Negotiating Violence: Everyday Queer Experiences of the Law

Introduction

The State has long been involved in the sexual lives of its subjects—through regulations on marriage, reproductive autonomy, gender identity, and sexual behaviors. State power operates through the establishment of intimate links to the lives and bodies of individual citizens (Zengin 2014). Sara Ahmed (2004) argues that the emotions of fear and hatred stick to some bodies more than others, rendering the “others” dangerous and relegating them to the role of “strangers.” Both state and citizenship are gendered areas; there is a need to look at the command structures that produce violence as well as the assumptions that lie underneath (Singh and Butalia 2012). The failure to recognize the gendered nature of citizenship obscures pervasive gender inequality and violence, thereby perpetuating it (Franzway 2016).

The gendering of citizenship results in state-sanctioned violence toward women, and other minorities and vulnerable groups, seen as those who need to be “kept in their place” (Franzway 2016). It is crucial to understand that the state “deploys violence both to destruct and create intimacies and intimate worlds” (Zengin 2014). While the heterosexual family form is legitimized, any deviance from heteronormativity is severely punished.

Gender-diverse persons particularly experience such state violence because they contravene, not only the expectation of heterosexual marriage and sexual practices but also the fundamental male/female dichotomy itself. They are not, however, merely passive recipients of this state violence. The regulation of gender and sexuality is met with resistance that disrupts the stability of the state (Bhattacharya 2019). For example, the mobilization and protests against the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019 in India demonstrate how transgender and gender-diverse persons are able to push back against state attempts to strip them of their agency and rights.

In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court recognized that police harassment is one of the most common problems facing the transgender community (NALSA v. Union of India 2014 [hereinafter “NALSA 2014”]). Most existing studies documenting mistreatment of transgender persons are dated, focus mostly on health, or do not cover the nation's capital. In addition, much of the existing research was conducted before the Supreme Court's 2014 decision in NALSA v. Union of India, which requires the government to recognize a “third gender” and protect the rights of transgender persons.

For this reason, the Wajood program of Alliance India approached the Centre for Health Law Ethics and Technology (CHLET) at Jindal Global Law School regarding the need for an updated study. ¹ Together, we conducted an assessment of institutionalized violence against transgender persons in the wake of the NALSA decision in the Supreme Court's home city of Delhi. This study was undertaken as a collaborative initiative between the Hijra-Transgender ² activists in New Delhi and the Law Faculty at the Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat, from 2014 to 2016.

Beyond this introduction, Part II of this article provides some context for the study, including an overview of the relevant laws and policies. Part III sets forth the study's methodology, and Part IV details our findings—police harassment in public spaces, mistreatment in custody, and failure of state officials to investigate complaints by self-identified Hijra or trans women. Part V analyzes these findings using an “everyday” framework approach to the lived experiences of Hijra and trans women, and highlights instances of negotiation and resistance in dealing with state officials. Part VI offers the concluding remarks.

Setting the Context

Transgender persons make up highly diverse and heterogenous communities and individuals in India. Many have local terms of reference such as Hijra, which is a sociocultural identity outside the heteronormative binary. Depending on their cultural and geographical location, Hijras may be identified as Thirunangai in Tamil Nadu, Jogti Hijra in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Kinnar in Chhattisgarh, or Aradhi in Maharashtra. In addition, trans man, trans woman, agender, gender diverse, queer, and so on are identifiers ³ used by gender-diverse persons. Different communities face unique challenges pertaining to legal recognition, visibility (or invisibility) from the discourses, access to health care and other resources, as well as violence both from the state and from nonstate actors (Sampoorna 2018). It is worth noting here that Hijras do enjoy some level of social acceptance and legitimacy; they have long been a hypervisible community (Reddy 2006), especially due to their history of badhai performances. ⁴ However, their non-normative hypervisibility also makes them a target of violence.

Transgender persons face potential discrimination and violence in virtually every public space (Burgos et al., 2015; PUCL-Karnataka 2003). State violence and discrimination against transgender persons are significantly marked by the actions of law enforcement. Police officials facilitate abuse by third parties by refusing to intervene when a transgender person needs help and may refuse register complaints from them (Human Rights Watch 2015), effectively granting impunity to perpetrators (Chakrapani et al. 2007a, 2007b). They often harass them in public spaces through extortion on the threat of arrest (PUCL-Karnataka 2003), arbitrary arrests or detention (Chakrapani et al. 2007a, 2007b; PUCL-Karnataka 2001), and physical and sexual violence (Chettiar 2015).

