face the camera, we started discovering others who were willing, and even excited, to share their stories! In my heart, I knew it was God's way to tell me that He supported my decision. To Be… ME turned out to be the best film of the year.
I had been reading about Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) for many years, but my research for making the film had reassured me that it was not only all right to be happy, but it was my right to be happy. "So, when are you going for it?" was the first question my father asked after seeing the film. And ever since that question, there has been no looking back.
A year-and-a-half ago, I started my gender reassignment procedure, which will probably go on for another year. Frankly, this period of transformation is not one of the most convenient-socially, physically or emotionally. I was fortunate to be hired as an assistant by a veteran filmmaker and the staff at my office is truly godsend. They do their best to understand the issue and go out of their way to ensure my comfort in this period of transition. In the last 20 months my inner-self is slowly, but surely, taking its form in the mirror. I am thrilled to get compliments that I have always pined for, and it is musical to hear the taxi driver ask, "Madam, kahaan jaana hai?"
On October 19, 2007, my male genitals were replaced by female genitalia through vaginoplasty. Dr Chettawut performed the surgery in Bangkok. Currently, I down four tablets a day, a part hormone therapy, which has to be continued throughout my life. I am also undergoing electrolysis for removal of facial hair. This will continue for one more year. Finding myself cost me around Rs 5.5 lakh, including Dr Chettawut's fee of $7,000.
Thailand is renowned for male-to-female SRS. In my three-week stay, I saw patients of different nationalities, races and ages. Dr Chettawut performs around 20 vaginoplasties every month. It melted my heart to see a middle-aged woman accompanying her 'husband' for 'his' surgery. The 'husband' was a transsexual woman. I had read on the internet about such cases, where a spouse turns into a companion for a transsexual person, but to actually see it was like witnessing the purest form of love.
The surgeon's certificate identifies me as an "infertile female". Both are strong words. For most, the first might be stronger; for me, it is the second one. Being a mother, after all, is not just about the ability to give birth. Being transsexual, also, is not just about looking masculine or feminine. And the condition itself is not psychological. The bottom line is that gender dysphoria needs a medical correction. And an SRS is only as unnatural as any other surgery.
The sooner a transsexual person can start their gender reassignment procedure, the easier is the transition, and the better, the visible results. But at the same time, one must be mature enough to understand one's priorities. If 'infertile' is the stronger word for you, or if you're doing this for anybody except yourself, think again!
I still have a lot of catching up to do. I badly need to get some humour and spontaneity into my life. Then there is an urgent need to catch up on clothes, shoes, earrings and makeup. But there is this one thing I caught up with, recently and not many people do that-Life!
Published in 'The Week' dated 09-03-2008
Visit Ghazal's Blog http://gazalhopes.blogspot.com/
09 June 2008
SHE was HEre (sic)
Tuesday March 18 2008 10:19 IST
on NewIndPress.comby Manu Vipin
DRESSED in a black and white skirt and figurehugging top with a matching gold necklace, long earrings and anklets, she looks fresh even after a night-long dance performance.
Only the trace of stubble and a gruff voice call your attention to the battles she has fought.
The talented classical dancer and the director of Lakshya Performing Arts Academy, Chennai, P R Rajesh aka Lakshya took 32 years to muster the courage to reject the sex she was born with and accept her gender.
The secret had till then been hers and hers alone. The feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
“I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what the label was. I didn’t know what the outcome would be,” she says. It was nine months ago that Rajesh from Aluva, now settled in Chennai, underwent the sex-change operation.
“I didn’t want to cheat anyone. I wanted to show the world who I was and now I am happy to live as me, a transgender,” says Lakshya who was in the city for a dance performance as part of the Sivarathri festival. And this was her first performance in her home town after her gender change.
“I was excited. Nobody recognised me and I revealed my identity only after my performance. Kerala society is still conservative unlike the rest of the country,” says Lakshya who has performed all over the world. But after the performance, she is pleased with the response from the audience. “I found a tremendous change in the attitude of people here,” she says.
Born into a middle-class family with four older brothers, Lakshya says she took to dancing at a young age. The movie Sankarabharanam had a great impact on Rajesh and ignited his passion for dance.
“I saw the movie when I was 12 years old and made up my mind to devote my life to dance,” he says. His parents supported him, and Rajesh started learning dance under Kalamandalam Sumathi.
He won many state-level competitions and when he turned 18 he joined Kalashektra, Chennai. “I learnt bharatanatyam for seven years and joined there as a guest artist and later as a teacher,” says Lakshya who is a post-graduate diploma holder in bharatanatyam.
She says all her life she was confused and lonely. “Women wouldn’t accept me and I used to feel hurt.” College life was painful. “I used to feel dejected at my repeated failures in love. I was attracted to boys and always, I was left heartbroken.
I even attempted suicide. When I look back I feel I was a real fool then,” she laughs.
It was her trips abroad that made her come to terms with her real identity. “There was lot of pressure from the family to get married. Initially I told them that I wanted to dedicate my life to dance,” she says with a smile.
Luckily for Lakshya her parents and her brothers accepted her. “She is talented and has a loving heart. I feel she has every right to choose her lifestyle,” says her mother Kamalam.
Post the sex-change operation, the transformation from Rajesh to Lakshya is complete, she says.
“Though there are challenges still, I’m no longer confused about who I am,” she says. “Since the operation I haven’t had any bad experience. I stay positive and believe that if you behave with dignity people will respect you.”
Lakshya considers dance as a medium to express her feminity and a divine gift from god. She is equally good at bharatanatyam, kuchipudi, mohiniyattom and folk dances, and has performed lead roles in Kalashetra dance dramas. Lakshya is also known for her skill in choreography.
She says she wants to dedicate more time to dance performances rather than stick to teaching dance at her academy. “I am young and now I have the energy to perform,” says Lakshya who is the recipient of T S Parthasarathy Award for Excellence in Dancing.
She is also a graded artist in Doordarshan. “I have seen many transgenders who feel sorry for themselves. But I feel lucky because today I believe in myself,” says Lakshya exuding confidence. “Today, I am secure in my identity.”
19 May 2008
In search of dignity
The portrayal of transgenders on the Tamil screen has been insensitive, but this is set to change, says Lakshmy Venkiteswaran.Megaserials such as Kolangal and Arase on Sun TV have characters that depict transgenders in powerful roles
This is evident from the insensitive portrayal of transgenders in Tamil films, which more often than not associate aravanis with sexual innuendos and double entendres. Films such as Jayam (2003), Thullatha Manamum Thullum (1999), Eeraman Rojave (1983) and Thiruda Thirudi (2003) have used aravanis for comic relief - making fun of their mannerisms and dress.
This is a far cry from Hilary Swank's Oscar winning performance as the protagonist in Boys Don't Cry, which is based on the life of Brandon Teena, a young transman who was raped and murdered in 1993 by his male friends after they found out about his sexuality.
"Indian comedians lack the creativity needed to come up with fresh comedy. As human beings, we lack empathy and that reflects in the comedy tracks featuring transgenders," says Rose.
However, this is set to change. Her talk show has not only received rave reviews but also changed the stereotypical image of a transgender.
"The public is, for the first time, seeing a transgender being articulate, sociable, intelligent and beautiful. My show has paved the way for transgenders to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve."
Rose, who plans to make a film that portrays transgenders in a different light, says that lack of acceptance by the society is not limited to India. "People should realise that we are the way we are not to make anyone laugh," she says.
Megaserials such as Kolangal and Arase on Sun TV have characters that depict transgenders in powerful roles. In Arase, Bubloo plays the transgender Ganga who is pursued by police.
In one episode, she is arrested and thrown into cell full of males where she is harassed.
