Eunuchs Of India: Segregated From Mainstreaming

Abstract

I am not what happened to me, I am who I choose to become – carl jung.

“People changed lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favourite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world — even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren’t supposed to change? Who made that rule?”  ― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

The term transgender connotes the state of an individual's identity which is incongruous with the said individual's assigned sex. The identity of an individual is often decided by the moral dictates of society. In this context, the Indian societal paradigm has, more often than not, unequivocally renounced the existence of the transgender community. It is a well-known fact that transgenders have been alluded to as social outcastes since the ancient period, as is attested by the vast corpus of literature ascribable to the Vedic period. Unfortunately, this prejudice exists up till today, as the Hijra who represents neither man nor woman, is relegated to oblivion and situated outside the normative system of caste, class and religion. The abject oppression and marginalization of transgenders has made them increasingly susceptible to mental and physical traumas. This research, therefore, seeks to gain a better understanding of transgenders as a community by situating the causes of their perpetual angst within the larger socio-cultural framework. It also endeavors to highlight their achievements through select case studies, testifying their resolve and commitment to succeed in spite of the innumerable hostilities that they have had to endure since time immemorial.