The Supreme Court, in NALSA v. Union of India, in 2014 upheld the fundamental right of “transgender” people to self-expression, as well as the right to live with dignity. ⁵ However, implementation of the NALSA judgment was delayed due to a petition by the government for clarification/modification of the Court's order ⁶ and, 5 years later, was followed by the passing of what became the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. This Act, right from its inception as a Bill in 2015, has faced extensive criticism from activists and civil society organizations on various grounds. It not only fails to recognize the fundamental right to self-identification of gender as prescribed in NALSA (instead requiring transgender persons to submit themselves before a district magistrate that will issue certificates) but also removes original provisions on reservation, and provides very little protection against violence (Jain and Kartik 2020; Sahai 2020).

Transgender and gender-diverse activists have termed the Act “violative” of their rights, fearing that it would further contribute to marginalization and violence experienced by the community. In Tamil Nadu, for example, many district screening committees are already known to conduct invasive medical examinations; transgender persons are made to strip before a team of doctors and other officials to obtain their identity cards (Orinam 2018). In addition, the Act arbitrarily differentiates between transgender sexual assault survivors in comparison to cisgender survivors; subjecting a transgender person to “sexual abuse” carries a minimum sentence of 6 months and maximum of 2 years. This is in contrast to the 7 years' sentence that an offence of sexual assault against cisgender women carries (Jain and Kartik 2020; Sampoorna 2019).

The government is now set to notify the Rules framed under the Act, to ensure implementation of the provisions set out in the legislation. However, the drafting of these Rules has been conducted with very little consultation and deliberation, and during a public health crisis ⁷ that has resulted in a lockdown of the entire country. Such a hurried process demonstrates a complete lack of consideration for the communities most affected by these laws.

Other than the Transgender Persons Act, legal provisions that do not specifically target transgender persons are nevertheless used by the state as tools of harassment. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalized “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” which is commonly understood to apply to homosexual acts between men. ⁸ There are records of the law being used against Hijras as far back as 1884 (Narrain 2009). Although the Supreme Court later read down Section 377 (Navtej Johar v. Union of India 2018), there were reports of increasing sexual violence against trans women in the week after the judgment, with some reporting that they were subjected to police brutality on the very day the verdict was issued (Lalwani 2018; Rastogi 2018). This indicates that it was a backlash to the Court legitimizing non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

In addition, nuisance laws, such as Section 294 and Section 268 of the Indian Penal Code—which regulate obscene acts in public and public nuisance, respectively—and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 are commonly used against Hijra and trans women (Jain, Rhoten and Shukla 2019). Similarly, many states use antibeggary laws to harass and punish people. These laws, with their roots in colonial-era notions of vagrancy, have a disproportionate impact on Hijra and trans women, many of whom rely on begging for sustenance. Thus, these limited legal developments, even positive ones, have had little impact on the daily lives of transgender persons.

Although transgender and gender-diverse persons have always suffered at the hands of state actors who operate with impunity, our research focused on incidents of everyday violence post the NALSA judgment. The article offers excerpts from interviews conducted with self-identified Hijra and trans women in Delhi and their recollections of the harassment they have faced by police and other state actors. We then analyze street violence, especially by police officers, and offer accounts of how they use different strategies to resist the violence. Finally, we use the framework of “everyday queerness” to examine the shifting power dynamics between Hijra and trans women and police officials.

Methodology

This research was conducted as part of a year-long clinical course at Jindal Global Law School from 2014 to 2015. During the first semester, clinic students studied gender theory, reviewed relevant law and policy, and practiced field interview skills. They also conducted a literature review on abuse of transgender persons by state actors in India and comparative research on how transgender prisoners are regulated and treated in other countries, and what international standards and regulations exist relating to this issue. In the spring semester (February to May 2015), after receiving IERB (Institutional Ethics Review Board) approval, two faculty members along with three Hijra-Transgender activists conducted field interviews with self-identified trans women and Hijra in Delhi regarding treatment and abuse by state actors, especially police and prison officials. Interviews were set up by our NGO partners—Kinnar Bharati, Mitr Trust, and the Pehchan Program of Alliance India. ⁹ The interviews continued on till 2016. We conducted interviews in Hindi and translated them into English later. The translated documents were read back to the interviewees to ensure that their narratives were accurately captured.