7 "I love her dialogue in this episode. It's a reflection of the problems that we face everyday.
Access to public toilets, for instance, is a serious problem. The government needs to formulate special plans to help us cope with society," says June, a transgender in Chennai.
In the Tamil film Appu (2000), the villain is a transgender, Maharani, a power-hungry pimp who eliminates anyone she perceives as a threat.
"Ganga and Maharani are negative characters but you cannot generalise this," adds June.
"There are good and bad people everywhere and transgenders are no different from the rest!" Navarasa, directed by Santosh Sivan, is one of the few films that show the life of aravanis.
Told through the eyes of young Swetha, who is shocked been discovering that her beloved uncle is a woman in a man's body, the film captures the annual Koothandavar festival in Koovagam. Commercially, Navarasa was a nonstarter but the film won much critical acclaim and also the National Award (2005) for the Best Regional Movie.
"If Navarasa had commercial elements such as a dream sequence with the lead pair gyrating to peppy beats, it may have garnered different response. Very few, even among the literate, appreciate meaningful cinema such as Navarasa. The times are changing and awareness has increased about the transgender community, but more needs to be done in terms of policies and laws," says Ameer, the director of the film Paruthiveeran.
Debutant director Kadhir, of the soon-to-be released Tamil film Thenavattu, says his movie will set the benchmark for portrayal of aravanis in Tamil cinema. "We even feed a stray dog but we wouldn't want to help these people. They resort to begging and prostitution because of lack of employment. My film throws a differ ent light on this community. We need to learn to empathise and also change our attitude towards aravanis," he says.
Legislative concerns Homosexual relations are still a crime in India under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which dates back to 1860 The vague nature of the legislation has resulted in it being used against a wide range sexual behaviour such as oral sex (heterosexual and homosexual), sodomy, and bestiality The punishment ranges from 10 years to life imprisonment No major Indian political party has raised endorsed gay rights in their party mani festo or platform. However, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Brinda Karat, did in 2003 write an open letter to the then minister for law and justice, Arun Jaitley, demanding a repeal of Section 377.Published on the New Indian Express (Chennai edition of the 18 may 2008) by lakshmy@epmltd.com
Watch IPPADIKKU ROSE:
23 April 2008
A pageant for the third sex.
CHANDREYEE CHATTERJEEMonday , April 21 , 2008
From Telegraph India:
The Calcutta Chapter of the Miss India (Kinnar) Beauty contest was organised by Manas Bangla, a statewide network of organisations working with marginalised males, and Kolkata Rista, in collaboration with Bhojiwood Films, New Delhi.
“The aim is to provide people not conforming to traditional gender labels with a platform to express themselves freely,” said Anis Ray Chaudhuri, the treasurer and director of programmes, Manas Bangla.
The contest bore the stamp of the participants’ fight against marginalisation they face at home and outside because of their gender non-conformity and/or non-conventional sexual preferences. One of the contestants, Suman, summed up the spirit of the competition, saying: “We want to prove that we are not less than anyone in any way.” “We want people to accept us the way we are,” asserted Debnath.
The contest had two rounds. In the first round, the participants were asked to introduce themselves, after which the judges questioned them. The second round saw the contestants put up performances of their choice.
The winners will participate in the national contest, to be held in Delhi later this month. The participants and organisers feel the event will boost the battle for empowerment that the transgender people have been waging for long, often unnoticed.
“Most transgender people are constantly harassed — sexually, physically and emotionally — and they get dehumanised. This platform is a step towards bringing them into the mainstream and empowering them,” said Anis.
20 February 2008
Sex change athletes
Mon, November 19 2007 By Mata Press Service
Santhi Soundarajan (photo) was born in poverty in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Today she is one of
But the Asian Games organizers have stripped her off her medal claiming she is more man than woman after Santhi failed a gender verification test. Now Canadian Olympic hopeful Kristen Worley a transsexual cyclist, has decided to fight for Santhi, who has been left to fend for herself by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). Worley has taken up Santhi’s case, a victim of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, with International Olympic Council president Jacques Rogge.
However, some people born with a Y chromosome develop all the physical characteristics of a woman except internal female sex organs, a result of a genetic defect that does not produce testosterone.
A person with this condition - called androgen insensitivity syndrome or AIS - might be XY but she is not a man because her body never responds to the testosterone she’s producing.
Since testosterone helps in building muscle and strength, an AIS case would not give an XY female athlete any kind of competitive advantage.
Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosomes during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete. Given the confusion and uncertainty over determining a person’s sex, the International Olympic Committee stopped gender testing in 1999. But the Olympic Council of Asia continues the practice.
Worley, a part of the Canadian Olympics team, herself underwent a sex change operation from male to female and believes that it was wrong on the part of the Olympic Council of Asia to take the medal back.
Worley has urged the Council to return the medal to the Indian runner. Worley said, ”the Santhi case should never have been handled in such a gross manner, amounting to public humiliation for the Indian runner because of their ignorance.”
While the Indian speed runner thanked the Canadian for taking up her cause and extending support to her and said, ”I was dejected when the Asian Games committee took back my medal.
I was worried whether I’d get my medal back. But now an international cyclist is supporting me, I feel very happy. I want to thank her.”
But Worley, according to a report in Gaywired, a netzine supporting the cause of gays, is fighting for the cause of Santhi and other victims of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), which results in the external physical characteristics typically associated with women despite having XY chromosomes, and wants the Indian athlete to get her Asian Games silver medal back.
Worley hopes to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and has been accepted, despite a sex change from male to female, as a member of the Canadian women’s cycling team.
Santhi, on the other hand, is banished from athletics after failing a highly controversial gender test during the 2006 Doha Asian Games and was recently in the news for her alleged suicide attempt at her native Kattakurichi village in Podukotti last month.
Worley said not only should Soundararajan get her medal back, she should have her dignity returned. “This is not her problem, this is an IOC problem,” she said.
According to Gaywired.com, Worley won’t know if she will make it to the 2008 Olympics until the World Track & Field Championships in
In the meantime, when she’s not training or changing the world, Worley is a design engineer for a water ski boat manufacturer. Sharing her love for the water sport, this summer Worley hosted a ski day for transitioning teens.
Helen Carroll, sports project director at the San Francisco–based
“We’re thinking she’s going to be the first openly out trans person that’s competing in the Olympics,” Carroll says.
For athletes who changed sexes after puberty, there are stricter requirements: All surgical anatomical changes have to be completed; legal documentation, such as a driver’s license, has to be provided that reflects the new gender; and hormonal therapies have to have been administered for enough time to minimize gender-related advantages.
The IOC also recommends that the athlete wait at least two years after a gonadectomy—the removal of the testicles in men and the ovaries in women—before competing
17 September 2007
Indian transvestite dancers endure rape and sadism
By Jonathan Allen
MAHARAJGANJ, India (Reuters) - To earn a living, Kiran dresses up in women's clothes, dances at wedding parties in the Indian countryside and tries not to struggle when he is raped at knifepoint by drunken male wedding guests.
The pay, he says, is pretty good.
He is one of thousands of launda dancers working the wedding scene in the villages of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh states, leading the groom's raucous marching-band procession to the bride's house.
They put up with routine violence because, they say, it is the only way they are free to live as "kothis", a South Asian term for effeminate and transsexual gay men.
Most dancers soon get used to being bitten, burnt with cigarettes and cut with knives and broken bottles. In one common "party trick", a wedding guest will hide a razor blade in his fingers and then bloodily caress the dancer's cheek.
And while most laundas make extra money selling sex, too often they end up brutalized. Most know of dancers who were shot dead or strangled for resisting sex with gangs of men from the wedding in nearby buildings or fields.
