India announces separate category for transgender taxpayers

It's far more accepted and public than people think.

Thanks for that information @eyope I was travelling in India in 2015 with a couple of gay male friends (married to each other) & we all found ourselves being very careful. Glad that's changed.

I think the interesting thing to know would be how recruitment happens. I have no idea beyond the myths of them checking babies and taking those who have ambiguous genitalia - never heard of this actually happening though.

And I can't imagine in modern day India anyone giving up their kids because of this.

@eyope Also Indian born and raised (Mumbai) - and worked with the sex workers of kamathipura (lots of the Hijra community operate here too, so there's a lot of third gender rights activists) before moving to the UK. A large number of hijras wanted and actively campaigned to get third gender status. They don't want to be considered male or female. They are proud of being third gender.

As hijra, they have an identity, a history going back millenia, a role and place in society (albiet on the margins). Of course they will be proud of it.

But as sex workers in Kamathipura they are having sex with 'respectable' gay men from society, right? Do you really think it's not homosexuality that drives it?

eyope · Yesterday 15:12

This isn't what a 'hijra' is. They are either hermaphrodites or men who have undergone voluntary castration who don't want to be seen as or referred to as men.

I've been beaten to it, but only a small number have themselves castrated. (Thanks mirax).

Also, there's no hermaphroditism in human beings, people may have DSDs, but they are still either male, or female.

I don't know that the cultural context is all that different - it always boils down to homophobia in the end.

Genius

A 10% cervix charge is included...

Just wanted to say thanks mirax for contributing to the thread, interesting.

Yes, but there was hardly a storyline of being to live as a homosexual couple openly. The done thing as far as any mythology, history, guess-work seems to be to get married with a women and have gay sex on the side (I guess this is where the hijras come in).

And lesbians' are non existent - as far as I can tell.

Exactly. Graeco-Roman mythology has much more homosexual content than hindu mythology.

Have you read ancient Indian history? You'll be surprised at the role women played and how equitable the society was.

Not every culture and religion started out patriarchal.

Oh dear. I have a great respect for hinduism beyond the caste,cow and sati narrative you find in many western accounts of it even now and I am a fervent atheist! It is a very interesting religion full of humour, sophistication, wisdom, freedom of thought (there are even atheistic traditions within it) but one cannot run away from its imperfections and cruelties either. It was a pretty patriachal religion despite the few matrilineal traditions that one found within corners of it. It recognises the shakti, the role of the feminine principle and has quite a few kickass goddesses but the actual treatment of women, especially lower caste women in hinduism was horrendous.

The Kamasutra is descriptive and more of a manual, not part of hindu law, the Manu Smiriti is and it proscribes homosexuality as unclean. The Arthashastra which offers advice to rulers describes it as a social evil. Hinduism many not have the same attitude to homosexuality as the semitic religions but it was hardly a free love paradise before colonialism and I do wish that activists types would acknowledge that.

Homosexuality appears in the Kama sutra and in many temple sculptures throughout India. Hinduism does not judge or censor it.

Yes, but there was hardly a storyline of being to live as a homosexual couple openly. The done thing as far as any mythology, history, guess-work seems to be to get married with a women and have gay sex on the side (I guess this is where the hijras come in).

And lesbians' are non existent - as far as I can tell.

Have you read ancient Indian history? You'll be surprised at the role women played and how equitable the society was.

Not every culture and religion started out patriarchal.

Homosexuality appears in the Kama sutra and in many temple sculptures throughout India. Hinduism does not judge or censor it.

Under the Mughal rule (Islam) and British rule this stance changed to what it is now.

The patriarchy has been around for millennia. It predates any form of empire. As for illegality of homosexuality, something doesn't have to be illegal for it to be socially unacceptable or punishable.

No, it was decriminalised in 2018.

Incidentally it wasn't illegal in India until British rule passed a law criminalising it.

It's far more accepted and public than people think.

Also Indian born and raised (Mumbai) - and worked with the sex workers of kamathipura (lots of the Hijra community operate here too, so there's a lot of third gender rights activists) before moving to the UK. A large number of hijras wanted and actively campaigned to get third gender status. They don't want to be considered male or female. They are proud of being third gender.

Conservative corners of India (like conservative parts) of any country have patriarchal and homophobe beliefs, sure. But being a Hijra has nothing to do with the patriarchy - they existed before Mughal and British rule when large swathes of India were far more progressive towards sexuality of all genders including the third.

Incidentally India has a separate bill for trans rights which was initiated back in 2014. Third gender is different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransgenderPersonss(ProtectionoffRights)Act,,_2019

Does it matter i.e. does it affect tax paid?

Section 377a of the Indian Penal Code a colonial era law outlawing male on male sex was repealed in 2018. I'd say that traditional hinduism has little acceptance for homosexuality beyond abstinence and a kind of religious ascetism, being a sanyasi. But I'd venture that Hindusim and Buddhism are free of a deepseated hatred for homosexuality and fairly flexible in modern times, compared to other religions.

The India visa has male, female and transgender. When there the only Hijra that I have come across have been threatening, abusive and unpleasant , forcing money out of people.

Hindu mythology speaks about third gender, gods manifesting as different genders etc., so it is easier for everyone to accept that there is a third gender and they have to be treated equal to others.

Hindu mythology speaks of many fantastical and fascinating things. I am not sure that it ever spoke of anything beyond male and female or specified a third gender - you would have to offer evidence of this. The gods assume different forms due to the exigencies of the storytelling. Let me give you a common narrative. Person A performs a harsh penance and gains deadly supernatural power from a deity, say Shiva. Person A typically asks for immortality and invincibility. Think Macbeth. He cannot be killed by a man or woman, indoors or outdoors, at night or in the daytime. A becomes a dreadful supervillain and oppresses the people who beg the deity for deliverance from the menace. So Shiva becomes androgynous and kills the villain at dusk at the threshold of a dwelling. Shiva has no trans identity beyond this. Victorian colonialists would have shuddered at half male and half female gods without deigning to understand the context. I daresay that many woke trans activists now are gleefully writing articles for LGBT publications like Pink News about Hinduism's 23 trans deities without the same context. Some things never change.

Indian origin person here. India/hinduism is excellent at finding spaces for niche communities. Thieves, prostitutes, sexual minorities like the hijra (there are other names like aravanis) all evolve their own rationale for existence and build their communities, very much on the fringes of wider society. They have their patron gods, temples and find stories from the huge panaorama of hindu mythology to justify their existence to a deeply divided and yes, homophobic and sexist society. The trans communities play their roles at weddings, the birth of babies and mostly as sex workers but the members of these communities rarely maintain their connections with their actual biological families - the shame is too great.
Like others said above, these communities are not at all analogous to modern western concepts of gays nor trans women. "A small minority are intersex or people with DSD. A large number are 'camp' gay." This is largely correct. They were invariably male. These communities were the only spaces where same sex relationships could be openly expressed and even solemnised. Memebers of these communities did not find acceptance beyond the confines of those roles they were allowed - none could become teachers for example.

Now of course, there are also tiny numbers of trans people living out of these communities, especially in the cities. These people are more likely to hold ordinary jobs - even become politicians - and seek more social acceptance.

The Hirja are pretty much effeminate men who society deems not masculine enough to be real men, so that get related to a different category.

And male homosexuality is illegal in India, isn't it? Or if not illegal, not accepted easily in public etc.