This research has several limitations. First, the sample size is relatively small—a total of 21 interviews were conducted. Second, all the interviews occurred in Delhi so the findings may or may not apply in other states or in more rural areas. Third, all the interviewees were Hijras or self-identified trans women and thus our findings may not apply to other gender-diverse persons/groups. Finally, the focus of our research is on the experiences of Hijra and trans women in India, and specifically in Delhi. Any comparative research (national or international) is beyond the scope of this article. Despite these limitations, however, this study provides valuable insight, not only into the everyday violence that Hijra and trans women face at the hands of law enforcement officials but also the myriad ways in which they are able to negotiate this violence.

The following section provides an overview of the findings from our interviews in 2015–2016. We highlight the police violence that Hijra and trans women face in their daily lives, particularly the harassment that occurs in public spaces and the state's failure to take any action.

Findings

Scholars have documented the “heteronormative and hypermasculine” culture of many police departments, which contribute to “a sense of separateness between the police (as a strong male-dominated group) and their perceptions of transgender people” (Miles-Johnson 2015). Our interviews all pointed to extensive harassment and abuse of Hijra and trans women by police officials who are able to act with impunity. In this section, we detail the two main areas of violence against Hijra and trans women in Delhi—public spaces and prisons. We also note incidents from the interviews where respondents spoke of the police's failure to take action when they complained of abuse.

Analysis

Lede Poshna (2020), writing on queer ¹⁰ experiences in Northeast India, says that “[t]he everyday is an attempt to make sense of the life of the people living in the “real” world as experienced by the subject position in its everyday life. As such, understanding the everyday is primary in understanding the multitudinality and multidimensionality of the life as lived, felt, and experienced.” Queer feminist scholar Sara Ahmed's (2006) “everyday” framework—grounding the queer identity in the lived and embodied experiences of queer persons—captures the experiences that Hijra and trans women described in the interviews. As a field of critical theory, queer theory offers a number of analytical lenses through which to examine queer lives and experiences. Queer thought argues that “subjects and subjectivities are fluid, unstable and perpetually becoming” (Browne and Nash 2010). Thus, while it is imperative to acknowledge the violence that Hijra and trans women face, especially at the hands of the police, it is also crucial to recognize the negotiating power they have.

The everyday experiences of Hijra and trans women in India cannot be reduced to a “victimization rhetoric” that positions them as perpetually marginalized. Ratna Kapur (2002) argues that “[t]he victim subject ultimately relies [sic] on a universal subject: a subject that resembles the uncomplicated subject of liberal discourse. It is a subject that cannot accommodate a multilayered experience.” Black feminists have also challenged simplistic understandings of power (Cohen 1997). Patricia Hill Collins (2000) has cautioned against “a simple model of permanent oppressors and perpetual victims.” She notes that “portraying U.S. Black women solely as passive, unfortunate recipients of abuse stifles notions that Black women can actively work to change our circumstances and bring about changes in our lives” (Collins 2000). A queer approach to research highlights the instability of existing power relationships. If power is understood as relational, and the production of space as a social and political task (Massey 2009), it becomes possible to map the different threads of power within and between spaces (Kjaran 2016).

The common perception is that Hijras and trans women experience extreme violence in the institution of the prison. This is true, and necessitates urgent policy action toward prison reform. However, our research shows that streets, and not prisons, are the focal site of police violence against transgender persons, specifically Hijra and trans women. This study, notwithstanding its limited scope, found that there are very few Hijra and trans women physically present in prison cells; most trans women face violence by police in public spaces, such as streets and public transport facilities.

It is important to emphasize that police violence against Hijras and trans women is not dependent on any particular penal provisions (or lack thereof). This is true for two separate reasons: first, police view the very existence of Hijra and trans women as criminal, especially in public, and will twist the laws to apply. Scholars have argued that this form of abuse and mistreatment often originated for no reason other than the clothes transgender people wore or their gendered mannerisms (Buist and Lenning 2016).

While many anti-Queer laws in the United States were used to regulate the behaviors of gay men, butch lesbians described being the victims of cross-dressing laws. Some states had legislations that penalized the act of “masquerading in public” and law enforcement officers followed a guideline where individuals had to wear at least three articles of clothing matching their biological sex (Buist and Lenning 2016). Now that cross-dressing laws and other antiquated legislations have been repealed, law enforcement officials have taken to more creative ways to arrest people for their gender nonconformity.