"They like to have sex with pain. They like to give us pain. They take pleasure in this violence," said 20-year-old Kiran, who declined to give his full name, as he plucked stubble from his cheeks with tweezers, readying for work.
Bappa, an older launda, said one of his worst days at work was when a drunk man took a knife in a boast of virility and slit Bappa's anus open wide before raping him.
But another launda, Bobby said their current neighborhood -- Uttar Pradesh's Maharajganj district -- was relatively safe, and argued the freedom granted by the job outweighed the violence.
"All our desires are filled," he said, dressed in a canary-yellow salwar kameez over a padded bra, his long hair dyed auburn. "Most importantly, our desire to live like women, to cook for our boyfriends, to adorn ourselves, have our own households."
After Bobby went to shampoo his hair under the handpump outside, Kiran made the point more bluntly.
"I have come here for two specific reasons," he said, grinning. "One: to dress up as a woman and live like them. Two: sex, sex, and sex."
RAPED FROM CHILDHOOD
For poor, lower-caste families wanting a grand wedding for their children, boys in drag were once a cheap substitute for dancing girls. Laundas have since become a regional tradition.
After the marriage ceremony they dance through the night, often until dawn.
A relatively honest bandmaster typically pays a dancer 3,000 to 6,000 rupees ($75 to $150) a month, a little above the average income in India.
Like most laundas dancing in the countryside, Bappa is from the metropolis of Kolkata. His career path was typical.
From a young age he didn't fit in with other boys, and bullies forced him out of school. They liked cricket. He preferred pictures of cricket players and dolls.
Laughing, he mimes how he would drape his head with a towel to pretend he had long hair.
When he was eight years old, his 25-year-old neighbor walked into his house, stripped him as he squirmed, and raped him.
It was the first of many such attacks by the neighbor who later got him into brothel work, where he learnt about launda dancers. He figured it was the best chance for an outcast to make a living.
When at home in Kolkata, his family silently tolerates him so long as he wears men's clothing, skips the makeup and keeps out of their way.
He hides his women's gear with a vegetable seller at the nearby train station, where he gets changed in the ladies toilet. His parents are still trying to find him a bride.
"We once dreamt of having a respectable job," said Kiran, "We wanted to become doctors, craftsmen or company executives. We dreamt of getting married, having kids of our own, going to the beach for holidays. But not anymore."
SHUNNED
Few people care about launda dancers.
Charities and government projects tend to focus on girls and young women, mostly because they are trafficked and abused in far greater numbers, but also because they are seen as defenseless.
Even the men the laundas call their boyfriends -- mostly married men perceived to be heterosexual -- tend to shun them during daylight hours.
Added to that is the threat of disease. India has the world's largest HIV caseload with an estimated 5.7 million sufferers and the dancers are a high-risk group. Bobby has a photo album featuring pictures of two launda friends who died from AIDS.
Kolkata-based People Like Us is one of the few organizations working with laundas to provide better healthcare and reduce the threat of violence.
But it says funding is hard to come by, partly because the line between victim and exploiter can quickly blur.
As they get older, laundas often bring younger kothis into the business. To some people, this is nothing less than pimping. But the laundas argue only they can teach these outcast teenagers how to survive a lifetime of abuse as transsexuals living in India.
Source: Reuters.com
Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:21pm EDT
11 September 2007
Born a boy in Samoa, living as a woman in Alaska
“What are you?”
The question came at Tafi Toleafoa from a young woman across the computer lab.
People always want to know, but they rarely ask out loud. Students wear the question on their faces the first day of class. Professors trip over pronouns. It’s been that way since Tafi came from Samoa two years ago to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage.
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
Now, one more time, Tafi had to explain, to untangle the contradiction of her long thick hair and plump, glossy lips with the masculine tenor of her voice and her tall, substantial body. She had to tell the girl that, no, she isn’t a boy, or a girl, exactly. She’s something else.
“I’m fa’afafine,” Tafi said. “That means I have a boy’s body, but I was raised in Samoa as a girl.”
Tafi could have explained that in the islands, nobody ever asked. She could have told the girl that a Samoan mother with a fa’afafine among her children is considered lucky. Fa’afafine help with babies and cooking, they tend the elderly and the sick. They are presumed to have the best traits of both men and women.
But the girl didn’t want to know more. She picked up her things and left, giving Tafi one last look over her shoulder.
The way most Americans understand it, gender breaks down simply: There are men and there are women. But across Asia and the Pacific Islands, many cultures recognize a third gender with characteristics both male and female. In Samoa, when a son or a daughter prefers the work and clothes of the opposite sex, they are called fa’afafine “like a woman” or, far less commonly, fa’atama, “like a man.”
Tafi has a male body, but she lives her life as a female and asks that people refer to her as “she.” That’s how she will be described in this story.
In the islands Tafi was more accepted, but her life was still complicated. Many fa’afafine live as women, the maleness of their bodies ignored by those around them.
Outside of the cities, especially in Christian families, they must follow strict social rules binding them to household duties.
Many families, including Tafi’s, expect they will remain celibate. In a culture that prizes both its tradition and Christianity, fa’afafine are tolerated, but behavior that hints at homosexuality is not.
Still, many fa’afafine, who see themselves as women, do have discreet relationships with men.
In her ideal world, Tafi, who was raised as an oldest girl-child named Alicia, wouldn’t have to change her body to be accepted here. She wouldn’t have to rearrange her outside to make people accept what she is inside: a straight woman who is attracted to straight men.
But the world isn’t ideal. Since she came to Anchorage, Tafi’s family, who loves her as she is, has pressured her to dress like a man. They have decided she needs to fit in to avoid ugliness she isn’t used to.
Now, at 23, she’s torn between the expectations of her family who accept her as an asexual helper, and American culture that’s less accepting but offers her what she wants most: a chance to become physically female, to find a husband and have a family of her own.
Tafi wasn’t surprised that the girl in the computer lab didn’t know what she was seeing. Sometimes Tafi doesn’t know how to see herself—or her future.
Ropeta Toleafoa knew her son was fa’afafine when he was 4. Unlike his brothers, he stayed close to her and didn’t like getting dirty, she said, speaking in Samoan with her son Taivaleoaana “Seven” Toleafoa translating.
“He didn’t like going outside and doing what men do,” she said.
Tafi’s life wasn’t like the stories she watched on re-runs of American talk shows as she grew up in Samoa. She never felt she was a woman trapped in a man’s body. She never felt shame.
Samoa is a tribal, communal society, different from America where individual desires rule. Samoan parents hold a powerful role and commonly influence their children’s decisions far into adulthood. Children don’t choose to be fa’afafine; their mothers decide for them.
At 5, Tafi, a sweet, outspoken child, began hoisting babies on her hip, filling bottles for her mother and helping with the dishes. Ropeta, a mother of eight, was pregnant or nursing for many years and welcomed Tafi’s help.
Tafi wasn’t encouraged to dress like a girl, but she gravitated toward her sisters’ clothing, playing dress-up in private. “I loved skirts, short skirts to be specific,” she said. “I always had to be pretty.”
At school, Tafi bonded with girls and other fa’afafine among her classmates and teachers. By third grade, most everyone called her Alicia. Her younger siblings, all girls, saw her as an oldest sister.
Tafi’s father, Saunoa “Noah” Toleafoa is a religious man, an elder in the Seventh Day Adventist church that missionaries brought to the islands along with Western ideas about gender. Noah had fa’afafine in his family, but he held on longest to the idea that Tafi would be like her older brothers. A boy dressing as a girl is not what God intended, he said.
He tried forcing her to change her clothes and cut her hair like a boy’s, but nothing worked. Tafi couldn’t be forced.
“This one thing I know,” he said. “Tafi is different.”
