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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

First encounters with hijras

6 replies

Lamahaha · 21/01/2020 17:43

I've never knowingly encountered a transwoman. But recently, in India, I saw a few hijras.

I've been going to the same South Indian town almost every year of the last 45 years, and I'm pretty certain there are no local hijras. But while I was there a huge Hindu festival took place at full moon, with about a million people from all over India descending on the town for a day or two. These pilgrims are well-behaved, peaceful people. There are normally never any incidents, violence, etc. They come, do their thing (praying, pujas, singing etc) , and go again. The worst that happens is a lot of rubbish left behind for the town to clean up.

The first encounter was when I was walking down a quiet lane with my daughter, who was carrying her toddler. The two hijras coming towards us wore saris and full make-up and, as almost all Indians were doing, looked at my granddaughter, laughed, and made kissing gestures. (This is quite normal; Indians, men and women, delight in small children and make their delight known, even to strangers, pinching baby cheeks etc.)
So far so good. I was just bemused, not having ever seen a hijra before, not even in the cities, and here, of all places!

Later on, my daughter and her husband reported that they'd seen a couple more hijras, being quite aggressive in the crowd, threatening and bullying people and creating a scene.

Later, I was myself in the crowd with my son in law and saw with my own eyes, a very tall, burly hijra, standing in front of a short Indian man, harassing him, shouting, pushing in the chest, etc. Son in law conjectured that they came expressly to pressure weaker men into giving them money.

There were a couple more sightings, each time demonstrating obvious bullying.

This is a new phenomenon; that they* come to a normally peaceful celebration and scare people out of their wits. In each of the bullying scenarios, the men they were intimidating were puny, weak looking fellows.

*OK, nahalt. Not all hijras are like that.

OP posts:
Angryresister · 21/01/2020 19:17

But this seems to be the norm ..I have also seen this on trains in India, bullying for money . To some extent they are accepted in that on govt forms eg visas they are treated as a third sex. Strangely I was at a concert tonight and sat next to a six foot man with size 12 feet , lipstick jewellery and red nails dressed in a Sari. Interesting as this a place where men quite often wear Needless to say we did not converse...

Angryresister · 21/01/2020 19:18

Wear lungis...no idea why words go missing

NotTerfNorCis · 21/01/2020 19:22

Isn't it a custom for hijras to go to weddings and cause a disruption until paid to leave?

Lamahaha · 22/01/2020 00:04

Yes, I've heard that. I can well believe it, having seen their recent behaviour.

OP posts:
MangoesAreMyFavourite · 22/01/2020 08:05

It's customary for them to dance at weddings and not leave till they are paid.
They came to my BILs wedding and blessed the bride and my babies... cue money changing hands. They were peaceful. It's a small town up North and they would be a local group, if that makes a difference.

They are/were not allowed to own property, have jobs etc so this and prostitution is the only means of income.

CrazyToast · 22/01/2020 19:28

This is normal for all the hijras I've encountered. Probably it stems from the way they are viewed in indian society and how they have to get by, then became part of their subculture. I watched an interesting programme where hijra were saying they didn't like to be called transgender and felt that the adoption of transgender by younger indians was eroding their hijra culture and history. Younger ones didn't identify as hijra but as trans, so didn't join the communities or live in a house with the hijra mother /family structure etc.

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