This is demonstrated by the remarkably similar treatment of transgender people across countries. For example, in the Philippines, trans women who appear in public are arrested for committing an “offence against decency or good customs” (UNDP and APTN 2017). In Indonesia, trans women have been arrested for begging while singing in the street (UNDP and APTN 2017). In the United States, police arrest trans women on false or trumped-up charges (in particular, relating to sex work) so often that the phenomenon has earned the informal term “walking while trans” (Carpenter and Marshall 2017). In India, as discussed above, several legal provisions are used to criminalize the very existence of transgender individuals—particularly nuisance laws, antibeggary laws, and laws relating to sex work.

Second, abuse by law enforcement authorities, in many cases, does not involve the law at all. “Positive” legal developments ¹¹ have had little to no effect on the lives of transgender persons, particularly those who face systemic discrimination due to a number of structural barriers. The fact that, after the Supreme Court recognized rights of transgender persons in NALSA and decriminalized homosexuality, violence against transgender people actually increased, is evidence that legal reform is not enough to protect this community. In addition, despite the court recognizing the right to self-determination of gender identity as a fundamental right in NALSA, it failed to correct the colonial understanding of a heterogenous gender-diverse community (Jain 2017).

Police officials continue to physically and sexually abuse transgender and gender-diverse persons, relying on the extreme power differential and the prevailing culture of impunity to ensure there are no consequences. Hijras and trans women engaging in sex work or walking on streets infamous for sex work are particularly targeted by policemen, including with demands for sex. As articulated by one respondent, “harassment of police is everywhere.” (S, personal communication, February 21, 2015). In a study carried out by the Human Rights Watch (2009), a Hijra poignantly stated that police violence “is a daily activity [just like] to bathe, dress.” Police violence against gender-diverse persons generally mirrors widespread social prejudice against these communities (DW 2015). Thus, confronting police violence in public has become business as usual for Hijra and trans women.

It is this lived experience that reflects the ability of Hijras and trans women in India to navigate exclusionary public spaces, by resisting the heteronormative gender binary power relationships everyday. Recent queer theory has contributed to critical geographical studies to make sense of what it means to queer spaces and live in queer/queering/queered spaces (Dasgupta and DasGupta 2018; Nash 2006; see Binnie 1997; Valentine 2003). Trans women, sex workers, Hijras, and self-identified queer persons do not occupy spaces divided on lines of “queerness” and “straightness”; their queer experiences of being and doing exist within the heterosexual matrix of gender relationships, constantly aimed at negotiating with and resisting the normative heterosexual order. This experience engrained in the everyday and mundane is ultimately constitutive of their trans identities.

Police violence generally is complicated by factors of caste, class, and religion. For instance, police often refuse to register cases against Savarnas (caste Hindus) for violence committed against Dalits, and oppressed caste persons (Human Rights Watch 1999). A recent study found that Hindu-dominant caste is least likely to have had any police contact, while Muslims and Adivasis are most likely (Bokil and Sonavane 2020; Common Cause 2018). Dalits, Adivasis, and those residing in smaller cities also reported facing the most harassment by police, and often the very presence of police generates feelings of anxiety due to fear of being targeted (Common Cause 2018). Transgender persons have reported similar feelings of mistrust and apprehension with the police. Much of this has been carried forward from the colonial—and perhaps even precolonial ¹² —era, when Adivasis and Hijras were deemed “criminal” by birth (Sonavane and Bokil 2020).

During this time, Hijras—who were compelled to register as “eunuchs” under the Criminal Tribes Act—would use creative means to evade police surveillance and continue their practices of singing, dancing, and embodying their gender identity in public spaces (Hinchy 2019). One method was to “strategically cooperate with normative masculinity” by mixing elements of male and female clothing, such that they outwardly conformed to masculinity, but also hinted at their femininity. Hijras in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, for instance, would deliberately create a “confused gendered appearance” and manage to avoid prosecution (Hinchy 2019). Another strategy was to continue their collection of alms or badhai, often by doing so in male clothing, which the police permitted. By maintaining a presence in public spaces, Hijras undermined efforts by the state to erase them as a visible social group.