By the time Tafi reached her teens, the idea of an actual sex change consumed her. Tafi found many examples of adult fa’afafine around her, some of whom had surgery. To each other they spoke a fa’afafine language, a mixture of English and Samoan. Tafi soon caught on.
“It wasn’t hard to ask them, `Hey, how did you get boobs?’” she said.
Out of respect for her father, Tafi dressed “androgynous,” wearing women’s pants, a T-shirt, and her long hair pulled into a bun. Her one indulgence was glitter.
“Lots of glitter,” she said. “I loved shiny stuff.”
Ropeta and her daughters insulated Tafi from her father’s disapproval, which gradually waned. For junior prom, Ropeta saved two paychecks to buy Tafi the material to make a pink dress.
By 2002, all the Toleafoas had immigrated to Anchorage, following family connections and the promise of better jobs. Tafi stayed behind, her immigration status complicated because she was born in western Samoa, which is an independent country, different from the U.S. territory of American Samoa. She’d graduated from high school and was working on her associate’s degree.
“That’s when I started dressing like a woman full-out,” she said.
In a snap-shot from that period posted on her MySpace.com site, Tafi glows, her chest full under a black blouse.
“It felt right,” she said. “Perfect.”
In 2005, on her way to Anchorage to start at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Tafi took her first step on U.S. soil in Hawaii, wearing platform sandals and short-shorts. She always imagined Americans, with their gay celebrities and liberal attitudes, would accept her. She remembered RuPaul and the movie “To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,” a drag queen comedy she’d watched in high school.
“I thought, `OK if there’s people like that, then probably I don’t have to explain myself,’” she said. “I didn’t know that it was going to be like there’s nobody that dresses like that in a real everyday life.”
When she showed her passport, which said she was a man, customs officials singled her out for two special searches. Standing in the balmy Honolulu airport, she felt the disapproval of strangers for the first time.
The collapse of her expectations continued in Anchorage. The first day of her liberal studies class, when she answered a professor’s question, she heard whispers. Her voice betrayed her.
“When they look at your face and you have earrings on and you have make-up on and you have long hair, then automatically you’re supposed to have this kind of voice,” she said. “If you are not going to have that voice, then you are kind of like an alien or something.”
After her first two weeks of school, her father sat Tafi down. He had four fa’afafine on his mother’s side, he said. One of them came to America 10 years ago, to California. People didn’t understand her there, he said. At a party, Americans beat her and threw her from a window. She was killed.
“He said he’s concerned about my life and my safety,” Tafi said. “That’s why he advised me that I should change my style to kind of like, umm, androgynous, sort of like professional.”
There would be no more short-shorts or glitter. Instead, it was T-shirts and slacks. And if her professor asked about pronouns, she’d go by “he.” But, even in her toned down-outfits, Tafi seemed feminine. Her professors struggled with what to call her in class.
“Even the most inclusive people do not know what this is,” said her professor Ann Jache. “They don’t know how to talk about a person that is both male and female.”
Tafi took her classmates’ judgment as a challenge. A gregarious “he,” she excelled in class, tackling complicated literature, winning a seat on the student senate, making a loyal group of friends in the school Polynesian association.
Tafi didn’t want to hide, Jache said, she wanted to explain. Jache and Tafi crafted a project on fa’afafine over the generations. Tafi gave a presentation to her class, and then to the campus, and then to a Unitarian church. Each time, she grew more confident.
Tafi began to see it as her job to inform the campus about fa’afafine.
“I knew that they are not educated about it. They wouldn’t be mean like that if they knew ... Fa’afafine are all coming to Alaska,” she said. “If they are running into the same problems, I have to do something about it.”
Tafi’s west Anchorage home is crowded with her parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and in-laws, 13 in all. Tropical flowers decorate the walls and a grass mat covers the carpet. Among her sisters, she’s Alicia, a dutiful oldest daughter with a flower behind her ear, chasing her toddling niece, carrying dishes from the kitchen.
Tafi’s brothers and sisters have a better idea than her parents about how Americans view her. They know that some people with a sibling like her would feel ashamed. Her brothers, who see her alternately as a sister and a cross-dressing brother, defend her fiercely.
“Samoan culture believe that God gave you a freedom of choice, you are who you are and it doesn’t matter,” said her brother, Asosaotama, a security guard who goes by “Ace.”
“Shame is nothing when it comes down to blood,” said Seven, a soldier at Fort Richardson, Alaska. “Blood is blood.”
But for her father and her brothers, one thing is very important. Tafi must follow the rules. A fa’afafine brother is one thing, but a gay brother is quite another.
Living as women in Samoa, fa’afafine do have relationships with men, but they are rarely, if ever, public. Tafi has heard of older fa’afafine, those whose parents have died, who live like closeted gay men in America, pretending their partner is a platonic friend. More commonly fa’afafine live with a large family, and have strings of short, secret relationships with straight men who may later marry, sometimes leaving them brokenhearted.
When the subject of a boyfriend came up at the table after church, Tafi’s mother and sisters cheered with approval. Her brother shook his head.
“Tafi can act like a girl, dress up like a girl, but if he had a boyfriend, that’s too far,” said Seven.
Tafi excused herself to the kitchen.
“My sister-in-law, my mom, my sisters, they want me to be happy, they know who I’m attracted to, what I’m attracted to, which is men, and they accept that,” she said later. “My dad and my brothers, no. It’s probably because they just have that expectation of me marrying a woman because I was born male. But then I’m not a male now, it’s obvious I’m not male.”
If anything makes Tafi unhappy, it’s this. Growing up she thought she’d be like other fa’afafine, staying with her aging parents until they passed away, caring for her sister Narese, who has Down syndrome.
But since she’s been in America, and read in her classes about people born male becoming female, she dreams of a future more like her sisters, with a partner of her own.
She thinks of taking hormones and eventually getting surgery to make her body match the way she feels. Her mother and sisters would understand. Her father and brothers would eventually accept it. But even then, if she chose to have a relationship with a man, she would be breaking the rules. She would have to keep it from them.
“Everything else is okay,” she said. “But, boyfriend? No.”
On a Saturday morning at Anchorage Community Seventh Day Adventist church in Airport Heights, and the youth choir lines up on the altar. Tafi’s sisters Sina and Cherish clap and sing “This little light of mine” in their aloha-print dresses, their long hair in heavy buns, glittery gloss on their lips.
Outside of family, church is the most important thing for Tafi. But it’s also a place where she feels conflicted. At first the family attended with a mostly Samoan congregation who understood her, but when they moved to a mixed-race church, things changed. Once again, Tafi’s father asked her to dress like a man.
“Now I have to be a certain way because some of the members’ culture do not have a kind of person like that,” she said.
Her brothers and father are leaders in the church. People have approached them about her.
“I hope that if they want to understand they would feel free to come and ask me because, I mean, how friendly could I get?” Tafi said.
Pastor Edson Joseph, who is from Antigua, has led the evangelical Christian church for 20 years. The congregation’s become increasingly diverse, with American blacks, Africans, people from the Caribbean and Pacific Islanders. A church should welcome everyone, but Tafi and other fa’afafine have raised troublesome questions, he said.
“I have had to defend him,” he said, meaning Tafi. “I have been accused of encouraging or upholding his unbiblical behavior.”
But, he said, all people are sinners and Jesus welcomed everyone, even prostitutes and criminals. So long as Tafi isn’t influencing children, there is a place for him and others like him. It would be a very different matter if Tafi were in a relationship with a man, he said. Then, he would have to intervene.
Tafi, dressed in slacks and a man’s dress shirt, carrying a knock-off designer purse, fills a back pew every Saturday, belting out harmonies to her sister’s songs. She’s made her peace with Jesus.
