The once ostracized trans woman is having her moment in India. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act was passed in 2019 by the Government of India, which subsequently became the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rule in 2020. In 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalized Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which had hitherto criminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults. While gender non-conforming (GNC) identities have always been a part of Indian culture and even enjoyed a degree of acceptance in precolonial times, especially since India gaining Independence, those embracing such identities were increasingly marginalized, harassed and abused. But significant changes made in terms of legal rights and privileges that GNC people now possess, have catalysed efforts towards a greater understanding of this community, their empowerment, and hopefully, their acceptance. This spotlighting of the community of people with GNC identities has led to the greater visibility of trans people, Liz Mount’s “New” Women can be seen as emerging from a similar interest in the subject. Mount’s work establishes that India is witnessing a growing number of feminine presenting GNC people choosing the identity of being a trans woman. Interestingly, Mount contends that the identity of being a trans woman is posited against that of being a hijra, wherein the two are put forth as binaries, with the trans woman identity being affirmed as the more desirable of the two.
This difference between a trans woman and a hijra, according to Mount is reinforced in terms of difference of clothing, education, lifestyle and so on in such a manner that the choices of the trans woman are conveyed as aspirational and empowering. Most importantly, Mount discovers that the difference between these two identities is most apparent in the kind of employment they are engaged, in with the hijras restricted to either begging or sex work whereas trans women have the possibility of diverse career options, especially with NGOs opening their doors to them and even the corporate sector becoming more inclusive. What Mount therefore affirms is a correlation between the class the GNC-person belongs to, and consequently, the career choices available to them. This leads the author to submit that the increased desire to identify as a trans woman is inextricably linked to a desire for respectability that is predominantly identified with middle-class cisgender women. The radical conclusion that Mount draws from her research-based observations is that the trans woman identity that thus emerges and crystallizes is not only driven by aspirations for middle-class respectability and acceptance but one which is affirmed by setting up the hijra as the binary other, and by completely distancing themselves from the hijras. A parallel between the emergence of the middle class ‘new woman’ post-Independence and that of the trans woman is suggested by Mount with the latter aligning themselves with historical constructions of the new middle-class woman that evolved during the national movement in the late nineteenth century and then during the post-liberalization era of the 1980s. The new trans woman is viewed as hitching onto a similar discourse of respectability to achieve class aspirations but in the process, ironically, attempting to erase any difference between the ‘respectable’ middle-class woman and themselves. Given that the desire of the trans woman is embedded in class aspirations, belonging to the category of a trans woman increasingly becomes available to only those who already belong to the middle class or possess access through education, financial security or location to realize their class aspirations. At times, NGOs working for them also facilitate the realization of such a desire but the larger point one needs to recognize is how those once fighting for gender inclusivity are now ready to erase any differences, at least visibly, in order to gain acceptance.
Mount’s study uncovers the bitter truth that though the emergence and visibility of the trans woman may translate as an increased acceptance of GNC people in India, it is at the cost of further discrediting, marginalizing and othering of the hijras. The rise of the trans woman has perhaps meant the decline of the traditional guru-chela dynamics of the hijra tradition, a further stigmatization of the sex work hijras are associated with, a decline further hastened by legislations more recently passed that penalize many of their practices. While the hijras through the continuation of the guru-chela tradition did and continue to provide shelter for GNC people disowned by their families, give them an avenue for earning a livelihood and even the means to get gender affirmation surgeries done at a time when it was unavailable to most or prohibitive, it was and continues to be an extremely exploitative tradition. But with older structures somewhat collapsing or reinventing themselves, those who newly join the hijra community are portrayed by Mount as enjoying more autonomy in terms of living independently and even possessing more control over their earnings, thus correcting the skewed balance of power that earlier favoured only the gurus. While Mount draws our attention to how the guru-chela tradition resembles an abusive family, she fails to see how it challenges normative notions of a family in a heteronormative patriarchal society. The conclusion Mount draws from her study is a disturbing one that GNC people align themselves as trans women, reinforcing their difference from hijras in pursuit of middle-class respectability, instead of using their newly garnered positions of power to uplift those whose struggles are rather similar to theirs.
Liz Mount’s work is academic in nature, but it is written in a conversational style, replete with anecdotes, which makes it very readable for any audience. By incorporating conversations that Mount has with the subjects of her research, she makes an attempt at not speaking for the hijras or the trans women but enables them to put forth their point of view in their own voice. In her mapping of the journey of the trans woman, Mount repeatedly examines it with an intersectional lens whereby gender and its construction are seen as impacted by class and, the equating of empowerment with the availability of choice is examined against the ascendancy of a consumerist culture that celebrates choice. However, while class and its impact are examined, other factors such as any difference arising out of belonging to a rural or urban area, the role played by caste and religion on a trans woman’s life, are either glossed over or treated cursorily. Mount’s research is mostly limited to the geographical limits of the city of Bangalore and her access to the hijra and trans women community through the NGO network.
Given the diversity of India and how socio-economic conditions circumscribe a person’s life and choices, Mount’s conclusions may perhaps be too simplistic, flattening peculiarities that impinge on the lives of trans women living elsewhere. In fact, this very binary between hijras and trans women might be non-existent in other locations or unfold in very different ways across various parts of India. Perhaps because of the narrow focus, the issues and the writing sometimes tend to get a bit repetitive. But there is no doubt that Mount’s work is invaluable because of the direction it points towards as far as the subject of trans women in India is concerned, and expands possibilities for more research in the area with a wider focus of study.
Shibani Phukan is Associate Professor, English, ARSD College, University of Delhi, Delhi. Her interests include writings from the North East, Women’s writing and Translation Studies.