As our research also demonstrates, public spaces do not simply highlight the powerlessness and victimization of Hijra and trans women. On the contrary, streets, traffic lights, buses, bus stations, and train stations serve as sites of dynamic negotiations between transgender communities and police. Streets especially serve as important spaces to locate interstices of transgender agency in resisting harassment, avoiding payment of bribes, denying sexual favors, negotiating the terms of sex with police, and reclaiming the city and the right to access rights to the city. Citizen-subjects display their “sexualness,” as termed by Akshay Khanna (2013), daily to contest the heteronormative and gender binary spaces that seek otherwise comfort in discrete and coherent bodies. Transgender and gender-diverse persons have always resisted the State in various ways such as through powerful social movements, in the legal arena through litigation, or by occupying public space together (Semmalar 2014; Jain and Kartik 2020). Their resistance disrupts totalizing narratives of victimhood and oppression (Kapur 2005). This is also evidenced in the widespread resistance to the Transgender Persons Bills and the constitutional challenges pending in the Supreme Court against the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act.

Our interviews also point toward such micronarratives of resistance that offer an alternative to the “victim” narrative often used when detailing violence against transgender persons. For example, a Hijra respondent admitted to clapping and undressing to resist harassment on the streets (C, personal communication, May 3, 2015). Moreover, law enforcement attitudes toward gender-diverse persons are far from static. Some respondents reported positive results from their negotiations with state actors. One indicated that some officers would actually warn community members if their superiors were making rounds (S and T, personal communications, April 25, 2015). Another explained that two thanas in Delhi had become supportive and receptive to NGO sensitization efforts regarding sexual orientation and gender identity (S, personal communications, February 21, 2015).

Finally, one respondent stated that when she asked the police for a female constable to accompany her, rather than a male constable, they actually called a female constable to do so. She described her conversation as follows (R, personal communication, February 21, 2015):

When the incident happened to me, it happened at the mall road. They said go to the station to file a report. I said I won't go at 12am as the station was further down (the hill). The police said come with us. I told him I won't as he was a male, send a female constable then I will. So I waited. They got a female constable and then I went (to the station). It was 2am by the time the report was filed, and then they asked me to leave. I said I can't go alone up (the hill) as it's dark, what if somebody kills me. So, send someone with me. They were sending a male constable, so I insisted on a female constable to accompany me . But half the way I sent her back when I was about to reach the mall road.

Some police officers will directly ask Hijra and trans women to engage in sexual acts, at times in an intimidating manner. However, our respondents narrated different ways of evading and resisting these advances. One respondent was walking home, when a male officer pulled up on a bike and offered to give her a ride (N, personal communication, February 21, 2015). He asked to have sex with her and was persistent despite her refusal. She managed to keep him engaged by continuing to walk, and talked to him while he was driving alongside. When she reached home, she ran inside and shut the door.

Another respondent was near her home at night when two on-duty police officers approached her and asked for sexual favors. She refused, and the officers asked her to come with them to the “transformer” (presumably, so they could have sex). She managed to evade them by running away (N, personal communication, February 21, 2015). Respondents also reported that they have been able to escape arbitrary detention by paying bribes to the detaining officers (N and T, personal communications, April 18, 2015).

Respondents have also described other ways of appealing to police officers to avoid violence. For example, one respondent described her negotiation in the following manner (R, personal communication, April 18, 2015):

Once I was returning from a gay party and two of [my] friends dropped me near my home. [At that point], two officers came and asked me where I was coming from. I was in male attire and had short hair. I replied that I was coming from my guru's house, and they asked me why I was so late. They were on duty and then they said, “hamara kaam kar de” (meaning, they asked me for sexual favors). I refused saying that my house is here, my family lives here, how can [you] ask for something like this at this place. Further, it was summer and most of the people in the locality were outside in their balcony or terrace and listening to this conversation . I really felt ashamed. I even offered them my number and asked them to contact me later.

Another respondent described her negotiation with traffic police in this manner (G, personal communication, Feb 21, 2015):

There is an argument which we use, silly as it may be. When I am driving without a seatbelt or helmet, and I am caught, then I say if you want to catch me, then you should get someone like me . Because you people have taken these well paid positions, similarly, give our people these jobs, this law should also apply to us.