“I don’t think God sent his son for perfect people, he sent his son for sinners, whatever kind of sinner that is,” she said. “Jesus came to wash away the sins. I don’t think he came just to wash away the straight people’s sins.”
Away from church and school, there is one place where Tafi feels most like herself: among the women of her family.
One sunny day in June, the first birthday of Tafi’s niece, the Toleafoa family threw a barbecue for a hundred guests at the park behind the YMCA on Lake Otis.
Under the picnic shelter, where meat marinated in super-sized coolers and giant grills smoked, Tafi filled foil-covered lunch boxes with turkey tails, taro, flank steak, sausage, potato salad and rice.
“Faster, Alicia, faster,” called her sisters.
In her sarong, a flower behind her ear, Tafi carried plates of food to the elders from church, she dished out salad and chow mein, she sliced the elaborate banana cake. A child fell; she picked him up and shushed his tears.
R&B rolled out of a big set of speakers and the rhythm took hold of her sisters. They stopped work to dance, raising their palms to the sky. The mood captured their mother, Ropeta, who bounced her shoulders and swayed. Tafi put down her big spoon and let the song catch her hips in a slow groove.
Cherish and Sina hooted. Aunties cracked up. Ropeta looked at her happy child dancing in the barbecue smoke and felt moved to cheer her on in English: “Go girl! Go girl! Go girl!”
See Tafi's Myspace Page
Credits: by Julia O'Malley
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
23 August 2007
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
The question came at Tafi Toleafoa from a young woman across the computer lab.
People always want to know, but they rarely ask out loud. Students wear the question on their faces the first day of class. Professors trip over pronouns. It’s been that way since Tafi came from Samoa two years ago to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage.
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
Now, one more time, Tafi had to explain, to untangle the contradiction of her long thick hair and plump, glossy lips with the masculine tenor of her voice and her tall, substantial body. She had to tell the girl that, no, she isn’t a boy, or a girl, exactly. She’s something else.
“I’m fa’afafine,” Tafi said. “That means I have a boy’s body, but I was raised in Samoa as a girl.”
Tafi could have explained that in the islands, nobody ever asked. She could have told the girl that a Samoan mother with a fa’afafine among her children is considered lucky. Fa’afafine help with babies and cooking, they tend the elderly and the sick. They are presumed to have the best traits of both men and women.
But the girl didn’t want to know more. She picked up her things and left, giving Tafi one last look over her shoulder.
The way most Americans understand it, gender breaks down simply: There are men and there are women. But across Asia and the Pacific Islands, many cultures recognize a third gender with characteristics both male and female. In Samoa, when a son or a daughter prefers the work and clothes of the opposite sex, they are called fa’afafine “like a woman” or, far less commonly, fa’atama, “like a man.”
Tafi has a male body, but she lives her life as a female and asks that people refer to her as “she.” That’s how she will be described in this story.
In the islands Tafi was more accepted, but her life was still complicated. Many fa’afafine live as women, the maleness of their bodies ignored by those around them.
Outside of the cities, especially in Christian families, they must follow strict social rules binding them to household duties.
Many families, including Tafi’s, expect they will remain celibate. In a culture that prizes both its tradition and Christianity, fa’afafine are tolerated, but behavior that hints at homosexuality is not.
Still, many fa’afafine, who see themselves as women, do have discreet relationships with men.
In her ideal world, Tafi, who was raised as an oldest girl-child named Alicia, wouldn’t have to change her body to be accepted here. She wouldn’t have to rearrange her outside to make people accept what she is inside: a straight woman who is attracted to straight men.
But the world isn’t ideal. Since she came to Anchorage, Tafi’s family, who loves her as she is, has pressured her to dress like a man. They have decided she needs to fit in to avoid ugliness she isn’t used to.
Now, at 23, she’s torn between the expectations of her family who accept her as an asexual helper, and American culture that’s less accepting but offers her what she wants most: a chance to become physically female, to find a husband and have a family of her own.
Tafi wasn’t surprised that the girl in the computer lab didn’t know what she was seeing. Sometimes Tafi doesn’t know how to see herself—or her future.
Ropeta Toleafoa knew her son was fa’afafine when he was 4. Unlike his brothers, he stayed close to her and didn’t like getting dirty, she said, speaking in Samoan with her son Taivaleoaana “Seven” Toleafoa translating.
“He didn’t like going outside and doing what men do,” she said.
Tafi’s life wasn’t like the stories she watched on re-runs of American talk shows as she grew up in Samoa. She never felt she was a woman trapped in a man’s body. She never felt shame.
Samoa is a tribal, communal society, different from America where individual desires rule. Samoan parents hold a powerful role and commonly influence their children’s decisions far into adulthood. Children don’t choose to be fa’afafine; their mothers decide for them.
At 5, Tafi, a sweet, outspoken child, began hoisting babies on her hip, filling bottles for her mother and helping with the dishes. Ropeta, a mother of eight, was pregnant or nursing for many years and welcomed Tafi’s help.
Tafi wasn’t encouraged to dress like a girl, but she gravitated toward her sisters’ clothing, playing dress-up in private. “I loved skirts, short skirts to be specific,” she said. “I always had to be pretty.”
At school, Tafi bonded with girls and other fa’afafine among her classmates and teachers. By third grade, most everyone called her Alicia. Her younger siblings, all girls, saw her as an oldest sister.
Tafi’s father, Saunoa “Noah” Toleafoa is a religious man, an elder in the Seventh Day Adventist church that missionaries brought to the islands along with Western ideas about gender. Noah had fa’afafine in his family, but he held on longest to the idea that Tafi would be like her older brothers. A boy dressing as a girl is not what God intended, he said.
He tried forcing her to change her clothes and cut her hair like a boy’s, but nothing worked. Tafi couldn’t be forced.
“This one thing I know,” he said. “Tafi is different.”
By the time Tafi reached her teens, the idea of an actual sex change consumed her. Tafi found many examples of adult fa’afafine around her, some of whom had surgery. To each other they spoke a fa’afafine language, a mixture of English and Samoan. Tafi soon caught on.
“It wasn’t hard to ask them, `Hey, how did you get boobs?’” she said.
Out of respect for her father, Tafi dressed “androgynous,” wearing women’s pants, a T-shirt, and her long hair pulled into a bun. Her one indulgence was glitter.
“Lots of glitter,” she said. “I loved shiny stuff.”
Ropeta and her daughters insulated Tafi from her father’s disapproval, which gradually waned. For junior prom, Ropeta saved two paychecks to buy Tafi the material to make a pink dress.
By 2002, all the Toleafoas had immigrated to Anchorage, following family connections and the promise of better jobs. Tafi stayed behind, her immigration status complicated because she was born in western Samoa, which is an independent country, different from the U.S. territory of American Samoa. She’d graduated from high school and was working on her associate’s degree.
“That’s when I started dressing like a woman full-out,” she said.
In a snap-shot from that period posted on her MySpace.com site, Tafi glows, her chest full under a black blouse.
“It felt right,” she said. “Perfect.”
In 2005, on her way to Anchorage to start at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Tafi took her first step on U.S. soil in Hawaii, wearing platform sandals and short-shorts. She always imagined Americans, with their gay celebrities and liberal attitudes, would accept her. She remembered RuPaul and the movie “To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,” a drag queen comedy she’d watched in high school.
“I thought, `OK if there’s people like that, then probably I don’t have to explain myself,’” she said. “I didn’t know that it was going to be like there’s nobody that dresses like that in a real everyday life.”
When she showed her passport, which said she was a man, customs officials singled her out for two special searches. Standing in the balmy Honolulu airport, she felt the disapproval of strangers for the first time.
The collapse of her expectations continued in Anchorage. The first day of her liberal studies class, when she answered a professor’s question, she heard whispers. Her voice betrayed her.