Bhumika and Choudhury (2020) ask us, “how do we engage with the realm of everyday life that is intermittently or constantly being disrupted by dominant forces in a social space?” Queerness is performative; it is simply not a being but a doing in mundane life (Muñoz 2009). Everyday queer experiences are not limited to distinct and compartmentalized spaces; they transgress neat boundaries of the public and the private. One respondent narrated the experience of violence and active negotiation on a public bus (D, personal communication, May 3, 2015):

Once we were travelling in a bus, when a police [officer] got in and started commenting on us. I did not say anything but one of my friends said that, we are not what you think about us. The police insulted us, [saying] that prostitution is our only business. I replied, have you ever seen us do acts like those and if not then how can [you] say something like this? Then when we got down from the bus, there were 3–4 police officers, and they called us towards them. They asked us what we were doing this late. I replied, so many people are outside; can't you see them? Then he tried to hit us, and one of us got hurt. We took her to the hospital and then took her to the [police] station to file a complaint against him. They finally apologized to us .

Our research indicates that law enforcement authorities are some of the biggest perpetrators of sexual and physical abuse against transgender persons, but are able to act with complete impunity. Despite the decriminalization of certain laws and recognition of Constitutional rights transgender persons, violence continues against transgender persons precisely because it is the heterormative state that is interacting with them. Turning to the law as a route to equality fails to address the “deeper, more structural questions of inequality” (Cowan 2016). Securing legal protection for gender minorities without first dismantling the structures of inequality in society is a complex task.

As Dean Spade (2015) writes, “law reform work that merely tinkers with systems to make them look more inclusive, while leaving their most violent operations intact” needs to be a matter of concern for all social movements. It is important to remember that legal protection and acknowledgment is an infinitesimal aspect of larger social change, particularly in rigidly patriarchal cultures and communities, which derive power from structural oppression.

The Indian state's unwillingness to hold its agents accountable for their actions has resulted in a dangerous climate where all queer people live in fear of arbitrary detentions, torture and custodial rape. This is especially troubling when faced with the reality that many Hijra and trans women depend on sex work as a primary source of income, and thus are out in the streets and interact with police officers on a near daily basis. However, the purpose and overarching framework of this article are not to present trans women as passive recipients of abuse within lopsided power structures.

The lives of transgender persons are shaped by the legal and extralegal violence of the state. As discussed above, police abuse of transgender persons is not dependent on the law—much of it involves harassment and physical and sexual violence predicated on the stark power differential and general lack of access to justice or recourse. However, transgender and gender diverse people are not passive bodies upon whom violence is enacted, but are independent entities able to reshape social relationships and structures, due to their complex relationship with state power and the legal system. As they constantly respond to and navigate the dominating processes, so does the state introduce new strategies to control non-normative sexualities and gender identities (Zengin 2014). If violence is, as anthropologists contend (Robben and Nordstrom 1995), as flexible as the “people and cultures who materialize it, employ it, suffer it, and defy it” then it stands to reason that queer people have some agency in how they negotiate violence in their daily lives.

Conclusion

This article offers an account of the state-sanctioned violence against Hijra and trans women in India, in the aftermath of the NALSA judgment. The article examines several distinct, but related concepts in conjunction with each other. First, it looks at the gendered nature of citizenship, and the state's failure to extend protection to vulnerable gender minorities. Second, the article looks at police harassment of transgender persons and the impunity with which they act, as well as the respective state police laws under which transgender person are penalize. Third, it looks at the lived experience of these groups, with the acknowledgment that there is a constant resistance and pushback to the brutalities of the state, and not a complete loss of agency.

Through the anecdotes and lived experiences of Hijra and trans women persons in Delhi, it is clear that despite some positive developments in jurisprudence, transgender persons continue to face violence from law enforcement and other state authorities. This is particularly true for Hijras and trans women due to their increased visibility in public spaces such as bus stops and streetlights. Violence continues against the trans people precisely because it is the paradoxical heteronormative, yet Constitutional State that the transgender people are interacting with. The limits of law are obvious when one sees violations and harassment on the street faced by the trans individuals in Delhi.

Nevertheless, as queer activist Vqueeram Aditya (2017) states, these everyday struggles are “embodied, etched, and endured by gender nonconforming, trans and genderqueer folk who slowly work to build and keep space for others by maintaining an intimacy with violence, abjection, and humiliation.” Trans women “live, work, and occupy public space together,” often as a survival strategy that is borne out of violence and discrimination (Semmalar 2014). The heightened visibility of Hijra and trans women in public spaces means that they are not only intimately acquainted with violence on a daily basis but also resist violence day in and day out. Our article offers some narratives of how they (successfully) negotiate the terms of their existence in public with state officials everyday, and constantly challenge the violence of the state.