“When they look at your face and you have earrings on and you have make-up on and you have long hair, then automatically you’re supposed to have this kind of voice,” she said. “If you are not going to have that voice, then you are kind of like an alien or something.”
After her first two weeks of school, her father sat Tafi down. He had four fa’afafine on his mother’s side, he said. One of them came to America 10 years ago, to California. People didn’t understand her there, he said. At a party, Americans beat her and threw her from a window. She was killed.
“He said he’s concerned about my life and my safety,” Tafi said. “That’s why he advised me that I should change my style to kind of like, umm, androgynous, sort of like professional.”
There would be no more short-shorts or glitter. Instead, it was T-shirts and slacks. And if her professor asked about pronouns, she’d go by “he.” But, even in her toned down-outfits, Tafi seemed feminine. Her professors struggled with what to call her in class.
“Even the most inclusive people do not know what this is,” said her professor Ann Jache. “They don’t know how to talk about a person that is both male and female.”
Tafi took her classmates’ judgment as a challenge. A gregarious “he,” she excelled in class, tackling complicated literature, winning a seat on the student senate, making a loyal group of friends in the school Polynesian association.
Tafi didn’t want to hide, Jache said, she wanted to explain. Jache and Tafi crafted a project on fa’afafine over the generations. Tafi gave a presentation to her class, and then to the campus, and then to a Unitarian church. Each time, she grew more confident.
Tafi began to see it as her job to inform the campus about fa’afafine.
“I knew that they are not educated about it. They wouldn’t be mean like that if they knew ... Fa’afafine are all coming to Alaska,” she said. “If they are running into the same problems, I have to do something about it.”
Tafi’s west Anchorage home is crowded with her parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and in-laws, 13 in all. Tropical flowers decorate the walls and a grass mat covers the carpet. Among her sisters, she’s Alicia, a dutiful oldest daughter with a flower behind her ear, chasing her toddling niece, carrying dishes from the kitchen.
Tafi’s brothers and sisters have a better idea than her parents about how Americans view her. They know that some people with a sibling like her would feel ashamed. Her brothers, who see her alternately as a sister and a cross-dressing brother, defend her fiercely.
“Samoan culture believe that God gave you a freedom of choice, you are who you are and it doesn’t matter,” said her brother, Asosaotama, a security guard who goes by “Ace.”
“Shame is nothing when it comes down to blood,” said Seven, a soldier at Fort Richardson, Alaska. “Blood is blood.”
But for her father and her brothers, one thing is very important. Tafi must follow the rules. A fa’afafine brother is one thing, but a gay brother is quite another.
Living as women in Samoa, fa’afafine do have relationships with men, but they are rarely, if ever, public. Tafi has heard of older fa’afafine, those whose parents have died, who live like closeted gay men in America, pretending their partner is a platonic friend. More commonly fa’afafine live with a large family, and have strings of short, secret relationships with straight men who may later marry, sometimes leaving them brokenhearted.
When the subject of a boyfriend came up at the table after church, Tafi’s mother and sisters cheered with approval. Her brother shook his head.
“Tafi can act like a girl, dress up like a girl, but if he had a boyfriend, that’s too far,” said Seven.
Tafi excused herself to the kitchen.
“My sister-in-law, my mom, my sisters, they want me to be happy, they know who I’m attracted to, what I’m attracted to, which is men, and they accept that,” she said later. “My dad and my brothers, no. It’s probably because they just have that expectation of me marrying a woman because I was born male. But then I’m not a male now, it’s obvious I’m not male.”
If anything makes Tafi unhappy, it’s this. Growing up she thought she’d be like other fa’afafine, staying with her aging parents until they passed away, caring for her sister Narese, who has Down syndrome.
But since she’s been in America, and read in her classes about people born male becoming female, she dreams of a future more like her sisters, with a partner of her own.
She thinks of taking hormones and eventually getting surgery to make her body match the way she feels. Her mother and sisters would understand. Her father and brothers would eventually accept it. But even then, if she chose to have a relationship with a man, she would be breaking the rules. She would have to keep it from them.
“Everything else is okay,” she said. “But, boyfriend? No.”
On a Saturday morning at Anchorage Community Seventh Day Adventist church in Airport Heights, and the youth choir lines up on the altar. Tafi’s sisters Sina and Cherish clap and sing “This little light of mine” in their aloha-print dresses, their long hair in heavy buns, glittery gloss on their lips.
Outside of family, church is the most important thing for Tafi. But it’s also a place where she feels conflicted. At first the family attended with a mostly Samoan congregation who understood her, but when they moved to a mixed-race church, things changed. Once again, Tafi’s father asked her to dress like a man.
“Now I have to be a certain way because some of the members’ culture do not have a kind of person like that,” she said.
Her brothers and father are leaders in the church. People have approached them about her.
“I hope that if they want to understand they would feel free to come and ask me because, I mean, how friendly could I get?” Tafi said.
Pastor Edson Joseph, who is from Antigua, has led the evangelical Christian church for 20 years. The congregation’s become increasingly diverse, with American blacks, Africans, people from the Caribbean and Pacific Islanders. A church should welcome everyone, but Tafi and other fa’afafine have raised troublesome questions, he said.
“I have had to defend him,” he said, meaning Tafi. “I have been accused of encouraging or upholding his unbiblical behavior.”
But, he said, all people are sinners and Jesus welcomed everyone, even prostitutes and criminals. So long as Tafi isn’t influencing children, there is a place for him and others like him. It would be a very different matter if Tafi were in a relationship with a man, he said. Then, he would have to intervene.
Tafi, dressed in slacks and a man’s dress shirt, carrying a knock-off designer purse, fills a back pew every Saturday, belting out harmonies to her sister’s songs. She’s made her peace with Jesus.
“I don’t think God sent his son for perfect people, he sent his son for sinners, whatever kind of sinner that is,” she said. “Jesus came to wash away the sins. I don’t think he came just to wash away the straight people’s sins.”
Away from church and school, there is one place where Tafi feels most like herself: among the women of her family.
One sunny day in June, the first birthday of Tafi’s niece, the Toleafoa family threw a barbecue for a hundred guests at the park behind the YMCA on Lake Otis.
Under the picnic shelter, where meat marinated in super-sized coolers and giant grills smoked, Tafi filled foil-covered lunch boxes with turkey tails, taro, flank steak, sausage, potato salad and rice.
“Faster, Alicia, faster,” called her sisters.
In her sarong, a flower behind her ear, Tafi carried plates of food to the elders from church, she dished out salad and chow mein, she sliced the elaborate banana cake. A child fell; she picked him up and shushed his tears.
R&B rolled out of a big set of speakers and the rhythm took hold of her sisters. They stopped work to dance, raising their palms to the sky. The mood captured their mother, Ropeta, who bounced her shoulders and swayed. Tafi put down her big spoon and let the song catch her hips in a slow groove.
Cherish and Sina hooted. Aunties cracked up. Ropeta looked at her happy child dancing in the barbecue smoke and felt moved to cheer her on in English: “Go girl! Go girl! Go girl!”
See Tafi's Myspace Page
Credits: by Julia O'Malley
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
23 August 2007
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
12 August 2007
05 August 2007
Indian Transvestite film available on Amazon
Great news!
It is easy now to pay and download the film. Sridhar Rangayan's much celebrated film Gulabi Aaina aka Pink Mirror on Indian Transvestites, which has screened at innumerable festivals and won awards, is now availble for download to own.
To download from Amazon
To buy DVD through Amazon
Here's a note about the film:
The Pink Mirror (Gulabi Aaina) - What happens when two Indian transvestites camp it up and outwith each other to seduce a handsome hunk - lots of bitching of course! To add to the 'masala' there's a cute young gay guy also eyeing the same hunk. Lots of fun with dance, drama and desire in true Bollywood style.
Visit the filmmaker' website: http://www.solarispictures.com/ga.htm
16 June 2007
'Censors end' drag artist's show
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
BBC News, Karachi
"Darling, you are sooo naughty," purrs an elegant sari-clad woman glowing out of primetime television.
Going by the name of Begum (Lady) Nawazish Ali, she hosts an eponymous talk show that has taken Pakistan by storm.
Flirting and skirting her way through politics, society gossip and plain old sexual chemistry, Begum has become the most popular icon to inundate Pakistani fantasy in a while.
How is this possible in Pakistan where what is acceptable behaviour from female actors is still largely determined conservative Islamic values?
The answer lies in the identity of the Begum - who is a woman in every sense except the biological one.
"I am God's child," says a smiling Begum Nawazish Ali, or Ali Saleem to give him his birth name, talking to the BBC in his "normal guise".
Clad in jeans and T-shirt, 27-year-old Ali talked passionately about his life and work.
"As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a woman," he declares.
I never refuse anyone anything
Nawazish Ali
Twirling his shoulder length curly brown hair, Ali looks wistfully in the distance as he recounts how it was growing up in Pakistan for someone so unconventional.
"My father was in the army and we used to move around quite a bit," he says.
With his parents, he accepts there were problems, leading to his examination by a psychologist when he was 14-years-old.
The psychologist, however, allayed all fears, and "from that time on my parents were totally behind me".
That Ali was different from other boys was quite evident from his interests.
"I loved playing with dolls and dressing up with my female cousins to whom I have always been very close," he recounts.
In those days of innocence, he would often dream of becoming a woman.
"I wanted to be Sri Devi, Nazia Hasan, Benazir Bhutto... all the beautiful and powerful women in my world," explains Ali.
'Worst period'
Gifted with a great voice and a natural sense of the theatrical, he delighted in displaying his talents.
That was in the early 1990s in Islamabad. Soon after, in 1995, Ali shifted with his family to Karachi.
This was "the worst period in my life", he confesses, with his parents going through a divorce.
It was during these depressing days that Ali met "Yasmin, who made everything possible".
Yasmin Ismail was one of Pakistani television's finest actresses, who died of cancer last year.
"She was the best thing that ever happened to me," says the screen star.
Ali explains how Ismail introduced him to theatre, groomed his natural histrionics and generally played the part of his mentor.
"She was my mother, father and best friend," says Ali wistfully, adding "I give her 100% credit for any success I have achieved."
Ismail was involved in a popular theatre group called Gripps, and that was where Ali started out.
"My first performance was in a play called 'Art ya Atta' (Art or Bread) in May 1998," Ali says. He did an impersonation of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the play.
"When I spoke, there was pin drop silence and then the house came down," he exclaims.
The applause was thunderous and the show did record business.
Divorced socialite
The next six years were those of learning and growth. During these times, Ali expanded his repertoire with considerable success.
In March 2004, the idea for transvestite chat show hostess Begum Nawazish Ali first came up during a discussion with friends Nadeem Baig and Omar Adil, a national TV host, in Lahore.
"Omar said that he saw me as much more than the typical characters I was doing and we came up with the idea of this middle aged divorced socialite who knows everybody," gushes out Ali.
Initially, Ali promoted it with GEO, one of the largest TV channels. That deal failed to materialize and rival channel Aaj took up the challenge, quickly putting out a pilot.
"Nadeem was Director entertainment and he told me to bring it over," Ali explains. Aaj moved quickly, and a pilot was soon out.
"It was like nothing anybody had seen," says Azfar Ali, a local television producer. "The most amazing thing was the fact that he was able to deliver it all in a way that the masses could relate to it."
Trivialising politics?
No sooner had the first programme finished than the show was the talk of the town.
From politicians to movie stars to sportsmen, all have had their turn on the show.
So popular has the show become that a sitting federal minister specially requested to be invited.
That may have been unnecessary, as Ali smiles and declares saucily, "I never refuse anyone anything".
The show is not without critics, who accuse it of trivialising politics in a country that has had more than its fill of dictators.
Ali denies this, saying "our politicians have been destroyed under a well thought campaign", adding "I want them to be popular again".
Furthermore, he says that the military - such a powerful influence in Pakistan - have been deliberately kept out of the show.
"I believe that democracy is the only option for us, and this is my contribution to the cause," Ali says determinedly.
He also wants to show what kind of country Pakistan really is, in contrast to the 'Terrorism Central' nation that it is often portrayed as.
"And I will do it," Begum exclaims and, smiling seductively, adds "after all who can resist me?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/6111410.stm
Published: 2006/11/06 10:15:32 GMT
© BBC MMVII
05 June 2007
A Proud Young Woman
I was...I was born Vijay, to Marwari parents in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Some of the earliest memories I have are of being different from the other boys around me. At that stage, I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was that made me feel so trapped and helpless. As a child, one is not equipped to handle thoughts as mature and complex as gender or sexuality. But as I grew older and more aware of the world around me, I also became more aware of the world inside of me. And it confused me more.
The first awakening...
The movie, “Object of my Affection” opened my eyes to a new possibility. One I had not considered till that point. Homosexuality seemed the only plausible answer to my situation. And I decided that I was a gay man, and began dating men. However, the respite I received from this new lifestyle was not as fulfilling as I had envisioned. For the emptiness, the confusion and the confinement still gnawed at me, deep inside. It was in the 11 th grade when I met Karan*, and fell in love. Being with him opened me up, and that woman inside of me, whom I had kept suppressed this whole time, slowly began to emerge. He was the first person I opened myself up to. I told him everything. My fears, my state of mind and my deepest needs.
He understood, and he loved me for everything that I was. But it was not meant to last, for we live in a very unforgiving, judgmental world which has no compassion for anything that is different. The pressures of society were too much for Karan and we parted ways in 2001.
The road ahead...
I joined St. Stephens College, as a gay man . But I was a woman and wanted to be loved as one. And the more I lived this life, the more it chewed at my mind that I wanted to be with someone who would love me, not as a man, but as a woman . It was then that Hollywood would come to my rescue for the second time in my life. The movie, “Boys don’t Cry” finally discussed transsexuality and the fact that it is not as freakish as I had thought. Spurred on, I looked to the internet to enlighten me further about this new and wonderful opportunity that had appeared before me. What I discovered from that point on made me happier and stronger as each day passed. The shame and hurt soon turned to hope and courage.
The Struggle...
As luck would have it, everything at that point started to happen at the same time. Karan came back into my life, only to leave again. My family finally discovered my condition and made me seek medical help with the intention of making me see that all that I felt was just in my head and if I was only convinced otherwise, I would be able to carry on living as a man.
It was during this time that God sent me an angel, in the form of Dr. Amit Sen, my therapist. He made me see that what I was going through was genuine and that there was a way by which I could set myself free. It was he who began my slow transition from scared, confused man to happy, confident woman.
It was now, during my MA in Sanskrit that I decided to start my life anew. I shifted from North Delhi to Defense Colony. The shift was much more, however, since I shifted into my new home as myself, a woman called Mahua Agarwal.
I had been on hormone therapy for a while by now, which helped not only my physical appearance, but also the way I was perceived by other people.
After living as a woman for about a year, I was finally ready for the operation that would change my life forever. I underwent my Sexual Reassignment Surgery in August, 2006 and have been living as a woman ever since.
At peace, finally...
Now I am finally in a place where I am comfortable with myself. For the first time in my life, not only can I stand to look at the person I see in the mirror every day, but I am beginning to love her. I have no regrets, no expectations from my life or the people around me now.
But if I could, one thing I would like is to tell my story to as many people as I can, in the hope that through my experiences, they may learn tolerance and forgiveness for that which they don’t understand.
* Name has been changed.
Appeared in Indiatimes-Phatchicks
Mr ya Miss?
Sex change operations are on the rise in India and are being resorted to by people from all walks of life, report Shuma Raha, Gouri Shukla and Anirban Das MahapatraThe media circus around the Mafatlal property dispute last month was mainly because the case had an irresistible sideshow to it: Ajay Mafatlal, who was staking claim to his family property as the elder brother among his siblings, was not a natural born man. Originally a woman (he’s been Aparna Mafatlal for most of his life), he had undergone a sex change operation to become a man.
But if you thought sex change operations were the prerogative of the rich and the famous, those with the money and the leisure to indulge their whims and fantasies, think again. Cases of sex change operation, or sex reassignment surgery, as it is called, are on the rise in India. And the people going in for it come from all walks of life. Points out Dr Manohar Lal Sharma, a Delhi-based plastic surgeon, “I have had patients ranging from schoolteachers to MBAs, from barristers to bureaucrats.”
Dr Sharma says that up until the mid-Nineties, he would probably do one sex change surgery in two years. “But these days, I do about three to five surgeries every year. I receive about one request for a sex change operation every week, though not all of them eventually go in for the procedure,” he says.
But those who do, are passionately, deeply, committed to their choice. Take Tara, a 28-year-old teacher from Delhi, for instance. She wanted to become a man so she could marry her girlfriend. She underwent extensive counselling sessions and remained undeterred in her decision to go ahead with the procedure. The operation took place three years ago, after which they got married. They have been living as man and wife ever since.
So why do some people feel compelled to transform themselves into their opposite genders? Rocky, a 32-year-old transsexual, who went in for a sex change operation four years ago, says he never felt like a woman. “I always felt like a man trapped in a female body,” he says. Explains Dr Kalpesh Gajiwala, a plastic surgeon in Mumbai who carried out Aparna Mafatlal’s operation, “The need for sex change is triggered by gender dysphoria, or a gender identity crisis, where an individual wants to realign his or her body to his or her gender perception.” He adds: “Basically, these are people who feel that they are caught in the wrong body. And sex change offers them a way out of their predicament.”
A sex change procedure ? from male to female or vice versa ? involves changing the genitalia as well as other physical attributes like breasts or body hair. It is a fairly expensive process and costs upwards of Rs 1.5 lakh for male to female, and about Rs 4 lakh for female to male operations. “It involves hormone therapy and multiple operations, done in stages,” says Dr Mukund Thatte, another plastic surgeon based in Mumbai. But before that, the patient has to be counselled about the physical and social fallout of sex change and a psychiatrist has to give his approval that he or she is indeed ready to undergo the procedure.
“Ultimately, it’s the individual’s psychology that drives the decision,” says Dr Gajiwala. Ashok, a 58-year-old businessman in Delhi, has sought a sex change operation. “I have lived in a man’s body all my life, but I want to die as a woman,” he told Dr Sharma. Ashok, whose treatment is currently on, has cut his ties with his entire family to start a new life in a new place and under a new name.
The question of identity is, of course, crucial in such cases. A new body requires a new persona and in any case most people want to treat their past as a closed chapter and start on a clean slate. Says Dr Gajiwala, “Most of the time, the individual relocates after the sex change operation has been carried out. This saves them the trauma of being questioned again and again.”
But despite the rise in the incidence of sex change operations, social acceptance of transgendered people is still a long way off in India. “Few families, unless they are exceptionally broad-minded, support a person who undergoes a sex change,” says Dr Gajiwala. The support usually comes from the partner and from the peer group of like-minded people.
Social opprobrium apart, a sex changed person has also got to deal with the limitations of the procedure itself. “The patient has to accept the idea that he or she will suffer a complete loss of fertility,” says Dr Sharma. Adds Dr Thatte, “Penile reconstruction is the most difficult part of the surgery, which is one reason female to male procedures may not always be satisfactory.”
Again, while most transgendered persons report being happy with their new life, there have been odd cases of sex change operations with tragic consequences. A woman, a bank employee, who came to Calcutta from Patna determined to become a man and marry her girlfriend, broke down after her breasts were removed. “She never came back for the remainder of the operations and eventually committed suicide,” says Dr Tapas Chakraborty, an anaesthetist who was part of the team of doctors who conducted the operation.
The road to sex change and thereafter is fraught with many a pitfall. But those who want to correct the mismatch between their mind and body could take heart: it’s a road that’s being traversed more frequently now.
(Some names have been changed on request)
WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY PRITHVIJIT MITRA IN CALCUTTA
appeared in the Telegraph Calcutta
Sex-change couple jailed for three years in Pakistan
Indo-Asian News Service
Islamabad/Karachi, May 28, 2007
Last Updated: 14:18 IST(28/5/2007)
A Pakistani court on Monday handed down a three-year jail sentence for deception to a wife and her husband who was born a female and underwent a sex change 16 years ago, DPA reported.
Shahzina Tariq, 26, and husband Shumail Raj, 31, were arrested by police nine days ago after they appealed to the Lahore High Court for protection from relatives seeking to have their marriage annulled on the grounds that it was against Islam for women to wed.
Shumail's gender change came to light during a medical exam by a court doctor.
The judge jailed the couple for misleading the court and directed that Raj should be given psychological treatment. Authorities were also ordered to register a case against the doctors who originally performed the sex reassignment.
The couple says they originally married to protect Shahzina from being sold into marriage to pay off her uncle's gambling debts.
According to Pakistani media, Shahzina said relatives had tortured and threatened to kill her if she did not consent to the forced marriage to a brother-in-law of her uncle.
Meanwhile, the sex change and their subsequent marriage has attracted extreme sentiments in Pakistan.
Although there is no law in Pakistan to prevent their marriage, whether they should be allowed to stay married, considered married, their right to live under one room and to seek divorce for lack of consummation, are the questions being debated.
"Can Raj perform sex?" was another question asked as Daily Times sought views of cross sections.
The role of religion, a dominant question in Pakistan in any situation, is a matter of debate in what is being claimed as the first case in the country. Leaders of the two principal Muslim sects differ while disapproving of the marriage.
Shia cleric Allama Syed Abbas Sherazi says: It depends on the courts to give punishment to such people according to the circumstances to save the society from distraction. In Shia sect the same-sex marriage is considered "haram". The clerics in their Friday prayer sermons should educate the nation about the curse of same sex marriages and obscenity.
But his Sunni counterpart, Maulana Hanif Jalandhari, says: "The court can give the couple a capital punishment, a lifetime imprisonment or a fine."
"The media is spreading vulgarity in Pakistan. The parents should force their children to say their prayers. The clerics should educate Muslims about the conspiracy of the anti-Islamic forces," says Jalandhari.
Zahid Hussain Bokhari, a retired judge, says: There is no law in Pakistan to stop two women from living together. It is against the basic human rights to interfere in their personal matters. The 'nikahnama' (marriage contract) procured by Shumail Raj and Shahzina has no importance. They should not be dealt as married.
SM Masud, a former law minister, says the case should be handled in the light of Islam, as there is no provision in Pakistani law.
"If the husband cannot perform sex, the law gives this right to the wife to get a divorce. Shumail looks like a man, but if "she" cannot perform sex, "her" wife Shahzina has the right to get divorced."
"The couple has not committed any offence, as penetration is essential for imposition of the Section 377 of the Pakistan Panel Code (PCC). Fatwas issued in the past should also be consulted in this case."
If the marriage is a case of women's right or harassment, the Women's Protection Act, passed last year, is silent, says criminal law expert Aftab Bajwa.
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